“To Make Some Extra Money”: Smuggling and black marketeering by Czechoslovak transport workers (1970s and 1980s)

Introduction

Nepotism, building of mutually advantageous networks or bribery represented an integral part of most people's everyday life in former Czechoslovakia. One type of valuable “currency” in this context was foreign, mainly Western, goods. People tried to obtain better or unavailable items (quite common from today's perspective) like, for example, jeans, cosmetics, electronics, or even small household equipment. Given the limited supply by the domestic market and the restrictions to travel abroad, the effort to get such “extraordinary” goods was great, and closely linked to the informal exchange. The possess (and therefore black marketeering) of these goods could also offer a chance to enhance the standard of living. ¹

We can distinguish between those who supplied the black market and people who were usually only customers. Generally speaking, the first group was made by men travelling for business (women rarely), who could bring home foreign currency as well as goods. This was naturally linked to the opportunity of travelling, not an easy task in a country like Czechoslovakia, which had very strict control on the travel of its citizens. Even more, travellers usually faced up a limited amount of foreign currency granted for trips (mainly to capitalist countries) because of a chronic lack of valuable foreign exchange in the centrally planned economy.

In recent years, the topic of smuggling and black marketeering is becoming more investigated by scholars due to an increasing interest in the research of everyday life and various forms of consumerism ² during the communist times. The issue of unofficial trades is now gaining more attention among scholars, especially with efforts to look for a non-black-and-white understanding and perspective on the history of the former Central and East European regions. ³ This perspective helps to overcome the limits of binary views of the period, including the legacy of the “totalitarian” narrative (regime v. society, elites v. ordinary people, official v. black market and so on).

For example, in the German context, some works were produced on the topic, albeit more concentrated on the first decade after World War II (and the time before). ⁴ The issue of consumerism in later periods is stressed within a monography on consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe. ⁵ Then, Jerzy Kochanowski ⁶ (and, similarly, Jan Milosz ⁷ and Krysztof Madej ⁸ ) dealt intensively with the black-market activities in Poland, focusing on the time from World War II to 1989. Ten years ago, a special issue of the Czech Journal of Contemporary History (Soudobé dějiny) focused on the cross-border black market and other illicit activities during socialist times. The journal's studies touched on both the crossing of the Czechoslovak border with Poland, ⁹ East Germany ¹⁰ and Hungary. ¹¹ Scholars from other post-socialist countries also worked on consumerism during the socialist times, shortage economy and various ways to cope with it, including smuggling and black marketeering. ¹²

For this article, I consider as a good reference point the research on truck drivers’ everyday lives in two former socialist countries, that is, Bulgaria ¹³ and Hungary. ¹⁴ Their experience is in many aspects like other transport fields.

Still, one crucial variable slightly complicates the case of former Czechoslovakia compared to other socialist countries. Contrary to almost all members of the former Soviet bloc, Czechoslovakia did not have direct access to the sea – an important point both for official trade and unofficial business. Because of this, in Poland, East Germany and in almost all other socialist countries with direct access to the sea and ports, even “ordinary” people (under certain conditions) could somehow participate in the unofficial market and establish contacts with foreigners-seafarers to get goods from them. In Czechoslovakia, a chance for black market or smuggling operations was reserved almost exclusively to people who: (a) could travel abroad; (b) were in a close relationship with someone else travelling abroad; (c) were in contact with foreigners travelling to Czechoslovakia, typically workers in tourism services (guides, taxi drivers, coach drivers, hotel receptionists, waiters, but also prostitutes etc.). Keeping in mind these elements, in this paper, I investigate the first group, that is, business travellers, distinguishing them according to their involvement in smuggling, black marketeering ¹⁶ or just in their effort to find ways to get some extra money or extra goods, from abroad. ¹⁷

