He was one of the most prominent proponents of the ideas of republicanism and social justice in the Kingdom of Serbia and in the Yugoslav monarchy of the Karađorđević dynasty.

[1] After the destruction of the Yugoslav monarchy by Axis forces in 1941, and the liberation of the country by Yugoslav Partisans in 1945, he became a minister in Democratic Federal Yugoslavia and later the deputy prime minister of the newly established Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia.

He subsequently studied at the School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at grandes écoles in Belgrade until 1890.

From 1909 to 1911 he served as minister of the economy in the government of Stojan Novaković and was instrumental in the adoption of a 1911 law on workers' insurance.

[2] When World War II ended, he attended the Potsdam Conference as Minister for Serbia in the Provisional Government of Yugoslavia[3] before he joined the communists to become the first deputy prime minister of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia.