HALMO, Martin. Daniel Futej. From youth functionary to party apparatchik

Daniel Futej, originally a barber's assistant, lived through adolescence in an orphanage during World War II. He already joined the Communist Party before 1948, in which he was active throughout the entire period of the totalitarian regime in Czechoslovakia. He first worked in the state youth organisation "Czechoslovak Youth Union" and eventually became its chairman. In the second half of the 1960s, he began working in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in Prague, and in 1970 he was appointed head of a department in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia in Bratislava. His agenda was the state mass social organisations. During this normalisation era, several so-called nomenclature functions were under his purview. As head of the department, he regularly attended several meetings of the social organisations under his jurisdiction as a guest. He was for many years a deputy and a member of the presidency of the Slovak National Council, and for some time also a member of the Federal Assembly. During the reconstruction period, the party tried to give the impression of a change of officials, but in reality, it was only a "personnel reshuffle". Daniel Futej was thus transferred from the party apparatus to the post of deputy chairman of the National Front of the Slovak Socialist Republic. The events of November 1989, which brought about the fall of the communist regime, also meant the end of Daniel Futej's career. In his last speeches during the revolutionary days, he showed that he did not understand the situation. His proposals were in thrall to old thoughts and ideas. The career of Daniel Futej is an example of the story of little-known officials who, although they did not reach the top of the party hierarchy, devoted their entire professional life to work for the party. They thus help to complete the picture of the social origins, educational structure and thought world of the workers in the Communist Party apparatus.