Stane Dolanc
| Stane Dolanc | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| 10th Secretary of the Interior of SFR Yugoslavia | |
| In office May 15, 1982 – May 15, 1984 |
|
| Prime Minister | Milka Planinc |
| Preceded by | Franjo Herljević |
| Succeeded by | Dobroslav Ćulafić |
| 21st Vice-President of the Presidency of SFR Yugoslavia | |
| In office May 15, 1988 – May 15, 1989 |
|
| President | Raif Dizdarević |
| Preceded by | Raif Dizdarević |
| Succeeded by | Borisav Jović |
| Personal details | |
| Born | November 16, 1925 Hrastnik, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes |
| Died | December 13, 1999 (aged 74) Ljubljana, Slovenia |
| Nationality | Slovene |
| Political party | League of Communists of Yugoslavia (1944-1990) |
Stane Dolanc (November 16, 1925 – December 13, 1999) was a Yugoslav and Slovenian communist politician, one of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito's closest collaborators and one of the most influential people in Yugoslav federal politics in the 1970s and 1980s. He was secretary of the Executive Bureau of the Presdium of the Central Committee (CC) of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) from 1971 to 1978, federal Secretary of the interior from 1982 to 1984 and a member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia from 1984 to 1989. He was regularly appointed a member of the Federal Council for Protection of the Constitutional Order and was chairing the body in late 1980s. For most of his poltical career Dolanc defended strong authoritarian rule of the LCY and struggled against nationalism stemming from various parts of the country. He was influential in Yugoslav security structures and it is believed that he inspired a number of politically motivated arrests, especially while he was interior minister.[1]
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[edit] Early life
Dolanc was born to a worker family in the Slovenian town of Hrastnik, then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. After finishing elementary school in his home town, he was sent to the prestigious Bežigrad High School in Ljubljana. In April 1941, northern Slovenia was occupied by Nazi Germany. Dolanc continued his schooling in Graz in Austria. American journalist Dusko Doder stated in his book The Yugoslavs, published in 1978, that during the war Dolanc had been a member of Hitlerjugend.[2] In 1944, however, Dolanc joined the Yugoslav Partisans and continued his military career after the war. He served as a deputy to the prosecutor in Ljubljana Army corps and finished his involvement in the military in 1960 while being a colonel in Zagreb office of the Yugoslav military counter-intelligence service KOS.[1] During his military career Dolanc received a university diploma and in the 1960s he was a director of the Political Science School in Ljubljana run by the Slovene branch of LCY.[1]
[edit] Second person of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
In 1965 Dolanc became a member of the CC of the League of Communists of Slovenia (LCS),[3] and at the ninth congress of LCY in 1969 he was elected a member of the CC LCY. Two years later Dolanc became secretary of the newly established Executive Bureau of the Party Presidium, i. e. second person of LCY,[2] despite the de facto number two of Yugoslav politics remained Edvard Kardelj. Dolanc quickly gained strong influence in the Party. Dolanc was one of main organizers of the Kardjordjevo Party Presidium session in December 1971 that resulted in resignation of the leaders of the Croatian Spring. In November 1972, at a CC LCS plenum, he called for purges of the liberal wing of the Slovene Party branch which, eventually took place.[4] He became famous for a statement he had made at a local communist conference in Split in September 1972:
- "We have to make clear that in this country we communists are in power. For if we were not, it would mean someone else is. And for now this is not so neither will ever be."[5]
In the same speech Dolanc stressed that LCY had to be a united organization, announced expulsions of those party members that did not follow the new line and attacked Serb, Croat and Slovene nationalism.[5][6] Dolanc's Split speech was directly preceded by a letter signed by himself and Tito addressed to local LCY organizations throughout Yugoslavia. The letter urged strengthening party's unity and leading role in the society, and thus announced continuation of Tito's and his collaborators' struggle with liberalism and nationalism in LCY that eventually resulted in thorough changes within Croatian, Slovene and Serbian Party leaderships.[5]
Though the post of the Executive Bureau secretary was meant to change its holder every year, Dolanc kept it for eight years[7] and thus remained one of the strongest persons of the Yugoslav politics. While he was occupying the office, he was often mentioned as a possible Tito's successor.[8][9] However, during 1970s in both LCY and federal state institutions evolved a system of rotating collective leadership that made it hardly possible for any single official to become a new leader after Tito. At the eleventh Congress of LCY in 1978 the Executive Bureau was abolished[10] and although Dolanc was appointed secretary of the CC LCY Presidium, he resigned from this office in May 1979. The resignation is sometimes linked to the death of Edvard Kardelj of February in the same year, who reportedly had been protecting Dolanc.[2] Dolanc however remained a member of the CC Presidium and, besides, in June 1979 he was re-appointed a member of the Federal Council for Protection of the Constutional Order, an agency of the Yugoslav Presidency coordinating internal security institutions.[11] Dolanc therefore kept playing an important role in Yugoslav communist establishment after Tito's death in May 1980.
