The life story of the Czechoslovak politician GustavGuska is quite instructive. His rule became famous for the so-called “normalization”, that is, the liquidation of the consequences of the reforms of the Prague Spring. Gustav Husak was a Slovak by nationality and the son of an unemployed person. Life raised him to the pinnacle of power. He became the President of socialist Czechoslovakia, almost the permanent leader of the Communist Party of the country. As a reformer in his youth, he began to repress disgruntled in the sixties of the last century. He himself resigned when he realized that his time was over.
The future Czechoslovak politician was bornthe territory of Austria-Hungary, in Poshonihidegkute (now Dubravka), January 10, 1913. At the age of 16 he already became a member of the communist youth group. This happened while studying at the Bratislava gymnasium. And when he entered the law faculty of Comenius University, he already became a member of the Communist Party. There he quickly made a career, moving each time to a higher level. In 1938, the party was banned. When World War II broke out, Gustav Husak, on the one hand, often engaged in illegal communist activities, for which he was repeatedly arrested by representatives of the fascist government, Josef Tiso, and on the other, he was friends with the Slovak ultra-right leader Alexander Mach. Some sources claim that this is why he was released after several months of detention. In 1944, he became one of the leaders of the Slovak National Uprising against the Nazis and their government.
A young promising politician immediately begancareer statesman and party functionary. From 1946 to 1950, he actually played the role of prime minister, and thus, in 1948, participated in the liquidation of the Democratic Party of Slovakia, which won 62 percent of the vote in the forty-sixth year. But in 1950, he fell victim to the Stalinist purges and, during the reign of Clement Gottwald, was convicted of nationalist views and sentenced to life imprisonment, spent six years in Leopold Prison. Being a convinced communist, he considered such repressions against him a misunderstanding and constantly wrote tearful letters about this to the party leadership. Interestingly, the then leader of the KPCH, Alexander Novotny, refused to pardon him, telling his comrades that "you still do not know what he can do if he comes to power."
During the de-Stalinization, Gusak Gustav wasrehabilitated. His sentence was canceled and reinstated in the party. It happened in 1963. Since then, the politician has become a great opponent of Novotny and supported the Slovak reformer Alexander Dubcek. In 1968, during the Prague Spring, he became Czechoslovakia’s prime minister responsible for reform. When the Soviet Union expressed sharp discontent with the policy of the new leadership, Gusak Gustav was one of the first to call for caution. He became skeptical about the possibilities of the “Prague Spring”, and during the military intervention in Czechoslovakia of the Warsaw Pact countries became a participant in the negotiations between Dubcek and Brezhnev. Suddenly, Gusak headed that part of the members of the Communist Party of the Czechoslovak Communist Party who began to call for a "rollback" of reforms. In one of his then-speeches, he asked a rhetorical question about where Dubcek's supporters are going to look for friends who would help the country cope with the Soviet troops. Since then, Husak was called a pragmatic politician.
With the support of the USSR, the politician quickly replaced Dubcekas leader of the HRC. He not only turned back the reform process, but also expelled all liberal-minded people from the party. In 1975, Gusak Gustav was elected President of Czechoslovakia. For twenty years of his reign, the country remained one of the most loyal policies of the Soviet Union. In the first years of his tenure, Gusak tried to calm the angry people of the country, raising economic prosperity and avoiding mass and open repression. At the same time, human rights in Czechoslovakia were more limited than, for example, in Yugoslavia during the time of Broz Tito, and in the field of culture his policies can even be compared with what was in Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu. Under the slogans of stability, the country's secret services constantly arrested dissidents, such as members of the Charter-77, as well as trade union leaders who tried to organize strikes.
The older, the more conservative the Hero became.Soviet Union Gusak Gustav (he received this award in 1983). True, in the seventies of the twentieth century, he returned to the party of those who were expelled after the "Prague Spring", although they were obliged to publicly repent of "mistakes." In the 80s. in the Politburo, which he headed, the struggle began for whether to carry out reforms like the "Gorbachev's". For the Czechoslovak "perestroika" spoke out Prime Minister Lubomir Strougal. Gusak, however, remained neutral, but in April 1987 he proclaimed a program of reforms, which were to begin in 1991.
In 1988, the Czechoslovak Communists demandedfrom their leader to give power to the younger generation. Being a pragmatist, Gusak decided not to go too far, agreed and resigned, leaving the post of President of Czechoslovakia. He acted the same way during the velvet revolution of 1989. He simply ordered Marian Chalfi to manage the government of "national trust" and handed him power on 10 December of that year. This was the formal end of the regime he had created. In a desperate attempt to rehabilitate, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia expelled him from their ranks in 1990, but this did not help her in the elections. The dissident Vaclav Havel became the president of the country. Gusak adopted Catholicism and in 1991, almost forgotten by all, died.
Until now, historians argue about what moralThis politician is responsible for two decades of his rule in Czechoslovakia. Did he control the state apparatus, or was he a toy in the hands of events and other people? In the last years of his life, Gusak justified himself that he simply wanted to mitigate the inevitable consequences of the Soviet invasion of the country and tried to resist the “hawks” inside his party. In truth, he actually constantly sought the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia. Perhaps this influenced his policies, because he constantly tried to create the impression that everything was “normal.”