The first (and the most numerous category) includes people travelling abroad for short-term business trips (roughly from days to 1 month). It covers a wide range of professions – businessmen, athletes, musicians, artists, representatives of some enterprises, journalists, scientists and high communist party or government officials. The luckier ones visited various countries, travelled abroad repeatedly, or even regularly. The journeys of people who travelled for business abroad only for a short-term trip or exceptionally were almost like tourist trips abroad. These workers had to fulfil the necessary work tasks and duties, and then they enjoyed the opportunity to stay abroad, and eventually buy something. Their shopping, however, was significantly limited by the low amount of officially allocated foreign currency for the trip. Travellers could get a little extra money and – what is very important – through the goods (which could be just a small gift, like a bottle of whiskey, or a jar of Nescafé) also make networks of acquaintances for other areas of life. ¹⁸

The second group of business travellers consists of those (predominantly) men who were settled in a foreign country with their families, usually longer than 1 year. This group included diplomats, businessmen (representatives of state monopoly organisations focused on foreign trade area), engineers and staff for industry constructions (power plants, sugar mills, engineering plants etc.). In so-called Third World countries, they were often nurses, doctors or people sent there by the ministry of defence. These workers were settled far from their homes for a longer time, crossing borders rarely (thus, with limited opportunities to smuggling). With some simplification, I can say that transport workers, the third group of people who got in contact with foreign countries because of their profession, were precisely in the opposite situation. Having a chance of crossing borders regularly and with knowledge of foreign countries, they could participate in Czechoslovakia's black market.

The study's first premise is that business travellers had the most suitable conditions for black marketeering (or at least for getting foreign currency and desired goods from abroad). The second premise is that they were mainly people in the transport field who could (and did) enter these activities because their work was not based in one place. And their crossing borders with a certain degree of regularity affected and directed the movement of goods or money. From this perspective, the article is not only a contribution to transport history but aims to pave the way for future works dealing with the mobility of people and goods and the broader social, economic and political context of the time. ¹⁹

Based on these premises, the first research question focuses on identifying smuggling and black-marketeering specifics in particular transport areas. The second research question deals with the benefits (as well as risks or pitfalls) of illegal and semi-legal activities reflected from the actors’ perspective. Finally, I would address the lessons learnt from these activities, questioning how this kind of business was set in the context of planned economy and the socialist state.

Variety of markets

As the paper's main scope refers to black-market activities, some clarifications of the term should be outlined. In this sense, I consider valuable Jerzy Kochanowski's typology of markets in socialist Poland. He differentiates: “red market” as a legal distribution of goods; “pink market”, that is, second-hand shops; a complementing “white market” with home-grown food and used products. All of them were legal. The next one, “grey market”, covered various unregistered services provided for money or “for exchange” with the primary aim to substitute poor or absent services offered by the State. Then there was an illegal “brown market” based on a re-distribution of goods provided by the “red market” when the official market could not satisfy the population's demand. However, this re-distribution or exchange usually did not bring any remarkable profit. The one indeed profitable was the “black market”, that is, business with illegally obtained goods. ²⁰

This market typology highly corresponds with the situation in former Czechoslovakia. However, the “white market” was not so extended since a decisive part of agriculture outputs was not produced by individual farmers but in cooperative farms with the “state-organized” distribution. There is also a difference in the “brown market” satisfying mainly basic needs. Concerning the foodstuffs, in Czechoslovakia, except the post-war times, did not occur periods when primary food products were missing (as it was experienced, for example, during the crisis in Poland in the early 1980s).

According to Kochanowski, the brown market's transactions also included, for example, cars, household facilities, equipment for sports or hobbies’ items, a situation also experienced in Czechoslovakia. A second level was to obtain high-quality goods, where the Western ones were the most valuable. People wanted to possess a colour TV set, hi-fi set, later a Walkman or a video recorder, ²¹ fashionable furniture, machines, tools and gadgets. Besides, little something from abroad (coffee, chewing gums, chocolates, alcohol for more significant occasions) was used as a bribe (when dealing with the state bureaucracy, when obtaining a permit, a place on a waiting list for a flat etc.). The last group of desired goods included “culture products”, typically, Western music. ²²