[edit] Minister of the Interior and member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia
In May 1982 Dolanc became the Secretary of the Interior in the new Federal Executive Council led by Milka Planinc. While in office, he carried out the police repression following the crush of Albanian protests in Kosovo who had demanded greater autonomy for their province.[citation needed] In May 1983 Dolanc complained about the increase of nationalism and of hostile activities against the communist regime and accused dissident intellectuals being one of the moving forces of it.[12] In Spring 1984 two politically motivated cases took place that are both directly ascribed to Dolanc. In Belgrade 28 participants of a lecture of Milovan Djilas were brought to a police interrogation; one of them was found dead few days later while six others faced a trial, which however resulted in lenient or none punishments. One of the attendees of the lecture, a Serb intellectual Vojislav Šešelj was arrested again a few weeks later for stating nationalist ideas in an unpublished essay. Dolanc publicly condemned him in a TV interview and Šešelj was eventually sentenced for a several-year inprisonment.[1][13] Dolanc has been accused of ordering assasinations of political emmigrant activists commited by Yugoslav security service abroad and of personal protection of one of its agents, career criminal Željko Ražnatović Arkan.[1][14]
From May 1984 to May 1989 Dolanc was the Slovenian member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia and during the term he was also chairman of the Federal Council for Protection of the Constitutional Order. In 1988 and 1989, alongside the majority of the Presidency, he was unsuccessfully opposing the anti-bureaucratic revolution which he regarded an expression of Serb hegemonism.[15] One of his last public interventions was an interview with the liberal opposition magazine Mladina, published in May 1989, in which he described himself as the "last Titoist".[1]
[edit] Late life
After his term in the Federal Presidency expired, Dolanc retreated from public life and moved to Gozd Martuljek close to Kranjska Gora. He died in Ljubljana on December 12, 1999 of cerebral stroke.[1]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g Svetlana Vasovic Mekina: Stane Dolanc, titoista. Vreme, no. 467, 18 December 1999 (Serbian)
- ^ a b c Slobodan Stankovic: Slovene Dolanc Resigns? Serb Dragosavac New Secretary of CC Presidium. Radio Free Europe Research, 17 May 1979
- ^ Igor Mekina: Umro čuvar tajni. AIM Ljubljana, December 15, 1999 (Serbian)
- ^ Slobodan Stankovic: After Slovenian Central Committe Plenum. Radio Free Europe Research, 8 November 1972
- ^ a b c Moč in nemoč slovenskega liberalizma. Documentary by Radio-Television of Slovenia, 2009; 61:10-63:50 (Slovene)
- ^ Slobodan Stankovic: Dolanc's Speech Indicates New Stage in Yugoslav Party. Radio Free Europe Research, 20 September 1972
- ^ Slobodan Stankovic: Stane Dolanc's Unusual Press Conference. Radio Free Europe Research, 19 June 1979
- ^ Slobodan Stankovic: The Problem of the Succession to Tito. Radio Free Europe Research, 11 March 1974
- ^ Jože Pirjevec: Jugoslávie 1918-1992. Praha, 2000. P. 403
- ^ Slobodan Stankovic: Yugoslavia in 1978. Radio Free Europe Research, 3 January 1979
- ^ Slobodan Stankovic: More Power for Army Generals in Yugoslavia. Radio Free Europe Research, 29 June 1979
- ^ Slobodan Stankovic: Hostile Activities Increasing, Yugoslav Interior Minister Complains. Radio Free Europe Research, 17 May 1983
- ^ Pirjevec 2000, p. 432-433
- ^ Đurekovića ubili pripadnici beogradskog podzemlja po nalogu UDBE. Index.hr, November 1, 2005 (Croatian)
- ^ Raif Dizdarević: Od smrti Tita do smrti Jugoslávie. Praha, 2002. P. 205, 219, 225
[edit] Sources
- Bojan Balkovec et al., Slovenska kronika XX. stoletja (Ljubljana: Nova revija, 1997).
- Miran Lesjak & Bernard Nežmah, "Poslednji titoist" (interview with Stane Dolanc) in Mladina, n. 18 (May 19, 1989).
- Božo Repe, Rdeča Slovenija: tokovi in obrazi iz obdobja socializma (Ljubljana: Sophia, 2003).
- Bernard Nežmah, "Stane Dolanc (1926–1999): najtrša pest slovenskih komunistov" in Mladina, n. 51 (December 20, 1999).
- Božo Repe, "Vojak partije, veliki gobar iz Martuljka, naš čovik: smrt Staneta Dolanca" in Delo, y. 41, n. 294 (December 18, 1999).
[edit] External links
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Franjo Herljević |
Secretary of the Interior of Yugoslavia 1982–1984 |
Succeeded by Dobroslav Ćulafić |
| Preceded by Raif Dizdarević |
Vice-President of the Presidency of SFR Yugoslavia 1988–1989 |
Succeeded by Borisav Jović |
