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Antonín Novotný
(1904-1975)
Communist politician, Czechoslovak president
Antonín Novotný was born on December 10, 1904 in Letňany, Prague, his father was a mason. After the First World War, he trained as a mechanical locksmith and in the years 1918-35 he worked in several companies. In 1910 he married Božena Fridrichová, a worker at the Julius Meinl plant in Vysočany.
In 1921 he joined the newly founded Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in which he then held various party functions within the Prague party organization. In 1935 he was sent by the Communist Party to the Congress of the Comintern in Moscow. In the years 1937-38, as a representative of the Communist Party of the Communist Party in Hodonín, he became the first paid communist apparatus. After the party was banned, he returned to his original job as a worker at the Včela plant in Prague-Vysočany, and at the same time participated in the illegal work of the Communist Party. He was later arrested by the Nazis and imprisoned in the Mathausen concentration camp in 1941-45.
After the end of the Second World War, Novotný rejoined the Communist Party's party apparatus. a significant share in the February coup in 1948 and the subsequent strengthening of the Communist Party. At the beginning of the 50's, the purges inside the party and the break-up of the "conspiracy center Rudolf Slánský", executed in 1952 on the orders of Klement Gottwald, his rapid journey to the top of power begins - in September 1951 he was elected to the newly created organizational secretariat and in December of the same year he became a member of the political secretariat and presidency of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
In September 1953, his power was further strengthened when he was elected the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. In 1957, after death, Novotny managed to obtain Antonín Zápotocký thanks to the recommendation of the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's presidential office (he was originally to be elected president Viliam Široký), thus combining the highest party function with the highest state office. His cult had to be cultivated in the country.
In 1960, he signed a new "socialist" constitution approved by the Prague Parliament, according to which the country had achieved socialism and was to begin preparing for the transition to a classless communist society. Article 4 of this constitution enshrines the leading role of the Communist Party in society in the state and Marxism-Leninism as a state ideology. The Constitution abolished the Slovak Board of Commissioners, thus achieving the highest possible restriction of the Slovak authorities.
Novotný made no secret of his bad relationship with the Slovaks, for example by saying that he did not consider Bratislava to be the capital of Slovakia and by an insensitive attitude towards officials from Slovakia (who eventually contributed to Novotný's fall by strongly supporting his removal). During his visits to Slovakia, he felt insecure and was afraid that someone would poison him or assassinate him. In September 1967, when he came to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the grammar school in Martin, he changed his program and place of residence several times, and during his visit to Matica slovenská, he scolded its employees for being nationalists and left.
After signing the constitution, Novotný gave amnesty to many prisoners in labor camps and people convicted in political trials in the mid-1950s, including the later president Gustav Husak.
In the mid-1960s, a reformist movement emerged within the Communist Party, consisting mostly of a young generation of party members, demanding so-called socialism with a human face. The leader of this movement is Alexander Dubček, who eventually replaced Novotný as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and thus became the first Slovak in the highest position in the side.
The new leadership has created room for change and launched a reform agenda, gaining people's trust.In March 1968, a major campaign was launched to remove the last Stalinist President Novotny. Under pressure from the public and the current reform, he finally resigned at the end of March, with the Prime Minister taking over the presidency Jozef Lenárt until parliament elected a new president - Ludvík Svoboda. In May 1968, Novotný was even removed from all party and executive positions and suspended from the Communist Party. However, they returned it to him after the arrival of the Soviet occupiers in 1971 by a secret resolution of the Communist Party, but he can no longer return to politics.
Antonín Novotný, the president who got his party into a revival process - the so-called Prague Spring, died on January 28, 1975.
Almost no one came to his funeral at the Na Malvazinkách cemetery in Malvazinky, which was under the supervision of the secret service. There is no inscription on Novotný's tombstone.
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