Zápotocký, Ladislav

Born Jan. 12, 1852, in Prague; died there Dec. 16, 1916. Leader of the Czech workers’ movement, one of the first propagandists of Marxism in Czechoslovakia, and a founder of the Social Democratic Party of Czechoslovakia.

Zápotocký was the son of a tailor. Beginning in 1872 he helped publish the magazine Dělnické listy. In 1874 he and

J. B. Petzka founded the newspaper Budoucnost, which he edited from early 1876 until October 1881. He translated many works of K. Marx and F. Engels into Czech. In 1874 he became the editor in chief of the German socialist newspapers Arbeiterfreund and Sozialpolitische Rundschau, published for the German workers in northern Bohemia. Zápotocký was one of the leaders of a committee to form a constituent assembly for the Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Austria (Neudorf, 1874). He was a delegate to the congresses of this party in 1875 (Marchegg) and in 1877 (Atzgersdorf). In 1878 he was one of the organizers of the Brzevnov Constituent Assembly of the Social Democratic Party of Czechoslovakia. After imprisonment from October 1881 to January 1884 he was banished to the village of Zakolany near Kladno. In 1900 he returned to Prague, where he headed the railroad workers’ union. In 1906 he withdrew from politics because of illness.