The only record of the Kulak Trials. Archivists reconstructed the proceedings in the 1950s

Although Parut was sentenced to only six months in prison on August 25, 1954 for failing to fulfill the mandatory delivery quota and keeping leaflets at Svobodná Evropa station, according to archivists and historians, this is valuable material.

It is also possible to describe the mechanism of early conviction, the so-called cabinet judicial practice.

“Officials from the court and the prosecutor’s office met with Communist Party officials in order to agree on social benefits, guilty verdicts and tests in advance,” said Jiří Urban, who was in charge of rural areas at ÚSTR in the 20th century.

Information can be found about a pre-trial meeting with farmer Pažout, the largest farmer in Bystřice with 21 hectares. In 2006, a document was discovered that led to the subsequent discovery recording In the Czech Radio archive, prosecutor Lev Bloch and Pažout’s defense asked aggressive questions.

Marek Janáč, the person behind the project, said: “The whole process started at 2pm and ended at 10pm, and about two hours of footage was preserved.” Political Process.

According to Urban, Pažout was unable to fulfill the stipulated deliveries, also because they were set too high, the machines were confiscated from the landowners in 1949, and he had to procure everything using several horses.

For example, the public record includes his defense that he had nothing to feed the pigs in order to deliver the required amount of pork.

Although 1954 is known as the thaw period after the death of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, according to Urban, the trial of Bystřice in Ichinsk and Parjut demonstrated the continued pressure for collectivization and entry into unified agricultural cooperatives, which “was considered an obstacle to the progress of collectivization,” the historian noted.

According to Urban, Bloch, the prosecutor, tried to criminalize Pazut’s business. “It worked on the third try,” Urban said.

Pažout was sent to four prisons within six months and was released on parole in July 1955. A year later, the Pažouts donated their homestead to the state, leaving behind an apartment, a pig and some small animals. Josef Pažout died in 1980, and his family successfully demanded the return of the property after 1989.

According to the National Archives, tens of thousands of peasants were sentenced like Pažout between 1948 and 1960. The records of their trials have not yet been found and are likely lost. Archivists do not know why Pažout’s files are stored in Pilsen.

The National Archives included Pazut’s story as the second in a series on political processes, according to Milan Vojáček, the director of the National Archives, who last year dealt with the trial of Rudolf Slansky.

Milada Horáková’s trial is scheduled for next year, but according to Vojáček, there is not as much authentic material as in the Parjut case. “The radio propaganda survived, but the court recordings did not,” Janáči said.