A Farewell to Arms: Disassembling Czechoslovakia’s Weapons Industry, 1989-1994

• In Event: Scrapping, Repurposing, and Reappraising in East Central Europe's Industrial Centers

Abstract

This paper focuses on Martin, Dubnica, Uherský Brod and Brno to understand the effects of conversion from military to civilian production on each of these Czechoslovak “arms towns.” It highlights the disconnect between arms production, which in most cases disappeared, with the arms themselves, which did not. In contrast to widespread depictions of the early 1990s as a time of “wild” lawlessness, I posit instead the period following Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution to have been a highly litigious one, characterized by widespread patent and intellectual property disputes as those involved in the arms trade sought to claim a sliver of the former arms giants for themselves. I ultimately consider to what extent this farewell to arms ushered in the breakdown of Czechoslovakia--a state forged through and scrapped alongside its arms production.

Author

• Rosamund Therese Johnston, U of Vienna (Austria)