Novotný, Antonín

▪ president of Czechoslovakia

born Dec. 10, 1904, Letňany, near Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now in Czech Republic]

died Jan. 28, 1975, Prague

      Czech communist leader of a Stalinist faction who was deposed in the reform movement of 1968.

      Trained as a locksmith, Novotný became a member of the Communist Party in 1921. He was arrested during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and placed in Mauthasen concentration camp (1941–45). In 1946 he was elected to the party's Central Committee, and in February 1948 he took a leading role in the Stalinist communist takeover of the Czech government. He was admitted to the Politburo in 1951 and became first secretary of the Communist Party in 1953. After the death of Antonín Zápotocký (Nov. 13, 1957), he assumed the presidency and in 1964 was reelected to a five-year term.

      Continuing his close cooperation with Moscow, Novotný had to face increasing criticism from the party's more nationalistic and less dogmatic reform factions. In January 1968 he was forced to resign the party leadership to Alexander Dubček (Dubček, Alexander), and in late March General Ludvík Svoboda replaced him as president. His party offices and membership were withdrawn later in the year. At the party congress of May 1971, with the Stalinists back in power, a compromise was worked out whereby Novotný was reinstated in the party in exchange for leniency toward the ousted Dubček.

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