Gorkić was born Josef Čižinský in 1904 into a Czech family from Austria-Hungary that had settled in Sarajevo five years earlier in 1899.

At the time, Bosnia-Herzegovina was still officially a vilayet within the Ottoman Empire though in actuality it was run as an occupational zone and a de facto part of Austria-Hungary.

His father, Václav Čižinský was an upholster who earlier held membership in the Social Democratic Party of Czechoslovakia.

After a short holiday in his hometown, he brought his wife, Gorkić's mother, Antonija Mimerova to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In 1921, Gorkić's family was deported back to Czechoslovakia, after his father was involved in a strike and accusations of being a communist and a serbophobe.

[7] During a time spent in Commercial Academy, Gorkić joined the Organization of Intellectual Workers as a fifteen-year-old.

Gorkić and other members of the organisation had meetings in Workers' Home, where they read works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as well as Miroslav Krleža's revolutionary magazine "Plamen".

On 4 December 1919, Young Communist League of Yugoslavia (SKOJ) was established in Sarajevo; Gorkić was elected to its leadership.

In the letter, Gorkić wrote in detail about organisation's activity and meeting place that was supposed to be held in Belgrade.

However, the meeting never took place, because a communist, Spasoje Stević, made a failed assassination attempt on King Alexander, who was at the time, a regent.

[15] Gorkić was heard by police on 2 August and spent six months in prison, when he was bailed out by the party along with other imprisoned communists.

The Deputy Executive Committee was founded to lead members of the party that stayed in country after Alexander's Obznana forbade future activity of the KPJ.

On VIII session held on 10 July 1922, Gorkić was elected to a commission that would deal with political, organization and union matters.

Before that, Gorkić stayed in Zagreb under the pretext that he attended Export Academy, which enabled him to leave the country.

In October 1925, the police authorities informed the prefect of Sarajevo region that Gorkić was in Belgrade at the end of June 1925 as a courier from Moscow.

Prefect of Sarajeo informed authorities in Belgrade to arrest Gorkić if he enters Yugoslavia one more time.

[25] He became member of the SKOJ's Central Committee in 1924, but was soon expelled from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, after which he became representative of the KPJ in the Comintern in Moscow.

After three years working as a representative, he was elected to the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International in Moscow (ECCI) in 1927.

[26] In June 1932, under the mentorship of Nikolai Bukharin, Gorkić was appointed to the provisional leadership of the KPJ under the pseudonym Sommer.

In November 1932 in the text published in the official gazette of the KPJ, Gorkić criticised leaders of communists from Dalmatia because they did not join Ustaše during the Velebit uprising.

The reason for that was conflict with Đuka Cvijić (aka Kirsch), who opposed intervention of other communist parties in internal policy of the KPJ.

In the process, in July 1934, he named Josip Broz Tito to the temporary leadership and he, himself, didn't participate at the conference held in Ljubljana in December 1934.

[30] The meeting of the Transitional Leadership of the KPJ, composed by Gorkić, Vladimir Ćopić and Blagoje Parović, held a meeting on 26 April 1933, where it was stated that the purge was "absolutely correct and made on time," claiming that the leadership of the KPJ completed its task.

It was decided that a prominent members that were expelled from the party should get a chance to confess their mistakes in order to return into the KPJ.

During a Congress of the Comintern in the end of July 1935 held in Moscow, Gorkić met with Yugoslav delegates at a session.

During their process, the official statement of the Central Committee of the KPJ called Bukharin and Rykov "Trotskyst-Zinovievist fascist bandits" who were "discarded by workers' masses for their criminal fight against realisation of the ingenious Stalin's plans.

Moreover, in the official statement, two members of the KPJ, dr. Ante Ciliga and Voja Vujović, were accused for cooperation with the arrested old bolsheviks and were also proclaimed to be Benito Mussolini's spies.

During the struggle for leadership of the KPJ, Josip Broz Tito was an agent of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police.

"Gorkić received an emergency call from the Comintern in Moscow to return and make a report in June 1937.

Communists who led the KPJ before Gorkić, Filip Filipović (1938), Sima Marković (1937), Đuka Cvijić (1937), Jovan Mališić (1938) and Antun Mavrak (1938) were also executed during the purge.