Jaromír Dolanský

Jaromír Dolanský

Jaromír Dolanský (born February 25, 1895 in Karlín (Prague) , † July 16, 1973 in Prague ) was a Czechoslovak lawyer, economist, politician of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC), member of the National Assembly and a minister in some governments. He was a long-time member of the Central Committee and the Politburo of the Communist Party of China and participated both in the preparation of the currency reform of 1953 and in the decisions of the political show trials of the 1950s.

Life, political career

From 1913 to 1915 and from 1918 to 1921 Dolanský studied at the Law Faculty of Charles University in Prague, in between he spent a few years on the Russian Eastern Front . He joined the KPTsch in 1922. He joined the radical, Moscow and Comintern-oriented group around Klement Gottwald, which later went down in history under the surname Buben von Karlín ("karlínští kluci"). At the 5th party congress of the CPC in February 1929, these young functionaries took over power in the CPC. After 1924 he headed the theoretical party magazine Komunistická revue , from around 1938 he was in the leadership of the party. Dolanský was involved in the trade union movement and was secretary of the radical organization Rudé odbory (Red Trade Unions) from 1930 to 1935 , from 1935 he was a member of the National Assembly. In 1939 he was arrested while trying to flee the occupied country and interned first in the Pankrác prison in Prague, briefly in Dresden and then in Sachsenhausen concentration camp for five years until the end of the war .

After the end of the war, Dolanský continued his career. From August 2, 1945, he returned to the Central Committee of the CPC and on September 4, 1945 he was elected to the Central Committee Presidium. He remained in these high management positions for many years. In the Presidium of the Central Committee he worked until June 15, 1954, from September 1951 to June 1954 he also took part in the meetings of the political secretariat of the Central Committee, then until December 8, 1962 he was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPC and thereafter until April 4, 1968 again in the Presidium of the Central Committee. In February 1969 he voluntarily terminated his membership in the party's Central Committee. Dolanský was also a member of various national assemblies from 1945 to 1971, most recently in the Federal National Assembly of the Czechoslovakia.

Immediately after the end of the war, Jaromír Dolanský began his career as a minister in several governments:

• 1946 Minister of Finance in the Klement Gottwald I government (July 2, 1946 - February 25, 1948) and the Klement Gottwald II government (February 25, 1948 - June 15, 1948 )
• Finance Minister (June 15, 1948 - April 5, 1949) in the Antonín Zápotocký government , then Deputy Prime Minister until March 21, 1953 (after Jaroslav Kabeš replaced him as Minister of Finance)
• Deputy Prime Minister in the Viliam Široký I government (March 21, 1953 - December 12, 1954), first Deputy Prime Minister from September 14, 1953
• Deputy Prime Minister in the government of Viliam Široký II (December 12, 1954 - July 11, 1960) and Viliam Široký III (July 11, 1960 - September 20, 1963)

Jaromír Dolanský participated, together with Jaroslav Kabeš, in the preparation of the currency reform of 1953, which destroyed the savings of the population and led to a decline in the standard of living.

Dolanský's long work in the party and in the governments is not easy to assess. On the one hand he was involved in the decisions of the political show trials of the 1950s (although not decisive), on the other hand he voted in December 1967 for the removal of the general secretary of the CPC Antonín Novotný . After 1968 he resigned from most posts himself. He was not criticized either during the Prague Spring or the normalization period .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Václav Drchal: Malý vítězný únor. Na pátém sjezdu komunistů Gottwald stranu "zbolševizoval" , Euro.cz portal, published under the patronage of Mladá fronta , March 10, 2019, online at: euro.cz / ...
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Jaromír Dolanský , curriculum vitae of the Institute Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů (IOnstitute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes), online at: old.ustrcr.cz / ...
3. ↑ Životopisy ministrů 1918 - 2004 (part 5), in: Author collective: Historie Ministerstva financí 1918 - 2004 , compilation of the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic, online at: mfcr.cz / ...
4. ↑ Měnová reforma , report by the station Česká televize / ČT24 from June 16, 2008, online at: ceskatelevize.cz ...