Like many Czechoslovakian leaders in the totalitarian communist era, the former head of government escaped all attempts to hold him responsible for the crimes of the regime.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
Lubomir Strougal, former Prime Minister of Communist Czechoslovakia from 1970 to 1988, died at the age of 98, announced the Seznam Zpravy Czech information site on Monday.
Strougal became a member of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party at the age of 34, in 1958, and remained there until the fall of the regime during the 1989 velvet revolution. He held the posts of of agriculture, in 1959, then of Minister of the Interior, two years later.
Adept of the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev
Strougal condemned the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, which crushed the short period of relative freedom, known as “Printemps de Prague”, but was not long in changing camps and became first Minister, despite reservations of the Soviet leader of the time, Leonid Brejnev.
Adept of Mikhail Gorbachev reforms in the 1980s, Strougal was surprised that an anti-reform wing prevailed in the Communist Party and resigned in 1988. He was replaced by Ladislav Adamec, the last head of the Communist government of the Communist government of Country.
Like many Czechoslovak leaders in the totalitarian communist era, Strougal escaped all attempts to keep him responsible for the regime’s crimes. Czechoslovakia has split peacefully in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.