Josef Smrkovský

Josef Smrkovský (26 February 1911 – 15 January 1974) was a Czech politician and a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia reform wing during the 1968 Prague Spring.

Early life Josef Smrkovský was born into a farmer's family in Velenka, in the Kingdom of Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic). As an adult, he began working as a baker and soon became a secretary of the Red Trade Union (1930–1932) and was involved in the communist movement. He joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) in 1933 and went to study at a political school in the Soviet Union. When he returned, Smrkovský began to work as a secretary of the KSČ regional committee in Brno (1937–1938).

World War II During World War II, Smrkovský worked for the illegal communist resistance to Nazi occupation and eventually became a member of the central committee. In May 1945, as a member of the Czech National Council, he negotiated an agreement for the Nazi units in Prague to surrender. He is notorious (and often quoted) for preventing the US Army from liberating Prague via Plzeň – a claim he himself made publicly in the 1960s. Smrkovský was designated as chairman of the National Assembly in April 1968, and as a talented speaker became (together with Dubček) one of the most popular politicians of the era. He was in favour of democratic reforms, but remained a believer in the communist ideology, and continued to support the constitutionally guaranteed leading role of the communist party in the state.

Soviet occupation A plaque bearing the name Josef Smrkovský – on the building at Wenceslas Square, No. 52. "If someone thinks we are manoeuvred by the Soviets, they are badly off base," said Smrkovský in the summer of 1968. suspended from KSČ, He died in 1974, and was buried under police control. The obituary letter sent by Dubček to Smrkovský's relatives was published in Italian daily Giorni – Vie Nuove and reprinted in Le Monde, or New York Herald Tribune.