Klement Gottwald

Klement Gottwald
Klement Gottwald in June 1948
Chairman of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
In office 23 February 1929 – 14 March 1953 General Secretary 1929–1945
Preceded by	Bohumil Jílek (General Secretary)
Succeeded by	Antonín Novotný (First Secretary)
President of Czechoslovakia
In office 14 June 1948 – 14 March 1953
Prime Minister	Antonín Zápotocký
Preceded by	Edvard Beneš
Succeeded by	Antonín Zápotocký
Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia
In office 2 July 1946 – 15 June 1948
President	Edvard Beneš
Preceded by	Zdenek Fierlinger
Succeeded by	Antonín Zápotocký
Personal details
Born	(1896-11-23)23 November 1896 Vyškov District, Moravia, Austria-Hungary
Died	14 March 1953(1953-03-14) (aged 56) Prague, Czechoslovakia
Political party	KSČ
Spouse	Marta Holubová ​ (m. 1928)​
Children	Marta (1920–1998)
Profession	Cabinetmaker Newspaper editor
Signature

Klement Gottwald (Czech pronunciation: [ˈklɛmɛnt ˈɡotvalt]; 23 November 1896 – 14 March 1953) was a Czech communist politician, who was the leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1929 until his death in 1953 – titled as general secretary until 1945 and as chairman from 1945 to 1953. He was the first leader of Communist Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1953.^[1]

Following the collapse of democratic Czechoslovakia after the Munich Agreement, the right-wing leadership of the Czechoslovak Second Republic banned the Communist Party, forcing Gottwald to emigrate to the Soviet Union in November 1938. In 1943, Gottwald agreed with representatives of the Czechoslovak-government-in-exile located in London, along with President Edvard Beneš, to unify domestic and foreign anti-fascist resistance and form the National Front. He was the 14th prime minister of Czechoslovakia from July 1946 until June 1948, the first Communist to hold the post. In June 1948, he was elected as Czechoslovakia's first Communist president, four months after the 1948 coup d'état in which his party seized power with the backing of the Soviet Union. He held the post until his death.