BEFO RE T IT O

A CTA UNIVERSITATIS
TALLIN N EN SIS
Humaniora

A DVISO RY BOARD
Cornelius Hasselblatt (Estonian Academy of Sciences)
Juri Kivimae (University of Toronto)
Daniele Monticelli (Tallinn University)
Ulrike Plath (Tallinn University)
Rein Raud (Tallinn University)
Thomas Salumets (University of British Columbia)
Marek Tamm (Tallinn University)
Peeter Torop (Tartu University)
Anna Verschik (Tallinn University)
 Tallinn University

Stefan Gužvica

BEFORE TITO
THE COM M UNIST PARTY
OF YUGOSLAVIA DURING
THE GREAT PURGE (1936-1940)

T LU Press
Tallinn 2020
Acta Universitatis Tallinnensis. Humaniora

Stefan Gužvica
Before Tito: The Communist Party of Yugoslavia
during the Great Purge (1936-1940)

This book has been supported

by the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory

Proofreader: Daniel Warren

Layout: Sirje Ratso
Maquette: Rakett

Copyright: Stefan Gužvica, 2020

Copyright: Tallinn University Press, 2020

ISSN 2228-026X
ISBN 978-9985-58-876-5

TLU Press
Narva mnt. 25
10120 Tallinn
www.tlupress.com

Printed in Estonia by Pakett

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments................................................................................9
Abbreviations and Glossary...............................................................11

Prologue: The Last Trip to Moscow................................................... 13

On Party Unity: Factional Struggles in the KPJ, 1919-1936 ........ 33
The Peak and Fall of Milan G orkić...................................................55
The Factions........................................................................................94
The S truggle...................................................................................... 148
Epilogue: Tito Trium phant.............................................................. 207

Bibliography...................................................................................... 217
For Kit
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my professors and colleagues at the Central

European University, in particular Vladimir Petrović and Balazs
Trencsenyi, whose guidance eventually led me to this topic; Istvan
Rev, Alex Voronovich, and Lovro Kralj, who greatly helped me by
pointing me to useful literature in the early stages of my work; and
finally, my friends and colleagues, Renny Hahamovitch, Cody Ing-
lis, Steve Westlake, Stepan Denk, Mike Morris, and Yana Kitaeva,
who greatly impacted my research through their constructive com­
ments and criticisms.
Many other friends and colleagues outside of CEU helped
guide my research through conversations and source recommen­
dations, including Bogdan Živković, Bartul Čović, Professor Lju-
bodrag Dimić, Milan Radanović, Vladan Vukliš, Professor Vladi­
mir Unkovski-Korica, Professor Tonći Šitin, Ivana Hanaček, John
Kraljić, and Vladimir Marković. I would like to thank them, as they
played a crucial role in making this book complete. I would also
like to thank Goran Despotović, Domagoj Mihaljević, Jure Ramšak,
Marko Stričević, and Maja Žilić for helping me access rare published
primary and secondary sources on the topic. Igor Nadalin designed
the charts, making them esthetically pleasing and legible to the
viewer, in contrast to my original amateurish attempt, and there­
fore we are all indebted to him, the author and readers alike. Addi­
tionally, I am extremely grateful to the very kind and helpful people
at the Archive of Yugoslavia and the University Library Svetozar
Marković in Belgrade, and the Open Society Archive in Budapest.
I would like to particularly thank Jelena Kovačević, Slaven Čolović,
and Robert Parnica, who not only helped me with documents, but
also gave useful comments about my research. Friedrich Asschen-
feldt and Arina Zaytseva helped me translate crucial German-lan­
guage sources, and some of my most significant insights would not
10 Stefan Gužvica

have been possible without them. Ivica Mladenović and Pavle Ilić
did the same for French, translating few very crucial sources on the
state of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in Paris in the 1930s.
The translator of the Slovene edition of this book, Marko Kržan, not
only performed the colossal task of translating it, but also proved to
be an excellent reviewer and a constructive critic.
Finally, I would like to thank my mentors, Alfred J. Rieber and
Ondrej Vojtechovsky, who provided me with guidance throughout
the making of the master’s thesis which I eventually turned into this
book. Most of all, I am grateful to my parents, without whose love
and support this work would not have been possible.
ABBREVIATIONS AND GLOSSARY

AVNOJ Antifascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia,

the umbrella organization of Yugoslav antifascist groups dur­
ing the Second World War
BKP Bulgarian Communist Party
CC Central Committee
Cominform The Communist Information Bureau, a group of leading Euro-
pean communist parties formed in 1947 as a quasi-successor
to the Communist International
ECCI Executive Committee of the Communist International, the
governing body of the Comintern
Gorkićevci Supporters of Milan Gorkić, the purged general secretary of
the Communist Party of Yugoslavia
GUGB Main Directorate of State Security, the formal name of the
Soviet secret police, 1934-1941. Colloquially, it was referred to,
and still is, as the NKVD, even though that is the name of the
entire People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, of which the
GUGB was merely a subdivision. The acronyms GUGB and
NKVD will be used interchangeably
HSS Croatian Peasant Party
KIM Young Communist International
KPH Communist Party of Croatia, founded in 1937 as a subsection
of the KPJ
KPJ Communist Party of Yugoslavia
KPS Communist Party of Slovenia, founded in 1937 as a subsection
of the KPJ
KUNMZ Communist University of the National Minorities of the West
NKVD People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. See GUGB
MOPR International Organization for Aid to Revolutionaries, also
known as International Red Aid
NRPJ Independent Workers’ Party of Yugoslavia
12 Slefan Gužvica

OGPU Joint State Political Directorate, the formal name of the Soviet
secret police, 1923-1934
OMS International Liaison Department, the intelligence service of
the Comintern
PCE Communist Party of Spain
PCF French Communist Party
Profintern The Red International of Labor Unions, a communist trade
union organization created to unite the communist trade
unions and coordinate communist activity among the reform­
ist unions
SIM Servicio de Investigacion Militar (Military Investigation Ser­
vice), the intelligence department of the International Bri­
gades
SRN The Party of the Working People, a legal and broad left-wing
party led by communists in Yugoslavia from 1938 to 1940
SRPJ(k) Socialist Workers’ Party of Yugoslavia (communists), renamed
the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1920
SKJ League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the name of the KPJ
from 1952
SKOJ League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia
Ultra-left An individual communist attitude or a communist party line
characterized by perceived adventurism and sectarianism,
such as individual acts of terror or refusal to engage in any
cooperation with the non-communist left
VKP(b) All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik)
Yezhovshchina
The colloquial name for the Great Purge in the Soviet Union
PROLOGUE:
THE LAST TRIP TO MOSCOW

On July 3, 1937, the general secretary of the Communist Party of

Yugoslavia (KPJ), Milan Gorkić, informed his comrades in the Polit­
buro that he had been summoned to Moscow by the Comintern.
According to the subsequent recollections of those close to him, he
was calm and optimistic about the journey; he expected to be back
in Paris, where most of the Yugoslav communist leadership had
been exiled, within ten days. His close friend, the Austrian-French
communist writer Manes Sperber, asked him in private whether he
was worried about the trip, given their shared knowledge of mass
arrests in Moscow. Caring little for his own security, Gorkić merely
reminded him that disobeying Comintern orders would amount to
an act of treason and that it could be detrimental to his party.1This
was the last time Sperber saw his friend alive. Following Gorkićs
arrival in Moscow, the KPJ Politburo ceased receiving letters from
him or the Third International. Soon after, Comintern financial aid
was halted, without any explanation or prior notice.
The arrest and execution of Gorkić marked a turning point in
the history of the KPJ. While hitherto the main targets of the Great
Purge were members of the Yugoslav party who had opposed Stalin
(a campaign that Gorkić wholeheartedly supported), from the sum­
mer of 1937, the NKVD turned against the KPJ leadership and other
Yugoslav political emigres. Communists, sympathizers and the
non-affiliated were targeted with equal intensity. Furthermore, the
Great Purge revived the factional struggles and created new ones, as

1 Ivan Očak, Gorkić: život, rad i pogibija (Zagreb: Globus, 1988), 319-321. As a con­
sequence of state repression, the party leadership was scattered throughout the con­
tinent, operating in several countries, with Paris as its primary headquarters at that
particular time.
14 Stefan Gužvica

different groups fought for power and attempted to lift their party
from the unpleasant situation it found itself in. Due to the mass
repression by the NKVD, this renewed struggle was more volatile
than any previous one. Some of the contenders for the party lead­
ership would also fall prey to the Purge. On April 19, 1939, eleven
top Yugoslav communists, including two former general secretaries,
two secretaries of the Communist Youth (SKOJ), and three Span­
ish Civil War veterans, were executed together, most probably as a
result of direct orders from Lavrentiy Beria, Andrey Vyshinsky, and
the Politburo presided by Stalin.2 This mass execution of some of
the most prominent party figures has never before been a subject
of historical research. The causes of their execution at a time when
NKVD repression was subsiding remain a mystery. At this point,
however, the power struggle within the KPJ was gradually subsid­
ing. The remaining leading Yugoslav communists who aspired to
the position of general secretary were expelled from the party that
same year, following the establishment of a new leadership headed
by Josip Broz Tito.
Before Tito received a mandate from the Comintern, however,
the power grab affected all levels of the party and all areas of its
activity, lasting for more than three years and taking place across
four different countries. The international character of the conflict
was not limited merely to KPJ activists abroad; other foreign com­
munists also became heavily implicated in the Yugoslav intraparty
struggles. The influence these parties had on the outcome of the
KPJ’s leadership competition raises the issue of transnational con­
nections’ impact on power dynamics within the Comintern. The
factional struggle was never just an internal KPJ affair, even though
it has always been presented as such.
The period of the Great Purge remains one of the most con­
troversial and under-researched points in the history of the KPJ.

S.A. Melchin, A.S. Stepanov, V.N. Yakushev et al., “Ora;iHHCKHe cnxcKH - BBeae-
h ne,” Memorial,http://stalin.mem o.ru/im ages/intro.htm (accessed March 27, 2017).
 KI-OR i- TITO 15

Although it marks the time of Titos ascension to power, very few

authors have examined the causes of his success, and fewer still have
attempted to understand the alternative paths that the party could
have taken. This research will help shed new light on the general his­
tory of the KPJ by uncovering new facts on one of the most cha­
otic and controversial moments in the party’s existence. This work
intends to go beyond what I call the “teleology of Tito,” since all the
currently existing works on the topic center around the character of
Josip Broz and his rise to the position of general secretary of the KPJ.
Such a perspective, wittingly or unwittingly, leads to a presumption
that Tito was in some way predestined to become party leader, or, in
the more orthodox accounts from the socialist period, that his rise
to power presents the end goal and the culmination of the Yugoslav
communist movement’s development. My research will argue for a
move away from this teleological approach, presenting Tito as just
one of the actors who fought for power, rather than the central figure
in the Yugoslav communist movement. Even though he undoubtedly
became that by 1940, his position between 1936 and 1939 was no less
precarious than that of his rivals. While I am doubtlessly interested
in the question of how and why Tito became the general secretary,
I am no less fascinated by his rivals. In spite of being overshadowed
by the man who would go on to lead the party for forty years, they
were far from insignificant. Although they eventually ended up on
the dustbin of history, at the time of their activity, they presented
significant intellectual and political currents within the Yugoslav
communist movement in the interwar period. I will attempt to save
these currents, and the people who represented them, from historical
oblivion, because the history of the KPJ is incomplete without them.
Taking all this into consideration, my book will try to ascertain
the origins of the KPJ’s factional struggles which, as I will argue,
first resurfaced in 1936, after being allegedly ended through Comin­
tern intervention in the late 1920s. I will offer an answer to the
question of how and why different factions emerged or dispersed in
the period of the Great Purge, taking into account their respective
16 Stefan Gužvica

strategies, ideological views, and the reasons for their success or fail­
ure. In part, I will touch upon the impact of external institutions
and organizations - such as the Comintern, the Soviet government,
the NKVD, and other foreign communist parties - on the factional
struggles within the KPJ. Finally, I will assess the long-term impact
of the Great Purge on the KPJ itself, the formation of its policy,
and the consequences it had for the subsequent split with Stalin
in 1948.
I will argue that the victory of Tito’s party line, which was firmly
on the left of the Yugoslav communist movement, over its competi­
tors, was a consequence of his proactive policy prescriptions and
understanding of the expectations that the Comintern had of the
KPJ. Although his rise was foreseeable in light of Comintern policy,
it was by no means inevitable. However, the appointment of a new
general secretary retrospectively became a key formative moment
in the history of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. At this time,
the “Titoist” party line was formulated, and it remained more or less
unchanged until the first serious attempts to reform the Yugoslav
system after 1948. As such, the roots of party policies in the 1940s,
including those that led to the Tito-Stalin Split, can be traced back
to the ideological intra-party struggles in the late 1930s.

Historiography

There are only a handful of quality historical works about the KPJ in
the late 1930s, and most of them do not treat the subject of the Great
Purge in depth, in spite of its extraordinary significance for the over­
all development of the party. While the topic of the disappearance of
Yugoslavs in the USSR was not particularly taboo in Yugoslav aca­
demic circles, the absence of sources presented a significant problem,
and most researchers could rely only on fragmentary information, or
on first-hand accounts of the few survivors of the gulag system. The
brief explosion of works on the period in the last decade of Yugosla­
via’s existence stopped as the country began to collapse. These works,
 HHPORi; T 17

although of high quality, have become dated and some of their find­
ings require reassessment. Such is the case with Ivo Banac's With Sta­
lin against Tito,3 which provides a detailed overview of the factional
struggles in the 1930s, but which overemphasized the importance of
the national question in these struggles. Generally, the scholarship on
the KPJ has tended to overly focus on the issues of nationality, which is
something I also intend to move away from. The prolific Croatian his­
torian Ivan Očak has written several biographies of famous Yugoslav
victims of the Great Purge,4 although at the time he was still unable
to ascertain the exact circumstances of their downfalls and deaths.
A journalist, Petar Požar, has succeeded in compiling a book on the
more prominent Yugoslav victims of Stalinism,5 and his account is
very useful for gathering certain factual data on them, although it was
written in the style of popular history.
More recently, there have been three works of great historio­
graphical merit that have dealt with the topic to some extent: by
Nikita Bondarev,6 Geoffrey Swain,7 and Slavko and Ivo Goldstein.8
Bondarev wrote a dissertation about Tito in Moscow in 1935 and

3 Ivo Banac, With Stalin against Tito: Cominformist Splits in Yugoslav Communism
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988).
3 Aside from the already cited biography of Milan Gorkić in footnote 1, Očak pub­
lished three more biographies of Yugoslavs killed in the Great Purge. The first was the
biography of Danilo Srdić, the most prominent Yugoslav in the Red Army, a hero of the
Russian Civil War who participated in the storming of the Winter Palace: Ivan Očak
and Mihailo Marić, Danilo Srdić, crveni general (Belgrade: Sedma sila, 1965). A decade
and a half later, he published a biography of Vladimir Ćopić, another participant in
the Bolshevik Revolution, a founder of the KPJ and the party’s first organizational
secretary, who was the commander of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish
Civil War: Ivan Očak, Vojnik revolucije: Život i rad Vladimira Ćopića (Zagreb: Spektar,
1980). Finally, he published a biography of Đuro and Stjepan Cvijić in 1982: Ivan Očak,
Braća Cvijići (Zagreb: Spektar - Globus, 1982). Đuro was a one-time secretary of the
KPJ between 1925 and 1926, while Stjepan, his younger brother, was the organizational
secretary of the Young Communist International in 1934.
5 Petar Požar, Jugosloveni žrtve staljinskih čistki (Belgrade: Nova knjiga, 1989).
6 Nikita Bondarev, Misterija Tito: moskovske godine (Belgrade: Čigoja štampa, 2013).
7 Geoffrey Swain, Tito: A Biography (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011).
8 Slavko Goldstein and Ivo Goldstein, Tito (Zagreb: Profil, 2015).
Stefan Gužvica

1936, which helps shed light on the conditions within the KPJ at
the very beginning of the Great Purge, and the start of new con­
flicts among the party leadership. Geoffrey Swain’s excellent 2010
biography of Tito goes even further and covers the entire period of
his rise to power, explaining his unique strategy in dealing with the
Comintern. The book by the Goldsteins draws on a large variety of
secondary sources and makes for the most comprehensive biogra­
phy of Tito; his activity during the Great Purge is extremely well-
covered. All three works, however, focus on the person of Tito and
treat the KPJ as a mere background to the story. Even when con­
temporary biographies, such as those of Swain and Jože Pirjevec,9
present Tito’s rise as contingent and precarious, the story always
revolves around him. This creates an incomplete picture of the KPJ,
as all those who lost the factional struggle are brushed aside. The
consequence of this is, at best, a misrepresentation of various m ar­
ginalized ideological traditions within the KPJ,10 and at worst, their
complete oblivion.
Despite the opening of the archives in the 1990s, the Comin­
tern as a whole remains under-researched, with plenty of room for
researchers to find alternative approaches to understanding the his­
tory of international communism. The documents dealing with the
KPJ are no exception, and thus much of the party’s interwar his­
tory remains obscure. The very first “wave” of research in the early
1990s focused precisely on the Cominternians who became victims

'* Jože Pirjevec, Tito i drugovi, vol. 1 (Belgrade: Laguna, 2013).

The works that do address Tito’s marginalized rivals in the KPJ usually present
them through the lens of the official party line, describing them as having undermi­
ned party unity and weakened the revolutionary cause. For examples, see Ivan Jelić,
Komunistička partija Hrvatske 1937-1945, vol. 1 (Zagreb: Globus, 1981), 115-116, 223-
238, and Šibe Kvesić, Dalmacija u Narodnooslobodilačkoj borbi (Zagreb: Lykos, 1960),
8-9, 21-23. The post-Yugoslav historiography has been markedly more sympathetic,
although few works have actually presented Tito’s rivals as the central figures that
they were. An excellent biographical account that goes against this tendency is Jelena
Kovačević, Pelko Miletić (1897-1943) - od revolucionara do “frakcionaša,” Tokovi
istorije 1/2017: 47-73.
 before rrn 19

of Stalinist repression.11 In the Yugoslav case, however, this “first

wave” consisted only of a single article by Ubavka Vujošević and
Vera Mujbegović, listing the executed Yugoslavs that they managed
to identify.12 No comprehensive account exists on the fall of Milan
Gorkić, although there have been attempts to explain it.13 The most
successful of these came from Ubavka Vujošević, who published
Gorkić’s last autobiographical account, written just days before his
arrest.14 Vujošević is the only Yugoslav historian who relied exten­
sively on the newly-available documents from the Comintern,
although her own research into the KPJ in this period was cut short
by her death. As such, even a thorough examination of the last year of
Gorkić’s life is currently lacking. What Vujošević did manage to put
together was finally published last year, essentially as a biographical
dictionary of Yugoslavs arrested in the Soviet Union in the Stalin
era.15However, the book still leaves out most of the details regarding
the individual circumstances, except for the dates of arrest, release,
execution and the formal charges.
The only book that has so far drawn from Vujošević’s compiled
biographies is Košta Nikolić’s Mit o partizanskom jugoslovenstvu,16
Together with Banac’s aforementioned book, this work presents

11 Brigitte Studer and Berthold Unfried, “At the Beginning of a History: Visions of the
Comintern After the Opening of the Archives,” International Review of Social History
42 (1997): 425-426.
12 Ubavka Vujošević and Vera Mujbegović, “Die jugoslawischen Kommunisten in den
stalinistischen 'Sauberungen' 1929 bis 1949,” in Richard Lorenz and Siegfried Bahne
(eds.), Kommunisten Verfolgen Kommunisten: Stalinistischcr Terror und "Sauberungen"
in Den Kommunistischen Parteien Europas Seit Den 30er Jahren (Berlin: Akademie-
Verlag, 1993): 157-173.
13 For a pioneering work on the topic, see Swain, Tito, 17-20.
u Ubavka Vujošević, “Poslednja autobiografija Milana Gorkića, sekretara CK KPJ,”
Istorija 20. veka 1/1997: 107-128. Writing autobiographies to the Cadres Department of
the Comintern was a regular practice among the communists.
15 Ubavka Vujošević Cica, Nestajali netragom: Jugosloveni - žrtve političke represije i
staljinističkih čistki u Sovjetskom Savezu 1927-1953. (Belgrade: Institut za savremenu
istoriju, 2019).
16 Košta Nikolić, Mit o partizanskom jugoslovenstvu (Beograd: Zavod za udžbenike,
2015), 96-183. Nikolić and Vujošević were colleagues from the same institute, so he had
20 Stefan Gužvica

the most comprehensive attempt to synthesize a history of the KPJ

between 1936 and 1940, and is thus a valuable contribution to schol­
arship. Unfortunately, much like Banac, Nikolić shows a tendency
to portray internal party politics as revolving primarily around the
national question. W hile I do not intend to deny the importance of
the issues of nationality for the communists, my book will argue
that this is merely one of the facets of communist policy. I believe
that, for the communists, the national question was a tactical ques­
tion, meaning that they saw it primarily as a means to a socialist
revolution, rather than an end in itself. Nikolić also uses the works
of the journalist and amateur historian Pero Simić. Simić gathered
and published an impressive amount of extremely useful prim ary
source documents from the Russian archives.17 Although Nikolić
gives these works a more professional interpretation, it is necessary
to note that Simić’s methodological approach was highly question­
able and his interpretation of documents tendentious, misinformed
and misleading. In some cases, such as the joint publication with
his Croatian colleague Zvonimir Despot, the two presented shock­
ingly amateurish pseudo-historical theories.181 will cite the prim ary
sources they gathered, whose quality is indisputable, even though
the duo often misinterpreted them. Therefore, all of the citations of
Simić and Despot in this work refer to printed prim ary sources pub­
lished by them, unless otherwise stated.

the good fortune of being able to use her manuscript even before its publication four
years later.
r Pero Simić, Tito: svetac i magle (Belgrade: Službeni list SCG, 2005)
The most striking example of that is their claim to have finally “proven” Tito’s alle­
ged Comintern activity in Spain. Their evidence is a report on a Yugoslav Internatio­
nal Brigades volunteer by a certain “Sverčevski K.K. (Walter).” Despot and Simić then
conclude that, not only have they proved Tito/Walter was in Spain, but that he had a
hitherto unknown pseudonym there, K.K. Sverčevski. One does not need to have an in-
depth knowledge of international communism to know that Karol Swierczewski, nick­
named Walter, was one of the most famous Polish communists in the interwar period,
and a general in the Red Army and the International Brigades. This fairly obvious and
easily verifiable fact somehow escaped the authors. Pero Simić and Zvonimir Despot,
Tito - strogo poverljivo: arhivski dokumenti (Belgrade: Službeni glasnik, 2010), 69.
 iu : k >r ]'; h t c 21

When considering the KPJ during the Great Purge, the most
fundamental oversight in existing research is the exclusion of for­
eign communists from the story. Although a vast body of literature
touches upon the issue of foreign - particularly Bulgarian - involve­
ment in Yugoslav intra-party struggles after the arrest of Gorkić,19
they all fail to engage in a deeper analysis of the impact this might
have had on the outcome of the Yugoslav leadership struggle, or
the broader implications of such ties for understanding the func­
tioning of the Comintern. The KPJ is observed in a vacuum, and
the non-Yugoslav figures constitute mere footnotes, whose role in
either the Comintern or their own national parties is unimportant.
The collected works of Tito, for example, mention several times the
obstruction of his work by the French Communist Party (PCF),20
but never inquire about how or why this occurred. This same lack
of inquiry is evident when it comes to German communists, in par­
ticular Wilhelm Pieck and Wilhelm Florin, who were among the
most influential individuals in the Comintern, and were directly
involved in Yugoslav affairs.21 I will argue that the power struggle in
the Yugoslav party cannot be understood without a deeper exami­
nation of the involvement of foreign communists, and will present
an attempt to reconstruct this phenomenon, which will hopefully
encourage further research on the matter.

19 See, for example, Vjenceslav Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1 (Belgrade: Rad, 1983),
84-86; 94-96, Goldstein, Tito, 158, 162-163, or Pirjevec, Tito i drugovi, vol. 1, 102-103.
Enigma Kopinič remains a controversial book due to Kopinič’s self-serving narrative
about his role in World War II, but is extremely useful for his insights into the period
from 1937 to 1940, as his testimonies on events from that time match the findings of
historians.
20 Josip Broz Tito, Sabrana djela, ed. Pero Damjanović, vol. 4 (Belgrade: Komunist,
1981), 60-61, 230, 233.
21 Josip Broz Tito, Sabrana djela, ed. Pero Damjanović, vol. 3 (Belgrade: Komunist,
1981), 90-91; 93-95; 102; 124-125; and Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1, 105-106.
22 Stefan Gužvica

Sources and Methodology

The primary source research will be based mainly on archival
materials from the Archives of Yugoslavia in Belgrade, the Russian
State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) in Moscow, and
the published memoirs of participants in the communist move­
ment. The Archives of Yugoslavia hold the fonds of the KPJ and
the Comintern section for Yugoslavia, as well as the unpublished
memoirs of labor movement organizers from the interwar period.
Many of these memoirs and documents have not really been thor­
oughly researched despite the fact that some of them have been in
the archive since the late 1960s. The RGASPI contains the former
Archive of the Comintern, sections of which have also been digi­
tized and made available online. I have researched both the online
archive, and the non-digitized sources in Moscow. These documents
have only been made available in the past three decades, and have
largely remained unexamined by historians of Yugoslavia. I will
use the digitized documents, in particular those from the Secre­
tariat of Wilhelm Pieck,22 in order to gain a better understanding
of the KPJ’s position within the Comintern and to gain new insight
into the course of the factional struggle. Finally, the newly avail­
able lists of people arrested and deported by the Soviet regime,
compiled by the Moscow-based NGO Memorial and published

” The communist parties of the Balkan countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Yugosla­

via, Greece, and Turkey) were organized under the Balkan Lander-secretariat of the
Comintern starting from 1926. From the late 1920s, the secretariat became increa­
singly irrelevant, as the Comintern moved away from world revolution and towards
defending “the first country of socialism.” The Balkan Lander-secretariat was officially
abolished during the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935. However, it de facto
continued to exist under the Secretariat of Wilhelm Pieck, which endured until the
dissolution of the Comintern in 1943. In this book, I will occasionally refer to Pieck’s
Secretariat as “the Balkan Secretariat,” as this is what it really was in practice. For an
overview of the reorganization of the Comintern secretariats in 1935, see Peter Huber,
“Structure of the Moscow apparatus of the Comintern and decision-making,” in Inter­
national Communism and the Communist International, 1919-43, ed. Tim Rees and
Andrew Thorpe. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 50-60.
 BF.FORK TITO 23

online, will help me discover more about the individual destinies of

prominent communists, and to reassess the impact that the Great
Purge had on the KPJ and the Yugoslav emigre community in the
Soviet Union.
Regarding printed primary sources, the book will rely on the col­
lected works of Josip Broz Tito,23as well as documents from RGASPI
gathered by Simić.24 The collected works of Tito, published in the
1980s, were edited by a team of Yugoslavia’s most prominent histo­
rians of the time, including Pero Damjanović, Ubavka Vujošević,
Josip Mirnić, Dušan Bilandžić, Tone Ferenc, Pero Morača, Branko
Petranović, Velimir Brezovski, and Dušan Biber. It contains com­
mentary, biographical notes and chronology, and it includes not
only writings produced by Tito, but also documents such as pro­
ceedings of the KPJ Politburo and the Comintern Executive. All of
this makes it an indispensable source for research, relevant not only
for the story of Tito, but of the entire party. I will also rely upon pub­
lished memoirs and diaries, such as those of Rodoljub Čolaković,25
Milovan Dilas,26 and Georgi Dimitrov,27 to examine the variety of
individual views on the factional struggle.
For a broader contextualization of the Great Purge, I intend to
draw primarily on the insights from the revisionist school, as repre­
sented by authors such as J. Arch Getty, Oleg Naumov,28 and Sheila

23 Josip Broz Tito, Sabrana djela, ed. Pero Damjanović, vols. 3 to 5 (Belgrade: Komu­
nist, 1981).
2* Namely, the previously cited Simić, Tito: svetac i magle and Simić and Despot,
Tito - strogo poverljivo.
25 Rodoljub Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 2 (Sarajevo: Svjetlost,
1968) and Rodoljub Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 3 (Sarajevo: Svjet­
lost, 1972).
26 Milovan Dilas, Memoir o f a Revolutionary (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1973).
27 Ivo Banac (ed.), The Diary o f Georgi Dimitrov 1933-1949 (New Haven: Yale Univer­
sity Press, 2003).
2" J. Arch Getty and Oleg Naumov, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction
of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999).
24 Stefan Gužvica

Fitzpatrick.29For understanding the specific situation in the Comin­

tern during the Purge, I will greatly rely on William J. Chases
Enemies within the Gates.10 I see the process of purging party and
the Comintern as being simultaneously a part of Stalin’s “revolu­
tion from above,”31 and an expression of bottom-up popular griev­
ances against abuses of power by the rank and file of the All-Union
Communist Party. However, this violence from below was always
kept in check by Stalin and his inner circle, as there was always a
danger that the situation could get out of hand if the masses turned
against the very top of the party.32 Furthermore, the perception of an
impending foreign threat was a key constitutive element of Stalinist
repression. This led to the rise of xenophobia and suspicion of all
foreigners within the country, which facilitated the intensification
of repression within the Comintern apparatus.33
Based on the findings of the revisionist school, I acknowledge
the agency of both individuals and the communist parties as a whole
during the Great Purge; they were neither mere passive recipients
of directives nor helpless victims of repression.34 Using this start­
ing point, I would like to emphasize that there has been a general
tendency to reduce the KPJ to a mere puppet of the Comintern in
the interwar period.35 By contrast, this research should not only
be a step towards a greater understanding of foreign parties dur­
ing the Great Purge but also to a completely new perception of the
KPJ and its agency in relation to the Comintern. Far from want-

" Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2008), and Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary
Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
30 William J. Chase, Enemies within the Gates? The Comintern and Stalinist Repres­
sion, 1934-1939 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001).
31 Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, 151, 163-170.
32 Getty and Naumov, The Road to Terror, 14.
33 Chase, Enemies Within the Gates?, 102-104.
34 Chase, Enemies Within the Gates?, 6-9.
35 See, for example, Hilde Katrine Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia: Tito, the
Communist Leadership and the National Question (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016).
 UtPORK T I K 25

ing to control and micromanage all aspects of the Balkan parties’

affairs, the Comintern expected that the members themselves, in
particular those untainted by the stigma of factionalism, would take
the initiative and resolve the problems of their party on their own.
The Comintern, naturally, had the final word, but the interaction
between the two was constantly present and very much required.
This approach and my focus on ideological disagreements within
the KPJ necessarily raise the issue of the individual beliefs of the
communists involved. Were the ideological disagreements between
Yugoslav communists genuine or should they be observed merely
as the tools of cynics fixated on winning political power? Chase has
succinctly summarized both the dilemma and the answer to it:

[R]hetorical homogeneity was a feature of party discourse under

Stalin. Different historians might interpret this rhetoric in differ­
ent ways. Some might view it as evidence that whatever doubts
party members harbored, they were too afraid to express them
and hence adhered to party discipline and used the rhetoric as
a means of self-defense. Others might view the homogeneous
rhetoric as evidence that party members believed entirely what
they said, that the rhetoric faithfully reflects their understanding
of reality. Without evidence of a person’s private thoughts, either
interpretation tells us more about the historians than it does about
historical reality.’6

Therefore, I will accept and examine the theoretical arguments pre­

sented by various groups involved in the factional struggle as genu­
ine, without assuming them to be the products of nefarious motives
or fear. Even though I intend to use a vast body of memoirs reflecting
on this period, the impressions written down several decades later
should not be interpreted as accurate descriptions of the individuals’
thoughts and feelings in 1937 and 1938. This is particularly true for
the many that came to question their commitment to Stalin after the

Chase, Enemies Within the Gates?, 43.

26 Stefan Gužvica

Soviet-Yugoslav Split in 1948. Even if they disagreed in private dur­

ing the 1930s (an assumption which is nearly impossible to prove),
doing so in public would have certainly cost them party member­
ship at a time when even expressing minor reservations was seen as
an act of treason.3'
The most fundamental theoretical issue that I will have to con­
tend with is factionalism within communist parties. Factionalism
referred to the real or alleged formation of groups within the party
or a movement which hold views different from those officially pre­
sented by the organization at a given moment. The origins of the
term and its evolution are important for understanding the KPJ
during the Great Purge, since “factionalism” was the most common
accusation emerging from all sides involved in the struggle. As such,
it is obvious that the role of the term was primarily functional, not
merely theoretical, and factional struggles did undoubtedly have a
negative effect on the unity of the KPJ.38 Factionalism has been a
persistent and acceptable feature of leftist political organizations
since the nineteenth century, and Bolshevism itself developed out
of a factional split in 1903. After the October Revolution, several
factions were formed within the Bolshevik party, most notably the
Workers’ Opposition and the Democratic Centralists, with varying
degrees of success. Up until that point, factions were considered a
normal feature of party life, and would often disperse after fulfill­
ing their goals, or decisively failing to do so. However, at the Tenth
Party Congress in March 1921, a resolution banning factions was
passed. The ban on factions was intended to be temporary, but was
never lifted.39Although no one was aware of the ramifications of this

' Chase, Enemies Within the Gates?, 94.

For further elaboration of this view, see Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 45-116;
Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 17-58; and Slavoljub Cvetković, Idejne borbe u
KPJ 1919-1928 (Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 1985).
Paul Le Blanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party (Chicago: Haymarket Books,
2015), 276-278. Le Blanc provides a comprehensive general overview of the Bolshevik
views on intra-party democracy and factions.
 BI-I-'ORK T I K 27

decision at the time, the ban on factions effectively made the entire
party subject to the will of the Central Committee, and any kind of
dissent from its decisions could be interpreted as factionalism, and
therefore an attack on the party itself.40 Throughout the 1920s, how­
ever, factions informally persisted both within the Soviet party and
other constituent sections of the Comintern. They arose primarily
as a consequence of disenchantment caused by the failure of revolu­
tions in the West and, in relation to this failure, on the issue of how
to construct socialism in the Soviet Union. Factions were marginal­
ized and politically incapacitated with the rise of Stalin, and former
factionalists were either expelled from the party or given insignifi­
cant posts. Broadly speaking, the left faction argued for intensi­
fied revolutionary radicalism and export of the revolution abroad,
whereas the right faction argued for a more gradualist approach to
building socialism and a less aggressive policy towards the capitalist
countries. It is important to note, however, that the left-right distinc­
tion was always relational. One was always more to the left or to the
right in regards to the party “center” or to other factions.
The success of the Stalinist faction laid, among other things, in
Stalins ability to fashion his group as a non-faction, a party cen­
ter which was neither left nor right, and was thus the only form of
Bolshevism which did not present a deviation.41 Equally significant
was Stalins own position as general secretary, which enabled him
to appoint party cadres and thereby creating a network of loyal­
ists within the organization and the state apparatus.42 Leaders of
the constituent communist parties of the Comintern would try to
mimic this tactic. Indeed, all the major pretenders to the leadership
of the KPJ adopted this approach to some degree after Gorkić was
arrested. Usually, this meant fashioning oneself as a compromise

40 Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution (London:

Penguin Books, 1998), 765.
41 Robert Wesson, Lenin’s Legacy: The Story o f the CPSU (Stanford, CA: Hoover Press,
2017), 125.
42 Le Blanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party, xxvii.
28 Stefan Gužvica

candidate and accentuating both the positive and negative aspects of

the political opponents’ work.
However, the perception of intra-party opposition was becom­
ing increasingly negative in the 1930s. In the wake of the Kirov
assassination, a fundamental shift occurred. Former oppositionists
were no longer seen as mere political rivals but were dehumanized
as terrorists and foreign elements who consciously worked to under­
mine Soviet socialism from within.43 The KPJ and other parties of
the Comintern largely uncritically accepted this change of attitude,
facilitating the coming repression of their own cadres. The KPJ’s
own bitter factional struggles, combined with the double isolation
of emigre life and the illegal status of the party, provided further
justification for the belief that one’s opponents might be concealing
nefarious counter-revolutionary motives. As Ondrej Vojtechovsky
observed in his case study of Yugoslav postwar Stalinist emigres in
Czechoslovakia, delusions, loss of contact with current affairs in
the home country, collective frustrations, personal feuds, and ideo­
logical disagreements all feature prominently in the life of political
emigre communities in nineteenth and twentieth century Europe.44
These factors, combined with Stalinism, created the conditions of
brutal and often tragic mutual accusations between party comrades.
The increased sense of internal threat in 1935 and 1936 could only
have served to confirm the mistrust that the emigres already har­
bored about each other. It created a mindset which, according to
Chase, was characterized by conformity and obedience, reinforced
through a sense of community, a rigidity of standards of judgment,
and a conspiratorial mentality.451 will examine the factional strug­
gles with these crucial factors in mind.
Aside from the development of factionalism, other political
practices also played a significant role in determining the relations

Chase, Enemies Within the Gates?, 43.

H Ondrej Vojtechovsky, Iz Praga protiv Tita! Jugoslovenska informbiroovska emig­
racija u Čehoslovačkoj (Zagreb: Srednja Europa, 2016), 1.
Chase, Enemies Within the Gates?, 29-31.
 I)KIf 1 TIT 29

between party members. The KPJ was organized as a secret under­

ground party, very much along the lines of Lenin’s program outlined
in What Is To Be Done?, which emphasized the necessity of the cre­
ation of a conspiratorial party in conditions of illegality. '6 Yugosla­
via’s own authoritarian monarchy gave the communists plenty of
reasons to project the Russia of 1902 onto their own country, par­
ticularly in the wake of the 1929 dictatorship. It is difficult to pin
the blame on Lenin for this turn of events, as the Bolshevik party
showed great dynamism and respect for democratic procedure in
the pre-revolutionary years of illegality.47 However, working under­
ground in Yugoslavia, in combination with increasingly authoritar­
ian interventions from the Comintern, created a distinct process of
ad hoc decision-making, bred informality, and left little room for
true intra-party democracy, which only served to create further mis­
understandings and thus exacerbate the existing conflicts between
members of the KPJ.
Finally, when examining the inner workings of the Communist
International, I will employ Brigitte Studer’s distinction between
three levels of the Comintern (the international, the transnational,
and the national) as a framework for interpreting the various rela­
tions between members of the KPJ and other constituent parties. In
this model, the international refers to the ultimate goal of the com­
munists, the world revolution; the national, to the domestic political
arenas in which their activities were carried out; and the transna­
tional, to a connection between the other two, a space of entangled
exchanges of individuals and ideas.48 I will show the entanglement
of these three levels and will devote particular attention to the trans­
national aspect, using it to understand the networks of power and
influence that the Yugoslav communists were involved in, and which16*8

16 Vladimir Lenin, What Is To Be Done? (New York: International Publishers, 1969),

86-91.
47 Le Blanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party, x.
18 Brigitte Studer, The Transnational World of the Cominternians (Basingstoke: Palg-
rave Macmillan, 2015), 4.
30 Stefan Gužvica

transcended national lines. Further drawing on Studer’s work, this

study will avoid the perpetrator-victim dichotomy, which is unten­
able in studies of the Comintern during the Great Purge, and replace
it with an approach that acknowledges the deep entanglement of
individual accusation and self-accusation that took place at the
time.49 My task is not to condemn Stalinism and the Great Purge,
but to comprehend it and explain it. Indeed, this is, in my opinion,
the only way to properly understand both the history of interna­
tional communism at the time in general, and of the Yugoslav party
in particular.

Outline
The book is divided into four chapters. The first chapter deals with
the overarching issue of factionalism, particularly in the context
of the KPJ, between 1919 and 1936. In it, I will examine the early
ideological development of the party, and the emergence of fac­
tional struggles after the KPJ was banned by the Yugoslav govern­
ment in 1921. After that, I will briefly outline the course of the dis­
putes between 1921 and 1928, presenting the main arguments of the
party left and right. As the factional disputes almost tore the party
apart and isolated it from broader political life of the Kingdom, the
Comintern intervened in 1928, supposedly bringing an end to fac­
tionalism. However, as I will argue, the divisions remained under
the surface, which was reflected in the Comintern’s own interven­
tions in the party leadership between 1928 and 1935. I will devote
a subchapter to the consolidation of the party under Milan Gorkić,
who I will argue played an instrumental role in reviving the KPJ in
the 1930s. A final subchapter will deal with the first repressions of
Yugoslav communists in the USSR, beginning in 1929, which set a
dangerous precedent for the future.

4V Studer and Unfried, “At the Beginning of a History,” 426.

 m : f o r i -; t ITO 31

The second chapter concerns the high point of Milan Gorkić

in 1936 and his rapid downfall in 1937. I will present an answer to
the question of why Milan Gorkić - who just a year before had his
authority cemented by a Comintern decision from above - fell out
of favor so quickly by the summer of 1937. To do this, I will examine
his critics on the party’s left, and their attack at the April Plenum of
1936. The Comintern interpreted this as a revival of factionalism,
which prompted it to formally name Gorkić general secretary. From
here, I will examine the purge of the Yugoslav oppositionists in the
Soviet Union after the Kirov assassination, as well as the actions of
Yugoslavs who were charged with reviewing and expelling fellow
party members. I will conclude the chapter with an overview of
Gorkić’s personal relations and political miscalculations that led to
his arrest.
The third chapter is an overview of the main factions that devel­
oped after Gorkić’s arrest in Moscow, outlining their membership,
views, and strategy. It will be divided into four subchapters, each
presenting one of the main competitors for the leadership of the
party. The competitors were Josip Broz Tito, whose group came to be
known as “The Temporary Leadership”; Ivo Marić, who led the so-
called “Parallel Center” together with Labud Kusovac; Petko Miletić,
the head of the “Prison Committee” of the KPJ in the Sremska Mitro­
vica prison; and Kamilo Horvatin, the KPJ representative to the
Comintern who does not seem to have gathered an organized group
around himself, but was most likely Wilhelm Pieck’s main candi­
date for the position of party leader. The Marić and Miletić groups
worked together but will be examined individually as they largely
acted so, with Marić being the first to present a leadership challenge,
and Miletić doing so much later, upon his release from prison.
In the fourth chapter, I will present the course of the dispute
itself and the response from the Comintern. I will look at the bitter
struggle waged in the early months of 1938 between the newly estab­
lished groups. While most of the conflict took place in Paris, where
the leadership remained after Gorkić’s arrest, I will also examine the
32 Stefan Gužvica

events behind the frontlines of the Spanish Civil War, and within
the Communist Party of Croatia, which posed the most serious
challenge to the legitimacy of Titos so-called Temporary Leader­
ship in the country. After that, I will examine the deliberations of
the Comintern and the trips that Tito and Miletić took to Moscow.
A part of the subchapters on these two individuals will be dedicated
to analyzing the mass arrests of leading Yugoslav communists in
the Soviet Union, most of whom were executed between 1937 and
1939. By January 1939, Tito was confirmed as the de facto leader of
the KPJ, although it took another year before Miletić, his final major
competitor, was ultimately defeated.
After these four chapters, the conclusion will present the vic­
tory of Josip Broz Tito and examine the reasons that prompted the
Comintern to give him the mandate. I will argue that Tito’s taking of
initiative appealed to the Comintern and that he was the one figure
who best understood the importance of maintaining a proper party
line throughout the period. However, this is not to imply that he
played a well-calculated game that destined him to take over from
the start: a certain amount of luck was involved, especially in escap­
ing the NKVD interrogators. In the end, I will outline Titos final
efforts at “cleansing” and centralizing the party organization, which
in turn made him the uncontested ruler of the KPJ. The ghosts of the
factional struggles lived on, and they affected the patterns of repres­
sion of intraparty opposition in 1948 after the Tito-Stalin Split. More
importantly, I will demonstrate that the victory of Titos party line
had already set the stage for the future conflict. His tendency to act
independently of Moscow was seen as a desirable course of action
during the popular front period, and was thus supported by the
Comintern Executive. However, even by the time the war with Nazi
Germany broke out, Tito’s leadership style had become a liability.
ON PARTY UNITY: FACTIONAL STRUGGLES
IN THE KPJ, 1919-1936

“M any h ad then [after the K P J was banned] left the pa rty out
o f fear, especially when the gossip started, not only gossip but
argum ents about who is this an d who is that, who is a leftist
an d who is a rightist. For the workers, these argum ents were
pretty unclear an d inadequate. Saying that som ebody was a
leftist or a rightist m eant practically nothing. I cam e to u nder­
stand it only later, in Moscow, when I entered the higher p a rty
fo ru m s."
M ila n R a d o v a n o v ić , m e ta l w o r k e r a n d p a r tic ip a n t

a t t h e S e v e n t h C o n g r e s s o f t h e C o m i n t e r n 50

The history of all hitherto existing Marxist organizations is the his­

tory of factional struggles. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia was
no exception. Like other communist parties, its very foundation was
the consequence of a split, namely the one revolving around the issue
of socialists’ support for the Great War and participation in their
respective countries’ bourgeois governments. The party’s founding
congress in Belgrade in April 1919 marked a final break with the
right of the socialist movement, parts of which even entered the first
royal Yugoslav government after unification.51 However, this was not
the last disagreement within the Yugoslav communist movement.
As was the case with communists elsewhere, the Yugoslavs’ faction­
alism was the consequence of an attempt to come to terms with the
failure of revolutions outside of the Soviet Union and the need to
decide upon a revolutionary strategy under the new conditions.

50 Archive of Yugoslavia (Arhiv Jugoslavije, AJ), Memoirs’ Collection (516 MG), 2919,
“Razgovor sa drugom Milanom Radovanovićem,” 11.
51 Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 46-47.
34 Stefan Gužvica

In this chapter, I will argue that the roots of both Stalinist

repression and factional struggle in the period between 1936 and
1940 cannot be understood without examining the battles within
the KPJ in the preceding period. The KPJ’s poor standing within
the Comintern largely stemmed from the belief that the Yugoslavs
were unable to establish and enforce a coherent party line, which in
turn facilitated and even legitimized repression.52 Furthermore, it
created a need for a party leadership that would, in the eyes of the
Comintern, be able to both unite the party and keep it disciplined,
a process that was termed “bolshevization.”53 I will start by briefly
presenting the factional struggles from 1919 to 1928, first between
the revolutionaries and “the centrists,” and then between the left and
the right. I will then examine the first wave of bolshevization, which
was attempted in the mid-1920s and seemingly enforced following
the Comintern’s “Open Letter” in 1928. From there, I will provide an
overview of the party’s meanderings through the so-called “Third
Period.”54 Following Geoffrey Swain, I will argue that the success and

5- This was true even within the party. Milovan Đilas would later claim in his memoir
that “we were delighted that the Soviet Union had dealt a final blow to the immigrants”
and that “this was particularly true of Tito and Kardelj, who were more familiar with
the situation in Moscow,” although he adds that Tito had complained about the exces­
ses of the Purges very early on. Dilas, Memoir o f a Revolutionary, 303-304.
For an overview of the process of “bolshevization” in the Comintern, see Kevin
McDermott and Jeremy Agnew, The Comintern: A History o f International Commu­
nism from Lenin to Stalin (London: MacMillan, 1996), 41-80.
The “Third Period” of the Comintern began with a victory of the ultra-left line in
1928. The organization, as well as its constituent parties, adopted the view that the
collapse of capitalism is near and that the communists should therefore radicalize their
actions, preparing for armed uprisings and other revolutionary measures. As a con­
sequence, they renounced all cooperation with the other forces on the left, seeing the
social democrats and socialists as “social fascists.” The only political groups that the
communists had worked with at the time were the so-called “national-revolutionary
organizations,” and the support for them was justified on the basis of Leninist theses on
self-determination, stating that nationalist organizations are to be supported in times
of proletarian revolutionary upheaval. In the Balkans, where social democracy was
already weak, the focus was less on discrediting the social democrats, and more on
working with dissatisfied ethnic groups, hoping to eventually form a Balkan Soviet
Republic. In practice, this was a period of extreme sectarianism which weakened the
 BE FORK TITO 35

consolidation of the KPJ from 1932 to 1935 were achieved thanks to

the work of the interim leader Milan Gorkić, who effectively already
began pushing a popular front line. I will also briefly examine the
overlooked expulsions - and even executions - of former factional-
ists in the USSR in this period, which set a precedent for the events
that unfolded after the arrest of Gorkić.

Between the Left and the Right

The Second Congress of the party took place in June 1920 in the
Croatian town of Vukovar. At this congress, the Socialist Worker’s
Party of Yugoslavia (communists) was renamed the Communist
Party of Yugoslavia, a name under which it would be known for the
next thirty-two years.55 The name change was not purely cosmetic:
it was a sign of a major split between the delegates present. At the
Second Congress, the so-called “centrists” were defeated by 240 to
65 votes, with an overwhelming majority of party representatives
opting for a revolutionary platform.56 The centrists were socialists
who adopted an anti-war stance, but were either undecided on, or
hostile to, the revolutionary position. The KPJ thus foreshadowed a
broader split within the Communist International, which took place
along the same lines a month later, at the Second Congress of the
Comintern. Generally speaking, the communists insisted on the
expulsion of centrists from the movement because of their insistence

already poor position of the KPJ. Following the establishment of the royal dictatorship
in January 1929, the communists responded with preparations for an armed uprising,
which never took off. However, it gave the government a pretext to decimate the ranks
of the KPJ, killing, among others, the newly-elected party secretary Đuro Đaković.
55 At the Sixth Congress, in 1952, the KPJ was renamed the League of Communists
of Yugoslavia (SKJ). The change was meant to reflect an ideological shift away from
Stalinism. The name “League of Communists” was chosen after the name of the revo­
lutionary socialist party founded by Karl Marx in 1847, and thus symbolized a return
to Marxist roots.
54 Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 48. Banac also points out the result could have been
242 to 63.
36 Stefan Gužvica

on continuing the practices of the Second International, which the

communists considered to be discredited due to its support for the
war.57 Many, however, were divided on the question of expulsion.
In the case of Yugoslavia, Comintern Chairman Grigoriy Zinoviev
insisted that the revolutionaries split with the centrists, but the party
remained divided on the question for several months, with many
leading members trying to avoid a split. After the Vukovar Congress,
the centrists and revolutionaries competed for leading and mid-level
party posts. The centrists deliberated on whether to attempt a take­
over of the SRPJ(k) or to engage in joint political action with the
social democrats.58 The relations between the two currents of the
party deteriorated very quickly. In spite of the Central Party Coun­
cil’s (the predecessor of the Central Committee) attempts to keep
the conflict private, the centrists escalated it with the publication
of the Manifesto o f the Communist Opposition in October 1920, a
month before the elections for the Constituent Assembly. The com­
munists responded by expelling the centrists from the nascent KPJ
two months later.59
In spite of these disputes, the KPJ won almost 200,000 votes in
the November elections, coming in fourth in terms of the percentage
of popular vote and third in terms of seats won. As a consequence of
these early successes and militant actions by workers throughout the
country, the party, already subject to political repression, was soon
formally forced underground. Although no major splits of the party
occurred after 1920, the KPJ would again become deeply divided
throughout the 1920s. This was a consequence of disagreements
on how to continue communist activity after the wave of revolu­
tions had obviously passed and European states began stabilizing
and reasserting control. Unlike the Soviet communists, the Yugo­
slavs were by and large undivided on the issue of how to construct

Duncan Hallas, The Comintern (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2008), 29.
K Cvetković, Idejne borbe u KPJ, 78-79, 82-83.
Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 50.
 socialism in the USSR, although some who immigrated to the USSR
became involved in those disputes as well. The main division within
the KPJ was between the left and the right wings of the party. The
left still considered that the revolution in Yugoslavia was imminent,
while the right was skeptical of this idea. These starting positions
determined their views on the course of revolutionary action.
At the end of 1920, the KPJ was formally banned by the royal
Yugoslav government and its leadership was imprisoned, exiled,
or forced underground. By this point it had become evident that
the national question, which the communists originally thought
would be resolved by the formation of a centralized Yugoslavia,60
remained a point of contention, as many ethnic groups were dis­
satisfied with their position in the new state. The left and the right
primarily quarreled over two issues: how to continue communist
activity in conditions of illegality and how to resolve the national
question in Yugoslavia. The left argued that the way forward was the
creation of a Bolshevik-style underground party, operating on the
principle of illegal party cells subjected to the central leadership.61
Regarding the national question, they came to consider national
and class oppression as intertwined, eventually adopting the posi­
tion that the Serbian bourgeoisie oppressed both the Croat and the
Slovene bourgeoisie,62 laying the basis for their federalism, or, at
times, open anti-Yugoslavism. This view was in line with the general
tendency for the leftists to “come from the nationally discontented
sections of the population.”63 Accordingly, the group was dominated
by the Zagreb-based communists Đuro Cvijić, Vladimir Ćopić, and

60 Ben Fowkes, “To Make the Nation or Break It? Communist Dilemmas in Two
Interwar Multinational States,” in Bolshevism, Stalinism and the Comintern: Perspec­
tives on Stalinization, 1917-53, eds. Norman LaPorte, Kevin Morgan and Matthew
Worley (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 209. It is noteworthy that the party
was named the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, while the state itself was named the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and only renamed to Yugoslavia in 1929.
61 Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 52.
62 Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 25-30.
63 Fowkes, “To Make the Nation or Break It?,” 214.
38 Stefan Gužvica

Kamilo Horvatin, although Belgrade party intellectuals such as

Košta Novaković, Triša Kaclerović, and Rajko Jovanović were also
prominent on the left.
The right wing, on the other hand, believed the banning of the
KPJ would be temporary, and argued that operations should con­
tinue through the still-legal communist-run Independent Trade
Unions, which would serve as a cover for the illegal party struc­
ture.64 They believed that the state should not be organized on an
ethnic-federal basis, but on an autonomist basis, which was not
too far from the original support for a centralized Yugoslav state
espoused by the KPJ at its foundation in 1919. The right felt that if
the revolution in Yugoslavia was still far away, autonomism would
be the best course of action for minimizing ethnic divisions within
the country. The right was led by Sima Marković, Lazar Stefanović,
and Ljuba Radovanović, all members of the pre-war Serbian Social-
Democratic Party with strong links to the trade unions. It is impor­
tant to note, however, that both the left and the right saw the national
question primarily as a means to an end: the leftists thought federal­
ism would accelerate the revolutionary process, while the rightists
expected autonomism to do the same.65 The former had hoped that
a push to resolve the national question would destabilize the state,
while the latter expected that avoidance of the national question
would stop the adverse effects of nationalism, which they thought
was dividing the working class. In both cases, the end goal was to
foment a socialist revolution.
The historical background of the two groups confirms Ben
Fowkes’ thesis that the Eastern European communist parties were,
broadly speaking, divided into former social democrats radicalized
by the war and the Bolshevik Revolution, and the former ultra-left­
ists66 and anarchists who believed Bolshevism to be the first step in

M Swain, Tito, 10-11.

Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 55-56.
Much like the historical communist movement itself, 1 use the term “ultra-left” to
describe what was seen as “adventuristic” tendencies in the movement, such as indivi-
 BKI-ORI-: TITO 39

bringing the long-awaited revolution to their own countries.67 The

former became the KPJ’s right wing, while the latter formed the par­
ty’s left. The two groups engaged in a drawn-out doctrinal struggle,
which officially lasted until 1928, and which led to over-intellectu-
alization of the contemporary political issues at the cost of actual
active engagement with the working class. The ideological solipsism
further cemented the isolation of the KPJ, which already lost the
status of a mass organization as a consequence of state repression
from 1921. The Independent Workers’ Party of Yugoslavia (NRPJ),
founded as a legal communist front in 1923, merely served to show­
case the KPJ’s internal struggles to the public, and thus failed to
garner significant support.68 The success or failure of the two fac­
tions depended largely on the Comintern: when the left was domi­
nant in the Comintern, it also dominated the KPJ; when the right
prevailed, a rightist leadership would take control of the Yugoslav
party. Although this illustrates the depth of the divisions within the
Comintern itself, the organization did not approve of such behavior
within its constituent parties. In May 1926, the Executive Commit­
tee of the Communist International (ECCI) characterized the KPJ
as “paralyzed and transformed into a permanent debating club.”69
The KPJ developed the reputation of a troublesome and disobedi­
ent party, which would haunt it throughout the period of the Great
Purge. At the same time, the party’s dependence on Moscow grew
more and more.

dual acts of terror or untimely attempts at fomenting revolutionary upheaval.

67 Fowkes, “To Make the Nation or Break It?” 207.
68 Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 54.
69 Geoffrey Swain, “Wreckage or Recovery: A Tale of Two Parties,” in In Search of
Revolution: International Communist Parties in the Third Period, ed. Matthew Worley
(London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 130.
40 Stefan Gužvica

Thwarted Bolshevization
The Comintern first called for bolshevization at the Fifth Congress
in the summer of 1924. In practice, the process of bolshevization
meant not only the creation of a unified and centralized organi­
zational structure among all individual communist parties, but
also their “Russification in an embryonic Stalinist form ”70 While
calls for bolshevization persisted for several years, the Comintern
only truly managed to enforce it at the time of the Sixth Congress
in 1928. Although certainly an act of Russification, bolshevization
was not merely a consequence of interference by the Soviet party.
Young communist radicals, dissatisfied with the older genera­
tion and alarmed by the deteriorating global situation which they
thought would accelerate the advent of revolution, played a major
role in pushing their respective parties towards greater discipline
and centralization.71 The bolshevization of the KPJ happened along
the same lines.
In February 1928, two young communist workers from Zagreb,
Josip Broz and Andrija Hebrang, persuaded the city’s party organi­
zation, which was the largest in the country, to adopt a resolution
against factionalism and appeal directly to the Comintern to end
the factional struggles within the Party.72 This appeal resulted in an
Open Letter from the Balkan Secretariat of the Comintern in April
that same year, which endorsed the “Zagreb Line” and called upon
the party to act. In the following year and a half, the party managed
to seemingly put an end to factionalism. In reality, as within the
Communist International itself, the ultra-leftist faction prevailed
under the guise of anti-factionalism. Therefore, the leading leftists
of the younger generation, including Broz and Hebrang, success-

McDermott and Agnew, The Comintern, 45.

1 Notable examples include Klement Gottwald in the Czechoslovak party, Luigi
Longo in the Italian party, and Maurice Thorez in the French party. McDermott and
Agnew, The Comintern, 72.
Swain, Tito, 12.
 fully fashioned themselves as anti-factionalists and fighters for party
unity.73
At the Fourth Congress of the KPJ in Dresden in November
1928, the Comintern line was fully adopted. Broz and Hebrang
were not considered for party leadership because they had both
been arrested in the months leading up to the Congress. Instead,
Đuro Đaković became the organizational secretary, while Jovan
Martinović-Mališić became the political secretary. Both were Mos­
cow-trained organizers and both were on the party’s left. The older
prominent leftists, however, were marginalized: Đuro Cvijić lost the
post of political secretary and was not reelected to the Politburo.
The rightists were treated even more harshly, with Sima Marković
being expelled from the party.74 The new leadership rejected all col­
laboration with the non-communist left and began preparing for
ill-fated revolutionary action. They embraced the view that Yugo­
slavia should be forcibly dissolved in the revolutionary upheaval, in
order for the workers to establish a unified Balkan Soviet Republic.
They even attempted to collaborate with militant nationalist move­
ments to reach this goal.75 The crisis of the Yugoslav state, which
culminated in the institution of a royal dictatorship in January 1929,
seemed to confirm the righteousness of the confrontational course,
as the communists interpreted the dictatorship to be a sign of the
regime’s instability. Confrontation with the still-strong state author­
ities, however, proved to be fatal. In April 1929, Đuro Đaković was
killed by the Yugoslav police. By 1930, the surviving party leader­
ship had fled to Vienna; they would not return to the country until
1938. The decimated national party organization would only start to
recover in 1932.76

73 This view of leftists as “anti-factionalist” remained prevalent in Yugoslav historio­

graphy during socialism. See Cvetković, Idejne borbe u KPJ, 202.
74 Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 60.
73 Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 32.
76 Branko Petranović, Jugoslavija 1918-1988: knj. J: Kraljevina Jugoslavija 1914-1941
(Belgrade: Nolit, 1988), 213.
42 Stefan Gužvica

Blame could not be placed solely on the Yugoslav repressive

apparatus, as it was obvious that the policy adopted in 1928 played
a significant role in facilitating the party’s repression by the state.
In August 1930, Martinović-Mališić was attacked by the ECCI as a
“putschist,” accused of merely forming a “third group” as an alter­
native to the old party factions, and promptly sacked. The Comin­
tern appointed Antun Mavrak in his place and Filip Filipović as a
replacement for the deceased Đaković. Mavrak, a former leftist and
a key supporter of Broz and Hebrang, turned sharply to the right
during his mandate as party leader.77 His conflicts with other party
members merely showed to the Comintern that the factional strug­
gles, although officially ended in 1928, were still ongoing. Stabili­
zation only came in 1932, with the appointment of Milan Gorkić
as the interim party leader. Over the next four years, Gorkić was
extremely successful in consolidating the party and creating an illu­
sion of unity, although discord continued, particularly in the emigre
community, whose numbers rose dramatically after 1929.

Consolidation under Gorkić

Milan Gorkić was born Josip Čižinsky in Sarajevo in 1904, to a Czech
family that had moved there five years earlier. His adopted last name
was an adapted “Yugoslav” version of Gorky, and he ethnically iden­
tified as Bosnian.78 In his youth, Gorkić was one of the most active
young KPJ organizers. He was forced to immigrate to the USSR in
1923, aged only nineteen, and from there followed a path typical
for a foreign communist. After completing his education in Mos­
cow, he worked in the Comintern apparatus, and became secretary
of the Young Communist International (KIM) in 1928. A compe­
tent theoretician, he rose through the ranks thanks to his friend­
ship with Nikolai Bukharin, and then the patronage of Dmitry

Swain, “Wreckage or Recovery: A Tale of Two Parties,” 133-134.

Požar, Jugosloveni žrtve staljinskih čistki, 192.
 »r.i-oiu: u t o 43

Manuilsky.79 As one of the attendees of the meeting at which the

Open Letter was composed, he came to be seen as a leading anti-fac-
tionalist in the KPJ; in reality, his views were close to the earlier right
faction, although he was never involved in it. This became evident in
his subsequent actions as interim leader. Largely because of Gorkić,
throughout the latter part of the Third Period, the KPJ already pur­
sued a line similar to the popular front.
The Croatian historian Ivo Banac has called Milan Gorkić “by
disposition a man of the popular front.”80 From the very beginning,
his work marked a clear break with the earlier sectarian attitude
towards the reformist left. He encouraged activity within existing
non-communist trade unions, rather than the formation of alterna­
tive revolutionary ones, and changed the KPJ’s policy towards the
socialists. The communists were now expected to work with the
socialist rank and file, while still condemning their reformist lead­
ership, in what was already considered to be a “united front from
below.”81 As a consequence, the KPJ became a sort of cautious van­
guard of the developments which would be sanctioned by the Sev­
enth Congress of the Comintern in August 1935.
Furthermore, Gorkić insisted on independence of the KPJ, going
so far as to (rightfully) criticize the Comintern as the main culprit
for the prolonged party crisis that began in 1929.82 Although a disci­
plined follower of the Comintern line, he did not hesitate to criticize
the International when he felt that his party was being treated in
a patronizing manner.83 His divergence from the Third Period line
regarding the socialists and the trade unions was perfectly comple­
mentary with the Comintern’s flexibility on policy, and it ultimately

79 Očak, Gorkić, 82, 335.

80 Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 64.
81 Swain, Tito, 15. By contrast, a “united front from above” would have implied colla­
boration with reformist left leadership.
82 Očak, Gorkić, 170.
83 Nadežda Jovanović, “Milan Gorkić (prilog za biografiju)” Istorija 20. veka 1/1983,
39.
44 Slefan Gužvica

helped the recuperation of the party.84 While many accounts, espe­

cially the older traditional ones, argue that the recovery of the KPJ
between 1932 and 1934 took place independently of party policy,85
it is much more appropriate to attribute it to Gorkić successfully
avoiding sectarianism.
These moves were not uncontroversial. Vladimir Ćopić, an old
leftist who joined the temporary leadership, criticized Gorkić’s “right
errors” as early as 1933. In the following years, their disagreement
would escalate to the point that the Comintern would interpret it as
a renewal of factionalism. Unfortunately for Ćopić, Gorkić’s alleg­
edly “deviationist” course was legitimized by joint decisions of the
Comintern and the Profintern, which sanctioned activity in reform­
ist trade unions in 1931.86 Gorkić’s overall attitude to party dissent­
ers, however, was largely reconciliatory. He attempted to bring Đuro
Cvijić, another former leader of the party left, back into the party
leadership,87 and argued that earlier belonging to factions was not a
measurement of one’s loyalty or ability.88 The most ardent ultra-left
challenge to Gorkić and the popular front line would come from a
group in the Sremska Mitrovica prison, which would cause serious
headaches to the leadership later on.89 At the time, however, the exis­
tence of these troublemakers was a secondary issue.
From 1932, Gorkić gradually assembled a leadership team in
which he was the first among equals. In the beginning, he led the

*'1 Swain, “Wreckage or Recovery: A Tale of Two Parties,” 148-149.

f or example, Avgust Lešnik, “The Development of the Communist Movement in
Yugoslavia during the Comintern Period,” The International Newsletter o f Communist
Studies XI/18 (2005), 53-54 and Petranović, Jugoslavija 1918-1988: knj. 1: Kraljevina
Jugoslavija 1914-1941, 214.
Furthermore, these decisions helped establish Gorkić’s patron, Manuilsky, as a lea-
ding figure in the Comintern. Swain, “Wreckage or Recovery: A Tale of Two Parties,”
140-142.
Ior a detailed overview of Gorkić’s relationship with Cvijić and the efforts to restore
him into the leadership, see Očak, Gorkić, 174-179.
"H Jovanović, “Milan Gorkić (prilog za biografiju),” 38-39.
Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 65-66.
party in a triumvirate with Blagoje Parović and Vladimir Ćopić,
then gradually expanding his inner circle. His closest allies had a
reputation of being anti-factionalist: Parović was a member of the
Zagreb party organization in 1928, close to Broz, Hebrang, and
Đaković,90 while Ćopić, previously on the left, underwent ideologi­
cal education in the USSR and was then sent to Prague to help “bol-
shevize” the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in line with the
Comintern’s Third Period policy.91 The team’s full composition was
completed by December 1934, when, at the Fourth Land Conference
of the KPJ in Ljubljana, they came to form the new Politburo. Aside
from Gorkić, the members of the Politburo were Blagoje Parović,
Adolf Muk, Josip Broz, and Kamilo Horvatin.92 Vladimir Ćopić,
whose relationship with Gorkić by then was more hostile, occupied
the very influential position of party representative to the Comin­
tern, which he would hold until the Seventh Comintern Congress
in 1935.93 Four years later, Broz was the only one among these six
people who was both still alive and a party member.
At the time, the leadership was seemingly more or less harmoni­
ous, and it reflected Gorkić’s “big tent” approach. Muk was the only
figure who could truly be described as one of Gorkić’s cronies, while
Parović was the most consistent promoter of Gorkić’s policy on the
trade unions and the united front.9495Broz had just come out of prison
and was uninvolved in doctrinal disputes; Gorkić clearly remem­
bered him as one of the initiators of the 1928 anti-factional line.93
Ćopić was becoming increasingly hostile to Gorkić, while Horvatin,
another old member of the party left, did not seem to have any dis­

90 Goldstein, Tito, 53.

91 Očak, Vojnik revolucije, 208-211.
92 Petranović, Jugoslavija 1918-1988: knj. 1: Kraljevina Jugoslavija 1914-1941, 237.
93 Očak, Vojnik revolucije, 231. According to this source, it was actually Ćopić, and not
Horvatin, who was the fifth member of the Politburo. Očak, Vojnik revolucije, 237.
94 For a thorough examination of Parović’s prolific activity, see Đorde O. Piljević,
Čovek ideja i akcije (Belgrade: Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva, 2001), in par­
ticular pages 297-504.
95 Swain, Tito, 14, and Jovanović, “Milan Gorkić (prilog za biografiju),” 41.
46 Stefan Gužvica

agreements with the leader at the time. Although Gorkies practical

policies seemed “rightist,” nothing about his choice of top party cad­
res showed a preference for the party’s former right wing.
The most important policy change at the Fourth Land Confer­
ence was a revision of the party’s attitude towards Yugoslavia. As
the fascist threat became more acute following the Nazi takeover
in Germany, the KPJ began supporting the unity of the Yugoslav
state, a stance that had been abandoned almost a decade earlier. The
Conference reiterated the need for an armed uprising against the
“fascist” Yugoslav dictatorship, without explicitly calling for the dis­
solution of Yugoslavia.96 This was a first, albeit rather shy, expres­
sion of the need for an antifascist front in the country. The same
Conference decided to organize the communist parties of Croatia
and Slovenia within the KPJ, which was not finalized until 1937.
This, too, presented the beginning of reorientation towards a line
that the Comintern itself would adopt half a year later at the Seventh
Congress.

The First Repressions

While Gorkić was stabilizing the fragile and marginalized party
organization, more ominous parallel processes began to take place
among the Yugoslav emigre community in the Soviet Union. The
first executions of Yugoslav communists in the USSR took place as
early as 1930. This confirmed the belief of some of the emigres that
there might be police spies in their ranks, but it also set a very dan­
gerous precedent. The concerns about treason and espionage would
come to haunt the entire party by 1937. The experience of 1930
would confirm the proclamations coming from the Soviet party
leadership - if there were traitors in our ranks before, could it be
that some went unnoticed for years and took up leading party posts?

Desanka Pešić, Jugoslovenski komunisti i nacionalno pitanje (Belgrade: Izdavačka

radna organizacija “Rad,” 1983), 264-265.
 HI.I OHI-; TITO 47

Or could it be that some, so blinded by their factionalism, opted

to collaborate with the class enemy in order to achieve their goals?
Moreover, the Third Period was the time of the first anti-factionalist
campaigns and purges, which legitimized the complete expulsion
of the party opposition, something that had not been done since
the early 1920s, when the Yugoslav party was still ridding itself of
the centrists.
In the fall of 1929, the Soviet police arrested two Yugoslav com­
munists. The first was the Croat Mate Brezović, who had been a
member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) since 1920,
and had spent seven years living in Yugoslavia as a professional rev­
olutionary after the end of the Russian Civil War. Upon his return
to the Soviet Union, he was arrested in Moscow in September 1929
and shot as a spy on April 13, 1930.97 According to Yugoslav sources,
he was first arrested in Zagreb in 1929, and uncovered the entire
Zagreb party organization to the police, after which he became their
informant. He was then sent to the Soviet Union to spy on the com­
munists. Once this was discovered, the KPJ leadership reported him
to the Soviet police, which led to his arrest and execution.98 While
the Yugoslav historiography acknowledges his collaboration with
the police, and this incident confirms that “watchfulness” regard­
ing the emigres was not a matter of mere paranoia, the other case is
much more controversial.
The other arrested and executed individual was the Macedonian
revolutionary Stefan Popivanov, and his case is far more intriguing.
He had been active in the socialist movement from the first decade
of the twentieth century, a founding member of the KPJ, and one
of the most prominent leaders of its left faction. Yet, he allegedly
became an agent provocateur in 1928, after almost a quarter of a
century of activity on the radical left. He was also arrested as a spy,

97 “Bpe30BMH-Erep MaTBeii MaTBeeBMM," in "Ciimckm >KcpTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed

April 8, 2018, http://lists.memo.ru/d5/f268.htm.
98 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 303.
48 Stefan Gužvica

just a week after Brezović, and shot on March 6, 1930." Interest­

ingly enough, unlike Brezović, Popivanov was rehabilitated in
1963,100 during the Khrushchev Thaw, which further casts doubts
on his guilt. It is highly unlikely that Popivanov was in fact a police
agent, which makes him the first Yugoslav communist to have been
wrongfully accused and executed in the USSR. The true reasons for
his arrest and execution, at a time when persecution of opposition­
ists was not as extreme, remain unknown. Either way, the cases of
these two individuals, one most likely guilty and one most likely
innocent, confirmed the belief that there might be spies among emi­
gres. With the onset of the Great Purge, these cases were explicitly
referenced to justify the need for watchfulness and to confirm that
there were provocateurs among communists.101 In 1930, moreover,
the situation was still very different from the fear and dread that
pervaded Soviet society seven years later. Popivanov’s daughter
Malina, in spite of being the child of an alleged traitor, remained
a highly influential rank and file communist, playing a crucial role
in propagating the Open Letter of the Comintern among the party
members in Yugoslavia.102 Several years later, a familial relationship
such as theirs would have been enough to raise suspicion and make
her guilty by association.
A far more common form of political punishment in the period
was expulsion of the opposition, from both the left and the right.
Although certain individuals on the party left, in particular Vojislav

w “rion-MBaHOB CretJraH MaKeflOHOBMH,“ in “CnucKM w ep T B ,” MEMORIAL, acces­

sed April 8, 2018, http://lists.memo.ru/d27/f35.htm.
1011 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 303.
101 Tho, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 207 and Russian State Archives of Socio-Political His­
tory (Poccumckmm rocyaapcTBeHHbin apxnB couna/ibHo-no/iMTHHecKOM ncTopmi,
RGASPI), 495-11-357, E.H.rieTpoBCKMM, “O 3a«aHax 6opb6bi c TpouKM MOM b 3
lOroc/iaBMM,” October 17, 1937, 6-7.
1,12 Očak, Braća Cvijići, 254. Popivanova was eventually arrested during the Great
Purge in 1937. In 1939, she was released and cleared of all charges, spending the rest of
her life in freedom, working as a history teacher. However, she never returned to active
parly work.
 Bi:FORK TITO 49

Vujović103 and Ante Ciliga,104 have been frequent subjects of aca­

demic research, there are no academic works on the Yugoslav Left
Opposition as a politically organized group in the Soviet Union.
Unfortunately, as I am primarily focusing on a later period, this sub­
chapter will not be an original contribution to the latter. Instead, I
intend to focus on certain prominent individuals as case studies of
pre-1936 factionalism and political repression of Yugoslavs in the
Soviet Union. I will examine the two most infamous “renegades” at
the turn of the decade, the aforementioned leftist Ante Ciliga and
the leader of the right, Sima Marković.
Ante Ciliga, a founding member of the KPJ, was among the most
vocal leftists of the 1920s. The main focus of his polemics was the
national question,105 which is significant in light of his subsequent
reorientation towards radical Croatian nationalism. After immi­
grating to the USSR in 1926, he became a professor at the Yugoslav
section of the Communist University of the National Minorities of
the West (KUNMZ). By 1929, Ciliga openly endorsed Trotsky and
formed a Trotskyist group at KUNMZ.106Moreover, he and the other
Trotskyists were members of a group of Yugoslav leftists dubbed
“Group Forty-One,” named after the number of signatories of their
open letter to the ECCI, in which they criticized both the leadership
of the KPJ and the KUNMZ for alleged rightist deviations. Other
leftists, however, subsequently distanced themselves from their
openly Trotskyist co-signatories.107 Ciliga and his group were sub­
sequently expelled from the KUNMZ, the KPJ and the VKP(b), and

lu' Branislav Gligorijević, Između revolucije i dogme: Voja (Vojislav) Vujović u Komin-
terni (Zagreb: Spektar, 1983), and Milisav Milenković (ed.), Revolucionarna misao i
delo braće Vujović (Požarevac: Braničevo, 1981).
104 Ivan Očak, “Ante Ciliga - otpadnik komunizma i staljinske čistke,” Radovi 22
(1989): 267-296, and Stephen Schwartz, “Ante Ciliga (1898-1992): A Life at History’s
Crossroads,” Journal of Croatian Studies 34/35 (1993/1994): 181-206.
105 Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 56-57.
106 Očak, “Ante Ciliga,” 276.
107 For the most comprehensive existing overview of the controversy, see Očak, Gorkić,
109-111.
50 Stefan Gužvica

were forced to move to Leningrad. In 1930, they were arrested after

forming a Trotskyist group there. Five of them were sentenced to
three years in prison, and the remaining twenty were exiled to the
Soviet provinces.108 At the time, this pattern of imprisonment and
exile was much more common than execution.
When the letter of the forty-one reached the ECCI, they
responded by condemning not only the left, but also the right. The
letter was seemingly used as an excuse for a broader showdown with
all Yugoslav factionalists. Mirko Marković, one of the punished left­
ists in 1929, noted that none of the leftists were expelled at the time,
whereas “siminovci” (the supporters of Sima Marković) were.109
Sima Marković had already been targeted by the Comintern several
times, most notably in 1924, when he and Stalin disagreed on the
national question. While Stalin attempted to enforce the Comintern
line of fomenting national conflict at all costs, Marković’s view was
that national tensions should be ameliorated, and that trying to con­
nect them with proletarian internationalism could be detrimental to
the unity of the communist movement.110 Marković eventually fell
into line, but at the Fourth Congress of the KPJ in Dresden in 1928,
he was attacked by the Comintern delegate Palmiro Togliatti,111 and
promptly removed from the leadership. By 1929, the KPJ insisted that
he leaves Yugoslavia to avoid arrest. He refused, leading to his expul­
sion from the party.112 Marković would later claim that he chose not
to comply with the party’s orders because he believed that there were
police informants in the leadership, a fact which was confirmed by
the aforementioned arrest of Brezović in the USSR.111 Marković was

l0s Očak, “Ante Ciliga,” 279.

Očak, Gorkić, 110.
110 Walker Connor, The National Question in Marxist-Leninist Theory and Strategy
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 136-141.
111 Požar, Jugosloveni žrtve staljinskih čistki, 158-159.
112 Nikita V. Bondarev, “Sima Marković - moskovske godine (1935-1938),” in Druš-
tveno-politička i naučna misao i delo Sime Markovića, ed. Aleksandar Kostić (Belgrade:
Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, 2013), 47.
" ' Požar, Jugosloveni žrtve staljinskih čistki, 160.
 BKFORE T I K 51

not informed of this decision by the KPJ, and only found out upon
his arrest in Belgrade in 1930. He would remain isolated from the
party until 1934.114
The cases of Marković and Ciliga show that only the most vocal
opponents of the party line were punished with expulsion at the
beginning of the Third Period. The right was punished more harshly
than the left, because the Comintern as a whole turned against the
“rightist” communists at the time. By 1936, the tables had turned,
with the former leftists being subjected to harsher repression.115This
was a consequence of fears regarding their potential association
with Trotskyism.
The purges of 1932-1933 set a new precedent for Comintern inter­
ference into Yugoslav party affairs. They were not followed by mass
political repression, but they were a clear sign of the Comintern’s
ever-increasing control over its sections. The Comintern expected
the KPJ Control Commission, under the guidance of leadership
member Blagoje Parović, to expel 25 percent of party members.116
Such an imposition was not uncontroversial. Đuro Cvijić, whom
Gorkić was trying to reintroduce into the leadership, protested
against what he saw as unjustified interference by the Comintern in
the KPJ’s internal affairs, and additionally attacked both the leader­
ship and the Comintern for their refusal to take responsibility for
the mistakes committed in 1929 and 1930.117 Such an attitude even­
tually led to Cvijić’s expulsion.
Gorkić was more pragmatic than Cvijić. He accepted the purges,
but was not uncritical of them, successfully positioning himself as a
moderate and a mediator.118 Gorkić eventually managed to restore

114 Bondarev, “Sima Marković - moskovske godine (1935-1938),” 47.

115 This could help explain why Lazar Stefanović, one of the closest associates of Mar­
ković, who was expelled from the party and KUNMZ in 1929, survived the Great Purge
and lived in the Soviet Union until 1944, when he returned to Yugoslavia and became
a leading trade union organizer.
116 Piljević, Čovek ideja i akcije, 201.
"T Ivan Očak, Braća Cvijići, 367-372.
118 Jovanović, “Milan Gorkić (prilog za biografiju),” 39-40.
52 Štetan Gužvi(

Cvijić’s party membership, although his stubbornness made it

impossible for him to be considered for the party leadership again.
Much like with Cvijić, Gorkić succeeded in overturning the expul­
sions of prominent leftists Antun Mavrak and Košta Novaković, and
ameliorating the punishments of Filip Filipović and Kamilo Horva­
tin.119All of these individuals, aside from Filipović, were on the party
left. The only individuals that Gorkić never made an effort to save
were those who were already stigmatized as Trotskyists and exiled,
such as Ciliga or the former head of the Young Communist Interna­
tional Vojislav Vujović, who had already been banished to Central
Asia due to his support for Zinoviev and the United Left Opposition.
Gorkić’s moderation, however, did not stop attacks on him from
all sides. He was accused either of being a rightist or, at times, of
forming a “third group” after the Open Letter of 1928. The accusa­
tions of a “third group” appeared immediately after the victory of the
“anti-factionalist” line, and they most likely originated from Đuro
Cvijić. This new “faction” allegedly overestimated the danger from
the left, ignored the fight against the right, and engaged in exces­
sive “intellectualism .”120 Gorkić himself was either accused of com­
mitting “right errors” or of simply being a rightist.121 Most notably,
such an accusation came from Ćopić himself, a member of Gorkić’s
inner circle. As a consequence, during the 1932 purge, Gorkić con­
ducted self-criticism, and completely accepted the accusations that
his work amounted to the formation of a third group.122 This was
most likely done to minimize the potential damage that a renewal
of factional struggles, caused by an open clash with his opponents,
could have inflicted on the party. Parović still supported him, and
Ćopić decided to do so too, in spite of his reservations,123 presum­
ably because he too was worried about party unity.

"* Piljević, Čovek ideja i akcije, 207, 211-212.

120 Očak, Gorkić, 124.
121 Piljević, Čovek ideja i akcije, 206-207.
122 Očak, Gorkić, 141.
I2' Piljević, Čovek ideja i akcije, 208.
 iut -o ki : t i k 53

Factionalism has been a prominent feature of Marxist parties

from their very inception. In this regard, the story of the KFJ was
quite typical for a communist party in the 1920s. At the head of a
successful mass movement at first, it became a minor underground
sect riven with internal tensions after it was banned at the end of
1920. It was torn between the more radical “left” wing and the more
moderate ’’right” wing, and the open animosity between members of
the two groups became the rule. The sorry state of affairs prompted
the Comintern to intervene in 1928, allegedly abolishing the factions.
However, the ultra-left sectarianism of the Comintern’s Third Period
only pushed the party deeper into isolation. It also gave the Yugoslav
government an excuse to decimate the KPJ after the establishment of
a royal dictatorship in January 1929. For the following three years,
the party was in a state of disarray, with Comintern designating and
sacking party leaders every few months. This was only stopped with
the appointment of Milan Gorkić as the interim leader in 1932.
By the time of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in August
1935, the KPJ was in a much better state than Gorkić had found it in
when he took over three years earlier. As the rising star of the party,
he played an instrumental role in transforming it from an ultra-left
sect riddled with factional struggles to a growing mass organization.
Furthermore, it was becoming the vanguard of the popular front
within the Comintern and its influence in the Yugoslav trade unions
was growing. The abandonment of adventurism and anti-Yugoslav-
ism made non-communists more sympathetic to the party. The fac­
tional struggles that had harmed it so much in the 1920s seemed to
have finally been ended. At the same time, there were plenty of signs
of internal dissent, showing that not everything was perfect. Spec­
ters of prior factional struggles were still haunting the KPJ. Despite
grandiloquent proclamations of “bolshevization,” the party was far
from unified. Most former leftists and rightists still largely held to
the same views as before 1928, including Gorkić. Some members of
his own inner circle, most notably Vladimir Ćopić, opposed him,
influenced by their own earlier leftism.
54 Stefan Gužvica

The most worrying trends, however, pertained to the Comin­

tern’s increasing control over the party, which was most vocally
opposed by Đuro Cvijić. These trends included not only the first
expulsions of intra-party oppositionists, but even their executions,
as was the case with Stefan Popivanov. The executions of spies, real
or alleged, set a dangerous precedent, serving to confirm the fear
that political disagreement might in fact be a sign of treason. By
1937, this example would haunt the party as much as the earlier fac­
tional struggles themselves, and would lead to the arrest and execu­
tion of almost an entire generation of leading Yugoslav communists,
including the general secretary. For the time being, however, the KPJ
seemed fairly stable under Gorkić’s leadership. His domination of
the party was only seriously threatened for the first time after he had
lost the support of Ćopić.
THE PEAK AND FALL OF MILAN GORKIĆ

7 must still say that recently I have h ad thoughts about whether

G orkić h im self might not be a provocateur. After careful consid­
eration, I cam e to a conclusion that all these affairs on which I
have w ritten are characteristic o f the style o f G orkić’s work. In
itself they do not po in t to provocation ."
K a m ilo H o r v a t in , R e p o r t to W ilh e lm P ie c k

d a t e d A u g u s t 5 , 1 9 3 7 121

“In a p e rio d o f revolutionary tension or extern al threat there is

no clear-cut bo un d ary between political divergences an d objec­
tive treason.”
M a u r ic e M e r le a u -P o n ty , H um anism an d Terror 124125

On August 5, 1937, Kamilo Horvatin, one of the KPJ representatives

to the Comintern, arrived at the Secretariat of Wilhelm Pieck, the
ECCI member in charge of Balkan affairs. Horvatin submitted two
documents to Pieck: a shorter one, concerning the arrest of Betty
Gian, the general director of Gorky Park; and a longer one, regard­
ing the internal situation of the KPJ. The two reports had a com­
mon denominator: Milan Gorkić, the husband of Betty Gian and
general secretary of the KPJ. Nine days later, Gorkić was arrested by
the NKVD, together with Ivan Gržetić-Fleischer, the main KPJ rep­
resentative to the Comintern. Fleischer was shot on October 3, and
Gorkić on November 1. At the time of Gorkić’s execution, Horvatin
was still submitting reports to Pieck on the misdeeds of the now-
sacked party leadership. The purge of the KPJ was now in full swing.

124 RGASPI, 495-11-335, Petrowski’s [Kamilo Horvatin] Report to Wilhelm Pieck

Dated August 5, 1937, 14.
125 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror: An Essay on the Communist Prob­
lem (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 34.
56 Stefan Gužvica

Just one year earlier, Gorkić was at the height of his career: with the
help of his allies in the Comintern, virtually all of his opponents had
been sacked from the party leadership and he was officially named
general secretary of the Central Committee. In this chapter, I will
explain the circumstances that led to Gorkić’s success and his sud­
den - but not unexpected - downfall. I will begin by examining the
course and the consequences of the April Plenum of 1936, which the
Comintern interpreted as the re-emergence of factional struggles.
From there, I will continue with an account of the purges of Yugo­
slavs who openly supported the opposition to Stalin, most of whom
were imprisoned or executed by the spring of 1937, when Gorkić was
still in power, often with the knowledge and approval of party lead­
ership. Finally, I will present the multitude of reasons that led the
Comintern to believe that Gorkić might be unreliable, and which
eventually led to his arrest in August 1937.

The April Plenum of 1936

The first serious challenge to Gorkić’s leadership arose out of a con­
flict with his once-close associate, Vladimir Ćopić. In April 1936,
the Central Committee of the KPJ held a plenary session in Vienna.
Relations among the leadership were so strained that one of the
party members present at the plenum, Rodoljub Čolaković, noted
that Gorkić did not even greet some fellow members of the CC upon
his arrival.126This session marked the culmination of dissatisfaction
with Gorkić, but the events that followed marked Gorkić’s greatest
triumph: his official appointment to the post of general secretary
of the KPJ. The plenum pitted Gorkić and his closest associate at
the time, Adolf Muk, now called “gorkićevci,” against the “leftists”
led by Ćopić. Ćopić was supported by Đuro Cvijić’s brother Stjepan,
and the leading young Slovenian members of the Central Com­
mittee, Karlo Hudomalj and SKOJ secretary Boris Kidrič. Notably,

Čolaković. Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 2, 516.

 » m o r i: i i i < 57

among those present at the plenum was Ivo Marić, a worker from
Split who had a long-standing dispute with Gorkić,127 but there is no
evidence that he participated in the attack, suggesting that his rela­
tions with the group around Ćopić and Cvijić were not too close. The
plenum took place without the presence of a Comintern representa­
tive, which would later be used to attack both sides and question the
legitimacy of the session altogether.128
The immediate pretext for the attack on Gorkić was the series
of mass arrests that shook the party organization in the fall of 1935.
Even Gorkić loyalists, like Blagoje Parović, began expressing con­
cerns about the flaws in conspiratorial work of party members in the
country, a point which Gorkić was forced to concede.129 This prob­
ably encouraged his opponents at the top of the party to launch a
premeditated attack. The true cause of dissatisfaction was Gorkić’s
implementation of the popular front policy, which the party left con­
sidered to be rightist. Gorkić had begun to “legalize” party mem­
bers by moving the focus away from illegal activity and pushing
for an alliance not only with the non-communist left, but also with
all forces in the country opposed to the monarchical dictatorship.
This was denounced as liquidationism, a tendency of “abandoning,
or ‘liquidating’, the underground committee structure of the Party
in an attempt to legalize the Party and thus make easier an alli­
ance with the liberals by keeping the radical leadership in emigra­
tion at a distance.”130 As this was a Menshevik position which Lenin

127 Marie, a trade unionist, was among the leading Dalmatian leftists from the party's
foundation and had a dispute with Gorkić since the late 1920s, when Gorkić’s associa­
tes were attempting to establish the anti-factional line in Dalmatia. Marić would later
claim that he knew Gorkić was a “spy” since 1928. AJ, 516 MG, Box 58, 2231, Ivo Marić,
Iz istorijata radničkog pokreta Dalmacije, 209.
I2B Oćak, Gorkić, 244.
129 Piljević, Čovek ideja i akcije, 539. Even worse for Gorkić, Parović was soon removed
from all positions because of a breach of rules of conspiracy, after having an affair with
a Soviet Embassy worker in Budapest. This left Gorkić without one of his most capable
close associates. Piljević, Čovek ideja i akcije, 543.
1,0 Swain, Tito, 17.
58 Stefan Gužvict

criticized in the early 1900s, Gorkić’s policy came to be seen by

many in the party as essentially anti-Leninist. Moreover, the leftists
considered the attempts to legalize the work of the communists to
be the main reason for mass arrests. The only change in policy that
Gorkić brought about that remained largely uncontroversial appears
to have been the support for Yugoslav unity, which even the leftists,
like Stjepan Cvijić, had now come to actively embrace.131
The plenum followed a pattern typical of communist intraparty
putsches. Ćopić spoke first, presenting a critical report on the state of
the party. He was followed by Stjepan Cvijić, who supported him.132
The leftists argued that Gorkić was still pursuing the formation of a
“third group” within the party, continuing the trend of leadership
pretenders accusing their opponents of deviation while fashioning
themselves as the center. While not explicitly stated at the plenum,
the leftists intended to replace Gorkić with Karlo Hudomalj.133Hudo-
malj was the logical choice. A true proletarian, he was a locksmith
and was uninvolved in intraparty struggles before 1928, although he
was clearly on the left. Cvijić and Ćopić knew that nominating them­
selves, or anyone else from their group, would have led to renewed
accusations of factionalism, as they were all intellectuals with a back­
ground in the left faction, and therefore illegitimate as candidates.
Furthermore, Hudomalj was a member of the temporary leadership
in 1930, following the sacking of Jovan Martinović-Mališić, who was
close to Gorkić.134 Hudomalj was to assume the role of a new Đuro
Đaković, and the parallels between the two individuals were in fact
striking, even down to the fact that they were both locksmiths.

:<l Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 2, 518-519, and Banac, With Stalin
against Tito, 64.
’"1; Očak, Gorkić, 241.
!” Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 2, 524-526.
14 Požar, Jugosloveni žrtve staljinskih čistki, 148. Leftists constantly brought up the
tact that Gorkić was closely behind Martinović-Mališić, but opportunistically turned
his back on him when the Comintern denounced him. Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom
pokoljenju, vol. 2, 524-525.
 BI.l'OKI- TI 59

Figure 1. Factions in the K P J fro m the A p ril Plenum to the M oscow

Consultation.

Gorkić was once again forced to cave in and engaged in self-criti­

cism. The new Politburo consisted of his opponents Mavrak, Ćopić,
and Hudomalj, while Cvijić and Marić, both also unfriendly to him,
had become candidate members. The only figures he could count
on in the new Politburo were Broz and Muk.135 This was supposed
to be the beginning of the end of Milan Gorkić. It would have likely
turned out so were it not for the fact that, unlike the leftists, Gorkić
had his man on the Comintern Executive: Dmitry Manuilsky.136The
Comintern reacted furiously to the decisions of the April Plenum,
not least because they had not been notified or consulted in any way.
Gorkić’s Comintern patrons were intent on preserving his domina­
tion over the KPJ, as he enjoyed their utmost trust, unlike the major­
ity of Yugoslavs they had worked with. They therefore summoned a
series of meetings of the ECCI Secretariat in Moscow in August and

Očak, Gorkić, 243-245.

Bondarev, Misterija Tito, 174.
60 Slefan Gužvica

September at which the decisions of the April Plenum were to be

critically reassessed.
Although the official line was that both sides of the conflict were
to blame, the consultation in Moscow was heavily slanted in Gorkić’s
favor. Both Cvijić and Ćopić were invited to the meetings of the
ECCI, but neither of them ultimately showed up; they were allegedly
unable to receive their entry visas in time.137 This is unusual, given
that they had an official invitation from the Comintern. Equally sus­
picious was the fate of other opponents of Gorkić - Marić, Hudom­
alj, and Kidrič were all arrested by the Viennese police in a raid in
July,138 and therefore none of them were able to attend the Moscow
meeting. Although there is no evidence that Gorkić or his allies had
anything to do with the arrests, some leftists at the time thought
otherwise; Marić was now convinced that Gorkić did not even
intentionally betray them to the police in order to neutralize them
politically, but rather that he betrayed them because he was actually
a police agent himself.139 Those close to Gorkić, however, attributed
the arrests to Marić’s own lack of vigilance.140
By the time the ECCI convened in Moscow, Gorkić was once
again dominant in the party. All of the prominent Yugoslavs at the
meeting were his loyalists, such as Broz, Ivan Gržetić-Fleischer,
Blagoje Parović, Simo Miljuš, and Božidar Maslarić.141 Also pres­
ent were former leftists who could have questioned Gorkić’s political
course, such as Vilim Horvaj, one of the leaders of the SKOJ in the

"7 Očak, Vojnik revolucije, 294.

‘'H AJ, 516 MG, Box 58, 2231/2, “Razgovor sa drugom Ivom Marićem u Splitu 27.XI
1963,“ 39.
Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 3, 126.
"" Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 2, 616.
Očak, Gorkić, 246. Božidar Maslarić, an ethnically Serbian schoolteacher from
Osijek in Croatia, had been a supporter of Gorkić since 1928, when he sided with the
anli-factionalists while studying at KUNMZ. He would become one of Gorkić’s close
associates in Spain in ihe final months of Gorkić’s life. Milan Radanović, “Jugoslo-
venski intcrbrigadisti pred Kontrolnom komisijom CK KPJ 1945-1949.” (Bachelor’s
thesis, University of Belgrade, 2016), 56.
 1920s. They, however, had already been politically marginalized at
the time, and had no connections to Cvijić or Ćopić. As such, they
served more as tokenistic figures than actual representatives of the
intra-party opposition.
The only criticism that Gorkić was faced with in Moscow con­
cerned the convening of the plenum itself without consultation with
the Comintern, and his failure to confront the criticism from Cvijić
and Ćopić, choosing to compromise with them instead.142 On the
other hand, the Comintern interpreted the moves of the left as a
revival of factional struggles in the party. The ECCI proposed that
the KPJ return to its pre-April 1936 course, which included pushing
for a popular front “from below” rather than “from above,” returning
the exiled leadership to Yugoslavia, and arranging the foundation of
the communist parties of Croatia and Slovenia.141 Accusations that
Gorkić’s line was opportunistic were rejected. However, the accusa­
tion that leftists were pushing for a popular front “from above” was
unfounded. A popular front from above meant a direct collabora­
tion with reform socialist and liberal leadership, as opposed to joint
political action with their rank and file, which was a popular front
from below.144 The dispute revolved around whether or not the KPJ
should act as a part of the liberal United Opposition, with the left
claiming that it should not.145 Gorkić disagreed, meaning that the
situation was precisely the opposite of what the Comintern claimed:
the leftists were pushing for a popular front from below, whereas the
gorkićevci were pushing for a popular front from above. Neverthe­
less, Gorkić was able to continue this course for another year, veer­
ing dangerously close to liquidationism. The distinction between the
popular front from "above” and “below” would make a comeback
after July 1937, when Broz would fashion his approach to the popular
front as a popular front from below. Indeed, the popular front from

Bondarev, Misterija Tito, 182.

Očak, Gorkić, 246-247.
McDermott and Agnew, The Comintern, 123-126.
Očak, Vojnik revolucije, 270.
62 Stefan Gužvica

above seems to have become anathema due to perceived mistakes in

its implementation. This is particularly ironic given the fact that the
most famous contemporary examples of the popular front, in Spain
and in France, rested precisely on the idea of a political coalition
with, and support for governments of, those bourgeois political par­
ties which were deemed antifascist.146
Under the auspices of the Comintern, a new Politburo was estab­
lished, consisting of Gorkić, Broz, Čolaković, the Serb veteran activ­
ist Sreten Žujović and the Slovene worker Franc Leskošek. Only the
first two had been in the Politburo before, but the remaining three
were all seen as loyal to Gorkić. The Comintern, however, proposed
that Gorkić permanently remain abroad, with the others perma­
nently in Yugoslavia, and that the two groups could veto each other’s
decisions. Rather than ensuring the domination of Gorkić, this sig­
nificantly weakened the KPJ, putting it under the direct control of
the ECCI.147 While Yugoslav historiography had claimed that Broz
was named organizational secretary at this time,148 no such position
appears to have existed by 1936, and he was equal to other members
of the Politburo. The Russian historian Nikita Bondarev considers
that this new division of power was detrimental to the KPJ, and
that it was this, rather than Gorkić’s incompetence, which led to the
KPJ’s major failures in the following year, “as it fostered formalism,
negligence, and unhealthy competition within the party.”149
One thing that Gorkić could have affected, but did not, was the
move away from the view of the United Opposition as a kind of a
popular front which the communists should support, a stance upon
which he continued to insist, persistently arguing against it being
liquidationist. Manuilsky’s support and victory over his rivals seem

"A F°r an overview of French and Spanish communists’ approaches to the popular
front, see McDermott and Agnew, The Comintern, 135-142.
Bondarev, Misterija Tito, 188-189.
This claim was then uncritically repeated by English-language historiography on
Tito. See Phyllis Auty, Tito (London: Penguin, 1974), 136.
"v Bondarev, Misterija Tito, 189.
 BKKORK TITO 63

to have only emboldened him. This eventually brought Gorkić into

conflict with Broz, who began distancing himself from Gorkić and
criticizing liquidationism from late 1936.150 Being the only other
member of the Politburo present at the Moscow meeting, Broz must
have carefully noted the Comintern’s expectations, as these essen­
tially became his policy prescriptions for saving the party after the
fall of Gorkić. Although Broz would also eventually engage with the
liberal opposition, he would always attempt to do so on the com­
munists’ terms and under communist leadership, unlike Gorkić,
who was content with the communists merely supporting the liberal
opposition.151 Thus, the Moscow Consultation of August and Sep­
tember 1936 set the stage for the next three years of ideological and
policy debates within the KPJ.
As Gorkić prevailed, the defeated faction was scattered around
the globe. In October, Stjepan Cvijić was ordered by the Comintern
to move to the United States, where he was in charge of recruiting
volunteers for the International Brigades.152 Although he initially
remained critical of Gorkić,153 he soon fully complied with the new
party line, going as far as to state, in 1937, that “everybody knows
that a popular front without bourgeois parties is pure nonsense.”154
Ćopić appears to have been less compliant, but he did not express
this publicly, maintaining his Bolshevik discipline.155 Instead, he

150 Swain, Tito, 19, and AJ, 516 MG, 2013/3, 88.
151 Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 43.
152 Očak, Braća Cvijići, 426.
153 RGASPI, 495-11-300, Andre (Stjepan Cvijić), “Bemerkungen zu dem Brief der
Genossen Gorkic, Fleischer, Petrowski, Schmidt und Walter an die Genossen
Manuilski, Pieck und Waletzky,” November 10, 1937.
I5J Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 64.
155 He made one last-ditch attempt at criticizing the party leadership by addressing
the Pieck Secretariat regarding the KPJ’s mistakes on the national question. While the
contents of his letter are unknown, the report from the Secretariat dated March 20,
1937, which was apparently written in response to his letter, stated that he was in fact
wronged by not being able to appear at the ECCI session and that the matter should be
investigated. The unknown author also claimed that Ćopić’s criticisms of the party’s
mistakes in Serbia were correct, and that he rightly pointed out that the party organiza-
64 Stefan Gužvica

opted to go to Spain and join the International Brigades. He arrived

in late January 1937 and became the first political commissar of the
newly-formed XV International Brigade, popularly known as the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade; he became its commander two weeks lat­
er.156 Before his departure to Spain, his relationship with Cvijić had
also turned sour.157This was the final nail in the coffin of the opposi­
tion to Gorkić. At the time, however, Gorkić was undoubtedly far
more worried about another opposition, the one which was believed
to have tried to murder Stalin and overthrow the Soviet leadership
in order to re-establish capitalism.

