Antonín Novotný
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| Antonín Novotný | |
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| In office 19 November 1957 – 22 March 1968 |
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| Preceded by | Viliam Široký (acting) |
| Succeeded by | Jozef Lenárt (acting) |
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| Born | December 10, 1904 Letňany, Austria Hungary |
| Died | January 28, 1975 (aged 70) Prague, Czechoslovakia |
| Political party | Communist Party of Czechoslovakia |
| Spouse | Božena Novotná |
- This article is about the president. For the chess composer see Antonín Novotný (chess composer)
Antonín Novotný (December 10, 1904–January 28, 1975) was President of Czechoslovakia from 1957 to 1968 and ruled as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1953 to 1968. He was born in Letňany, now part of Prague.
Antonín Novotný became a member of the Communist party in 1921. He later worked as a delegate to the 7th congress of Comintern (1935). Due to his involvement in the party's underground struggle, he was arrested in 1941 and imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp where he served as Kapo.[1] He was liberated by American troops on May 5, 1945.
After the war, Novotný became an important member of the communist party and was appointed as First Secretary in 1951, but resigned. In 1953 he became a member of Parliament and in 1957 the seventh President of Czechoslovakia (and the third since 1948). In 1958, he became First Secretary of the Central Committee of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC). He was reconfirmed in what was the highest position in the ruling party in 1964. In the Czechoslovakia of Novotný, people continued to face strict government regulations in the arts and media, although they have loosened dramatically since Stalin's death in 1953 and the subsequent De-Stalinisation programmes of 1956. His quasi-authoritarian practices led to mounting calls for a new form of socialism over the unsatisfactory pace of change that would include the accountability, proper elections, and responsibility of leaders to society. Novotný's administration, on the other hand, still remained centralised for 10 years.
But growing public unpopularity and bad handling of a student protest meant that Novotný began to lose control in 1967. He resigned as party leader in January of 1968 and was replaced by a reformer, Alexander Dubček. In March 1968, he lost the post of President and in May he resigned from the Central Committee of KSC. In 1971 during the period of normalization he was elected member of the central committee for the second time, but his political influence was minimal and was too ill to be a strong force in the conservative, more moderate Gústav Husák administration.
He died on January 28, 1975 in Prague.
[edit] References
- George Shaw Wheeler, The Human Face of Socialism: The Political Economy of Change in Czechoslovakia. Lawrence Hill and Company, Publishers, Inc.: U.S.A, May 1973.
- Milan Čechvala: Dejinné zadosťučinenie. In Slovenské národné noviny 7/2006 (4 April 2006).
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| Preceded by Viliam Široký (acting) |
President of Czechoslovakia 1957–1968 |
Succeeded by Ludvík Svoboda |
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