1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia

The 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia was ratified on 11 July 1960, the country's third permanent constitution and the second adopted under Communist rule, replacing the 1948 Ninth-of-May Constitution. It was signed into force under President Antonin Novotny along with Zdenek Fierlinger and Viliam Siroky, and its preamble declared that socialism had won in the country, making Czechoslovakia the first nation after the Soviet Union to proclaim that achievement. The document stated plainly that the leading force in society and the state was the vanguard of the working class, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and it was a thoroughly Marxist-Leninist text that borrowed heavily from the 1936 Soviet Constitution. It was substantially amended by the 1968 Constitutional Law of Federation, which turned the state into a federation of the Czech and Slovak republics, and after the Velvet Revolution of 1989-1990 it was extensively revised to strip out its Marxist-Leninist provisions. It remained the country's basic law until Czechoslovakia's dissolution at the end of 1992.