Představy o roli sociální politiky v Československé sociálnědemokratické straně mezi světovými válkami: Polemika mezi E. Šternem a J. Pleskotem
Social Democratic Ideas on Social Politics in Interwar Czechoslovakia: The Polemics between E. Štern and J. Pleskot

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the idea of social policy in the interwar Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party on the example of two signifi cant personalities (Evžen Štern, Jiří Pleskot). The author relies on the less well-known assumption of power-resources approach that for social democrats the welfare state as an extension of a social policy represents a first step towards the socialism. The basic question of the study is whether social democrats really did understood a social policy as an instrument or a part of transition from the capitalism to the socialism in this period. For Štern social policy was interchangeable with socialism or at least it represented an important aspect of socialism, a socialist element wedged into the capitalist system. In any case Štern argued that a social policy is an instrument of evolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism. For Pleskot a social policy was the product of struggle between powers of the social democracy and powers of the capital, but in this sense it was a product of capitalism and did not aff ect its essence. Pleskot argued that a social policy is necessary but the social policy itself is not able to overcome capitalism, not even help to stabilize it. The author concludes that the idea of a social policy as an instrument of structural changes was present in the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party in the interwar period but the idea was not shared by all intraparty streams and was not expressed in the official programmatic documents.

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