Aleksandar "Leka" Ranković (Serbian Cyrillic: Александар Лека Ранковић) (1909, Obrenovac - 1983) 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.[1]
Ranković was a member of the Politburo from 1940. After he was captured and tortured by the German Gestapo in 1941, he was rescued in a daring raid by Yugoslav Partisans. Ranković served on the Supreme Staff throughout the war. He was named a "People's Hero" for his services during World War II.
After the war, he became minister of the interior and head of the military intelligence OZNA and secret police UDBA. He fell from power in 1966, ostensibly for abusing his authority by bugging the sleeping quarters of President Josip Broz Tito. He was expelled from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia the same year.
His fall from power marked the beginning of the end of a centralized power structure of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia over the country and the social and political separatist and autonomist movements that would culminate in the Croatian Spring and the newly de-centralized Yugoslavia that emerged from the 1971 constitutional reforms and later the 1974 Constitution.[2]
Ranković spent his remaining years in Dubrovnik until his death in 1983. His was buried in Belgrade with thousands present for his funeral, as Ranković had come to symbolize Serbian strength and interests within Yugoslavia.
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