People of the Revolution and the USSR

Czechoslovakia Communism 1902–1952 ✕ Executed

Slovak Communist who succeeded Jan Masaryk as foreign minister and was executed after the Slánský trial of 1952

As deputy foreign minister, he backed rejection of the Marshall Plan; after the 1948 coup he became foreign minister and organized Czechoslovak air support for Israel. Forced out and arrested in 1950, he was executed after the 1952 Slánský trial.

A lawyer from Tisovec in Slovakia, he was a left-wing intellectual who co-edited Dav, a cultural and political journal of great influence among interwar Slovak intellectuals. He sat as a Communist deputy. He became foreign minister after Jan Masaryk’s death in March 1948 and served until 1950. Accused of “Titoism” and “national deviation”, he was sentenced to death at the Slánský trial of 1952 and executed on 3 December; he was later rehabilitated.

Czechoslovakia Communism 1913–1991 ○ Natural causes

Czechoslovakia's longest-serving leader, who crushed the Prague Spring and built 'normalization'

On 10 December 1989, Husák swore in the first non-communist majority government in 41 years — and resigned the presidency hours later, personally witnessing the formal end of the regime he had built.

A Slovak communist lawyer, he served in the leadership of the 1944 Slovak National Uprising against the Nazis. After the war he consolidated communist rule in Slovakia, but was purged in 1950 for 'bourgeois nationalism' and imprisoned for a decade. Rehabilitated in 1963, he became vice-premier during Dubček's Prague Spring, then reversed after the Soviet invasion to lead the purge of reformers. As KSČ general secretary (1969–1987) and president (1975–1989), he presided over 'normalization': combining relative material stability with secret-police suppression of dissent. He resigned during the 1989 Velvet Revolution, handing power to the first non-communist government in 41 years.

Czechoslovakia Communism 1919–1990 ✕ Suicide

The deputy interior minister who arrested Dubček and handed him to the Soviets

At the 1987 May Day parade in Bratislava, a student threw two eggs at Šalgovič as he stood on the reviewing stand. He had to leave the platform and hand his soiled jacket to a bodyguard.

A Slovak security officer and politician in Czechoslovakia. During the war he deserted from the pro-Nazi Slovak army to the Soviets and served in the Czechoslovak corps; after the war he joined the StB and took part in political repression. In June 1968 Dubček, considering him a personal friend, appointed him deputy interior minister with oversight of the StB. Šalgovič instead coordinated with the KGB, drew up arrest lists for the reformers, and on 21 August handed Dubček and his colleagues to the Soviet occupiers. Under 'normalization' he was shunted to the ceremonial post of chairman of the Slovak National Council (1975–1989); after the Velvet Revolution he hanged himself in the basement of his home.