Vladimir "Vlado" Dapčević (Serbian Cyrillic: Владимир "Владo" Дапчевић; 14 June 1917 – 12 July 2001) was a Yugoslav and Montenegrin communist, revolutionary and political leader who fought as a Partisan against Axis occupation troops and forces of the Independent State of Croatia during World War II.
He spent a total of 24 years in Yugoslav prisons as a political dissident for advocating anti-Titoism and Proletarian internationalism.
Dapčević was born 1917 in the village Ljubotinj in the Kingdom of Montenegro, he attended secondary school in Cetinje where he was expelled because of organizing a student strike.
But the local KPJ committee dissolved due to internal misunderstandings and Dapčević headed back to Belgrade.
As Yugoslavia surrendered to Nazi Germany, Dapčević moved from Belgrade back to Montenegro where he was active in the organization of resistance.
He was re-admitted into the Party in Foča in early 1942, and designated political Commissar for the Drina Volunteer (Partisan) Detachment.
After the war, he worked as a professor at the Party School for Officers, and in 1947, he was promoted to JNA Chief of Administration for Agitation and Propaganda (Agitprop).
In the fall of 1948, he attempted to escape to Hungary, but was arrested and kept in custody for a total of 22 months before finally receiving a 20-year jail sentence.
From June 1950 to December 6, 1956, he was imprisoned in concentration camps at Stara Gradiška, Bileća and Goli Otok,[2] and each time exposed to brutal torture.
As a result, thanks in part to his activity, the Conference adopted the resolution of condemnation of the Yugoslav Communist Alliance (SKJ) as a revisionist and an Anti-Marxist party.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Dapčević and other émigrés organized volunteer groups to Cuba, but were prevented from departing by the Soviet authorities.
In early 1965, he wanted to join the communist forces fighting the Vietnam War as a volunteer, but was still not allowed to leave the Soviet Union.
He had been sentenced to death in absentia, but the punishment was commuted to 20 years of hard labor (this leniency was shown to him as his brother Peko Dapčević was a renowned army general and World War II hero).
On March 27, 1992, he founded the Party of Labour and during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, he actively worked on the strengthening of democracy and unity against the Milošević government.