Naturally, people travelling abroad for business had better access to these commodities. ²³ Some of them bought the goods in a foreign country; other people bought items at home in the Tuzex shops. The Tuzex shops were a Czechoslovakian parallel market selling foreign goods or even domestic goods which were in very short supply. Men and women working abroad were partially paid in the Tuzex vouchers, being “voucher”, the only currency usable in this kind of shop. Naturally, Tuzex vouchers also represented a valuable “tradable” article, offering even “ordinary” citizens to buy something in the Tuzex shops. ²⁴

Time frame and methodology

The paper is primarily based on interviews, thus reflecting mainly the period of so-called normalisation; it means the period after the Warsaw Pact armies’ invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 when the previous democratisation efforts were thwarted. ²⁵ The outset of this “normalization” also brought a new, stricter control of movement and a new set of restrictions on travelling, especially to the West. ²⁶ However, in the case of business trips, it was impossible to stop all the cooperation with foreign partners. Besides, collaboration with the so-called Third World countries flourished, mainly due to the competition between the two world systems in the Cold War. As a result, a wide variety of people from different professions travelled abroad, some of them also with their family. However, the most attractive trips to capitalist states were the most difficult to reach – either in terms of the regime's restrictions or in terms of the orientation of Czechoslovak foreign trade. Those named in the second-placed enjoyed great popularity among Czechoslovak workers abroad, too. For example, Morocco was perceived as an exceptional place, with a “Western touch”.

The sample of interviews includes a variety of people who had a chance to travel abroad for business, together 108 interviews: 15 businessmen – employees of the foreign trade enterprise; 11 members of diplomatic corps (10 higher officers and 1 cook); in the transport area, 8 bargees, 19 seafarers, 4 aircraft pilots, 8 stewardess (one of them a man) and 4 truck drivers. Another part of the sample includes 10 musicians from the Czech Philharmonic and 12 scientists in the humanities. Other professions are represented in the collection: army officer, architect, excavator operator, journalist, doctor, nurse. Finally, although to a lesser extent, there are included those who either travel abroad as family members or had to “wait at home”: 5 wives of businessmen, 4 wives of seafarers, 1 “diplomat” wife and a wife of a truck driver. The interviews were recorded according to the oral history methodology principles ²⁸ ; both skilled oral history professionals and MA students of oral history/contemporary history participated in the “fieldwork” collection of interviews. The interviews consist of two parts – narrative life story and then topic questions, focused on job performance, remuneration, work-life balance, significant moments of professional life, reflection on the importance of the profession, travel experiences, job's benefits, a reflection of one's values, to mention the main questions.

From the set of interviews, more than a third were transport workers on whom the study focuses primarily. As already mentioned, the regularity of crossing borders experienced in these professions represents an important variable for smuggling or black marketeering. This regularity was significant not only for transport of goods but also for understanding the supply, demand, exchange options, a chance to make connections in the place abroad. In aircraft crews or rail transport, the regularity was based on the pre-defined routes and their schedules. The highest degree of repeatability of routes relates, of course, to river transport, which is fixed by a specific river flow. In the case of former Czechoslovakia, the river Elbe in the direction through Magdeburg (formerly East Germany) to Hamburg in West Germany; the river Oder flowing into the Gulf of Szczecin in Poland (and in Slovakia a part of the Danube).

When a man or woman wanted to work and stay abroad in the transport area, the primary step was, of course, to get a job in a transport company. As a second step in achieving travelling abroad was to reach – in the company – a foreign transport department position.

To clarify a broader context of the study, it is useful to outline the basic milestones in the Czechoslovak transport history after World War II. The post-war reconstruction in the transport sector was interrupted by the communist takeover in February 1948. The most fundamental step in the area then was the nationalization of all transport fields and the construction of state monopoly companies, like the Czechoslovak State Railways (Československé státní dráhy), Czechoslovak Airlines (Československé aerolinie), Czechoslovak Elbe Navigation (Československá plavba labská) and Czechoslovak Oder Navigation (Československá plavba oderská), later merged into the Czechoslovak Elbe-Oder Navigation (Československá plavba labsko-oderská) and Czechoslovak State Automobile Transport (Československá automobilová doprava). An exception is the Czechoslovak Ocean Shipping Company (Československá námořní plavba), which was founded at the beginning of the 1950s, de facto secretly, in close connection with the Cold War development. ²⁹ With some different degrees along the period 1948–89, all the transport companies were part of the planned command economy, under the rigid control of the authoritarian government of the Communist Party.

