Milovan Đilas

Milovan Djilas (1911-1995), dissident Yugoslav Communist leader and writer, born in Polja, Montenegro. He studied law at the University of Belgrade, where he embraced Marxism, and was subsequently imprisoned for political activities. He became a good friend of Tito and by 1940 was a member of the Politburo of the Yugoslav Communist Party. Fighting with Tito's partisans during World War II, he held numerous high posts in the postwar government and was a leading supporter of Tito's break with the USSR in 1948. By 1953 he was vice president under Tito and widely believed to be his chosen successor. Djilas's criticism of Communist rule, however, led to his loss of all positions and his expulsion from the party in 1954. He was imprisoned in 1956. Upon publication in the West of his The New Class (1957), an exposé of the Communist hierarchy, his sentence was extended. His Conversations with Stalin (1962) cost him another four years in jail. Finally released in 1966, he continued to write and publish. Among his other books are Land Without Justice (1958), and Rise and Fall (1983; trans. 1985), an account of his own government career. The New Class was published in Yugoslavia in 1990.