Gustáv Husák – the face of ‘Normalisation’ in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia

History remembers Gustáv Husák, the last communist president of Czechoslovakia, as the face of a spineless regime that ruled during the Normalisation era. He had risen to power in the wake of the Soviet-led invasion that crushed the Prague Spring – a reform movement that Husák had supported. And while a political prisoner himself in the 1950s, he went on to overse the persecution of opposition activists in the 1970s and ‘80s. Ahead of the 30th anniversary of his death, we reflect upon Husák’s remarkable life.