crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
Milko Mikola
Communist repression of “interior enemies” in
Slovenia
In the greater part of this paper, the author deals with individual repressive measures that Communist
rule imposed in Slovenia in the period from the end of the war in 1945 until the beginning of the 1950s.
In this period, the Communist authorities in Slovenia implemented all the forms of repression that
were typical of states with Stalinist regimes. In Slovenia, it was a time of mass killings without court
trials, and of concentration and labour camps. Property was confiscated, inhabitants were expelled
from Slovenia/Yugoslavia and their residences, political and show trials were carried out, religion
was repressed and the Catholic Church and its clergy were persecuted. At the beginning of the 1950s,
Communist rule in Slovenia abandoned these forms of repression but was ready to reapply them if it felt
threatened. Thus the regime set up political and show trials against certain more visible opponents later.
In the case of an “emergency situation”, even the establishment of concentration camps was planned
in Slovenia in 1968, where around 1,000 persons, of whom 10 % were women, would be interned for
political reasons.
1. Some general features
Dealing with Communist repression in Slovenia should have as a basis the fact that the second or
AVNOY (AVNOJ) Yugoslavia, part of which was Slovenia, was a totalitarian state. As in other Communist
countries, the Communist Party in Yugoslavia and thus also in Slovenia established a power monopoly
that enabled it to fully master all spheres of economic and social life, including by means of revolutionary
violence. After having forcibly subjected all authorities and other social institutions, it also endeavoured
to fully subordinate every individual. In principle, the totalitarianism of Communist rule did not allow the
assertion of those fundamental human rights and freedoms that are indispensable for bringing democracy
into force and ensuring the freedom of every individual. Because Communist rule could stay in power only
through force, it was indispensably based on the use of excessive repression against its own citizens. The
level of repression depended on the level of endangerment: the more the regime felt threatened, the more
severe the repression. In terms of the intensity of implementing repression and violating human rights and
freedoms, Communist totalitarianism in Slovenia should be divided into the following two periods:
– The period from the end of the war in 1945 until the beginning of the 1950s;
– The period from the beginning of the ‘50s until the fall of Communism.
It was characteristic of the first period that Communist rule in Slovenia used Stalinist methods,
and therefore it may be designated as a period of Stalinism. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia, and
thus the Communist Party of Slovenia, was “one of the most radical of all Eastern European Communist
parties, because it gravitated most to the Soviet socialist pattern.” The consistent imitation of Stalinist
patterns of rule was most clearly evident in the repression against the actual and potential adversaries
of Communist rule – “interior enemies”. In the period from the end of war in 1945 until the beginning
of the ‘50s, Communist repression in Slovenia reached such vast dimensions that we may speak about
state terrorism over its own citizens, to whom not even the right to life was granted. This period was
characterised by mass killings without court trials, concentration and labour camps, forced deprivations
of property, deportations of inhabitants and political and show trials, to list only some of the more
explicit forms of violence in those times.
These and other repressive measures in Slovenia were abolished only after the final break with
Stalin and Stalinism. The most important step in this direction was made by abolishing the existing
Stalinist criminal legislation, which took place in January 1951 with the adoption of a new criminal code.
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