(CZ) K otázce vzniku, vývoje a stavu školní branné výchovy
(EN) On the Origin, Development and State of Defence Education in Schools

In this article the author deals with questions concerning the origin, development and present-day state and standards of defence education in Czech and Slovak schools.
In the first chapter he explains the conditions under which defence education originated in the pre-monopoly stage of the development of capitalism. In the territory of present-day Czechoslovakia the first project of defence education appeared at the beginning of the second half of the 19th century. But the first form of defence education in schools — the pre-military training — began to take shape as late as the end of the century, when mass armies came into being and when military authorities demanded that schools should undertake the preparation of the male population for service in the armed forces.
In the second chapter the author deals with the origin and development of the actual defence education in schools in the bourgeois Republic of Czechoslovakia. It originated at the time when Nazi Germany began to threaten the Republic’s independence and sovereignty. In those days a massive movement for the nation’s defence developed among the population, which gave rise to projects of defence education. In these projects defence education was conceived as moral, educational and physical preparation of young people for the defence of their endangered homeland. Defence education was enacted in 1937 and became an integral part of the educational process in schools. In this context teachers were working out its aims, task, content, methods and organizational forms, whereby they laid foundations of the future theory of defence education. But the Munich dictate frustrated those efforts. After the occupation of the Czech lands in 1939 the Defence Education Act was repealed.
In chapter three the author explains the military and political situation of the liberated Czechoslovakia and points out that defence education in public life as well as in schools was immediately reintroduced and was implemented in accordance with the Defence Education Act of 1937.
Chapter four deals with the development of defence education in Czech and Slovak schools from the working people’s victory in February, 1948, till the middle of the sixties. A new Defence Education Act was passed in 1951 and defence education was reconstructed on socialist principles. Despite unquestionable successes achieved during this process some grave mistakes were made, especially in allowing the defence training to predominate over the ideological aspect of defence education, and in the appearance of attempts to develop in schools technical military preparation (pre-military education) instead of all-round defence education.
In chapter five the author deals with the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia’s efforts to eliminate the mistakes that accumulated in the defence education practice in the fifties and the first half of the sixties. This was done after the CPCz’s 13th Congress. In 1971 the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPCz adopted a resolution on the unified system of defence education of Czechoslovakia’s population. This document represents the culmination of the Party’s efforts to provide for the establishment of socialist defence education in Czechoslovakia; it is an example of creative application of Marxism-Leninism in the field of defence education. The resolution became the blueprint for a new, i.e. a third Defence Education Act, which was passed in 1973. In the spirit of this Act defence education in schools, which is the cornerstone of the unified system of defence education of Czechoslovakia’s population, is being developed at present. It takes place at all stages of education and in all kinds of schools in compulsory forms and in extraclass defence activities. Educational and scientific institutions participate in working out its theory. Defence education instructors are trained in higher education establishments.