 He was also the editor of "Rudé právo", the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and of journal "Jednota".He spent long periods of the 1930s in hiding, as he was wanted by Czechoslovak police and courts for numerous crimes, mostly involving illegal distribution of communist press.Between 1930–1936, he was imprisoned or detained ten times in eight different prisons in Czechoslovakia and once in Dresden, Germany.