Vukmanovich, Svetozar

Early years

Born on August 3, 1912 in the town of Podgor in the family of a miner. Montenegrin by nationality. Parents - Nikola Vukmanovich and Maria Vukmanovich (nee Peyovich). The family had three more children: sons Dzhuro and Luka and sister Militsa. My father worked for a while in the United States, and then took up farming. After the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, his father did not accept the new government and went underground, later he was caught and sentenced to two years in prison.

Svetozar graduated from elementary school with honors, and then, against parental will, with his older brother entered the gymnasium in Cetinje. He was in a literary circle, in the eighth grade he became the leader of the circle. In 1931 he graduated from high school and with his stepbrother Branko arrived in Belgrade, where he entered the Faculty of Law at the University of Belgrade . He graduated in 1935.

Student years

Juro's older brother, who studied at the Faculty of Philosophy in Paris, was the first to tell Svetozar about the Soviet Union and the ideology of communism. Giuro established contact with the Communists and joined the French Communist Party (in 1927 in Italy, he became seriously ill, returned home and died suddenly). Wanting to continue the work of his brother, Svetozar and Branko (half-brother) independently began to mine Soviet literature and other works on Marxism. Svetozar was in no hurry to join the party, because she worked in very difficult conditions, often her leaders were arrested and imprisoned, and the party’s activity itself was not active. Only after entering the university, Svetozar joined actively in the revolutionary student movement.

In November 1931, Vukmanovich took part in a student demonstration, for which he was expelled from the student council. For some time he was forced to study individually, he lived in an apartment with Juro Strugar, his friend. Branko's stepbrother and friend at the gymnasium Branko Draskovic, together with Svetozar, joined the Communist Party in 1933. A number of other classmates from the gymnasium joined the Party along with him: Novitsa Ulichevich, Dimitrie Zivanovich, Ratomir Popovich, Branko Mashanovich and the same Dzhuro Strugar. Since November 1934, Svetozar became the organizer of the youth student movement. From 1933 to 1935, the vast majority of protests at the University of Belgrade were organized by Vukmanovic.

In April 1934, Svetozar was first arrested and spent 8 days in the Belgrade main prison. In February 1935, he was again arrested when he protested against the exile of students in a concentration camp in Vysehrad, where he landed. He stayed there from February 4 to March 20, 1935 , until the camp was closed under pressure from members of democratic parties. In June 1935, Svetozar officially defended his diploma and graduated from the university.

Pre-war Party Activities

By order of the party, Svetozar was sent to Montenegro to form new party cells and actively propagate. So, he worked in the Montenegrin Primorye in villages from Budva to Petrovac. Together with Nikolai Dzhonovich, the ambassador from the United Opposition against the exploiters, organized a public gathering to protest against the exploiters in the summer of 1935. At the training camp, Svetozar read a speech on behalf of the workers, after the training he was arrested by the police and sent to prison in Cetinj for several days. In the fall of 1935, he again arrived in Belgrade, where, even before being drafted into the army, he worked with Uglesho Danilovich in the city committee of the Union of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia. Since his brother Luka was arrested for contacts with the Communist Party, Svetozar was forced to receive material assistance from his friend Nick Vuchkovich. As a member of the city committee of SKJU in Belgrade, he continued to work with students. After the cell was opened, he was again thrown into the main Belgrade prison, and then transferred to the prison in Ada Ciganli.

In police documents, Svetozar appeared as a communist, which automatically deprived him of the right to serve in the school of reserve officers, although he was a certified lawyer. He had to serve in the regular regular forces: first in Subotica, and then in Pritshin. In mid-1936, another party failure occurred in Montenegro, Svetozar was demobilized from the army and sent to prison in Sarajevo. During his stay in prison with Pavel Kovacic, Svetozar actively fought to improve the treatment of prisoners. But in Montenegro, mass arrests of communists continued, so Svetozar not only did not achieve his goal, but also appeared before the State Court for the Protection of the State. To his happiness, the court acquitted him, and the time spent in prison was counted to him as the time of military service. In mid-1937, Svetozar was finally demobilized from the army.

