The KSČ hardliner who signed the letter inviting Soviet intervention to end the Prague Spring
On the morning of 21 August 1968, Dubček was arrested 'in the name of the Workers' and Peasants' Government led by Comrade Indra.' But Indra's cabinet never materialized for a single day, and the invitation letter he signed would remain secret until the 1990s.
A neo-Stalinist politician of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. A core conservative during the 1968 Prague Spring, he was one of five who signed the 'invitation letter' urging the Warsaw Pact to intervene, and was designated head of a Soviet-backed 'workers' and peasants' government' immediately after the invasion. Under Husák he remained in the Presidium and chaired the Federal Assembly, driving the 'normalization' purges until expelled by the Velvet Revolution in 1989; he died the following year.
Career Timeline
- 1937Joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
- 1945–56Regional party secretary in Zlín (Gottwaldov)
- 1960–62Head of planning, KSČ Central Committee
- 1962–63Chairman, State Planning Commission
- 1963–68Minister of Transport of Czechoslovakia
- 1968.8Signed the invitation letter; designated head of 'workers' and peasants' government'
- 1968–71Secretary, KSČ Central Committee
- 1971–89KSČ Presidium member; Chairman, Federal Assembly