After the war he was Deputy of the Minister of Defence of Yugoslavia and held various military high positions.

From 1935 to 1935 he worked in "Tehnika KPJ", a small printing house in Prague which planned to publish communist the newspaper "Proleter".

[1] After nationalists took control over Catalonia, Rukavina fled with rest of republican soldiers to France and was interned to a POW camp.

[1] During the April War, when Nazi Germany attacked Kingdom of Yugoslavia, he was a conscript in Nikšić.

After 15 days spent in POW camp, he escaped to Zagreb, and again he joined the activity of the Communist Party.

[1] In June 1941 he went to Banija and participated in foundation of Sisak People's Liberation Partisan Detachment.

After that, Rukavina returned to Zagreb, which was the capital of the Independent State of Croatia at the time, and at the beginning of August 1941 he went to Kordun where he also worked on the founding of partisan detachments.