37 Facts About Milovan Djilas

Milovan Djilas was a key figure in the Partisan movement during World War II, as well as in the post-war government.

Milovan Djilas was born in Podbisce near Mojkovac in the Kingdom of Montenegro on 12 June 1911, into a peasant family.

Milovan Djilas's paternal grandfather, Aleksa, was an anti-Ottoman bandit leader, known as a, who was apparently assassinated at the direction of the Montenegrin king's father-in-law.

Milovan Djilas was exposed to literature during his schooling, and to the works of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.

Milovan Djilas commenced studying literature at the University of Belgrade in 1929, by which time he was already a committed communist.

Eleven months later, having not changed his ways, Milovan Djilas was again arrested, but this time he was tortured then sentenced to three years imprisonment in the Sremska Mitrovica Prison.

Milovan Djilas was further radicalised while in jail, becoming a committed Stalinist.

Milovan Djilas 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.

Milovan 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 when the Communist Party of Yugoslavia's Central Committee decided that conditions had been created for armed struggle.

Milovan 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 Drljevic and closely controlled by the Italian authority of Alessandro Biroli, Mussolini's confidant.

Milovan Djilas had an important role in the Uprising in Montenegro which was a national example, spanning ideological lines.

Tito emphasized that Milovan 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.

Milovan Djilas was appointed as editor of the paper Borba, the Party's main propaganda organ.

Milovan Djilas left for the communist-controlled town of Uzice in Serbia, where he took up his work for Borba.

In March 1942, Milovan Djilas returned to Montenegro, where a civil war between Partisans and Chetniks had broken out.

Milovan Djilas later claimed to have been sent at that time to pressure the Italians to withdraw from Istria.

Milovan Djilas was sent to Moscow to meet Stalin again in 1948 to try and bridge the gap between Moscow and Belgrade.

Milovan Djilas became one of the leading critics of attempts by Stalin to bring Yugoslavia under greater control by Moscow.

Milovan Djilas was very much part of that, but he began to take things further.

Milovan Djilas was widely regarded as Tito's possible successor and in 1953 he was about to be chosen as President of Yugoslavia.

Milovan Djilas became President of the Federal People's Assembly of Yugoslavia, but he only held office from 25 December 1953 to 16 January 1954.

Milovan Djilas was expelled from the Central Committee of the party, of which he had been a member since 1937, and dismissed from all political functions for his criticism.

Milovan Djilas resigned from the League of Communists soon afterwards, in March 1954.

Milovan Djilas appealed for the formation of "a new democratic Socialist party", and thus for a two-party system.

On 19 November 1956, Milovan Djilas was arrested following his statement to Agence France Presse opposing the Yugoslav abstention in the United Nations vote condemning Soviet intervention in Hungary and his article to The New Leader magazine supporting the Hungarian Revolution.

In 1957, Milovan Djilas published abroad The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System, which he had already sent to the American publisher Praeger before he was jailed.

In prison, Milovan Djilas completed a massive scholarly biography of the great Montenegrin prince-poet-priest Njegos as well as fictional novels and short stories.

Milovan Djilas was conditionally released on 20 January 1961, after completing four years and two months in prison.

Milovan Djilas would be imprisoned again in April 1962 for publishing abroad Conversations with Stalin, which became another international success and which Djilas personally considered his greatest work.

On 31 December 1966, Milovan Djilas was granted amnesty and freed unconditionally after four years in jail.

Milovan Djilas continued as a dissident, living in Belgrade until his death on 20 April 1995.

Milovan Djilas opposed the breakup of Yugoslavia and the descent into nationalist conflict in the 1980s and 1990s, but predicted in the 1980s that a breakup would happen.

Milovan Djilas was critical of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in the late 1980s and predicted that his actions would arouse separation of other republics, ethnic war, and the demise of Yugoslavia:.

In 1987, Milovan Djilas was interviewed by the neoconservative magazine Encounter on the subject of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's economic and political reforms in the Soviet Union.

Milovan Djilas made great contributions to Montenegrin literature and historiography with his works.

Later in life, from the mid-1980s, Milovan Djilas referred to himself as "Serb".

Milovan Djilas is mentioned in Saul Bellow's fiction Humboldt's Gift, where he writes about Joseph Stalin's "twelve-course all-night banquets" and the theme of boredom.