Abstract
Hand in hand with the growing belief in scientific progress and expert knowledge, the political self-confidence of students grew in the 1960s, as they were perceived as the future intelligentsia of state-socialist Czechoslovakia. In both contemporary and retrospective perspective, the term "politics of trust" was adopted to express the desire for greater involvement of the student population in the running of universities and in solving problems of the national economy and society.
As the symbolic prestige of the student body increased, so did the critical view of unfulfilled promises to improve the material conditions of study. While the majority of the student body focused its criticism mainly on material shortcomings and poor cultural facilities, a less numerous but more politically organised part of the student body tried to find the roots of the shortcomings at the institutional and political level, primarily in the structure of the higher education institutions of the Czechoslovak Youth Union (ČSM).
These students were labelled from above and by themselves as a student opposition movement, and the term Prague radicals was adopted for them. One of their main proclaimed goals was student independence from the power structures, i.e. the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the Central Committee of the CSM, and the creation of an independent student organisation.
Their goal was fulfilled in January 1968, when students began to leave the ranks of the ČSM's higher education institutions en masse and began to establish independent student organizations. This paper will focus on how the relationship of students to the ČSM was changing in the 1960s, how their vision of student independence was changing, and what strategies they chose to fulfill their visions.
What influence did the Prague radicals have on the disintegration of university structures in the ČSM that occurred in January 1968? And what role did the violent clash between members of the Public Security Service and students from Strahov dormitories in October 1967 play? Can the student body be described as the first social group to reject the policy of democratic centralism? The paper will try to answer these questions as well.