Edvard Kardelj
Encyclopedia
Edvard Kardelj (January 27, 1910 - February 10, 1979) also known under the pseudonym
s Sperans and Krištof was a Yugoslav communist political leader, economist
, partisan
, publicist
, and full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
. He is considered the main creator of the Yugoslav system of establishing workers' self-management
.
. At the age of 16 he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, where he was drafted under the influence of the Slovenian publicist Vlado Kozak. He studied to become a teacher, but never worked as one. In 1930, he was arrested in Belgrade
and convicted of being a member of the illegal Communist Party. He was released in 1932, and returned to Ljubljana when he became one of the leaders of the Slovenian section of the party, after most of its former members had either left the party or perished in the Stalin
ist purges.
In 1935 he went to Moscow
to work for the Comintern
. He was part of a group that survived Joseph Stalin
's purge of the Yugoslav Communist leadership. Following Stalin's appointment of Josip Broz Tito
as party leader, Kardelj became a leading member of the Party. The new leadership, centered around Tito, Aleksandar Ranković
and Kardelj, returned to Yugoslavia in 1937 and launched a new party policy, calling for a common anti-Fascist platform of all Yugoslav left-wing forces and for a federalization of Yugoslavia. The same year, an autonomous Communist Party of Slovenia was formed, with Kardelj as one of its leaders, together with Franc Leskovšek and Boris Kidrič
.
After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia
in April 1941, he became one of the leaders of the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People
. In summer and autumn 1941, he helped to set up the armed resistance in Slovenia which fought against the occupying forces till May 1945, jointly with Tito's Partisans
in what became known as the People's Liberation War of Yugoslavia.
over the border dispute in the Julian March
. After the Tito-Stalin split
in 1948, he helped, together with Milovan Đilas and Vladimir Bakarić
, to devise a new economic policy in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
, known as workers' self-management
. In the 1950s, especially after Djilas' removal, he rose to become the main theorist of Titoism
and Yugoslav workers' self-management
.
Nevertheless, his role diminished in the 1960s, for reasons that have yet to become clear. He again rose to prominence after 1973, when Tito removed the Croatia
n, Serbia
n and Slovenian reformist Communist leaderships, and restored a more orthodox party line. In 1974, he was one of the main authors of the new Yugoslav constitution
which decentralized decision-making in the country, leaving the single republics under the leadership of their respective political leaderships.
Kardelj died of colon cancer in Ljubljana on February 10, 1979.
During his lifetime, he was given several honors. He was appointed a member of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts and was officially honored as a People's Hero of Yugoslavia
. Apart from many streets, the entire coastal town of Ploče
in southern Croatia
was renamed Kardeljevo in his honour in 1950-1954 and again in 1980-1990. Immediately after his death, the University of Ljubljana
changed its name to "University of Edvard Kardelj in Ljubljana".
After the collapse of Yugoslavia, most of these were regiven their previous names, although in Slovenia
there are still some street and square names that bear his name, most famously the main town square in Nova Gorica
.
's Kulturni problem slovenstva ("The Cultural Problem of Slovene-hood"). It has been claimed that Kardelj's book plagiarised a Dragotin Gustinčič manuscript from 1933 entitled Das nationale Problem der Slowenen ("The Slovene National Issue"), although there is no proof for such a claim. The manuscript still exists, but has not yet been published. Gustinčič, one of the founding members of the Yugoslav Communist Party in Slovenia, was arrested in 1948, prior to the Tito-Stalin split, later accused of Stalinism and sent to the labor camp
at Goli otok
. It was perhaps this fact that later triggered the speculation, which has yet to be properly assessed.
Borut Kardelj, who committed suicide in 1971. His wife Pepca Kardelj, sister of a national hero Ivan Maček-Matija also committed suicide in 1990.
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
s Sperans and Krištof was a Yugoslav communist political leader, economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
, partisan
Partisans (Yugoslavia)
The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...
, publicist
Publicist
A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a public figure, especially a celebrity, a business, or for a work such as a book, film or album...
, and full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the most prominent academic institution in Serbia today...
. He is considered the main creator of the Yugoslav system of establishing workers' self-management
Workers' self-management
Worker self-management is a form of workplace decision-making in which the workers themselves agree on choices instead of an owner or traditional supervisor telling workers what to do, how to do it and where to do it...
.
