Tito's third man, who directed the Cominform purges
Interior minister Ranković wrote after the 1948 split that 'it was impossible to know whom to trust and that one's closest comrades may now be the enemy.'
A Yugoslav communist leader regarded as the third most powerful figure after Tito and Kardelj. In May 1944 he created OZNA, the Partisan security agency; after the war he headed the interior ministry and the State Security Administration (UDBA) and oversaw the anti-Stalinist purges that followed the 1948 Soviet–Yugoslav split, building special camps for Cominformists on Goli Otok and Sveti Grgur in 1949. In Kosovo, the period 1947–1966 is colloquially called 'the Ranković era' for a police-state repression of Albanians; lesser campaigns targeted Hungarians in Vojvodina and Muslims in Sandžak. He opposed federal decentralization and defended centralism, and in 1966 the Brioni plenum removed him from all posts and expelled him from the party. He died in Dubrovnik in 1983.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1928Joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia
- 1929–1935Arrested and imprisoned for communist activity
- 1941–1945Served on Partisan Supreme Staff; founded OZNA (1944)
- 1946–1953Minister of Interior of Yugoslavia and head of UDBA
- 1948–1955Directed anti-Cominform purges; built the Goli Otok camp
- 1963–1966Vice President of Yugoslavia
- 1966Dismissed from all posts at the Brioni plenum; expelled from the party
Related historical events
- 1941–1945The Yugoslav Partisan WarPartisan security-agency founderIn May 1944, he founded OZNA, the Partisan security agency.
- 1948–1955The Tito-Stalin SplitInterior minister who directed the purgesAleksandar Ranković, as interior minister and head of UDBA, directed the purges of Cominformists and built the Goli Otok camp system.
Kosovo and the security apparatus
Between 1945 and 1966 Ranković upheld Serbian minority control of the mainly Albanian-inhabited Kosovo through repressive anti-Albanian policies of the secret police. In Kosovo the period 1947–1966 is colloquially known as 'the Ranković era', and under his secret police force Kosovo functioned as a police state. Coercion operated through the pretext of illegal weapons searches and through police actions involving torture and the deaths of alleged and real political opponents, commonly called 'irredentists'. To a lesser extent similar campaigns were undertaken against Hungarians in Vojvodina and Muslims in Sandžak.
After the 1948 Soviet–Yugoslav split, local Albanians were viewed as possible collaborators of pro-Soviet Albania, so Kosovo became a focus of the secret service and police under Ranković. Members of the Albanian intelligentsia were targeted, while thousands of other Albanians were tried and jailed for 'Stalinism'. The secret police in Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia were under Ranković's full control, unlike in Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia. Ranković supported a centralized Soviet-style system and opposed further Albanian autonomy in Kosovo.
On the 1953 agreement and emigration, the sources diverge. Wikipedia-based accounts hold that the 1953 Tito–Köprülü 'Gentlemen's Agreement' promoted Albanian emigration to Anatolia, and that Ranković headed a campaign of intimidation and pressure officially aimed at curbing Albanian nationalism, with large numbers of Albanians and Sandžak Muslims leaving for Turkey. Scholarly research, by contrast, holds that the agreement formally provided for the emigration of ethnic Turks from Macedonia, that emigration from Kosovo was prohibited until late 1957, and that the Yugoslav authorities did not support but rather tried to stop Albanian emigration. Both readings are presented here.