Pionýr družstevníkem?
A Young Pioneer a cooperative farmer?

Young Pioneers’ agricultural farms in the 1959–1964 period

Summary/Abstract: The study focuses on a phenomenon that has not yet been dealt with, namelyso-called Young Pioneers’ agricultural farms (pionýrská zemědělská hospodářství) in Czechoslovakia at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. Their origin is associated with the situation prevailing at that time, when ambitious visions of the soviet leadership were strongly resonating in Czechoslovakia, the process of agricultural collectivization was almost over and, at the same time, the agriculture started suffering from lack of labour. Political and educational authorities were trying tomotivate the young generation to choose a job in agriculture and the concept of the Young Pioneers’ agricultural farms was presented in this context as a “higher-level”hobby for older children. The phenomenon appeared for the first time in southern Slovakia in the spring of 1959 as an initiative of Young Pioneers; as to the Czech Lands, the first farms were set up in the region of Krnov, North Moravia. With the assistance of Local National Committees and regular agricultural cooperatives, the Young Pioneers were supposed to farm hitherto untilled land tracts (grow fruits andvegetables and breed rabbits and poultry) and to establish their “own” agricultura cooperative with child managers. The experiment was also seen as an opportunity to revive the interest of children in activities of the Young Pioneers’ Organization (Pionýrská organizace); as a matter of fact, it made use of children’s self-government elements, which had been often seen in various pedagogical experiments at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s (especially in the attempt to establish the so-called Schoolchildren Community in Krompach, North Bohemia). The establishment of Young Pioneers’ agricultural farms was supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and the leadership of the Czechoslovak Union of Youth (Československý svaz mládeže), which promoted them as a model activity of the Young Pioneers’ Organization. On the other hand, the attitude of the Ministry of Education to the initiative was rather reserved, as children were spending a lot of their free time at the farms both during the school term and during holidays, and there were even critical comments to the effect that the concept was in fact a promotion of small-scale production. The wave of interest finally ebbed in 1963 and 1964 and existing children’s farms were converted into school gardens. The author pays special attention to the model Young Pioneers’ farm in Město Albrechtice in northern Moravia. Thanks to unique school chronicles and a meticulously run school magazine, it was possible to reconstruct the organization of many dozens of children and results of their work, which were rewarded by a high state decoration in 1965. The farm in Město Albrechtice survived until the 1970s thanks to efforts of the local school managers (Karel and Ludmila Schmidtmayers), who were able to motivate a group of children of various ages for voluntary work for the collective. In a way, their concept was ahead of the time and can be compared to the so-called micro-collective movement which was being developed within the Young Pioneers’ Organization in the 1960s.

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