Klement Gottwald

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(b. Dedice, Moravia, 23 Nov. 1896; d. Moscow, 14 Mar. 1953) Czech; Leader of the Czechoslovak Communist Party 1929 – 53, Czechoslovak President 1948 – 53 From a peasant family, Gottwald served in the Austro-Hungarian army on the Eastern Front during the First World War. In 1921 he was a founder member of the Czechoslovak Communist Party; he became its general secretary in 1929 with Stalin's backing and made the party subservient to Moscow. He also worked for the Comintern in Czechoslovakia. Though organizationally strong and polling up to 10 per cent of the vote in inter-war Czechoslovakia, the Communists were not effective in parliament. After the Munich Agreement of 1938, he fled to Moscow. In December 1943 he had discussions with the Czechoslovak Beneš, who was visiting Moscow. He returned to Prague at the same time as Beneš in 1945, and became Deputy Prime Minister in the provisional government. In May 1946 he became head of a coalition government following elections in which the Communists won 38 per cent of the vote, becoming the largest party in Czechoslovakia. He annoyed Stalin by agreeing to accept Marshall Aid in June 1947 and withdrew his decision. By February 1948 the Communists had no chance of winning fair elections. Gottwald launched a coup, using the workers' militia and the Communist-dominated police.

In June 1948 Gottwald succeeded Beneš as President. He commenced the Stalinization of society and economy in 1949. In 1950 Gottwald carried out a purge of the followers of his Minister of the Interior, Rudolf Slánský at Soviet instigation. This served both to protect Stalin's perceived security needs and to bolster Gottwald's domestic position. Slánský was executed after a show-trial in 1952. In March 1953 Gottwald caught pneumonia in Moscow attending Stalin's funeral, and died.

Klement Gottwald (1896-1953) was one of the founders of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. He masterminded the coup d'état by which the Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia in February 1948 and served as the country's first Communist president from June 1948 until his death in 1953.

Gottwald was born on November 23, 1896, the son of a small farmer in the village of Dedice in Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the age of 12 he was sent to Vienna to become an apprentice to a woodworker. Four years later he joined the Social Democratic (Marxist) youth movement. When World War I broke out he was drafted into the imperial army. As an artilleryman he saw action on both the Russian and Italian fronts, was wounded, and rose to the rank of sergeant major. Before the war ended, however, he deserted (as did many Czechs) and organized sabotage activities against the Austro-Hungarian forces.

In the new state of Czechoslovakia after 1918 Gottwald was a member of the left wing of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party, leaving with it to form the new Czechoslovak Communist Party in 1921. Thereafter, he gained prominence as a Communist speaker, writer, and general organizer. He became editor of the party's Czech (Pravda) and Slovak (Hlas ludu) publications, was elected to its executive committee in 1925, and in 1927, at the age of 31, was elected its secretary general. In 1935 he led a group of 30 elected Communist deputies to the Czechoslovak parliament, promising in his inaugural speech to "break the necks" of his bourgeois political opponents.

After Hitler came to power in Germany Gottwald was among those who warned of the fascist threat to Czechoslovakia and demanded that the country prepare a strong military defense against it. After the infamous Munich Pact of September 1938 had crippled Czechoslovakia, Gottwald, who had vehemently opposed compliance with it, was sent by his party to safety in the Soviet Union. He remained there throughout World War II, organizing underground resistance and making propaganda broadcasts to the Czech and Slovak lands. In 1943 Eduard Beneš, the Czechoslovak president-in-exile, came to Moscow, and Gottwald worked out with him a new compromise political-economic structure for the freed and reunited country after the war. This program was put into effect in April 1945 at Košice in Slovakia, the first Czechoslovak city to be liberated.

On his return home, Gottwald became a vice-premier in the National Front, a provisional government composed of a coalition of parties that administered Czechoslovakia in the immediately postwar period. In the spring of 1946 he was also elected chairman of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (his best friend, Rudolf Slánský, assumed the more workaday executive position of secretary general). In the national elections of June 1946 the Communists - drawing upon enormous popular goodwill for the liberating Soviet Army and much resentment of the perfidious behavior of the Western powers at Munich-received 38 percent of the votes cast, becoming the largest single party in the Czechoslovak parliament. On July 3, 1946, Gottwald became prime minister, heading a cabinet of Communist and non-Communist representatives. He was viewed at home and abroad as a "moderate" Communist who would respect the established Czechoslovak traditions of democracy and pluralism, and his early actions seemed reassuring. The new constitution guaranteed free elections; a free press; freedom of religion and assembly; the right to work and receive disability compensation, to education, and to recreation; equal rights for women; and an independent judiciary. Financial institutions, mines and other natural resources, and basic industries were to be socialized, but private property and private enterprises of moderate size were protected. There were some worrisome moments, to be sure. In 1947 Gottwald's government first accepted, then - at Soviet insistence - rejected an invitation to take part in deliberations on the U.S.'s Marshall Plan, asserting that Czechoslovakia's ties were totally and irrevocably with the Soviet Union. At the same time, a "millionaire's tax" on more affluent citizens was levied to help support the peasantry, which had suffered severe crop losses.

Covertly, Gottwald and his party were executing a detailed, progressive plan for a Communist seizure of power, aware that waning popular support for them meant a coming defeat at the polls. This plan was publicly exposed in February 1948 when the non-Communist ministers of the government charged the Communists with planning assassinations, dismissing non-Communist police chiefs, and other illegal actions. A majority of the cabinet resigned in an effort to topple Gottwald's government. In response, Gottwald mobilized his party and its followers in a show of force. "Action Committees" seized control of local governmental bodies, factories, schools, and large popular organizations. The army and police arrested alleged "conspirators." Factory workers paraded with arms through the streets and threatened a general strike. On February 25 President Beneš yielded to Gottwald's demand that he be permitted to form a new government of Communists and sympathizers. Three months later, in May, Beneš resigned, and Gottwald replaced him as president a few days later, in June. A new constitution of April 1948 sanctioned a one-party (Communist) dictatorship and completed the nationalization and collectivization process.

Gottwald was still seen by many as a leader who would avoid the excesses of other new Communist regimes. However, the "Soviet viceroy" promptly set about in dogmatic Marxist fashion to reshape the Czechoslovak "people's democracy" into a one-party workers' state, totally reoriented toward the Soviet Union (following the slogan "With the Soviet Union Forever"), Sovietized in its institutions, and heavily Russianized in its culture.

When the Soviet dictator Stalin ordered all of the new "satellites" to purge themselves of "national Communists" and "potential Titoists," Gottwald dutifully sent more than a dozen of his oldest Czech and Slovak Communist comrades (including Slánský) to death or life imprisonment. Although himself unwell, Gottwald attended Stalin's funeral in Moscow on March 9, 1953, occupying the most prominent place of all the satellite leaders on the tribune. While there he contracted pneumonia. On March 14, 1953, nine days after the death of Stalin, Gottwald himself was dead in Prague.

Further Reading

There is no biography of Klement Gottwald in English, but there are some good books on the historical background of his life and career. A History of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1918-1948, edited by Victor S. Mamatey and Radomír Luža (1973), provides a detailed account by many authors of Czech and Slovak history from the founding of Czechoslovakia to the Communist coup. There are also two authoritative treatments of the rise of Communism in Czechoslovakia from the foundation of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in 1921 to its triumph in 1948: Joseph Korbel, The Communist Subversion of Czechoslovakia, 1938-1948: The Failure of Coexistence (1959) and Paul E. Zinner, Communist Strategy and Tactics in Czechoslovakia, 1918-1948 (1963).

Klement Gottwald
President of Czechoslovakia
In office 14 June, 1948 – 14 March, 1953
Preceded by	Edvard Beneš
Succeeded by	Antonín Zápotocký
Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia
In office 2 July 1946 – 15 June 1948
Preceded by	Zdenek Fierlinger
Succeeded by	Antonín Zápotocký
Born	23 November 1896(1896-11-23) Dědice (Vyškov), Austria Hungary
Died	14 March 1953 (aged 56) Prague, Czechoslovakia
Political party	Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
Spouse(s)	Marta Gottwaldová

Klement Gottwald (23 November 1896, Dědice (Vyškov), South Moravia, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic) - 14 March 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.

