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1 Background, 1918ā1941
On December 1, 1918, the dreams of the nineteenth-century romantic nationalists seemingly came true as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenians (SCS) appeared on the map of the Balkans. The SCS brought together the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians, the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, and smaller ethnic groups under the scepter of the Serbian KaradjordjeviÄ dynasty. A member of the Entente during the Great War, Serbia had lost a fifth of its population to combat, foreign occupation, hunger, and epidemics. Therefore, the Serbian political and military establishment felt that the āSerbianā outlook of the new state was fair compensation for war sacrifices, and they were apprehensive about the national ambitions of the non-Serbs, particularly the Croats and Slovenes who had fought on the side of the Central Powers. Conversely, Croatian and Slovene statesmen envisioned the SCS as a federation of equal administrative units free to exercise their cultural distinctiveness and political traditions, and they felt increasingly uneasy about the pronounced Serbian dominance in state politics. As a result of these conflicting expectations, the entire history of the SCS (renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929) was marred by political and ethnic dissent, compounded by serious economic problems.
Society, Economy, Politics
In 1921 on June 28, the date celebrated by the Serbs as the anniversary of the Kosovo battle, the SCS received a constitution guaranteeing basic civil rights to all citizens but providing the king with most executive powers and severely limiting the jurisdiction of the SkupÅ”tina (parliament) and the regional governments.1 The SCS emerged as a centralized unitary state and clearly favored the Serbs albeit there were several prominent non-Serbs in government (e.g., Croat Ante TrumbiÄ, who was the foreign minister in the SCS first government, and Slovene Anton KoroÅ”ec, who held the offices of prime minister and minister of the interior and foreign affairs). Similarly, former officers of the Austro-Hungarian and Montenegrin armies were passed over by their Serbian counterparts, who dominated the SCS officer corps. Still, the real power remained in the hands of the royal court, which was backed by the army, the Serbian Orthodox Church, and monarchist organizations.2
Map 1. Yugoslavia in 1939
This situation reflected convictions among the Serbs of various political persuasions that they deserved to dominate SCS politics as a reward for war sacrifices. In fact, the preservation of Serbian dominance assumed a form of national obsession as the Serbian administration falsified censuses, struck and broke alliances with other national groups, and intimidated voters. Bribery and corruption became inseparable from politics, and criticism of the government was effectively stifled or silenced by force. Naturally, such policies ran counter to the vision of Yugoslavism as the alliance of the South Slavs in the form of federation, aspired to by Croatian or Slovenian national activists.3
One of the poorest and least industrialized states in Europe, the SCS was made up of the Austro-Hungarian, Serbian, and Montenegro provinces, some of which had little or no mutual trade. Serbia's ethnic composition and economy reflected the āclassicā patterns of the Eastern European landscape. While it was more homogeneous than Bosnia or Macedonia, in 1921 approximately 350,000 people (12.2 percent) of the 2,855,000 total were non-Serbs and included Romanians, Albanians, Bulgarians, and Germans. It was a smallholding peasant societyā79 percent of Serbia's population in 1921 made their living by agriculture. By the late 1930s, the population grew to 4,200,000, but the region's social profile remained unchangedāin 1940, 75 percent of the labor force was engaged in agricultural work.4 In comparison to the former Austro-Hungarian provinces, Serbia was industrializing slowlyāin 1938 it had only 718 plants and factories, whereas Croatia had 1,181, Slovenia 912, and Vojvodina 818. In addition, the bulk of Serbia's industries were small. For example, each of 240 industrial enterprises in Belgrade employed a hundred workers and predominantly produced textiles and agricultural implements. Although up to 40 percent of the SCS heavy industries, such as the Bor mining region, were located in Serbia, their full development began in the second half of the 1930s and was hindered by the Great Depression.5
In addition, severe war damagesāby 1918 the country had lost about 700,000 cattle, 70,000 horses, 3 million sheep and goats, and 800,000 pigsāundermined Serbia's economic potential, while the limited amount of arable land resulted in increased population density in the areas suitable for agriculture. Accordingly, most peasants owned plots of between 2 and 5 hectares and borrowed money at a high interest rate that further exacerbated their plight. By the late 1920s they had to give up, on average, three-quarters of their income to pay off debts. In 1924 a peasant family's annual income was 24,500 dinars; it dropped to 16,300 dinars in 1927 and to 7,125 dinars in 1933. While military and police expenditures soared, agricultural programs such as technical training received insignificant state subsidies.6
