[2] With the coming of World War II and the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany in 1939, the CPC was outlawed and forced into an underground existence.

[2] Novotný was finally arrested by the German secret police, the Gestapo, in September 1941 and was immediately deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp.

[2] He was promoted to the Secretariat of the Central Committee in September 1951, and became one of the party's top leaders on the CPC's Politburo following the arrest of Rudolf Slánský for alleged "Titoism" in November of the same year.

[2] While President Antonín Zápotocký and Prime Minister Viliam Široký wanted a less repressive way of governing, the hardliner Novotný was able to outflank them with the backing of the Soviet Union.

At a meeting in Moscow in late 1953, Zápotocký and Široký were told to adhere to the principles of "collective leadership" — in other words, abandon power to Novotný.

In the Czechoslovakia of Novotný, people continued to face strict government regulations in the arts and media, although they had loosened dramatically since Stalin's death in 1953 and the subsequent de-Stalinization programmes of 1956.

His quasi-authoritarian practices led to mounting calls for a new form of socialism over the unsatisfactory pace of change that would include the accountability, proper elections, and responsibility of leaders to society.