Justiční procesy s účastníky plzeňské revolty 1. června 1953
Court Trials with Participants in Pilsen Revolt from June 1, 1953

Summary/Abstract: The Pilsen Revolt against the monetary reform in June 1953 caused a massive upheaval in the Party and Security apparatus both on regional and state level. The political determination to find and punish the culprits reached extraordinary levels. Yet, the orchestration of court puppet trial was a failure from the beginning. Since the demonstrations were not organised and resulted from spontaneous reaction and cooperation of people who in many cases had not known each other and lacked any political motives, it was not easy to prepare a convincing and politically useful group of alleged organisers out of an accidently arrested sample of demonstration participants. Most of arrested, moreover, belonged to the working class and, from ideological reasons, it did not seem expedient to have them stand trial. Despite the use of excessive interrogation methods and involvement of experienced Prague interrogators, the task was not managed in the given timeframe and the originally planned puppet trial fell apart into many partial cases. These lawsuits turned into collective revenge of the local Pilsen judiciary – whose members were endangered during the revolt – against all those who only happened to get entangled in the demonstrations.

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