Milovan Djilas (Serbo-Croatian: Milovan Đilas / Милован Ђилас, pronounced [mîlɔʋan dʑîlaːs]; 12 June 1911 – 20 April 1995) was a Yugoslav communist politician, theorist and author. He was a key figure in the Partisan movement during World War II, as well as in the post-war government. A self-identified democratic socialist, Djilas became one of the best-known and most prominent dissidents in Yugoslavia and all of Eastern Europe.
Early life and revolutionary activities
Milovan Djilas was born in Podbišće near Mojkovac in the Kingdom of Montenegro on 12 June 1911, into a peasant family. He was the fourth of nine children. His father Nikola, a recipient of the Obilić Medal for bravery, served in the Montenegrin Army during the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, then World War I, after which he was awarded the Albanian Commemorative Medal. After that war he commanded the gendarmerie in Kolašin, and opposed the incorporation of Montenegro into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. His paternal grandfather, Aleksa, was an anti-Ottoman bandit leader, known as a hajduk, who was apparently assassinated at the direction of the Montenegrin king's father-in-law. Djilas's mother, Novka, was from Siberia in the Russian Empire. During World War II, Djilas's sister Dobrinka was murdered by the Chetniks and his father was killed during a battle with the Balli Kombëtar in Kosovo.
Djilas was educated in Podbišće, Kolašin and Berane. He was exposed to literature during his schooling, and also to the works of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. He commenced studying literature at the University of Belgrade in 1929, by which time he was already a committed communist. In 1929, the name of the country changed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Djilas was a radical student activist and opposed the dictatorship of King Alexander I. This brought him to the attention of the police; in March 1932 he was arrested for taking part in an anti-government demonstration and was jailed for eight days as a warning. Eleven months later, having not changed his ways, Djilas was again arrested, but this time he was tortured then sentenced to three years imprisonment in the Sremska Mitrovica Prison. While in jail he met several senior members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian Latin: Komunistička partija Jugoslavije, KPJ), including Moša Pijade and Aleksandar Ranković. He was further radicalised while in jail, becoming a committed Stalinist.
After his release from prison in 1936, Djilas decided to give up his study of literature and concentrate on revolutionary activities with the KPJ. When the leader of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin, tried to gain greater control of the KPJ, Djilas aligned himself with the general secretary of the KPJ, Josip Broz Tito. Djilas also helped recruit about 1,500 Yugoslav volunteers to fight on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, but Tito would not permit him to travel to Spain to take part in the war as he needed him in Yugoslavia. In 1938, Tito appointed him to the Central Committee of the KPJ, and to its politburo the following year.
In April 1941, Axis powers Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Kingdom of Hungary invaded Yugoslavia and quickly defeated her armed forces. Yugoslavia was partitioned, and as part of this, most of modern Montenegro was subjected to military occupation by the Italians, who installed a civil commissioner. Initially the Italians were lenient towards the Montenegrins, but local people quickly developed grievances against them, relating to expulsions of Montenegrin people from elsewhere in occupied Yugoslavia, an influx of Serb refugees fleeing Ustaše persecution in the neighboring Independent State of Croatia, loss of traditionally Montenegrin territory and financial restrictions imposed on them.
Around 400 former Yugoslav Army officers returned to Montenegro, along with many non-commissioned officers, civil administrators and KPJ members. During the invasion, the Yugoslav Zeta Division, composed mostly of Montenegrins, had briefly counter-attacked into Albania, but had largely returned home with their weapons and equipment following the Yugoslav surrender.
Djilas helped Josip Broz Tito to establish the Yugoslav Partisan resistance and became a guerrilla commander during the war following Germany's attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa) when the Communist Party of Yugoslavia's (KPJ) Central Committee decided that conditions had been created for armed struggle.
On 4 July, the KPJ passed the resolution to begin the uprising. Djilas was sent to Montenegro to organize and raise the struggle against the Italian occupying force, which on 12 July 1941 proclaimed the fascist puppet entity Kingdom of Montenegro, to be run by Sekula Drljević and closely controlled by the Italian authority of Alessandro Biroli, Mussolini's confidant. Djilas had an important role in the Uprising in Montenegro which was a national example, spanning ideological lines. Large parts of Montenegro were quickly liberated. Djilas remained in Montenegro until November.
In early November 1941, Tito dismissed Djilas from the command of Partisan forces in Montenegro because of his mistakes during the uprising, including what were called his "leftist errors". Tito emphasized that Djilas made mistakes because he organized a frontal struggle of armies against a much stronger enemy, instead of connecting the Partisan struggle with the people's uprising, and adopting the Partisan methods of resistance. Djilas was appointed as editor of the paper Borba, the Party's main propaganda organ.
Djilas left for the communist-controlled town of Užice in Serbia, where he took up his work for Borba. Following the withdrawal of Supreme Commander Tito and other Party leaders to Bosnia, Djilas stayed in Nova Varoš in the Raška (on the border between Serbia and Montenegro). From there he retreated with the units under his command, in the middle of winter and in difficult conditions, to join the Supreme Staff. At this time, the Partisans did not have serious divisions between communists and non-communists.
In March 1942, Djilas returned to Montenegro, where a civil war between Partisans and Chetniks had broken out. The historian Momčilo Cemović, who has dealt mostly with this period of Djilas's war activities, believed that the CPY Central Committee and the Supreme Staff had sent Djilas to ascertain the actual state of affairs and to dismiss the communist leaders responsible.
In March 1944, he went as part of the military- and party-mission to the Soviet Union. During this time he met with Georgi Dimitrov, Vyacheslav Molotov and Joseph Stalin, among others.
Returning to Yugoslavia, he fought with the Partisans to liberate Belgrade from the Wehrmacht. With the establishment of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, Djilas became vice-president in Tito's government. Djilas later claimed to have been sent at that time to pressure the Italians to withdraw from Istria.
Djilas was sent to Moscow to meet Stalin again in 1948 to try and bridge the gap between Moscow and Belgrade. He became one of the leading critics of attempts by Stalin to bring Yugoslavia under greater control by Moscow. Later that year, Yugoslavia broke with the Soviet Union and left the Cominform, ushering in the Informbiro period.
Initially the Yugoslav communists, despite the break with Stalin, remained as hard line as before. But they began to pursue a policy of independent socialism that experimented with self-management of workers in state-run enterprises. Djilas was very much part of that, but he began to take things further. Having responsibility for propaganda, he created a platform for new ideas and he launched a new journal, Nova Misao ("New Thought"), in which he published a series of articles that were increasingly freethinking.
Djilas was widely regarded as Tito's possible successor and in 1953 he was about to be chosen as President of Yugoslavia. He became President of the Federal People's Assembly of Yugoslavia, but he only held office from 25 December 1953 to 28 January 1954. Between October 1953 and January 1954, he wrote 19 articles (only 18 were published) for Borba, the official newspaper of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, wherein, encouraged by Tito, he developed the Yugoslav critique of over-bureaucratic Stalinism in the Soviet Union, in favour of a shift away from central planning towards more economic autonomy.