When a man (or a woman in some specific positions) wanted to go abroad through a job in a transport field, they had to go through a selection process. This included not only relevant education and further training, but also loyalty to the ruling regime, so to prevent possible emigration and other activities that could threaten the regime's stability. This screening was executed in principle within the company, or before admission to the training. For example, pilots used to be graduates of the military university, officers-seafarers got a degree in naval universities in the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, also in Poland or Bulgaria. In general, there was a certain direct proportion: more difficult it was to obtain the necessary qualifications (for example, truck driver v. pilot), the greater the pressure to have the membership in the Communist Party, and the stricter the selection criteria.

When, finally, a man or a woman was hired in a transport company, the job, type of work, variety of trips depended on the company's prescribed career paths and hierarchy. In air transport, crew members were divided into types of aircraft and destinations. A similar mechanism was applied in the case of ocean shipping: some seafarers went to the Western countries only exceptionally (either because of their “weak” loyalty to the regime or because their superiors were not satisfied with their work or behaviour). Besides, the company's interpersonal relations were crucial, including informal ones, ties with decision makers, with dispatchers. For example, whether a pilot or an air hostess would fly to Bulgaria or New York, highly depended on dispatchers.

This memory shows that foreign goods, including small gifts, were valuable commodities in obtaining various reciprocal services or benefits.

Making some extra money travelling abroad

The workers going abroad from Czechoslovakia bought primarily clothing, cosmetics, electronics, alcohol and cigarettes, or other small items (chewing gums, foreign colour magazines or catalogues and also plastic bags with various pictures and logos perceived in that time as a fashion accessory).

In principle, even a trifle (an ordinary thing from today's point of view) served as a luxury sign when it was brought home to Czechoslovakia. Another group of imported goods, as individual memories show, consisted of household equipment, equipment for sports and leisure activities, or hobbies. Then, only aircraft pilots and mainly flight attendants remember buying abroad the most common goods, such as foodstuffs.

Leaving aside other socialist states, which faced similar economic problems and their domestic markets were poorly supplied, also in the countries such as India, Morocco or Egypt, the crew members saved money to buy everything they needed, for example, T-shirts, coffee, exotic spices, leather products and many others.

Even though the aircraft crew members received relatively low daily allowances compared to the prices abroad, they did not engage in smuggling, black marketeering or various unofficial “business exchange” intensively. ³⁷ They focused mainly on saving money, especially the daily allowance during their stay abroad, and then they tried to get as many goods as possible.

The specifics of aircraft crews’ stay abroad played an essential role in these activities because it took the form of a tourist trip – the stay was a rest, waiting for a return flight. ³⁹ And the stay was a lot of social life – living together, eating together and spending free time together. This situation inevitably brought some mutual control, as well as, perhaps, some form of cooperation. In many respects, this is also true in other transport sectors, where on the one hand, smuggling or black marketeering was always a matter for the individual; on the other hand, some activities, and significantly larger “trades”, had to be carried out by a group of more people. And there was also another important reason for “cooperation”.

The quoted claim of involving the entire crew in smuggling is somewhat exaggerated. Still, it corresponds well with the fact that various forms of informal transactions created a very common and integral part of the profession's exercise in foreign transport.

Bargees and truck drivers were relatively active in trying to find specific ways to “earn money” abroad, to take advantage of the chance of regular border crossing on the river. Similarly, acted men in foreign railway transport (and a minimal number of women in the position of a waitress in dining cars). An important variable in their behaviour is the fact that these workers, especially at the lower rungs of the professional hierarchy, did not make any dizzying earnings. So, if the opportunity for “extra income” arose, they usually took it.

