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Ludvik_svoboda.jpg
Ludvík Svoboda (24 November 1895 - 20 September 1979) was a Czechoslovak national hero who fought in both World Wars and later the president of Czechoslovakia.
In World War I Svoboda deserted from the Austro-Hungarian army, while on the Eastern Front, and fought for the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia.
In the early 1930s he taught at a military academy. In World War II he initially went to Poland, forming a Czechoslovak military unit there, before going to the USSR, where he was head of the Czechoslovak Army Corps. He first fought the fascists in March 1943.
In WWII Czechoslovakia was liberated by the Red Army, and Svoboda was appointed Minister of Defence. The Soviet Union had great popularity, and in the elections of 1946 the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CCP) won 51% of the vote. On February 221948 the Communist dominated Trade Union Congress voted unanimously to overthrow the government and replace it with a Communist People's Republic. As armed workers and the People's Militia took to the streets, Svoboda refused to quell the insurrection with military force, saying "the army will not march against the people" and the takeover was completely bloodless. Svoboda then joined the Communist Party and was elected a deputy to the National Assembly. Svoboda was forced out of the army (in which he had reached the rank of General November 1945) in 1950 under pressure from Stalin. He was deputy Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak government in 1950 and 1951. In the purges which followed Svoboda was imprisoned, and released in the Khrushchev period, subsequently heading the Klement Gottwald Military Academy. In November 1965 Svoboda named a hero of the Soviet Union, and of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (being awarded the latter title again in 1970 and 1975).
After the ending of the Antonín Novotný regime, in the period known as the Prague Spring, Svoboda was elected President of Czechoslovakia on 30 March 1968, on the recommendation of Alexander Dubček, the First Secretary. Svoboda resisted the pressure applied by the Soviet regime under Leonid Brezhnev. He also secured the release of Dubček when the latter, and other members of the Czechoslovak government were abducted to the Soviet Union in August 1968.
Svoboda survived the removal of reformist Communists in Czechoslovakia, and retired in 1975 on grounds of ill health.
External links
- Ludvík Svoboda Site (http://www.ludviksvoboda.cz/)
| Preceded by: Jozef Lenárt (acting) | President of Czechoslovakia 1968–1975 | Succeeded by: Gustáv Husák |