1899–1949
✕ Disappeared in prison; presumed dead
A leader caught between revolutionary national politics and party centralism
After the 1948 break with the Soviet Union, he was arrested as a Soviet spy and disappeared from a Belgrade prison.
Andrija Hebrang was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and wartime leader of the Communist Party of Croatia who helped organize resistance to occupation and political institutions in liberated territory. After the war he directed economic reconstruction and a heavy-industry development plan, becoming one of Yugoslavia’s most influential figures after Tito. Tensions over Croatian political autonomy and economic strategy brought him into conflict with the party center. After Yugoslavia’s 1948 break with the Soviet Union, he was accused of links to Soviet intelligence, expelled and arrested, and disappeared from a Belgrade prison in 1949.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1919Joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia
- 1925–1928Worked in the Zagreb party organization
- 1941–1944Political secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia
- 1943–1944Member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia
- 1944–1946Worked in AVNOJ and administered industry and trade
- 1946–1948Chairman of the Economic Council and Planning Commission
- 1948Expelled from the party, placed under house arrest and arrested
- 1949Disappeared from a Belgrade prison and was recorded as dead
Related historical events
- 1941–1945The Yugoslav Partisan WarParty leader organizing resistance and political institutionsAs a wartime leader of the Communist Party of Croatia, he helped organize resistance to occupation and political institutions in liberated territory.
- 1948–1955The Tito-Stalin SplitPolitburo member exposed as a Soviet agentExposed as a Soviet agent during the split, he became a central figure in the internal purge.
Twelve Years in Prison, 1928-1941: the "Red University" and Factional Struggle
On 7 September 1928 Hebrang was arrested in Zagreb with Mihail Vraneš in front of the Gundulićeva Street house where the party's secret archive was kept. Under the Law on the Protection of the State, communism was then defined as a coup offence, so no lesser penalty was possible. The State Court for the Protection of the State in Belgrade sentenced him to twelve years' imprisonment on 13 November 1928. He served the term in Lepoglava and, following a strike there, was transferred to Srijemska Mitrovica, where the administration had gathered political prisoners in one place.
He completed what was known among prisoners as the "Red University," systematically studying political economy, history, and the national, trade-union and peasant questions. Prison politics nonetheless split the communist group. At Srijemska Mitrovica a radical current around Petko Miletić accused Hebrang of "right-wing opportunism," claiming he neglected the class struggle by favouring cooperation with bourgeois parties against the Kingdom of Yugoslavia; the conflict escalated until he was branded a Trotskyist, then the gravest possible accusation. Backed by Moša Pijade, Hebrang argued for halting further clashes with the prison administration and instead using the concessions won for prisoners' education and future revolutionary work. Miletić's faction responded on 6 August 1937 with a failed assassination attempt, after which Hebrang chose solitary confinement. Josip Broz intervened to keep the dispute inside the penitentiary rather than let it spread through the party.
His sentence expired on 15 February 1941, after he had spent six months in prison beyond it. Released, he returned to Zagreb and became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia in March 1941.