ARMY MORALE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82-00046R000200300012-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 20, 2011
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: October 30, 1953
• Content Type: REPORT

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/06/20: CIA-RDP82-00046R000200300012-3
.25X1
SECRET
SECURITY INFORMATION
COUNTRY Czechoslovakia
SUB]ECT Army Morale
PLACE
ACQUIRED
DATE
ACQUIRED
DATE OF IP
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
ale of officers and enlisted personnel . was no
e
mor
th
particularly goo a, but that it was not worse than the morale of the.
P th armed f ornes was pretty much
by a 214-hour free. period. ,Since there was . of ten li e
the duty shift except check the Q?m -unications ' channels every halt,
hour, signals personnel thought that they were not, so 'badly of:f.
,There was. favoritism in the granting of , time oft and?leaves,were
difficult to get and of.. short duration. Nevertheless, leave and pass .
policy was not especially strict. At Christmas time half of the di-
vision was given one week's leave.. The other, half was given a week!5
leave at 'New .Year's.. Anyone who missed his leave for some reason or
other could get aweek's leave at,Easter. Soldiers who had distin-
guished themselves in one.way or another in political or military in-
struction might get a week off at.Easter even though they had already
had a week off at the end of the year,
civilian population. The morale o . e
the same as that of the rest of the nation. The ordinary soldier
was paid only.enough.to buy his cigarettes, and'he did not have much
free time to himself. The main complaint '.of the soldier, in fact,
was.that he hdd to spend so. much time in the evenings. and on holidays
listening to political lectures. In this respect, however, the'sol-
Bier was probably not much worse off than the avers work an n a
factory. The soldier always reeeived, ernough to ea 25X1
the men in specialty of commmunicationsd
pro a y a . e er morn a am the rest of: the army,
.their own schedules in their own restricted' 'communications areas, and
were less troubled by ordinary army routine than othe'rs:, Men doing
work: in communications usually served one twelve-hour shift followed
.1-4.1 to do during
SECURITY INFORMATION
REPOR
DATE DISTR. 30 s9c4 , $3
NO. OF PAGES 3
NO. OF ENCLS.
(LISTED, BELOW)
SUPPLEMENT TO '
REPORT NO. 25X1
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On 'the week ends, up to 25% of the men in the unit were usually given
a pass?(dovolenka) allowing them to be away from the unit from six
o dl,ockFriday evening until midnight Sunday evening. In.addition,,
another 25% could be given a pass (propustka) to be absent from the
unit from Saturday night at six o'clock until midnight Sunday. The
other soldiers were required to be back in the barracks by midnight'
each night, but when they were off duty in the evening they were
usually allowed to wander freely anywhere within three kilometers
of the camp. There was no limitation on the distance a soldier
might travel in the country if he had one of the two types of week-
end passes. A soldier with the long week-end pass could buy half_
fare railway tickets.
Soldiers preferred to get away from the camps on the week ends be-
cause Sundays in the camp were fairly dull. On Sunday morning be-
tween ten o'clock and noon the men would be obliged to gather in
groups of about 50 where, in very informal fashion, there would be
discussions, question-and-answer sessions, conducted by one or,
several officers, The men were encouraged to make known any griev-
a#aes they had, and the officers were supposed to try to answer the
questions of the men. Sunday afternoon there,would be sports corn-
petitions, or mass physical exercise. Groups of soldiers would also
be collected to go by truck to visit historical monuments in the
vicinity. On such tripe, one officer would always go along to give
explanations of what was being visited. 25X1
6. The men who did not have passes were not free to lethe cam area
--- -4- A "I e%f++ ? d-,rr, n t n1 nnle I n the afternoon.
IA%AW6y 4i 1A w .1. A. cl. & w -_ .. r. --_ _ __ _.
sometimes a new recruit might ask for ermiseion to o o o urch
the villa a on these Sundays
So ers on ass could
and did go to church when they w s e ny of the men
were Roman Catholics from Slovakia who resented this .limita,.
tion,on their freedom, but it was apparently taken for granted that
attendance at church was out of the question while under direct
military supervision. 25X1
.Behavior critical of or hostile to the government was out of the
question, as the army authorities on occasion demonstrated by allow-
ing selected soldiers from each company to attend courts martial of
soldiers caught attempting to escape to the West. 25X1
isiona
di
th
v
e
in February, 1953 an order of the day signed by
25X1
der announced the trial for treason of four soldiers who.had
a
comm
n
been osight while attempting to cross the, frontier in July of the
previous year. Six soldiers, the most active Communists, in each
received the death sentence, and the others were given very beau
!icon sentences. 25X1
i 11
ial descri ed it a
t
th
"
r
e
1
Th Common s s w o at en a 1
e - t 25X1
hat
olitical indoctrination meetings later.
ff' the
p
o
practically all of the soldiers felt sorry for the ones .w o ad been
caught, but that naturally there wasn't much discussion of the sub-
feet.
everybody but the ZVP''s (deputy 25X1
commanders for political affairs za upce velitele pro veei
politicae) would go over to the West in the event of war. There was',
more accurate to say th f the soldiers and officers 25X1
would take suer action. practically all of the soldiers
and officers who were no mem he Communist arty, which 25X1
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/06/20: CIA-RDP82-00046R000200300012-3
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meant three quarters of the total, would desert, and,many of the CP
members would also probably desert.
only about 15% of the officers were hold-overs from the 25X1
old pre-Communist regular army, but that this did not mean that
the lower and middle ranks of the officer corps were any more de end
able for the Communists than were the enlisted men. 25X1
as for enlisted personnel, that is, 25%.
officers who were CF, members would
to the West in the event of a war.
officers might also want to do the
some 25X1
their. units
some high ' 25X1
rdeduced
fro the mistrust the Communists have shown for 25X1
General .in relieving him of his important military respon-
sibilities and putting him in charge of such an unimportant function
as direction of physical culture activities.
10. As regards the behavior of the military during an internal uprising,
the same proportions of military personnel 25X1
i ,ing as would desert to the West in a war,
butt Ithe attitude of the soldiers would be deter- 25X1
mined in large part by circumstances of the moment--whether the
uprising was a large-scale affair or only appeared to be an outbreak
of isolated strikes and street demonstrations with little chance of
successfully upsetting established authority. There was no gulf
between the soldier and the civilian. Any open movement strong
enough to involve any very large numbers of civilians would auto-
matically be able to count on a proportionate degree of support
from members of the army. The government tried to win the loyalty
of the soldiers, but it had not done anything to make the army into
a privileged caste which could feel that its interests were more
those of the government than of the mass of the common people.
11. the of interest on the effects of monetary 25X1
reform on army morale or on the background of the overt defiance of
the regime by workers in Pilsen and elsewhere.
in these ranks the proportion of CP members was about the same 25X1
same thing. is
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/06/20: CIA-RDP82-00046R000200300012-3
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/06/20: CIA-RDP82-00046R000200300012-3
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/06/20: CIA-RDP82-00046R000200300012-3