[3] During his military career Dolanc received a university diploma and in the 1960s he was a director of the Political Science School in Ljubljana run by the Slovene branch of LCY.

In 1971, he became secretary of the newly established Executive Bureau of the Party Presidium, i.e. second person of LCY,[5] despite the actual number two of Yugoslav politics remained Edvard Kardelj, a lifelong collaborator of president Tito.

[citation needed] In November 1972, at a CC LCS plenum, he called for purges of the liberal wing of the Slovene Party branch which eventually did take place.

[6] He became famous for a statement he had made at a local communist conference in Split in September 1972: In the same speech Dolanc stressed that LCY had to be a united organization, announced expulsions of those party members that did not follow the new line and attacked Serb, Croat and Slovene nationalism.

[7][8] Dolanc's Split speech was directly preceded by a letter signed by himself and Tito addressed to local LCY organizations throughout Yugoslavia.

[10][11] However, during the 1970s in both LCY and federal state institutions a system of rotating collective leadership evolved that made it hardly possible for any single official to become a new leader after Tito.

In Belgrade, 28 participants of a lecture of Milovan Đilas were brought to a police interrogation; one of them was found dead few days later while six others faced a trial, which resulted in light punishments or acquittals.

[3][15] Dolanc has been accused of ordering assassinations of political emigrant activists committed by Yugoslav security service abroad and of personal protection of one of its agents, career criminal known as "Arkan".

[20] After his term in the Federal Presidency expired, Dolanc retreated from public life and moved to Gozd Martuljek close to Kranjska Gora.