T h e Purge of the O ppositionists

When the NKVD uncovered the alleged involvement of Kamenev

and Zinoviev in a plot with Trotsky to assassinate Stalin, the oppo­
sitionists were transformed from political opponents into two-
faced vicious murderers. At the time, most of the Soviet citizens
and political emigres had little reason to suspect that the charges
against the oppositionists were fabricated. This led to widespread
fear and anxiety among communists worldwide, and the Yugo­
slavs were no exception. They began looking for spies within their
own community, which, according to the Comintern, consisted of
about five hundred individuals in the Soviet Union, 180 of them in
Moscow.158

tion in Croatia was weakened, something that the leadership was unwilling to admit.
At the same time, the author notes Ćopić’s anti-Yugoslav stance, something that was
not expressed by his co-oppositionist Cvijić. RGASPI, 495-11-20, “3amiCKa o CeHbKO,”
March 20, 1937.
I:"' Očak, Vojnik revolucije, 312.
Očak, Vojnik revolucije, 303.
1'!‘ RGASPI, 495-11-6, “O pa6oTe npeacTaBHTe/iefi napTHii,” January 20, 1936. This
number could have been even higher, as the Yugoslav historian Ubavka Vujošević col­
lected biographies of six hundred Yugoslav victims of the Great Purge before her death,
in research that has yet to be published. Miroljub Vasić, “Dr Ubavka Vujošević Cica
(1930-2015),” htorija 20. veka 1/2016, 223.
 Ill IO K I I IT 65

From the KPJ’s side, the purge was primarily conducted by

Ivan Gržetić-Fleischer, the party representative to the Comintern.
A lumberjack from Karlovac near Zagreb, Gržetić was an active
trade unionist and joined the KPJ in 1920, soon after its foundation.
He began his rise to the party leadership in 1932, and was one of
Gorkić’s most trusted lieutenants. Gržetić collaborated with Zigmas
Angarietis, the Lithuanian Bolshevik who worked in the Interna­
tional Control Commission (ICC) of the Comintern, and reported to
Gorkić on the expulsions that took place.159 The ICC was originally
an appeals board to which those expelled from constituent parties
could lodge complaints about the decision, but it also investigated
foreign communists who were suspected to have committed per­
sonal or political mistakes. As such, it became one of the main tools
of repression within the Comintern after the First Moscow Trial.
The second most significant institution was the Cadres Department,
which carefully kept information on Comintern members for over
a decade and a half. As the persecution of potential “enemies of the
people” intensified, the Cadres Department supplied the NKVD
with massive amounts of information, greatly facilitating repression
of the Comintern apparatus.160
The only direct involvement of Gorkić in the purging of the
Comintern apparatus appears to have been his attendance at the ses­
sion of the ECCI Secretariat of September 5, 1936, at which Bela Kun
was banned from working in the Comintern and the Communist
Party of Hungary, beginning his downfall.161 Kun’s fall from grace,
however, lasted for almost two years,162 and Gorkić could not have
played a crucial role in it, as he was a mere candidate member of

159 Branko Lazitch and Milorad M. Drachkovitch, Biographical Dictionary of the

Comintern (Stanford: The Hoover Institution Press, 1986), 157-158.
160 Chase, Enemies Within the Gates?, 22.
161 RGASPI, 495-18-1112, “Protokoli (A) Nr. 70 der Sitzung des Sekretariats des EKKI
am 5.Sept.l936.”
162 For an extremely interesting microhistorical account of Kun’s downfall, see Wil­
liam J. Chase, “Microhistory and Mass Repression: Politics, Personalities, and Revenge
in the Fall of Bela Kun,” The Russian Review, 67/3 (2008): 454-483.
66 Stefan Gužvica

the ECCI. Aside from this, he does not appear to have been directly
involved in the Purge, although he was well aware of it and publicly
spoke in support of it. Responding to critics of the Purge and the
trials, Gorkić wrote that

Some naive comrades are asking the following question: how

is it possible for people who have spent decades in the workers’
movement to stoop so low? It is an inevitable consequence of the
factional struggles within the party. Whoever fights against the
party and its leadership cannot truly wish success to his party. On
the contrary, he does everything to prevent or slow down our suc­
cesses, and while doing so, whether he wants it or not, he ends up
encountering the class enemy, and if he is blinded by his factional
interests, he connects with them, in fact becoming their mere tool.
The case of Trotskyites is not the first case in the history of the
workers’ movement.16’

Gorkić thus explicitly connected factionalism with treason. From

this starting point, it was not difficult to justify persecution of
seemingly innocent people, considering them in fact to be hidden
enemies. In early September, Gorkić wrote a circular to the KPJ
members, in which he fully endorsed the decision of the First Mos­
cow Trial to execute the accused, and attacked the known Yugo­
slav oppositionists, Vojislav Vujović and Ante Ciliga, calling for
the death penalty for the former and the ostracism of the latter.164
Ciliga was released from prison in 1935 and, having been an Italian
citizen, left the USSR to settle in France, where he tried to influence
fellow Yugoslav emigres. The communists thought that he used con­
nections with the Italian Embassy in Moscow to leave the country,
which merely confirmed to them that the most infamous Yugoslav
Trotskyist must be a fascist spy. Vujović was in exile in Tashkent,

Ivan Očak, “Staljinski obračun s jugoslovenskim partijskim rukovodstvom u SSSR-

u,“ Radovi 21 (1988), 98.
1M Očak, “Staljinski obračun s jugoslovenskim partijskim rukovodstvom u SSSR-u,”
87
 BEFORE TITC 67

and was arrested there in July in connection with the First Moscow
Trial. He was executed on October 3, 1936.165 Despite the bombastic
pronouncements in the party newspaper, the case of Vujović was
still a matter of the Soviet state, and not of the KPJ. In any case,
Vujović was particularly well-integrated into Soviet society and was
far more active in the Comintern and in Bolshevik Party affairs
than in the Yugoslav ones - he was the former head of the Young
Communist International and a member of the United Left Opposi­
tion. Therefore, Gorkić probably had little or nothing to do with his
execution.
The period until the end of 1936 was a time of expulsions and
arrests of former left oppositionists, but by January 1937, the situ­
ation within the Comintern, and thus within the KPJ, took a turn
for the worse. After the trial of the so-called “Parallel anti-Soviet
Trotskyist Center” of Karl Radek, Georgy Pyatakov, and Grigori
Sokolnikov implicated Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov, the
Central Committee of the VKP(b) held a Plenum from Febru­
ary 23 to March 4, which heavily focused on cadres policy, calling
for increased vigilance and the rooting out of alleged enemies. By
early April, a joint resolution of the ECCI Presidium and the ICC
Bureau stated that “The I.C.C. must bring to strict Party accounting
leading Party workers guilty of having recommended agents of the
class enemy in their parties to the ranks of the leading sections of
the Communist International.”166 With “agents of the class enemy”
having been very loosely defined, virtually everyone became sus­
picious, and the rise in arrests of foreign communists intensified
almost immediately.
At this point, the KPJ itself became directly involved in the
Great Purge. The Yugoslav emigre community, already consisting
largely of bitter factionalists with long-lasting disputes, quickly

165 “BywoBUH BoiicTiaB HMMTpueBMH," in “CnncKM wepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed

April 8, 2018, http://Iists.memo.ru/d7/f354.htm.
166 Chase, Enemies within the Gates?, 223. For a summary of the Plenum, see Chase,
Enemies within the Gates?, 217-221.
68 Stefan Gužvica

became engulfed in a wave of mutual accusations. Gorkić’s contem­

poraneous correspondence with Fleischer shows that he was closing
ranks with his supporters in the Soviet Union, who were coming
under increasing criticism from fellow emigres.167 Gorkić explicitly
identifies three individuals who were seen by opponents as mem­
bers of his “clique”: Fleischer, Horvatin, and Grgur Vujović.168 Grgur
Vujović was the brother of the arrested Trotskyist Vojislav. He was a
former secretary of SKOJ and Gorkić’s representative to the Comin­
tern before Fleischer. In the months to come, the investigations sur­
rounding these individuals would be a dark foreshadowing of the
fate that awaited Gorkić in Moscow. Horvatin would be the only
one whose activity would not be carefully scrutinized at the time of
Gorkić’s downfall.
Before the investigations of Gorkić and the “gorkićevci” began,
the KPJ was attempting to move as many political emigres out of the
Soviet Union as possible.169 This was practiced by other Comintern
parties as well, and it was not a conscious attempt to save foreign
communists from repression (as they did not doubt the credibility
of the Soviet security apparatus), but a necessity which arose out
of fear that there might be spies among their ranks.170 At the same
time, the ICC was examining members of the pre-1928 KPJ factions.
Aside from Angarietis, a person referred to as Crnogubec or Gubček
appears to have been frequently in contact with Fleischer. Gorkić
was telling Fleischer to either send this person information on par­
ticular individuals, or request permission to publish the identities
of Yugoslav volunteers to Spain from the Soviet Union.171 Therefore,

l6' RGASPI, 495-11-334, Letter from Gorkić to Fleischer no. 34, April 29, 1937.
RGASPI, 495-11-334, Letter from Gorkić to Fleischer no. 2, January 21, 1937.
RGASPI, 495-277-191 (I), B. Homin, “O m o h x O T H o m eH iia x c 6biB im iM H w/ieHaMH
pyKOBOflCTBa K.n.KT September 28, 1938, 9.
1M RGASPI, 495-11-334, Letter from Gorkić to Fleischer no. 22, April 5, 1937, 3.
ro Chase, Enemies within the Gates?, 105-107.
■' See RGASPI, 495-11-334, Letter from Gorkić to Fleischer no. 22, or RGASPI, 495-11-
334, Letter from Gorkić to Fleischer no. 8, February 5, 1937.
 BI.IORI: TITO 69

the person in question is most likely Moisei Chernomordik, the dep­

uty head of the Cadres Department.172
The most well-known individuals questioned by Angarietis in
the spring of 1937 were Đuro Cvijić, Košta Novaković, and Radomir
Vujović (the third of the Vujović brothers, and another former
party representative to the Comintern).173 According to Fleischer,
Cvijić maintained his belief that he had done nothing wrong, even
using the investigation to attack Fleischer and Gorkić.174 Cvijić and
Novaković were investigated as members of the same leftist faction,
and Cvijić was expelled from the party in July 1937.175 Novaković,
who had already been expelled in 1932, was never reinstated,176 but
was investigated nonetheless. Neither of them had been arrested at
that point, but they were completely ostracized from Soviet soci­
ety.177 Although they apparently accused Gorkić and Fleischer of a
variety of offenses, their testimonies still did not mean much at the
time. The first sign that the party leadership was also deemed suspi­
cious was when Fleischer himself came under investigation.

Fleischer and the Construction of Guilt

Comintern sources show that Fleischer was undoubtedly one of

the troublemakers in Gorkić’s inner circle. He had come under fire
already in 1935 and 1936. The first criticism came from Parović,

172 Očak alleged that “Crnogubec” refers to the Comintern itself, although this seems
rather unconvincing. Očak, Braća Cvijići, 464. The Russian word "morda" (snout)
could be translated into Serbo-Croatian as “gubica.” Therefore, “Chernomordik”
would become “Crnogubec” in literal translation.
173 Očak, “Staljinski obračun s jugoslovenskim partijskim rukovodstvom u SSSR-u,”
92.
173 RGASPI, 495-11-334, Letter from Fleischer to Gorkič no. 7, April 27, 1937, 2-3.
175 RGASPI, 495-11-334, Letter from Fleischer to Gorkić, July 17, 1937.
176 RGASPI, 495-277-181 (I), AHrapemc, “UKBKFI(6) OTAen PyKOBOflamnx LlapTop-
raHOB tob . Bacn/ibeBy. C/IYIIIA/IM: o tob . flparaseBue,” May 23, 1932. Vujošević,
“Poslednja autobiografija Milana Gorkića, sekretara CK KPJ,” 122.
177 Both were left unemployed and essentially left homeless. Očak, “Staljinski obračun
s jugoslovenskim partijskim rukovodstvom u SSSR-u,” 93-94.
70 Stefan Gužvica

who accused him of lacking vigilance and revealing confidential

party information to non-party members,178 and then by Broz who,
accused him of being an alcoholic.179 These accusations seem all the
more credible and politically potent because they were coming from
persons who generally sided with Gorkić in party debates. They do
not seem to indicate that either Parović or Broz was trying to attack
Gorkić through Fleischer. The two were questioned as part of a gen­
eral verification of party cadres. In particular, in the case of Broz,
the report came a month before the beginning of the Moscow Con­
sultation, where he retained his Politburo post. If he had been plan­
ning an attack on Gorkić at this time, it would have been extremely
politically unwise, and he almost certainly would not have been re­
appointed to the Politburo. Gorkić continued to defend Fleischer.
He admitted that Fleischer had had a drinking problem, that he is
a former factionalist and a womanizer, but claimed that he is now
keeping his vices under control and that he has fully renounced his
past work in factions.180
The one person who did attempt to bring down Gorkić by asso­
ciating him with Fleischer was Vladimir Ćopić. Now a politically
marginalized member of a defeated faction, Ćopić was in Prague
waiting for the permission to go to Spain and fight, and he used
this time to inform the Cadres Department and the ICC of Fleisch­
er’s misdeeds. Fleischer admitted to the Cadres Department the
existence of his many sexual relationships, but Ćopić brought to
light the one that he had tried to cover up: his love affair with a

17,1 RGASPI, 495-277-207, “Eecena c t . LUmm^ t ,” March 5, 1935.

179 RGASPI, 495-277-207, LLImiHep, “B oTfle/i KaapoB MKKI4, tob . HepHOMopflMKy,”
July 10, 1936. “Spinner” was the pseudonym of Ivan Karaivanov, the Bulgarian com­
munist close to Tito, who immigrated to Yugoslavia in 1945 and became one of the
party’s anti-Soviet propagandists in 1948. He was apparently very close to Tito, but his
exact role in the events is still quite obscure. This report is not in any way indicative of
their close cooperation, as Karaivanov was in generally in charge of Yugoslav cadres,
and the conversation he reports to have had with Broz is not unusual in this regard.
RGASPI, 495-277-207, “XapaKTepMCTMKa Ha tob . (Pnewmep, flaHHafl TOb . lopKMH,”
November 15, 1936.
 HI'I ORK TITO 71

sixteen-year-old Slovenian member of the communist youth.181 In

addition to that, Ćopić accused Fleischer of sexually harassing sev­
eral female comrades, and repeated Parović’s earlier accusation of
giving sensitive party information to non-party members.182 Even
though Ćopić certainly wasn’t the most objective source on the party
representative’s misdeeds, he was not the only one, so the Comintern
decided to act.
Fleischer was interrogated by the ICC on March 26, 1937. He was
criticized for indulging in a series of love affairs, which damaged
his reputation as a party representative, and of “rotten liberalism.”183
He admitted that he had an affair with a sixteen-year-old member
of SKOJ, meaning he had previously been outright lying to the ICC.
Sexual intercourse with an underage person was considered, at the
very least, to be an abuse of power. He was particularly scolded for
bringing this person to study in Moscow at the International Lenin
School, even though she did not fulfill the requirements for admis­
sion.184 This kind of perspective was common in the Soviet Union of
the time, where sexual promiscuity and abuse of power were not seen
as violations of a universal moral law, but as a betrayal of the goals
of the revolution and a failure to live up to the Bolshevik ethos.185
Apparently, the sexual assault charges that came from Ćopić were
not considered, and the sources do not indicate that sexual relations
with a sixteen-year-old were in themselves treated as sexual assault.
If any such charges had come from the women in question, they
have not been preserved. However, the ICC’s silence on the matter
of sexual harassment suggests that no one aside from Ćopić brought
up that particular charge. Sexual assault accusations coming from
women themselves were always taken seriously and there is not a

181 RGASPI, 495-277-207, “O/IEMUIEP Cre(j)aH rieTpoBMH,” March 22, 1937, 2.

182 RGASPI, 495-277-207, CeHbKO, “B Otac/i Kaflpou,” January 22, 1937, 2.
183 RGASPI, 495-11-337, “Auszug aus dem Protokoli der Sitzung der IKK vom 26. IH-
37."
183 RGASPI, 495-277-207, “O/IEMIUEP CTe^aH n eTpoBMH,” March 22, 1937, 2.
185 Studer, The Transnational World of the Cominternians, 114-115.
72 Stefan Gužvica

single case within the Comintern where the ICC did not decide in
favor of the woman making the accusation.186 Therefore, Fleischer
suspension was a consequence of his individual failings, and what
was seen as a shameful failure to uphold the standards demanded by
communist revolutionary struggle.
On the other hand, the accusation of “liberalism” meant that
Fleischer was too lenient and insufficiently vigilant towards intra­
party oppositionists. However, as he rightfully pointed out, this
was not his fault, but Gorkić’s.187 As I have shown throughout the
previous chapter, while Gorkić put all of his efforts into enforcing
party unity, he did not do this by expelling the former factional-
ists, but by actively trying to bring them back into the fold. By 1937,
this could have been interpreted as outright enemy activity. At the
time, however, the Comintern still did not seek guilt in Gorkić, but
only in Fleischer. Because of these mistakes, the ICC decided to
relieve Fleischer of his duties as party representative.188 Fleischer’s
self-criticism was insufficient; the ICC was dissatisfied with him
for being too forgiving, and the Yugoslav emigres resented him for
being too harsh. The pressure from all sides did not cease, and he
was becoming increasingly frustrated. He complained to Gorkić
that the emigre community hated him, and that he was faced with
the unpleasant task of signing everyone’s expulsions, pointing out
that this was supposed to be Gorkić’s job to begin with.189 Much to
Fleischer’s relief, the ICC’s decision to sack him allowed him to join
the rest of the party leadership in Paris. Already in early May, he
notified Gorkić that the ICC, the Cadres Department, and the Pieck
Secretariat had all approved of his transfer.190

Studcr, The Transnational World of the Cotninternians, 114.

RGASPI, 495-11-334, Letter from Fleischer to Gorkić no. 7, 2.
RGASPI, 495-11-337, “Auszug aus dem Protokoli der Sitzung der IKK vom 26. HI-
37.”
Očak, “Staljinski obračun s jugoslovenskim partijskim rukovodstvom u SSSR-u,”
98.
Il" RGASPI, 495-11-334, Letter from Gorkić to Fleischer no. 38, May 12, 1937.
 For reasons unknown, the transfer never took place. In July,
Fleischer was still the party representative, overseeing the expul­
sion of party comrades.191 Meanwhile, he wasted no time in send­
ing accusations to Chernomordik, mostly against former members
of the party’s left faction.192 He was both a victim and a perpetra­
tor, and not just because of the denunciations he had been send­
ing. His abuses of power were certainly not imaginary, and the
Comintern had to take action in light of the evidence. The decision
to sanction him, both for breaches of rules of conspiracy and acts
of sexual harassment, seems reasonable and justified. The further
development of Fleischer’s case, however, verged on the surreal.
On June 11, 1937, the newly-appointed head of the Cadres Depart­
ment, Georgi Damyanov - Belov, had sent Fleischer’s documents to
Lev Mikhailovich Polyachek, the chief of the 9lh Special Division
of the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB), the secret police
department of the NKVD.193 This is the earliest known evidence of

191 RGASPI, 495-277-207, “fle/io MapMHKOBMwa H. (IOroc/iaBMfl),“ July 21, 1937. This
document on the case of Nebojša Marinković, one of the co-conspirators in the assas­
sination of interior minister Milorad Draskovic in 1921, is currently the only available
source which sheds light on the expulsion process. It was performed by a committee
consisting of Wilhelm Pieck, the ECCI Secretary in charge of Balkan affairs, Fleisc­
her as the party representative, Janko Jovanović (Drenovski) as the Yugoslav head of
the Cadres Department, and Maria Wilde (Mertens) as the translator. The committee
presented the case to the accused, who does not seem to have had the opportunity
to express his point of view, but this was only the last in a series of many meetings.
Subsequently, the committee agreed to expel Marinković, and to investigate Fleischer,
who had previously recommended him as a worker at the International Lenin School.
Marinković was arrested on March 23, 1938, and shot on August 9 that same year.
“MapMHKOBHw He6aniua CaBBMM," in “C iimckm wepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed Feb­
ruary 12, 2019, http://lists.memo.ru/d21/f427.htm.
192 RGASPI, 495-277-207, (Pnenmep, “B ChAe/i KaapoB MKKM - tob . HepHOMopflHKy,1'
June 10, 1937.
193 RGASPI, 495-277-207, Note from Belov to Polyachek, June 11, 1937. Lev Mikhailo­
vich Polyachek (1901-1939), was continuously a member of the many incarnations of
the Soviet security apparatus from 1918. He was most likely the main NKVD official
in charge of the Purge of the Comintern. At the end of Yezhovshchina, he was arres­
ted, and executed on February 20, 1939. In 2013, the Russian state rejected the case
for his legal rehabilitation. See “Ifo/iflHeK, /IeB Mnxan/ioBHH,” in Mihail Tumshis,
74 Stefan Gužvica

NKVD investigation into the KPJ. The investigation, which was led
by Polyachek throughout 1937, effectively made the whole Yugoslav
party suspect, and resulted in deaths of many leading communists.
Fleischer himself was arrested on August 14, 1937. From that day
on, Damyanov was forwarding all of Fleischers correspondence to
Polyachek, asking for a return of the letters once they are no lon­
ger needed by the NKVD. However, this correspondence was not
preserved, meaning it was either destroyed or is now kept in the
archives of the former secret police.
The accusations with which the NKVD faced Fleischer went
far beyond the earlier charges of breaching conspiracy and sexu­
ally harassing women. His case is an excellent illustration of the
methods of construction of guilt used at the time, and thus it will
be presented here in full. It is both paradigmatic, because of how the
case was built, and significant, because he was one of the first high-
ranking party officials to face such accusations.
In March 1938, almost half a year after Fleischers execution,
Damyanov discovered a document from Chernomordik, the deputy
head of the Cadres Department, who was also arrested and shot in
the meantime. This undated document, almost certainly made after
Fleischer’s arrest, shows the escalation of the accusations. Parović
had claimed in 1935, that in 1928, Fleischer had had “certain fluctua­
tions,” and that he sympathized with the party left, but soon sided
with the anti-factionalists, remaining a dedicated supporter of the
party leadership.194 By the summer of 1937, this was rephrased (not
by Parović, but by Chernomordik) into “in 1928, (...) he openly took
Trotskyist positions.”195 He was also accused of secretly working for
Mate Brezović, who was executed in 1929 as a police provocateur,

Vadim Zolotaryov, Evrei v NKVD SSSR 1936-1938. gg. Opyt biograficheskogo slovarya
(Moscow: Russkiy Fond Sodeystviya Obrazovaniyu i Nauke, 2017), and Huber, “Struc­
ture of the Moscow apparatus of the Comintern and decision-making,” 59-60.
1,4 RGASPI, 495-277-207, “Becefla c t . UImhat ,” March 5, 1935.
I'4’ RGASPI, 495-277-207, H epHOM opnHK, “OrteMuiep / le o AneKcaHflpoBMH, oh H<e
l pweriiH IdBaH,” undated.
 BKI-'OKK u ro 75

exclusively on the basis of having been a member of the same party

cell. While Parović merely said that Fleischer had spoken about party
affairs in Dalmatia with his landlord (who was not a KPJ member),196
the 1937 report had concluded that this landlord was “a prominent
fascist.” The sixteen-year-old lover from Slovenia had become an
Italian spy, and the fact that he had never been arrested in Yugoslavia
a further reason for suspicion. While both Broz and Gorkić admit­
ted Fleischer’s drinking problem, Chernomordik was now writing
about Gorkić and Fleischer organizing “everyday drinking par­
ties.” Finally, he was accused of wanting to escape from the country
because he fears the NKVD,197 even though, according to his earlier
letter to Gorkić, he had been granted a formal permission to leave
the USSR. According to the document rehabilitating Fleischer from
1963, Gorkić and Chernomordik confessed their alleged participa­
tion with Fleischer in a “counter-revolutionary Trotskyist terrorist
organization,” which had been going on since 1929.198 Fleischer fur­
ther implicated Jovan Martinović-Mališić and Filip Filipović, with
whom he was in the party leadership in the 1930s, as members of
this organization. Both of them were arrested in 1938, and subse­
quently shot.
Fleischer’s Kafkaesque story shows how guilt was constructed
retroactively out of seemingly minor disagreements within the party,
but also through gossips and unverified or unverifiable information.
Chance encounters became parts of a master plan of treason, and
misunderstandings turned into well thought-out acts of sabotage.
The seemingly innocent reports to the Cadres Department, given
before 1936 as part of a regular procedure, came to be used in a
nefarious way by the NKVD. Parović, Broz, and even Gorkić, criti­
cized their comrade, but could not have expected before the Great
Purge that their criticism would lead to the conclusion that he is

196 RGASPI, 495-277-207, “Beceaa c t. LIImwat,” March 5, 1935.

197 RGASPI, 495-277-207, HepHOMopflMK, “O/ieiiiiiep /Ieo A/ieKcaHflpoBHM,” undated.
03
198 RGASPI, 495-277-207, “BepxoBHbiw CyA Coi a CCP, OnpeAeneHwe ho . 4 h - 1298/63
BoeHHan KoAAerwH BepxoBHoro CyAa CCCP,“ 1963.
76 Stefan Gužvica

a traitor. However, some authors presume precisely this - that the

reports written years before the Purge even began were intended by
their writers to serve as manipulative tools for murder. Or, at least,
by a particular writer of the reports. In their books on Tito, Pero
Simić and Zvonimir Despot are so bent on demonizing him that
they make such outrageous connections as saying that Gorkić was
arrested and shot “some thirty months” after Broz wrote a report
on him,199 or that Fleischer was arrested “just one year” after Broz
wrote to the Cadres Department that he “does not know how to
adjust himself to the masses.”200 Aside from making a ridiculous and
unfounded causal jump of thirty months, Simić and Despot make
the most banal methodological error of reading history backwards,
presuming that those who wrote reports in 1935 had the knowl­
edge of what is going to happen in 1937, even though there was no
historical precedent for the NKVD using the reports of the Cadres
Department for mass repression. Additionally, they never bother to
answer the question of why, if Broz’s reports were so crucial, did
anyone let Gorkić lead the party for another two and a half years,
or why saying that Fleischer “does not know how to adjust himself
to the masses” led to his arrest and execution. The presumptions of
Simić and Despot about Stalinist repressions are as unfounded as
the original accusations made against the victims.
At the same time, the case of Fleischer shows that the basis for
investigation was not always completely fanciful. Fleischer had com­
mitted mistakes in his work, and had blatantly abused his position,
especially in the case of the sixteen-year-old girl who was subordi­
nate to him. The investigation was justified, but in the conditions
of an all-out hunt for internal enemies, it went too far. A man who
undoubtedly deserved the demotion which the ICC intended for him
did not deserve an execution before a kangaroo court. In the words
of David Shearer, “Stalin was a dictator who connected dots, at times

m Simić and Despot, Tito - strogo poverljivo, 59.

Simić, Tito: svetac i magle, 71.
 »Kl OKI I KK 77

too many dots.”201 The Great Purge is a case of a party committing

suicide as the entire rank and file, following their leader, began con­
necting too many dots. In this regard, the case of Fleischers boss
and patron, Milan Gorkić, is even more tragic.

Th e Arrest of the General Secretary

On July 23, 1937, the ECCI Secretariat met to discuss the question
of the KPJ general secretary, Milan Gorkić. He had already been
summoned to Moscow without much information, as was custom­
ary at the time. His patron, Manuilsky, was out of town, having been
granted a month-long holiday.202 A special commission was set up
to investigate Gorkić’s case, led by Wilhelm Pieck, and consisting of
Georgi Damyanov (Belov), Mikhail Trilisser (Moskvin) and Traicho
Rostov (Spiridonov). The July 23 meeting already sheds light on some
of the main reasons for the arrest of Gorkić: namely, the earlier arrest
of his wife, and the failure of the transport of volunteers to Spain.201
However, as I will show in this subchapter, there were many more rea­
sons for his detention. In many ways, the KPJ general secretary was a
tragic victim of a series of unfortunate circumstances. In another era,
they would have led to his (justified) demotion, but during the Great
Purge, they pointed to treason, and thus led to his execution.
The very act of forming the special commission was, in effect,
an admission of the existence of a profound crisis within the KPJ.
Naturally, the commission was led by Pieck, as the ECCI Secretary
in charge of Balkan countries. The Bulgarian communist Damyanov

201 David Shearer, “Stalin at War, 1918-1953: Patterns of Violence and Foreign Threat,”
Jahrbiicher fiir Geschichte Osteuropas 66, 2018/2, 214.
202 RGASPI, 495-18-1213, Protokoli Nr. 172 (A) des Sekretariats des EKKI, zusammen-
gestellt auf Grund fliegenden Abstimmung unter den Mitgliedern des Sekretariats des
EKKI, vom 1.8.37.” According to Vladimir Dedijer, Gorkić had stayed in Manuilsky’s
apartment in Hotel Lux, where he was arrested by the NKVD. Vladimir Dedijer, fosip
Broz Tito: Prilozi za biografiju (Zagreb: Kultura, 1953), 257.
201 RGASPI, 495-18-1211, “Protokoli (B) Nr. 167 zusammengestellt auf Grund fliegen­
den Abstimmung unter den Mitgliedern des Sekretariats des EKKI am 23. Juli 1937.”
78 Stefan Gužvica

was also there, as the newly-appointed head of the Cadres Depart­

ment. As shown earlier, the documents of the Cadres Department
on Yugoslavia were already being forwarded to the NKVD, and
this connection further attests to the unfavorable position of the
KPJ at the time. In this regard, even more damning was the deci­
sion to make Trilisser part of the commission. The Old Bolshevik
Meer Trilisser, who worked in the Comintern under the pseud­
onym Mikhail Alexandrovich Moskvin, was an experienced intel­
ligence officer, who had been the head of the foreign department of
the Cheka and OGPU, the NKVDs predecessors, in the 1920s. In
1935, Stalin had made him a member of the ECCI Presidium. He
worked closely with the International Liaison Department (OMS),
the Comintern intelligence agency, and personally led the commis­
sions for verifying the workers of the Comintern apparatus in 1936
and 1937.204 Traicho Kostov had been an employee of the Pieck Sec­
retariat at the time.205 The choice of making him a member of the
commission is not entirely clear. He was also a member of the Polit­
buro of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP), and appears to have
played some sort of a role in the Yugoslav party affairs related to the
Spanish Civil War.206 However, the choice of another Bulgarian com­
munist indicates the existence of a certain informal hierarchy within
the Comintern. The parties that were held in high esteem, such as the
BKP, were superior to the lesser ones, such as the KPJ. I will elaborate

:04 Chase, Enemies within the Gates?, 26. For an overview of the work of the so-called
“Moskvin Commission” within the Comintern, see Leonid Babicenko, “Die Moskvin-
Kommission. Neue Einzelheiten zur politischorganisatorischen Struktur der Komin-
tern in der Repressionsphase,” Vie International Newsletter o f Historical Studies on
Comintern. Communism and Stalinism, Vol. II, No. 5/6 (1994/95), 35-39.
^ Huber, “Structure of the Moscow apparatus of the Comintern and decision­
making,” 51.
RGASPI, 495-277-192, CmipnaoHOB (Kostov), “tob . flHMHTpoBy h MaHyw/ib-
CKOMy,” April 15, 1937, 2. Kostov appears to have had some sort of an advisory power in
regards to KPJ policy in Spain and the sending of cadres abroad. It is worth noting that
he was executed in Bulgaria in 1949 under the accusation of being a “Titoist." However,
there appears to be no connection between that and his work with the KPJ in 1937.
 on this phenomenon later on. What is significant now is that the KPJ
was undeniably a subject of a criminal investigation, conducted by
both the Comintern and the NKVD, and that the entire party was
suspect at the time. The center of the entire problem, in the eyes of
the communist institutions, was the general secretary.
I identify three major factors that contributed to Gorkić’s down­
fall: the general context of intensified political repression within the
Comintern; policy errors and lack of vigilance; and Gorkić’s connec­
tions to certain compromised and arrested figures. His mistakes in
all three fields could have led the NKVD to the conclusion that he
was a Trotskyist, or at the very least a sympathizer of Trotsky. The
most commonly accepted explanation in the literature is that Gorkić
was arrested and executed for being a British spy.207 At the end of
this section, I will show that the accusations against him were far
more extensive than that.
The first cause of Gorkić’s downfall, however, was the intensi­
fication of investigations and repression within the Communist
International and the Soviet state as a whole. Were it not for this,
he would probably have faced a mere demotion, like many of his
predecessors. The fact that he was a foreigner probably aggravated
his position as well, given that xenophobia reached its peak from
mid-1936. Furthermore, the members of the Cadres Department in
charge of foreign parties, Anton Krajewski and Chernomordik, were
arrested in May and June respectively.208 Their testimonies would
also play a crucial role in the arrests of foreign communists in the
months that followed. Aside from that, Chernomordik and Gorkić
were close friends, a fact that was noted in a report on Gorkić from
late July.209

207 Geoffrey Swain, “Tito and the Twilight of the Comintern,” in International Com­
munism and the Communist International, 1919-43, ed. Tim Rees and Andrew Thorpe
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 210.
208 Chase, Enemies within the Gates?, 237. For the phenomenon of increasing xenopho­
bia in Soviet society, see Chase, Enemies within the Gates?, 102-216.
209 Vujošević, “Poslednja autobiografija Milana Gorkića, sekretara CK KPJ,” 128.
80 Stefan Gužvica

Gorkić’s more concrete errors pertained to party policy and a

lack of vigilance; after the arrest of Kirov, vigilance was the order of
the day. It was considered the ultimate Bolshevik virtue, and lacking
it put the Bolshevik party, the Comintern, and the entire commu­
nist movement in grave danger.210 Gorkić’s main mistake was that he
envisioned the Communist Party of Yugoslavia as a broad church,
incorporating various views on the party’s revolutionary course,
and collaborating with a wide variety of political organizations in an
anti-fascist front. This belief was certainly reinforced by the policy
prescriptions of the Seventh Congress. Gorkić failed to realize the
limits of this openness, in particular regarding the attitude towards
bourgeois parties and intraparty oppositionists. Some of the con­
sequences of this misunderstanding were insignificant, and were
merely amplified by the anxiety that the Great Purge triggered. O th­
ers, however, seriously threatened the KPJ.
The more benign ones pertained to Gorkić’s policy towards real
and alleged factionalists. As already mentioned, Gorkić’s idea of
party unity was not the expulsion of dissenters, but their return to
the fold. He appears to have had a very democratic view of relations
within a communist party. This explains his persistent attempts to
persuade Đuro Cvijić of the correctness of his party line in 1932—
1933, his compromise with Stjepan Cvijić and Ćopić at the April
Plenum, and his preference for leaving the expulsions of 1937 to
Fleischer. While his attitude to intra-party opposition is admirable,
it was completely incompatible with the contemporary Stalinist
vision of the party. By the time he arrived in Moscow, Gorkić was
aware of his, now life-threatening, mistakes. In his last party auto­
biography, written on August 3, 1937, he criticizes his lenient atti­
tude to individuals like Ćopić and Stjepan Cvijić, justifying it as an
attempt “to save intra-party peace and save the party from a renewal
of factional struggles.”211

Chase. Enemies within the Gates?, 5-7.

Vujošević, “Poslednja autobiografija Milana Gorkića, sekretara CK K P J 120.
 Another issue that stemmed from Gorkić’s lenience towards
factionalists and oppositionists was his perceived meek attitude
towards Trotskyism. At this point, Trotskyists were no longer seen
as a current in the international communist movement, but rather
as a group of traitors and criminals who worked for the capitalist
powers. This is something that Gorkić failed to understand: a report
by Kamilo Horvatin written after Gorkić’s arrest points out that
under Gorkić, the party newspaper engaged in intellectual polemics
with the Trotskyists, rather than simply uncovering them as traitors
and murderers.212This attitude was enough to accuse Gorkić of hav­
ing harbored Trotskyist sympathies. Additionally, Gorkić defended
the publication of Čolaković’s ABC of Leninism,2'* which was later
denounced as a Trotskyist theoretical piece.
Gorkić’s more serious errors were related to his interpretation
of the popular front. As mentioned earlier, he was accused of vari­
ous other “rightist errors” as early as 1933, and specifically of liq-
uidationism from 1935. His attitude towards the 1935 election in
Yugoslavia was that the communists should support the United
Opposition regardless of the fact that they were not granted any con­
cessions. The leader of the opposition, Vladko Maček, correctly cal­
culated that they would receive communist votes anyway.214Gorkić’s
vision of the popular front was one in which the communists merely
support democratic parties against a dictatorship, rendering them
virtually indistinguishable from the bourgeois opposition. In order
to facilitate this cooperation, Gorkić focused on legalizing the work

212 RGASPI, 495-11-357, rieTpoBCKHH, “O 3a/raMax 6opb6i>i c TpouKH3Mo.vi b lOroc-

JiaBMM,” 2, October 17, 1937.1 will write more on Horvatin’s radical change of attitude
towards Gorkić at the end of the chapter.
211 RGASPI, 495-11-334, Letter from Gorkić to Fleischer no. 20, March 26, 1937, 3. This,
however, was another case of serious nitpicking. What made Čolakovićs book Trots­
kyist, according to a report by Vilim Horvaj, was merely that Čolaković had written
that Lenin had come to a conclusion that socialism is possible in one country after the
October Revolution, rather than before it. RGASPI, 495-277-192, BenwM, ‘Tlo Bonpocy
lopKMHa,” August 4, 1937, 5-6.
214 Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 43-45.
82 Stefan Gužvica

of party members. He saw this as a way to halt the mass arrests in

the country, whereas the Comintern saw it as the cause of mass
arrests.215 The Comintern was correct, and Gorkić’s actions led to
the decimation of the party organization in the country. Paired with
this was Gorkić’s continued inability to return the party leadership
back to the country, where it was supposed to focus on turning the
KPJ into a mass organization once again. From here, it was not too
difficult to conclude that mass arrests were not a cause of individual
failures, but of systemic problems with the party, or even significant
police infiltration in the highest party organs.216 Although this final
conclusion was more the product of excessive fear, Gorkić’s liquida-
tionism did undoubtedly damage the party and, ultimately, his own
reputation.
The third major factor that led to Gorkić’s downfall was his
connection to individuals who had already been denounced and
arrested. This was rather typical for victims of the Great Purge,
although Gorkić’s inner circle at times made embarrassingly care­
less errors that only cemented the belief that he is a provocateur.
Long before this became obvious to the NKVD, other arrests which
shook Gorkić’s position took place. Bukharin, his ally from the 1920s
and patron prior to Manuilsky, was arrested in February. Even more
damningly, his wife, Betty Gian, the director of Gorky Park, who
was not directly involved in Yugoslav party politics, was arrested in
June.217 Gorkić denied having close relations to Gian. According to
him, they had been essentially separated since the end of 1930, and
he did not speak to her about party affairs. He admitted his lack of
vigilance in regards to Gian, and apologized for not divorcing her
and having another partner, which he saw as his ethical, rather than

’|S Swain, Tito, 18-19.

This last charge was mounted by Kamilo Horvatin, who at this pointed had comple­
tely turned his back on Gorkić. RGASPI, 495-11-335, Petrowski’s Report Dated August
5, 1937,2-3.
’I7 Očak, Gorkić, 335.
 iH-;roiu-: t it o 83

political, failure.218 He even attached the last letter he had received

from Gian, to prove that no political matters were discussed. The
Cadres Department remained unconvinced. Based on reports from
other Yugoslavs, they concluded that Gian was very close to Gorkić,
that he still lived with her whenever he was in Moscow, that she was
informed of KPJ affairs, and that he had no problem with her asso­
ciating herself with those who were arrested as enemies and spies.219
This all meant that Gorkić had been lying to the party.
The noose truly began to tighten with the arrests of his close KPJ
associates, Simo Miljuš and Grgur Vujović, in late July220 Gorkić
travelled to Moscow aware of their arrests, and they certainly did
not help relieve his fear for his own life.221 Their testimonies, as well
as those of Đuro Cvijić and Košta Novaković, were all used to gather
a file on Gorkićs mistakes, both real and imagined.222 Once the
NKVD had his eye on Gorkić, his previous lenience towards party
factionalists could no longer help him. By August, even people who
were previously neutral or friendly to Gorkić were also writing their
reports, though this was probably a matter of the insistence of the
special commission, rather than their own initiative. Among those
who wrote negatively about Gorkić at the time were the aforemen­
tioned Vilim Horvaj, the Yugoslav man in the Cadres Department
Janko Jovanović, and, most significantly, Kamilo Horvatin.223

218 RGASPI, 495-277-192, M. IopKHH, “ I'ob . EenoBy. 3a>iB/ieHMe IopK nna no Bonpocy
T/iaH E.H,“ August 4, 1937, 1-2, 5.
219 RGASPI, 495-277-192, Ee/ioB, “3aK/noHeHne no tteny ropKHHa,“ August 16, 1937, 2-3.
220 “Ky6ypnH Mnbfl reoprneBMH," in “CnncKn >KepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed April
10, 2018, h ttp ://lists.m em o.ru/dl8/f349.h tm ; “ByiioBMM-MnTpoBHM-rperop I'pnropnii
flMMTpMeBHH,“ in “CnncKM wepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed April 10, 2018, http://lists.
m em o.ru/d7/f354.htm .
221 Vujošević shows that his last autobiography is written as a detailed attempt to
exonerate himself while still engaging in self-criticism, which suggests he knew the
situation to be dire at this point. Vujošević, “Poslednja autobiografija Milana Gorkića,
sekretara CK KPJ,” 109.
222 Vujošević, “Poslednja autobiografija Milana Gorkića, sekretara CK KPJ,” 126-128.
225 Vujošević, “Poslednja autobiografija Milana Gorkića, sekretara CK KPJ,” 126-128;
RGASPI, 495-277-192, Eemm, “Ilo B onpocy TopKHMa,” August 4, 1937; flpeHOBCKnii,
Stefan Gužvica

The biggest problems came from Gorkić’s innermost circle; the

party representative to the Comintern, Fleischer, the head of the
party press, Živojin Pavlović, and the Politburo members, Čolaković
and Muk. I have already explained in depth the case of Fleischer,
although it is also worth to once again note both his and Gorkić’s
sheer recklessness at the time, as the two men were found to have
lovers. Given that another of their close associates, Blagoje Parović,
had been removed from all his posts just a year before for the exact
same reason, they should have been aware of the potential peril for
their own careers (and, at this point, lives). As for Živojin Pavlović,
Gorkić’s personal secretary and head of the party press, he was
already under fire in January 1937, when a special party commis­
sion reprimanded him and removed him from most of his duties.224
Although it was not specified why exactly he was investigated, it is
most likely related to the fact that Pavlović, a journalist, had met
with Leon Trotsky in Turkey and interviewed him.225 He was later
expelled from the party and in 1940, he published a book titled Bilans
sovjetskog termidora (The Balance Sheet of the Soviet Thermidor),226
one of the very first critical accounts of the Great Purge. This, com­
bined with the fact that he began working for the so-called Cen­
tral Press Bureau of the Yugoslav Royal Government,227 which was
essentially an intelligence agency, confirmed to the communists that
Pavlović, like Gorkić, had been a police spy. In 1941, he was shot by
the Yugoslav Partisans.

“3aB. OTfle/iOM KaapoB,” June 27, 1937, flpeHOBCKMii flytuaH, “3a«BneHMe,” August
18, 1937. Horvatin’s and Pieck’s writings confirm that these reports were produced at
the behest o f the Special Commission. RGASPI, 495-11-335, B.N. Petrowski, „Ueber
die Belgrader Sache aus dem Jahre 1935", 14. avgust 1937, 1; RGASPI, 495-11-343,
B.N. Petrowski, „Ueber Gorkies Verhaltnis zu den Frauen", 5. avgust 1937; RGASPI,
495-20-647, Wilhelm Pieck, „An die Genossen Manuilski und Kolarow", 28. januar
1938.
224 RGASPI, 495-11-334, Letter from Gorkić to Fleischer no. 8, February 5, 1937.
”s Vujošević, “Poslednja autobiografija Milana Gorkića, sekretara CK KPJ,” 127.
228 Živojin Pavlović, Bilans sovjetskog termidora (Užice: Kadinjača, 2001).
222 Oćak, Gorkić, 332.
 ii i: i -o r i -: t i k 85

An even bigger problem for Gorkić was the new Politburo mem­
ber Rodoljub Čolaković. As fellow Bosnians, the two had known
each other since 1919, virtually throughout their entire time in the
communist movement. A member of a communist terrorist organi­
zation called Crvena pravda (Red Justice), Čolaković was arrested in
1921 and sentenced to twelve years in prison as an accomplice in the
assassination of the Yugoslav Interior Minister, Milorad Drašković.
This presumably did a lot to save him from being involved in fac­
tional struggles. From 1933, he was an emigre in the Soviet Union
and studied at the International Lenin School. He worked as a CC
representative in Yugoslavia and one of the main writers for the
party newspaper, until he was coopted into the Politburo in August
1936. By mid-1937, serious doubts were being raised about him. The
source of these doubts was unknown, but he was already branded as
“a provocateur and a traitor since 1921.”228 The cause was most likely
the assassination itself, which was interpreted as an ultra-leftist ter­
rorist act which harmed the party. Furthermore, Horvaj, and then
Horvatin, explicitly accused him of being a Trotskyist.229 Had he
been in the Soviet Union at the time, Čolaković undoubtedly would
not have made it out alive.230
Even this was not the most worrying of appointments conducted
by Gorkić. Adolf Muk was by far his greatest liability. Muk was a
party organizer from the Montenegrin Littoral and enjoyed great
popularity in his native region, although he never showed ambition
to engage in the party at higher levels. Nevertheless, he rose through
the ranks rapidly from 1934 on, as one of Gorkić’s closest prote­
ges, and entered the Politburo at the end of that year. Universally
identified as a bland, gray apparatchik, Muk was later described by2

22" Vujošević, “Poslednja autobiografija Milana Gorkića, sekretara CK KPJ,” 127.

229 RGASPI, 495-277-192, Ee/inn, “no Bonpocy ropKnna,” August 4, 1937,5-6; RGASPI,
495-11-343, Petrowski’s Report to Wilhelm Pieck Dated October 2, 1937, 1-2.
2)0 His co-conspirator from 1921, Rudolf Hercigonja, was arrested on August 22, 1937
and shot four m onths later. “MnpoHOB Cepren HnKonaeBHM,“ in “CnncKM wepTB,”
MEMORIAL , accessed April 16, 2018, h ttp ://lists.m em o.ru/d23/fl.h tm .
86 Stefan Gužvica

Čolaković as “one of those people who, when they reached a high

position by chance, suddenly started believing themselves to be
smarter, braver, and in every sense superior to those hierarchically
below them, and who insisted on showing that off at every opportu­
nity they got.”231
M uk’s first major blunder came in the summer of 1936, when
he openly disagreed with the decision to execute Zinoviev and
Kamenev, which he saw as harmful to the reputation of the USSR,
although he never questioned their guilt. He wrote a short statement
on it only four months later, essentially stating that he did not and
would not engage in self-criticism, as that would only benefit Ćopić’s
and Cvijić’s factionalist work in the party.232 No further measures
were taken against him, and he remained in the Politburo. More­
over, Gorkić even nominated him for the post of KPJ representa­
tive in the International Brigades,233 although that task was eventu­
ally given to Parović. Muk was then given an arguably even more
responsible Spain-related assignment, and botched it completely.
Muk was tasked with organizing the transport of over 500 Yugo­
slav volunteers to Spain on the ship La Corse in March 1937. The
plan was discovered by the Yugoslav police, and Muk, as its main
organizer, was arrested. Under torture, he confessed everything,
and gave the Yugoslav police detailed information on every sin­
gle individual member of the Central Committee, most of whom
had been known to them only under pseudonyms at that point.234
This was the largest single act of betrayal in the history of the KPJ,
although Gorkić, having initially been given incorrect information,
insisted that an international campaign for M uk’s release be orga­
nized. From the Comintern’s perspective, things looked alarming.
Not only had Gorkić made his closest associate a person who ques­

231 Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 2, 622.

232 RGASPI, 495-11-335, Petrowski’s Report Dated August 5, 1937, 10.
233 A), Pond Communist International - KPJ Section (790/1 Kl), 1937/5, “Protokol sed-
nice PBCK 12.1.1937.“
2,1 Očak, Gorkić, 285-288.
 UI-'I-'ORK T IT 87

tioned the outcome of the First Moscow Trial, not only had he given
that person two extremely responsible tasks regarding Spanish vol­
unteers, and not only had that person failed and betrayed the party
in the process, but that person had also enjoyed Gorkić’s unrelent­
ing and unconditional support throughout. The Cadres Department
could not but conclude that the entire responsibility for the failure of
the expedition lay with Gorkić.235
The final nail in the coffin for Milan Gorkić was the loss of
Kamilo Horvatin’s support. Identified as a member of Gorkić’s
“clique” in the final year of his leadership, he became Gorkić’s main
accuser. From June, at the request of Wilhelm Pieck, he began pre­
senting regular reports on the misdeeds of Gorkić and the rest of
the Politburo, most notably Muk and Čolaković. In his report from
August 5, he went as far as to suggest that Gorkić should be removed
from the post of general secretary.236 As I have shown in the case
of the April Plenum, just a year earlier, this had been an extremely
bold and dangerous move. By August 1937, however, the gravity
of Gorkić’s errors was too big to ignore, and even his Comintern
patrons were renouncing their support for him. Horvatin would go
on to launch a leadership bid of his own, which I will elaborate on in
the following chapter.
Gorkić did not surrender without a fight. His final party auto­
biography submitted to the Cadres Department was an extremely
detailed personal exoneration, in which he accentuated his anti-
factionalist credentials, and attempted to present himself as vigi­
lant, noting his opposition to already expelled or purged individu­
als such as Osip Piatnitsky, Henryk Walecki, Bela Kun, and Vojislav
Vujović.237 By now, however, it was too late; his mistakes indicated
not only incompetence, but even potential treason. In 1937, that was
all that it took to draw the attention of the NKVD. Besides, an inves-

2,5 RGASPI, 495-277-192, Be/ioB, “3aK/noiiem ie no Ae/iy IopKHMa,“ 4-6.

236 RGASPI, 495-11-335, Petrowski’s Report Dated August 5, 1937, 13.
237 Vujošević, “Poslednja autobiografija Milana Gorkića, sekretara CK KPJ,” 119, 123-
125.
88 Štetan Gužvica

tigation on Gorkić was already being conducted by Chernomordik,

who had been arrested in mid- June. There, it was already “proven”
that he had secretly been working with Zinoviev, Bukharin, and
Vojislav Vujović,238 meaning that his fate was sealed long before he
came to Moscow.
The files from Stalin’s personal archive shed light on Gorkić’s
imagined crimes. His alleged counterrevolutionary activity began
in 1923. From 1927, “on behalf of Bukharin, he created an anti-
Soviet organization within the KIM, which he headed until 1930,”
after which he was the leader of the counter-revolutionary organiza­
tion within the KPJ.239 Furthermore, according to documents from
the FSB Archive obtained by Ubavka Vujošević, his “counter-rev­
olutionary organization” within the KPJ was “proven” to have had
ties with the anti-Comintern group of Osip Piatnitsky and Wilhelm
Knorin, directly connecting Gorkić to the purge of the Comintern
apparatus.240 He was also found guilty of intentionally damaging the
KPJ by filling it with Trotskyists and police provocateurs. All of this
information was obtained through the confessions of Fleischer, who
had been arrested on the same day, and his Comintern associates
Krajewski and Chernomordik.241 A report to Polyachek, the NKVD
officer who was investigating both Gorkić and Fleischer, alleged that
the party press in Vienna, organized by Gorkić, was run by Trotsky­
ists and Gestapo spies.242 This was a grave accusation, because the
party press was not only in charge of printing newspapers, but also

RGASPI, 495-277-192, HepHOMopaiiK, “CnpaBKa o lorocnaBCKofi noaMTe.MHrpa-

mm b CCCP,” undated.
:,9 “p oP K H M MitnaH Mn/iaHOBHH,” in “CTa/niHCKiie cm tcK H ,” MEMORIAL, accessed
April 16, 2018, h ttp://stalin.m em o.ru/spravki/4-68.htm .
:4° Vujošević, “Poslednja autobiografija Milana Gorkića, sekretara CK KPJ,” 111. For
a fascinating account of Piatnitsky’s arrest and the failed show trial of the Comintern
leadership, see Boris A. Starkov, “The Trial that Was Not Held,” Europe-Asia Studies
46/8 (1994): 1297-1315.
:4i “fOPKMH Mu/iaH Mii/iaHOBim,” in “CTa^MHCKne cnucKH,” MEMORIAL, accessed
April 16, 2018, http://stalin.m em o.ru/spravki/4-68.htm .
:4J RGASPI, 495-277-192, “Tob. rio/iHweK, O ropKime/lOroc/iaBHH/
 Hiii oiu; m o 89

of producing forged documents necessary for illegal work. After a

lengthy period of investigation (which was used to implicate other
Yugoslav communists),243 Gorkić was put on trial, where he pleaded
innocent and retracted the confessions of guilt he had made during
the investigation.244 He was found guilty on November 1, 1937 and
executed the same day.
The tragic downfall of Milan Gorkić was a consequence of both
contingency and of his personal mistakes and flaws. His vision of the
KPJ as a broad church did not appeal to everybody and his approach
to the popular front seemed to his opponents to be a rightist devia­
tion. His rivals, led by Vladimir Ćopić and Stjepan Cvijić, led an
unsuccessful attack in April 1936, which merely served to cement
Gorkić’s power, with the Comintern officially naming him the gen­
eral secretary of the KPJ in the fall of that year. He was at the height
of his power, yet he had just over a year left to live. The Comintern
interpreted attacks on him as a renewal of factional struggles, and
thus threw its support behind him, seeing Gorkić as the only indi­
vidual who could keep the party united. The situation within the
Comintern itself, however, was getting worse by the day. By the
spring of 1937, the Great Purge was decimating its ranks.
The KPJ was swept up in the process: anyone who had been
involved in factional struggles before 1928 became suspicious. This
would still have kept Gorkić in the clear, were it not for his own car­
dinal mistakes. While intensified repression within the Comintern
certainly did not help him, the state of the KPJ proved to be much
more damning for his position. His unchanging attitude to the pop­
ular front was not only liquidationist, but had also led directly to245

245 In an endless circle o f mutual accusations, Fleischer was also “uncovered” as a

spy through the (presumably forced) confessions o f Gorkić - if he had ever signed
the confessions which had been given to him. “OJIEMUIEP C/re^aH IleTpoBim,” in
“Cra/iMHCKne cnucKM,” MEMORIAL, accessed April 16, 2018, http://stalin.m emo.ru/
spravki/3-135.htm.
244 RGASPI, 495-277-192, “BepxoBHbiii CyA CoKrn CCP, OnpeAe/ieHne ho .
4 h-03634/56 BoeHHaa KonAerwA BepxoBHoro CyAa CCCP,“ March 31, 1956.
90 Stefan Gužvic:

mass arrests of many of Yugoslavia’s prominent communists. The

men in the party’s top were widely considered to be there due to
personal loyalty to Gorkić rather than any actual competence for
the job. Their major mistakes were overlooked, until they became
so massive that the Comintern and the NKVD both took notice.
The failure to transport five hundred Yugoslav volunteers to Spain,
organized by his closest-associate-turned-police-informant, had
finally sealed his fate. While Gorkić was most certainly not a traitor,
he definitely appeared to be one in the febrile atmosphere of 1937.
His arrest and death brought about what he feared the most, and
what the Comintern had accurately predicted: a renewal of factional
struggles, much fiercer than that of April 1936.
DRA M A TIS P E R S O N A E

Milan Gorkić (19 0 4 -19 3 7) Ivan Gržetić-Fleischer (18 96-

led the Com m unist Party o f Yugo­ 1937), the K PJ Representative to the
slavia fro m 1932, fo rm a lly becom ing Com intern an d G orkić’s right-hand
its general secretary in 1936. man, was arrested together with
Gorkić on August 14, 1937.