Given this situation, Serbia's political dominance on one hand and economic deficiency on the other hand fueled the resentment of the Croats and Slovenians, who saw the Serbs as the sole beneficiaries of the existing order. They increasingly despised the āBelgrade clique,ā which wielded undue power and influence while lacking necessary educational and economic prerequisites for such a task. Croat nationalism represented the key internal challenge to the government and tensions flared up in SkupÅ”tina, where the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska seljaÄka stranka, HSS) Stjepan RadiÄ joined forces with other disaffected political groups to counter Serbian domination. Political and national conflicts climaxed on June 28, 1928, when an extremist (the leader of a Chetnik association) shot five members of the HSS, including RadiÄ. To fight the regime, in 1929 the right-wing Croatian nationalists formed a clandestine organization Ustasha (insurrection), whose ideology was the conflation of Roman Catholicism, exclusionary nationalism, and fascism. The Ustasha aimed at achieving Croatian independence at any cost, including terrorism and violence, and sought assistance from Italy and Hungary.7
In order to allow time for passions to subside, in January 1929 King Alexander suspended the constitution and dissolved the SkupÅ”tina. The free press was shut down, political dissenters were arrested, and the country was renamed Yugoslavia, with the implication that the king's personal rule ushered in a time of national unity. The country was divided into nine administrative unitsābanovinaāwhose borders were drawn specifically to eliminate traditional historical entities and regional loyalties. Still, due to political manipulation, six banovina appeared to have a Serbian majority.8 Alexander ruled directly for two years, but eventually he decided that forging a Yugoslav identity from above was an impossible proposition. In September 1931 he introduced a new constitution that established an ostensibly constitutional monarchy that looked more acceptable than his personal dictatorship. To signify a broad national consensus, Alexander called for the creation of the Yugoslav National Party (Jugoslovenska narodna stranka), which was to stand above political and ethnic disparities; a bicameral parliament was also made responsible directly to him. Although the new electoral laws made it difficult for other parties to enter the parliament, the king's authoritarian rule nevertheless restored a semblance of order and tranquility. However, on October 10, 1934, while on a state visit to France, Alexander was assassinated by a Macedonian extremist hired by the Ustasha.9
Alexander's death distressed most Serbs, who saw him as the guarantor of peace and stability. The strings of power passed to the king's brother, Prince Paul, who ruled as regent until the maturity of the young Peter II. Although initially Paul was determined to preserve the status quo, he realized that the country was weary of authoritarian rule and so inaugurated relaxed policies. Political parties resumed their activities, some political prisoners were amnestied, electoral process recommenced, and a new government was formed under the finance minister, Milan StojadinoviÄ. A skillful politician, StojadinoviÄ managed to win support of the leading Slovene and Bosnian-Muslim politicians. To mitigate the growing internal dissent, he formed the Yugoslav Radical Alliance (Jugoslovenska radicalna zajednica, JRZ), which like the Camp of National Unity (OZON) in Poland nurtured greater centralizing aspirations and acted as a single pro-government block. In 1938 the JRZ won the national elections.10
The interwar period produced several political currents, which would crystalize into the forces of resistance and collaboration during the Second World War. The majority of Serbs tended to hold conservative political views. Although many grew increasingly uneasy or disaffected with the kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Serbian communities in Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, and Kosovo were concerned that any unrest would leave them stranded among unfriendly neighbors. The monarchy, therefore, seemed to offer the only assurance of security and stability; most Serbs, particularly in the countryside, considered radical changes potentially detrimental and wished to keep things as they were. Accordingly, the majority cast their votes for the centrist-conservative National Radical Party (Narodna radicalna stranka) and the Democratic Party (Demokratska stranka). Headed by its most prominent leader, Nikola PaÅ”iÄ, the Radicals were considered the Great Serbian Party, promoting Serbia's dominance, the primacy of the state, and the cultural assimilation of non-Serbs. Backed by the bureaucracy, the army, and the middle class, it remained the best-organized political association of the interwar period. The Democrats promoted a single Yugoslav nation made up of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and they supported state centralism as the vehicle to eradicate differences between the three nations. Between January 1921 and December 1922, the Democrats joined the Radicals in a coalition government. The Agrarian Party (Savez zemljoradnika, later ZemljoradniÄka stranka) was also predominantly Serbian in its political outlook; its ideological platform combined agrarian socialism, reliance on monarchy, and corporatism.11
