Education
He graduated from a chemistry high school and worked for the Baťa company.
He graduated from a chemistry high school and worked for the Baťa company.
He was also a member from 1971 to (?)1990. He served as Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia between 1963 and 1968. Although ethnically Slovak, he became a Czechoslovakian citizen after the country had split in 1993.
On the basis of insufficient evidence, on 23 September 2002 Lenárt was acquitted of treason charges (along with his co-defendant Miloš Jakeš), related to his handling (or lack thereof) of the Prague Spring events in 1968.
He was accused of attending a meeting at the Soviet embassy in Prague on the day after the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion, planning to establish a new workers and farmers" government. Jozef Lenárt was one of the most resilient figures in Czechoslovakia"s communist hierarchy, occupying one post or another in the leadership for no less than a quarter of the century.
1956–1958: Leading Secretary of the Regional Committee of the KSS
1958–1962: Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSS
1962–1963: Chairman of the Slovak National Council
1963–1968: Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia
1968–1970: Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSČ
1970–1987: First Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSS.
1971–(?)1990: Chairman of the Central Committee of the National Front of the Slovak Socialist Republic, and Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee of the National Front of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
He became a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) and of the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS). Lenart was a member of the federal parliament (whose name changed several times) from 1960 to 1990, and was Speaker of the Slovak National Council 1962–1963. 1950–1953, 1957–1966, and since 1970(?)1990: Member of the KSS
since 1958(?)1990: Member of the Central Committee of the KSČ
since 1970(?)1990: Member of the Presidium of the KSČ.
