crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
kind of “minister” and that this government of theirs was a great foolishness, a ridiculous operetta. 19
However, what Kardelj, and later on Ivo Ribar - Lola, were basically opposed to, was the fact that the
Slovenes were ‘proceeding at their own pace’, which he reported as “separatist dangers”. The way the
CPY fought against such phenomena, was only to show how far it was prepared to go in its national
policy, in spite of the general premises of this policy, that were set by Tito. In his famous article of
December 1942 on the national question in Yugoslavia, he proclaimed national equality and the policy
of ‘bratstvo i jedinstvo’ (brotherhood and equality). 20 The reaction of the CPY to Slovene initiatives
and solutions, even if they later adopted them as their own, was just an anticipation of problems yet to
come.
The politburo of the CPY changed its outlook on this issue at a meeting on 8 September 1942,
ruling that the liberation councils were to become the new form of government. (The general form and
jurisdiction of these councils had been already determined earlier by the so-called Fočaski propisi 21 ).
They were now to replace the pre-war, ‘old, bourgeois’ establishment. Now preparations began for the
formation of a body called the “National committee of liberation of Yugoslavia”, whose purpose was to
take the place of the government in exile in London. Such a decision of the Yugoslav party put the Soviet
government on the spot again, regarding its relations with the Allies. Therefore the Comintern suggested
to Tito, that he could form an all-Yugoslav political representative body, but merely a general political
one and not one with executive and jurisdictional power. The Yugoslav leadership accepted this to a
certain extent. They did not set up an alternative government (because of international circumstances,
as Tito explained at the meeting), but just the Anti-fascist Council of People’s Liberation of Yugoslavia
(AVNOJ). However, at its founding session in Bihać in November 1942, they spoke out very clearly
about the nature of the revolutionary changes taking place in Yugoslavia. The Bihać meeting openly
condemned the government in exile as a “popular (national) traitor” (izdajnik naroda) and proclaimed
there would be no restoration of the pre-war regime.
This marked the end of the stage of revolutionary revolt and upheaval in the policy of the CPY, and
the start of a new phase, of a gradual take-over of power, a process that went on until the elections of the
Constituent Assembly in November 1945. It was by no means less revolutionary in its goals. It was just
tactically more premeditated and refined, with a predominance of a policy based on the raison d’état. Its
main characteristic was the formation of an alternative state system, which systematically undermined the
pre-war political regime. It was to become a people’s government, based on true democracy. Revolution
was not openly spoken of any more because of internal and international reasons. This meant that the
CPY made concessions in order to achieve an international recognition for the transition. The process
took into account, almost to the dot, the elements described in Lenin’s State and Revolution. Now the
party and partisan leadership kept on emphasising the fight against the occupation forces, the struggle
for the fatherland and the policy of ‘brotherhood and unity’. Analysing the main characteristics of this
stage of the Yugoslav revolution, I have called it a ‘revolution from above’. 22
Such a policy was, of course, much more in harmony with the policy of the Comintern. The
dissolution of the Comintern in May 1943 did not alter the contacts between the CPY and Moscow;
the only change was that the telegrams were henceforth addressed to Georgi Dimitrov. Meanwhile
the British policy towards the partisan movement changed in the spring of 1943, which was another
good reason for the new behaviour of the partisans. At the same time, the CPY tried hard to show it
was leading a clear and balanced national policy, and its commitment to Yugoslavia, since this too was
tactically very opportune. In fact it was to be another successful alternative, this time to the never-ending
19
Dokumenti ljudske revolucije, vol. 2, pp. 323–324. Report of CPY politburo member E. Kardelj from 14 July 1942 to Ivo Ribar - Lola on
the situation in Slovenia. Kardelj was very much against such a government at the time, although he did approve of promotion of the idea
of national liberation councils in general and reported in the same letter that the elections into these councils strenghtened “our positions”
and that they were by character a special form of Soviets.
20
Ivo L. Ribar, op. cit., p. 198 and J. B. Tito, Zbrana dela, vol. 13, p. 66. “The national question in Yugoslavia in the light of the national
liberation movement.” Ivo Lola also pointed out that the Slovenes were the only ones in Yugoslavia to act as a whole and appoint
delegates to the AVNOJ meeting in Bihać, while the rest of the Yugoslav representatives at the meeting were picked out and called by the
Supreme command. He also pointed out some other signs and examples of such sectarianism, finding a cure for this in establishing closer
ties between the Slovene and Croat partisans.
21
Fočanski propisi, Sarajevo 1981. They were a set of rules for the establishment and functioning of the local national liberation councils,
written in Foča (then the capital of the partisan liberated territory) at the end of February 1942 by Moša Pijade. Some authors consider
they originated from the Slovene form – the councils of OF. For many years to come, they were the basis of the so-called people’s
democracy in Yugoslavia, representing a form of local administration and government.
22
The developments that follow hereof are discussed in detail in my book: Jera Vodušek Starič, Prevzem oblasti 1944–1946 (The Take-over
of Power in 1944–1946), Ljubljana 1992.
30