Early years
Kardelj was born in LjubljanaLjubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
. At the age of 16 he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, where he was drafted under the influence of the Slovenian publicist Vlado Kozak. He studied to become a teacher, but never worked as one. In 1930, he was arrested in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
and convicted of being a member of the illegal Communist Party. He was released in 1932, and returned to Ljubljana when he became one of the leaders of the Slovenian section of the party, after most of its former members had either left the party or perished in the Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
ist purges.
In 1935 he went to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
to work for the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
. He was part of a group that survived Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's purge of the Yugoslav Communist leadership. Following Stalin's appointment of Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
as party leader, Kardelj became a leading member of the Party. The new leadership, centered around Tito, Aleksandar Ranković
Aleksandar Rankovic
Aleksandar "Leka" Ranković was a Yugoslav communist politician of Serbian origin considered to be the third most powerful man in Yugoslavia after Josip Broz Tito and Edvard Kardelj....
and Kardelj, returned to Yugoslavia in 1937 and launched a new party policy, calling for a common anti-Fascist platform of all Yugoslav left-wing forces and for a federalization of Yugoslavia. The same year, an autonomous Communist Party of Slovenia was formed, with Kardelj as one of its leaders, together with Franc Leskovšek and Boris Kidrič
Boris Kidric
Boris Kidrič was a leading Slovenian Communist who was, jointly with Edvard Kardelj, one of the chief organizers of the Partisan struggle in Slovenia from 1941 to 1945....
.
After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...
in April 1941, he became one of the leaders of the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People
Liberation Front of the Slovenian People
On 26 April 1941 in Ljubljana the Anti-Imperialist Front was established. It was to promote "an international massive movement" to "liberate the Slovenian nation" whose "hope and example was the Soviet Union"...
. In summer and autumn 1941, he helped to set up the armed resistance in Slovenia which fought against the occupying forces till May 1945, jointly with Tito's Partisans
Partisans (Yugoslavia)
The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...
in what became known as the People's Liberation War of Yugoslavia.
The Titoist theorist
After 1945, he rose to the highest positions in the Yugoslav regime. Between 1945 and 1947 he led the Yugoslav delegation that negotiated peace talks with ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
over the border dispute in the Julian March
Julian March
The Julian March is a former political region of southeastern Europe on what are now the borders between Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy...
. After the Tito-Stalin split
Tito-Stalin Split
The Tito–Stalin Split was a conflict between the leaders of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which resulted in Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Communist Information Bureau in 1948...
in 1948, he helped, together with Milovan Đilas and Vladimir Bakarić
Vladimir Bakaric
Dr. Vladimir Bakarić was a Croatian communist and a politician in Socialist Yugoslavia.Bakarić helped organize Partisan resistance in Croatia during World War II. From 1948 to 1969 he was the chairman of the Croatian League of Communists, and as such was a close collaborator of President Josip...
, to devise a new economic policy in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
, known as workers' self-management
Workers' self-management
Worker self-management is a form of workplace decision-making in which the workers themselves agree on choices instead of an owner or traditional supervisor telling workers what to do, how to do it and where to do it...
. In the 1950s, especially after Djilas' removal, he rose to become the main theorist of Titoism
Titoism
Titoism is a variant of Marxism–Leninism named after Josip Broz Tito, leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, primarily used to describe the specific socialist system built in Yugoslavia after its refusal of the 1948 Resolution of the Cominform, when the Communist Party of...
and Yugoslav workers' self-management
Workers' self-management
Worker self-management is a form of workplace decision-making in which the workers themselves agree on choices instead of an owner or traditional supervisor telling workers what to do, how to do it and where to do it...
.
Nevertheless, his role diminished in the 1960s, for reasons that have yet to become clear. He again rose to prominence after 1973, when Tito removed the Croatia
Socialist Republic of Croatia
Socialist Republic of Croatia was a sovereign constituent country of the second Yugoslavia. It came to existence during World War II, becoming a socialist state after the war, and was also renamed four times in its existence . It was the second largest republic in Yugoslavia by territory and...
n, Serbia
Socialist Republic of Serbia
Socialist Republic of Serbia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It is a predecessor of modern day Serbia, which served as the biggest republic in the Yugoslav federation and held the largest population of all the Yugoslav...
n and Slovenian reformist Communist leaderships, and restored a more orthodox party line. In 1974, he was one of the main authors of the new Yugoslav constitution
Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the supreme law of S.F.R. Yugoslavia and its predecessor, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia .-Federal constitutions:...
which decentralized decision-making in the country, leaving the single republics under the leadership of their respective political leaderships.
Kardelj died of colon cancer in Ljubljana on February 10, 1979.
