Miko Tripalo

Miko Tripalo (Sinj, 1926 – Zagreb, 1995) was a Croatian and Yugoslav politician.

A son of a well-to-do farmers' family near Sinj, he joined Josip Broz Tito's Partisans as a teenager. Later he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and rose through its ranks, getting many important positions in Yugoslavia.

Gradually, Tripalo rose to enough prominence to join the second generation of top Communist officials in Yugoslavia. They were, under tacit blessing of Tito, supposed to introduce various economic and political reforms in late 1960s. Tripalo, together with Savka Dabčević-Kučar, became one of the leaders of the Croatian Communist Party.

In 1970, Tripalo and Dabčević-Kučar introduced a new party platform that demanded more autonomy for Croatia within Yugoslavia. The platform was promoted through mass rallies, soon becoming a popular movement, later called Croatian Spring. Dabčević-Kučar and Tripalo became the most popular politicians in Croatia at the time.

The new policy was opposed by more conservative elements of the party and Yugoslav People's Army and also created many ethnic tensions in parts of Croatia with large Serb minority. That, and Croatian students making even more radical demands, finally led Tito to openly turn against Dabčević-Kučar and Tripalo at Karađorđevo Party conference in December 1971. Dabčević-Kučar and Tripalo were quickly removed from their Party positions and, ultimately, from public life.

In 1989, with an arrival of multi-party democracy in Croatia, Tripalo re-emerged in Croatian politics as one of the top opposition figures. He published a book called Croatian Spring, claiming that the movement, previously known as Maspok, was inspired by Prague Spring and extinguished in the same manner.

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