Of course, it was a matter of an individual decision whether to buy goods only for their own needs or for their families, friends and acquaintances as described above, or whether they entered at a home black market. The bargees had a specific advantage in this respect regarding the regularity of river trips between socialist Czechoslovakia and West German Hamburg. And the available resources prove that truck drivers behaved similarly. However, comparing their situation with that of bargees, truck drivers faced a great disadvantage because their journeys often led to non-Western countries.

They were bargees’ who made most often (compared with other transport sectors) also trades “from East to West”. Many possible hiding places on a river bargee, in comparison, for example, with hand luggage of aircraft crews, represent a substantial advantage, too. ⁴³ An impressive specificity of the bargees’ experience represented the transactions carried out between the divided parts of Germany, for example, a relatively large and successful illegal business with dental gold in the 1950s. It flourished because dental gold was a small-volume, high-priced commodity easily and legally available in West Germany and desirable on the East Germany black market. The main actor even stored his profit in a Western bank (with the help of other people involved abroad). ⁴⁴

On the other side of the spectrum, we can position seafarers, who were organizing transactions (including smuggling and black marketeering) mainly abroad. The main reason was that in many cases, seafarers could go across the border of socialist Czechoslovakia only once or twice a year. ⁴⁵ Thus they could not bring goods from abroad regularly. As a result, most of the seafarers’ smuggling and black marketeering activities were realised outside Czechoslovakia and focused on gathering foreign currencies.

The seafarers received a so-called dollar additional allowance (calculated in USA dollars), like standard allowances paid to other business travellers. During the period under review, it gradually increased: a seafarer at the lowest service category received from US$1.30 in 1973 to US$4.30 per day in 1989; at the highest level of the ship's hierarchy, captains and chief officers received US$3.20 (1973), respectively, US$6.60 per day (1989). ⁴⁶ This amount was further reduced (because of the regime's constant effort to level the population's income) in the form of obligatory exchange of this payment into Tuzex vouchers. ⁴⁷ As a result, an ordinary seaman, for example, got US$38 per month. However, this additional allowance was always paid upon arrival at the port in a local currency. Thus, it could happen that the payment calculated in USA dollars “suddenly” changed in Indian rupees or Soviet roubles. That was the main impetus for saving this money when being abroad, and – if possible – to make some extra money for necessary foreign goods. Besides, the seafarers spent the “extra funds” to enjoy the time in a port, to have fun.

“Business” with alcohol, its sale in countries with prohibitions or high prices of alcohol used to be highly profitable.

For better understanding, a US$12,000 profit must be split among 25–30 men in the crew. If we count 20 men, the net profit was US$600 per person, ∼16,000 crowns, representing about seven times the average monthly salary in the transport field middle-rank positions.

Similar transactions increased extraordinarily in the mid-1970s. As a reaction, extensive investigations were carried out, bringing severe punishments for the so-called “scarf affair”, large-scale smuggling of several thousand nylon scarves to Cuba, together with other goods, including fabrics, wigs, razor blades, pornographic magazines, chewing gums. The scope of this affair was so great that the information about the customs inspection of the ship in Cuba was passed not only to the company's director but also Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Trade and other economic, political and Communist Party authorities. ⁵⁰

Penalties under criminal law for the economic offenses were perceived as one of the significant threats to individuals or groups who engaged in smuggling and black marketeering: they represent the negative side of the transactions. There is no evidence of sanctions imposed abroad since although customs officers managed to find smuggled goods, they failed to uncover the offender(s) in the crew. No one confessed. Moreover, it was important for the ship to continue the journey, so either the company paid a fine for smuggling goods on ships, or the captain, together with an embassy representative, negotiated with local authorities a friendly solution or reduction of the financial penalty. ⁵¹ However, when the ship arrived in Europe, the State Security (i.e. the secret police) started the investigation, which was much more successful in uncovering the affairs, using various investigation methods and cooperation with secret collaborators in the crew.

In general, activities on the black market or various unauthorized exchanges of money and goods were usual also in homeland: for example, from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, the income of the population from the so-called grey economy increased from 6 to 20 billion crowns. ⁵² In the case of transport, people traveling from Czechoslovakia abroad thus “only” took advantage of the chance.