The Radicals and the Democrats provided ideological guidelines for the Chetnik associations, by far the most numerous of all monarchist groups and societies. The name chetnik derives from Äeta (guerrilla bands), which fought against the Ottomans and operated behind enemy lines in the Balkan Wars of 1912ā13 and in World War I. The Chetnik associations functioned as a Yugoslav royalist force; the peasant activists (priests, teachers, and the rural intelligentsia) constituted the backbone of the Chetnik leadership. Priding themselves on their martial traditions and distinguished by the symbol of the white eagle in the cockades, the Chetniks were staunchly monarchist and anticommunist, and they professed to defend the existing political order. Central to the Chetnik ideological platform were two conceptsāāintegral Yugoslavismā and extreme Serbian nationalismāwhereby the former stipulated the union of all South Slav people under the monarchy, and the latter envisioned the Great Serbia, the idea penned by the Serbian politician Ilija GaraÅ”anin in the mid-nineteenth century. In his NaÄertanije (Memorandum), GaraÅ”anin dreamed of the liberation of all South Slavs from foreign domination and their unification under Serbia's dominance. Such aspirations were acted upon during the 1912ā13 Balkan Wars, when Serbia claimed āhistoricā rights to Macedonia and temporarily held possession of Albania's Adriatic littoral. In December 1914, after the successes of the Serbian army against Austro-Hungary, the SkupÅ”tina issued the so-called NiÅ” declaration (after the Austro-Hungarian invasion, the state institutions evacuated to NiÅ”), which stipulated the creation of the Serbia-dominated South Slav state after the war. Similarly, a few days later, Prince Regent Alexander appealed to the Serbian army, promising that victory in the war would entail the creation of the Great Serbia.12
In 1937 some faculty members of Belgrade University, the Orthodox clergy, and reserve officers founded the Serbian Cultural Club, which pledged to protect Serbian national interests against the encroachment of non-Serbs and to preserve the āSerbian characterā of Vojvodina, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. Eventually, the club's leading members became the ideological spokesmen for Chetnik associations.13
Although political extremism in the SCS was a marginal phenomenon, the Russian revolution and the postwar economic and political instability led to the emergence of several radical organizations. In April 1919 a splinter group of the Social Democratic Party formed the Socialist Workersā Party of Yugoslavia (of Communists) (SocijalistiÄka radniÄka partija Jugoslavije [komunista]). In 1920 it was renamed the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KomunistiÄka partija Jugoslavije, KPJ) and became the mouthpiece of the Communist International (Comintern), preaching world revolution. The party propaganda found receptive ears among the POWs returning from Russia, Austria, and Hungary and its internationalism attracted high school and university students, who joined the communist youth organization (Savez komunistiÄke omladine Jugoslavije, SKOJ) and provided the KPJ with several prominent members. The KPJ made a particular effort to increase its popularity at Belgrade University, which evolved into a hotbed of communist agitation. At the peak of its popularity in November 1920, the KPJ claimed fifty thousand members and obtained impressive results in provincial elections, particularly in the economically underdeveloped Macedonia and Montenegro, winning fifty-nine seats (out of 419) in the SkupÅ”tina.14
The KPJ success, however, was short-lived. Its antistate agitation and terrorist activities (its members carried out the assassination of the minister of interior, Milorad DraskoviÄ), compelled the government in August 1921 to pass the Law of the Protection of Public Security and Order, which accorded the police wide latitude in apprehending and detaining suspected subversives. The KPJ was banned, but it continued to operate clandestinely, using other leftist parties as the facade and gaining valuable experience in underground activities. Promoting the principle of self-determination and rejecting national divisions, the KPJ gained popularity in Croatia, Macedonia, and Kosovo. In Serbia, however, its propaganda found much less appeal, which the party leadership ascribed to the fact that, as a privileged national group, the Serbs were less susceptible to communist appeals. As a result, the KPJ did not establish a provincial branch in Serbia, as it had in Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia.15 To make matters worse, in the late 1920s the KPJ was ripped apart by the internal struggle between the āMoscowā group, which acted on behalf of Comintern, and the ānativeā faction, which advocated the adjustment of the party activities to the national and confessional specifics of Yugoslavia. In addition, the police crackdown resulted in mass arrests of the party activists, and in April 1929 police agents murdered the KPJ's first secretary, Äuro ÄakoviÄ.16
Political relaxation under the regency allowed the KPJ to reemerge from obscurity. According to the instructions of Comintern, the party stepped up a propaganda campaign against fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, which eventually mutated into vicious attacks against āimperialistā Western democracies and the ābourgeoisā Yugoslav state. In fact, promoting the destruction of Yugoslavia, the communists effectively pursued the same goal as the Ustasha.17 In August 1937, Josip Broz (Tito) was elected general secretary of the KPJ. A dedicated communist and a skillful leader, Tito realized that the main cause for the party's weakness in Serbia was its narrow social base, since most communists were workers and the urban intelligentsia. Under his leadership, the KPJ reorganized its decimated cells, began to expand into the countryside, and abandoned the idea of destroying the Yugoslav state, instead aspiring to a federalist solution to the country's national question.18
The KPJ was shocked by the Soviet-German nonaggression pact of August 1939, but a prominent communist, Vladimir Dedijer, recalled that the party accepted it ālike disciplined communists, considering it necessary for the security of the Soviet Union.ā19 Conseq...
