Antonín Janoušek
Antonín Janoušek
Czech journalist who chaired the Revolutionary Governing Council of the Slovak Soviet Republic in 1919
Born in Nymburk, he was originally an engine fitter; he joined the Social Democratic Party in 1895 and from 1906 was a workers’ journalist and an official of workers’ associations. Living in Budapest from 1918 as a correspondent of the Kladno paper Svoboda, he led the Czech and Slovak section of the Hungarian Communist Party’s central committee in 1919. After the Hungarian Red Army entered Slovakia he proclaimed the Slovak Soviet Republic in Prešov and became chairman of its Revolutionary Governing Council, but the state ceased to exist on 7 July when Czechoslovak troops pushed the Hungarians out. Imprisoned in Hungary after the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, he was handed over to the Czechoslovak authorities in 1920. Granted Soviet citizenship, he moved to Soviet Russia in 1922 and worked for International Workers’ Aid. He died of natural causes in 1941.
Career timeline
- 1895Joined the Social Democratic Party
- 1906Workers’ journalist and official of workers’ associations
- 1919Head of the Czech and Slovak section of the Hungarian Communist central committee
- 1919Chairman of the Revolutionary Governing Council of the Slovak Soviet Republic
- 1922–1941Moved to the Soviet Union; International Workers’ Aid