Biography

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 Vice Premier, 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.

In May 1946 Klement Gottwald, leader of the communist party, managed to win the elections with an astonishing success: 38% of the votes. This has been the widest electoral success of the communist party ever recorded in a free election.^[1]

On 9 May, 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 7 June, 1948 (he died three months later). On June 14, the National Assembly elected Klement Gottwald as the new President of Czechoslovakia.

Klement Gottwald on a 100 Kčs banknote released right before the Velvet Revolution in 1989

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. ^{[2] [3]}

Gottwald died in 1953, just five days after attending Stalin's funeral in Moscow on 9th of March, due to a burst artery brought about by prolonged heart disease, 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. However in 1962 due to a botched embalming, the body had blackened and was decomposing. It was then removed and cremated. He was succeeded by Antonín Zápotocký, the Premier of Czechoslovakia from 1948 - 1953.

Zlín, a city in Moravia, now Czech Republic, was renamed Gottwaldov after him during 1949–1990.

Zmiiv, a city in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, was named Gotvald after him during 1976–1990.

Námestie Slobody (Freedom square) in Bratislava, Slovakia was formerly named Gottwaldovo námestie after him.

In 2005 he was voted the Worst Czech in a ČT poll (a programme under the BBC licence 100 Greatest Britons). He received 26% of votes. ^[4]

Political offices
Preceded by Zdeněk Fierlinger	Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia 1946 – 1948	Succeeded by Antonín Zápotocký
Preceded by Edvard Beneš	President of Czechoslovakia 1948 – 1953
Party political offices
Preceded by Bohumil Jílek	General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia 1929 – 1945	Succeeded by Rudolf Slánský
Preceded by None	Chairman of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia 1945 – 1953	Succeeded by Antonín Novotny as First Secretary

v • d • e First Secretaries of the Central Committee of the KSČ Klement Gottwald · Antonín Novotný · Alexander Dubček · Gustáv Husák · Milouš Jakeš · Karel Urbánek

v • d • e Presidents of Czechoslovakia Tomáš G. Masaryk  · Edvard Beneš  · Emil Hácha  · Klement Gottwald  · Antonín Zápotocký  · Antonín Novotný  · Ludvík Svoboda · Gustáv Husák  · Václav Havel

v • d • e Prime Ministers of Czechoslovakia 1918-1939 Karel Kramář · Vlastimil Tusar · Jan Černý  · Edvard Beneš · Antonín Švehla  · František Udržal · Jan Malypetr · Milan Hodža · Jan Syrový  · Rudolf Beran 1939-1945 Protectorate: Rudolf Beran  · Alois Eliáš  · Jaroslav Krejčí  · Richard Bienert Government in exile: Jan Šrámek · Zdeněk Fierlinger 1945-1992 Zdeněk Fierlinger · Klement Gottwald  · Antonín Zápotocký · Viliam Široký · Jozef Lenárt · Oldřich Černík · Lubomír Štrougal · Ladislav Adamec · Marián Čalfa  · Jan Stráský

See also

• History of Czechoslovakia
• Order of Klement Gottwald
• Photo manipulation

References

1. ^ Jean-Baptiste Duroselle: Histoire Diplomatique de 1919 à nos jours, pt.3, ch.2, par.5, pag 256. Dalloz 1993, Paris.
2. ^ [1] Photograph of Gottwald and Clementis from 21st of February 1948, Prague, Czechoslovakia, Czech News Agency, ctk.cz .
3. ^ [2] Retouched photograph of Gottwald and Clementis from 21st of February 1948, Prague, Czechoslovakia, Czech News Agency, ctk.cz .
4. ^ 10 Worst Czechs, in Czech

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