"IF YOU DON'T PUT IT IN THE CUP, YOU CAN'T EAT OUT OF THE CUP."
From the wisdom of our grandmothers
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Updated 27.3.2024: Stanislav Vrbík: ON BATISM IN TIME:
... Perhaps the most open and eloquent admiration for the Batas as creators of a new type of human society was expressed in 1937 by a Soviet general, apparently from the secret services. (According to Jan Bata's later account. He did not remember the general's name). After a visit to Zlín, where he and Gen. Shaposhnikov in 1937, when he was invited to participate in the military manoeuvres of the Czechoslovak army, he was overwhelmed. He declared in a private conversation with Czechoslovak Gen. Luza that while in Russia they had shed streams of blood to exterminate the businessmen as pests of the country without achieving the goal of giving the people a happy life, in Zlin one of those cursed businessmen had achieved it to a degree that they in Russia could not even dream of. He is said to have slaughtered hundreds of businessmen with his own hands in the belief that he was doing the right thing. No, that's not possible, he added, digging his fingers into his face and on the verge of a mental breakdown. ... An excerpt of the essentials follows. JŠ
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This exercise of morality has been going on since the beginning of the last century. Unfortunately, only in Zlín and there it was limited by occupation and destroyed by nationalisation. It was not enough for the communist government. They had to hang a lot of people and rename Zlín to complete the work of destruction.
But the true Eldorado of plunder could only come after the fall of communism. Capitalism came, infected with the virus of extra-corruption. "Fortune favoured the prepared" (probably thanks to the StB) and our society went from mud to puddle. There was corruption even under communism. Such a hundred-crown and bonanza. With the new capitalism, a kind of perverse inflation of bribes reached billions.
Even today we can ask in amazement with A. Cekota: "How can a state whose political parties have hung themselves on their necks continue to prosper"... and which, thanks to the "pragmatists" in their ranks, cannot resist corruption and the influence of the nouveau riche, who are then, of course, allowed to invent and sophisticate their thieving work.“
This thievery of the highest order is not without an undercurrent. The moral decay of the entire society is illustrated by the existence of companies whose business is to use the huge sums they have accumulated to speculate - for example, 'I will bribe, buy for a buck and sell to the state for a fortune' - what they could have bought themselves. etc. Various property developers, who are successful in corruptly changing town plans and building apartment blocks in place of green spaces and playgrounds - for example. Various companies and firms that do for state employees for sinful money what is the duty and job description of the contracting authorities - for example. The fight against corruption seems to be that "no crime can be proven" to acquire assets of two and a half billion crowns. This would mean that the payment of the relevant income tax and health and social security contributions has been proven. Not, of course, if he is a casino player and has consistently, over a period of years, won and won, more than two hundred and sixty times in total, ten million sums. Because no taxes are paid on winnings in our rich and prosperous state. Instead, each "approached" official has a choice: take a few million, or report the corrupter and tremble in fear from which side the blow or other vengeance will come. This is the cause of mutual solidarity of the corrupt.
Le Corbusier after a visit to Zlín in 1937:
"Zlín, that is the American anthill, in my opinion. In Zlín, only the most intimate life springs from everywhere. I found in Zlín the reasonableness of some of the original principles, such as the principle of standardization of the load-bearing parts of buildings. The various institutions - factories, dormitories, schools, social buildings - have a unified skeleton that makes a harmonious whole out of related parts. Fortunately, the chosen model is a good one. It seemed to me that the bosses and workers in Zlín were indeed united by a common idea, that there was a collective enthusiasm. This is what the world needs."
It is our good fortune and a historic chance in life that Tomas Bata has left us a legacy that is the solution to all of today's catastrophic problems.
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