People of the Revolution and the USSR

Party of Communists in Hungary (KMP) Communism 1877–1941 ○ Natural causes

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.

Czechoslovakia Communism 1884–1957 ○ Natural causes

Czechoslovak Communist who led the trade-union central council, became prime minister after February 1948 and president in 1953

He helped build the Communist Party and its unions, became premier after its 1948 takeover, and succeeded Gottwald as president in 1953, serving until his death in 1957.

A stonemason from Zákolany in Bohemia, he came from the Social Democrats to help found the Communist Party. Arrested under the German occupation, he was held in Pankrác prison and Dresden and from 1940 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Back home after liberation he became chairman of the Central Council of Trade Unions and a member of the Communist presidium, and briefly chaired the Constituent Assembly in 1946. He succeeded Gottwald as prime minister in June 1948 when Gottwald became president, and became president himself on Gottwald’s death in 1953. He favoured a more humane rule but was outflanked by Novotný.

Czechoslovakia Communism 1891–1976 ○ Natural causes

Pro-Soviet Social Democrat and first post-liberation premier who sided with the Communists in 1948 and merged his party into theirs

During the Communist coup of February 1948, he led the Social Democratic push for union with the Communists; the merger later that year brought his party into the one-party system.

A diplomat from Olomouc, he served as envoy to the Netherlands, Romania, the United States, Switzerland and Austria and, as the exile government’s ambassador in Moscow during the war, grew close to the Soviet Union. Prime minister of the Košice government from April 1945, he led the National Front government until June 1946. As Social Democratic leader he advocated close co-operation with the Communists, and when the non-Communist ministers resigned in February 1948 he stayed and openly backed the Communists. After the coup he merged the Social Democrats into the Communist Party and held high office under the regime.