Gottwald, Klement (1896-1953)

Czechoslovakian communist president. He criticized the Munich capitulation in 1938, and went into exile in Moscow, where he remained until 1945, meeting Edvard Beneš, the head of the Czechoslovakian government in exile, in 1943. Vice premier in the Czechoslovakian coalition government of 1945, he became premier after the elections in the following year. He used this position to complete the communist seizure of power in 1948, and in 1948 he succeeded Beneš as president.

He was born in Dedice, Moravia. In 1921 he joined the newly formed Czechoslovakian Communist Party. He soon became a prominent figure in and in 1930 was made general secretary of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party. His presidency was characterized by a subservience of Czech affairs to Soviet interests, and by the sensational ‘deviationist’ trials in which several of his former associates were executed. He died in Moscow.