Rudolf Slánský

Who was Rudolf Slánský?

Rudolf Slánský was a Czech Communist politician. Holding the post of the party's General Secretary after World War II, he was one of the leading creators and organizers of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. After the leader of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, broke away from the domination of the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin instigated a wave of "purges" of the respective Communist Party leaderships, to prevent more defections from among the Soviet Union's Central European "satellite" countries. In Czechoslovakia, Slánský was one of 14 leaders arrested in 1951 and put on show trial en masse in November 1952, charged with high treason. After eight days, 11 of the 14 were sentenced to death. Slánský's sentence was carried out five days later.