If you like your Stalinism pure and straight, then you would have loved Novotny. He joined the Communists in the 1920's. The Nazis imprisoned him for four years but he survived by becoming a Capo in the concentration camp.
After the Commies seized Czenchoslovakia and Gottwald died, Novotny took over eventually in the mid-1950's. He was the most reliable Soviet stooge behind the Iron Curtain. Dubcek overthrew him in the Prague Spring in 1968, but when the Commies regained power under Husak, Novotny was kept in the background much as you might hide your crazy uncle.
