crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
after 1948, always made it a point that these preparations (and the party meetings and proclamations of
May 1941) were to show the independent party policy of a partisan uprising that took place before the
attack on the Soviet Union.
These assertions are nowadays being contested. First, by the fact that any form of uprising can
well be attributed to a general anti-occupational feeling, and not only to the party or the partisans. There
were at least two motives that strongly incited these feelings in Slovenia: the actions of the Kulturbund 3
and the German deportations of the civilian population, which started in June 1941. It is also important
to know, that the Communist Party propaganda of that time, still stuck to its anti-imperialist stand,
instigated by the policy of the Comintern after the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. It was directed mainly
against Great Britain. 4 The party kept this up until 22 June 1941. The other point that is being made is,
that whatever the communist activities were up to that date, they were not a general uprising. They were
merely preparations, and the same was being done by other parties and groups, as well.
The uprising after 22 June 1941 was different; it was strongly in the hands of the party. This is
already clearly to be seen from Tito’s first report to the Comintern on the same day. He reported on
how the party issued a call 5 for an armed struggle against the fascist occupiers and was organising
fighting groups throughout the country, led by military-revolutionary committees. What followed was
a very outspoken revolutionary party line that lasted till mid 1942, in Slovenia until the fall of 1942.
The CPY kept this stand regardless of the policy of the SU, which at the time withdrew its socialist
slogans, replacing them with patriotic and nationalist ones. The telegrams coming from Moscow called
for a united front with other patriot groups and parties. The CPY only partly complied. It did address its
proclamations to the whole nation, saying this was a fight that involved everyone. It also tried to prevail
on other parties to join the liberation movement. In this spirit, talks went on with Dragoljub Jovanović’s
Agrarian Party in Serbia, but with no outcome. However, the CPY addressed the communists separately,
giving them instructions and keeping a close watch that the organisation it was putting up was under
strict party control. For instance, political commissars were immediately introduced into the fighting
groups. Even of greater importance was the fact that the party started to persecute the political efforts
of the big pre-war parties and their outspoken politicians, right away. It contested the policy of the
Yugoslav government in exile in London, and those back home who were faithful to it.
After the attack on the SU, Slovene communists publicly proclaimed that the time for the revolution
has come (in the spirit of the world revolution). This proclamation already included a forewarning of a
possible intervention against the revolution, as well. Shortly afterwards, they introduced the term whiteguard
for all those who opposed them. These were only meaningful details, but they clearly showed that
the party was following the theoretical recipe from the obligatory party literature (the well-known “History
of the VKP/b” from 1938 and the works of Lenin and Stalin). In mid-September the Liberation Front took
a more energetic stand towards all those who did not join it. It introduced a decree, stating that all who
left the liberation movement and organised their own groups, thus harming the liberation movement, were
national traitors (beside collaborators, denouncers, etc.). The decree provided for a death penalty for such
deeds, and the formation of extraordinary courts to pass sentences. In mid-August, the party also set up its
own intelligence service, with a branch in charge of executions, and an armed militia, called the Narodna
zaščita. The intelligence service (its original name was Varnostno-obveščevalna služba – VOS – Security
and Intelligence Service), was the first of its kind in Yugoslavia, organised after the model of the one in the
Soviet Union. Elsewhere they established it much later, in 1943.
Such Party moves did not go unnoticed by other political parties and groups in Slovenia. After their
first enthusiasm over a joint liberation movement, they began asking questions about the status of the
non-communists in such a united Liberation Front. The ones that had not joined it yet began demanding
that the Front should be organised as a coalition of independent and equal parties. 6 Disagreement on
3
The Kulturbund was a pro-Nazi organisation of the German minority in Slovenia, which welcomed the occupation of parts of Slovenia
by Germany and gave to the occupation forces, lists of Slovene nationals to be deported either to concentration camps and labour in
Germany, or to Serbia and the Independent state of Croatia.
4
Cf. Walter’s (Tito’s) telegrams to the Comintern in June 1941, published in Josip Broz Tito, Zbrana dela (Collected works), vol. 7,
Ljubljana 1981, pp. 18–25, 41 (this edition was preceeded by one in Belgrade, the edition consists of volumes 1–29).
5
Ibid., p. 42. Tito wrote this proclamation; after the meeting of the Central Committee of the CPY on 22 June l941, others followed.
6
At the end of July 1941, the leadership of the Anti-imperialist Front of the Slovene people held a meeting and changed its name into the
Liberation Front (OF). Then some of the liberal fractions and officers of the Yugoslav army already joined the movement, and later, at
the beginning of August, another group of left-winged and pro-Soviet liberal intellectuals joined, while talks were held so that the young
liberals and the moderate fraction of the Slovene People’s Party also would join. Dokumenti ljudske revolucije v Sloveniji (Documents of
the People’s Revolution in Slovenia), vol. 1, Ljubljana 1962, pp. 62, 64, 67.
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