Despite the repression, from the point of view of the ruling regime, there is an evident ambivalence: running of unofficial markets on the one hand partially compensated for the inability of the centrally managed economy to meet the population's needs (especially in consumer goods, quality or fashionable consumer goods). On the other hand, the “successful” running of the grey and black markets pointed to the economy's weak point, thus undermining the ruling party's legitimacy. In this context, it is rather interesting that former bargees, seafarers, air hostesses, while admitting their involvement in smuggling or illicit transfer, they do not mention, even implicitly, the possible subversive aspects of these activities. There still experience a sense of illegality, focusing on the risk of losing the job, their high concern. They perceived this potential loss of relative freedom to travel across the strictly guarded borders of socialist Czechoslovakia as the greatest threat or most severe possible punishment.

“Firing Was the Worst Punishment”. Concluding Remarks

The most serious threat was, of course, an investigation and the following punishment. However, these sanctions were applied only on bigger cases, naturally when revealed. More “real” threats were a reassignment to inland transport, that is, the impossibility of travelling abroad, or even the employment termination. The job loss (or the loss of the opportunity to travel) also meant a financial loss, a significant reduction in income for most employees affected.

However, the analysis of life stories shows that in many cases, the job loss, and the loss of the opportunity to perform the profession were a far greater threat than the loss of chance to travel abroad. Those men (and partly also women) developed a strong affirmative relationship to their travelling experience. It is not an exaggeration to call this relationship to the profession a kind of addiction: the need to fly, be at sea, on the river was very intense and very emotional. ⁵³ It was not exceptional that the loss of employment also meant the destruction of one's life, with not only financial but also emotional, psychological, interpersonal negative impacts.

Besides, it is necessary to consider that a change or loss of employment in the field of foreign transport would also mean a loss (or decrease) of social status in the contemporary context of life in a socialist country. “Since travel in the West was such a privilege, jobs with the prospect of business travellers were highly coveted”. Truck drivers, air hostesses, seafarers, pilots, bargees thus became the heroes and heroines of the popular imagination. ⁵⁴ This fact explains, among other things, why these transport workers today do not regret that they could enjoy the money they earned in a better way than by shopping, purchasing goods of a fleeting value, such as clothing or electronics.

This is not to say that these people were the only “privileged” group (in terms of material conditions). I refer to them as a group that, on the one hand, had certain privileges. However, on the other hand, their lives, both private and professional, were in many ways more complicated. Here I consider the risks and work in a health-threatening environment (including direct danger, for example, in the transport of hazardous chemicals), air crashes, car accidents or severe workplace accidents to list the most frequent negative consequences of the work.

In the transport workers’ memories persist the sense of exclusivity and love of profession, although today it is no longer necessary to have “permission for trips around the world” (a special contemporary passport supplement, which they are still very proud of). Travelling is a matter of personal preference, financial limits, but not restrictions imposed by the government or other authorities (with a reservation that the pandemic situation changes this status). Besides, air hostesses, bargees, drivers and others still emphasize that they could afford something extra in the past, provide for their families something extra, differ from the majority, from “grey” population. This idea is strong in their memories, also serving as a retrospective confirmation of their life's meaning and specific compensation for absence from the family. Such a confirmation is essential today, when they are in retirement age, in the post-productive phase of life and may even regret be missing some other moments, emotions and experiences, typically those connected with family life, children upbringing etc. (although such thoughts are intentionally displaced, the interpretation of the interviews shows they are significantly present in the memory). ⁵⁵

The performance of the profession and especially the chance to travel abroad in life stories thus link personal experience, consumer behaviour during the socialist times, and a broader geopolitical context with the specifics of a particular field of transport. The crucial variables there are regularity and repeatability when crossing borders, specifics of individual means of transportation in terms of speed, and chances for hiding various goods. Besides, the level of income and the profession's social status (for example, a truck driver v. aircraft pilot) plays an important role here. In sum, work in foreign transport offered an escape from everyday “socialist” life, unattainable for most of the population, sometimes even unimaginable for people outside the transport field.