"Very important was that the first place I went to convince the people to join the General Strike, as there was this Strike Committee... After November 17, the Civic Forum was set up to manage the follow-up activities. And it was decided that there would be a General Strike sometime in the second half of November, and we tried to persuade people to join it. And one of the first places I went was a car service, where expensive western cars, which you bought here in the Czech Republic for special coupouns, were serviced. They serviced the western cars there, so they saw the difference between Skoda and Lada, and as they were pro-Western, they asked us how they could help. So I told them to get us three cars so we could drive to the regions. So they agreed among themselves and took their car every day, their colleagues contributed to the petrol, and they drove us around those regions. So I spoke in Mnichovo Hradiště, in Náchod, in Rychnov nad Kněžnou and so on."
Right after me, the communist Miroslav Štěpán spoke, and said: “We’re not a country where children could dictate to the Government how the things should be.”
Vladimír Šlachta was born on March 27, 1970 in Třebíč. At the age of 18, he moved to Prague to study at the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Engineering. His first year in college was greatly affected by the approaching Velvet Revolution. Although he did not personally take part in the first demonstrations, from November 19, 1989, he took an active part in revolutionary activities and toured the regions, persuading locals and employees of large enterprises to join the General Strike. In the interview, he recalls in detail the period of the Velvet Revolution and the subsequent regime changes. At the age of 22, he asked for a trade license and in 1990 he started a business with historical glass. He worked in management positions in large corporate companies and spent two years in 2011-2013 working in Vietnam. He is married and has three sons.
