The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) was a political party formed in May 1921. According to the Úřad vlády České republiky, its founding was attended, among others, by Klement Gottwald, then a supporter of the left wing of the Social Democrats.[1]
Party leadership from 1929
At the party's fifth congress in February 1929, a group around Klement Gottwald came to the leadership; after the seat of the party secretariat in Prague's Karlín it was called the "Karlín boys". Gottwald was elected general secretary of the party.[1][2] The Kancelář prezidenta republiky states that the party leadership followed, in relation to Czechoslovakia, the directives of the Communist International and of Soviet foreign policy.[2] On 21 December 1929 Gottwald declared in the Czechoslovak Chamber of Deputies: "And we are the party of the Czechoslovak proletariat, and our supreme staff is indeed Moscow."[2]
The 1930s and the war
At the seventh party congress in April 1936, Gottwald set out the programme of a popular front, which was meant to protect the republic against a Nazi attack. In September and October 1938 he was among the leading speakers against accepting the Munich Agreement.[1][2] During the Second World War the party's work at home and in exile was directed by its foreign leadership in Moscow, headed by Gottwald. According to the Úřad vlády České republiky, the Moscow centre of the Czechoslovak resistance abroad was a counterpart of the London centre and of the official state representation in exile.[1]
The post-war period
In December 1943 Gottwald led talks in Moscow with President Edvard Beneš on the future political arrangement, and at the end of March 1945 he defended the communist vision of post-war development in negotiations with representatives of other parties. He took part in preparing the Košice Government Programme.[1] From 1945 until his death he was chairman of the KSČ.[1] After the party's victory in the 1946 parliamentary elections he was appointed prime minister on 2 July 1946 and led two governments until 14 June 1948.[1]