Jozef Lenárt

Jozef Lenárt ( born April 3, 1923 in Liptovská Porúbka, Czechoslovakia; † 11 February 2004 in Prague ) was a Czechoslovak politician of the Communist Party (CCP).

Life

Lenart was in 1958 a member of the Executive Committee of the KSČ, where he remained until 1968. After working as a spokesman for the Slovak National Council from 1962 to 1963 he succeeded Viliam Široký as Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic ( Republika Československé Socialistická, CSSR ) on 20 September 1963. This office he held until the Prague Spring. Then on April 8, 1968, replacing his government Jozef Lenárt by the government Oldrich Černík I.

In August 1968, he was one of the proponents of the invasion of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring reform policies. In 1970 he was again a member of the Executive Committee of the KSČ and also First Secretary of the Slovak Communist Party. During the following years, so-called normalization period after the Prague Spring, Lenárt was one of the key figures of the Communist Party. After the collapse of the communist regime in 1989 he lost his position as member of the Executive Committee and was excluded from the KSČ. A year before he was replaced as First Secretary of the Slovak Communist Party.

In the following time was against him indicted for treason and accused him that he had tried to create the legal basis for the invasion of the Soviet army units. Although Lenárt was born in Slovak, he remained after the collapse of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and received Czech citizenship. In September 2002, he was acquitted by a court of the charge of treason.