Lenart, Jozef

Lenárt, Jozef 

Born Apr. 3, 1923, in Liptovská Porubka. State and political figure of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The son of a worker.

From 1939 to 1945, Lenárt was first a worker and later a laboratory assistant in plants of the Bat’a-Svit firm in Slovakia. He took part in the Slovak national uprising of 1944. He joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC) in 1943. After the liberation of Czechoslovakia (May 1945) from the fascist German occupiers, he was secretary of the party organization of the Communist Party of Slovakia (CPS) at the Tatrasvit plant (in the city of Svit) up to 1946. In 1946–47 he was first secretary of the oblast committee of the CPS in the city of Poprad and then an official in the Central Committee of the CPS. In 1950 he was director of the August 29 Factory (in the city of Partizánske). From 1951 to 1953 he was deputy minister of light industry of Czechoslovakia. From 1953 to 1956 he studied at the Higher Party School under the Central Committee of the CPSU in Moscow. From 1956 to 1958 he was first secretary of the Bratislava oblast committee of the CPS. From 1958 to 1962 he was secretary and from 1960 to 1963 a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPS. From October 1962 through September 1963 he was chairman of the Slovak National Council. He was elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPC at the Eleventh (1958), Twelfth (1962), Thirteenth (1966), and Fourteenth (1971) Congresses of the CPC.

From December 1962 to March 1968 and from January 1970, Lenárt was a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPC; from April 1968 to April 1969 he was candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPC. From September 1963 to April 1968 he was prime minister of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. In April 1968 he became secretary of the Central Committee of the CPC. In February 1970 he became first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPS and a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPS; since March 1971 he has also served as chairman of the National Front of the Slovak Socialist Republic. From 1960 to 1968 he was a deputy to the National Assembly and, from January 1969, a deputy to the Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia.