The Origins of Consumer Society in Czechoslovakia 1945-1970 Trade, Consumption and Advertising

Dissertation "The Origins of the Mass Consumption Society in Czechoslovakia 1945-1970. Trade, Consumption and Advertising" deals with the process of establishing consumption as a new category of human life in the communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia. Through the analysis of the discourse the author shows how a network of specialized institutions and professionals producing thinking about consumption emerged in the milieu of the Ministry of Internal Trade. This network manifested itself in the planning of the trade infrastructure and in the adoption of a more subtle approach to the problem of consumption in an effort to maintain the legitimacy of the communist rule. The commerce as a sphere of economy was in the communist discourse initially reduced to the transmission lever between production and the consumer. This perception was accompanied by the pursuit of the social justice through the transformation of the consumer's experience, underpinned by a strong moral appeal. The key tools used in this process were the democratization of the access to the goods, the attempts to adapt the services to broad sections of the society, the chance given to the consumers to raise their own demands and also the "new language" of the trade practices. Political thaw after Stalin's death led to the..