Red or brown scarf? The destinies of the Pioneer organisation and Junak in the early communist era in Czechoslovakia

RÉSUMÉ The diploma thesis analyses the process of creation of the Pioneer organization, and the gradual prohibition of the Scout organization Junák by the Communist regime at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s. The thesis aims to describe the view of the Junák organization by the Communist regime, and to compare both youth organizations. The first part focuses on the creation of Junák, its development up to 1945, and discusses the organization, meaning and content of the Scout educational method. The second crucial chapter describes the history of the Scout movement after World War II in the context of the post-war tendency to merge youth organizations and give them a single central leadership. The reasons and circumstances under which the Communist regime decided to suspend the activity of the Scout organization and to give full responsibility for the education of children to the Czechoslovak Youth Federation (ČSM) and its part, the Pioneer organization, are examined. The task of the Pioneer organization in the socialist society is described, so are its organization, meaning, symbols and the educational framework. The concluding chapter presents the early activities of Pioneers in the first socialist years to then discuss the socialist view of ethics and the working methods in youth work put forward by the..