Husák, Gustáv (1913-1991)

Czechoslovak politician, leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CCP) 1969-87 and president 1975-89. After the 1968 Prague Spring of liberalization, his task was to restore control, purge the CCP, and oversee the implementation of a new, federalist constitution. He was deposed in the popular uprising of November-December 1989 and expelled from the CCP in February 1990.

Husák, a lawyer, was active in the Resistance movement during World War II, and afterwards in the Slovak Communist Party (SCP), and was imprisoned on political grounds 1951-60. Rehabilitated, he was appointed first secretary of the SCP in 1968 and CCP leader 1969-87. As titular state president he pursued a policy of cautious reform. He stepped down as party leader in 1987, and was replaced as state president by Václav Havel in December 1989 following the ‘velvet revolution’.