Vladimir Ćopić (18 9 1-19 39 ),

G orkić’s long-tim e collaborator
an d opponent, com m anded
the X V International Brigade
in Spain. In the fa ll o f 1938, he
returned to Moscow, hoping to
assum e a leading position in the
K P J alongside Tito, with whom he
w orked closely. However, he was
arrested in N ovem ber 1938 an d
shot several months later.
92 Sletan Gužvica
K a m ilo H o rv a tin (18 9 6 -19 38 ),
an other pa rty representative
to the C om in tern, an d the first
can didate fo r g eneral secretary
a fler G o rk ie s arrest.
Josip Broz Tito (18 9 2-19 8 0 ),
the lead er o f the Tem porary
L ea dership o f the K P J in Paris after
G o rk ić ’s arrest. By 1939, he was
ackn ow ledged by the C om intern
as the de fa c to g eneral secretary.
P etko M ile tić (18 97-194 3), who
led the ultra-left p a rty cell in the
Srem ska M itrovica prison, was
T ito’s most serious rival fro m Ju n e
1939 until his arrest in M oscow
on Ja n u a ry 5, 1940.
Ivo Marić (1894-1968),
the organizer o f Yugoslav emigres
in France, effectively launched
his leadership bid in early 1938
as the leader o f the so -called
Parallel Center. O ver the follo w in g
year, after he was m arginalized
fro m the party, he supported Petko
M iletić, with whom he had already
been w orking closely.
L a b u d K u so vac (1898-19 67),
the h ead o f the Yugoslav N ational
Com m ittee fo r A id to Republican
Spain, led the Parallel Center
together with M arie. His extensive
intelligence connections an d
links to the French Com m unist
Party were o f vital im portance
fo r the faction.

Photo sources
1. Očak, Ivan. Gorkić. Život, rad i pogibija. Zagreb: Globus, 1988.
2. RGASPI, 495-277-207.
3. RGASPI, 545-5-177.
4. Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, Volume 5. Zagreb: Jugoslavenski leksikografski zavod, 1956.
5. Tito, Josip Broz. Sabrana djela. Edited by Pero Damjanović. Volume 6. Belgrade:
Komunist, 1981.
6. AJ, Fond 135 Državni sud za zaštitu države, sign. 53/1932 K83.
7. RGASPI, 495-277-201.
8. RGASPI, 495-277-1815.
THE FACTIONS

“Sometimes it looked as if a factionalist hated the factionalists

from the competingfactions more than he hated the class enemy."
Rodoljub Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju245

The political landscape of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia

between 1937 and 1939 was shaped by two main factors. One was the
attitude to Gorkić’s real or alleged supporters (gorkićevci), and the
other was the direction in which the party should be heading during
a worsening international situation. The emigre community lived in
uncertainty, while most of the members within the country (aside
from those connected with the emigres) were unaware of the mag­
nitude of the emerging struggle. In this chapter, I will present what
I consider to be the four major factions that vied for power within
the KPJ from August 1937. I will argue that all of them, in their
own way, attempted to present themselves as occupying “the center,”
while everybody confronting them was presented as a deviationist
of the left or the right. The same tactic was applied by Stalin when
engaging enemies within the Soviet party. Simultaneously, the fac­
tion leaders in the KPJ tried to create (or at least leave the impression
of creating) a wide-ranging, non-sectarian political organization.
Before I investigate the four factions, however, I will briefly examine
the impact of foreign communists on the struggle. From there, I will
present the policies and tactics of the major groups.
The groups’ names stem from established historiography and
are not intended to give value judgments on their political positions:
they did not come up with the names themselves, as that would have
implied that they recognize themselves as factions, which was some­
thing nobody was willing to admit. Each of the four factions that I

245 Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 2, 526.

 Bi:iORI- TITO 95

will be presenting also had its own candidate for the vacant post of
general secretary, although the groups’ precise membership, due to
their unofficial nature, was not always clear. With the rise of Stalin,
the post of general secretary became (and remained) the “apex” of
power,246 and factional struggles between groups were, in essence, a
struggle among individuals for a single post, with hand-picked candi­
dates (usually close supporters of the individual in question) becom­
ing the new Politburo once the leader had been appointed. It is quite
telling in this regard that even the Comintern explicitly identified the
factions according to the names of the individuals who led them.247
The first one was the Temporary Leadership, led by Josip Broz,
who during this period increasingly began using the pseudonym
Tito. Though his group was not confirmed as the temporary lead­
ership until January 1939,248 the name stuck in Yugoslav historiog­
raphy, as yet another reminder of the cliche that history is written
by the winners. The second was the so-called Parallel Center, led by
Ivo Marić and Labud Kusovac. The name was pejorative and it was
given to them by their opponents, invoking the “Parallel anti-Soviet
Trotskyist Center” of Karl Radek, Georgi Pyatakov and Grigori
Sokolnikov, who were put to trial in January 1937. The third compet­
itor was Kamilo Horvatin, the only Moscow emigre involved, whose
leadership bid was hitherto unknown. I argue that he did try to win
the post of general secretary, although proof that he was forming a
faction similar to those of Tito and Marić is still lacking (indeed, in
Moscow, such a move would have been far more dangerous than in
Paris or in Yugoslavia). The final group was the so-called Wahhabis,
supporters of Yugoslavia’s legendary political prisoner Petko Miletić.
Named after the Islamic extremist movement, they were ultra-leftists
who rejected collaboration with the non-communist left and devout

246 Archie Brown, The Rise and Fall of Communism (London: Vintage Books, 2010), 107.
247 The Temporary Leadership was called “The group of Walter” and the Parallel Center
“The group of Zhelezar,” after Tito and Marić’s respective pseudonyms. RGASPI, 495-
20-647, “tob. flHMMTpoBy (cBOflKa no loroc/iaBCKmn MaTepna/iaM),” March 29, 1938, 1.
24K Simić, Tito: svetac i magle, 97.
96 Stefan Gužvica

followers of their leader. Marić and Kusovac were well connected to

Miletić and eventually began considering him as the potential future
leader of the KPJ; nevertheless, I will treat the Parallel Center and the
Wahhabis as two separate groups. This is because, on the one hand,
they had very different political ideas, and on the other, they oper­
ated at different times. While Marić and Kusovac were politically
neutralized by early 1939, Miletić only left prison in June 1939, going
on to pose the last serious challenge to Tito’s leadership. I will argue
that Marić and Kusovac did not consider him a potential leadership
candidate until they themselves were defeated.
The struggle between these groups was not purely an internal
Yugoslav party affair. Many members of the Comintern and foreign
communists were directly involved in it, forming transnational net­
works that not only transcended the alleged unity of national parties,
but sometimes pitted members of the same party against each other.
The most famous case of this is certainly Georgi Dimitrov’s support
for Tito,249 although this support, as I will show, was far more precari­
ous than previously thought. As I already noted, Kamilo Horvatin
enjoyed the confidence of Wilhelm Pieck, the head of the Secretariat
in charge of Balkan affairs, who was continuously commissioning
reports from Horvatin during the half year when Tito’s telegrams
were being left unanswered.250 This shows disagreement and diver­
gent preferences even at the highest levels of the Comintern. Fur­
thermore, one of the crucial actors in the Yugoslav factional struggle
appears to have been Georgi Damyanov, Bulgaria’s post-World War II
Minister of Defense and Chairman of the National Assembly. From
June 1937, under his Soviet name Alexander Belov, Damyanov headed
the Cadres Department.251 As already mentioned, he was part of the
special commission set up a month later to investigate the case of

^ Marietta Stankova, Georgi Dimitrov: A Biography (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 141.
JMI After several letters, Pieck finally replied to Tito on December 17, 1937, although
Tito only received the letter on January 7, 1938. Swain, Tito, 21.
RGASPI, 495-18-1204, “Protokoli (A) Nr. 153 zusammengestellt auf Grund fliegen-
den Abstimmung unter den Mitgliedern des Sekretariats des EKKI am 23. Juni 1937,” 2.
 BKIOKH I 1 I ( 97

Gorkić, and was later allegedly the main supporter of Petko Miletić’s
leadership bid.252 As the sources show, however, he was deeply dis­
trustful not only of Tito, but also of Marić and Kusovac. The latter
two’s main international contacts appear to have been in Spain and
France, namely the Comintern emissary in the International Bri­
gades, Bulgarian communist Anton Ivanov - Bogdanov,253 and Mau­
rice Treand (Legros),254 head of the cadre commission of the French
Communist Party. Finally, the role of Ivan Karaivanov, although
widely acknowledged,255 still remains somewhat unclear. Karaivanov
was a Bulgarian communist who worked in the Cadres Department
of the Comintern from 1934, and was most likely also an operative
of the NKVD. He was particularly close to Tito and supported him
throughout the period. In return, he received high posts in the post­
war Yugoslav state, where he immigrated already in May 1945. As
a loyal supporter of Tito, he was later one of his leading anti-Soviet
propagandists following the split with Stalin. Although he always
spoke of Tito in superlatives, he shed little light on how much exactly
he had helped him during the Great Purge. Karaivanov remained in
Belgrade until his death in 1960. He was even an MP in the Yugoslav
Federal Assembly and a member of the party Central Committee.
Overall, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia did not fare well
in the eyes of the ECCI, and this made the impact of foreigners
crucial in the factional struggle. Looking at the primary sources, it
appears that an informal hierarchy existed within the Comintern,
with Bulgarian communists essentially charged with resolving the
internal party affairs of the KPJ, and the Yugoslavs, in turn, being
responsible for one of the few organizations that ranked even lower
than the KPJ, the Albanian Communist Group (which did not even

252 Goldstein, Tito, 162-163.

2,3 AJ, Fond CK KPJ - KPJ emigres in France (507 CK KPJ - France), 1/30, Kristina
Kusovac, “Kratka biografija,” 1.
2M AJ, 516 MG, Box 58, 2231/2, “Razgovor sa drugom Ivom Marićem," 46-47.
255 Bondarev, Misterija Tito, 196; Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1,95-96; Goldstein, Tito,
163-166; Jasper Godwin Ridley, Tito (London: Constable, 1994), 140.
98 Stefan Gužvica

become a party until 1941, and even then under Yugoslav tutelage).
For example, in the same way that Bulgarians were heavily involved
in special commissions pertaining to Yugoslav affairs, Gorkić was
made responsible, together with an Italian comrade, for overseeing
the work of Albanian communists.256This informal division appears
to have replaced the earlier structure of the Balkan Communist Fed­
eration, an umbrella organization founded in the 1920s which, by
this point, existed in name only. I will interpret all the processes
within the KPJ with this power hierarchy in mind.

Factions in the KPJ, 1937-1940

• Petko Miletić ■ Ivo Marić • Kamilo Horvatin
K • Ivan Korski • Labud Kusovac
> ■ Boris Vojnilović ■Karel Hudomalj
'U • Kristina Kusovac ■ Roman Filipčev
J* • Boris Kidrić - Mirko Marković
b • Mustafa Golubić Nikola Kovačević ■Vicko Jelaska
• Radonja Golubović
• Ivan Milutinović
■ ■Stjepan Cvijić ■Lovro Kuhar
• Vladimir Ćopić • Franc Leskošek
• Milovan Đilas
- Božidar Maslarić
■Dragutin Gustinčić
■ Josip Kopinić • Andrija Hebrang
> - Ivo Lola Ribar - Moša Pijade
a> ■Antun Franović ■Alfred Bergman
'U
12 Sreten Žujović
Jr • Josip Broz Tito ■Ivan Krndelj
o 1 • Edvard Kardelj ■Rodoljub Čolaković
■Živoiin Pavlović ^
____________

* Ultraleft Left Center Right

-------
The Temporary Leadership The Parallel Center
The Wahhabis Kamilo Horvatin

Figure 2. Factions in the K P J fr o m the fa ll o f G orkić until the en d o f 1940.

The nam es o f can didates fo r the g eneral secretary an d factio n leaders are
in bold text. Those not in volved in any fa c tio n s are shown w ithout text
highlight.

256 RGASPI, 495-18-1195, “Protokoli (B) Nr. 134 zusammengestellt auf Grund fliegen-
den Abstimmung unter den Mitgliedern des Sekretariats des EKKI am 15.IV.1937.”
The Tem porary Leadership

Following Gorkić’s departure to Moscow, the Politburo members

in Paris stopped receiving letters from him, which was unusual.
Fleischer also stopped writing. Furthermore, the Comintern inex­
plicably ceased sending funds which the Politburo badly needed for
propaganda activity. Unsure of what to do, both Tito and Čolaković
kept writing letters to Fleischer and Gorkić, the last one having been
sent as late as September 21, 1937.257 The Politburo was aware that
something was wrong, and certainly suspected the worst, although
they were not receiving any specific information from anyone.
Already at the end of August, Tito wrote a letter directly to Wil­
helm Pieck. The letter shows an attempt to continue with business
as usual, briefly inquiring about the situation with Gorkić and
Fleischer, but primarily focusing on party affairs and seeking the
Comintern’s guidance.258 This was Tito’s first display of initiative,
and the beginning of his rise to the leading position in the party.
As he began to take action, Tito had a very clear advantage
in Paris, simply due to the fact that he enjoyed support from the
majority of the party’s most prominent members there. Accord­
ing to Čolaković, the rump Politburo had accepted Tito as the de
facto leader on its own volition in August 1937. Apparently, he and
Žujović decided to invite Tito to Paris once they realized Gorkić was
not replying to their letters.259Why he was chosen by his fellow com­
munists as the first among equals remains unclear. As mentioned
earlier, the theory about Tito having been the party’s second-in-
command after the April Plenum has been discredited by Bond­
arev’s recent research.260 For lack of a better explanation, I will posit

Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 3, 95.

258 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 3, 90-91.
259 Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 3, 151.
260 It is interesting to note that Tito does seem to have already enjoyed high standing
in the KPJ. In August 1935, the Yugoslav delegation at the Seventh Congress of the
Comintern unanimously supported his candidacy for membership in the ECCI. The
100 Stel'an Gužvica

that he was simply the most experienced member of the Politburo,

with Čolaković and Žujović having been part of the leadership for
less than a year.
Čolaković further claims that the Comintern was notified of Tito
taking over the duties of party secretary in a letter to Pieck in late
August 1937.261 This, however, is untrue: Titos letter to Pieck does
not contain any information on him becoming general secretary.262
In reality, he did not dare put such a motion forward until later in
1938. If he or anybody else had done it in August 1937, it would have
been considered a major breach of party discipline and a challenge
against the democratic centralist nature of the party, as Gorkić was
still formally the leader. It remains possible that Čolaković merely
wrote this to establish a retroactive legitimization of Tito’s leader­
ship. Given the informal nature of most day-to-day operations of
the illegal party, the arbitrary decision of putting Tito in charge,
although certainly illegitimate, would not have been too out of the
ordinary. Horvatin’s direct proposal to remove Gorkić, written
almost at the same time, was a far more formal breach of party dis­
cipline. Both, however, tell us a lot more about Gorkić’s poor stand­
ing at the time of his demise than of particularly vile scheming on
behalf of his fellow party comrades.
For all practical purposes, Tito did increasingly behave as the
de facto general secretary in the making from the late summer of
1937. He was the first individual to take initiative and start writing
directly to the Comintern, although his letters initially went unan­
swered. Originally dealing only with questions of cadres,263 he soon

Comintern interpreted this as an attack on Gorkić (who supported Tito’s candidacy),

and punished the KPJ by refusing to give it seats on the ECCI. Gorkić was eventually
elected, but merely as a candidate member, and not a full member, meaning he did not
have voting rights at ECCI meetings. This incident is even more remarkable given Tito’s
relative obscurity at the time. Bondarev, Misterija Tito, 112-118.
Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 3, 156.
Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 3, 90-91.
Tito, Čolaković, and Lovro Kuhar were members of a special commission which, in
September 1937, investigated Hudomalj’s lack of party discipline due to his behavior at
 I1EIORL TITO 101

began accelerating work on the issues on which Gorkić had been

procrastinating, such as moving the party leadership back into the
country. These were not early signs of independent decision-mak­
ing, as he was merely continuing what Gorkić had already begun.264
As such, they did not cause too much controversy.
Tito’s first steps were very cautious. The issue of moving the
party leadership back into the country, under the slogan of recon­
necting it with the masses, would have been particularly appealing
to the Comintern. As most high-ranking members were scattered
between Moscow, Vienna, and Paris, returning them to Yugoslavia
would have made communication easier and ameliorated the nega­
tive effects of political emigration, such as factionalism.265 This was
a development welcomed by both the Comintern and the rank and
file, and Tito would not be the only leadership candidate who would
emphasize this proposal. Notably, this policy echoed the old Bol­
shevik slogan “A single party center - and in Russia,” which Lenin
fought for in the early 1900s.266
The policies proposed by Tito represented, in essence, a close fol­
lowing of the Comintern’s instructions from the Moscow meeting
of August 1936. From the end of 1937, his Temporary Leadership
would more or less consistently push for them. The most significant
proposals, aside from returning the party leadership back into the
country, were pushing for a popular front “from below,” working
on the creation of a united workers’ party, preserving the territorial

the April Plenum. Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 3, 190. Interestingly, the original members
of the commission were supposed to be Čolaković, Marić and Drago Marušić, who
ran the party press in France at the time. The new commission consisted of people
markedly more sympathetic to Gorkić. AJ, 790/1 KI, 1937/164, “Zapisnik sjednice
28.VI.1937.”
264 One of Gorkić’s last acts as party leader was to prepare a letter to the Prison Com­
mittee in Sremska Mitrovica with Edvard Kardelj. However, the contents of this letter
are unknown. AJ, 790/1 Kl, 1937/164, “Zapisnik sjednice 328.VI.1937.”
265 In addition, the push to get as many emigres out of the USSR as possible was cer­
tainly also a factor that made the Comintern view this proposal favorably.
266 Anatoly Vasilievich Lunacharsky, Revolutionary Silhouettes (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1968), 37.
102 Stefan Gužvica

integrity and social order of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, calling for

an antifascist foreign policy based on collective security,267 renewing
the focus on work among women’s and students’ organizations, and
reorganizing the party structure in order to avoid both liquidation-
ism and mass arrests. As I will later show, it was only the policy
of the popular front that would undergo a more radical alteration
than what the Comintern had expected. Seen as troublesome at first,
it would more or less coincide with the new leftward turn in the
Comintern following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
The most important policy shift was Tito’s political struggle
against the menace of liquidationism. This was the issue over which
he had already criticized Gorkić in late 1936, and he was determined
to show the Comintern that the party would be changing its course.
As previously discussed, the attempts of legalization at all costs were
seen by the Comintern and the party opposition as the cause of the
mass arrests which plagued the country in 1935 and 1936, while the
unconditional political alliance with the opposition almost made
the party indistinguishable from the bourgeois parties. Like Gorkić,
Tito reported on the working of the United Opposition, and saluted
their efforts, but consciously decided not to propose continuing
attempts to form an electoral alliance.268 As he kept sending letters
to Pieck without reply, he always emphasized the need for unity of
the working class and collaboration with the socialists, but refused
to associate the party with the liberal opposition parties.269 In terms
of party structure, he focused on forming secret party cells within
legal organizations in the country, such as trade unions, opposition
parties, or student associations. According to Swain, this was the
most significant discontinuity between Tito and Gorkić:

Collective security refers to the Soviet foreign policy in the 1930s, which was
focused on pursuing a grand antifascist alliance with France and the United Kingdom
against Germany. For a detailed account of it, see Jonathan Haslam, The Soviet Union
and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933-39 (London: Macmillan, 1984).
26B Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 3, 105-108.
2M Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 3, 124-125.
 Hl-I ORK TITO 103

T ito w o u ld n o t h a v e c o n tr a d ic te d G o r k ie s v ie w th a t th e u n d e r ­

g r o u n d w a s d i s c r e d i t e d , b u t r a t h e r t h a n a b a n d o n i n g it h e c o n c e n ­

t r a t e d o n r e f o r m i n g t h e u n d e r g r o u n d , m a k i n g it m o r e s e c u r e a n d

m o r e in t u n e w it h w o r k e r s ’ n e e d s . H e c o n c e n t r a t e d o n t r y in g to

b r e a k d o w n t h e o l d ‘s u p e r - c o n s p i r a t o r i a l ’ t h r e e - m a n c e l l s t r u c ­

tu r e - in w h ic h s t u d e n t r e v o lu t io n a r ie s h a d d e b a te d t h e p r o s a n d

c o n s o f t h e d ic t a t o r s h ip o f t h e p r o le ta r ia t - a n d e s t a b lis h P a r ty

c e l l s in t h e le g a l w o r k e r s ’ m o v e m e n t . 270

In Tito’s view, the popular front essentially meant communist infil­

tration in legal organizations, the creation of party cells subjected
to the Central Committee within these organizations, and ensur­
ing the party’s guiding role in them. It was not so much a “popu­
lar front” as it was a transformation of major legal organizations in
the country into communist fronts. It was a huge success, with the
party gaining ground in the majority of prominent organizations
in the country, and increasing its membership from 1,500 in 1937
to 8,000 in 1941.271 The popular front in Yugoslavia, unlike the ones
in France and Spain, would include the reformist socialists and the
bourgeois parties only under the condition that they accepted the
leading role of the Communist Party. The most famous examples of
the popular front entailed precisely the opposite: the communists in
France supported a bourgeois government while explicitly refusing
to enter it, whereas their Spanish comrades became a moderating
force in the Civil War, actively curbing what they saw as the excesses
of Trotskyists and anarchists, who pushed for workers’ control of
factories and radical female emancipation, both of which horrified
the moderate social democratic and liberal forces on the side of the
Republic.272 Therefore, Tito’s vision of the popular front was, at the
time, unusual, if not heretical. Thanks to the fact that the popular

270 Swain, Tito, 22.

2/1 Swain, Tito, 27.
2,2 For an overview of the popular front policy in Spain and France and its contradic­
tions, see McDermott and Agnew, The Comintern, 130-142.
104 Stefan Gužvica

front policy was in crisis throughout much of 1938, Tito was able to
offer an alternative without raising too many eyebrows. In a way, the
KPJ can be seen as a laboratory of the new application of the popular
front, which would become dominant after August 1939, and then
again with the establishment of “people’s democracies” in Eastern
Europe in the post-World War II period.
Before pushing such a radical change in party policy, however,
Tito had, as already mentioned, been mostly concerned with the
question of cadres. The first major crisis that the rump leadership
in Paris was faced with pertained to the very sensitive question of
Yugoslavs in the Soviet intelligence apparatus. In October 1937, Ivan
Kralj, a Bosnian Serb who worked for the NKVD, came to Labud
Kusovac, asking him to set a trap for a fellow party comrade, Pavle
Bastajić. Kralj insisted that Kusovac lures Bastajić to the outskirts
of Paris, so that he could be liquidated. It is unclear what kind of a
role Bastajić played in the communist intelligence apparatus. It is
highly likely that he worked for the Red Army intelligence, which
had its headquarters in Vienna at the time when he was there in
the 1920s.273 During World War I, he was a member of the secret
Serbian army organization Crna ruka (Black Hand) together with
Mustafa Golubić, another Red Army intelligence operative who was
stationed in Vienna at the same as Bastajić. Kusovac, who had also
been an emigre in Vienna at the time, knew both men very well
and did not want to help Kralj with his scheme. Frightened, he went
to Tito, showing that he still considered him the supreme author­
ity on party affairs at the time.274 Unwilling to take sides at first,
Tito decided to support Kusovac, because he thought a murder of
a Yugoslav communist in Paris would attract the attention of the
general public and reflect badly on the movement as a whole. Tito,
Kusovac and Ivo Marić convinced members of the Central Corn-

273 Ivan Očak, s.v. “Bastajić, Pavle,” Krležijana Online. (Zagreb: Leksikografski
zavod Miroslav Krleža, 1993). http://krlezijana.lzmk.hr/clanak.aspx?id=1281 (accessed
February 21, 2019).
r ' RGASPI, 495-277-1815, O. Ba/ibiep, “3anB/ieHne Ba/ibtepa,” undated, 1.
 mittee of the French Communist Party to act against Kralj and
prevent him from murdering Bastajić. Three Yugoslav communists
who worked under Bastajić, Marko Orešković, Diego Rokov, and
Boris Božić, and whom Kralj wanted under his command, were to
be sent to Spain instead.275 Bastajić had soon distanced himself from
the movement because of his disagreement with Stalin’s purges, and
returned to Yugoslavia. He was killed by the Ustasha in 1941. His
story drew notoriety later on, because he had met Miroslav Krleža
in 1940 and described in detail the murders of communists in the
USSR.276 However, it appears that Kralj was a more important and
powerful figure, though very little remains known about him. He
spent the next several months slandering the Yugoslavs who foiled
his plan as Trotskyists, before he was also arrested in August 1938.277
Having an NKVD officer going around Paris and Moscow call­
ing him a provocateur certainly did not help Tito’s cause. His cadres’
policy was, in the eyes of the Comintern, already a major argument
against him, particularly regarding his relationship with individu­
als close to Gorkić. Overall, Tito proceeded with relative caution in
this area as well, but a number of his choices seem rather reckless in
retrospect. While his calls for moving the leadership to the country,
along with a more Leninist approach to party organization and the
popular front, were in line with what the Comintern wanted, his
cadre policy was consciously or (more likely) unconsciously rebel­
lious. This might have seriously undermined his leadership bid in
the first months after Gorkić’s arrest. Aside from keeping Čolaković20*

20 RGASPI, 495-277-1815, Ba/ibTep, “3aHB/ieHMe Ba/ibTepa,” undated, 2-4; AJ, 516 MG,
Box 58, 2231/2, “Razgovor sa drugom Ivom Marićem,“ 45-47. Božić eventually stayed
in Paris due to illness, and remained close to Marić and Kusovac, maintaining contact
with the Mitrovica Prison Committee for them. He was expelled from the party in
1939, together with the rest of the members of the Parallel Center. Tito, Sabrana djela,
vol. 3, 243, 285.
2/6 Očak, s.v. “Bastajić,” Krležijana Online.
2" RGASPI, 495-277-1815, Ba/ibTep, “3aaB/ienne Ba/ibrepa,” undated, 3-4; “Kpac/n>
H b 3 h MBaHOBMH,” in “CnncKM >KepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed May 5,2018, http://lists.
m em o.ru /d l8/fl52.h tm .
106 Slefan Gužvica

and Žujović as his closest associates, he also remained close to CC

member Ivan Krndelj, who was soon singled out in Moscow both as
a leading gorkićevac and as an alleged Croatian nationalist.278 Even
more perilously, Tito appears to have actively collaborated with
Živojin Pavlović in the fall of 1937, even though Pavlović was already
obviously falling out of favor as a “Trotskyist” even before the arrest
of Gorkić. The reason for this was most likely the fact that Pavlović
had been in charge of the party press, which was the single most
important tool for establishing the authority over the rank and file -
whoever was printing the newspaper controlled what kind of infor­
mation would get out to the general public. Instead of keeping him
at this post, however, Tito had attempted to assign him to another
position of high responsibility, coordinating the work of Yugoslav
emigres in Canada. In the end, an intervention by Stjepan Cvijić
led to an investigation by the Cadres Department that eventually
resulted in Pavlović’s expulsion.279
Why did Tito keep all the gorkićevci so close? The most likely
explanation is that he worked with those cadres who were already in
an established position of authority, and that he was simply unaware
of the severity of the charges that were being prepared against these
individuals in Moscow. In fact, many similar charges were being
brought against him, too. This explanation shows Tito more as a reg­
ular individual caught up in a chaotic process, rather than a master­
mind who understood the rules of the game and used them to rapidly
rise to the top. An equally likely explanation for his behavior is that
he was attempting to reach a compromise, or at least present himself
as a compromise candidate. As I have already pointed out, this was
a common tactic among individuals trying to gain the Comintern’s
mandate. This, too, would not reflect the moves of a tactical genius as
much as those of somebody with a clear understanding of the most
elementary rules of conduct in the communist movement.789

78 RGASPI, 495-11-343, Petrowski’s Report Dated October 2, 1937, 2.

79 Vujošević, “Poslednja autobiografija Milana Gorkića,” 127.
 ni: i' o k i: t 107

In November, Tito wrote to Pieck that he did not co-opt any­

one into the leadership, but that he was actively working with
Marić, Kusovac, Krndelj and the Slovene communist writer Lovro
Kuhar.280 They formed his ad hoc informal Politburo. 'Lhe former
two were notable for their opposition to Gorkić, while Krndelj was
his close associate, and Kuhar was in good standing with both
groups. Although Marić’s subsequent reports critical of Tito, as well
as surviving Politburo proceedings, clearly show that there was a
preference for gorkićevci in these early months,281 Tito seems to have
been trying to paint a different picture of the newly emerging lead­
ership. Looking at his letter to Pieck, it seems as if he tried to fash­
ion his quasi-Politburo as a compromise group consisting both of
those who were pro-Gorkić and those who were against him prior
to August 1937. Whatever might have been the case, Tito gradually
did distance himself from all the gorkićevci, while simultaneously
marginalizing the critics of Gorkić.
At this time, the situation was showing no clear signs of improve­
ment. Although the emigres were frequently writing to Moscow
through Tito, they still received no reply. According to Tito’s col­
lected works, he had sent at least five telegrams and messages to
Pieck. The only reply had been a telegram ordering him to come to
Moscow, with a follow-up message instructing him instead to wait
in Paris;282 the latter probably saved his life. He also wrote directly to
the ECCI at least twice. When the ECCI ignored his inquiry about
sending a Politburo representative to Yugoslavia in early December,

280 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 3, 124.

281 According to Marić, he was invited to Politburo meetings a total of four times in
six months. AJ, 790/1 KI, 1938/8, “Izjava Željezara broj 2,” 4-5. The preserved proceed­
ings show that this was correct. However, unless some of them are missing, it is worth
noting that Marić was present at all Politburo meetings from early October until his
quarrel with Tito in December, even though he was not a member of the Politburo. All
the minutes from the meetings of this informal Politburo can be found in RGASPI,
495-70-153.
282 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 11.
108 Slefan Gužvica

he decided to act unilaterally and send Čolaković.283 This was a bold

and independent move, considering he had no formal position that
would allow him to send a fellow Politburo member to another
country without prior approval from the general secretary. Tito’s
subsequent justification for such independent action was that he had
received unanimous support from all key party members in Par­
is.284 This was even corroborated by Marić, his bitter opponent, who
stated that he had originally accepted Tito’s primacy.285
The end of the year saw the arrival of two young communists to
Paris, both of whom would become Tito’s personal friends and mem­
bers of his inner circle. The first was Boris Kidrič, the former secre­
tary of SKOJ and Gorkić’s opponent at the April Plenum. Kidrič had
harangued the party leadership ever since his release from prison
in mid-1937, and was among those who felt absolved by Gorkić’s
arrest. Tito successfully swayed him to the side of the Temporary
Leadership, making an important political ally in the process.286
The second was Ivo Lola Ribar, the son of Democratic Party politi­
cian Ivan Ribar, who, with historical irony, had presided over the
National Assembly which passed the infamous anti-communist Law
on the Protection of the State in 1921. Handpicked by Tito during his
trip to Yugoslavia at the beginning of 1937, Lola Ribar was named
the new secretary of SKOJ. An incredibly skilled organizer and a
master of conspiratorial work with excellent personal networks,
Lola Ribar collected information on the actions of Petko Miletić in
the Sremska Mitrovica prison, which was used to condemn Miletić
upon Ribar’s arrival in Paris.287 This was the kind of bold and inde­
pendent move that some members of the party leadership con-

:s' Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 245.

Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 77.
:s5 AJ, 790/1 Kl, 1938/8, “Izjava Željezara broj 2,” 3.
286 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 240. Kidrič would go on to become the architect of Yugo­
slav self-management before dying of leukemia in 1953, just one day after his 41“' birth­
day.
282 Jozo Petričević, Lolo (Zagreb: Globus, 1986), 110.
 u m o r i: i i 109

sidered illegitimate, leading to the first open clashes after the fall
of Gorkić.
At the very end of the year, Tito must have felt relatively at peace.
In spite of certain disagreements in the leadership and silence from
the Comintern, the majority of Yugoslavs in Paris accepted him as
the de facto party leader. He left Paris for several weeks, in order
to “liquidate” the party headquarters in Prague as part of his push
to move the KPJ back to Yugoslavia. He returned to Paris on Janu­
ary 7, 1938. There, he found a letter from Pieck, the details of which
remain unknown. The letter was dated December 17, and it stated
that Čolaković and Žujović should be immediately suspended, as
they might be traitors.288
Tito took heed, but his independence of action did not falter.
He immediately recalled Čolaković and Žujović from their assign­
ments, but kept them in responsible positions for quite some time
after the letter, suggesting that he might have been testing how far
he could go in disobeying the Comintern. According to Čolaković’s
memoirs, at the meeting at which he was informed of the Comin­
tern’s decision, Tito went so far as to say that “until we received
an explanation for these measures from the Comintern, he con­
siders that this leadership should continue its work in its current
lineup.”289 In the proceedings from the meeting, which were sent to
the Comintern, they merely wrote: “We consider that this leader­
ship runs the business of the house [the KPJ] until a resolution is
reached, and that the main responsibility for work lies with comrade
Otto [Tito].”290 The phrase “in its current lineup,” which would have
suggested that Čolaković and Žujović remained within the leader­
ship, was conveniently omitted. From this point on, the Comin­
tern was aware that Tito considered himself the de facto leader
of the party.

288 Swain, Tito, 21.

2IWČolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 3, 421.
2,u Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 220.
110 Stefan Gužvica

The situation, however, was far from clear. At the time, the pri­
macy of the Temporary Leadership was being directly challenged by
Ivo Marić and Labud Kusovac, the emerging figureheads of the Paral­
lel Center group. To make matters worse, they were supported by key
members of the French Communist Party, the PCF. Žujović recalled
that he went to complain to the PCF Central Committee about the
preferential treatment given to Kusovac and Marić at the expense of
the Temporary Leadership. The PCF representative he spoke to asked
Žujović if he could produce a document from the Comintern prov­
ing that Tito and his comrades had the mandate to lead the party.
Žujović did not have one, and had to leave the building.291

T h e Parallel C e n te r

At first glance, there was little that separated Josip Broz and Ivo
Marić. Both were proletarians, both were ethnic Croats, both were
only coopted into the party leadership under Gorkić, and both were
largely untainted by the earlier factional struggles in the party, even
though they had both been members since the first half of the 1920s.
While Broz had built up his reputation as an anti-factionalist, Marić
had become one of the most popular and well-known Dalmatian
party organizers, and gathered a mass following in what was one of
the strongest regional sections of the KPJ. Both of them were in fact
on the left of the party in the 1920s,292 but managed to avoid promi­
nence in the factional struggles of the time, leaving the impression
of disciplined members who always followed the party line. This cer­
tainly helped propel their near-simultaneous ascent to power in the
second half of the 1930s. The only thing that set them apart was their
attitude toward Gorkić.
Marić was supported by Labud Kusovac, a Montenegrin lawyer
and journalist who was a founding member of the PCF, as he lived

AJ, MG 516, 2013, Sreten Žujović, Sećanja iz predratnog partijskog rada, 32.
Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 59.
 bilio m ; i it o 111

in France at the end of the First World War. From 1924 until 1927,
he was in Vienna, working in the intelligence apparatus, and was
close to Mustafa Golubić, meaning he was most likely also a Red
Army operative.293 He had returned to Paris earlier in 1937, after
having worked in the Profintern for almost four years. Before that,
he lived in Moscow with his wife Kristina (nee Nikolić) who studied
there and then worked for the Comintern. While Marić was the one
who usually directly petitioned the ECCI, the Kusovac family was
in charge of maintaining a complex network of contacts intended to
secure the takeover of the KPJ by the Parallel Center. This network
was international and vast. Aside from the PCF, it included some
leading Bulgarian and Spanish communists, Comintern workers in
Moscow, the Prison Committee of Sremska Mitrovica, and, quite
expectedly, the Soviet military intelligence. Marić, on the other
hand, maintained ties with the Dalmatian party leadership, whose
informal head was Vicko Jelaska,294 and with the large Yugoslav
emigre community in France, of which he was formally in charge.
Although Marić and Kusovac worked as a duumvirate, Marić was
the actual candidate for the general secretary, due to his proletarian
origin. Reports from the Comintern show that he was considered to
be the leader of the Parallel Center.295*29There is no indication that the
Parallel Center had an intention of supporting Miletić as a general
secretary candidate yet, although they maintained close ties to him.
The ideological roots of the Parallel Center are to be sought in the
earlier work of Đuro Cvijić. Cvijić and Marić were close since at least
1923, when Marić was elected the district party secretary for Split,

293 RGASPI, 495-277-1815, /Ia6yA KycoBau, “AH KeTa,” D e c e m b e r 29, 1932, 2. K u so v a c

does not specify what kind of intelligence work he was doing, but if he had been close to
Golubić, the most likely explanation is that they were both working for the Red Army
intelligence, which had one of its main headquarters in Vienna at the time. However,
there are currently no sources clarifying Kusovac’s role as a communist intelligence
operative.
299 At the Seventh Congress, Marić had tried to nominate Jelaska for KPJ member of
the ECCI as an alternative to both Tito and Gorkić. Bondarev, Misterija Tito, 118.
2,5 RGASPI, 495-20-647, “t o b . fluM M T poBy,” March 29, 1938, 1.
112 Stefan Gužvica

in what was one of the first major victories of the left faction.296 This
means that in the 1920s, broadly speaking, Marić had shared Cvijić’s
skepticism of parliamentarianism and reformist unions, supported
a federal Yugoslav model in which constituent nations had a right to
self-determination (including secession), and argued for intensified
revolutionary action which, in the post-1928 period, probably also
included insurrectionary tactics. At the Seventh Comintern Con­
gress in 1935, Marić was the only Yugoslav representative who pro­
tested the decision to send Cvijić out of Moscow as punishment.297
He spent the remainder of his time in the Soviet Union trying to
rehabilitate his comrade, and was described by the Cadres Depart­
ment as essentially an agent of Cvijić within the KPJ.298 According
to Broz, Kusovac had also been close to Cvijić during his stay in the
Soviet Union.299
In spite of factional links to Cvijić, Broz spoke favorably of Kuso­
vac, praising his critical abilities and loyalty to the party, arguing
that he should be put to work even though the Comintern distrusted
him. This is additionally interesting in light of Simić’s thesis about
Broz who rises to power through informing on his party comrades.300
Aside from the fact that Broz was not the only person writing such
reports (indeed, pretty much everyone else was writing them), he
also did not only denounce, but presented varied opinions of fellow
communists. If anything, this shows that he was not well acquainted
with factional intrigues abroad, and that his views of certain indi­
viduals evolved over time. He did not write in 1935 and 1936 with
the idea of discrediting his future rivals in 1938. Indeed, he did not
need to be particularly prescient to understand, in 1935, that former

^ Očak, Braća Cvijići, 168.

;',r RGASPI, 495-277-212 (I), “Rešenje delegacije KPJ na VII. kongresu Kl po pitanju
druga Krešića,” August 25, 1935.
:9S RGASPI, 495-277-201, UlmiHep, “B OTflen Ka«poB MKKM,“ November 28, 1935.
^ RGASPI, 495-277-1815, Walter’s Report on Obarov, August 31, 1936.
,u0 This claim is present throughout Simić’s works. For a particular example, see Simić,
Tito: svetac i magle, 35-36.
 m iOKI TITO 113

factionalists would not even be considered for leading party posts

for a very long time, and were thus nobody’s rivals. However, Simić
ignores these facts and cherry-picks only those cadres reports which
he interpreted as denunciating (which they were not), and ignoiing
the multitude of those which were not written by Tito.
The position of the other Cvijić brother, although certainly
friendly to the Parallel Center, was somewhat more ambiguous. Stj­
epan Cvijić was in touch with Tito too and seems to have had good
relations with him, unlike with Gorkić.301 In the fall of 1937, he vis­
ited Spain, and then France, meeting Čolaković in Albacete, as well
as Kusovac and Marić in Paris. His meeting with Čolaković, filled
with mutual suspicions, started off badly, but ended on a friendly
note.302 It was to be their last. He would later speak very favorably of
Marić, suggesting that their meeting had been much better.303 The
factional struggle had not broken out yet, and he does not seem to
have been aware of the emerging rivalry between the Temporary
Leadership and the Parallel Center. By December, he was back in
Moscow and, considering his earlier oppositional work to have been
vindicated, wrote a report to Pieck, outlining his proposals to restore
order in the party. Cvijić gave a measured overall assessment of all
the future leadership candidates (Tito, Marić, Horvatin), proposed
the restoration of several others to the party leadership (his brother
Đuro, Filip Filipović, and the already arrested Simo Miljuš), and
engaged in self-criticism, admitting that his actions from 1936 were
reckless, although his opposition to Gorkić was justified.301
Furthermore, Stjepan Cvijić published a brochure on the popu­
lar front in Chicago in 1937, titled “The Working Class and the Croa­
tian National Movement.” It was quickly banned in Yugoslavia, but
widely distributed illegally. Aside from showing a new, unconditional

501 Tito’s later letters to Pieck were sent through Cvijić. Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 3, 124.
302 Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 3, 288-293.
303 RGASPI, 495-11-336, Andre, “An den Genossen W. Pieck und an die Kader-
Abteilung des EKKI,” December 14, 1937, 2.
304 RGASPI, 495-11-336, Andre, “An den Genossen W. Pieck,” 5-6.
114 Stefan Gužvica

embrace of the popular front line which he had been very skeptical
of, the brochure dealt extensively with the Yugoslav national ques­
tion. He called for a new constituent assembly in Yugoslavia, and a
solution which would satisfy the majority of Serbs, Croats, and Slo­
venes. He also calls for national self-determination of Montenegrins
and Macedonians. All of these nations can and should have their
own constituent assemblies too, in which they would freely decide
to enter Yugoslavia. The ultimate goal of the struggle for a demo­
cratic Yugoslavia was, of course, socialism, which would bring about
the end of national tensions in the country. Cvijić emphasized that
all the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosova, and Vojvodina
should also have a right to their own assembly, out of respect for the
historical particularity of these ethnically heterogenous regions.305
This, of course, is already akin to Tito’s model of the future country,
which had a new constituent assembly during the war (AVNOJ), as
well as provincial assemblies which laid the basis for future repub­
lics and provinces of Yugoslavia. The eight regions he mentioned
became the eight constituent parts of the new state in 1945. In this
matter at least, Cvijić had come to a position identical to that of the
Temporary Leadership. However, the solution he was arguing for
was more or less a matter of consensus among leading party mem­
bers at the time. It would have certainly also been supported by
all the other major leadership challengers, aside from Miletić. The
future federal organization of Yugoslavia was one thing on which, in
principle, Tito, Marić, Kusovac, and Horvatin could have all agreed.
Stjepan Cvijić, therefore, was only echoing here the position of the
majority of the leading party members, which he had finally come
to embrace.
Unfortunately, Cvijić’s prolific political activity ceased there. The
brochure was to be his last work. Instead of becoming more directly
involved in the future leadership combinations, Stjepan quickly
found himself engulfed by the inferno of emigre accusations. Once

'os For a summary of the book, see Očak, Braća Cvijići, 429-436.
 BKI-'ORF. TITO 115

his brother, Horvatin, and Filip Filipović had been arrested in March
1938, he had to explain why he originally supported their restoration
to the leadership. The Cadres Department, the main accomplice of
the NKVD, periodically extended his residence, not allowing him
to leave the country,306 and preventing him from finding employ­
ment.307 He was finally arrested on July 19, 1938. He died in the
Lefortovo prison hospital two weeks later, officially of tuberculosis.308
The open conflict between the followers of Đuro Cvijić and the
Temporary Leadership began in Paris, during the party meeting of
December 3, 1937, at which Lola Ribar presented his report on Petko
Miletić and the events in Mitrovica prison. Marić dissented against
the decision to accuse the Prison Committee of being an “anti-party”
group.309 Marić later admitted that he might have “acted rashly”310 at
the meeting that essentially brought him into open conflict with the
rest of the party leadership. The main disputes regarded the Prison
Committee and the party in Dalmatia, both of which were viewed pos­
itively by Marić, and negatively by the Temporary Leadership. Marić
was also worried that the top of the party was infested with gorkićevci,
meaning there were still potential traitors in its highest ranks.
These grievances are laid out in Marić’s letter of December 8,
1937, which was addressed to Tito, but which he also requested be
forwarded to the Comintern. It dealt only with the issue of cad­
res, protesting against the attack on Miletić at the Politburo meet­
ing and stating that he would not attend any more meetings in
which Krndelj, Čolaković, and Žujović were present. He did, how­
ever, express willingness to continue working with Kuhar and
Tito,311 as well as Miletić’s opponents in Mitrovica.312 Even later,106

106 RGASPI, 495-277-198, Be/ioB, “tob . no/um eK ,” January 26, 1938.

30/ RGASPI, 495-277-198, AHflpeeB, “B M3flaTe/ibCTBO wHOCTpaHHbix pa6o>inx, Tob .
riapbiuieBy,” May 13, 1938.
308 Simić, Svetac i magle, 88.
309 AJ, 790/1 Kl, 1937/109, “Zapisnik sednice 3/XII/1937.”
3ia AJ, 516 MG, Box 58, 2231/2, “Razgovor sa drugom Ivom Marićem,” 44.
311 AJ, 790/1 Kl, 1937/112, “Izjava Eisnera,” December 8, 1937.
312 AJ, 790/1 Kl, 1938/10, “Izjava Željezara broj 3,” 2.
116 Stefan Gužvica

when his rhetoric sharpened, Marić continued insisting that he

could cooperate with Tito. Before the escalation of the conflict at
the beginning of 1938, both sides seemingly showed willingness to
compromise, at least in the documents they directed at the Comin­
tern and each other. However, the two groups were already actively
plotting against one another. In late 1937, Marić and Labud Kusovac
got in touch with Petko Miletić in Mitrovica prison through Dušan
Kusovac, Labud’s brother, advising Miletić to ignore the Temporary
Leadership’s condemnation of his policy.313 Therefore, his appeal for
continued cooperation sounded less than convincing, and the Tem­
porary Leadership immediately informed the Comintern of this.314
Moreover, Dušan Kusovac was not a party member, but was given
confidential information by his brother, which was a serious breach
of party discipline and rules of confidentiality.
Simultaneously, Tito’s own claims of openness to collaboration
with his rivals were somewhat farcical. As noted earlier, he generally
avoided inviting Marić to Politburo meetings, and tacitly excluded
him from many aspects of party work even before relations between
the two groups deteriorated. Although the open dispute began in
December, tensions were obviously bubbling beneath the surface
for quite some time. Personal correspondence of Kusovac, retrieved
after the war,315 reveals that around October 1937, he had been

Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 252.

Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 29.
115 To be more precise, this is the personal correspondence of Karel Hudomalj, who
was initially a supporter of the Parallel Center, but had switched sides by 1939. Hudo­
malj corresponded with Labud and Kristina Kusovac, as well as Mirko Marković, all
of whom were involved in the Parallel Center (I will write about Hudomalj’s case in
greater detail in the subchapter “Miletić in Moscow”). After the war, the correspon­
dence was handed over to the Yugoslav Consul in Metz by Ivan Zidar, the secretary
of the Association of Yugoslavs in France. The Consul sent them to Moša Pijade, who
in turn handed them over to Kardelj, leading to a renewal of the party investigation
against the Kusovac couple. AJ 507/VII Control and Statutory Commission of the
CC KPJ, Box 8, “Drugu Moši Pijade, Potpretsedniku Prezidija Narodne Skupštine,”
November 24, 1947; and Letter of Moša to Bevc (Kardelj), December 24, 1947. While
Pijade said to Kardelj that he did not know how Zidar obtained the correspondence,
 liI.l ORI. T I K 117

informed by Soviet intelligence that Gorkić had been arrested, that

the current leadership was illegitimate, and that all issues were to be
resolved at a KPJ congress in the country.316 This seems to be much
more than the Temporary Leadership knew at the time. Tito, on the
other hand, tried to keep potential supporters of the Parallel Center
at bay. Hudomalj was punished for breaching party discipline at the
April Plenum and sent to work outside of Paris, and an unsuccess­
ful attempt was made to send Marić to the United States.317 Other
potential allies of Marić and Kusovac, such as Kidrič and Dilas, were
swayed by Tito, and became some of the crucial supporters of - and
informants for - the Temporary Leadership.
What united the Parallel Center was not so much a clear set of
ideas as opposition to Gorkić and his real or perceived supporters.
They therefore formed broad and unlikely alliances, from the ultra­
leftists gathered around Miletić to the regional party organization
in Dalmatia, which was moving increasingly to the right. As a con­
sequence, Marić’s policy prescriptions were far less coherent than
Titos, and they might have been detrimental to his attempted take­
over of the party. Miletić essentially repudiated popular front policy
and continued supporting the line of the Third Period throughout
the 1930s.318 The position of the Dalmatian allies was the polar
opposite of Miletić. Accused of rightist deviations and liquidation-
ism by Ribar, they were defended by Marić for their tactical coopera-

the most plausible explanation is that Hudomalj gave it to Zidar for safekeeping when
he left France for Austria during the war. Since Hudomalj was killed in Mauthausen,
there was no one else to give correspondence to but the Yugoslav authorities. The cor­
respondence of Hudomalj is now kept both in Box 8 and in the collection 507 CK KPJ
- France.
316 AJ, 507 CK KPJ (France), 1/9, Letter from Labud Kusovac to Hudomalj, May 29,
1939, 1. Marić and Kristina Kusovac both later claimed that they were not informed of
Gorkićs arrest until January 1938. AJ, 516 MG, Box 58, 2231/2, “Razgovor sa drugom
Ivom Marićem,“ 44, and AJ, 507 CK KPJ - France, 1/29, Kristina Kusovac, “Central­
nom komitetu KP Jugoslavije,” 1.
5,7 RGASPI, 495-20-647, “tob . flnMMTpoBy,” March 29, 1938, 2.
Jl" Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 66.
118 Stefan Gužvica

tion with the Croatian Peasant Party. The Dalmatian communists

prescribed united action in areas where the danger of pro-govern­
ment parties winning persisted, but competed independently in
areas where the workers’ parties were stronger than the Croatian
Peasant Party.319 At times, they had close cooperation with the top
echelons of the bourgeois parties, which was too similar to the
much scorned “popular front from above.” As a consequence, they
would be accused of completely abandoning the KPJ, instead act­
ing through the legal Party of the Working People (Stranka radnog
naroda, SRN).320 This unlikely coalition of the party’s leftmost and
rightmost wings was unlikely to last, even if Marie had succeeded
in receiving the Comintern mandate. If he had won over Tito, this
would have likely deepened the crisis of the KPJ.
Marie’s proposed leadership, much like Tito’s, was made to seem
like a compromise solution, albeit one that excluded gorkićevci. It
was to be composed of Tito, Kuhar, Dragutin Marušić (an obliga­
tory “neutral” individual), Kusovac, and himself.321 It is important
to note that he expected to sway Kuhar to his side, as Kuhar also
expressed sympathy towards Miletić’s Prison Committee.322 All
other responsible posts in the party outside of the Politburo were to
be filled by people who he considered personally close to him, includ­
ing Hudomalj, the former prominent leftist Rajko Jovanović,323 and
Kristina Kusovac.324 The Comintern could not have missed a clear
bias towards certain party cadres from the left. The Parallel Center,
therefore, was composed largely of former left factionalists, while
the Temporary Leadership initially comprised a group of people

319 RGASPI, 495-20-647, “tob . flwMHTpoBy,” March 29, 1938, 2-4; 495-277-201,
Željezar, “Rad obi. seke. K.P.H. u Dalmaciji,” February 28, 1938.
320 Kvesić, Dalmacija u Narodnooslobodilačkoj borbi, 8.
321 AJ, 790/1 Kl, 1938/8, “Izjava Željezara broj 2,” 3.
322 RGASPI, 495-20-647, “tob . fluMMTpoBy,” March 29, 1938, 4.
323 Jovanović, however, remained unimpressed by Marić in spite of his efforts, and
became a supporter of the Temporary Leadership. Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom
pokoljenju, vol. 3, 431.
324 AJ, 790/1 Kl, 1938/8, “Izjava Željezara broj 2,” 3.
 BKIORF U T O 119

formerly close to Gorkić. Neither looked good in the atmosphere

of watchfulness against spies and traitors. Furthermore, for both
groups, the commitment to moving the leadership back into Yugo­
slavia was, at the time, still verbal.
Marić, however, was much more focused on vigilance than Tito.
His obsession with finding Gorkić’s alleged partners in crime attests to
this, and the theme of vigilance persists throughout his writings. One
particularly negative consequence of this was that Marić interpreted
Tito’s efforts to infiltrate Yugoslav government organizations as a sign
that people in the Temporary Leadership were police informants,125
further widening the gap between the two. Tito, for his part, widened
the gap by increasingly cutting off communication with the Parallel
Center, and playing up their paranoia by keeping gorkićevci close to
him. Marić’s biggest mistake was overly focusing on vigilance rather
than policy. While he was hunting for enemies, both real and imag­
ined, Tito was taking concrete steps to implement the policies which
he considered necessary for the transformation of the KPJ.
What Marić lacked in ideas, he made up for in connections. He
was impressively proactive in his syncretistic alliance-building. For
somebody who had less access to official channels than Tito, and
also had less experience with the Comintern apparatus,326 he was
surprisingly good at utilizing connections among the rank and file
from all sides. Aside from the party ultra-left of Mitrovica and the
right from Dalmatia, he managed to bring into his fold such diverse
individuals as Gorkić’s former associate Alfred Bergman,127 and the
Dalmatian Ivo Baljkas, who was under investigation for Trotskyism
in 1936.328

525 RGASPI, 495-20-647, “tob . flHM m poBy ,” March 29, 1938, 6-7.
326 Marić’s time in Moscow was limited to several months around the Seventh Con­
gress, whereas Tito had spent two years there, working in the Balkan Secretariat and in
the KPJ representative office, closely collaborating with Dimitrov, among others.
32/ AJ, 507 CK KPJ - France, 1/6, Letter from Kristina Kusovac to Hudomalj, May 3,
1939,4.
32S AJ, 790/1 Kl, 1936/474, “Izjava Živka 29.VI.1936.”
120 Stefan Gužvica

Marić had under his control some of the most significant sec­
tions of the KPJ. There were over 150 communists in the Sremska
Mitrovica prison, making it one of the largest party organizations
in the country.329 Kusovac was the head of the Yugoslav National
Committee for Aid to Republican Spain, which meant a great degree
of authority over Yugoslav volunteers going through Paris, as well
as a direct link to other parties, most importantly, of course, the
PCF. Marić himself was in charge of organizing all Yugoslav emi­
gres in France. Many working-class Yugoslavs lived and worked
there at the time, and quite a lot of them became engaged in the
labor movement. To understand the importance of this commu­
nity for the KPJ, one only needs to know that, out of almost 1800
Yugoslav volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, about 500 were
Yugoslavs from France. The head of the student party cell, Radivoj
Uvalić, was also directly responsible to Marić.330 The Parallel Cen­
ter tried to organize Yugoslav organizations of students, women,
and unionists along popular front lines, but was allegedly sabo­
taged by the supporters of the Temporary Leadership,331 although
the exact policy-related lines of division remain unknown (if there
were any).
Even more significant was the support Marić enjoyed in the PCF.
This was most likely the work of Kusovac, whose deep roots in the
PCF, the intelligence apparatus of the Red Army, and the Yugoslav
National Committee for Aid to Republican Spain were already men­
tioned. Kusovac had close ties to two key figures in the PCF: one was
Andre Heussler, a CC member who was the general secretary of the
International Committee for the Coordination of Aid to the Spanish
Republic; the other was Rene Arrachart, a PCF Politburo member

329 RGASPI, 495-277-364, Ba/ibTep, “He3flopoBbie AB/iemm m (JrpaKUHOHHbie TeHfleH-

Umm Me)Kfly KOMMyHMCTaMM Ha KaTopre b MwTpoBHue,” September 3, 1938, 1.
5311 AJ, 507 CK KPJ, Radivoj Uvalić, “Centralnom komitetu Komunističke partije Jugo­
slavije,” October 15, 1944, 2.
331 RGASPI, 495-277-204, KyioHA>KMH 71io6o, “LJeHTpa/ibHOMy KOMmeTy Kn <t>paH-
Umm,” June 2, 1939, 1-4.
 H iiiO R i: i n o 121

and a leading French trade unionist.312The latter worked very closely

with the Parallel Center, as he knew Kusovac through his earlier
work in the Profintern,3323334and Marić through his work in the trade
unions of the Yugoslav emigres in France. The full extent of these
connections, however, remains unknown, as very little of the cor­
respondence between the PCF and Kusovac has been discovered.
Given that the PCF had replaced the decimated Communist Party of
Germany as the model party of the international communist move­
ment, such support was very significant. The PCF, or at least a part
of it, considered the Parallel Center to be the legitimate leadership
of the KPJ, which probably means that they supported them in the
Comintern, and that they encouraged all Yugoslav emigres to accept
Marić and Kusovac as party leaders.33,1
To top it all off, the duo had ties to an individual who greatly
outshone Heussler and Arrachart in importance. This was Maurice
Treand, who was a CC member, head of the PCF cadre commission,
head of the party’s underground operations, and an ECCI operative
in Western Europe.335 In a meeting in January 1938, Treand explic­
itly told Marić, Kusovac, and Tito that the PCF considered the KPJ
leadership non-existent until the Comintern clarified the situation.336
He would remain in touch with the Parallel Center, providing them
with aid and support until at least the end of 1939. A similar role was
played by Bulgarian communists in Moscow, whose support for the
Parallel Center in the ECCI is much better documented than that of
the French. As mentioned earlier, the main proponent of an alterna­
tive party leadership in the ECCI was Dimitrov’s associate Anton Iva­
nov - Bogdanov, whose role will be clarified in the following chapter.

332 AJ, 507 CK KPJ - France, 1/29, Kristina Kusovac, “Centralnom komitetu KP Jugo­
slavije,” 1.
333 Marić goes as far as to state that Arrachart and Kusovac were close friends. AJ, 516
MG, Box 58, 2231/2, “Razgovor sa drugom Ivom Marićem," 56.
334 AJ, 507 CK KPJ, 1944/583, “Izjava dr. Radivoja Uvalića Centralnom komitetu
Komunističke partije Jugoslavije,” 2.
335 Banac (ed.), The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 109.
336 AJ, 516 MG, Box 58, 2231/2, “Razgovor sa drugom Ivom Marićem,” 47.
122 Stefan Gužvicć

In addition to the PCF, important support came from Mustafa

Golubić, who worked in the Red Army Intelligence Directorate,
the Soviet military intelligence service. A friend of Kusovac since
the mid-1920s, Golubić is one of the most intriguing figures in the
Yugoslav communist movement and a target of many rumors. Prior
to World War I, he was a national revolutionary from Bosnia who
joined the Black Hand, which was involved in the assassination of
Franz Ferdinand in 1914. He fought in the Serbian army during
World War I, and was imprisoned following the king’s crackdown
on the Black Hand in 1917. After the war, he became a communist,
and was soon involved with Soviet intelligence structures. There are
abundant theories regarding his intelligence work, most of them
bordering on conspiracy, and I do not intend to engage with them
here.337 W hat is certain is that Golubić was deeply involved in Yugo­
slav party affairs in 1937 and 1938, and that he supported the Parallel
Center over the Temporary Leadership. Golubić had been in touch
with Kusovac since at least October 1937, and it was Golubić who
kept him informed about the perceived illegitimacy of the Tempo­
rary Leadership in the Comintern.338 He was providing both intel­
ligence information, and advice on how to proceed further in order
to win the leadership contest. Aside from his own network of Soviet
intelligence operatives, Golubić established a connection with Yugo­
slav student emigres in Paris, whom he recruited to work for him.339
Kusovac was also close to the Croat Ivan Srebrenjak - Antonov, a
Soviet military intelligence operative who led the Red Army intelli-

557 Two dated but unusually sober sources on the topic are Slavko Odić and Slavko
Komarica, Partizanska obaveštajna služba, vol. 3 (Zagreb: Centar za informacije i pub­
licitet, 1988), 55-59 and 63-70, and Ubavka Vujošević, “Prilozi za biografiju Mustafe
Golubića: (nepoznati dokumenti iz arhiva Kominterne),” Istorija 20. veka, 1-2/1993:
217-230.
558 AJ, 507 CK KPJ - France, 1/9, Letter from Labud Kusovac to Hudomalj, May 29,
1939, 1.
339 AJ, 507 CK KPJ, 1944/583, “Izjava dr. Radivoja Uvalića,” 2-3. They were all later
deemed suspicious by the party, and one of them, Čeda Kruševac, was even shot in
1942 as a “Trotskyist.”
 »I I ORI. I l l' 123

gence center in Zagreb during World War II before he was murdered

by the Ustasha in 1942.340 According to Kopinič, Srebrenjak was the
one who prepared intelligence reports against Tito for the Cadres’
Department.341 All of these individuals undoubtedly worked for the
Parallel Center, although the exact extent of their activity remains
unknown.
At the same time, an equally significant gatherer of informa­
tion about the KPJ rank and file was sitting in Moscow. Unlike the
Temporary Leadership and the Parallel Center, whose various pleas
and grievances were still being ignored by the Balkan Secretariat,
he enjoyed Wilhelm Pieck’s undivided attention and utmost trust
between July 1937 and February 1938. This was Kamilo Horva­
tin, the final remaining KPJ representative to the Comintern, who
turned from being one of Gorkić’s key supporters to his harshest
critic. According to the available sources, Horvatin never formed a
faction in the proper sense, but he was the one party member that
the Comintern listened to after the fall of Gorkić, and was notably
singled out as the only former factionalist in Moscow who was seen
as a potential member of the new leadership. His case, therefore,
warrants particular attention.

Th e M oscow Challenger

Kamilo Horvatin was a veteran revolutionary. In his high school

years, he became involved in a secret revolutionary South Slavic
organization, which he later described as “half national revolution­
ary and half anarchist in character.”342 Through this group, Horva­
tin became friends with the future great Croatian writers Miroslav
Krleža and August Cesarec, as well as the young journalist Đuro

340 Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 67.

341 Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1, 86.
342 AJ, 790/13 Yugoslavs working and studying in the USSR, H/10, “Autobiografija
Petrovskog Borisa Nikolajeviča, 7. februar 1936,” 1.
124 Stefan Gužvica

Cvijić.343 All four would become communists in the aftermath of

World War I. Horvatin was imprisoned for two years in 1912, fol­
lowing a failed assassination attempt against the viceroy of Croatia-
Slavonia, Slavko Cuvaj. He spent most of the war either in prison
or trying to avoid the draft. According to his own account, it was
the war that radicalized him and turned him into a Marxist.344 He
became one of the founding members of the Communist Party of
Yugoslavia in 1919, and in 1920, he was elected to the Zagreb City
Council, in which the communists had a plurality before the onset
of state repression.
After the KPJ was banned by the royal government in December
1920, he devoted himself to underground work. To former national
revolutionaries turned communists, “the ideal of a messianic South
Slavic state was betrayed by the bourgeoisie,”345 which first turned
them to communism, and then specifically to the party’s leftist fac­
tion. Horvatin, an ethnic Croat, was no exception. He shared the
left’s mistrust of a centralized Yugoslavia and believed in a federal
state solution. However, by 1936, he felt it necessary to empha­
size that he had ceased all factional activity in 1928, and that even
before then, he never publicly spoke out against the decisions of the
Comintern.346
Like many other Yugoslavs, Horvatin was forced to emigrate in
1929 due to King Alexander’s dictatorship. He arrived in the USSR
in 1930, taking the name Boris Nikolayevich Petrovsky. He became a
member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) that same
year. Over the following six years, he worked as an associate of the
International Agrarian Institute, later becoming a member of the
KPJ Central Committee in 1934. After the Moscow meeting in 1936,

:j5 Ivan Očak, s.v. “Horvatin, Kamilo,” Krležijana Online. (Zagreb: Leksikografski
zavod Miroslav Krleža, 1993). http://krlezijana.lzmk.hr/clanak.aspx?id=1598 (accessed
December 7, 2017).
AJ, 790/13, H/10, Autobiografija, 1.
Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 47.
AJ, 790/13, H/10, Autobiografija, 2.
 m :i o u i im i 125

he remained one of the party representatives to the Comintern, and

was considered close to Gorkić. He was still working there in the
late spring of 1937, when the purge of the Comintern began in ear­
nest, and, unbeknownst to Gorkić, had become his primary nemesis
within the KPJ. By August 1937, he was the most reputable Yugoslav
communist in the eyes of the Comintern Executive. He had eight
months left to live.
Horvatin’s activity as a prolific denouncer of his fellow com­
rades in the KPJ had been largely absent from historiography until
my discovery of documents from the Comintern Fond in RGASPI.
The only biography of Horvatin in existence, written by his comrade
Marko Zovko in 1980,347 makes no mention of the role he played
in the purge of the KPJ. The only author to notice the significant
role played by Horvatin so far is the Russian historian Nikita Bond­
arev.348 Looking at the available reports, Horvatin appears to have
had the habit of reinterpreting certain well-known events from the
party’s history and twisting them in such a way as to prove certain
individuals’ alleged treason against the party. This retroactive con­
demnation is akin to the retrospective legitimacy used as a rationale
for the Stalinist show trials, described by Maurice Merleau-Ponty:
once the “correct” party line prevailed (its correctness determined
by the very act of victory), those who were against it turned out to
have been traitors all along, as they actively subverted the correct
path of the party through their disagreement.349 Starting from these4789

447 Marko Zovko, Kamilo Horvatin: nestao u staljinskim čistkama (Zagreb: Spektar,
1980). Ironically, Horvatin’s reports single out Zovko as one of the gorkićevci and a
potential provocateur within the KPJ. RGASPI, 495-11-335, Petrowski’s Report Dated
August 5, 1937, 11-12.
448 In a recent article on the Moscow years of the Yugoslav communist Sima Marković,
who was also executed during the Great Purge, Bondarev discovered that Horvatin’s
eight-page testimony, which called Marković “the Trotsky of the KPJ,” formed the basis
for Marković’s arrest. Bondarev, "Sima Marković - moskovske godine (1935-1938),”
54-55.
449 Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror, 42-43. For example, the earlier support of
(the already expelled) Kun and Walecki for Gorkić gave rise to suggestions of Gorkić’s
126 Stefan Gužvica

premises, Horvatin would set a dangerous precedent within the KPJ.

He became the first person to allege that mass arrests in the country
were not merely a consequence of flaws in conspiratorial work, but
also of the fact that provocateurs were sought “only in the lowest
party organs.”350 This would open a Pandora’s Box of accusations at
a time when the Comintern observed communist oppositionists as
enemies in disguise.
Horvatin’s Bolshevik vigilance far exceeded that of Ivo Marie,
and of any other leadership candidate. Unlike the comrades in Paris,
he was a part of the mutually accusing emigre community in the
USSR, and fell victim to the volatile atmosphere of the society he
lived in. For him, as well as for many other Moscow-based Yugoslav
communists, any prior activity in the party opposition, either to the
left or to the right, effectively became anti-party treason, identical to
Trotskyism. This was all the worse because Trotskyists were not seen
as a current in the international communist movement, but rather
as a group of traitors and criminals who clandestinely worked for
the capitalist powers.351 Horvatin went on to say that, aside from
Trotsky, the left and the right opposition fully served the interests
of Gorkić, as the factionalists enabled him to present himself as the
“center” and thus strengthen his own position.352 This view was per­
fectly in line with the Stalinist assertion that the boundary between
political disagreement and objective treason is virtually nonexistent
“in a period of revolutionary tension or external threat.”353 The feel­
ing of external threat in the Soviet Union in 1937, with the rise of

own treason. RGASPI, 495-11- 335, Petrowski’s Report Dated August 5, 1937, 7.
350 RGASPI, 495-11-335, Petrowski’s Report Dated August 5, 1937, 3.
331 This is something that Gorkić failed to understand, and which Horvatin explicitly
criticized: he points out that the party newspaper under Gorkić polemicized with the
Trotskyists, rather than simply uncovering them as traitors and murderers. RGASPI,
495-11-357, B.H.neTpoBCKMM, “O 3aaa4ax 6opb6bi c TpouKM3MOM b lOroc/iaBMn,”
October 17, 1937, 2.
352 RGASPI, 495-11-357, B.H.neTpoBCKMM, “O 3a«aHax 6opb6bi c TpoqKM3MOM b
lOroc/iaBMM,” O c to b e r 17, 1937, 8.
353 Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror, 34.
 BI.IOKI-, TITO 127

fascism and the apparent indifference of capitalist powers to it, was

acute. Communists within the country and abroad all understood
this well. Throughout his reports, Horvatin emphasized his watch­
fulness and allegiance to the party line, while his own leftist past
was conveniently ignored. He notes how his work was obstructed by
those purged, thereby confirming his own credentials. Even at times
when he accepts that he too committed errors, they were merely a
consequence of the influence of traitors.351 Therefore, while he fully
internalized the Bolshevik ethos of vigilance, an equally important
part of the communist character, self-criticism, is strangely lacking.
Nevertheless, for the purposes of my work, his political platform
and his opinion on the emigres in Paris are far more important
than his watchfulness in Moscow. As far the ECCI was concerned,
Horvatin was the primary, and, according to Pieck, most objective
source of information, as he personally requested Horvatin to report
on Yugoslavia for a special commission of the ECCI.354355 Aside from
Pieck, he was in touch with Traicho Kostov and Georgi Damya­
nov.356 He was not the only one who wrote to the head of the Cadres
Department, of course, but he was the only person in touch with
other members of the special commission. One of his reports indi­
cates that the knowledge of the existence of this commission was top
secret and that he was the only Yugoslav who was supposed to know
about its existence.357 Additionally, his reports were the most pre­
scriptive of all, outlining a clear set of policies that the KPJ should
pursue in order to survive the crisis it was in. The only other person

354 RGASPI, 495-11-335, Petrowski’s Report Dated August 5, 1937,7, 11.

,5> RGASPI, 495-20-647, Wilhelm Pieck, “An die Genossen Manuilski und Kola row,”
January 28, 1938.
356 RGASPI, 495-11-335, B.N. Petrowski, “Ueber die Belgrader Sache aus dem Jahre
1935”, August 14, 1937, 1; 495-11-343, B.N. Petrowski, “Ueber Gorkies Verhaltnis zu
den Frauen”, August 5, 1937.
35/ RGASPI, 495-277-198, B.H. neTpoBCKun, “B Ome/i KajtpoB - r. Be/ioBy,” January
26, 1938. Although Horvatin mentions that other persons also spoke to members of
the special commission, it appears that they were not supposed to know about its work,
especially as some had already been expelled from the party.
128 Stefan Gužvica

who submitted anything similar was Stjepan Cvijić, but he had only
written a single brief report before having to focus on the barrage
of accusations against him. Horvatin’s reports, on the other hand,
clearly indicate that he was a candidate for the next general secre­
tary. The most concrete confirmation of this hypothesis is his report
on the political situation in Yugoslavia and the KPJ, submitted on
January 8, 1938.358 It was most likely aimed at the special commis­
sion itself, which was to consider the situation in the KPJ. The only
other person who would later write such reports would be Tito. The
reports he wrote in the fall of 1938 are of the identical format to
those written by Horvatin half a year earlier.359 Gorkić also periodi­
cally wrote such reports when he was general secretary. All of this
shows that, for Wilhelm Pieck, Horvatin was not just a key source
of information for the special commission, but also its candidate for
the future party leader.
It remains unclear what channels Horvatin used to gather the
information, but he viewed the post-Gorkić Temporary Leadership
in a very negative light. Some of the information he presented was
patently incorrect, such as his claim that Čolaković was the new
“central figure” in the leadership.360 His description of Čolaković
is by far the harshest, as he explicitly accuses him of Trotskyism.
The rest of the Temporary Leadership is not portrayed in a much
better light. Of particular interest, however, is his description of
Tito. Horvatin was unaware of Tito’s position, and saw him merely
as the third highest-ranking person in the Temporary Leadership.

,,s RGASPI, 495-11-361, B. H. ITeTpoBCKJuT, “O cHOBHbie a aH H b ie o n p o n e ie p ii a T e b

8, 1938.
lO r o c /ia B im , e r o n o /io w e m u t u 6 o p b 6 e ,” J a n u a r y
Tito, Sabrana tijela, vol. 4, 62-152.
RGASPI, 495-11-343, Petrowski’s Report Dated October 2, 1937, 1. This information
was most likely based on a report by Karlo Hudomalj, who claimed that Gorkić told
him, before his departure to Moscow, that if he were arrested, Čolaković was to act as
leader and Žujović as organizational secretary. RGASPI, 495-11-343, “Erklarung Oskar
fur PB liber Gespriich Oskars mit Som (Gorkic).” It remains unclear whether this is
indicative of collaboration between Hudomalj and Horvatin, but it is unlikely, as this
report would have been easily available to a party representative in the Comintern.
 I!! l OKI TITO 129

He pointed out that Tito has managed to mitigate several mistakes

committed by Gorkić, but simultaneously expressed significant
doubts about him. Tito had, according to him, actively covered up
the errors of Gorkić, had been too close to Walecki, and had failed
to account for his whereabouts in Siberia during the Russian Civil
War, suggesting that he might have been connected to Alexander
Kolchak’s anticommunist forces. Tito’s past was completely reinter­
preted through the lens of his potentially traitorous present, and not
only through his association with Gorkić. Horvatin’s conclusion was
that “one cannot have any political trust in the remaining part of the
current leadership.”361
This negative view of the Paris emigres would only intensify
in his later reports, as he received more information on the situ­
ation in France. However, it is important to note that he did not
distinguish between the Temporary Leadership and the Parallel
Center. This works in favor of my hypothesis that he acted alone:
if he had been close to either of the groups, they would have been
informed of his work, and would therefore have asked for his sup­
port in the Comintern. By January 1938, Horvatin reported that
the negative liquidationist practices of Gorkić were continuing.362
Several decisions of the Comintern, such as the order that Tito
had to suspend Čolaković and Žujović from all party activity,
suggest that Horvatin’s reports may have had a significant practi­
cal impact, although it remains unclear whether it was specifically
his information that played a crucial role. However, it is certain
that he was, by then, a serious contender for the post of general
secretary.
Horvatin’s vigilance, unlike that of Marić and Kusovac, was
accompanied by concrete policy proposals. Measures against
Trotskyism feature prominently,363 though they were not his only

'6I RGASPI, 495-11- 343, Petrowski’s Report Dated October 2, 1937, 1-2.
162 RGASPI, 495-11- 343, Petrowski’s Report Dated January 2, 1938, 2-3.
365 RGASPI, 495-11-357, B.H.rieTpoBCKMM, “O 3aflanax 6opb6bi c TpoqKM3MOM b
lOroc/iaBHM,” October 17, 1937, 25-26.
130 Stefan Gužvica

focus. In October 1937, he made a report on individuals whom he

considered fit to take over the party leadership. Every single one of
them, aside from Edvard Kardelj, was a trade unionist of working-
class origin, they were all based in the country, and they were all,
broadly speaking, on the party’s left.364 This already gives a clear
sign of Horvatin’s political preferences. His unabashed favoritism
toward the left is striking, as he was the only major contender who
did not even attempt to present himself as a compromise figure who
gathered various party factions around himself. Although Tito and
Marić both prioritized people who they were personally close to,
they at least made an attempt to include known members of dif­
ferent factions in their leadership suggestions. Horvatin’s inten­
tional exclusion of the Paris-based comrades further confirms his
detachment from their own internal disagreements, as he does not
show any preference towards either the Temporary Leadership or
the Parallel Center. Horvatin never openly nominated himself for
any position within the new leadership; it was not common prac­
tice to do so, and he probably expected to receive a mandate from
the Comintern regardless. He recommended that the individuals
he handpicked should travel to Paris and hold a meeting at which
they would ensure that the party takes the proper political course.
He further stated that it would be a good idea to send a Yugoslav
and a Bulgarian comrade “who [have] the trust of the Secretariat
of the ECCI” from Moscow to this meeting as well.365 This was a
tacit self-nomination, as he was the only Yugoslav in Moscow at the
time who kept in contact with the ECCI Secretariat. He was never
sent to Paris, either due to a lack of trust or to the Comintern’s own
confusion about the situation.

564 His leadership would have consisted of old Serbian leftists Pavle Pavlović and Nikola
Grulović, experienced Zagreb-based union leaders Josip Kras and Miroslav Pintar,
Gorkić’s Politburo member Franc Leskošek, Kardelj from Slovenia, and the Dalmatian
party leader Jelaska. RGASPI, 495-11-343, Petrowski’s Report Dated October 2,1937, 3.
None of these individuals ever appear to have been informed of Horvatin’s plan.
365 RGASPI, 495-11- 343, Petrowski’s Report Dated October 2, 1937, 2-3.
 BI-FORK TITO 131

As his cadre preferences demonstrate, Horvatin was also on

the party’s left, and his primary focus was on returning the party
leadership back to the country. He saw the “line” of the Paris-based
emigres as “constantly oscillating from sectarianism to the greatest
of opportunisms.”366 He considered the newly founded Communist
Party of Croatia (KPH) to be too nationalistic, as they still consid­
ered support for Yugoslav unity to be conditional on the achievement
of Croatian autonomy. Moreover, Horvatin explicitly criticized Tito
for his attempts to unify the communist and reformist trade unions
and form a united workers’ party, which he saw as a failure because
of resistance from the social democrats. He insisted that the com­
munists, therefore, “cannot and must not” take part in the upcoming
trade union congress in April 1938.367 Horvatin also disliked Tito’s
work on the legal Party of the Working People (SRN), as he saw
signs of open discord between the legal and illegal party structures.
He claimed that the SRN is organizing parallel meetings at which
they are criticizing the CC of the KPJ, instead of subjecting to the
party line.368 The primary sources available corroborate Horvatin’s
claims about the main problems of the party. In the end, however,
Tito would resolve all three of these issues on his own during 1938.
The only major distinction in terms of proposed solutions was that
Tito, unlike Horvatin, insisted that the communists should attend
the trade union congress in spite of social democratic opposition.369
In January 1938, the ECCI finally decided to discuss the Yugo­
slav question. The New Year brought with it an improvement in
the situation of the KPJ. The ECCI formed a new special commis­
sion consisting of Pieck, Manuilsky, and Dimitrov’s close ally Vasil
Kolarov, which was to “examine the situation of the KPJ, examine

366 RGASPI, 495-11- 343, Petrowski’s Report Dated January 2, 1938, 3.

367 RGASPI, 495-11- 343, Petrowski’s Report Dated January 2, 1938, 1-3.
36H RGASPI, 495-11- 343, Petrowski’s Report Dated January 2,1938, 3.
369 I will further elaborate the particularities of these problems and Tito’s solutions in
the upcoming chapter, in particular in the sections “Comrades in Paris” and “Liquida-
tionism and the Croat Question.”
132 Stefan Gužvica

the existing cadres, and prepare concrete proposals for restoring the
leadership and work of the party in the country.”370 Yugoslav his­
toriography and eyewitnesses usually claimed that the Comintern
was on the verge of dissolving the KPJ,371 which further cemented
Tito’s legitimacy as the savior of the party. However, this document
shows that, even if that had been the case earlier, the Comintern’s
main concern by January 1938 was already to establish a stable party
leadership. The qualitative change of the commission members is
particularly significant here. The KPJ was no longer examined by
Moskvin and Belov, whose task was to uncover the alleged spies
within the Comintern and help the NKVD arrest them. Aside from
Pieck, the commission now included Manuilsky as the Soviet party
representative to the Comintern, and Kolarov, a Comintern veteran
and one-time head of the Balkan Secretariat. All three men knew
the Yugoslav context really well. Both the make-up of the new com­
mission and the cited document of the ECCI show that the Comin­
tern no longer viewed the KPJ as a criminal gang to be investigated,
but rather as an organization whose problems can be resolved politi­
cally. This helps to partially answer the old dilemma of Yugoslav
historiography: if, after the arrest of Gorkić, there had been a pro­
posal to dissolve the KPJ (which is not conclusively proven, but is not
unlikely), this idea had definitely been abandoned by January 1938.
Horvatin’s role in the new commission was even more signifi­
cant than before. As already mentioned, he wrote a series of highly
prescriptive reports about the party and the country, all at the per­
sonal request of Pieck, the head of the new commission.372 This com­
mission, which met throughout January 1938, relied primarily on
Horvatin’s reports. They largely repeat his earlier policy proposals.

,ro RGASPI, 495-18-1232, “Protokoli (A) Nr. 232 des Sekretariats des EKKI, zusam-
mengestellt auf Grund fliegenden Abstimmung unter den Mitgliedern des Sekretariats
des EKKI vom 3.1.1937.”
'71 See, for example, Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1, 94, or Goldstein, Tito, 150.
172 RGASPI, 495-20-647, Wilhelm Pieck, “An die Genossen Manuilski und Kolarow,”
January 28,1938.
 11o k i in o 133

According to one of them, the immediate tasks of the KPJ were:

restoring the party’s political unity; increasing vigilance; ridding
the party of gorkićevci-, and bringing older, experienced party mem­
bers into the leadership, provided that they did not partake in earlier
factional struggles.373 He correctly identified Gorkies actions as liq-
uidationist and condemned his procrastination in moving the party
leadership to Yugoslavia,374 but inaccurately saw Tito as Gorkić’s
direct political successor. Furthermore, he expressed concern that
the KPJ in Yugoslavia was deteriorating into national sections, with
each pursuing policies independently of the party center and one
another.375 The importance his reports give to cadres in the Soviet
Union (of whom he was clearly the only one in good standing) could
be interpreted as yet another tacit self-nomination. His key proposal,
about forming the new party leadership in Yugoslavia and formally
confirming it at a party conference376 was certainly taken seriously
by the Comintern, which would later condition Tito’s mandate pre­
cisely on these terms.
Overall, Horvatin’s identification of problems within the party
was accurate, aside from his belief that mass arrests were a conse­
quence of high-level police infiltration. Even more interestingly, his
proposals for fixing the party were virtually identical to those later
presented by Tito. Are these similarities accidental? Could Tito have
used some informal ties to gain access to Horvatin’s documents
and “copy” his policies? This is unlikely, because Tito would have
then known about Horvatin’s denunciations of him as well. In that
case, Horvatin would not have been rehabilitated in Yugoslavia, but
would have shared the oblivion of Petko Miletić, who Tito knew had
been his enemy and thus never rehabilitated him. Ihe most likely5*

5 3 RGASPI, 495-20-647, “OcHOBHbie BbiBOflbi,” January 15, 1938.

3/4 RGASPI, 495-20-647, “CocTOBHue m pa6oTa napTHM n ee pyKOBOACTna,” January
28, 1938, 12.
30 RGASPI, 495-20-647, “CocTormne n pa6oTa nap-run n ee pyKO BO flCTBa,” January
28, 1938,8.
3/6 RGASPI, 495-20-647, “OcHOBHbie BbiBOAbi,” January 15, 1938, 1.
134 Stefan Gu/.vica

explanation is that this is an ideological similarity of two comrades

who often sided together in intra-party conflicts even much earlier.
At the same time, they also both had a more sophisticated under­
standing of Comintern’s instructions on the popular front, some­
thing that Gorkić repeatedly failed to achieve.
O f course, what is truly interesting about these two men of iden­
tical policies is that Horvatin was arrested and shot, whereas Tito
became the general secretary of the KPJ and went on to lead it for
forty years. Such a radical difference in the destinies of these two
comrades shows that a correct understanding of Comintern’s expec­
tations was not enough on its own for surviving the Great Purge.
This is not to say that Horvatin was unlucky or that he was a vic­
tim of a seemingly irrational terror. There were also key differences
between the two men. The fact that he was not an intellectual and
that he had stayed out of intrigues among the emigres during his
short time in Moscow certainly helped Tito avoid arrest. Largely
unaware of each other’s’ actions, any disagreements the two might
have had in early 1938 were a consequence of Horvatin’s excessive
vigilance, a lack of communication, and Tito’s own (understandable)
hesitation to act more decisively at the end of 1937. Had he survived,
he might have gone on to play a significant role in Tito’s new party.
Sadly, Horvatin would never live to see the constitution of a
new party leadership. He was arrested by the NKVD in the midst
of the work of the ECCI commission. As a prominent member of
the emigre community, he was no stranger to being slandered. He
was first accused of Trotskyism already at the end of 1936.377 His
position probably began to worsen again in November 1937, when
his wife Jovanka was expelled from the party.378 However, unlike
Gorkić, he became a victim because of the purge of the KPJ, and not
because of the perceived treason of his wife. A report written not178

177 RGASPI, 495-277-206 (I), 14.n. MapTbiHOBMH, “B o w n KaapoB HcnonKOMa

KoMMHTepHa,” October 3, 1936.
178 RGASPI, 495-11-343, C.A. Tpaćep, “B ceKpeTapnaT EKKI4, b npe3wnnyM MKK,”
December 25, 1937.
long after Horvatin’s arrest by Janko Jovanović states that he had
been apprehended precisely because of his close ties to Gorkić. This
report sheds light on the second major wave of arrests of prominent
Yugoslavs, which took place on February 7, 1938. Horvatin’s school
friend Đuro Cvijić, former party secretaries Antun Mavrak and Filip
Filipović, the Macedonian communist Nikola Orovčanac - Sandan-
ski, union organizer Barica Debeljak, the Slovenian revolutionary
Franc Čepelnik and the Belgrade party worker Đorđe Ilić - Sun-
datov were all arrested on that day.379 All of them had been former
members of the left faction, and all but Barica Debeljak had been
shot or had died in prison. Horvatin’s arrest, as well as those of his
fellow comrades, was a direct consequence of the interrogations of
Gorkić and Fleischer. It remains unknown whether Pieck, or some­
body else close to Horvatin, had attempted to save him. His tragic
case further demonstrates that proper adherence to the party line
and constant vigilance were not enough to ensure survival during
the Great Purge. Denunciations, personal rivalries, and simple con­
tingency were often crucial. He was executed on March 15, 1938 as
a member of a “counter-revolutionary Trotskyist organization.” The
file on Horvatin that had reached Stalin’s desk ended with a simple
remark: “exposed through the testimonies of GORKICH M.I., and
FLEISCHER.”380 As he was “exposed” by the same people he had
himself “exposed” half a year earlier, the first circle of accusations
among the Moscow emigres was closed.

The Wahhabis

In some ways, the brutality of the struggle in Sremska Mitrovica

prison exceeded that of Moscow, as the communists in Mitrovica
quite literally served as one another’s judge and jury (and almost

RGASPI, 495-277-198, flpeHOBCKM, “H obm momchtm .”

jh° “nETPOBCKI4I4 E opnc HMKo/iaeBMH, oh we XOPBATMH KaMM/io,” in
“Cra/iHHCKMe cnHCKM,” MEMORIAL, accessed D ecem ber 25, 2017, http ://stalin .m em o .
ru/spravki/7-7.htm .
136 Stefan Gužvica

executioners). The Prison Committee, dominated by the veteran

communist Petko Miletić, relied on a personality cult and a policy of
ultra-leftism in equal measure. For this, they were named “the Wah­
habis,” after the adherents of an eighteenth-century Islamic funda­
mentalist movement.381 If one was to look for similarities within the
international communist movement itself, it would be more appro­
priate to describe Miletić as the Bela Kun of the Yugoslav commu­
nist movement. His political views, personality, and even downfall
were all similar to that of the Hungarian communist leader.
The only major difference between the two was their social ori­
gin. Miletić was born into a peasant family in the mountains of
Montenegro, and left the family home at the age of sixteen, after
being granted a scholarship to learn the carpenter’s craft abroad.
He settled in the southern Hungarian city of Pecs, where he soon
became involved with the social democratic party. In November
1918, while in Budapest, he joined the newly-founded Communist
Party of Hungary, and fought in the Hungarian Revolution the fol­
lowing year.
After his return to Yugoslavia, he was arrested for communist
activity and attempting to incite an armed uprising. He spent several
years in the mountains of Montenegro as part of an armed insur­
rection against the Yugoslav government before an armistice was
reached in 1924. The insurrection was a collaboration of commu­
nists and Montenegrin federalists, who claimed a distinct ethnic
identity, and was led under the slogan of a “Soviet Montenegro.” He
then moved to Belgrade in 1926, but soon left for Moscow, where
he studied at KUNMZ. His inevitable rise in the KPJ began after
the Fourth Congress in 1928, when the Comintern sought people
with experience in the national-revolutionary movements of the
Balkans. In 1929, while still at KUNMZ, he signed a controversial

,HI The origin of the label “Wahhabis” came either from the ultra-leftist Ognjen Priča,
who considered it something to be proud of (Dilas, Memoir o f a Revolutionary, 163),
or from their opponent Moša Pijade, who used it to mock them (Banac, With Stalin
against Tito, 66).
 m:i o k f . i 137

letter, aimed at the Political Secretariat of the ECCI, requesting that

the Comintern sack the rector of KUNMZ, Maria Frumkina. Frum-
kina had been close to Bukharin and Gorkić (the latter was, at the
time, a professor at KUNMZ), and the letter was actually an attack
on the rightists within the KPJ and the Comintern. However, it was
dismissed by the KPJ as factionalist, and the students, called “Group
41” were soon branded as Trotskyists, because the letter was signed
by Ante Ciliga.382 Membership in the Group 41 would come to haunt
Miletić later in his career.
Nevertheless, at the time, he was doing well. By 1930, the Comin­
tern had made him a member of the Politburo, where he worked
closely with Labud Kusovac.383 He remained in the party leadership
until 1932. That year, he was arrested while trying to illegally cross
the Hungarian-Yugoslav border.384 His arrest coincided with the
early signs of the KPJ’s turn away from the ultra-left; as such, his
problems with the party leadership began almost immediately after
his imprisonment. Milovan Đilas, his one-time supporter, later left a
critical yet sympathetic account of Miletić:

H e w a s a r e b e llio u s p e a s a n t w h o h a d n o t th o r o u g h ly d ig e s te d

p r o le ta r ia n r e v o lu tio n a r y le a r n in g . H is p o litic a l e d u c a tio n in

M o s c o w , i n w h i c h h e h a d n o t d i s t i n g u i s h e d h i m s e l f in a n y f ie ld ,

f u r t h e r r e in f o r c e d h is im p a t ie n t , t o u g h , a n d r e b e llio u s s p ir it b y

o v e r s im p lifie d d o g m a tis m . H e h a d a ls o le a r n e d th e im p o r ta n c e

o f i n t r i g u e in p o litic a l s tr u g g le a n d th u s fr e e d h im s e lf o f an y

id e a liz e d n o tio n o f th e C o m m u n is t m o v e m e n t. B u t n o n e o f th is

31.2 For the memory of the letter’s author, Mirko Marković, regarding the events, see
Očak, Gorkić, 109-111. For a full text of the document and the list of signatories, see
Aleksej Timofejev, Goran Miloradović, Aleksandr Silkin (eds.), Moskva - Srbija, Beo­
grad - Rusija: dokumenta i materijali, vol. 4 (Moscow, Belgrade: Glavarhiv Moskvy,
CGA Moskvy, Arhiv Srbije, 2017), 303-305.
31.3 RGASPI, 495-277-1815, /la6y/t KycoBau, “AHKeTa,” December 29, 1932, 5.
3"4 For a detailed academic biography of Miletić, see Kovačević, “Petko Miletić.” A less
professional, but still well-written, biography is available in Požar, Jugosloveni žrtve
staljinskih čistki, 275-282.
138 Stefan Gužvica

c h a n g e d h im fu n d a m e n ta lly . H e r e m a in e d a M o n te n e g r in w h o

v e r g e d b e tw e e n a d v e n tu r is m a n d h e r o is m , a ty p ic a l p r o d u c t o f a

c u lt u r e r ic h in e x t r e m e s . B e lo w h is g l o o m y b r o w w a s a p a ir o f d u ll

g r e e n e y e s. B u t w h e n h e sp o k e , o n e s e n s e d a m a n o f a c tio n , a m a n

w h o h a d s e e n t h e w o r l d . I n s p i t e o f h i s o v e r s i m p l i f i e d p i c t u r e o f it,

h e h a d a g r e a t k n a c k fo r m a n e u v e r in g a n d p lo t t in g , p a r tic u la r ly

o n t h e s m a l l e s t i s s u e s o f e v e r y d a y p a r t y l i f e . 385

This fiery temper made Miletić a hero among the communists. His
proud attitude in court and his refusal to confess anything to the
police were vividly reported in the communist press at the time. In
fact, Miletić had initially confessed, and then recanted his testimo­
ny.386 This further stain on his biography would also come to haunt
him later, during his attempt to become the general secretary of the
KPJ.
In the Mitrovica prison, Miletić encountered Moša Pijade,
a Jewish journalist and painter who was among the most famous
Yugoslav political prisoners. At the time, Pijade was close to Andrija
Hebrang, the Croatian communist who - alongside Tito - played a
key role in inciting the Comintern to write the Open Letter of 1928
which condemned factionalism. Pijade and Hebrang, who argued
for a more measured attitude toward the prison authorities, soon
clashed with Miletić, who accused them of being “rightist.”387 They
defended themselves by claiming that they merely did not want to
give the police an excuse to harass and murder fellow comrades.
The relations between the two groups were never good, but they
truly escalated after the Wahhabis attempted to murder Hebrang
in August 1937.388 Soon after, the Central Committee condemned
Miletić and his group.

^ Dilas, Memoir o f a Revolutionary, 182.

Kovačević, “Petko Miletić,” 53-54.
'"7 Dilas, Memoir o f a Revolutionary, 181.
’"* Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 67. The Wahhabis persistently claimed the oppo­
■
site: that supporters of Hebrang attempted to take the life of Miletić. Jelena Kovačević,
 Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that Miletić, in spite of the
trouble he was making, enjoyed the trust of both Gorkić and Tito.
One of Gorkić’s last actions as general secretary was co-writing a
letter with Kardelj to Miletić in prison. Gorkić and Kardelj urged
caution, asked Miletić not to engage in physical confrontations
with the prison guards, and gave general directives regarding the
popular front, insinuating that Miletić’s line was incorrect, and as
such could be abused by the party’s enemies. However, there was no
open confrontation or particularly harsh criticism. The letter even
confirmed, on behalf of the CC, the expulsions of “left and right
factionalists” initiated by Miletić.389 The confidence in the Prison
Committee continued even after Gorkić’s arrest. In the wake of the
August incident, Tito was at first informed that Hebrang had been
the one who tried to murder Miletić, and personally wrote to his old
friend, expressing disbelief that he could engage in acts as vile as
physical assault of a fellow party member.390Tito’s attitude to Miletić
began to shift only following Hebrang’s reply and Ribar’s report
later that year, which confirmed that Hebrang, and not Miletić,
was the victim.
Miletić’s dominance over the Prison Committee in Sremska
Mitrovica was marked by a confrontational approach to the authori­
ties.391 While this was acceptable during the Third Period, the popu­
lar front instigated a change in attitude: the communists were to
be less militant in prison, and were instead supposed to devote
themselves to political education and building alliances with the
imprisoned members of the opposition. While the latter approach
certainly appealed to older and more experienced communists like
Hebrang and Pijade, the former was the preference of younger left-

“Frakcijske borbe među članovima KPJ u Sremskomitrovačkoj kaznioni 1937-39,”

Arhiv 1-2/2015, 109.
389 RGASPI, 495-70-200, Ćaća, “18. jula 1937.” Among the expelled party members was
a veteran Slovene communist Jakob Žorga, a decision which was later annulled by Tito.
390 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 3, 115-116.
391 Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 89.
140 Si clan G

ists whose political leanings were molded by the 1929 dictatorship.392

As a consequence, Miletić was first and foremost a champion of the
young communists. His groups fostered “self-sacrifice and anti-
intellectualism.”393 He was not opposed to education in prisons, but
his vision of education essentially came down to learning how to
fight. His view of the national question was equally anachronistic:
Miletić still argued for the pre-1935 position on the necessity of
breaking up Yugoslavia.394
Long before its collision with the Temporary Leadership, the
Prison Committee was establishing direct connections with several
party organizations in Yugoslavia and sending them instructions
independently of the party leadership.395 Even with Gorkić’s rap­
idly declining legitimacy in mind, this presented a serious breach
of party discipline. Miletić’s stronghold was his native Montenegro,
where he enjoyed significant support, as well as Kosovo, where his
brother dominated the regional party organization.396 Aside from
Milovan Đilas,397 Miletić was supported by ultra-left young radicals
such as Ivan Milutinović, who would later become Tito’s distin­
guished military commander. His statement in support of Miletić
was used as the basis for Marić’s report to the Comintern in early
1938; Milutinović later denied that he wrote it, and claimed it to be
a forgery.398 Miletić was also close to Radonja Golubović, who would
become the leader of Yugoslav Cominformist emigres after the
Tito-Stalin Split.399 His most bizarre and damaging political liaison

W2 Đilas, Memoir o f a Revolutionary, 180-181.

■
,9’ Kovačević. “Petko Miletić,” 56.
Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 68.
Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 3, 126.
Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 165; Kovačević, “Petko Miletić,” 64-65.
W7 Đilas later denied that he was involved in the struggle between the Wahhabis and
the Rightists. Đilas, Memoir o f a Revolutionary, 193. However, the primary sources
which 1 will discuss later in the text show that he was certainly allied with Miletić
before his release in 1936, and remained sympathetic to him at least until 1938.
Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1, 111.
Swain, Tito, 96.
 Kl'ORI-: ITT 141

was with Antun Franović, the Dalmatian who organized the failed
attempt to transport five hundred Yugoslav volunteers to Spain with
Adolf Muk in March 1937.100 Like Muk, Franović betrayed the entire
party organization (in his case, the Dalmatian regional commit­
tee) and caused further mass arrests. The most likely explanation
for Miletić’s collaboration with Franović was that the two saw each
other as natural allies once the Temporary Leadership condemned
them both.
Aside from Franović, who was among the people handpicked
by Gorkić, Miletić held a great disdain for gorkićevci, much like his
comrades from the Parallel Center. Dilas’ report to the Temporary
Leadership in early 1938 stated that Miletić disliked Gorkić, and
therefore supported the April Plenum.401 This was in spite of the fact
that Gorkić, as already mentioned, was always taking the side of
Miletić, and even managed to persuade Pijade to accept the preemi­
nence of the Prison Committee for the sake of party discipline.402
Gorkić’s attitude was a consequence of his respect for the immense
support that Miletić enjoyed in prison, rather than of his political
stance. When Gorkić urged the Prison Committee to respect the
decisions of the Seventh Comintern Congress in a letter in June
1936, the Prison Committee went so far as to call the new KPJ line
“opportunist.”403 It appears that even Gorkić’s very measured and
constructive criticisms were enough to cause distrust on behalf of
Miletić.
In spite of problems, which had not been disclosed to the public,
an anti-tank battery in the International Brigades was named after
Miletić, and the communist rank and file still saw him as a brave3012*

300 Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 115-116.

301 AJ, 790/1 KI, 1938/16, “Izveštaj Veljka CK KPJ iz kaznione,” March 23, 1938, 2.
302 RGASPI, 495-11-334, Letter of Gorkić to Fleischer no. 10, February 9, 1937. Accord­
ing to Đilas, Pijade’s support for Miletić lasted right up to November 1937, whereas
Hebrang was unrepentant and openly confrontational. AJ, 790/1 KI, 1938/16, “Izveštaj
Veljka CK KPJ iz kaznione,” March 23, 1938, 2.
103 Kovaćević, “Frakcijske borbe među članovima KPJ u Sremskomitrovačkoj
kaznioni,” 108-109.
142 Stefan Gužvica

legendary victim of the monarchist regime. In combination with

Gorkić’s conciliatory stance towards intra-party dissenters, it is easy
to understand why the KPJ tolerated Miletić’s violations of party
discipline. Tito, on the other hand, lacked information on Miletić’s
politically harmful actions for several months.
The first noticeable changes in attitude came in November 1937
when, following Hebrang’s letter, Tito warned of “alarming news”
about the situation in the prison.404 The breaking points were Lola
Ribar’s aforementioned report and the heated KPJ meeting at which
it was presented. By the end of December, the prisoners received a
letter explicitly accusing Miletić and the Prison Committee of try­
ing to take over the KPJ, and engaging in factionalism, ultra-leftism,
and sectarianism.405 The letter, signed as “The Central Committee,”
named Pijade the new head of the Prison Committee. Pijade was
a compromise choice, as opposed to the much more controver­
sial Hebrang, who completely refused to bow to the ultra-lefts and
almost paid for that with his life. Furthermore, Pijade could always
gain legitimacy by pointing out that he had repented and stopped
engaging in factionalism in the spring of 1937, despite his disagree­
ments with Miletić. This presented him as a prescient, but ultimately
disciplined, member of the party.
Nevertheless, this did not make the work of the Temporary
Leadership much easier. The letter was met with disbelief and out­
right refusal to follow the orders from the self-proclaimed Central
Committee. About forty of the 120 imprisoned party members
refused to accept the December letter.406 Meanwhile, the Comintern
was skeptical of both the Temporary Leadership’s actions and the
opposition coming from the Parallel Center. The Cadres Depart­
ment informed Dimitrov that both Pijade and Miletić were former
members of the leftist faction,407 meaning that they should be treated 401

401 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 3, 126.

