Everything about Klement Gottwald totally explained
Klement Gottwald (
November 23,
1896, Dědice (Vyškov), South Moravia, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic) -
March 14,
1953) was a
Czechoslovakian
Communist politician, longtime leader of the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ or CPCz or CPC),
prime minister and president of Czechoslovakia.
His first career was as a cabinet maker. Subsequently, he was (1921) one of the founders of the
KSČ, 1921-1926 newspaper editor and KSČ functionary in
Slovakia, since 1925 member of the KSČ Central Committee, 1926 - 1929 the leader of the Central Political and Propaganda Committee of the KSČ Central Committee, 1929 - 1948 member of the parliament, 1929 - 1945 Secretary-General of the KSČ, 1935 - 1943 a secretary of the
Comintern, 1939 - 1945 one of the leaders of Communist resistance (in Moscow), 1945 - 1953 chairman of the KSČ, 1945 - 1946 vicepremier, 1946 - 1948 Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak government, 1948 - 1953 President of Czechoslovakia.
In March
1945,
Edvard Beneš, who had been elected President of Czechoslovakia 1935-38 and who had been head of the
Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in London since 1941, agreed to form a
National Front government with Gottwald. Elected to the first Czech post-war government following the 1946 election, Gottwald became Premier of Czechoslovakia.
On
May 9,
1948, after the
February coup d'état, parliament (the National Assembly) passed a new constitution (the
Ninth-of-May Constitution). President Beneš refused to sign the new legislation and he resigned on
June 7,
1948 (he died three months later). On June 14, the National Assembly elected Klement Gottwald as the new President of Czechoslovakia.
A
Stalinist, he
nationalized the country's industry and collectivised its farms. There was considerable resistance within the government to
Russian influence on Czechoslovak politics and Gottwald instigated a series of
purges, first to remove non-communists, later to remove some communists as well. Prominent Communists who became victims of these purges and were defendants in the
Prague Trials included
Rudolf Slánský, the party's
general secretary,
Vlado Clementis (the Foreign Minister) and
Gustáv Husák (the leader of an administrative body responsible for Slovakia), who was dismissed from office for "bourgeois nationalism". Clementis was executed in December 1952 and hundreds of other government officials were sent to prison. Husák was rehabilitated in 1960s and became Czechoslovak president in 1975.
In the famous photograph from 21st of February 1948, described also in
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by
Milan Kundera,
Vladimír Clementis stands next to Klement Gottwald. When Vladimír Clementis was charged in 1950, he was erased from the photograph (along with the photographer Karel Hájek) by the state
propaganda.
Gottwald died in 1953, just five days after attending Stalin's funeral in Moscow on 9th of March. He was succeeded by
Antonín Zápotocký, the Premier of Czechoslovakia from 1948 - 1953. In 1953, a
mausoleum was initially erected for Gottwald at the site of Jan Žižka monument in the district of Žižkov, Prague. He died due to a burst artery brought about by prolonged heart disease, already heavily affected by syphilis and strong alcoholism. In 1953, a
mausoleum was initially erected for Gottwald at the site of Jan Žižka monument in the district of Žižkov, Prague. Due to the illnesses of Gottwald, he finally died of
syphilis, the
embalming failed and the
mummy decayed, so that it was eventually removed in 1962 and burnt.
Zlín, a city in
Moravia (Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic), was renamed Gottwaldov after him during 1949–1990.
Zmiiv, a city in
Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine, was named Hotvald after him during 1976–1990.
Námestie Slobody (Freedom square) in
Bratislava, Slovakia was formerly named
Gottwaldovo námestie after him.
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