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Yugoslavia The Resistance Movement
The communist-led Partisans eventually grew into Yugoslavia's
largest, most active resistance group. The Communist Party of
Yugoslavia (CPY) had sunk into obscurity after the government
banned it in 1921. Police repression, internal conflict, and the
Stalinist purges of the 1930s depleted party membership, and by
the late 1930s its leadership in Moscow directed only a few
hundred members inside Yugoslavia. The Partisan leader, Josip
Broz Tito, son of a Croatian-Slovenian peasant family, had joined
the Red Guards during the 1917 Russian Revolution and become a
party member after returning to Yugoslavia. Tito won membership
in the Central Committee of the Yugoslavian Communist Party in
1934, then became secretary general after a 1937 purge. In the
four years before the war, Tito directed a communist resurgence
and built a strong organization of 12,000 full party members and
30,000 members of the youth organization. The party played some
role in demonstrations in Belgrade against the Tripartite Pact,
and it called for a general uprising after Hitler attacked the
Soviet Union in June 1941. The Partisan slogan "Death to Fascism,
Freedom to the People," combined with a pan-Yugoslav appeal, won
recruits for Tito across the country--despite the fact that
before the war the communists had worked for the breakup of
Yugoslavia.
In July 1941, with some Cetnik support, the Partisans
launched uprisings that won control of much of the Yugoslav
countryside. The Partisan leaders established an administration
and proclaimed the Uzice Republic in western Serbia. But in
September the Axis struck back. Germany warned that it would
execute 100 Serbs for every German soldier the resistance killed,
and German troops killed several thousand civilians at Kragujevac
in a single reprisal. Tito correctly reasoned that such actions
would enrage the population and bring the Partisans more
recruits, so he disregarded the German threat and continued his
guerrilla warfare. He also arranged assassinations of local
political figures and ordered attacks on the Cetnici to coincide
with German action against them. Mihajlovic, however, feared that
German reprisals would turn into a Serbian holocaust, so he
ordered his forces not to engage the Germans. After fruitless
negotiations with Tito, the Cetnik leader turned against the
Partisans as his main enemy. Cetnik units attacked Partisans in
November 1941 and began cooperating with the Germans and Italians
to prevent a communist victory. The British liaison to Mihajlovi
advised London to stop supplying the Cetnici after the
Uzice attack, but Britain continued to supply Mihajlovic.
In late 1941, the Partisans lost control of Western Serbia,
Montenegro, and other areas, and their central command withdrew
into Bosnia. Despite the setbacks, Bosnian Serbs and other
Yugoslavs flocked to the Partisans. The Serbian-based Cetnici
expanded into Montenegro, where they gained local and Italian
support. Soviet dictator Joseph V. Stalin, fearing that Partisan
action might weaken Allied trust of the Soviet Union, and
suspicious of revolutionary movements not under his control,
reportedly instructed Tito to limit the Partisans to national
liberation and antifascist activities. Moscow refused to supply
arms to Tito, maintained relations with the government-in-exile,
and even offered a military mission and supplies to the
Cetnici.
At Bihac in November 1942, the Partisan leaders, anxious to
gain political legitimacy, convened the first meeting of the
Anti-
Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia
(Antifasisticko vece narodnog oslobodjenja Jugoslavije, AVNOJ), a
committee of communist and noncommunist Partisan representatives
from all over Yugoslavia. AVNOJ became the political umbrella
organization for the people's liberation committees that the
partisans established to administer territories under their
control. AVNOJ proclaimed support for democracy, the rights of
ethnic groups, the inviolability of private property, and freedom
of individual economic initiative. Stalin reportedly barred Tito
from declaring AVNOJ a provisional government. In 1943 Germany
mounted offensives to improve its control of Yugoslavia in
anticipation of an Allied invasion of the Balkans. The Partisans,
fearing that an Allied invasion would benefit the Cetnici,
attacked Mihajlovic's forces. In March the Partisans
outmaneuvered the German army and defeated the Cetnici
decisively in Hercegovina and Montenegro. In May, however,
German, Italian, Bulgarian, and NDH forces surrounded the
Partisans and launched a final crushing attack. In fierce combat
in the Sutjeska Gorge, the Partisans escaped encirclement. This
proved a turning point in their fortunes; when Italy surrendered
in September 1943, the Partisans captured Italian arms, gained
control of coastal territory, and began receiving supplies from
the Allies in Italy.
Tito convened a second session of AVNOJ in November 1943.
This session, which included representatives of various ethnic
and
political groups, built the basis for the postwar government of
Yugoslavia. AVNOJ voted to reconstitute the country on a federal
basis; elected a national committee to act as the temporary
government; named Tito marshal of Yugoslavia and prime minister;
and issued a declaration forbidding King Petar to return to the
country until a popular referendum had been held on the status of
the monarchy. Tito did not notify Stalin of the November meeting,
which enraged the Soviet leader. The Western Allies, however,
were not alarmed, because they believed that the Partisans were
the only Yugoslav resistance group actively fighting the Germans.
At Teheran in December 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin
decided to support the Partisans. A month later, Britain stopped
supplying the Cetnici and threw full support to the Partisans.
The first Soviet mission arrived at Partisan headquarters shortly
thereafter. The United States kept a military mission with
Mihajlovic to encourage continued Cetnik aid for downed American
fliers.
In May 1944, German airborne forces attacked Tito's
headquarters in Drvar, nearly capturing him. Tito fled to Italy,
then established new headquarters on the Adriatic island of Vis.
After throwing full support to the Partisans, Britain worked to
reconcile Tito and Petar. In June 1944, at Britain's urging,
Petar named Ivan Subasic, former ban of Croatia, as prime
minister of the government-in-exile. Subasic accepted the
resolutions of the second AVNOJ conference, and Petar agreed to
remain outside Yugoslavia. In September the king succumbed to
British pressure and summoned all Yugoslavs to back the
Partisans.
When the Red Army reached the Yugoslav-Romanian border in
September 1944, Tito traveled secretly to Moscow, arranged for
the Soviets to enter Yugoslavia, and secured Stalin's word that
the Red Army would leave the country once it was secure, without
interfering with domestic politics. Soviet troops crossed the
border on October 1, and a joint Partisan-Soviet force liberated
Belgrade on October 20. The majority of the Red Army then
continued into Hungary, leaving the Partisans and the Western
Allies to crush remaining Germans, Ustase, and Cetnici. When the
Partisans advanced into Croatia in the bloodiest fighting of the
war, Ustase leaders and collaborators fled to Austria with
regular Croatian and Slovenian troops and some Cetnici. The
Partisans finally occupied Trieste, Istria, and some Slovenian
enclaves in Austria, but they withdrew from some of these areas
after the Allies persuaded Tito to let the postwar peace
conferences settle borders. The Partisans crushed a small
Albanian nationalist revolt in Kosovo after Tito and Albanian
Communist leader Enver Hoxha announced that they would return
Kosovo to Yugoslavia.
World War II claimed 1.7 million Yugoslav lives, 11 percent
of the prewar population--a mortality second only to that of
Poland. About one million of those were killed by other
Yugoslavs. The average age of the dead was twenty-two years. The
country's major cities, production centers, and communications
systems were in ruins, and starvation was widespread
(see World War II and Recovery
, ch. 3).
Data as of December 1990
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