405 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 6-10.
406 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 250.
4,r RGASPI, 495-20-647, “ t o b . ^M M U TpoB y,” March 29, 1938, 5.
 ni;i o r i ; titc 143

with suspicion. The most outrageous claim in the eyes of the rank
and file in prison was that Miletić was trying to escape prison and
call a party congress, independently of the Temporary Leadership,
in order to take over the party. The existence of such a plan was
later confirmed by Miletić’s allies.408 Miletić considered the KPJ to
have become “right opportunist,”409 and, according to Tito, argued
that the main strategic assault of the communists should be against
the social democrats, and that, in the case of a Franco-German
war, the French workers should rise and overthrow the government
rather than fight fascism.410 Milovan Đilas allegedly ended his sup­
port for Miletić when he was informed of the plan for the takeover
of the party;411412nevertheless, he kept trying to broker a compromise
between Tito and Miletić until at least January 1939.112
In their defense, some members of the Prison Committee denied
that this was their political program. A certain Ivanić wrote a letter
in early 1938, accusing the Temporary Leadership of slander and
claiming Pijade has been blocking the sending of their letters to the
CC. Most likely, Ivanić was Ivan Korski, the young engineering stu­
dent who had sided with Miletić. Fie was later expelled from the
KPJ, and shot by the Ustashe in the Kerestinec prison in July 1941.
Ivanić’s letter was essentially an attempt at self-criticism, according
to which the Wahhabis did not assault the social democrats: rather,
they “considered that the main strategic impact should be made not
against fascism as such, but against hesitating petty-bourgeois and
bourgeois leaders, who are helping fascism directly and indirectly,
and making obstacles towards the creation of a united and popular
front.”413 Therefore, whereas the Temporary Leadership claimed the

408 Kovačević, “Petko Miletić,” 62. Milenko Karan, Njima nije oprošteno (Subotica:
Minerva, 1991), 53.
409 RGASPI, 495-277-364, Ludwig to Georgijević (Walter), December 3, 1937.
410 RGASPI, 495-277-364, Ba/nvrep, “He3flopoubie HB/ieHMH n cJipaKunoHHbie T eH /ien-
UMM MOKfly KOMMyHHCTaMM Ha KaTOpie B MHTpOBHUe,” 9.
411 Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 3, 344.
412 RGASPI, 495-70-164, “Pismo Ilije Otu, 9.1 1939,” 1.
RGASPI, 495-277-364, Letter of Ivanić, 1-3.
144 Stefan Gu/.vica

Wahhabis had primarily opposed the social democrats, like dur­

ing the Third Period, in reality, they had been against the bourgeois
political parties, who they saw as undermining the efforts for a gen­
uine antifascist front. Of course, Tito himself did not see the bour­
geoisie in a much more positive light than the Wahhabis. However,
he would not, at the time, prioritize the struggle against capitalism
over anti-fascism.
For Korski, the distinction was very important: although he
acknowledged the error of attacking the bourgeois parties regardless
of whether they were antifascist or not, he insisted that the Wahhabis
were not attacking the social democrats. He also acknowledged that
the initial refusal to obey the letter of the CC to the Prison Com­
mittee was inexcusable and sectarian, and apologized for an arti­
cle in the communist prison newspaper condemning the efforts at
creating a joint communist-socialist workers’ party.414 On the other
hand, Korski denied that the Wahhabis were creating a faction, and
claimed that the authority of Miletić stemmed from merit, not his
own ambition and a nascent personality cult. Finally, Korski admit­
ted the Prison Committee was corresponding with party organi­
zations outside of prison, but claimed it was only a means to fight
against the factionalists within, such as Pijade and Hebrang.415 He
denied any attempts by Miletić to organize KPJ members outside the
prison for the purposes of taking over the party. His explanation,
however, fails to account for why political support from the outside
was needed to deal with a handful of factionalists in the first place.
Korski’s views, however, are contradicted by a resolution passed
by the Prison Committee, clearly at Miletić’s urging, in the spring
of 1937. This confusing and contradictory document simultane­
ously spoke of the party’s inability to exploit the divisions among
the bourgeoisie, and of overestimating the contradictions in the
bourgeois camp, essentially implying that there is actually no point1

111 RGASPI, 495-277-364, Letter of Ivanić, 4.

RGASPI, 495-277-364, Letter of Ivanić, 6-10.
 in trying to divide the bourgeoisie. This accusation was carefully
worded so as to accuse the party organization within Yugoslavia,
rather than the Central Committee abroad. The resolution explic­
itly accused the KPJ of neglecting work among the peasantry and
nationally oppressed groups and of failing to criticize social demo­
crats as class collaborators. They condemned “national reformism”
which accepted the rule of the Greater Serbian bourgeoisie, which
almost certainly implied a rejection of support for Yugoslav territo­
rial unity.416 This resolution was a Third Period document through
and through, clumsily attempting to disguise itself as popular
frontism. The only major divergence from Third Period policy was
paying lip service to the need for a united workers’ party, although
the resolution did not quite explain how this would be possible while
simultaneously accusing all non-communist workers’ parties of
being class collaborators.
Any hope of compromise became virtually impossible once
Miletić had received information from Paris about the illegitimacy
of the Temporary Leadership. Kusovac and Miletić were in touch
with one another since at least mid-November 1937. A letter sent at
the time shows that Miletić had still been unaware of Gorkić’s arrest,
but had made sure Kusovac was very aware of the disputes between
the Prison Committee and Gorkić’s Politburo.417 Marić and Kusovac
told him to persist, and kept in touch throughout the period that
followed. Miletić therefore formed an alternative Prison Commit­
tee with his allies Korski and Boris Vojnilovič.418 Predictably, like
other supporters of Miletić, they were both young ultra-leftists.
The self-sacrificing, romantic ethos of the Wahhabis is perhaps best

416 RGASPI, 495-277-364, ‘Ttoporwe TOBapumn!” November 15, 1939, 6-7. The d ocu­
ment was translated for the C om intern in 1939, upon M iletić’s arrival, but the wording
and the dates m entioned in the letter unam biguously show that it was written in the
spring o f 1937.
" RGASPI, 495-277-364, Letter of Petko Miletić to Raymond, November 23, 1937.
4IH Kovačević, “Frakcijske borbe među članovima KPJ u Sremskomitrovačkoj
kaznioni,” 112.
146 Stefan Gužvica

captured in the story of Vojnilovič’s eventual execution. In 1941, he

joined the partisans and fought in Central Serbia at the beginning
of the uprising. After being captured by the Chetniks, he was shot
for his stubborn refusal to remove the five-pointed red star from his
cap.419 Ultimately, it was a group that valued meaningless, melodra­
matic sacrifice over patient long-term struggle, and as such, it was
bound to fail. By the end of 1938, the imprisoned Miletić faction was
reduced to half a dozen hardliners.
In his own attempt at self-criticism, Miletić wrote to the Tem­
porary Leadership through Đilas in March 1938, apologizing for his
sectarian mistakes and efforts to establish contact with other party
organizations outside of prison. However, he continued to protest
the appointment of Pijade, and accused those close to him of being
spies.420 It appears, therefore, that his continued conflict with the
Temporary Leadership was equally a matter of vanity and ideo­
logical differences. Miletić was marginalized, but he was not out of
the game yet. Instead, he was waiting for his release from prison.
However, his temper continued to be his biggest obstacle, as he got
into a dispute with his former lawyer, Bora Prodanović, whom he
also accused of being a police spy.421 This was an extremely clumsy
move, given that Prodanović, unlike the other communists, knew of
Miletić’s less than heroic actions in custody in 1932.
The period from August 1937 to February 1938 was a time of
political realignment within the KPJ. The main cleavage was the
attitude to Gorkić and his real or perceived collaborators. Neverthe­
less, the seemingly new standpoints were greatly influenced by old
factional struggles. Those who disliked Gorkić now considered their
suspicions to have been confirmed, while those who were close to
him tried to persuade the Comintern that they would correct earlier
errors. The only member of the latter group who succeeded was Tito

419 Karan, Njima nije oprošteno, 164-165.

420 AJ, 790/1 Kl, 1938/16, “Izveštaj Veljka CK KPJ iz kaznione,” March 23, 1938, 3.
421 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 232.
 Hi;FORK T 147

himself, together with a few close associates like Kardelj and Ribar,
who were latecomers to the Gorkić-era leadership. One common
trait that the four competing factions shared was that they were all
on the left; there was not a single group formed from the remnants
of the former rightist faction. Although they were leftists, the differ­
ences between them were insurmountable due to their mutual mis­
trust, lack of communication, and constant scheming. Among them,
Tito and Horvatin were the only two individuals with clear ideas on
how to resolve the crisis in the party. Their ideas were quite similar,
although they were unaware of it, and Horvatin was openly hostile
to Tito. Horvatin’s subsequent arrest, contrasted with Tito’s success,
amply illustrates that proper adherence to the party line imposed by
the Comintern was not enough to ensure survival during the Great
Purge. Marie, Kusovac, and even Miletić were primarily motivated
by their disagreement with Tito’s proposals. Marić and Kusovac
offered little, aside from the suggestion that the Comintern should
impose a resolution to the situation. They made up for their lack of
policy with an extraordinarily vast international network of con­
tacts. Miletić, on the other hand, would come to establish himself as
the candidate of Marić and Kusovac, as he was the only figure who
showed any kind of willingness to make concrete proposals on party
policy. Unfortunately for all three, Miletić’s proposals were anach­
ronistic and unrealistic. They were a mixture of ultra-leftism, revo­
lutionary romanticism, and a personality cult. His political career
was doomed long before he left prison. Nevertheless, for almost two
more years, Marić, Kusovac, and Miletić would pose a major chal­
lenge to Tito’s attempted takeover of the party, primarily through
their skilled usage of patronage networks within the Comintern.
Tito had connections too, but was also actively taking practical steps
towards reviving the work of the KPJ and enforcing a coherent party
line.
THE STRUGGLE

“At the top of the KPJ everybody is a factionalist, and you, too,
are afactionalist.”
G e o r g i D i m i t r o v t o J o s ip B r o z T i t o ,

D e c e m b e r 3 0 , 1 9 3 8 422

The ECCI first met to discuss the issue of the KPJ on January 3,1938,
almost five months after Gorkić’s arrest. This might initially seem
like a blatant lack of regard for the Yugoslav communists, which
greatly facilitated the atmosphere of mutual suspicion and accusa­
tion within the party. Silence from Moscow meant confusion, and
confusion meant individuals were free to jump to conclusions. With
party democracy virtually extinguished, and with the communists’
status abroad being semi-legal at best, this situation could not result
in an open, critical discussion on the future of the KPJ. Instead, it
bred mutual hostility and very serious charges of espionage, trea­
son and wrecking. On the other hand, it allowed the Comintern,
now more wary than ever, to carefully survey the Yugoslavs from
the sidelines. The Comintern was silent, but it was not unobserv­
ant or disinterested. By early 1938, various political currents within
the KPJ were laid bare. The next step was deciding which one was
correct, or at least which one was wrong, in its political proposals.
With Horvatin arrested by the NKVD and Miletić marginalized
in prison, most of the disputes in 1938 and 1939 were between the
Temporary Leadership and the Parallel Center. By 1939, the Par­
allel Center was all but defeated. However, Miletić, who had been
released from prison in the late spring of that year, was on his way to
Moscow, ready to pose one final challenge to Tito, then already the
acting general secretary.

” Simić, Tito: svetac i magle, 97.

 In this chapter, I will examine the course of the factional strug­
gle from the beginning of 1938 until the beginning of 1940. In these
two years, the KPJ was transformed and turned decisively to the
left, with most of its World War II-era policies easily traceable to the
late 1930s. Its leadership, too, was fully formed in this period. Tito
successfully presented a political program that the Comintern even­
tually found acceptable, defeating all of his key rivals and becom­
ing the undisputed leader of the KPJ. All of these things, however,
occurred against a backdrop of major turmoil and confusion, with
Tito’s triumph being a consequence not only of skill and intelligence,
but also of chance.
I will begin this chapter by examining the factional conflict
between the Temporary Leadership and the Parallel Center until
the summer of 1938, when Marie and Kusovac were deported from
France, and Tito was summoned to Moscow. I will present the strug­
gle for the support of both the party rank and file and the Comin­
tern leadership, with a particular focus on Tito’s practical steps
toward reorganizing the party in Yugoslavia, which earned him
the attention of the ECCI. From there, I will examine two particu­
lar issues which caused a significant amount of friction within the
party, reaching the rank and file itself, and fully uncovering the cri­
sis of authority which the KPJ was undergoing. The issues were the
ongoing attempts to enforce the party line among the International
Brigadists in Spain, as well as among the Croatian communists, who
refused to run on an independent list in the December 1938 elec­
tion. These two incidents seriously undermined Tito’s claim to party
leadership, although he eventually overcame both successfully. After
that, I will focus on Tito’s time in Moscow in late 1938, when he
finally received the Comintern’s mandate. I will pay special atten­
tion to the final purge of the Old Guard of the KPJ, which took place
from November 1938 until April 1939, and came close to claiming
Tito’s life as well. I will then move to Tito’s enforcement of party
unity throughout 1939, before finally examining Miletić’s last lead­
ership challenge, presented on his trip to Moscow in the second half
150 Stefan Gužvica

of the year. The chapter will end with an examination of Miletić’s

failure and his arrest.

Com rad es in Paris

Treand’s claim that the KPJ Central Committee was considered

effectively nonexistent, and that the Yugoslavs in Paris were to put
themselves under the control of the PCF, was taken very seriously
by the members of the Parallel Center. It could, to a large degree,
have contributed to their inertia regarding internal party affairs in
1938.423 Although they were active on several fronts, they failed to
take any practical steps regarding the situation in Yugoslavia itself,
with the exception of Dalmatia. On this matter, Tito would make
crucial advances in the spring of 1938. Nevertheless, for the time
being, Marić and Kusovac were the only Yugoslavs in Paris with
whom the PCF leaders were willing to talk, giving them an appar­
ent advantage. For his part, Tito gained a crucial ally in these early
months: Lovro Kuhar introduced him to Josip Kopinič, a young
Comintern intelligence operative who had just returned from
Spain.424 Kopinič would become one of Tito’s most important allies
in Moscow over the next two years, submitting intelligence reports
supportive of Tito and hostile to his rivals.
The provisional, self-appointed Central Committee continued
to meet, without Marić and Kusovac. On February 15, Marić was
sacked from his post as organizer of Yugoslav emigres in France.425
This prompted him to act. First, he wrote to Maurice Thorez, the
general secretary of the PCF, telling them that the KPJ’s decision
was illegitimate and that the current leadership consists of wreckers
who are continuing the policies of Gorkić.426 Soon after, Marić was42

42' AJ, 507 CK KPJ - France, 1/29, Kristina Kusovac, “Centralnom komitetu KP Jugo­
slavije,” 1, and AJ, MG 516, 2899, Vicko Jelaska, Autobiografija, 17-18.
424 Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1,74-76.
425 Swain, Tito, 21.
426 RGASPI, 495-277-201, Ivo Marić, “Au camarade Maurice Thorez,” March 30, 1938.
 K UTO 151

reinstated to his post at the request of the PCF.427428Then, he decided

to take the issue to Dimitrov himself. He wrote to Dimitrov in Feb­
ruary 1938, a full month before Tito, who originally addressed let­
ters only to Pieck. This raises interesting questions about his choice
to do so, especially considering the well-established opinion among
scholars that Dimitrov effectively acted as Tito’s patron.128 In light of
these letters, it appears highly likely that Tito only wrote to Dimi­
trov in response to Marić’s initiative towards the Comintern, hoping
to defend himself. Indeed, Tito’s subsequent first letter to Dimitrov
did contain two full paragraphs in which he openly criticized Marić
and Kusovac,429 although he was previously very hesitant to do this,
even with Pieck.
The letters which Marić sent to Dimitrov in February 1938 begin
by pointing out the shortcomings of the party’s choice of cadres. He
first talks about the April Plenum and its consequences, stating that
he abided by the decisions of the Comintern, although he personally
did not agree with them. More specifically, he was against the entry
of Gorkić and Adolf Muk into the Politburo, while arguing that he
still accepted the appointment of Tito and Čolaković at the time.430
Marić was portraying himself as prescient and watchful, somebody
whose political setbacks in the preceding period were a consequence
of Gorkić’s treason. He continued to criticize the potential gorkićevci,
allegedly unmasking their ties to the former general secretary. He
pointed out that, from August 1937 to February 1938, the party was
completely in the hands of these people. Furthermore, he suggested
Tito’s attitude showed that he was their patron and that he willingly
continued the previous, flawed policies of the party.431 Thus, Marić
established the overarching theme of vigilance that would persist

427 RGASPI, 495-277-201, Ba/ibTep, “3aflB/ieHMe tob . MocKBMHy,” September 24, 1938.
428 See, for example, Swain, Tito, 19, Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 47, or Auty,
Tito, 109.
42,4 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 37.
430 AJ, 790/1 Kl, 1938/6, “Rozjenko, Bistri,” February 18, 1938, 3.
431 AJ, 790/1 KI, 1938/8, “Izjava Željezara broj 2,” 2-4.
152 Stefan Gužvica

in the Parallel Center’s letters to the Comintern. His entire second

letter concerned the causes of the mass arrests in 1936 (including
his own), and his belief that the primary responsibility for them lay
with Gorkić.432 He then continued to explain his support for Petko
Miletić, and proposed a new leadership with himself and Kusovac
at the helm, as outlined in the previous chapter. Marić reiterated
his willingness to continue working with Tito. He also claimed
that Tito, by his own admission, had received orders from Pieck to
continue acting as if Gorkić was still the general secretary.433 Com­
paring this to Treand’s aforementioned instructions to the Parallel
Center helps illustrate the contradictory information coming from
within the Comintern, and the degree to which it fomented discord
within the KPJ.
Although Tito was probably aware of Marić’s letters to Dimitrov,
they still did not prompt him to write directly to the Comintern
general secretary. Instead, he wrote to Pieck again, reiterating his
support for moving the KPJ leadership to Yugoslavia and inform­
ing him of advances made in the country, in particular regarding
the popular front and work in the trade unions. He still received no
response on whether he should return to Yugoslavia, as he desired,
or not. The most interesting section of the letter speaks of “middle­
men” who informed him of elements in the army plotting an upris­
ing.434 These “middlemen” made numerous promises, including:
“democratization” (which was left vague); recognition of, and alli­
ance with, the USSR; an alliance with France; and the legalization
of the KPJ. This was Tito’s first expression of radical revolutionary
plans, which were still too outrageously leftist at the time: the party
was supposed to be fighting fascism, not overthrowing the Yugoslav
regime. However, this would become the official attitude of the KPJ
towards Yugoslavia by the time he was appointed general secretary

4<: AJ, 790/1 KI, 1938/7, “Kako sam se upoznao sa Nikolom Červenčićem.”
AJ, 790/1 Kl, 1938/8, “Izjava Željezara broj 2,” 2-3.
Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 26-27.
 m :i o k i : t i i 153

in 1939. Tito’s view was that the ruling class of Yugoslavia would not
be able to effectively withstand the rise of fascism and that a large
majority of it would in fact end up collaborating with the occupiers
in case of a fascist attack. Ultimately, his predictions would turn out
to have been correct.
The following month, Anton Ivanov - Bogdanov, a Bulgarian
communist personally appointed by Dimitrov to go to Spain as a
Comintern representative,435 found himself in Paris. Ivanov was
a member of the Politburo of the Bulgarian Communist Party,
but his role in the Comintern at the time is unclear. He seems to
have been akin to the kind of “instructors” the Comintern used to
send abroad until 1935 in order to enforce its changing party line.
In spite of the informal nature of his work, he seems to have been
actively involved in the operations of several communist parties.
In Paris, he met with Ivo Marić, along with Labud and Kristina
Kusovac. He met separately with Kuhar, but did not look for Tito
or anyone more explicitly connected to his inner circle. Accord­
ing to Marie, Ivanov merely confirmed the information that they
originally received from Treand, further instructing them to remain
in Paris and not to go anywhere.436 This meeting took place just
as Tito was planning to leave Paris of his own accord, in order to
personally take care of party affairs in Yugoslavia. According to
Čolaković, Tito was prompted to act precisely because a Comintern
representative met with leaders of the Parallel Center, but ignored
him.437 The worsening of the international situation which fol­
lowed the Anschluss of Austria on March 11 could also have played
a role.
Tito’s actions were still both independent and cautious, as
he began to largely act on his own, while keeping the Comintern 4156

415 Lazitch and Drachkovitch, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern, 195.

416 AJ, 516 MG, Box 58, 2231/2, “Razgovor sa drugom Ivom Marićem,” 53. There are
no additional sources to corroborate Marić’s claim, and he might have only said this to
discredit Tito.
43 Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 3, 434.
154 Stefan Gužvica

informed of everything he was doing.438 Before his departure to

Yugoslavia, he finally wrote to Dimitrov. Notably, he addressed him
as a “friend,” and always wrote to him on a first name basis.439 In the
letter, he reiterated the successes of the KPJ in Yugoslavia, which he
told Pieck about the month before. He also explicitly emphasized
that individuals in Paris do not represent the leadership of the KPJ,
and that he is going to form a new leadership team in Yugoslavia.
Clearly, he did not want to run the risk of being accused once again
of harboring gorkićevci. Yet, in a much more controversial act, he
showed that he was no longer waiting for clearance to leave Paris
and began sorting out party affairs. Finally, he informed Dimitrov
of the “anti-party” activities of the Parallel Center, and the support
they enjoyed from the PCF.440 Soon after, he departed to Yugoslavia.
April and May of 1938 were extremely successful months for the
KPJ. In April, seven communists were elected to the fifteen-member
Central Committee of the United Workers’ Trade Union Federation
of Yugoslavia.441 The following month, Tito formally established the
new Temporary Leadership, which was composed of nine mem­
bers: three from Slovenia (Edvard Kardelj, Miha Marinko, Franc
Leskošek), three from Croatia (Josip Kras, Andrija Žaja, Drago
Petrović), and three from Serbia (Aleksandar Ranković, Milovan
Đilas, and Ivo Lola Ribar; the latter was an ethnic Croat based in
Belgrade who was also the general secretary of SKOJ).442 Kardelj was
the only one of these nine people who had been close to Gorkić.
Leskošek and Ribar were also Gorkić-era cadres, but the former had
not even met Gorkić once during his mandate in the Politburo, and
the latter had been appointed to Tito and was personally close to

4,8 Swain, Tito, 22.

Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 36-38.
440 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 36-37.
141 Swain, Tito, 23.
442 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 259. This team remained more or less unchanged until
the beginning of World War II. Only Žaja and Petrović were replaced, with Ivan
Milutinović and Rade Končar taking their places. Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 68.
 155

him. Aside from Tito and Kardelj, the inner circle - Đilas, Ranković,
Ribar - had little to no direct experience of the Soviet Union, and
did not pass through the numerous party schools intended for train­
ing and discipling young communists. Therefore, they were never
immersed in the Stalinized culture of the communists there, and
they did not necessarily feel the same kind of loyalty towards the
USSR that those who had lived and worked there felt. This could
have had an impact on the subsequent development and strengthen­
ing of Tito’s independent party line.
Tito had informed Dimitrov of his progress, saying that the
party cadres had achieved unity in the trade union movement, shed­
ding their earlier sectarianism, and that the rank and file was well
connected with “democratic groups and parties.” The latter point
was related to his vision of a party whose members form cells within
legal organizations, consequently moving these organizations
towards the left. Clearly distinguishing himself from his opponents,
Tito dismissed the danger of “Gorkić’s ideas” infecting the rank and
file in Yugoslavia, and criticized the “perestrahovshchiki,” that is, the
excessively vigilant party members who see enemies everywhere. He
expressed his willingness to continue working with Hudomalj, but
subjected both Marie and Kusovac to harsh criticism.413
Meanwhile, the Comintern was paying close attention to both
groups. The second special commission of Dimitrov, Kolarov, Pieck,
and Manuilsky was still in session in March.444 Originally, they were
not particularly impressed by either Marić or Tito. The Comintern
had no way of verifying the mutual accusations of being gorkićevci.
Even without it, the Cadres Department still had plenty of reason
for concern. Tito, for example, was suspicious because of his ties to
Čolaković and Fleischer.445 The Comintern quickly connected Marić
to the left faction and Kusovac to comrades who had been arrested 41

441 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 39-42.

444 RGASPI, 495-20-647, “tob . flwMWTpoBy,” March 29, 1938, 1. The names of all but
Manuilsky are at the top of the report, indicating that it had been sent to all of them.
445 RGASPI, 495-20-647, “tob . flnMMTpoBy,” March 29, 1938, 2.
156 Slef'an Gužvica

on charges of Trotskyism.446 When Tito tried to appoint Kuhar as

head of the party press in April 1938, he was blocked by the Cadres
Department.447 At least in Paris, the party seemed to be in complete
deadlock, with the two factions overruling each other’s decisions.
The situation only began to change after the Comintern had received
Tito’s letters from Yugoslavia.
By June, Tito’s letters and practical achievements had attracted
the attention of Dimitrov, who summoned him to Moscow.448 The
following month, Marić and Kusovac were arrested in Paris by the
French police and deported to Spain,449 for reasons which remain
unclear. At this point, even Treand was wary of them,450 and there­
fore Tito successfully isolated them from the Yugoslav volunteers
there. The process of granting a Soviet visa to Tito was prolonged
until late August, mainly because of the accusations levelled against
him by the Parallel Center. Eventually, he managed to receive the
visa thanks to the efforts of Kopinič. Tito finally arrived in Moscow
on August 24,1938. This in itself was a bold move, given the very real
possibility that he might never return. Marie and Kusovac apparently
did not attempt anything similar, although they seem to have had a
lot more faith in the infallibility of the Soviet security apparatus than
Tito. Over the next five months, after a series of long and excruciat­
ing meetings with the Comintern Executive, and in an atmosphere
in which some proposed leadership members simply disappeared
overnight, the Comintern eventually decided to confirm the Tem­
porary Leadership’s status as the Central Committee-in-waiting.451
Marić and Miletić both continued their oppositionist activities for at
least another year, but the battle had already been lost.

"6 RGASPI, 495-277-201, 6e/iOB, “CnpaBKa - ŽKeneaap MBaH,” March 9,1938; RGASPI,
495-277-1815, Bc/iob, “OBAPOB Oćpafl HnKO/iaeBHH,” February 23, 1938.
117 RGASPI, 495-277-204, AHflpeeB, “Tob. flHMUTpoBy LM.,” April 3, 1938.
14,1 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 55.
AJ, 507 CK KPJ, 1944/583, “Izjava dr. Radivoja Uvalića,” 3.
I5U RGASPI, 545-6-1519, Letter of Treand to Marty, July 26, 1938, and Letter of Marty
to Treand, July 28, 1938.
Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 328.
The Spanish Inquisition

The spillover of the factional struggle into Spain - where over 1700
Yugoslav volunteers fought for the Republic - was virtually inevita­
ble, considering that Paris was a city through which an overwhelm­
ing majority of Yugoslavs had to pass in order to reach the front­
line. Although the situation within the party was very precarious in
the late summer of 1937, Tito took his first steps with regard to the
Spanish volunteers less than a month after the arrest of Gorkić. In
September 1937, he sent Rodoljub Čolaković to Spain with a clear
and modest set of tasks: to accelerate the reassignment of Božidar
Maslarić, the new KPJ representative to the International Brigades;
to meet Yugoslav volunteers at the front to better grasp the situa­
tion; and to see how to help the volunteers away from the frontlines,
primarily the sick and wounded. Čolaković worked closely with
Maslarić in the two-month period that followed, overseeing his
appointment as the new CC representative in Spain. A schoolteacher
from Osijek and a member of the KPJ since 1920, Maslarić would go
on to become Tito’s right-hand man among the Yugoslav volunteers,
ultimately playing a crucial role in enforcing the line of the Tempo­
rary Leadership. This would prove to be a daunting task. Maslarić
and his superiors were accused of being gorkićevci soon after the
news of Gorkić’s arrest began to spread.452453Maslarić was aided in
his work by the old Slovene communist Dragotin Gustinčič, who
was in charge of mail and censorship in the International Brigade
base in Albacete. Additionally, the group had foot soldiers in charge
of gathering intelligence for the Temporary Leadership and writ­
ing reports to the Comintern and the Communist Party of Spain
(PCE) denouncing the comrades who failed to follow the orders of
the Temporary Leadership and its representative.155

452 Vladan Vukliš, Sjećanje na Španiju: Španski građanski rat u jugoslovenskoj istorio-
grafiji i memoaristici 1945-1991 (Banja Luka: Arhiv Republike Srpske, 2013), 25.
453 RGASPI, 545-6-1519, Bt>cob Bacn/i, ‘TlepeHeHb Bonpocw Kacaiomuci, MHCTp. H.K.
Po6epia,“ September 1, 1938; KocTa/iyKa PaMOH, “LJeHTpa/ibHOM KOMHreTy - Bapue-
158 Stefan Gužvica

At the end of 1937, the relations between communists had dete­

riorated considerably, in part also because of the news of the arrest
of Gorkić. However, all of the conflicts predated Gorkić s arrest. The
main conflict was personal, starting as a feud between Gustinčič and
Roman Filipčev, a veteran of the Russian Civil War from Vojvodina.
Both arrived to Spain as political emigres from the USSR, and were
among the few Yugoslav communists in positions of great responsi­
bility behind the lines, heading the censorship and the intelligence
services, respectively. It is interesting to note here that a total of
three Yugoslavs were heads of the International Brigades intelli­
gence, the Servicio de Investigacion Militar (SIM). The first one was
Filipčev, who led SIM from “around December 1,” 1936 until the end
of October 1937.454 The second one was Vlajko Begović, who was in
charge of counter-intelligence from October 26, 1937 until February
6, 1938.455 He shared this post with another Yugoslav, Karel Hatz,
who kept the job even after Begović’s sacking.
Before Parović’s arrival to Spain in April 1937 as the CC repre­
sentative, Filipčev and Gustinčič headed an ad hoc “Balkan Com­
mittee” in the International Brigades, and their dispute appears
to have begun at the time.456 The details of it are largely obscure,
although Filipčev later blamed Gustinčič for losing his post as the
head of SIM,457 and accused him of being a Slovene nationalist.458 It
also remains unknown how Maslarić got involved in this dispute,
but the rivalry between him and Filipčev would later be identified by
the representatives of the PCE as the main source of discord among
Yugoslav volunteers, with Gustinčič becoming less important.

nema”; and RGASPI, 495-70-200a, “Izjava o Spaniji za CK KPJ,” 26-27.

454 RGASPI, 495-277-182, “B OTflen KaapoB KoMMHTepHa, ot On/iHnnoBHHa P.M.,”
August 9, 1939, 2-3.
455 RGASPI, 495-277-17, “Bnorpa(j)MH - BnaflHMHp CTe<j)aHOBMH,” February 10, 1938,
3.
4* RGASPI, 495-70-200a, “Izjava o Spaniji,” 26.
45~ RGASPI, 495-70-200a, “Izjava o Spaniji,” 39.
458 RGASPI, 495-277-182, P.M. Ou/uinnoBMH, “floKnaflHa« aamiCKa o KOMaHflHpoBKe
b I4cnaHHK),“ August 9, 1938, 13.
 159

The political problem above the personal dispute concerned a

group of volunteers led by Filipčev who were, according to Maslarić
and Tito, unwilling to fight. They were all Yugoslav political emigres
from the Soviet Union who questioned the authority of the party
leadership and its representatives on the frontlines. Aside from
refusing to go on the front, they would frequently make attempts to
return to the USSR. Once Gorkić was arrested, their view seemed
vindicated: they claimed that there is no more point in fighting, and
hoped to return to Moscow, where they would wait for the Comin­
tern to resolve the issue of the appointment of the new KPJ leader­
ship.459 For this, they were dubbed the “Returnees” by Tito in his
Comintern report from 1939.460 For lack of a better term, this is also
what I will call their group.
After the news of Gorkić’s arrest reached Spain, the Returnees’
further justified their desire to leave the frontlines, at least in part,
with the belief that gorkićevci, headed by Maslarić, might try to mur­
der them in battle.461 This bred suspicion and conflict among the
quarreling Yugoslav volunteers, further exacerbating the situation.
It appears that the Returnees were the ones who first raised suspi­
cions about the alleged murder of Parović, who preceded Maslarić
as the party representative. The Comintern reported that the gos­
sip spread through the ranks of fighters, and was further prolifer­
ated by Kusovac in Paris,462 who was linked to the Returnees. One
of the most prominent Returnees, Nikola Kovačević-Chudnovski,
was also subsequently Vladimir Dedijer’s source for the controver­
sial claim.463 The conspiracy theories about Parović’s alleged murder
by the communists had never been proven. They were considered by

459 AJ, 790/1 KI, 1939/33, Andrejev, B.N., “Izveštaj o radu u Španiji,” August 31, 1939,
10- 11.
460 Simić, Tito: svetac u magli, 104-105.
461 AJ, 790/1 KI, 1938/12, “Pismo br. 3 za Ota 5.III.1938.” RGASPI, 495-70-200a, “Izjava
o Španiji,” 16, 26, 39.
462 RGASPI, 495-74-589, B. TpoMOB, “Tob . fliiMMTpoBy" May 8, 1938, 2.
4,0 Vladimir Dedijer, Novi prilozi za biografiju Josipa Broza Tita, vol. 2 (Zagreb:
Mladost, 1981),319.
160 Stefan Gužvica

the Comintern to be mere gossip, but this claim still remains wide­
spread to this day, capturing the imagination of historians and the
general public alike.
In spite of their feigned concerns about sabotage by gorkićevci,
the fact that the activity of the Returnees predated the news of
Gorkić s arrest is corroborated by a letter Tito wrote to Fleischer,
unaware of his arrest, in September 1937. In this letter, he com­
plained about the Returnees for the first time, naming Chudnovski
as the leader and “ideologue” of the group.464 Vladimir Ćopić later
claimed that Chudnovski had become famous among the volunteers
for saying “We have entered history - the question now is how to get
out of it.”465 In another anecdote, a young communist reported to
the party an incident from as early as February 1937, when he was
sent by his commander to look for Dimitrije Stanisavljević - Fur­
man, another leading Returnee, who failed to appear in the field of
battle. He allegedly found Stanisavljević enjoying canned meat and
ham eleven kilometers away from the frontline.466
The aforementioned trio of Filipčev, Chudnovski and Stani­
savljević seems to have played a leading role among the Returnees.
They were a very diverse group: Kovačević-Chudnovski was a former
member of the left faction and a part of the temporary leadership of
the KPJ in 1930; Stanisavljević was a former member of the right,
while Filipčev does not appear to have been involved in earlier fac­
tional struggles. Their only common characteristics were that they
had all come to Spain from the USSR, where they had spent many
years, and that they were very deeply involved in early revolutionary

4M Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 3, 94.

465 RGASPI, 4 9 5 -277-191 ( 1), B. Hornm, “CBefleHmt o roroc/iaBCKMX TOBapiimax b
McnaHMH," September 19, 1938, 17.
466 In a colorful anecdote which deserves to be retold here in full, the young volunteer,
Marko Spahić, was reportedly so angry that he pulled a gun on Stanisavljević, and
was held back by another comrade. Stanisavljević then yelled at him, bragging of his
achievements in the Comintern. To this, Spahić replied: “Even if Stalin himself allowed
you to be here, you’re still just a pussy to me.” RGASPI, 495-70-200a, “Izjava o Španiji,”
25.
 HI lO K i: T 161

activity in the 1920s. The group was never large in number: Maslarić
named only ten of them in his 1939 report,167 and one of them,
Vladimir Ćopić, was not actually a member of this mini-faction.
The only other particularly notable individual among the Returnees
was Mirko Marković,467468 who would later be their connection to the
Parallel Center. According to one report, a Bulgarian communist
informed the CC representative that the Returnees were organizing
meetings independently of their respective party organizations.469
The Returnees eventually developed the same doubts about the
Temporary Leadership that Marić and Kusovac already harbored.
The three preserved letters from Maslarić to Tito sent in early 1938
show this very clearly. Maslarić wrote to Tito that he is struggling
to enforce the party line because the new leadership is generally
seen by the volunteers as illegitimate, and that he thinks some of
them might have been in touch with Kusovac.470The CC of the PCE
and the renegade Yugoslav volunteers were not convinced that the

467 AJ, 790/1 KI, 1939/33, Andrejev, “Izveštaj,” 11-14.

468 Mirko Marković (1907-1988), was one of the most colorful figures in the Yugoslav
communist movement. A nephew of Lenin’s friend Vukašin Marković, he organized
armed uprisings with his uncle in Montenegro in the early 1920s in the hopes of spark­
ing a communist revolution. After their failure, he immigrated to the Soviet Union and
finished the KUNMZ. The Comintern then sent him to the United States, where he
worked as an organizer of the Yugoslav diaspora. After returning to Moscow for a short
time in 1936, he went to Spain, where he became the commander of the Washington
Battalion. In Spain, he befriended Ernest Hemingway, who hosted him in Cuba after
the fall of the Spanish Republic. After being allowed to re-enter the United States, he
continued organizing the Yugoslav diaspora and mobilizing them for the war effort.
In 1945, he returned to Yugoslavia and became the first dean of the University of Beo­
grad’s School of Economics. In 1948, he was arrested as a Cominformist and sent to
Goli otok. After his release, he dedicated himself to scientific work and became one of
the pioneers of cybernetics in Yugoslavia. Interestingly enough, in a fascinating mem­
oir published posthumously, Marković does not mention anything about his disagree­
ments with the KPJ in Spain. This is particularly curious since he was imprisoned by
the Yugoslav regime as a Cominformist in 1948, and hence could have chosen to fash­
ion himself as a prescient opponent of Tito a decade before the split, which some others
chose to do.
469 RGASPI, 495-70-200a, “Izjava o Španiji,” 27.
470 AJ, 790/1 KI, 1938/12, “Pismo br. 3 za Ota.”
162 Stefan Gužvica

Temporary Leadership was cleared of gorkićevci or that it had any

authority in the eyes of the Comintern, with Maslarić frequently
accused of being a gorkićevac himself.
The Returnees began actively working together with the Paral­
lel Center at some point. It remains unknown when and how the
two groups came into contact, although subsequent evidence shows
that the two groups were indeed closely connected. After the war,
the correspondence of Kusovac’s ally Hudomalj resurfaced. He kept
in touch with Mirko Marković, in early 1939, and informed him of
what he considered to be the mistakes of the Temporary Leader­
ship.471 Marković was a long-time opponent of Gorkić,472 and was
thus watchful of the Temporary Leadership. Although the extent of
his activity remains unknown, he appears to have played the role of
a double agent. He was certainly in contact with both the Temporary
Leadership and Kusovac during his short stay in Paris in 1938.473
Marković began writing to Hudomalj in February 1939, expressing
his dismay that the party had been taken over by “Trotskyists” and
“other anti-party shitheads,” and explicitly telling Hudomalj that
he considered the Parallel Center to be the true representatives of
the KPJ. Moreover, he stated that he was keeping in touch with Tito
and that he could provide intelligence information on the Tempo­
rary Leadership, as Tito had trust in him.474 Another letter, sent from
Kristina Kusovac to Hudomalj and dated April 13, 1939, in which
she complains of “maslarićevci” arriving from Spain to the Soviet
Union,475 shows that the Parallel Center was well-informed of the
disagreements in Spain even after the fall of the Republic and their
own marginalization in the KPJ.

471 AJ, 507 CK KPJ - France, 1/4, Letter of Marković to Hudomalj, February 18, 1939, 1.
47J Radanović, “Jugoslovenski interbrigadisti pred Kontrolnom komisijom CK KPJ
1945-1949,” 57. Marković had been among the few members of the Group 41 who had
survived the Great Purge, thanks to the fact that he was in Spain.
471 Radanović, “Jugoslovenski interbrigadisti pred Kontrolnom komisijom CK KPJ
1945-1949,” 60.
474 AJ, 507 CK KPJ - France, 1/4, Letter of Marković to Hudomalj, 1.
475 AJ, 507 CK KPJ - France, 1/5, Letter of Krista Kusovac to Hudomalj, April 13,1939,2.
 BKI;OKE TI K 163

Given their connection to the Parallel Center, the question of

why the Returnees took such a relatively passive stance towards
the issue of party leadership remains. They did not seem to have
had their own candidate, and fully relied on their contacts in Paris.
Unlike the Parallel Center itself, they never tried to organize or con­
nect with other opponents of the Temporary Leadership in any way
and their impact among the Yugoslavs in Spain was minor. There is
no evidence that they ever tried to seriously agitate behind the lines
and gain more followers. As already stated, Maslarić mentioned
only ten of them by name and it seems that they did not have more
than a few additional sympathizers. Only one of them ever dared
to raise the issue of the party leadership while in Spain. That was
Stanisavljević, who, according to Maslarić, insisted that the ques­
tion of the new KPJ leadership be discussed among the volunteers,
although the Comintern was strictly against such a proposal.476Even
this could have been a case of mere slander by Stanisavljević’s fierce
opponent.
In general, the behavior of the Returnees leaves the impres­
sion of vigilant Bolsheviks who were confident that the Comintern
would eventually resolve the situation and make the right decision,
although they nevertheless knowingly chose a side in the conflict.
Their belief in the need for a preservation of party cadres for a future
Yugoslav revolution was probably genuine, although it is easy to see
how it would lead their opponents to think they were mere cowards.
Moreover, at least one of them had a legitimate reason to stop fight­
ing: Filipčev’s health condition rapidly deteriorated in 1938 and he
was eventually hospitalized in August of that year.477
Like the Parallel Center, they posed a problem primarily because
of their extensive ties: in this case not only with the Comintern, but

476 AJ, 790/1 KI, 1939/33, Andrejev, “Izveštaj,” 12.

4" RGASPI, 495-277-182, O m iM nnoB M H , “HoK /iaflH afl 3annci<a o K oinaHA upoBK e b
McnaHmo," 3-4. In May 1938, Filipčev was granted permission to leave Spain, but this
did not happen until the evacuation of the International Brigades. RGASPI, 495-277-
182, “Proposicion de la Comision de cuadros extranjeros," May 9, 1938.
164 Stefan Gužvica

also with the Cadres Department of the International Brigades.

Maslarić names two members of the PCE Central Committee, under
the pseudonyms Edo and Yanov, and the head of the Cadres Depart­
ment, Georgi Dobrev - Zhelezov, as their main patrons.478 Edo was
Edoardo D’Onofrio, an Italian communist who was a member of the
PCE and served on the party’s Foreigners Commission.479 Accord­
ing to the sources, he was a close personal friend of Filipčev, and he
supplied Filipčev with advice on how to proceed against the Tem­
porary Leadership.480 Yanov was the Bulgarian communist Dimo
Dichev, who was the head of the Slavic volunteers section at the
Central Committee of the PCE.481 Additionally, Maslarić claims that
the Returnees had connections with the Soviet Embassy in Spain.482
Having arrived from Paris, where he spoke to Marić and Kusovac,
Anton Ivanov - Bogdanov had several meetings with Yugoslav vol­
unteers. He openly sided with the Returnees, and accused Maslarić
of being a gorkićevac.AS} The connections of Kusovac and Filipčev in
effect prevented the Temporary Leadership from enforcing the party
line in Spain, and resulted in a conference which Maslarić saw as a
personal and political defeat.
The main showdown between Maslarić and the Returnees
occurred during the so-called Barcelona Conference, which took
place on August 3, 1938. A total of seventeen Yugoslav communists
were present. The conference was attended by Edoardo D’Onofrio

478 AJ, 790/1 KI, 1939/33, Andrejev, “Izveštaj,” 15.

879 Francesco M. Biscione, s.v. “D'ONOFRIO, Edoardo,” Dizionario Biografico degli
Italiani, vol. 41 (Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 1992). http://www.treccani.
it/enciclopedia/edoardo-d-onofrio_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ (accessed September 3,
2017).
980 RGASPI, 495-277-182, Letter of Filipčev to Edoardo D’Onofrio, April 1, 1938.
481 Nissan Oren, Bulgarian Communism: The Road to Power 1934-1944 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1971), 134-35. I would like to thank John Kraljić for this
insight.
482 AJ, 790/1 KI, 1939/33, Andrejev, “Izveštaj,” 11.
484 RGASPI, 495-277-182, On/innnoBHH, “flo K /ia flH a a a a n iic n a o KOMaHflnpoBKe b
U c n a H m o ," 5.
 I-I-OIU-. T IK 165

for the PCE Foreigners Commission and Dimo Dichev as the head
of the Slavic volunteers section at the Central Committee of the
PCE. Vladimir Ćopić was chosen as the Yugoslav who submitted
a report on the situation at the opening of the meeting. In a later
memoir, Maslarić insisted that the sole purpose of the conference
was to critically evaluate his own work/184 which was only partially
correct. Moreover, even though he claimed D’Onofrio, Dichev, and
Ćopić openly attacked him while supporting the Returnees,183 the
report shows that this was a gross misrepresentation of facts. In real­
ity, they all took quite a neutral stance. This is particularly interest­
ing in the case of Ćopić: even though he was the most prominent
opponent of Gorkić until 1936, he did not appear to have shared the
obsession with unmasking gorkićevci, or the belief that such people
were hiding in the ranks of the Temporary Leadership.
Nevertheless, the proceedings do seem to show that a lot of the
lower-ranking members did perceive the meeting as an opportu­
nity to bring up the perceived errors of Maslarić in front of higher
party organs. Almost all of the KPJ members gathered were against
Maslarić, and the evaluation of his work was extremely negative.
Aside from being called a gorkićevac several times, he was accused of
protecting Trotskyists. Maslarić fought back, accusing the Return­
ees of cowardice and pointing out their inability to perform tasks
they had been ordered to do.486 His response, however, was com­
paratively meek, given the weight of the accusations against him.
Vladimir Ćopić, as the main speaker, took a moderate stance, trying
to reconcile the two groups. He dismissed the dispute as a personal
feud between Maslarić and Filipčev, but claimed that their personal
disagreements were nevertheless leading to a formation of factions
around them.487 According to Maslarić, Ćopić accused him of con-

,M Božidar Maslarić, Moskva-Madrid-Moskva: sećanja (Zagreb: Prosvjeta, 1952), 82.

'"s AJ, 790/1 KI, 1939/33, Andrejev, “Izveštaj,” 15.
4"6 RGASPI, 545-2-79, H. HnKO/iaeBim, “IlpoTOKO/i co6pamin ot 3.VIII. no Bonpocy
BaanMooTHOLueHnn cpefln tob . M3 KDroc/iaBMM h /ichob M.K.n.,” August 3, 1938, 3-4.
4"' RGASPI, 545-2-79, HMKO/iaeBMM, ‘TIpoTOKO/i,” 7.
166 Stefan Gužvica

ducting a poor cadres policy and of favoritism of younger, inexpe­

rienced KPJ members over the older ones.488 While this is correct,
Ćopić did not try to exculpate the old cadres in any way, and also
criticized their refusal to go to the frontline.489 The most damning
accusation actually came from D’Onofrio: he accused Maslarić of
essentially overstepping his boundaries, as there were to be no offi­
cial party representatives in Spain who would report to their parties
directly, without the mediation of the PCE.490 Gustinčič, who was in
charge of censoring the correspondence of all International Brigades
staff, denied the accusation and claimed that Maslarić did not try to
pose as a party representative in any of his letters. This was untrue:
Maslarić had previously informed Tito that there should be no party
representatives, but kept acting as one anyway.491 It appears that
Gustinčič lied to the Comintern representative in order to protect
his close associate and fellow ally in the struggle against the Parallel
Center and the Returnees.
D’Onofrio further concluded that what is happening among the
Yugoslavs was in fact a case of factionalism, although this factional­
ism was caused by personal, rather than political, disputes. There
is no evidence of any formal creation of groups, but informal links
between individuals did in fact amount to a certain kind of fac­
tionalism, as various individuals, such as Maslarić and Gustinčič,
tried to protect each other and put their joint interests above party
rules. The dispute once again brought to the fore the issue of foreign
involvement in the factional struggle. In order to gain legitimacy,
Filipčev reminded everyone that Ivanov, as a Comintern representa­
tive, also suspected that Maslarić is a gorkicevac.A92
Overall, however, the three figures of authority present at the
meeting seemed uninterested in taking sides. While Maslarić was4*

4SS AJ. 790/1 KI, 1939/33. Andrejev. “Izveštaj.” 16.

4S9 RGASPI, 545-2-79, Hm<o/iaeBMH, “npoTOKon,” 2.
490 RGASPI, 545-2-79, HnKonaeBMH, “IlpoTOKOTi” 5-6.
491 AJ, 790/1 KI, 1938/12, “Pismo br. 1 za Ota,” February 4, 1938, 2.
492 RGASPI, 545-2-79, HnKO/iaeBun, “FIpoTOKon,” 3-5.
 KI ORK TITO 167

the target of most of the accusations coming from other Yugoslavs,

and therefore saw the meeting as a major defeat, the senior com­
munists criticized Maslarić’s cadres’ policy and Filipčev’s refusal to
fight with equal intensity. If D’Onofrio was privately sympathetic
to Filipčev and had a personal connection with him, this is not evi­
dent from the official proceedings of the Barcelona meeting.491 The
conclusion, which exists in Spanish, but is absent from the Russian-
language proceedings, stated that Maslarić and Gustinčič abused
their position by continuing to act as party representatives, while
Filipčev gathered around himself those who wanted to return to the
USSR and the “politically weak.”493494 It states that they are unlikely to
end their disputes any time soon, and suggests that they all be sent
out of Spain.
These instructions were never actually followed through. The
epilogue was far more anti-climactic than the proposed expulsion
of a dozen prominent Yugoslav communists. The dispute was not
settled in Spain, and thus Maslarić still had to report on it upon his
return to Moscow in 1939, while Filipčev was under investigation for
over a year in 1939 and 1940.495 Indeed, the disagreement could not
have been dealt with in Spain: Maslarić was arrested for an unre­
lated affair soon after the Barcelona meeting,496 while Filipčev was
hospitalized roughly at the same time, as his condition rapidly wors­
ened. Just a month later, in September, the International Brigades
began to evacuate from Spain. Maslarić and Filipčev were eventually

493 Moreover, D’Onofrio claims to have used his powers to help Maslarić as well, by
protecting him from arrest in March 1938. RGASPI, 545-6-1535, Edoardo D’Onofrio,
“Andreief Boris Nicolaef - Yougoslave,” October 4, 1939, 5.
41,4 RGASPI, 545-6-1519, “Protocolo de la reunion de los cam. yugoslavos convocada
por la Seccion de Cuadros Extrangeros del C.C. del PC de F.spana, el dia 3 de Agosto de
1938,” 3.
495 All the documents pertaining to this investigation can be found in RGASPI, 495-
277-182, in the personal file of Roman Filipčev.
496 Maslarić spent the following half a year in prison, until the charges against him
were finally dropped in February 1939. AJ, 790/1 KI, 1939/33, Andrejev, “Izveštaj,”
19-21.
168 Stefan Gužvica

cleared of all charges. Maslarić stayed in Moscow during the war

and worked as a propagandist, becoming one of only two people (the
other being Veljko Vlahović) who earned the title of People’s Hero
of Yugoslavia without actually fighting in the war. Filipčev, on the
other hand, volunteered for the Red Army in June 1941, and died
defending Moscow.
The Spanish episode, therefore, was not a crucial moment in the
factional struggle. However, it shows similarities to the situation in
Paris, laying bare the powerful transnational networks that influ­
enced intraparty relations at the time. It also shows the passivity
that the Returnees shared with their allies from the Parallel Center.
Although Maslarić, Tito’s most trusted associate in Spain, was side­
lined for the entire second half of 1938, the factional struggle died
down. A more proactive group would have taken the opportunity to
weaken the authority of the Temporary Leadership among the Yugo­
slav volunteers. However, there are no sources which would suggest
that the Returnees did such a thing. The most obvious reason would
be the disarray that the Republic was in at the time: the volunteers
were being evacuated and the state was collapsing. Nonetheless,
if the Returnees had acted, they could have caused a great deal of
trouble for Tito and his Temporary Leadership. The fact that they
had not done so probably accounts for their lenient treatment in the
immediate aftermath of Tito’s takeover of the KPJ. He attempted to
obstruct their careers in the Soviet Union due to their lack of party
discipline,497 but he did not accuse them of treason or expel them
from the party. Even so, most of the surviving Returnees, including
Chudnovski, Stanisavljević, and Mirko Marković, were imprisoned
on Goli otok in 1948.498

,'r Pero Simić, Tito: svetac i magle, 105.

4V!I For more information on the party investigation of Returnees after the war, see
Radanović, “Jugoslovenski interbrigadisti pred Kontrolnom komisijom CK KPJ 1945-
1949.”
Liquidationism and the C ro at Question

The events in Croatia in 1938 and 1939 had far greater significance
than the disputes in Spain. They represented a major blow for the
Temporary Leadership and, had they taken advantage, could have
led to the victory of the Parallel Center. They also illustrate well
the discord and lack of communication between various levels of
the party leadership and the mutually competing groups within
the KPJ. The conflict was directly tied to questions of liquidation­
ism and nationalism. The former related to the proper application of
popular front policy, while the latter concerned the defense of Yugo­
slavia in the case of a fascist threat. Both were burning issues at the
time. The disputes conducted in the language of Bolshevism were, in
this case, inextricably linked to nationalism, as they were justified
by an alleged uniqueness of the Croatian nations position within
Yugoslavia.
At a time when Gorkić was writing his party autobiography in
Moscow, hopelessly trying to save his life, Croatian communists
under Tito’s leadership met clandestinely in the dead of night, in
a forest west of Zagreb, to form the Communist Party of Croatia
(KPH). The communist parties of Slovenia (KPS) and Croatia were
founded as part of the popular front strategy, in an attempt to better
accommodate the local conditions and different political alignments
in these parts of the country.499 The KPH and KPS were intended to
operate as regional subsections of the KPJ, not as separate parties,
and the leadership explicitly stated that this move was not intended
to federalize the party, which was to remain centralized.30” Within
a year, the communists had also founded the Party of the Work­
ing People (SRN), a communist front organization subordinate to
the KPJ.501 It was supposed to operate in the same way as all other

Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 51.

