Socialism & Scarcity: The Value of Everything

“What we don’t collect at home, we have to import from abroad. Well-organized collection will save the republic billions!” With similar slogans in the 1950s, the representatives of the then government tried to motivate the Czechoslovak people to collect not only paper, but also iron and glass.

The idea of reusing raw materials was correct, but collection was mandatory and no one enjoyed it much. “Paper was brought to school once a fortnight. We gave a five-kilogram package to the janitor, who weighed it in the garage. But some children preferred to take it to the collection center, where they received a few small coins for it, and then only brought a receipt to school,” Svatava recalls of her childhood.

There was a competition in collecting. Schoolchildren whose parents worked in an establishment where paper or iron accumulated had an advantage. Or those whose loved ones were avid newspaper readers and bought Red Right every daywhich was published in large A2 format. Some were able to collect thousands of kilograms of paper per year!

And what could they get for it? A diploma, a book or perhaps a trip or even a trip to the sea. The competition was not only between classmates, but also collectively as a class or school, so the competition took on solid dimensions.

Not only raw materials such as paper and iron were collected, but also medicinal herbs, spring birch leaves or young nettles. They had to be dried at home and then brought to school. Then they traveled to the cosmetic or food industry. As oranges became a more common commodity, their dried cure went through a similar process.

“I remember that we also collected beech trees or chestnuts. But that was no longer mandatory, it was taken to the forest administration for animals,” recounts the witness. Children who grew up in cities had a hard time collecting nature in new housing estates. Grandparents living in the village often helped them in collecting, for example, chamomile or cornflower flowers.

The collection of the above-mentioned raw materials or natural resources did not belong to the times long past. As Svatava recalls, money was also collected at the school for the account of certain people, specifically Patrice Lumumby a Angely Davis.

The first named was Congolese politicianwho headed the national liberation movement and became Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo. He was subsequently deposed, imprisoned and murdered in 1961. Davis is American again Marxist activistwho they imprisoned in 1970. Her trial caused a stormy reaction, especially in the countries of the then Eastern Bloc.

“The money for Patrice Lumumba was collected for the so-called Solidarity Fund. Five crowns or ten crowns were given, which was not a small amount of money at the time. I was in the second grade, but I still remember it. He was a handsome guy. Again, Angela had a prominent afro on her head and when someone had very curly permso it was said that he was dating Angela,” adds Svatava.

Even today, many schools try to collect paper, plastic or metals collectively. They then invest the money earned in teaching aids, for example. However, it cannot be compared at all with the massiveness of the collection from the communist era. After all, now we don’t have to accumulate old boxes and magazines at home, but we can continuously take them to the sorted waste…