Clement Gottwald - Czechoslovak Stalin

Clement Gottwald is one of the first communist politicians in Czechoslovakia. He visited the party leader, the prime minister, and the president of that country. For some time there was even a cult of Gottwald, and his body was first embalmed and became the subject of general review in the mausoleum. His name was given to cities and streets not only at home, but also in other countries. But in the sixties of the twentieth century it was called Czechoslovak Stalin. Let's get acquainted with the biography of this politician.

Youth and first steps as a leader

Born Clement Gottwald in 1896 in the Austro-Hungarian city of Vichau (now he is in the Czech Republic and is called Dedice). He grew up in the family of a peasant woman, who was never married. In his youth, the future politician worked as a mahogany master, which he learned in Vienna. In 1912 he joined the Social Democratic Party. He was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, fought on the eastern front. In 1921 he became one of the co-founders of the Communist Party and helped in the publication of her newspaper in Bratislava.

Takeoff

The career of the future President of Czechoslovakia is beginning to skyrocket since the middle of the twenties of the twentieth century. In 1925 he was elected to the Central Committee of the Party, and in 1929 he became Secretary General. In the same year Gottwald was delegated to the National Assembly of Czechoslovakia as a deputy. In 1935 he became secretary of the Comintern and left this post only after the dissolution of the latter in 1943. After the Munich agreement of 1938, Clement Gottwald left for the Soviet Union, where he spent the next seven years actually in exile. From there he begins to lead the Communist Resistance in Czechoslovakia.

Politician Clement Gottwald: biography of the party leader

In March 1945, Eduard Benes, pre-war president and head of government in exile in London since 1941, agreed to form the National Front in conjunction with the Communists. Gottwald under this deal got the post of deputy prime minister of the country. As for party affairs, he gave the post of Secretary-General Rudolf Slansky, and himself took up the new position of Chairman.

In 1946, in elections, he brought his political power to parliament with thirty-eight percent of the vote. This was the best result of Communists in the history of Czechoslovakia. But by the summer of 1947 the popularity of this party began to fall rapidly, and many observers believed that Gottwald would lose his position. At this time, Italy and France began to drive out communists from coalition governments, and Joseph Stalin advised Gottwald to do everything to ensure that only one power remains in power. All this time the politician pretended to work in the government. In fact, he was plotting. The game was over in February 1948, when the Cabinet of Ministers ordered the Interior Minister Vaslav Nosek to stop accepting exclusively communists from power structures. He refused with the support of Gottwald. Then 12 government ministers resigned. Gottwald, under the threat of a general strike, took the Communists in their place. Benesh tried to resist, but surrendered under the threat of a Soviet invasion. From that moment, Clement Gottwald became the most influential man in Czechoslovakia.

The peak of power

On May 9, 1948, the National Assembly of the country adopted a new Constitution. It was so pro-communistic that Benesh refused to sign it. In June, he resigned, and a few days later Gottwald was elected president. Initially, the new leader of the country tried to pursue a quasi-independent policy, but after a meeting with Stalin changed the course dramatically. Clement Gottwald, whose photo was printed on the front pages of all the newspapers in Czechoslovakia, quickly nationalized the entire industry of the country and collectivized all agriculture. The government began serious resistance to such changes. Then Gottwald begins to carry out purges. First, he expels from the authorities and arrests all those who did not belong to the Communists, and then his fellow party members who disagreed with him. The victims of these purges were Rudolf Slansky and Foreign Minister Vlado Clementis (shot in 1952), as well as hundreds of other people who were executed or thrown in jails. Czech writer Milan Kundera in her "Book of laughter and oblivion" tells of one case, typical for such a Stalinist leader as politician Clement Gottwald. His photo of February 21, 1948 shows the president of the country standing next to Vlado Clementis. When, two years later, accusations of treason were brought against the latter, the image of the former minister was destroyed by state propaganda.

Death. Czechoslovakia after Gottwald

For several years, the politician suffered from heart disease. A couple of days after visiting the funeral of Stalin in 1953 he felt bad. He died on March 14, 1956, at the age of fifty-six. His embalmed body was exposed in the mausoleum, and the cult of his personality began in the country. But six years later he was cremated and reburied in a closed sarcophagus. It is said that the corpse began to decay, because scientists incorrectly calculated the composition of embalming. And after the end of the Communist era in the country, his ashes, together with the remains of twenty other party leaders, were reburied in a common grave in the Prague cemetery of Olshany. In the late eighties of the twentieth century there was an attempt to print his portrait on Czech banknotes, but this was perceived so negatively that all these bills were withdrawn from use.