Antun Mavrak (1899 – 8 April 1938) was a Croatian revolutionary and top

functionary An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their ...

of the

Communist Party of Yugoslavia The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, mk, Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na komunistite na Jugoslavija known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, sl, Komunistična partija Jugoslavije mk ...

(KPJ). Mavrak was named as organizational secretary of the underground KPJ in August 1930 and remained in that leading post until his removal in December 1931. Although expelled from the Communist Party, Mavrak continued to live in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

under the name Karl Yakovlevich, working as a laborer. Mavrak was arrested during the Terror of 1937-38 and was executed as an alleged spy in 1938. Mavrak was posthumously rehabilitated by the Soviet government in 1963.

Biography

Early years

Antun Mavrak was born in 1899 in

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and He ...

, then part of the

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

to an ethnic Croatian family.Branko Lazitch with Milorad M. Drachkovitch (eds.), ''Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern.'' New, Revised, and Expanded Edition. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1986; pg. 309. Following completion of his secondary education, Mavrak enrolled at the

University of Zagreb The University of Zagreb ( hr, Sveučilište u Zagrebu, ; la, Universitas Studiorum Zagrabiensis) is the largest Croatian university and the oldest continuously operating university in the area covering Central Europe south of Vienna and all of ...

, where he studied law.

Political career

Mavrak joined the

(KPJ) in 1924, soon coming to play a leading role in that organization. He was named secretary of the regional committee for Croatia in 1928 and was named a member of the party's delegation to the

6th World Congress of the Comintern The Sixth Congress of the Communist International was held in Moscow from July 17 to September 1, 1928. The Congress was attended by 515 delegates from 65 organizations (including 50 Communist Parties) from 57 countries. Adopting the theory of the ...

held in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

that same year. Mavrak's political activity as a member of the illegal Communist Party brought him to the attention of the Yugoslav police, who forced him to flee to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

to avoid arrest shortly after his return from Moscow. The Austrian government in turn sought Mavrak's removal and he was expelled from Vienna, landing in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, where he headed the organization of exiled Yugoslav Communists in France. By the end of 1929 the leftist leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia Filip Filipović and J. Martinović were the focus of severe criticism in Moscow.Geoffrey Swain, "Wreckage or Recovery: A Tale of Two Parties," in Matthew Worley (ed.), ''In Search of Revolution: International Communist Parties in the Third Period.'' Palgrave-Macmillan, 2004; pg. 131. At issue was a perceived tendency of the underground Yugoslav party towards putschism at the expense of factory organization, with the first half of 1929 marked by a series of gun battles between KPJ insurgents and the police as party radicals vainly attempted to ignite a mass "armed uprising" via isolated street fighting. Moreover, sectarian infighting further destabilized the Yugoslav party organization as the ascendent ultra-revolutionary left wing moved towards "purging the party of all

opportunist Opportunism is the practice of taking advantage of circumstances – with little regard for principles or with what the consequences are for others. Opportunist actions are expedient actions guided primarily by self-interested motives. The term ...

renegades."Swain, "Wreckage or Recovery," pg. 132. With the KPJ shattered by their tactics and the inevitable reprisals of the Yugoslav government, the Comintern sought a new leadership to bring the factional war revolutionary posturing to an end and to set about rebuilding the organization. In August 1930, Mavrak was called to Moscow and was there named the new organizational secretary of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. A new focus was made on the organization of underground trade unions, while those seeking an immediate insurrection through armed battles were dismissed as terrorists in the party press. Mavrak proved a poor choice as a party leader, however, failing to appeal to the dominant left wing of the KPJ and alienating a large section of the party faithful by attempting to end publication of the party theoretical magazine ''Klasna borba'' (Class Struggle) as a "waste of time."Swain, "Wreckage or Recovery," pg. 134. On December 7, 1931, top officials of the KPJ met with relevant Comintern officials to determine a new leadership for the Yugoslav party, with Filip Filipović returned for a second stint as the leader of the party organization. Antun Mavrak's career as a top Communist Party official was thus essentially brought to a close.

Final years

Anton Mavrak was expelled from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia by Comintern decision in April 1932. He continued to live in the Soviet Union following his expulsion, assuming the new name Karl Yakovlevich, working in

Rostov Rostov ( rus, Росто́в, p=rɐˈstof) is a town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, one of the oldest in the country and a tourist center of the Golden Ring. It is located on the shores of Lake Nero, northeast of Moscow. Population: While t ...

and Moscow as a laborer. Mavrak was arrested early in 1938 as part of the secret police frenzy which swept the USSR — a mass anti-espionage campaign with

xenophobic Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...

overtones in which former Communist dissidents were especially hard hit. Mavrak was tried along with fellow KPJ leaders

Karlo Štajner Karlo Štajner (15 January 1902 – 1 March 1992) was an Austrian-Yugoslav communist activist and a prominent Gulag survivor. Štajner was born in Vienna, where he joined the Communist Youth of Austria, but emigrated to the Kingdom of Serbs, ...

and Filip Filipović and was executed immediately thereafter.Karlo Štajner, ''Ruka iz groba'' (A Hand from the Grave). Zagreb: Globus, 1985; pg. 40. The Soviet government posthumously rehabilitated Mavrak in 1963, thereby essentially admitting that the charges made against him during the terror of 1937-38 were without basis.

Biography

Early years

Political career

Final years

See also

Footnotes

Further reading