Regional Committee of The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in Brno under the leadership of Otto Šling

This thesis deals with the regional functioning of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia at the regional level in the first years after the end of the Second World War, specifically the Regional Committee of the Communist Party in Brno, which at that time was headed by the regional secretary Otto Šling. He was arrested in October 1950 as an enemy of the party and the state. He then became the key figure in the political process with Rudolf Slánský, the Communist Party's general secretary. Otto Šling was a former interbrigadist in the civil war in Spain in the period from 1936 to 1939. During the Second World War, this communist politician of Jewish descent participated in the Czechoslovak anti-nazi resistance movement in the Great Britain. These facts certainly contributed to his arrest in 1950 and his later condemnation and execution in 1952. Otto Šling was one of the first senior officials of the Communist Party to be a target of the policy of seeking "class enemies" in the Communist movement in Czechoslovakia. The inhuman brutal investigation of his person led to the prosecution of the second man in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Rudolf Slánský. However, this work is primarily focused on Šling's activities in the Brno branch of the Communist Party between 1945 and 1950 in connection with his..