Klement Gottwald

In February 1929, the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) marked a decisive turning point in the party's history. Gottwald led a rising left-wing group (Josef Guttmann, Jan Šverma, Rudolf Slánský, Václav Kopecký, and Pavel Reiman, collectively known as the 'Karlín Boys') in ousting the existing leadership under Bohumil Jílek and was elected general secretary. The takeover implanted in the KSČ the Comintern's 'Bolshevization' line, launched after the Sixth Comintern Congress (1928), which designated social democracy as 'social fascism' and insisted on an ultra-left, independent revolutionary course for the working class. Gottwald famously silenced internal opposition by declaring that 'we go to Moscow to receive orders,' and over the following decade the KSČ was recast as one of the Comintern's most loyal sections in both leadership composition and policy. The Bolshevization drive tightened party discipline and forged a revolutionary identity, but critics note that it deepened fissures within the labour movement in the early 1930s, delaying the formation of a united front against Nazism. Nevertheless, through this congress Gottwald built the political foundation for 24 years of undisputed leadership over Czechoslovak communism, lasting until his death.

In February 1948, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), led by Gottwald, seized state power by combining mass mobilisation with pressure from the police and armed militia, all while maintaining the outer form of constitutional procedure. The trigger was Interior Minister Václav Nosek (KSČ)'s purge of non-communist officers from the police. On 20 February, twelve non-communist ministers resigned in protest. They calculated that President Edvard Beneš would refuse to accept their resignations, thereby embarrassing the communists; instead, Gottwald took to the streets. Armed workers' militias and 'Action Committees' were organised across Prague and other cities, and on 21 February, before a crowd of 100,000 in Old Town Square, Gottwald threatened a general strike unless Beneš appointed a communist-dominated government. Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Valerian Zorin arrived in Prague to help with final arrangements, and the Red Army stood at the border, though Gottwald judged that political pressure alone would suffice without military intervention. Fearing civil war and Soviet intervention, Beneš capitulated on 25 February, accepting the resignations and appointing a new cabinet from Gottwald's list. A new constitution adopted on 9 May declared Czechoslovakia a 'people's democratic state', and the 30 May elections, held with a single list of candidates, confirmed communist rule. Beneš resigned on 2 June, and on 14 June the National Assembly elected Gottwald president. The coup became a watershed of the Cold War, spurring the acceleration of the Marshall Plan and the creation of NATO.