The son of a miner, Nosek joined the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers' Party (ČSSD) at the age of eighteen and was an active trade unionist.

He served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I, and fought during the Serbian campaign and on the Eastern and Italian fronts, before being wounded and discharged in 1917.

[1] After the occupation of the Czech lands by Nazi Germany in 1939, Nosek was arrested and jailed in Prague's Pankrác Prison for several weeks.

Ultimately, President Beneš gave in and appointed a government fully dominated by the KSČ, effectively giving legal sanction to a communist takeover.

In 1990, his ashes were moved to Olšany Cemetery, together with those of about 20 other communist leaders which had also originally been placed in the Jan Žižka National Monument.