,ou Jelić, Komunistička partija Hrvatske, vol. 1,66.
301 Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 52.
170 Stefan Gužvica

fronts envisioned by the Temporary Leadership: thus, a high-rank­

ing member of the legal SRN would have to comply fully with the
decisions of the underground KPJ organization.502 However, this
organizational hierarchy was not always respected, as a consequence
of both earlier liquidationist practices and a lack of faith in the new
leadership, which still lacked a mandate from the Comintern. This
would lead to a major dispute between the Temporary Leadership
and the KPH over the course of 1938.
Following the KPJ’s failure to form a popular front for the 1935
election, and its change of course after the fall of Gorkić, the Tem­
porary Leadership under Tito did not throw its weight behind the
United Opposition. Instead, the party planned to present a sepa­
rate list of candidates for the 1938 election, guided by the Lenin­
ist belief that the workers’ opposition to the dictatorship should not
merge itself with the bourgeois opposition. Many in the KPH, how­
ever, disagreed, calling for stronger cooperation with the Croatian
Peasant Party (HSS). This call was echoed by the Parallel Center,
as Marić considered that an open electoral confrontation with the
HSS would alienate the Croatian masses, and that tactical accom­
modation was necessary.503 Nevertheless, as mentioned previously,
this did not automatically imply a withdrawal before the HSS on
all fronts - where the Dalmatian communists thought they had a
clear advantage and there was no danger of a government victory,
the KPJ acted independently, through the legal workers’ party. In
fact, Marić had criticized KPH for ordering the Dalmatian commu­
nists to fully abandon activity in the workers’ party and the reform­
ist trade union.504 Tito’s appeals for unity on this matter were not
always successful, primarily because he was merely the acting leader
of the party throughout the course of the year.

502 Swain, Tito, 22-23.

503 RGASPI, 495-20-647, “ t o b . flM M HTpoBy,” March 29, 1938, 2-4; Examples of this tac­
tical accommodation in Dalmatia can also be found in AJ, MG 516, 2246, Josip Rosić,
“Prilog za istoriju KPJ,” 80-81.
SUI RGASPI, 495-20-647, “t o b . flriM H T poB y,” March 29, 1938, 2-4.
 lih I OKI n 171

The first disputes began in March 1938, after the Anschluss

of Austria. This event brought Nazi Germany’s troops to Yugosla­
via’s doorstep, making the threat of war more imminent than ever
before. In response, the KPJ leadership issued a proclamation call­
ing for cooperation not only with the United Opposition, but also
with the Yugoslav monarchist centralists and nationalists who
opposed the government, in order to defend the Yugoslav state.505
This proclamation drew sharp criticism from the KPH, whose lead­
ership stated that such an alliance was out of the question. Some
Croatian communists posited the solution of the Croatian national
question as a prerequisite for Croatian support for a united Yugo­
slavia. Tito harshly criticized such a view as sectarian in his letters
to Dimitrov.506 Although the Croatian question would escalate in
a different way later in the year, this particular incident is notable
for revealing an important feature of the Temporary Leadership’s
strategy. Although liquidationism was the most frequent accusa­
tion employed by Tito against the opponents of his party line, the
KPJ did not really shy away from liquidationist tactics if the unity
of Yugoslavia was at stake. In this particular incident, therefore, the
Temporary Leadership of the KPJ was significantly further to the
right than the KPH leadership. Moreover, it remains unclear how
this call for cooperation with forces of the right correlates with
Tito’s contemporaneous suggestion to Pieck that the KPJ should
support the overthrow of the Yugoslav government and the estab­
lishment of a new, more democratic regime. In the following years,
the line of the KPJ would evolve into a consistent attitude that only
the proletarian left can preserve the unity of the nation, while the
bourgeois forces would inevitably betray it to fascism. This line
clearly distinguished the KPJ from both the Croatian and Ser­
bian nationalists, while affirming their commitment to a federal
Yugoslav state.

Jelić, Komunistička partija Hrvatske, vol. 1, 224.

Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 63.
172 Slefan Gužvica

The Croatian national question took center stage in the run-up

to the December 1938 election. The worsening international situ­
ation made it impossible to further postpone resolving the issue
which the Kingdom had avoided confronting for two decades. The
socialists started approaching the United Opposition again, sensing
that the government’s position was significantly weakened, and that
the time had come for some substantial changes in the internal orga­
nization of the country. Many communists shared the sentiment,
although the Temporary Leadership remained unconvinced.507 The
conflict was publicly played out through the Party of the Work­
ing People, which was expected to contest the election outside of
the HSS-led United Opposition. It profoundly divided the KPJ and
exposed intraparty disagreements to the general public. The dispute
was detrimental to the party’s electoral performance and reputa­
tion. Croatia was one of the communist strongholds in the only free
election in Yugoslavia in 1920, and the party was hoping to repeat
its earlier success. The disagreement between the KPH and the KPJ
leaderships, however, sabotaged this effort.
As already mentioned, the entirety of the KPJ, including its sub­
section, the KPH, was expected to present separate candidates for
the election, unconnected to the United Opposition, through the
SRN. While this did indeed occur in all other parts of the coun­
try, the KPH refused to comply. It did not propose any of its own
candidates, instead fully supporting the United Opposition in all
regions.508 According to one of the participants in the events, secre­
tary of the CC of the KPH Đuro Špoljarić, the decision was reached
during a meeting in Miroslav Krleža’s flat, and was agreed upon by
all present party members, such as himself, Božidar Adžija, Mladen
Iveković, Josip Kras, and Andrija Žaja.509 The problem was, however,
that Krleža was not quite a party member at the time. Although he

507 Swain, Tito, 26.

M,B Jelić, Komunistička partija Hrvatske, vol. 1, 225.
5m Velimir Visković, “Krležina uloga u sukobu na ljevici, I. nastavak,” Republika
LV/3-4 (1999), 62.
 I I OIU TITO 173

was the country’s most prominent Marxist intellectual, he was not in

full agreement with the party on many issues, and was most likely
not formally a member. Therefore, the members of the CC KPH
(Špoljarić, Kraš, and Žaja) had met with their subordinates (Adžija
and Iveković, who led the SRN but were low-ranking communists),
and a non-communist (Krleža) to agree on an issue of party policy,
which ended up being the opposite of the instructions given to them
by the Temporary Leadership. This angered the interim party leader­
ship, with Tito once again bringing up accusations of liquidationism
against his rivals.510While the accusation itself was not mere slander,
Tito’s particular brand of leftism was weak in Croatia, and his oppo­
nents had strong counterarguments to present. The KPH leadership
rightly saw the mass support for the HSS as a sign of its popular per­
ception as the only legitimate defender of Croatian national inter­
ests.511 Therefore, the communists were afraid that open confronta­
tion would be detrimental, further weakening their support among
the Croats. They considered that the only proper application of the
popular front was to understand these circumstances and act in line
with the main representative party of the Croatian nation, which
considered Croatia to be oppressed in Yugoslavia. The notion that
Croatia was a special case was constantly emphasized by the KPH.512*
To Tito and the Temporary Leadership, this sounded a lot like
nationalism. While the KPH began infiltrating the HSS and other
legal organizations which operated within the United Opposition,515
attempting to push them further to the left, the Temporary Leader­
ship accused them of pandering to reactionary elements within the
Croatian national movement. Of course, the KPJ itself was engaged in
similar tactics elsewhere, but did so without such great accommoda­
tion to the non-communists. Furthermore, the focus on legal organi­
zations was presented as another deviation from the proper party line,

510 Swain, Tito, 24.

511 Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 53.
512 Swain, Tito, 24.
511 Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 52.
174 Stefan Gužvica

as work in non-communist trade unions and peasant organizations

was described as liquidationist.514The question of whether it was truly
so requires in-depth microhistorical research of Croatian communist
politics on the ground, which is beyond the scope of my work.
Nonetheless, the accusations coming from the Temporary Lead­
ership were not entirely unfounded. The KPH did constantly shy
away from criticizing the HSS, fearing that any and all such criti­
cism would weaken the communists’ position.515 The same was the
case with the legal SRN, led by Adžija and Iveković. In reality, such
an attitude merely served to make the SRN indistinguishable from
the rest of the opposition. Accepting the authority of the HSS as the
representative of a “Croatian national interest” certainly was not a
way to lead a revolutionary, class-based party. Moreover, the fact
that the communists mostly engaged in politics through the SRN
and the trade unions further vindicated the view that the KPH line
was liquidationist. Like Gorkić before them, the KPH leadership
hoped that such activity would be the best bulwark against future
mass arrests of communists. Tito, on the other hand, saw the estab­
lishment of secret and independent party cells within legal organi­
zations as the way forward, rather than the full absorption of the
communist rank and file into non-communist organizations.
The profoundly entangled conflicts of interest escalated the
most in Dalmatia. For their part, the Dalmatian communists led
by Jelaska and supported by the Parallel Center always insisted that
they worked hard to ensure the leading role of the KPH in legal
organizations, in line with the proposals of the Temporary Leader­
ship.516 Moreover, the Dalmatians, like the Temporary Leadership,
eventually developed the view that the SRN should contest elections
independently, and not as part of the HSS.517 This was all the more

514 Jelić, Komunistička partija Hrvatske, vol. 1, 225-227.

515 Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 52-53.
516 RGASPI, 495-20-647, “t o b . fluM M T poB y,” March 29, 1938, 4.
517 AJ, MG 516, 2899, Vicko Jelaska, Autobiografija, 18; Jelić, Komunistička partija
Hrvatske, vol. 1, 221.
 IIIK )H I- I n o 175

significant because Jelaska had been elected president of the SRN for
Dalmatia and thus enjoyed a high degree of authority. Tito therefore
found himself in a situation where those ostensibly supported by the
Temporary Leadership (the KPH leaders) were pursuing an incor­
rect line, while those explicitly connected to the Parallel Center were
enforcing correct policies, even though the Parallel Center itself was
a proponent of a limited collaboration with the HSS. This extremely
convoluted situation was a serious challenge to Tito’s newly estab­
lished authority. Ultimately, personal friendships and rivalries pre­
vailed over policy considerations. Rather than turning his back on
the Central Committees of the KPH and the SRN in support for
Jelaska and the Dalmatians, Tito focused on bringing the KPH and
SRN into line while punishing the Dalmatian communists, whose
views were much closer to his own.

Factions in the KPH, 1938-1939

n

s
c
i 0) r
u
SRN in Dalmatia The Parallel Center
• Vicko Jelaska ■Ivo Marić
- Ivo Bakljas E • Labud Kusovac
n
a.
• Josip Rosić

Left (independence of SRN) Right (accommododation to HSS) ^ I

--------- — T
Temporary Leadership

KPH
The Temporary - Josip Kraš
Leadership - Drago Petrović
■Josip Broz Tito • Andrija Žaja
• Ivo Lola Ribar
• Vicko Krstulović 1 SRN for Croatia
I - Božidar Adžija
1 • Mladen Iveković
^

Figure 3. Factions in Croatia fro m the Anschluss until the expulsion o f

Jelaska, M arić, an d Kusovac.
176 Stefan Gužvica

A special party committee was set up to investigate the case. Once

again Lola Ribar, as Tito’s most trusted lieutenant, was given the
task of investigating and reporting on the situation in Dalmatia.5*518
The Temporary Leadership eventually decided to punish the high­
est-ranking figures in the SRN (Adžija, Iveković and others), as well
as three leading KPH members, Josip Kras, Đuro Špoljarić, and
Andrija Žaja.519 All were reprimanded, although none were expelled.
The expulsions were reserved for the party leadership in Dalmatia,
which was accused of “liquidating” party work to the point of dis­
solving several local communist branches, and focusing on the SRN
at the expense of the KPJ.520 Jelaska, an old party member who had
never been involved in any factional struggles before, would deny
these allegations until the end of his life. He decided that he would
not go down without a fight. In 1939, Jelaska mobilized the popular
support he enjoyed in Dalmatia. When the SRN expelled him on
the orders of the KPH, the SRN members in Split voted against the
decision, thus directly contradicting the supposed subordination of
the SRN to the communist party.521 This appears to have been as
far as Jelaska’s alleged liquidationism went.522 Moreover, the rank
and file in Split completely rejected collaboration with Tito’s newly
appointed head of party organization in Dalmatia, Vicko Krstulović,
who was booed at all the mass meetings he attended, as the members
insisted on rejecting the CC’s decision to expel Jelaska.523 Although

5IS AJ, 790/1 KI, 1938/34, Letter of Ilija [Lola Ribar] to Oto [Tito], mid-November 1938.
519 Jelić, Komunistička partija Hrvatske, vol. 1, 226.
520 Jelić, Komunistička partija Hrvatske, vol. 1, 235-236.
321 Kvesić, Dalmacija u Narodnooslobodilačkoj borbi, 22.
522 According to Ivan Jelić, the charges of liquidationism were also a consequence of
the fact that Jelaska simply used the SRN due to the lack of a formal party organization
in Dalmatia, which was a consequence of frequent mass arrests. Jelić, Komunistička
partija Hrvatske, vol. 1, 228-230. Tito’s first attack on Jelaska, in a report to the Comin­
tern in September 1938, was not focused on liquidationism but on his “refusal to let
young cadres take up leading positions,” and his comrade Ivo Baljkas’ alleged relations
with Trotskyists. Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 92.
523 Vicko Krstulović, Memoari jugoslavenskog revolucionera, vol 1. (Belgrade: Mostart,
2012), 105.
 IU I OKI I IK 177

already formally expelled, Jelaska was defeated only after repeated

interventions from the Central Committee of the KPJ throughout
1939 and 1940.
Even though Titos main rivals were all marginalized by mid-
1939, the change in political situation seemed to vindicate the views
of the Croatian “liquidationists.” The dismemberment of Czechoslo­
vakia in March 1939 raised concerns over whether Tito’s leftist atti­
tude to the popular front could push segments of the Croatian people
into the collaborationist camp, as had happened in Slovakia. Even if
the dispute was a matter of Croatian national sentiment, and thus
was problematic from a Marxist point of view, it was now inextrica­
bly linked to the struggle against fascism. It seemed that the leftism
of the KPJ had subverted this struggle. As a consequence, Tito would
soon face renewed charges in Moscow, pressed by Marić’s ally Petko
Miletić and his supporters in the Comintern. Tito cleverly procrasti­
nated, only arriving in Moscow in the wake of the Molotov-Ribben-
trop Pact, when the Comintern once again took a leftward shift. The
charges were eventually dismissed and his error forgiven.524
Tito’s thesis on the reactionary role of the bourgeoisie in under­
developed countries could, in fact, be interpreted as Trotskyist, since
this view was developed by Trotsky and the Left Opposition in rela­
tion to the Chinese Revolution in 1925.525 It was certainly in con­
tradiction to the Comintern’s vision of the popular front dominant
until the tacit abandonment of the policy in 1939. However, this does
not mean that Tito was himself a Trotskyist. The obvious major dif­
ference is the acceptance of the Popular Front. Tito, unlike Trotsky,
did not a priori reject the possibility of an alliance with the bour­
geoisie. Rather, he wanted to ensure the leading role of communists
once such an alliance is formed. Tito’s view on the revolution was
primarily rooted in the Leninist idea of turning the world war into
a civil war, which Trotsky too claimed to continue. Geoffrey Swain

Swain, Tito, 25.

Alex Callinicos, Trotskyism (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1990), 10.
178 Stefan Gužvica

claims that, writing in 1940, Tito merited Stalin for “constructing

socialism,” but added that “the revolutionary struggle in capitalist
countries is mainly led by Lenin's thought.”526 Therefore, Tito’s pol­
icy was a hybrid of revolutionary Leninism and what Fitzpatrick has
called Stalins “revolution from above.” His subsequent implementa­
tion of the revolutionary struggle, which was consistently criticized
by the Comintern for being too leftist, and the establishment of the
postwar regime, which was fundamentally Stalinist in spite of some
minor divergences, both attest to this. When the revolution came,
it took the form of a party-guided peasant revolt and an antifascist
liberation war, not of mass worker takeovers of factories and forma­
tion of the soviets.
The only major political casualties of the anti-liquidationist
struggle from Tito’s inner circle were Croatian compromisers with
the HSS. By 1940, Andrija Žaja and Drago Petrović were no longer
in the party leadership, replaced by ardent leftists Rade Končar and
Ivan Milutinović (the former a Croatian Serb and the latter a Mon­
tenegrin). More solidly pro-Yugoslav Croatian communists, such as
Vladimir Bakarić, took leading posts in the KPJ. The only one of
the three Croatian “rightists” who kept his position at the head of
the party was Josip Kras. In Slovenia, a conflict analogous to the
one with KPH had taken place, where certain Slovenian comrades
had asked for the party to be completely independent from the KPJ.
However, it was sorted out by Kardelj and Tito before the Slovenian
party was formally established.527 The Croatian case illustrates both
Tito’s flexible attitude to intraparty dissenters with whom he enjoyed

526 Geoffrey Swain, “Tito: The Formation of a Disloyal Bolshevik,” International Review
of Social History XXXIV (1989), 262. Swain cites a single source - a note handwritten
by Tito on the margins of Proleter and kept in the Archive of Yugoslavia - to support
his claim. However, this observation is consistent with Tito’s overall ideological out­
look and practical policies, and is therefore not without merit.
527 Edvard Kardelj, “Sećanje na dolazak druga Tita na čelo Partije,” in Tito četrdeset
godina na čelu SKJ 1937-1977, ed. Vladimir Bakarić (Belgrade: Narodna knjiga, 1978),
63-64; France Filipič, “Josip Broz Tito i osnivanje KP Slovenije,” Vojnoistorijskiglasnik
1/1987, 131-139.
 U1.1( i: t i t ( 179

close personal ties, and his harshness toward rivals with whom he
might have shared political views while having opposing political
ambitions. Furthermore, Jelaska’s expulsion in spite of his immense
popularity serves as an example of how democracy was extinguished
in the Stalinized party, with democratic centralism now meaning
that the rank and file was to obey the decisions already reached by
the leadership. Finally, the KPH controversy showed a latent poten­
tial for factionalism along national lines, which would persist in the
party after 1940,528 as well as for divergences from Stalinism which
would intensify after the communist takeover of power.

Tito in Moscow

When Tito arrived in Moscow on August 25, 1938, the Yugoslav

community of the famous Hotel Lux, in which foreign commu­
nists resided, was reduced to four individuals, himself included. The
remaining three were primarily alive because they had spent most of
the Great Purge abroad, namely in Spain: Josip Kopinič as a Comin­
tern operative, Vladimir Ćopić and Janko Jovanović as command­
ers in the International Brigades. By August, the Yezhovshchina was
gradually subsiding, although the situation was far from secure for
anybody. Two of these three Yugoslav comrades in the Hotel Lux
would be dead by the spring of 1939. Throughout his time in Mos­
cow, Tito was close to Kopinič and Ćopić, frequently meeting them
for coffee and political discussions.529 No information exists about
the relationship of this group to Jovanović, who returned to the
USSR in May 1937, after having lost his right arm in battle, to work
for the International Control Commission. Tito also enjoyed the
support of Mita Despotović, a Yugoslav who worked for the Cadres

52B A dated - yet still relevant - overview of factionalism along national lines, particu­
larly in the KPH, is available in Banac’s With Stalin against Tito. A more recent sum­
mary of the topic is Hilde Haug’s Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia.
529 Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1,89.
180 Stefan Gužvica

Department of the Comintern.530 However, Tito’s most significant

ally was the aforementioned Bulgarian communist Ivan Karaiva­
nov (Spinner) who worked in the Cadres Department. Most authors
agree that Karaivanov was Tito’s vital supporter in the Comintern at
the time, and allege that he had close ties to the NKVD.531 Kopinič
was perhaps the most explicit, stating that Karaivanov would deliver
his positive reports on Tito “to a special group within the NKVD.”532
However, specific details of Karaivanov’s relationship to Tito at the
time are largely unknown, and neither man ever spoke about it in
much detail. The reports he might have written to the NKVD have
not yet been uncovered. If they do in fact exist, they could have
played a role in Tito avoiding arrest, but were unlikely a factor in
Comintern’s decision-making, aside from confirming that he was
not a suspicious figure.
In spite of these connections, Tito’s situation was far from secure.
The biggest problems came from accusations by the Red Army offi­
cer Ivan Srebrenjak, and the ECCI member, and head of the Cadres
Department, Georgy Damyanov - Belov. The former was support­
ive of the Parallel Center, while the latter was distrustful of Yugo­
slavs in general. In March, Damyanov wrote that Tito had attempted
to desert the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, that he was
unable to account for his whereabouts for several months at the
time (implying he might have worked with the Whites), alleged that

530 Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1, 107; I n 1939, he had replaced the arrested Horvatin
in the Pieck Secretariat as a Yugoslav representative. From 1940, the final Yugoslav
representative to the Comintern would be Veljko Vlahović, who remained in that post
until the Comintern’s dissolution in 1943. Huber, “Structure of the Moscow apparatus
of the Comintern and decision-making,” 50; RGASPI, 495-1 l-20d, “ IllT aT bi Ha 1940 r. -
CeKpeTapnaT t o b . n iiK a ,” October 10, 1939. Despotović supported the Cominform
Resolution in 1948 and was murdered while allegedly trying to escape to Hungary, in
1951.
331 Pirjevec, Tito i drugovi, vol. 1, 91; Goldstein, Tito, 163; Bondarev does not examine
the allegation that Karaivanov worked for the NKVD, but focuses on his work in the
Comintern and posits that he was the person in charge of Balkan affairs in the Cadres
Department. Bondarev, Misterija Tito, 102.
532 Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1, 95.
 nr.I-OKI-: TITO 181

he might have had contacts with the Yugoslav police, exposing his
close links to Gorkić, and pointed out that his wife, Lucia Bauer, had
been arrested by the NKVD.533 Srebrenjak was even harsher in his
accusations. Kopinič claims he found out about these when meeting
Manuilsky s deputy and Stalin’s confidant, Andrey Andreyev, in the
summer of 1938. Srebrenjak was trying to prove Tito’s spy links by
pointing out that his closest associates from SKOJ, Lola Ribar and
Boris Kidrič, were both the sons of wealthy Yugoslav capitalists,
that his current lover Herta Haas was a Gestapo agent, and that the
increase in party press circulation at a time when the Comintern was
not sending any money meant he must be receiving funding from
the police.534 Kopinič refuted all the accusations. However, he had
to personally speak and write to Dimitrov several times before Tito,
invited in June, was actually granted an entrance visa in late August.
Tito’s fate in Moscow was, up until a point, inextricably linked
to that of his party comrade, Vladimir Ćopić. A veteran communist
and an ally of Tito’s from the left, Ćopić had further cemented his
legendary status among Yugoslav communists during the Spanish
Civil War, when he led the famous Abraham Lincoln Brigade. As
an old opponent of Gorkić, he had been finally vindicated. Ćopić
and Tito were very close at the time, and all sources seem to sug­
gest that he was seriously considered for a leading post in the KPJ
(although his earlier factionalism was probably an obstacle to him
being appointed general secretary). In 1935, Ćopić had proposed to
make Tito the Yugoslav member of the ECCI instead of Gorkić.535 In
April 1938, five months before Ćopić’s arrival in Moscow, Tito rec­
ommended him in a letter as the only one of two intellectuals who

353 Simić, Svetac i magle, 91. Bauer was arrested as part of a “German operation” of the
NKVD and her downfall apparently had nothing to do with her husband. For details
on her arrest and execution, see Aleksandr Vatlin, "Nu i nechist." Nemeckaya operaciya
NKVD v Moskve i Moskovskoy oblasti, 1936-1941. gg. (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2012), 123-
124, 175.
531 Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1, 85-87.
533 RGASPI, 495-277-191 (I), B. Honnn, “O momx o T H o u ieH u n x c 6 w buim mm H /ieH asin
pyKOBOACTBa K.n.K).,” September 23, 1938, 8.
182 Stefan Gužvica

should be considered for one of the leading positions in the KPJ (the
other being Maslarić).536 Consolidation of the Yugoslav party was
most likely one of the main reasons for Ćopić’s recall from Spain.
His demeanor in the summer of 1938 testifies that he was aware of
his candidacy for a leading position in the KPJ. At the Barcelona
Conference of Yugoslav volunteers, he took a “centrist” position,
criticizing both sides of the conflict, in a manner typical of aspiring
party leaders during Stalinism. He took the same attitude during
his brief stay in Paris, where he met both Čolaković and Kusovac
in an attempt to make sense of the dispute between the Temporary
Leadership and the Parallel Center.537 It does not seem that he was
interested in taking sides in Paris, but he clearly aligned with Tito as
soon as they both reached Moscow.
Soon after his arrival, Tito and Ćopić were obliged to write
reports on arrested individuals with whom they had connections to
the Cadres Department. Among others, Tito wrote about Horvatin,
Đuro Cvijić, Fleischer, Gorkić, Filipović, and the recently deceased
Stjepan Cvijić,538 as well as his wife Lucia Bauer.539 Predictably, these
reports contained self-criticism for his own lack of watchfulness,
and an account of his ties with the arrested party members. Aside
from Gorkić, he was not particularly close to anyone, and the whole
document is quite short. It is highly unlikely that Tito was aware
that some individuals, like Sima Marković and Sima Miljuš, were
still alive, or that Tito intended his reports to contribute to their
subsequent execution, as alleged by Pero Simić.540 All that Tito had
written about Marković was that he knew him as a leader of the right
faction, and stated he did not even know Miljuš personally. While

536 Očak, Vojnik revolucije, 350.

537 Očak, Vojnik revolucije, 355.
538 Simič and Despot, Tito - strogo poverljivo, 86-90.
539 Simić, Tito, 407-409.
590 Simić and Despot, Tito - strogo poverljivo, 89. A critique of Simić’s claims already
exists in Bondarev’s Misterija Tito, as well as in his article “Sima Marković - mos­
kovske godine (1935-1938).”
 HKI-ORi; TITO 183

obsessing with Tito, Simić completely missed the fact that Ćopić was
submitting identical reports, even though he had seen both men’s
personal files. Simić also seems ignorant of the fact that neither Tito
nor Ćopić could have engaged in denunciations of comrades as spies
even if they wanted to, as that would have raised uncomfortable
questions of why they had been silent about it for so long.
Ćopić’s reports on fellow Yugoslav emigres are much more
detailed and, at times, much more critical than Tito’s. Although they
both engaged in a ritualized explanation of personal ties to arrested
comrades, Ćopić knew them more intimately and collaborated with
them more closely, all of which contributed to suspicions which sur­
rounded him. Ćopić’s report outlines in detail his relationships with
various leading Yugoslav communists over the course of two decades.
He was honest about being a member of the left faction, as well as
withdrawing from party politics in 1926 because of attacks from the
right, and claimed that both leftists and rightists attacked him in
1929 because of his anti-factional attitude.541 He is particularly criti­
cal of Gorkić and Filip Filipović, but in both instances he admits he
never even doubted they could be traitors and enemy agents.542 Ćopić
was particularly focused on denying his ties to Stjepan Cvijić, who,
unbeknownst to him, had died in NKVD’s custody just a month
before. The two had a personal and political falling out at the end of
1936, and Ćopić’s report reflects this. He claimed to have only worked
with Cvijić because he thought him to be a “lesser evil” in compari­
son to Gorkić.543 This probably did not sound like a very convincing
explanation for why he was closely collaborating with a person who
was arrested as an alleged spy. Nevertheless, Ćopić, like Tito, did not
tell the Cadres Department anything they didn’t already know. They

541 RGASPI, 495-277-191 (I), H o iim h , “O momx OTHOiueHMflx c 6 biBuiMMM M/ieHaMM

pyKOBOACTBa K.n.IO.,” 2-7.
542 RGASPI, 495-277-191 (I), H ofimm , “O momx o th o u jc h m a x c 6 i>ibu im m m M/ieHaMM
pyKOBOflCTBa K .n .IO .” 3, 9-10.
541 RGASPI, 495-277-191 (I), HonMH, “O momx OTHOiueHMflx c 6 biBuiMMM M/ieHaMM
pyKOBOflCTBa K.n.IO.,” 11.
184 Stefan Gužvica

focused on what they saw as political errors, and their reports do not
contain dubious claims such as allegations of their comrades’ ties to
foreign intelligence agencies. If anything, they emphasize their own
ignorance of the other emigres alleged treason.
Tito and Ćopić were still not cleared of all suspicion, but they had
the attention of the Comintern. They first appeared before the ECCI
Secretariat on September 17, 1938. For the duration of the factional
struggle, they were the only Yugoslavs to have been given the privi­
lege of directly presenting their case to the ECCI. Tito presented his
lengthy report on the conditions in Yugoslavia and within the KPJ.
In the weeks prior to that, he also wrote reports on his own activity
since April 1936, the conditions in the trade unions, the popular
front, the SRN, and the communist party itself.544 Presumably, the
members of the ECCI familiarized themselves with these reports
in the weeks preceding the meeting. The discussants were Ćopić,
Manuilsky, Otto Kuusinen, and Mikhail Trilisser. These discussants
later constituted a third special commission (with Tito instead of
Ćopić), which was tasked with drafting a resolution based on the
decisions from the meeting.545 The meeting left open the possibil­
ity of Damyanov - Belov and Stella Blagoeva’s future involvement,
as leading members of the Cadres Department. Dimitrov was not a
part of the commission, because he had left on holiday ten days ear­
lier, delegating his duties to Kussinen and Trilisser.546 The presence
of Trilisser was a consequence of this rather regular bureaucratic
exchange of responsibilities, rather than an indication of a renewed
NKVD investigation into the KPJ.

544 The reports are available in Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 74-119.
’4S RGASPI, 495-18-1256, “Protokoli (A) Nr. 339 der Sitzung des Sekretariats des EKKI
vom 17.9.38." Other luminaries who were presented at this fateful meeting for the KPJ
were ECCI member Eugen Varga, Stanke Dimitrov - Marek from the Pieck Secretariat,
Soviet party secretary Andrey Andreyev, and, for the Cadres Department, Damya­
nov - Belov and Stella Blagoeva.
546 RGASPI, 495-18-1256, “ P a c n p e jte /ie H iie o6fl3aH O CTeii Ha BpeMH OTcycTBHB t .
flitM H T p o B a," S e p te m b e r 7, 1938.
 i: h tc 185

Tito’s political proposals were the same as those he had made

earlier in 1938: returning the party leadership to the country, rid­
ding the KPJ of factionalists, and building up the popular front in
Yugoslavia without allowing for the dominance of bourgeois par­
ties.547 He condemned Marić and Kusovac for factionalism and sub­
verting party work in Dalmatia and in France. Unlike the emigres
in the USSR he knew little about, Tito actually accused the Parallel
Center leaders of ties to Trotskyists.548 Moreover, he petitioned Tril­
isser, now in charge of the Yugoslav special commission, to inter­
vene with the PCF in order to ensure French communists’ support
for the Temporary Leadership.549 Finally, Tito identified the Parallel
Center’s attempts to prop up support for Petko Miletić as the leader­
ship candidate. He claimed they did it with the support of Stjepan
Cvijić.550 There are no other sources which point to Cvijić’s more
extensive involvement with Marić and Kusovac. It is unclear if he
had really worked with them, or if Tito was merely slandering them
by connecting them to an arrested comrade and Ćopić’s nemesis.
Meanwhile, Ćopić had reported extensively on Yugoslav activity
in the Spanish Civil War. He gave very positive accounts of young
Yugoslavs who distinguished themselves in battle, and wrote recom­
mendations for their future party work. In particular, he wrote favor­
ably about Ivan Gošnjak, Košta Nad, Peko Dapčević, Mate Vidaković,
Aleš Bebler, and Veljko Vlahović.551 All of them, aside from Vlahović,
who had lost a leg in Spain, became leading organizers of the anti­
fascist resistance and the revolutionary war in Yugoslavia in 1941.
Though Ćopić was not Tito’s only source on the events in Spain,
he may as well have been the main influence. Ćopić continued to

597 Goldstein, Tito, 162.

,98 RGASPI, 495-277-201, “CnpaBKa - >Ke/ie3ap PlBaH,” September 21, 1938.
389 RGASPI, 495-277-201, Ba/ibTep, “Tob. MocKBHHy - 3a>tB/ieHne,” September 24,
1938.
50 RGASPI, 495-277-364, Ba/n/rep, “He3AopoBwe BB/iemui n (|rpaKL;noHHi>ie TeH/ieH-
Uhm Me>Kfly KOMMyHncTaMn Ha KaTopre b MmpoBrme,” 112.
531 RGASPI, 495-277-191 (I), Monim, “CBefleHMB o ioioc/iaBCKMX Tonapnmax b Mcna-
HHM," 13.
186 Stefan Gužvica

view Maslarić and Gustinčič unfavorably, and they never rose to a

prominent leading position in the KPJ, even though they had been
Tito’s main enforcers of the party line for about a year. Ćopić’s close
relationship with Tito in the fall of 1938 was not without impact. It
appeared as if a new leadership, composed of Tito and Ćopić as the
only remaining reputable Yugoslavs in Moscow, was looming on the
horizon.
Just as it seemed that the issue of the KPJ leadership was nearing
its resolution, Tito and Ćopić were left to wait again. Instead of receiv­
ing a response on the fate of their party, they were given the task of
translating Stalin’s book History of the All-Union Communist Party
(Bolsheviks): Short Course into Serbo-Croatian. The third translator
was most likely Janko Jovanović.552 Although highly significant, this
new job left them with a continued sense of both uncertainty and
urgency. During this time, Tito wrote to Dimitrov twice, claiming
that the impending December elections in Yugoslavia meant they
should meet as soon as possible, and that he should leave the Soviet
Union.55354He received no reply. According to Kopinič, he even tried
to convince Dimitrov to take Ćopić under his protection in mid-
October, after hearing that Ćopić was facing accusations from the
NKVD.553 If this plea existed, it also went unanswered. Exactly two
months after his return to Moscow, on November 3,1938, Ćopić was

552 Ridley, Tito, 139. Several authors, including those who edited Tito’s collected works,
say that the third translator was Horvatin, which is impossible because he had been
dead for over half a year by this point. The fact that it was actually Jovanović is corrobo­
rated by William J. Chase, since a report printed in his book mentions Jovanović as an
employee of the International Publishing House. Chase, Enemies Within the Gates?,
354. It is highly likely that they were all hired at the insistence of Karaivanov, who
worked in the International Publishing House at the time.
s-' Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 124, 130.
S54 Venceslav Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1 (Belgrade: Rad, 1983), 97-98. Allegedly,
after Ćopić was arrested, Tito tearfully protested in the company of Kopinič. Kopinič
is a deeply unreliable narrator who frequently attempted to embellish his own role in
events, and it is not too far-fetched that he did the same for his friend and comrade. As
such, this claim should be taken with a grain of salt, as the relationship between Tito
and those executed requires further research.
 m;i o k i : u t o 187

arrested by the NKVD in the Hotel Lux, together with Jovanović.

A participant of the October Revolution, a founder and one-time
leader of the KPJ, and the former commander of the Abraham Lin­
coln Brigade, Vladimir Ćopić was shot half a year later.555
It remains unclear why Tito was the only one of the three who
was not taken away by the NKVD. Kopinič says that he only nar­
rowly escaped arrest, but does not share anything beyond that, most
likely because he did not know either.556 A couple of weeks later, Tril­
isser - who was part of the special commission for Yugoslavia and
had close ties to the NKVD - was also arrested, just two days before
Yezhov himself.557 At this point, Tito’s last remaining allies in Mos­
cow were Kopinič and Karaivanov. Despite claims to the contrary by
many historians, Dimitrov does not seem to have been particularly
sympathetic to Tito or the KPJ in general. The claim about Dimi­
trov’s alleged patronage of Tito always comes back to Tito himself.558
The documents, however, show that this is plain wrong. Most likely,
Tito invented this in order to legitimize the myth of Dimitrov’s
alleged support for Yugoslavia in the Soviet-Yugoslav Split, during
the final year of his life.
Nevertheless, Dimitrov desired to draw the issue to a close. He
brought back Kolarov to replace Trilisser,559 and Kolarov had a much
more favorable view of Tito than the rest of the special commis­
sion. By the end of December, Kolarov was insisting that the Tem­
porary Leadership should be recognized as the new ruling body of
the KPJ, granted the financial funds they requested, and given full
control over the party newspaper.560 Dimitrov himself had replaced
Kuusinen as soon as he returned from holiday. The special commis-

m“MonbiH-CeHbKO B/ia/rnMup MBaHOBHH,” in “CnncKH wepTB,” MEMORIAL, acces­

sed March 27, 2017, http://lists.m em o.ru/d36/f66.htm .
556 Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1, 93.
557 Goldstein, Tito, 165.
558 Auty, Tito, 109, 129-130.
559 Goldstein, Tito, 166.
560 Pirjevec, Tito i drugovi, vol. 1, 94.
Stefan Gužvic.

sion now consisted of Manuilsky, Kolarov, and Dimitrov, just as in

early 1938. The only difference was the absence of Pieck.
Dimitrov was still unconvinced by Tito’s achievements. On
December 30, he met Tito in the presence of Damyanov and Stella
Blagoeva, who were brought in from the Cadres Department, as had
been planned in September. Tito repeated the need to return the
leadership to the country, reported on the work of the SRN, and tried
to discredit the Parallel Center. Dimitrov called both him and Marie
factionalists, proclaimed his work to be “worthless,” and stated that
his leadership was considered only temporary by the ECCI. He also
accentuated the need for communists to take a leading role in legal
organizations as the basis of the popular front. Tito was explicitly
told that the ECCI did not trust him, and that he was not to present
himself as the secretary of the KPJ. A decision about the leadership
was to be reached by a party “consultation” in the country.561 How­
ever, the resolution on party work that Tito penned with Kolarov
was accepted by the ECCI on January 5, 1939.562 Two days later,
Manuilsky wrote to Dimitrov insisting on Tito’s removal, due to his
alleged involvement in the failed mission of sending Yugoslav volun­
teers to Spain in the spring of 1937.563 This once again slowed down
the procedure, and it took two more weeks for Tito to once again be
granted a permit to leave the Soviet Union and continue sorting out
party affairs.
Before returning to Yugoslavia, Tito spent several days in Paris.
He informed Marić and Kusovac that they did not have a mandate
from the Comintern.564 He then met with Srebrenjak, their intel­
ligence contact, and Raymond Guyot, a member of the PCF cen­
tral committee,565 presumably to give them the same information.

561 Simić, Tito: Svetac i magle, 95-99.

562 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 229.
563 Simić and Despot, Tito - strogo poverljivo, 93. Manuilsky, formerly close to Trotsky
and a patron of Gorkić, was probably excessively vigilant due to fears for his own life.
564 Goldstein, Tito, 169.
365 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 329.
 Ill K)IU T!T( 189

He had sorted out the party’s finances, enabling the KPJ’s relative
independence, in spite of renewed monetary aid from Moscow.
Donations from the vast Yugoslav communist emigre community
in North America, as well as from certain rich families in Yugo­
slavia who supported the KPJ, became the main source of the par­
ty’s income.566 By late 1940, the party had at its disposal about 350
full-time organizers, who were receiving regular salaries and were
dedicated exclusively to revolutionary work.567 This helps explain
the incredible efficiency with which the communists prepared for,
and then started, the uprising in the summer of 1941. The fiscal
limbo that the party was in between August 1937 and January 1939
made Tito rely on alternative sources of income. The Comintern’s
disciplinary measure thus unintentionally contributed to greater
autonomy of what was to become its maverick party. This approach
had made Srebrenjak suspicious about the party’s finances in 1938,
although he was wrong to claim that Tito was secretly receiving
money from the Yugoslav police.
On March 15, 1939, the Temporary Leadership met for the
first time in the Slovene town of Bohinjska Bistrica. There, they
heard Tito’s report on the crisis in the party and the instructions
of the Comintern. They expelled all the factionalists (including
Kusovac, Marie, and Miletić), punished the Croatian party lead­
ership for liquidationism, and agreed on a detailed plan for the
reorganization of the national, provincial and local branches of
the KPJ.568 Notably, the minutes from the meeting explicitly refer
to the group as the Temporary Leadership, and acknowledge that
the Yugoslav question in the Comintern had not been formally
resolved. The promised “party consultation” took place on June 9
and 10, in a village outside of Ljubljana, and the Temporary Leader­
ship was now formally confirmed as the Central Committee of the

Auty, Tito, 137-138.

567 AJ, 516 MG, 2951, “Sećanja Petrović Nikole za period 1935-1941. g.,” January 21,
1966,43.
Simić and Despot, Tito - strogo poverljivo, 95-98.
190 Stefan Gužvica

KPJ.569 The newly appointed “overseer” of the KPJ, Vladimir Pop-

tomov (Gromov), submitted a favorable report to the ECCI, saying
that Tito had revived the work of the party in Yugoslavia.570
Given that the first, and subsequently most controversial, deci­
sion of the Temporary Leadership in March was to expel party
members who had been arrested in the USSR, I would like to
briefly reflect on that issue as well. Some authors, most notably Pero
Simić and Zvonimir Despot, allege that those arrested communists
who were still alive at the time of their expulsion were shot on the
orders of the Temporary Leadership.571 Eleven prominent Yugoslav
communists were shot in Moscow one month after the Tempo­
rary Leadership expelled them from the KPJ, on April 19, 1939. Of
those individuals already mentioned, the executed were Vladimir
Ćopić,572 Janko Jovanović,573 Sima Marković,574 Košta Novaković,575
Simo Miljuš,576 Jovan Martinović-Mališić,577 Vilim Horvaj,578 and
Radomir Vujović.579 The additional three murdered Yugoslavs were

569 Goldstein, Tito, 172.

570 Another Bulgarian communist working in the Cadres Department, Poptomov later
became the Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and a staunch opponent of Tito after
1948. RGASPI, 495-18-1306a, TpoMOB, “HH(j>opMauHfl o paćoTe KFI lOroaiaBwn aa
nocneflHne Mecaubi no MaTepwanaM nonyneHbiM M3 CTpaHbi,“ June 4, 1939, 1.
571 Sim ić and D espot, Tito - strogo poverljivo, 95-96.
372 “HonbiM-CeHbKO BnaflHMMp MBaHOBHH,” in “CnncKH atepTB,” MEMORIAL,
accessed March 27, 2017, h ttp ://lists.m em o.ru/d36/f66.h tm .
5-3 “UpeHOBCKHii flyuiaH riaBnoBHH,“ in “CnwcKH >KepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed
M arch 27, 2017, h ttp ://lis ts .m e m o .ru /d ll/f3 1 9 .h tm .
579 “MapKOBHH OiM a Mn/iaiueBHH,“ in “CnncKH atepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed
March 27, 2017, h ttp ://lists.m em o.ru/d21/f458.htm .
373 “UparaneBau fleTp neTpoBHM,“ in “CnncKH wepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed March
27, 2017, h ttp ://lists.m em o .ru /d ll/f3 08.h tm .
376 “Ky6ypMH 14/ibfl reoprHeBHH,” in “CnncKH wepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed March
27, 2017, h ttp ://lists.m em o.ru /d l8/f349.h tm .
377 “MapTbiHOBHH-MaJiHuiMH Mb 3 h naB/ioBim,” in “CnncKH >KepTB,” MEMORIAL,
accessed March 27, 2017, http ://lists.m em o.ru/d22/f2.h tm .
378 “BenHH MnnaH," in “CnncKM >KepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed March 27, 2017,
http://lists.memo.ru/d4/f45.htm.
379 “/I mxt OpaHU flMHTpHeBHH,” in “CnMCKM >KepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed March
27, 2017, h ttp ://lists.m em o.ru/d20/f252.htm .
 n i:io iu ;. m o 191

no less important: Akif Šeremet580 was another former leader of

SKOJ and a member of the party leadership in the early 1930s, who
was exiled for Trotskyism in 1932; Robert Valdgoni581 was a promi­
nent Yugoslav veteran of the Russian Civil War and a member of
the Left Opposition in the Bolshevik Party in the late 1920s; and
Ernest Ambruž - Richter582 was a Croatian communist who orga­
nized Yugoslav political emigres in France.
It is absurd to presume that a temporary leadership of a com­
munist party, which the Comintern barely trusted enough to give
a provisional mandate, enjoyed the necessary authority to order the
NKVD to execute somebody. The most likely explanation is that the
Temporary Leadership possessed no exact information about the
fate of these individuals,583 although they could have presumed that
they were, at best, sent to a gulag. In all likelihood, these reputable
Yugoslav communists were shot following a joint decision of the
VKP(b) Politburo, the NKVD, and the state prosecutor to execute
198 members of a “counterrevolutionary right-Trotskyist conspira­
torial organization” on April 9, 1939.584
However, the exact reasons for their execution, as well as the
question of why it was ordered by the highest organs of the Soviet
state - including individuals such as Stalin, Beria, and Vyshinsky -
remain a mystery. Even if the Temporary Leadership did not cause

580 “Beprep Kap/i Moch<()obhh,” in “CnncKH wepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed March 27,
2017, http://lists.memo.ru/d4/fl83.htm.
581 “By/ibirHH A/ieKcen Mnxan/iOBHH,” in “CnncKH JKepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed
March 27, 2017, http://lists.m em o.ru/d5/f401.htm .
582 “PnxTep AM6pyu-3pHecT,” in “CnncKH >KepTB,” MEMORIAL, accessed March 27,
2017, h ttp ://lists.m em o.ru/d28/fl44.h tm .
583 A good example of the prevalent lack of information is the aforementioned report
on Janko Jovanović discovered by William J. Chase (see note 552). This report was
drawn up at the request of Dimitrov in February 1941 in order to release Jovanović
from the gulag. Even Dimitrov, as the general secretary of the Comintern, was com­
pletely unaware of the fact that Jovanović had already been dead for two years when his
request was made.
584 S.A. Melchin, A.S. Stepanov, V.N. Yakushev, “Cra/inHCKne cnncKH - BBe;teHne,”
MEMORIAL, accessed March 27, 2017, http://stalin.m em o.ru/im ages/intro.htm .
192 Stefan Gužvica

these people’s deaths, there is little reason to suspect that any of the
leading communists ever doubted that those arrested in the USSR
were indeed guilty.585 Nevertheless, an interesting incident involv­
ing Tito is worth mentioning. In June 1939, Miroslav Krleža, who
was at the time being denounced as a Trotskyist for his opposi­
tion to the Purge, secretly met with Tito, as the two had been close
friends for over a decade. He inquired about “our Siberian graves,”
as many of the executed were his close friends. According to Krleža,
Tito admitted that these executions were indeed “a problem,”
but added that the threat of fascism was a much bigger problem,
and therefore the executions should not be critically discussed at
this point.586

Miletić in M oscow

The Parallel Center was not lying idle during Tito’s takeover of the
party. During the course of 1939, Kusovac and Marie returned to
Paris, while Miletić was released from prison and headed to Mos­
cow. It appears that, during this time, Kusovac and Marić had
become aware of the fact that their own leadership bid would come to
naught, so they threw their weight behind Miletić as their long-time
associate, and the most reputable opponent of Tito. The expulsions
did not discourage them or their supporters, who believed now more
than ever that a showdown with the usurpers from the Temporary
Leadership was fundamental to the survival of the party. As men­
tioned before, Mirko Marković, one of the most prominent Return­
ees in Spain, who was in Havana with his friend Ernest Hemingway
at the time, wrote to Hudomalj in February 1939, explicitly telling
him that he supports the Parallel Center and is willing to work for
them as a double agent.587

SNS Dilas, Memoir of a Revolutionary, 271-272, 303.

SH<’ Goldstein, Tito, 176.
587 AJ, 507 CK KPJ - France, 1/4, Letter of Marković to Hudomalj, February 18, 1939.
 HH-OKI; T IK 193

Upon his return from Spain, Anton Ivanov was still gathering
information on the KPJ. He met Čolaković in Paris at the end of
December 1938, and demanded that he write a report on the party’s
work in the Yugoslav election. He was clearly aware of the incident
with the KPH leadership, even though Čolaković himself, isolated
from party affairs, did not know about it. Ivanov also told Čolaković
about the terrible state of interpersonal relations between Yugoslavs
in Spain, although he clearly did not want to give out the details.588 It
remains unclear who Ivanov was working for, but if he had reported
on the meeting with Čolaković, it was probably sent directly to
Dimitrov who, back in Moscow, was still skeptical of the Temporary
Leadership. It is highly likely that Ivanov was meeting with Marić
and Kusovac, although there are no sources to confirm this.
Golubić remained the main source of information for the Paral­
lel Center. He appears to have realized that the battle was lost and
set about attempting to mitigate the damage. In May, he informed
Kristina Kusovac of the victory of the Temporary Leadership, add­
ing that he tried to save at least her and Labud from expulsion. In
his view, the organizations in the country kept running throughout
the period, and Tito’s connections at the local level ensured his vic­
tory in the factional struggle. Most of them were not discouraged,
although they were becoming increasingly desperate. Kristina and
Labud Kusovac insisted several times that all supporters of the Par­
allel Center should personally petition Dimitrov, Thorez, and Guyot,
informing them of the situation in the Yugoslav party.589 While the
contents of these letters remain unknown, the very choice of figures
they wrote to is quite telling. They addressed the leading members
of the ECCI, rather than the ICC, which was in charge of the issue
of expelled party cadres. This suggests that their goal was still not
merely to overturn their expulsions, but to generate a fundamen-

5#* Čolaković, Čolaković, Kazivanje o jednom pokoljenju, vol. 3, 513-515.

