The purge victim who returned to become the Prague Spring's most eloquent reformer
After signing the Moscow Protocol, Smrkovský alone addressed the nation while his colleagues fell silent. Brezhnev singled out his speech as unacceptable.
A Czechoslovak reform communist and Dubček's most important political ally during the Prague Spring. As vice-chairman of the Czech National Council, he led the Prague uprising of May 1945; in February 1948 he commanded the People's Militias to secure the communist takeover. Arrested in 1951 and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Slánský trials, he was released in 1955, fully rehabilitated in 1963, and became chairman of the National Assembly in April 1968, where his oratory made him, alongside Dubček, the most popular politician of the reform era. Deported to Moscow after the August invasion and forced to sign the Moscow Protocol, he was purged by Husák, expelled from the party in 1970, and died under police surveillance in 1974.
Activities and affiliations
- Political and party leadership · Czechoslovakia
Career Timeline
- 1933Joined KSČ; youth secretary of Red Trade Unions
- 1944–45Illegal CC member; led Prague uprising as vice-chairman of Czech National Council
- 1946–48National Assembly deputy; helped execute February coup as deputy militia commander
- 1951–55Arrested in Slánský affair, life sentence → released 1955
- 1955–63Chairman of JZD Pavlovice agricultural cooperative
- 1963–67Rehabilitated; CC member → Minister of Forestry and Water
- 1968.4–1969.1Chairman of National Assembly; Dubček's key reform ally
- 1968.8–1970Deported to Moscow, signed Protocol → purged and expelled by Husák
Related historical events
Political fall, death and the fate of his remains
After the August 1968 invasion Smrkovský never reconciled himself to the occupation and tried to limit the pressure of the conservative wing led by Husák. He retained public support, but that did not shield him from political liquidation. In January 1969 he was elected a deputy and vice-chairman of the Federal Assembly, but only as chairman of the House of the People; in the autumn of that year he was definitively stripped of all political functions. He was wiretapped by the State Security (StB), expelled from associations and unions, and militarily demoted. A hostile campaign ran in the normalization press, and in March 1970 he was expelled from the Communist Party.
His health collapsed at the same time. In August 1969 severe pain appeared in his left hip, at first attributed to the after-effects of interrogations in the 1950s, but radiological examination revealed a malignant tumour in the left hip joint. From the spring of 1970 he was treated at Professor Jaroš's Prague clinic, yet his condition kept deteriorating, and by 1973 he was mostly alternating between home and hospital. He died on Tuesday, 15 January 1974, before reaching the age of sixty-three.
The public was not supposed to learn officially of his death. František Kriegel's funeral speech was banned, but some 1,500 people came to honour his memory. The urn with his remains was subsequently stolen and found on a train at České Velenice. The family was not permitted to bury the urn in Prague; that did not happen until 1990, when his remains were laid to rest at the Olšany Cemetery in Prague.