Word: gottwald
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Conspicuous among the grim, worried satellite leaders who journeyed to Moscow for Stalin's funeral was Klement Gottwald, 56, President of Czechoslovakia, chairman and secretary general of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Of all Western Communists, Gottwald stood closest to new Soviet Boss Malenkov during the funeral ceremonies; only Chou En-lai of Red China stood closer. Although, in Moscow's view, Gottwald was merely a tried and trusty puppet, to the Czechs he was an absolute boss and tyrant. He had in his hands the government, the party, the army, the police. Four months ago he had hanged...
Atop Lenin's tomb in Moscow, Gottwald had stood for 90 minutes in an icy wind and 12° cold. He had been in uncertain health for years, and he was a heavy guzzler who often showed up tipsy at official functions. When he returned to Prague, he looked well enough as he briskly reviewed an honor guard at the airport. But the next day he was ill. A clutch of doctors, including two Russians, called to his bedside in Hradcany Castle (medieval seat of the Bohemian kings), diagnosed his trouble as pneumonia and pleurisy...
...people of Czechoslovakia (and the world) were alerted in a series of meticulously detailed bulletins, interspersed with solemn music-a pattern in close imitation of Moscow's handling of Stalin's death. At last came the death bulletin, with assurances that, "to save the life of Klement Gottwald, all was done that could be done by human power," and that "Comrade Gottwald fought for his life almost until the last moment while fully conscious," and with a warning: "There must be no weakness or panic in our ranks. Let us rally even closer around the Central Committee...
Black Mark Erased. Gottwald was an earthy, peasant type who liked his pipe and bawdy jokes as well as the bottle. Beneath this exterior, he concealed a vast store of political savvy and cunning. The son of a poor farmer, he was born in Dedice, Moravia, became a carpenter's apprentice, was drafted into Austria's World War I army, was wounded on the Russian front, and subsequently deserted. In 1920 he switched from the Socialists to the Communists, by 1926 was chairman of the party, and a member of Parliament three years later. In 1939 he fled...
...left, in a position of singular honor, strode not a Russian but a foreigner-Premier Chou En-lai of Red China, representing Mao. Flanking them walked the rest of Moscow's hierarchy, and behind them the diplomats and the plenipotentiaries of the satellites-Czechoslovakia's Gottwald, Hungary's Rakosi, Poland's Bierut and others. The procession halted and the pallbearers, headed by Malenkov, gently moved the coffin from the carriage. Silently the new leaders of Russia climbed the 40 marble steps to the top of Lenin's tomb, where Joseph Stalin had stood innumerable times...