A hundred years ago, on 10th February 1878, Professor Zdeněk Nejedly, M. A., Ph. D., Academician of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, was born. Nejedly was a well-known Marxist scholar, for many years professor in the Charles University, historian, philosopher, music theoretician, aesthetician, art critic, political and cultural worker and one of the leading representatives of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia after World War II, Cabinet Minister and deputy Premier, president and honorary member — founder of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, an outstanding personality in Czechoslovakia’s most recent history, in particular the history of education, science and culture. The article describes Nejedly’s work as Minister of Education in the years 1945 — 1946 and 1948 —1953, especially the part he played in the struggle of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia for higher education establishments and for the building up of socialist higher education. Sources used in writing this article include monographs, studies and memoirs, which the authors published in the period when Z. Nejedly was still alive or after his death on 9th March 1962. Contemporary press was also used.