During his lifetime, he was given several honors. He was appointed a member of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts and was officially honored as a People's Hero of Yugoslavia
People's Hero of Yugoslavia
The Order of the People's Hero was a Yugoslav gallantry medal, the second highest military award, and third overall Yugoslav decoration. It was awarded to individuals, military units, political and other organisations who distinguished themselves by extraordinary heroic deeds during war and in...
. Apart from many streets, the entire coastal town of Ploče
Ploce
Ploče is a town and a notable seaport in the Dubrovnik-Neretva County of Croatia.The total population of Ploče is 10,102 , in the following settlements:* Baćina, population 564* Banja, population 176* Komin, population 1,222...
in southern Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
was renamed Kardeljevo in his honour in 1950-1954 and again in 1980-1990. Immediately after his death, the University of Ljubljana
University of Ljubljana
The University of Ljubljana is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. With 64,000 enrolled graduate and postgraduate students, it is among the largest universities in Europe.-Beginnings:...
changed its name to "University of Edvard Kardelj in Ljubljana".
After the collapse of Yugoslavia, most of these were regiven their previous names, although in Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
there are still some street and square names that bear his name, most famously the main town square in Nova Gorica
Nova Gorica
Nova Gorica ; 21,082 ; 31,000 ) is a town and a municipality in western Slovenia, on the border with Italy...
.
Controversy over the authorship of the Evolution
One of his most influential and insightful, as well as controversial works was the book Razvoj slovenskega narodnega vprašanja (The Evolution of the Slovene National Question), written in 1939, partially as a response to Josip VidmarJosip Vidmar
Josip Vidmar was a prominent Slovenian literary critic and essayist. Vidmar is remembered because of his role in the Slovenian resistance during World War II, and for his influence in the cultural policies of the Titoist regime in Slovenia from the mid 1950s to the mid 1970s.He was born in...
's Kulturni problem slovenstva ("The Cultural Problem of Slovene-hood"). It has been claimed that Kardelj's book plagiarised a Dragotin Gustinčič manuscript from 1933 entitled Das nationale Problem der Slowenen ("The Slovene National Issue"), although there is no proof for such a claim. The manuscript still exists, but has not yet been published. Gustinčič, one of the founding members of the Yugoslav Communist Party in Slovenia, was arrested in 1948, prior to the Tito-Stalin split, later accused of Stalinism and sent to the labor camp
Labor camp
A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...
at Goli otok
Goli otok
Goli otok is an island off the northern Adriatic coast, located between Rab's northeastern shore and the mainland, in what is today Croatia's Primorje-Gorski Kotar county. The island is barren and uninhabited...
. It was perhaps this fact that later triggered the speculation, which has yet to be properly assessed.
Other
Edvard Kardelj was the father of the poetPoet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
Borut Kardelj, who committed suicide in 1971. His wife Pepca Kardelj, sister of a national hero Ivan Maček-Matija also committed suicide in 1990.
See also
- AVNOJAVNOJThe Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia, known more commonly by its Yugoslav abbreviation AVNOJ, was the political umbrella organization for the national liberation councils of the Yugoslav resistance against the World War II Axis occupation, eventually becoming the...
- Milovan Đilas
- Stane DolancStane DolancStane Dolanc was a Yugoslav and Slovenian communist politician, one of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito's closest collaborators and one of the most influential people in Yugoslav federal politics in the 1970s and 1980s...
- Economy of the Socialist Federal Republic of YugoslaviaEconomy of the Socialist Federal Republic of YugoslaviaDespite common origins, the economy of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was much different from economies of the Soviet Union and other Eastern European socialist countries, especially after the Yugoslav-Soviet break-up of 1948. The occupation and liberation struggle in World War II...
- OZNAOZNAThe Department for the Protection of the People was a security agency of the FPR Yugoslavia.-Founding:...
- Self-managementSelf-managementSelf-management means different things in different fields:* In business, education, and psychology, self-management refers to methods, skills, and strategies by which individuals can effectively direct their own activities toward the achievement of objectives, and includes goal setting, decision...
- Socialist Federal Republic of YugoslaviaSocialist Federal Republic of YugoslaviaThe Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
- Josip Broz TitoJosip Broz TitoMarshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
- TitoismTitoismTitoism is a variant of Marxism–Leninism named after Josip Broz Tito, leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, primarily used to describe the specific socialist system built in Yugoslavia after its refusal of the 1948 Resolution of the Cominform, when the Communist Party of...
- UDBAUDBAThe Department of State Security was the secret police organization of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.Although it operated with more restraint than other secret...