He spent some time in his native village, and then lived in Petrovac at sea. One of the determining future destinies of Vukmanovich was a meeting with Blazho Orlandic, a member of the Montenegrin Pokrains Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, whom Svetozar had known for a long time (he also suffered after the opening of party cells in 1936). At the suggestion of the secretary of the committee, Jovan Marinovic went to Niksic, where he got a job with lawyer Goiko Garchevich, who supported the Communist Party. Vukmanovich was in Niksic until the beginning of 1938, after which he returned to Belgrade. There, on the advice of Boris Kovachevich, he began to work as an assistant to the lawyer Dzhurovich and joined the bar association. At that time, Svetozar was not actively involved in politics, but at the same time he fell into the hands of the police when she found out a ticket for a member of the party. He was actively tortured, but was silent and did not betray anyone. Interrogation was conducted by police agents Svetozar Vukovic and George Kosmayats. Svetozar went on a 10-day hunger strike in protest, after which he was again sent to the State Defense Court, transferred to a prison in Ada Ziganli. And there again Vukmanovich was acquitted.

Soon Svetozar became a member of the Belgrade City Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, in June 1939 he was elected to the Serbian Pokrains Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. On the instructions of the party, he worked on creating cells in Serbia and Macedonia, and also worked on the technical side, printing leaflets and copying literature. All the propaganda printed by him was distributed throughout Yugoslavia. In August 1939, he arrived in Macedonia as an instructor of the party, in the summer of 1940, as a party instructor in Serbia, he traveled to the cities of the country (Nis, Zaecar, mines of various cities of Serbia). In June 1940 he was elected to the Pokrainsky Committee at the Fifth Party Congress. In October 1940, Svetozar was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and, as a member of it, arrived in Macedonia at the congress of the Macedonian Pokrainsky Committee. It was then that he received the party nickname "Tempo" due to his ability to carry out the tasks of the party in a short time.

During the war years

Svetozar Vukmanovich was one of the organizers of the protests in Belgrade on March 27, 1941 , caused by the decision of Regent Pavle to sign a pact with Germany and Italy. In April 1941, Germany declared war on Yugoslavia and defeated the Yugoslav royal army in a matter of days. Vukmanovich did not recognize surrender and called for all possible resistance to the German, Italian and Croatian invaders. On July 4, 1941 , a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union took place in Dedin, at which a decision was made to start a total guerrilla war. Vukmanovich had to carry out a wide variety of military and political tasks. Being a delegate to the General Headquarters of the NOAU and directly reporting to Josip Broz Tito , Svetozar was sent to Bosnia and Herzegovina: there, on July 13, 1941, a meeting of the Bosnian-Herzegovina Pokrains Committee was held, at which a directive on the beginning of the People's Liberation War was adopted. Vukmanovich took up the solution of organizational issues regarding the provision of armed resistance.

September 26, 1941 Vukmanovich was appointed commander of the General Staff of the partisan detachments of the NOAU in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and then entered the Supreme Headquarters of the NOAU. Until 1942, he remained in Bosnia and Herzegovina, after which in early 1943, as an authorized representative of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, he was sent to Macedonia. There he began to create partisan detachments one after another, to supply arms and organize communications between the detachments, and on March 19, 1943, with his submission, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Macedonia was formed. The liberation movement in Macedonia, Kosovo and Metohija and in the south of Serbia became widespread by 1944: it was with the filing of Vukmanovich that the formation of divisions and corps began. In Greece and Albania, Vukmanovich also got in touch with the partisans, established communication with the Bulgarian Communist Party, thereby uniting several Balkan states at once in order to fight against the fascist and Nazi invaders. In Albania, Svetozar became known for exerting pressure on the Albanian communists, demanding that they immediately break the agreement on a temporary alliance with the nationalists of the Bally Kombetar organization.

Upon his return to Serbia, Vukmanovich passed the Tito directive to the command of the Serbian communist partisan detachments on the need to strengthen the fight against the Chetnik units controlled by the emigrant government, Draž Mihajlovich . In mid-1944, Tempo flew by plane to Italian Bari , from there he arrived on Vis Island, where he reported to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the High Command of the NOAU on the successful completion of all tasks. Until November 1944, he stayed in Macedonia, and then returned to liberated Belgrade. From the army, he was finally demobilized already in the rank of colonel general.

Post-War Politics

After the war, Svetozar Vukmanovich became the head of the Main Political Directorate of the Yugoslav People’s Army and the Deputy Minister of Defense, Marshal Tito (from 1944 to 1948). He created the Partizan sports society and chose the name for it. Later Vukmanovich performed the following duties in the Government:

• Minister of Mining
• Head of the Council on Energy and Mining
• Head of Industry Council

Since 1953, he headed the Economic Council and was deputy chairman of the Union Executive Chamber from 1954 to 1958. He was on the Executive Committee of the Association of Veterans of the People's Liberation War of Yugoslavia. He was chairman of the Central Chamber of the Union of Syndicates of Yugoslavia from 1958 to 1967. He was a member of the People’s Defense Council, the Federation Council and the Executive Committee of the Socialist Union of the Working People of Yugoslavia (after the death of Djuro Bakai ). From 1945 to 1969 - Member of the Union Assembly. Since June 1948, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, since 1952, a member of the Executive Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, since October 1966, a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. Prior to the IX Party Congress, a member of the Central Committee of the UCC.

