ABSTRACT

To a Czech twenty years ago Thomas Bat’a would have represented much the same achievements that Henry Ford did to Americans. And the Bat’a shoe concern would have meant far more than the Ford empire ever did to its country, because of Czechoslovakia’s small size and because Bat’a had so utterly outdistanced his competitors. To see what happened to this highly efficient industry under nationalization is therefore interesting, the more so since it presents in most acute form Czechoslovakia’s dominant problem of exports.