V o L u m e I : a d

After the war, Husák returned to Czechoslovakia and

joined the Central Committees of the CPCz and the SCP

while heading the Slovak regional government. He was

also instrumental in the communist seizure of power in

Czechoslovakia. In 1951, Stalinist purges removed him

from his positions. In 1954 Husák was arrested on charges

of treason and bourgeois nationalism and was sentenced to

life imprisonment. The government pardoned him in 1960,

and his SCP and CPCz memberships were fully restored

in 1963.

During the 1968 Prague Spring, Husák became deputy

prime minister and head of the SCP, supporting the

reforms of Alexander Dubchek. Husák worked to federalize

the country and urged caution with the reforms in regard

to the Soviet Union. He suddenly turned against the re-

forms when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August

1968, and he then participated in negotiations with Soviet

leaders. Duly impressed, the Soviets installed Husák as

first secretary of the CPCz in April 1969, replacing Dubchek.

Husák then pursued a policy of so-called normalization by

sweeping away most of the Dubchek reforms, purging the

CPCz and SCP, and increasing political and social repression

throughout Czechoslovakia. He became general secretary

of the CPCz in 1971 and president of Czechoslovakia in

1975.

After Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev came to power

in 1985, criticism of Husák’s regime increased. In part be-

cause of a declining economy, Husák resigned as general

secretary in December 1987 but remained president. The

Velvet Revolution in November 1989 witnessed the collapse of communism

in Eastern Europe, and when a new Czechoslovak government, the majority

of which was noncommunist, was sworn in, Husák resigned the presidency

on 10 December 1989. He was replaced by Václav Havel. Husák retired from

politics and returned to his hometown. In February 1990 the CPCz expelled

him. Husák died in Dúbravka on 18 November 1991.

Gregory C. Ference

See also

Charter 77; Czechoslovakia; Dubchek, Alexander; Gorbachev, Mikhail; Havel, Václav;

Jakesh, Milosh; Prague Spring

References

Husák, Gustáv. Speeches and Writings. New York: Pergamon, 1986.

Rothschild, Joseph, and Nancy Merriweather Wingfield. Return to Diversity: A Politi-

cal History of East Central Europe since World War II. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1999.

Husák, Gustáv

953

Gustáv Husák, from Slovakia, was president of Czechoslo-

vakia during 1975–1989. (Miroslav Zajíc/Corbis)

---

President and dictator of Iraq (1979–2003). Born on 28 April 1937 in the vil-

lage of Al-Awja, near Tikrit, to a family of sheepherders, Saddam Hussein

attended a secular school in Baghdad and in 1957 joined the Baath Party, a

radical secular-socialist party that embraced Pan-Arabism. Although revo-

lutionists, Iraqi Baathists did not support General Abdul Karim Qassim’s

ouster of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958.

Wounded in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Qassim in 1959,

Hussein subsequently fled the country but returned after the 1963 Baathist

coup and began his rise in the party, although he was again imprisoned in

1964. Escaping in 1966, Hussein continued to ascend through the party’s

ranks, becoming second in authority when the party took full and uncon-

tested control of Iraq in 1968 under the leadership of General Ahmed Has-

san al-Bakr, a relative of Hussein. The elderly al-Bakr gradually relinquished

power to Hussein so that he eventually controlled most of the government.

Hussein became president when al-Bakr resigned, allegedly because of

illness, in July 1979. A week after taking power, Hussein led a meeting of

Baath leaders during which the names of his potential challengers were read

aloud. They were then escorted from the room and shot. Because Iraq was

rent by ethnic and religious divisions, Hussein ruled through a tight web of

relatives and associates from Tikrit, backed by the Sunni Muslim minority.

He promoted economic development through Iraqi oil production, which

accounted for 10 percent of known world reserves. His

modernization was along Western lines, with limited roles

for women and a secular legal system. He also promoted the

idea of Iraqi nationalism, emphasizing the roles of Kings

Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar.

Before assuming the presidency, Hussein had courted

both the West and the Soviet Union, resulting in arms

deals with the Soviets and close relations with that country

and France. He was also instrumental in convincing the

shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, to curb his support of Iraqi

Kurds. Hussein’s efforts to take advantage of the super-

powers’ Cold War rivalry, including rapprochement with

Iran, fell apart with the overthrow of the shah in 1979. The

shah’s successor, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a radi-

cal, fundamentalist Muslim, bitterly opposed Hussein be-

cause of his Sunni background and secularism.

After a period of repeated border skirmishes, Iraq de-

clared war on Iran in September 1980. Hussein’s ostensible

dispute concerned a contested border, but he also feared

Iran’s fundamentalism and its support for the Iraqi Shia

Muslim majority. Initial success gave way to Iraqi defeats

in the face of human-wave attacks and, ultimately, a stale-

mate. By 1982 Hussein was ready to end the war, but fight-

ing continued. In 1988 the United Nations (UN) finally

954

Hussein, Saddam

Hussein, Saddam

(1937–2006)

Saddam Hussein initiated the long Iraq-Iran War (1980–

1988) and invaded Kuwait in 1990. He was the dictator of

Iraq from 1979 until he was overthrown by the U.S.-led

invasion of his country in 2003. (Pavlovsky/Sygma/Corbis)

---