Repeatedly Vukmanovich as head of the Union of Syndicates paid visits to the USSR: he made his first visit in the winter of 1959 with his family, resting in the Moscow Region. During one of his visits, Vukmanovich filed a petition for admission to the CPSU Central Committee, which was granted.

Opal and the End of Life

As chairman of the Union of Syndicates of Yugoslavia, Vukmanovich once spoke about the plight of workers in an interview on television. Being on the verge of a nervous breakdown, he unexpectedly declared that the workers should organize a good strike in order to raise the standard of living. In other socialist states the strike could not have any reasonable ground under them, since these were the states of the working people. Tito accused Vukmanovich of slandering the party, trying to foment a rebellion and expelled him from almost all posts as punishment. In 1970, Vukmanovich was forced to finally retire from politics and began to write memoirs. In his memoirs, Vukmanovich mentioned his last conversation with Tito, when he not only did not want to listen to Vukmanovich’s explanations regarding the strikes, but also forced him to carry out all the slightest whims - even to lift things that had fallen from Tito’s hands. Then Josip Broz was almost 80 years old: according to Vukmanovich, he was surrounded by “toadies and lackeys,” but he did not want to transfer power to the young.

In 1971, he wrote the book “The Revolution That Is Flowing” ( Serbian Revolutionary Koјa Teche ), which was Vukmanovich’s first major work. In 1986, Svetozar emerged from the shadows, meeting with musician Goran Bregovic from the band " Bijelo Dugme ". Bregovic and Vukmanovich performed the old song “ Fall, power and untruth ” ( serbochor. Padј force and untruth / Padaj silo i nepravdo ), which became the prologue to the new album “Spit and sing, my Yugoslavia” ( Serbian Puni and singing my God Ugoslav) ) The same song, together with Vukmanovich and Bregovich, was performed by the choir of the Lyubitsa Ivezich Orphanage in Sarajevo.

In addition to songs, another passion of Svetozar was painting: in his house there was a large collection of valuable paintings.

December 6, 2000 Svetozar Vukmanovich suddenly died in the village of Rezhevichi near Petrovets. Of his own free will, he was buried in Podgora, next to the grave of his brother Luke.

He was a holder of many orders and medals, including the Order of the National Hero of Yugoslavia, which he was awarded on December 20, 1951 , as well as the Soviet Order of Kutuzov I degree ^[1] .

• Kakto and the United States ’People’s Liberation, Grchke was struck. - Beograd, 1950.
• Harm the socialist woman from the city (1948-1958). - Beograd, 1964.
• Actual problems and integration. - Beograd, 1965.
• Memoari - Revolucia, which is 1-3. - Beograd, 1971.
• Mein Weg mit Tito. Ein Revolutionär erinnert sich. - München, 1972.
• The fight for the Balkans. - Zagreb, 1981.
• Memoari - Revolucia koëa 4-7. - Beograd, 1985.
• Is it possible that the suzhnitsa of the Dragee Mikhailoviha will be fascist or anti-fascist or the kolaboratsionalisticheski herself will be defeated. - Beograd, 1990.
• A letter from Rezheviћa. - Chain, 1992.

In Serbo-Croatian

• Svetozar Vukmanovi. Memoari Revolucia koa teche. "Communist", Beograd 1971. Godina
• Encyclopedia Kugoslavia (kњiga osma) . “Goslosvensky Lexicographic Plant”, Zagreb 1971. Godina.
• War encyclopedia (kiga desets) . Beograd 1975.
• " Folk Heroes of Ugoslavia ". Beograd: Mladost. 1975.
• Milomir María Dec of Communism. "Mladost", Beograd 1987. Godina.

In English

• Pavlowitch, Stevan K. (2008). Hitler's new disorder: the Second World War in Yugoslavia. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-70050-4 .

In Russian

• Zalessky K. A. Who was who in the Second World War. Allies of the USSR. - M., 2004.
• V.V. Grishin . Disaster: from Khrushchev to Gorbachev. - M.: Algorithm: Eksmo, 2010.