Jozef Lenárt

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Jozef Lenárt
Jozef Lenárt

In office
20 September 1963 – 8 April 1968
Preceded by Viliam Široký
Succeeded by Oldřich Černík

In office
22 March 1968 – 30 March 1968
Preceded by Antonín Novotný
Succeeded by Ludvík Svoboda

Born April 3, 1923 (1923-04-03)
Liptovská Porúbka, Czechoslovakia
Died December 11, 2004 (aged 81)
Prague, Czech Republic

Jozef Lenárt (3 April 1923 in Liptovská Porúbka, Slovakia11 February 2004 in Prague) was a Slovak politician.

He graduated from a chemistry high school and worked for the Baťa company. He became a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) and of the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS).

Lenart was a member of the federal parliament (whose name changed several times) from 1960 to 1990, and was Speaker of the Slovak National Council 1962 - 1963. He was also a member from 1971 to (?)1990. He served as Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia between 1963 and 1968.

Although a Slovak, he became a Czech citizen after the country had split in 1993.

On the basis of insufficient evidence, on 23 September 2002 Lenárt was acquitted of treason charges (along with his co-defendant Miloš Jakeš), related to his handling (or lack thereof) of the Prague Spring events in 1968. He was accused of attending a meeting at the Soviet embassy in Prague on the day after the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion, planning to establish a new workers and farmers' government.

Jozef Lenárt was one of the most resilient figures in Czechoslovakia's communist hierarchy, occupying one post or another in the leadership for no less than a quarter of the century. That achievement was all the more remarkable because his career at the top straddled a succession of regimes and several abrupt changes in policy.

[edit] Major functions

  • 1950 – 1953, 1957 – 1966, and 1970 – (?)1990: Member of the KSS
  • 1956 – 1958: Leading Secretary of the Regional Committee of the KSS
  • 1958 – 1962: Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSS
  • 1958 – (?)1990: Member of the Central Committee of the KSČ
  • 1962 – 1963: Chairman of the Slovak National Council
  • 1963 – 1968: Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia
  • 1968 – 1970: Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSČ
  • 1970 – 1987: First Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSS
  • 1970 – (?)1990: Member of the Presidium of the KSČ
  • 1971 – (?)1990: Chairman of the Central Committee of the National Front of the Slovak Socialist Republic, and Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee of the National Front of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic

[edit] See also

Preceded by
Viliam Široký
Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia
1963–1968
Succeeded by
Oldrich Černík
Preceded by
Antonín Novotný
President of Czechoslovakia
(acting)

1968
Succeeded by
Ludvík Svoboda