The publication focuses on the origins and changes in the pioneer movement in Czechoslovakia with special emphasis on the Czech environment and its cultural traditions. Although the Pioneer Organization of the Czechoslovak Youth Union (PO ČSM) established in 1949–1950 gradually gained importance in the upbringing of the young generation and from both short- and long-term perspective substantially influenced children's lives, it has so far escaped concentrated historical research, similarly to other institutionalized forms of political and ideological discipline. It is the first synthesis devoted to the pioneer movement in Czechoslovakia published after 1989.