Jan Šverma

Who was Jan Šverma?

Jan Šverma was a Czechoslovak political activist, considered a national hero during the communist regime.

He contributed to Rudé právo, the official publication of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and was its editor-in-chief from 1936 to 1938. From 1929 he was a member of the KSČ Central Committee and Politburo. Šverma spent time in exile in Moscow and Paris during the existence of the Nazi-backed Slovak State and became a close collaborator of Klement Gottwald, who would become the first Communist leader of Czechoslovakia.

Šverma assumed the political leadership of Czechoslovak military units formed in the Soviet Union during the Nazi invasion of the USSR. He died in the Slovak mountains while leading an insurrection of Slovak communists against the Slovak State.

A bridge at the Prague location of the former Franz Joseph Bridge was named after him in 1951.