Václav Nosek

Václav Nosek (26 September 1892 in Velká Dobrá – 22 July 1955 in Prague) was a Czechoslovak Communist politician who served as Minister of the Interior from 4 April 1945 to 14 September 1953.

Despite the fact that he never hid his Communist sympathies, he had spent World War II in exile in the United Kingdom, unlike most Czechoslovak Communists who were in the Soviet Union at the time. Czechoslovak non-Communist politicians considered him one of the "good" Communists.[1]

Nosek was a central figure in the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. When a majority of the cabinet voted to order Nosek to stop packing the police with Communists, Nosek ignored the order with the full backing of Prime Minister and Communist Party leader Klement Gottwald. On 21 February, 12 non-Communist ministers resigned in protest. President Edvard Beneš initially refused to accept their resignations, which would have normally forced Gottwald to either back down, resign or call new elections. By then, Gottwald had dropped all pretense of liberal democracy. He not only refused to resign, but demanded the appointment of a Communist-dominated government under threat of a general strike. Ultimately, Beneš gave in and appointed a Communist-dominated government, effectively giving legal sanction to a Communist coup.[2]

References
  1. Naimark, Norman (2018). The Establishment Of Communist Regimes In Eastern Europe, 1944-1949. Routledge. p. 252. ISBN 978-0-429-96513-5.
  2. Czechoslovak history at Encyclopædia Britannica
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.