5IWAJ, 507 CK KPJ - France, 1/8, Letter of Kristina Kusovac to Hudomalj, May 17,
1939, 1-2; AJ, 507 CK KPJ - France, 1/9, Letter of Labud Kusovac to Hudomalj, May 29,
1939, 2.
194 Stefan Gužvica

tal change of party leadership. Marić later claimed that he was still
treated as a “temporary representative” of the KPJ by some French
comrades.590
The primary sources corroborate this claim, although it was
becoming increasingly obvious that the French comrades were tu rn ­
ing away from the Parallel Center. They had no choice but to accept
Kuhar as the party representative in Paris after the ECCI informed
them that Tito had been given a mandate from the Comintern.591
The Temporary Leadership used the opportunity to raise the issue
of the Parallel Centers suspicious use of party funds. A special com­
mission was set up, concluding that Marić and Kusovac were unable
to account for most of the money spent by the Yugoslav Committee
for Aid to Republican Spain between October 1937 and September
1938.592 It is probably impossible to ascertain whether this was true
or not, as both sides accused each other of embezzling money at
some point.
Nevertheless, certain parts of the PCF still trusted the Parallel
Center, or were at least undecided on the issue of whom to support.
As late as August of 1939, Treand refused to meet Tito.593 At the same
time, Marić was still attempting to present himself as the representa­
tive of Yugoslavs in France. His supporters wrote to the PCF, outlining
Kuhar’s alleged sabotage of the popular front efforts among the work-

5.0 AJ, 516 MG, Box 58, 2231/2, “Razgovor sa drugom Ivom Marićem,” 53.
5.1 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 230. The Parallel Center soon found out, as their one­
time supporter Andre Heussler began sending all Yugoslavs in Paris to Kuhar. Kuhar
was probably the most hated member of the Temporary Leadership, as Marie had
originally hoped to sway him to their side, but ultimately failed. In their internal cor­
respondence, Kuhar was referred to as “Korošec,” a nickname which referred to his
native region of Carinthia/Koruška. However, it could have also been intentionally
pejorative, as the leader of the clerical-conservative Slovene People’s Party leader was
named Anton Korošec. Kuhar’s brother Alojzij was a Catholic priest and a member of
Korošec’s party, which caused the Parallel Center to both ridicule and suspect Kuhar.
AJ, 507 CK KPJ - France, 1/5, Letter of Kristina Kusovac to Hudomalj, April 13, 1939,1.
592 AJ, 790/1 KI, 1939/14, “Zapisnik o pregledu blagajne Nac. komiteta za pomoć Rep.
Spaniji,” March 10, 1939.
593 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 335.
 HKl-OUi: TIT< 195

ers and students.594After the fall of the Spanish Republic, Andre Marty
informed Tito that Marić was trying to agitate among the Yugoslav
volunteers, who were at the time placed in the French internment
camps. Marić claimed to be the only real authority on party matters,
and stated that Kuhar is a fraud who does not have a mandate to rep­
resent the KPJ.595 Still, the fact that Marty, the former political com­
missar of the International Brigades and a leading PCF cadre, was now
directly informing Tito of the plots against him, showed how much the
standing of the Temporary Leadership had improved.
In order to put an end to this, the new Central Committee
applied the same strategy that was successfully implemented in the
Mitrovica prison a year and a half earlier: they tried to win over
the key supporters of the Parallel Center. The most serious and suc­
cessful attempt at “conversion” concerned Hudomalj; as a friend and
close associate of Kuhar since the early 1930s,596 he was the logical
choice. By the summer of 1939, Tito was openly courting him. In
March, he had already made Hudomalj the editor of the Slovenian
emigres’ newspaper in France, and in July, he suggested that Hudo­
malj replace Marić as the organizer of Yugoslavs in France.597 The
Central Committee thus managed to kill two birds with one stone:
a key supporter of the Parallel Center was won over, while the PCF
was swayed by the nomination of a candidate whom they trusted
much more than anybody from Tito’s circle. The Parallel Center was
dismayed, but powerless, as Hudomalj informed them of his convic­
tion that the Temporary Leadership obviously had a mandate from
the Comintern, and that this must be respected.598

594 RGASPI, 495-277-204, KyioHflWMH, “ LJeHTpa/ibHOMy K O M m eTy K n O p a H im n . ”

595 RGASPI, 495-277-204, AHflpe M apm , “CeKpeTapwaTy KoMnapTmi lOroc/iaBMn,”
April 12, 1939.
596 Ervin Dolenc, “Kuharjeva skupina v vodstvu Komunistične partije Jugoslavije,” in
Prežihov Voranc - Lovro Kuhar: pisatelj, politik, patriot, ed. Aleš Gabrić (Ljubljana and
Vienna: Institut za novejšo and Slovenski znanstveni institut, 2010), 80.
597 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 61.
59" For the correspondence between Kusovac and Hudomalj, see AJ, 507 CK KPJ -
France, I/9-I/13.
196 Stefan Gužvica

Things were not much better in Yugoslavia. Jelaska was still

fighting, but Miletić was defeated in Sremska Mitrovica. The new
Prison Committee, elected in January 1939, was composed entirely
of Tito’s prominent supporters.599 Upon his release in June 1939,
Miletić met with Lola Ribar, as he had demanded to meet someone
from the newly formed leadership.600 However, Ribar was the worst
possible choice. A son of a prominent bourgeois politician and an
intellectual, Ribar had no chance of convincing Miletić that he was
wrong about the new Central Committee. Therefore, this last-ditch
attempt to pacify Miletić was either clumsily botched or intention­
ally sabotaged. As the party organizations composed of Wahhabis
were gradually being purged, Miletić was now determined to do
something which Marić and Kusovac had both failed to do: get to
Moscow. He succeeded. Traveling via Bulgaria and Istanbul, he
arrived on September 25,1939. Again, the support of Bulgarians was
instrumental: according to Kopinič, Damyanov personally arranged
Miletić’s arrival, still hoping that he would replace Tito as general
secretary.601 It is highly likely that he also enjoyed the support of
Anton Ivanov, although there are still no sources about Ivanov’s fur­
ther involvement. When Miletić finally arrived in Moscow, it was
under the auspices of the Central Committee of the International
Red Aid (MOPR), which had access to the funds necessary to ensure
the emigration of a former political prisoner like Miletić. Accord­
ing to Marić, he and Kusovac were supposed to come to Moscow
from Paris at the time as well. Golubić had arranged their travel

599 It was led by Stanko Paunović, Ivan Maček, Mihael Servo, Paško Romac, and Bane
Andrejev. They were, respectively, a Serb, a Slovene, a German, a Croat, and a Macedo­
nian. This committee was an overt way to affirm the pro-Yugoslav and popular frontist
orientation, as opposed to the anti-Yugoslav ultra-leftism of the Wahhabis. Pijade was
not elected, as he had only three more months left in prison. AJ, 513 Moša Pijade, Box
17, 111-2/56, “Kaznionički komitet izabran u Mitrovici posle likvidacije frakcije Petka
Miletića,“ January 1939.
600 Kovačević, “Petko Miletić,” 64.
<’0' Cenčić, Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1, 111; Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 5, 264.
 IH I OKI TITO 197

documents, but the plan was abruptly cancelled due to the outbreak
of World W arll.602
The reason why certain high-ranking figures in the Comintern
were willing to help Miletić in the first place was that Tito’s policies
seemed to have been diverging too much from the popular front.
From his shy inquiry to Pieck on whether the communists should
support a potential army uprising in early in 1938, to his repudia­
tion of support to HSS at the end of that year, Tito seemed to be
pushing a line that could easily be interpreted as “sectarian,” and
therefore, Trotskyist. In response to the Nazi occupation of Czecho­
slovakia, Tito called for a “people’s government,” and called for the
Croatian people to resist the temptation presented by Hitler grant­
ing Slovakia a quasi-independent state.603 He condemned the far-
right “frankovci” as traitors, but made no mention of HSS whatso­
ever. This could have raised suspicions about Tito not being attentive
enough to the Croatian national question, and such carelessness
could cause Croats to overwhelmingly support the Nazi occupation,
just as the Slovaks did. The Czechoslovak historian Vilem Kahan
later claimed that Jan Šverma, the Czechoslovak party leader and
ECCI candidate member, had been sent to Yugoslavia in late 1939 to
dissolve the KPJ.604 However, according to the memory of the Yugo­
slav communist Nikola Petrović, who actually hosted Šverma in Bel­
grade, he was there in order to be able to eventually reach Prague
and organize the resistance there.605 Nevertheless, Šverma visited
the Second Slovene Party Conference at the end of the year, and was
quite impressed, sending a favorable report to the Comintern.606
The Comintern could only have been satisfied with Tito’s work after
August 1939, as it had once again turned to the left after the Molo­

602 AJ, 516 MG, 2231/9, Ivo Marić, “Podatci o mojem radu,” September 20, 1965, 16-17.
601 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 165-167.
601 Vilem Kahan, “The Communist International, 1919-1943: The Personnel of Its
Highest Bodies,” International Review of Social History 21/2 (1976), 155.
60:’ AJ, 516 MG, 2951, “Sećanja Petrović Nikole,” 19-24.
60'' Swain, Tito, 27.
198 Stefan Gužvic«

tov-Ribbentrop Pact. After the Soviet efforts at forming an anti-fas­

cist alliance failed due to the apparent hostility of Great Britain and
France, the Comintern and the Soviet leadership viewed World War
II as a “Second Imperialist War,” essentially arguing that there was
no difference between Nazi Germany on one side, and Britain and
France on the other. Tito’s view that, in Yugoslavia, the bourgeois
parties should not be supported because they would not oppose fas­
cism was now complementary to the view of the Comintern leader­
ship. However, what would ultimately save Tito was that his final
opponent was undoubtedly more “sectarian” than he was.
Tito had been in Moscow since September 2, and Miletić there­
fore had to begin his offensive as soon as he arrived. Luckily for Tito,
his prior repudiation of collaboration with HSS was no longer seen
as an act of ultra-leftism. He seemed to have been more politically
prescient than those high-ranking members of the Comintern who
saw him as straying away from the popular front line. He under­
stood that the anti-fascist alliance was doomed and that the West­
ern European powers still feared communism’s alleged expansionist
goals more than fascist imperialism. Therefore, the ECCI was less
willing to give the benefit of the doubt to Tito’s detractors: when
Miletić arrived to Moscow, the ECCI obliged Red Aid to find him
employment on the outskirts of Moscow, because they did not want
him to wreak havoc and divisions among Yugoslav emigres in the
Soviet capital.607
Tito was, for the time being, in the clear. However, his troubles
were not over yet. Vladimir Poptomov was gathering information
from both sides of the factional conflict, and accusations against the
Temporary Leadership and its supporters continued to pour in.608
The most controversial case concerns Tito’s relationship with Dra­
gan Miler-Ozren, a Yugoslav of Czech origin who, from 1938, ran

607 RGASPI, 495-277-364, Ty/iaeD, “UK MOI1P CCCP - Tob. BorflaHOBy,” September
29, 1939.
60S RGASPI, 495-11-360, PpoMOB, “B O T fle/i KawpoB MKKM,” April 14, 1939.
 BFI-ORF TITO 199

the German section of the International Publishing House, a post to

which he was appointed after almost all of his German colleagues
were arrested and shot.609 Several authors allege that he accused Tito
of inserting “Trotskyist formulations” into the Serbo-Croat transla­
tion of Stalins Short Course.610 On the other hand, Ozren’s wife, Ida
Radvolina, insisted that he did not attack Tito, but that a certain
Walter (who she believed was in fact Tito) attacked Ozren, falsely
believing him to have been involved in the factional struggles of the
1920s.611 Primary sources from Ozren’s file show that this was not
the case: the only person who had denounced Ozren was Richter, not
Walter.612 The only documents thus far discovered in the Archive of
the Comintern confirm that Ozren did criticize grammatical errors

609 Mary M. Leder, My Life in Stalinist Russia: An American Woman Looks Back
(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001), 147. Dragan Ozren
(1908-1951) was one of the most fascinating forgotten figures in Yugoslav communism.
Born Dragan Miler in Travnik to a mixed Czech-Croat family and raised in Osijek, he
became a Marxist while attending a Jesuit Lyceum. He studied architecture in Prague,
where he was involved with the Czechoslovak avantgarde and the communist youth.
He had to leave Prague because of his communist activity, moving first to Berlin and
then to Moscow in 1931, where he took the name Dragan Antonovich Ozren. Due to
his extensive linguistic knowledge (he spoke eight languages by this time), he began
working for the Comintern’s International Publishing House. During this period, he
befriended many leading leftist intellectuals, such as Gyorgy Lukacs, Andre Breton,
Julius Fucik, Mikhail Sholokhov, and Sergey Tretyakov. He worked as a propagandist
during the Spanish Civil War and World War II. In 1943, Ozren finally joined the Red
Army, becoming a part of the First Yugoslav Brigade. According to the account of his
wife, despite being a Soviet citizen, he was arrested by the Yugoslav secret police and
interrogated for several months after the liberation of Belgrade. However, other sources
claim that Tito personally saved him from interrogations for anti-party activity. After
his release, he worked in publishing again, collaborating with leading Yugoslav intel­
lectuals such as Ivo Andrić, Desanka Maksimović, Oskar Davičo, and Moša Pijade.
Arrested again in August 1948, Ozren was sent to the Goli otok prison camp, where he
died in 1951.
610 Pirjevec, Tito i drugovi, vol. 1, 93; Goldstein, Tito, 364.
611 Ida Markovna Radvoljina, Dugačko pismo koje nije stiglo do primaoca (Sremski Kar­
lovci and Novi Sad: Izdavačka knjižarnica Zorana Stojanovića, 2011), 277-278.
612 RGASPI, 495-277-1827, npMBopoTCKa«, “Pacc/ieflOBamie no Jte/iy tob . 03pnHa
flparaHa AHTOHOBnna,” November 26, 1936. Richter was the pseudonym o f A dolf
Weiss, a com m unist from the town o f Osijek in Croatia.
200 Stefan Gužvica

in the translation, but mention nothing of allegations of Trotsky­

ism, or of Tito personally.613 Jože Pirjevec claims that the accusations
actually came from the German communists, who wanted to dem­
onstrate their vigilance to the Cadres Department.614 However, the
most probable theory comes from Tito’s collected works, according
to which the supporters of Miletić fabricated these charges.615 The
most likely explanation regarding Ozren is that his benign report
was simply used for much more menacing purposes than its author
had intended.
Either way, the charges against Tito were dismissed. The head
of the ICC, Wilhelm Florin, was allegedly sympathetic to Tito and
decided to help him.616 Aside from Florin, Tito enjoyed the contin­
ued support of Karaivanov, Kopinič and Despotović, and finally
gained the trust of Dimitrov.617 Despotović was employed by the
Pieck Secretariat,618 becoming the first Yugoslav hired there since
the arrest of Horvatin in February 1938. Although the Bulgarians
remained dominant in the Balkan Section, this was a sign of a grad­
ual improvement of the stature of the KPJ, and particularly of Tito’s
allies, in the Comintern. Moreover, Tito was given room to defend
his more controversial policies, such as the choice of cadres, and he
made a compelling case in support of the appointment of Ribar as
the secretary of SKOJ.619Tito presented his report on the party to the
ECCI on October 23, 1939. It was received favorably,620 and Tito was
by now clearly treated as the de facto leader of the KPJ.

61■’ RGASPI, 495-18-1311, ‘TeHepa/ibHOMy cexpeTapio MKKM t o b . r.M.fluMHTpoBy.

CeKpeTapio MKKM t o b . fl.3.MaHyunbCKOMy,” December 22, 1939, 6.
611 Pirjevec, Tito i drugovi, vol. 1, 93.
',IS Josip Broz Tito, Sabrana djela, ed. Pero Damjanović, vol. 5 (Belgrade: Komunist,
1981), 264.
Ridley, Tito, 139-140; Goldstein, Tito, 179.
617 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 5, 264.
hl" RGASPI, 495-18-1275, “ M aM eH eHne b WTaTHOM p acnncaH M M Ha 14-e a n p e n f l.”
M‘' Petričević, Lolo, 122.
620 Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 5, 265. Tito’s collected works wrongly state that this took
place on November 23. The Comintern files show that it actually took place a month
 Encouraged by this development, Tito set out to discredit his
final opponent. Instead of the planned offensive, Miletić had quickly
found himself on the defensive. Given his ultra-leftism and tendency
to surround himself with suspicious characters, Tito’s task was not
too difficult. Aside from Antun Franović, who had betrayed the Dal­
matian party organization to the police in 1937, Miletić also col­
laborated with Ljudevit Trilnik, a technical university student from
Prague, who became a police informant and might have been the
main culprit for the failed attempt to send volunteers to Spain in the
spring of 1937.621 Moreover, Tito pointed out that, upon his release,
Miletić was allegedly allowed to travel freely through Yugoslavia,
something that was unthinkable for released communists.622 Before
his arrival in Moscow, he is said to have visited several party orga­
nizations in Montenegro, Kosovo, and Macedonia, gathering sup­
port against the new Central Committee. Miletić claimed that he
managed to do so because he bought fake documents from a fellow
Yugoslav citizen. The International Control Commission, however,
was not convinced: how did a well-known communist convict who
had just left prison manage to obtain falsified documents without
getting caught?623
Two other pieces of information proved even more damning. In
March 1938, when Filip Filipović was arrested by the NKVD, he con­
fessed in his interrogation that he had been recruited into an “Anti-
Soviet Trotskyist organization within KPJ” by Miletić in 1929.621
Although there is, of course, no evidence that either Filipović or
Miletić had participated in such a group, this means that the NKVD

earlier. See RGASPI, 495-18-1296, “Protokoli (A) Nr. 503 der Sitzung des Sekretariats
des EKKI vom 23.X.1939.” Interestingly, Tito’s detractors, such as Damyanov and Iva­
nov, were not present at the meeting, and the discussants were all his supporters, such
as Kolarov, Florin, and Gromov - Poptomov.
Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 4, 257, 374.
622 Simić, Tito: Svetac i magle, 103.
M> RGASPI, 495-277-364, ICC Report on Miletić, October 1, 1939, 2.
,’2'1 Vladimir Nikolaevich Haustov (ed.), Lubyanka: Sovetskaya elita na stalinskoy gol-
gofe, 1937-1938 (Moscow: Mezhdunarodniy fond “Demokratiya,” 2001), 191.
202 Stefan Gužvica

almost certainly had their eye on Miletić from the moment of his
arrival. Even without his conflict with Tito and his political devia­
tions from the Comintern line, he would have been a suspect. This
was almost certainly unknown to both Tito and Miletić at the time,
but could have only been to Miletić’s detriment. The other incrimi­
nating fact concerned Miletić’s behavior in police custody seven
years prior.
Tito got a hold of the interrogation documents from 1932, which
proved that - despite claims of heroism - Miletić had actually con­
fessed to many of the accusations against him to the police, revealing
a great deal about the inner workings of the party. The documents
were provided through Đilas by Miletić’s lawyer Bora Prodanović,
whom Miletić angered by accusing him of being a police spy. Đilas
would later claim that Miletić did not give away the real identity
of any of his comrades, and that much of what he confessed was
merely what the police already had proof of.625 Although Đilas’
claim appears to have been correct, the interrogation file was only
one aspect of Miletić’s work that aroused suspicion. It became all the
more suspicious because of his own claims of heroic defiance and
the personality cult communists had later built around him.
Tito then also set out to discredit him politically, exposing his
political line, which the Comintern could have only interpreted as
damaging for the KPJ. Kopinič translated Miletić’s earlier resolution
of the Prison Committee, thus demonstrating a series of ultra-left
errors, such as continued cooperation with Croatian and Mace­
donian separatists in prison, calling the methods of the Yugoslav
regime “fascist,” and identifying all those willing to take a more
conciliatory attitude towards the prison authorities as Trotskyists.626

625 Đilas, Memoir o f a Revolutionary, 179. Jelena Kovačević corroborated this claim by
examining the court records and concluding that every single one of over fifty com­
munists implicated in the Miletić case was subsequently cleared of all charges due to a
lack of evidence. Kovačević, “Petko Miletić,” 67.
626 RGASPI, 495-11-343, IlepeBOfl c cepćcKoro Bokiuhh, “143 TiopMbi MnTpoBHitbi,
Peao/uouMfl o6mero co6paHua Kon/ieKTMBa,” January 16, 1940, 3-4.
 Miletić attempted to counter these accusations. Two years prior,
Bela Kun attempted to clear himself of the charges against him in
an equally stubborn way. Rather than accepting the new line of the
Comintern and engaging in self-criticism, his defense was to stick to
ultra-leftism, which was interpreted as a sabotage of the party line.627
Both before and during that process, he collided with many of his
fellow comrades, alienating them and strengthening their belief that
he might be intentionally sabotaging the Comintern in the service
of a foreign power. Miletić essentially did the same. Even his forty-
page defense letter written to the ECCI represented an affirmation
of the “class against class” policy, painting any cooperation with the
non-communist left as “anti-communist,” and declaring that the
Central Committee of the KPJ was full of traitors.628 Such reckless­
ness naturally appeared to be another act of sabotage, giving weight
to the otherwise flimsy allegations of actual treason presented by the
Temporary Leadership and its supporters. Miletić was arrested on
January 5, 1940, before even getting a chance to personally present
his grievances to the ECCI. In September of that year, he was sen­
tenced to eight years in the gulag, where he died on May 27, 1943.629
This is the only known case in which Tito contributed to the
arrest of a fellow party comrade. He did it indirectly, through
Kopinič and his other associates, but it would be naive to claim he
was not hoping for, and working towards, Miletić’s arrest. It would
be equally naive to claim Miletić did not intend the same scenario
for Tito. He was hoping to address the ECCI directly at one of the
meetings of the Secretariat, but was sent to the ICC instead.630 As
the Great Purge subsided, the state of emergency that engulfed the
Soviet state and the Comintern had temporarily ended. Therefore,
Miletić was sent to the control commission, which had dealt with

627 Chase, “Microhistory and Mass Repression,” 472.

628 Kovačević, “Petko Miletić,” 69.
629 RGASPI, 495-277-364, Information document on Miletić’s death and rehabilitation,
October 27, 1988, la.
830 RGASPI, 495-277-364, ICC Report on Miletić, October 1, 1939, 1.
204 Slefan Ciužvica

expelled party members before the Purge began. There was no

basis for sending him to the ECCI. The Comintern had gradually
returned to normal functioning, although Miletić’s detainment had
shown that the modus operandi of the NKVD had remained intact,
and that ghosts of past accusations could loom over any communist
who would fall out of favor in the future.
At the time of Miletić’s arrest, Tito had been gone from Moscow
for over a month. He was in Istanbul, where he was held up due to
visa issues. He finally arrived in Yugoslavia on March 15, 1940,631
and began preparations for a party congress which was intended to
formally confirm his primacy over the KPJ. Although he did not
receive permission from the Comintern to hold a party congress due
to safety concerns, he organized the Fifth Land Conference in Octo­
ber 1940, in a house on the outskirts of Zagreb, found for him by
Kopinič. The 105-strong conference was a party congress in all but
name. It was much bigger than the Fourth Congress, organized in
1928, and it confirmed the appointment of Tito as general secretary
of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
There were two major reasons for Tito’s success in the final
stages of the struggle. The first concerns his proper understanding
of the Comintern line. Both the Parallel Center and Miletić were fix­
ated on their personal rivalries, and essentially engaged in a witch
hunt against everybody who they perceived as supporters of their
rivals. Tito, on the other hand, largely avoided the issue, proceeding
with business as usual, and proposing a very clear set of policies.
In particular, his success at returning the party leadership to the
country, and his break with Gorkić’s liquidationist policies, coin­
cided with what the Comintern expected. Even when he disobeyed
the Comintern line by going too far in his leftism, he saved him­
self through what Swain has called “the tried tactic of disingenuity
and procrastination.”632 Miletić, on the other hand, was not able to

Tito, Sabrana djela, vol. 5, 268.

Swain, Tito, 25.
 m:i o r i : r u c i 205

understand when he was going too far. When Tito’s actions caused
suspicion in the Comintern, he proceeded with caution; when
Miletić’s work raised eyebrows, he persisted to his own detriment.
Even if Tito had been snatched by the NKVD during his stay in
Moscow as Horvatin had (which could have happened in November
1938), somebody with views similar to Tito’s would have been more
likely to take over than Miletić. The Comintern required “Bolshe­
vization” as understood in the context of the Popular Front period,
not in the form of Miletić’s outdated sectarianism.
The second major reason was Tito’s proactive approach to inter­
nal party affairs. He prevailed because he showed more initiative,
demonstrating that the communist parties were not expected to
just blindly wait for orders. There has been a general tendency to
reduce the KPJ to a mere puppet of the Comintern in the interwar
period. However, Tito’s success shows that agency was both required
and helpful for an ambitious party cadre like himself. Marić, and
particularly Kusovac, proved to be much more skilled when it came
to mobilizing the transnational networks of power and influence
within the Comintern: they had supporters on the ECCI, in the
ICC, in the Cadres Department, in Soviet military intelligence, in
the NKVD, and in the French, Spanish, and Bulgarian communist
parties. However, they never presented a viable vision of the post-
Gorkić KPJ. They knew that Gorkić was a problem, but they lacked
a solution. The Comintern noticed this, and it effectively disarmed
Tito’s opponents.
The most obvious example of the crucial distinctions between
Tito and his opponents is the Croatian question. Largely caused by
the crisis of legitimacy experienced by the Temporary Leadership,
this was the most serious spillover of the factional struggle into
Yugoslavia and among the party rank and file, as Tito’s faithful sup­
porters abandoned him to pursue a different line. A more skilled
politician would have used this to undermine Tito, but it appears
that Marić and Kusovac did not even try. They and Miletić were
masterful at obstructing Tito’s attempts to enforce a unified party
206 Stefan Gužvica

line, but they failed to take advantage of disunity once it appeared.

Instead of being the beginning of the end of Tito’s leadership bid, the
Croatian question showcased two important traits of his leadership
style. The first was the affirmation of his leftism: giving any primacy
to the Croatian question over the Yugoslav question was seen as a
concession to the bourgeoisie. This neutralized both Serbian hege-
monistic nationalism and Croatian separatist nationalism through
the establishment of a consistently pro-Yugoslav line and an insis­
tence on the political independence of the working class from the
bourgeois opposition. The second trait was Tito’s adaptability when
dealing with intraparty dissenters whose personal favor he enjoyed,
in direct contrast to the severe approach he took against ambitious
rivals, even if he shared their political positions. Jelaska was an ally
on the party left, but his ties to Marić made it impossible to integrate
him into the new leadership. Kras, on the other hand, was a mod­
erate who would have worked better with Gorkić than with Tito,
but personal loyalty ensured his ascent to the Politburo. These traits
made Tito both a consistent internationalist and the logical candi­
date for a general secretary of a Stalinist party.
EPILOGUE: TITO TRIUMPHANT

“ You, who w ill emerge fro m the flo o d

In which we have perished
R em em ber also
When you speak o f our weaknesses
The black times
You have escaped . ”
B e r to lt B r e c h t, “T o T h o s e W h o

F o l l o w in O u r W a k e ”6”

In his closing speech to the Fifth Land Conference, Tito vowed to

hold the next one “in a country free from both foreign invaders and
capitalists.”634 While this might have seemed overly optimistic to the
outside observer, it was not at all so to the communists, who saw
in the future not only the final showdown but also, in the words of
Eric Hobsbawm, a victory “already inscribed in the text of the his­
tory books of the future.”635 The next “conference,” however, took
place at a time that those present in the suburban house in Zagreb
in October 1940 could not even have dreamed of. It was July 1948,
and it was the Fifth Congress of the KPJ, the first in twenty years. At
this point, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was no more, and the Federal
People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, ruled by the communists and with
a command economy, took its place. This was well within a 1930s
communist’s horizon of expectations. What nobody could have pre­
dicted was that this Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia would
be, at the time of its ruling party’s Fifth Congress, completely cut

6,J Quoted in Eric Hobsbawm, Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life (London:

Allen Lane, 2003), 139.
634 Goldstein, Tito, 187.
635 Hobsbawm, Interesting Times, 73.
208 Stefan Gužvica

off from the rest of the socialist world. Less than a month before, the
Communist Information Bureau, the de facto successor to the dis­
solved Communist International, expelled the KPJ. The story of the
factional struggle in the KPJ during the Great Purge is the prehis­
tory of the causes of this expulsion.
The Communist Party of Yugoslavia was, by and large, a party
on the left of the international communist movement. Tito’s closing
sentence at the Fifth Land Conference is an excellent illustration of
this, and it would have rung true for most of his comrades even before
the Comintern’s change of policy in 1939. The Yugoslavs were not
hoping merely to fight fascism; they wanted to use the war to bring
about a socialist revolution. Generally speaking, leftism resonated
well in Yugoslavia. Its vast socioeconomic and national inequali­
ties resulted in mass discontent, and a prevalent desire for systemic
change. By the late 1930s, the persistence of Yugoslavia’s problems
made the most radical solutions - those of the communists - also
seem to be the most viable. This leftism was one of the causes of the
Yugoslav communists’ revolutionary radicalism in 1945, which put
Yugoslavia on a collision course with the Soviet Union.
In general, Stalin was more fearful of the left than of the right
in the communist movement, because of both their adventurist ten­
dencies and their potential ideological proximity to Trotskyism.
This attitude was reflected in the Comintern of the popular front
era. Ironically, it was an act of adventurism associated with the left,
the failure of the Spanish expedition in the spring of 1937, which
sealed the fate of the KPJ’s quintessential rightist leader, Milan
Gorkić. His political views, so despised by his comrades on the left,
were perfect for the era of the popular front, and truly helped reju­
venate the party from 1932. However, he went too far, discrediting
the KPJ both in the country and in the Comintern with his fun­
damentally liquidationist policies. Following his fall, there was no
viable middle-of-the-road candidate for general secretary. The only
remaining rightism within the KPJ was the remnant of the moderate
wing of Serbian social democracy, represented by Sima Marković.
 m >OKI TITO 209

However, he was already completely politically marginalized by the

time of his forced emigration to Moscow in 1935. The other right­
ists surrounding him lacked both the reputation and the initiative
required to significantly influence the party in the late 1930s.
Of all the leftists, Josip Broz Tito eventually managed to per­
suade the Comintern that he was the most viable candidate. Inter­
estingly, he was still the least leftist of all the potential leadership
candidates. He carefully balanced moderation and radicalism, and
survived the various U-turns of popular front policy between 1936
and 1939. Geoffrey Swain goes so far as to characterize him as a
“disloyal Bolshevik,”636 arguing that his distinction between Lenin
and Stalin already indicated a critical distance from the latter.637
Although Swain’s general argument is very convincing, and he pres­
ents several instances of Tito disobeying the Comintern to support
his view, I argue that this assertion of Tito’s alleged disloyalty is
somewhat exaggerated. His transgressions were, at the time, much
more modest than Swain claims. Nevertheless, they did represent a
faithful following of Lenin’s revolutionary thought, as interpreted in
the late 1930s. Although Tito might have even been privately criti­
cal of the purges,638 he was only diverging from Stalinism on issues
of revolutionary practice. He never seems to have criticized Stalin’s
approach to “constructing socialism,” and largely emulated it after
1945. Before examining Tito in greater depth, I would like to look at
the broader relationship between the KPJ and the Comintern.
The most important thing to understand is that the purge of the
KPJ and the factional struggle were two interconnected, but fun­
damentally different processes. The former was much more volatile
than the latter. They equally rested on rumors, miscommunications,
and petty rivalries. Nevertheless, the purge was conducted by Soviet
security organs, with occasional collaboration of the Comintern

636 Swain, “Tito: The Formation of a Disloyal Bolshevik,” 248-271.

637 Swain, “Tito,” 262.
63s Ridley, Tito, 142.
210 Stefan Gužvica

apparatus, which certainly did not have the final say on the matter of
arrests. The factional struggle, on the other hand, was purely a mat­
ter for the Comintern. Although it involved the security apparatus
(not only the NKVD, but also the Comintern and Red Army intel­
ligence services) this apparatus did not by any means control the
Communist International. The relationship between the KPJ and
the Comintern remained dynamic throughout, and the Yugoslavs
were expected to solve the crisis autonomously. The accusations of
factionalism mostly focused on political errors of comrades, and
rarely went so far as to imply espionage and treason. In this sense,
the conflict of Miletić and Tito was the exception.
In my view, Tito’s departure from the party line always remained
within the boundaries of what was permissible in the eyes of the
Comintern. To understand this, it is important to focus more on the
perspective of the ECCI, and less on the views of the KPJ members
in Moscow and Paris. Although they were certainly ultimately sub­
ject to the Comintern, the Yugoslav communists had much more
autonomy than Yugoslav historiography acknowledges. As I have
argued, in spite of the fact that historians since Vladimir Dedijer
have presented the events of the late 1930s as Tito’s ongoing struggle
to save the KPJ from the fate of the Polish party, there is nothing in
the Comintern sources that would suggest Dimitrov and Pieck ever
considered the dissolution of the KPJ. Although the leading emigres
were massacred between 1937 and 1939, most of them were already
politically marginalized long before the Great Purge began. At the
same time, the party organization in the country was largely intact,
and the popular front era was its most successful period since the
early 1920s.
The KPJ enjoyed a relative degree of freedom throughout. Far
from wanting to control and micromanage all aspects of Yugoslav
party affairs, the Comintern expected that the KPJ members them­
selves, in particular those untainted by the stigma of factionalism,
would take the initiative and sort out the party’s problems on their
own. Tito’s understanding of this expectation played a crucial role
 HM OKI; TITO 211

in his appointment as general secretary. The Parallel Center left the

resolution of the Yugoslav question to the Comintern, essentially
disarming themselves before the Temporary Leadership.
Moreover, the case of the Parallel Center and its vast intelligence
network abundantly illustrates that, even though the USSR was a
police state, the ultimate decision-making power did not always lie
exclusively with the intelligence apparatus. The secret police was
merely one of several extremely powerful institutions, and its deci­
sions could be ignored - or at times even overridden - by organiza­
tions such as the Comintern. This insight also goes against the jour­
nalistic and non-academic descriptions of Tito as a Machiavellian
mastermind rising to the top through intrigue and manipulation,
as argued by individuals such as Simić and Despot. Marić, Kusovac,
Miletić, Horvatin, and Tito all acted with the intention of helping
their party. Although we should not always take their statements at
face value, their confusion and disorganization show that they were
not individuals who fully understood the inner workings of the sys­
tem and tried to manipulate it to their advantage. Moreover, reduc­
ing communists to power-hungry demagogues gives a distorted and
farcical view of the communist movement and its radical emancipa­
tory ideas. How could people who were willing to sacrifice every­
thing, including their freedom, their relationships, and their lives
for the idea of communism, simultaneously be cynics who do not
actually care about the very thing that they are devoting their entire
existence to, but instead only want power? Surely, being a govern­
ment minister in Yugoslavia who orders mass arrests of communists
would have been a way better career choice for the power-hungry
than being arrested and spending years in prison.
Despite the relative freedom from the Comintern, the factional
struggle also shows the death of intraparty democracy. The case of
Marić’s ally Jelaska is the best illustration of this: regardless of his
mass support among Dalmatian communists, he was sacked from
all posts and expelled from the party just because he disagreed with
the newly formed Central Committee. Aside from Stalinization,
212 Štetan Gužvica

this development was facilitated by the party’s illegality, which often

necessitated rapid top-down decision-making. The semblance of
party democracy was still maintained, but it was largely a sham. Ivo
and Slavko Goldstein naively praise the fact that, in 1940, Tito was
the first party leader since 1921 to have been elected by party mem­
bers, rather than by the Comintern.639 This election, however, was
purely formal, and his position was confirmed by the Third Interna­
tional much earlier. Without it, he would never have become general
secretary.
The issue of the exact date of Tito’s appointment as general sec­
retary has also puzzled Yugoslav historians. Based on my research,
Tito had effectively started behaving as the acting general secretary
from August of 1937, although his actions were initially quite cau­
tious (Yugoslav historiography has generally taken this period as
the moment of Tito’s appointment). He became the de facto gen­
eral secretary following the ECCI meeting on January 5, 1939, and
this decision was formally confirmed first at a party consultation in
June 1939, and then by the KPJ delegates at the Fifth Land Confer­
ence. This brings me to the question of why exactly Tito defeated all
the other candidates. I argue that there are several reasons for Tito’s
victory, the main one being a proper understanding of Leninism as
defined by the Comintern in the 1930s. In short, Tito was the best
at understanding the Comintern’s demands and the ways to imple­
ment them.
Horvatin, Miletić, Marić, and Kusovac primarily focused on
accusations. Their writings betray an omnipresent fear of enemies,
spies, and Trotskyists in the communist ranks. In some cases, this
led them to fully disregard party work. Marić and Kusovac were
particularly notable for this: they were masters of intrigue, but they
were not good political organizers. Miletić did have a semblance
of policy, but it all came down to the aggressively anti-intellectual
ultra-leftism of 1928, alongside a personality cult. Horvatin, in spite

Goldstein, Tito, 187.

 IH IOKI I I 1C 213

of his overzealous accusations, had a coherent popular front policy

that was the closest to Tito’s, but he was arrested by the NKVD. His
case, in particular, illustrates the importance of sheer luck in the
factional struggle. Committed adherence to the party line and con­
stant vigilance against political enemies remained insufficient to
ensure survival during the Great Purge. Extensive links to the emi­
gre community and the participation in their intrigues could have
only been a detriment. Tito was largely spared from these intrigues,
which helped spare his life.
Equally important was Tito’s readiness to take initiative. Among
his opponents, Marić and Kusovac were active in forging politi­
cal alliances; Horvatin was active in Moscow, temporarily gaining
the attention of the Comintern; and Miletić was active in turning
the prison organization in Sremska Mitrovica into a sect revolv­
ing around his personality cult. Tito, however, focused on practical
changes to the internal organization of the party. Cautious at first,
he began to take concrete steps at improving the state of the party
in late 1937. He transformed the KPJ from an outdated leftist group
based on conspiratorial cells into a growing mass organization capa­
ble of exercising disproportionate influence on the political affairs of
the country. Moreover, he did so without endangering the party and
exposing it to mass arrests, as Gorkić had before him.
His flexibility in terms of party cadres was also significant.
When the factional struggle first broke out in Paris, both Marić
and Tito were rather intolerant to one another, despite claims to
the contrary in their official correspondence with the Comintern.
Eventually, however, Tito would prove much more efficient at coax­
ing opponents to his side. His brand of leftism successfully unified
all strands of the party, bringing individuals such as Đilas, Kidrič,
and Hudomalj into his fold. Marić’s and Miletić’s leftism did not.
The question of why this was so requires further scrutiny. What is
certain, however, is that Tito showed a willingness to cooperate with
opponents, but did not shy away from politically destroying them
if, like Miletić and Marić, they went too far. The aforementioned
214 Stefan Gužvica

Dalmatian case also shows that he did not always prefer ideological
connections to personal connections. Jelaska was ideologically much
closer to him than the leaders of the KPH, but he was too personally
close to Marić to be trusted. Moreover, the choice of Krstulović over
Jelaska as Dalmatian party leader was consistent with Tito’s broader
tendency of choosing younger party cadres, untainted by factional­
ism. People like Ćopić, Pijade, and Maslarić were rare exceptions
to this rule. The afterlife of factionalists, and the fact that most of
those who survived the war ended up in the Goli otok prison camp
in 1948, show that these rivalries persisted.640 However, while Ivo
Banac argues that the persecution of Cominformists primarily came
down to strengthening state power, new archival sources, such as
interrogations of the Spanish Civil War veterans who opposed the
Temporary Leadership in the 1930s,641 show that Tito’s crackdown
was not always unprovoked. Rather, it was at times also a reaction to
renewed oppositional work by those individuals who had seen Tito
as illegitimate since the late 1930s, and whose hopes for change were
given a new life with Yugoslavia’s expulsion from the Cominform.
In the case of the Kusovac family, a renewed party investigation,
caused by the unearthing of Hudomalj’s correspondence in France,
seems to have been their undoing, rather than any actual active
oppositional work in the post-war period. As the leading opponents
of Tito in 1938 and 1939, Marić and Kusovac were both arrested fol­
lowing the Cominform Resolution. Both spent six years in prison,
Marić in Lepoglava, and Kusovac on Goli otok.642 Kristina Kusovac
also spent four years in prison, and Labud was arrested again in 1958
and sentenced to an additional two years, suggesting his continued

640 Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 115.

641 I have used these interrogations in chapters three and four to recreate some of the
actions of the Parallel Center in the late 1930s. However, most of the documents per­
taining to these particular Cominformists focused not on the disagreements of the
1930s, but on their continued oppositional work after 1945. For a more thorough exam­
ination of the cases of Spanish veterans, see Milan Radanović’s thesis “Jugoslovenski
interbrigadisti pred Kontrolnom komisijom CK KPJ 1945-1949.”
642 AJ, 516 MG, 2231/9, Marić, "Podatci o mojem radu,” 21.
 i:i ()iu-, 111 ( 215

oppositional activity. However, I have not been able to find sources

about the political activity of Labud Kusovac after his release from
Goli otok.
Finally, my book leaves open several questions which require
further research in the future. One is certainly the issue of the
involvement of Soviet intelligence services and Yugoslav emigres in
Moscow in the process of purging the KPJ. The role of “secondary”
individuals, who did not rank particularly high within the party
or the Comintern, such as Karaivanov, Srebrenjak, and Golubić,
although potentially crucial, is still largely shrouded in mystery. The
political repression of the rest of the Yugoslav community in the
USSR and those who were not involved in factional struggles (such
as economic emigres), is still largely unexplored, as is the broader
relationship of the Yugoslavs with the Soviet society they inhabited
and were a part of. Most interestingly, my work raises the issue of
transnational networks of power within the Comintern and their
impact on politics and repression in the Soviet Union of the 1930s.
Individuals like Marić and Kusovac were extraordinarily well-con­
nected with French, Spanish, and Bulgarian communists. Tito and
Horvatin, on the other hand, had the attention of certain other Bul­
garians, as well as Germans such as Pieck and Florin. The perceived
interests of the Comintern gave rise to a transnational solidarity
which transcended the confines of national communist parties, but
also led to important political disagreements at the highest echelons
of the Third International. Directly related to this is the informal
hierarchy of communist parties in the Comintern, exposed by the
subordinate relationship of the KPJ to the Bulgarian Communist
Party. Although this hierarchy has been recognized in literature on
the French and German communist parties, it leaves open another
potential avenue for research, which would greatly broaden our
understanding of international communism in the interwar period.
The period between 1936 and 1940 was the key formative period
of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia as we know it from the 1940s.
The old KPJ was dead, with most of its leading cadres literally, not
216 Stefan Gužvica

figuratively, deceased. All the leading figures of the party from the
1920s and the first half of the 1930s were either expelled or, more
commonly, murdered, by 1939. In their place, Tito assembled a
young team composed of workers and a few intellectuals, most of
whom had been relatively unknown in the movement, but were
untainted by factional struggles. They mostly did not have direct
experience of the USSR and its many communist schools, and their
loyalty lay with their own party, rather than with Moscow. Although
Tito’s appointments were, to a large degree, based on personal ties
and close friendships, the new leadership was by no means com­
prised of incompetent characters distinguished only by their obedi­
ence to the general secretary. In fact, Tito’s Central Committee was
composed of people who, despite their youth, generally paralleled
or exceeded in skill those who led the KPJ before 1937. Their ability
and practical success would give them the power and the legitimacy
necessary for all their political actions in the 1940s. In that decade,
they led the party through a world war, a civil war, and a revolution,
culminating in a split that changed the international communist
movement in the twentieth century. And it all began with the arrest
of a competent, yet tragically unsuccessful party leader under false
accusations of espionage in the summer of 1937.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARCHIVES
A r c h i v e o f Y u g o s l a v i a ( A r h i v J u g o s la v ij e , A J ), B e l g r a d e .

F o n d 5 0 7 C K KPJ

F o n d 5 0 7 C K K PJ - K PJ e m ig r e s in F r a n c e

F o n d 5 0 7 /V I I C K KPJ - C o n tr o l a n d S ta tu to r y C o m m is s io n o f th e C C

KPJ

F o n d 5 1 3 - M o š a P ij a d e

F o n d 516 M G - M e m o ir s ’ C o lle c tio n

F o n d 7 9 0 /1 K I - T h e C o m m u n is t I n te r n a tio n a l

F o n d 7 9 0 / 1 3 - Y u g o s l a v s w o r k i n g a n d s t u d y i n g in t h e U S S R

(Poccmmckum
R u s s ia n S ta te A r c h iv e o f S o c io - P o lit ic a l H is t o r y

rocyflapcTBeHHbin apxiiB couna/ibHo-no/iMTHHecKon ncropnn, R G A S P I),

M oscow .

F o n d 4 9 5 - E x e c u tiv e C o m m it t e e o f t h e C o m m u n is t I n te r n a tio n a l

F o n d 4 9 5 , S u b fo n d 11 - S e c r e ta r ia t o f t h e E C C I S e c r e t a r y W ilh e lm

P ie c k

F o n d 4 9 5 , S u b f o n d 18 - E C C I S e c r e t a r i a t

F o n d 4 9 5 , S u b fo n d 2 0 - B u r e a u o f t h e E C C I S e c r e ta r ia t

F o n d 4 9 5 , S u b fo n d 7 0 - C o m m u n is t P a r ty o f Y u g o s la v ia

F o n d 4 9 5 , S u b fo n d 2 7 7 - P e r s o n a l F ile s (Y u g o s la v ia )

Fond 545 - T h e I n t e r n a t io n a l B r ig a d e s o f t h e S p a n is h R e p u b lic a n

A rm y

F o n d 5 4 5 , S u b fo n d 2 - T h e C e n tr a l M ilita r y A d m in is tr a tio n o f th e

I n t e r n a t io n a l B r ig a d e s

F o n d 5 4 5 , S u b f o n d 6 - L is t s a n d P e r s o n a l F i l e s o f F i g h t e r s a n d B r ig a d e

C om m anders
218 Slefan Gužvica

PUBLISHED PRIMARY SOURCES

Banac, Ivo (ed.). The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov 1933-1949 (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2003).
Cenčić, Vjenceslav. Enigma Kopinič, vol. 1. Belgrade: Rad, 1983.
Čolaković, Rodoljub. Kazivanje ojednom pokoljenju, vol. 2. Sarajevo: Svjet­
lost, 1968.
Čolaković, Rodoljub. Kazivanje ojednom pokoljenju, vol. 3. Sarajevo: Svjet­
lost, 1972.
Đilas, Milovan. Memoir of a Revolutionary. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1973.
Haustov, Vladimir Nikolaevich (ed.). Lubyanka: Sovetskaya elita na stalins-
koygolgofe, 1937-1938. Moscow: Mezhdunarodniyfond“Demokratiya,”
2001.
Hobsbawm, Eric. Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life. London:
Allen Lane, 2003.
Kardelj, Edvard. “Sećanje na dolazak druga Tita na čelo Partije.” In Tito
četrdeset godina na čelu SKJ 1937-1977, edited by Vladimir Bakarić,
49-69. Belgrade: Narodna knjiga, 1978.
Krstulović, Vicko. Memoari jugoslavenskog revolucionera, vol 1. Belgrade:
Mostart, 2012.
Leder, Mary M. My Life in Stalinist Russia: An American Woman Looks
Back. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001.
Lenin, Vladimir. What Is To Be Done? New York: International Publishers,
1969.
Lunacharsky, Anatoly Vasilievich. Revolutionary Silhouettes. New York:
Hill and Wang, 1968.
Maslarić, Božidar. Moskva-Madrid-Moskva: sečanja. Zagreb: Prosvjeta,
1952.
Memorial. “CnncKM >KepTB.” memo.ru. http://lists.memo.ru/ (accessed
March 27, 2017).
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Humanism and Terror: An Essay on the Commu­
nist Problem. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969.
Pavlović, Živojin. Bilans sovjetskog termidora. Uzice: Kadinjača, 2001.
Radvoljina, Ida Markovna. Dugačko pismo koje nije stiglo do primaoca.
Sremski Karlovci and Novi Sad: Izdavačka knjižarnica Zorana Stoja-
novića, 2011.
 BKPORF. TITO 219

Simić, Pero. Tito: svetac i magle. Belgrade: Službeni list SCG, 2005.
Simić, Pero and Zvonimir Despot. Tito - strogo poverljivo: arhivski doku­
menti. Belgrade: Službeni glasnik, 2010.
Timofejev, Aleksej, Goran Miloradović, Aleksandr Silkin (eds.). Moskva -
Srbija, Beograd - Rusija: dokumenta i materijali, vol. 4. Moscow, Bel­
grade: Glavarhiv Moskvy, CGA Moskvy, Arhiv Srbije, 2017.
Tito, Josip Broz. Sabrana djela. Edited by Pero Damjanović. Volumes 3 to 5.
Belgrade: Komunist, 1981.

SECONDARY SOURCES
Auty, Phyllis. Tito. London: Penguin, 1974.
Babicenko, Leonid. “Die Moskvin-Kommission. Neue Einzelheiten zur
politischorganisatorischen Struktur der Komintern in der Repression-
sphase,” The International Newsletter of Historical Studies on Comin­
tern, Communism and Stalinism, Vol. II, No. 5/6 (1994/95), 35-39.
Banac, Ivo. With Stalin against Tito: Cominformist Splits in Yugoslav Com­
munism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.
Biscione, Francesco M. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 41, s.v.
“D’ONOFRIO, Edoardo.” Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana,
1992. http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/edoardo-d-onofrio_(Dizio-
nario-Biografico)/ (accessed September 3, 2017).
Bondarev, Nikita. Misterija Tito: moskovske godine. Belgrade: Čigoja
štampa, 2013.
Bondarev, Nikita V. “Sima Marković - moskovske godine (1935-1938).” In
Društveno-politička i naučna misao i delo Sime Markovića, edited by
Aleksandar Kostić, 43-56. Belgrade: Srpska akademija nauka i umet-
nosti, 2013.
Brown, Archie. The Rise and Fall of Communism. London: Vintage Books,
2010.
Callinicos, Alex. Trotskyism. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1990.
Chase, William J. Enemies Within the Gates? The Comintern and Stalinist
Repression, 1934-1939. New Haven and London: Yale University Press,
2001.
Chase, William J. “Microhistory and Mass Repression: Politics, Person­
alities, and Revenge in the Fall of Bela Kun.” The Russian Review, 67/3
(2008): 454-483.
220 Slefan Gužvica

Connor, Walker. The National Question in Marxist-Leninist Theory and

Strategy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Cvetković, Slavoljub. Idejne borbe u KPJ 1919-1928. Belgrade: Institut za
savremenu istoriju, 1985.
Dedijer, Vladimir. Josip Broz Tito: Prilozi za biografiju. Zagreb: Kultura,
1953.
Dedijer, Vladimir. Novi prilozi za biografiju Josipa Broza Tita, vol. 2.
Zagreb: Mladost, 1981.
Dolenc, Ervin. “Kuharjeva skupina v vodstvu Komunistične partije Jugo­
slavije.” In Prežihov Voranc - Lovro Kuhar: pisatelj, politik, patriot,
edited by Aleš Gabrič, 71-84. Ljubljana and Vienna: Institut za novejšo
zgodovino and Slovenski znanstveni inštitut, 2010.
Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution.
London: Penguin Books, 1998.
Filipič, France. “Josip Broz Tito i osnivanje KP Slovenije.” Vojnoistorijski
glasnik 1/1987: 131-139.
Fitzpatrick, Sheila. Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary
Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s. New York: Oxford University Press,
1999.
Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution, 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford Univer­
sity Press, 2008.
Fowkes, Ben. “To Make the Nation or Break It? Communist Dilemmas in
Two Interwar Multinational States.” In Bolshevism, Stalinism and the
Comintern: Perspectives on Stalinization, 1917-53, edited by Norman
LaPorte, Kevin Morgan and Matthew Worley, 206-225. New York: Pal-
grave Macmillan, 2008.
Getty, J. Arch, and Oleg Naumov, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-
Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939. New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1999.
Gligorijević, Branislav. Između revolucije i dogme: Voja (Vojislav) Vujović u
Kominterni. Zagreb: Spektar, 1983.
Goldstein, Slavko, and Ivo Goldstein. Tito. Zagreb: Profil, 2015.
Haslam, Jonathan. The Soviet Union and the Strugglefor Collective Security
in Europe, 1933-39. London: Macmillan, 1984.
Haug, Hilde Katrine. Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia: Tito, the Communist
Leadership and the National Question. London: I.B. Tauris, 2016.
 Hl I (MU T I K 221

Hallas, Duncan. The Comintern. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2008.

Huber, Peter. “Structure of the Moscow apparatus of the Comintern and
decision-making.” In International Communism and the Communist
International, 1919-43, edited by Tim Rees and Andrew Thorpe, 41-66.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998.
Jelić, Ivan. Komunistička partija Hrvatske 1937-1945, vol. 1. Zagreb: Glo­
bus, 1981.
Jovanović, Nadežda. “Milan Gorkić (prilog za biografiju).” lstorija 20. veka
1/1983: 25-56.
Kahan, Vilem. “The Communist International, 1919-1943: The Person­
nel of Its Highest Bodies.” International Review of Social History 21/2
(1976), 151-185.
Karan, Milenko. Njima nije oprošteno. Subotica: Minerva, 1991.
Kovačević, Jelena. “Frakcijske borbe među članovima KPJ u
Sremskomitrovačkoj kaznioni 1937-39.” Arhiv 1-2/2015: 105-116.
Kovačević, Jelena. “Petko Miletić (1897-1943) - od revolucionara do
“frakcionaša.”” Tokovi istorije 1/2017: 47-73.
Kvesić, Šibe. Dalmacija u Narodnooslobodilačkoj borbi. Zagreb: Lykos,
1960.
Lazitch, Branko, and Milorad M. Drachkovitch. Biographical Dictionary of
the Comintern. Stanford: The Hoover Institution Press, 1986.
Le Blanc, Paul. Lenin and the Revolutionary Party. Chicago: Haymarket
Books, 2015.
Lešnik, Avgust. “The Development of the Communist Movement in Yugo­
slavia during the Comintern Period.” The International Newsletter of
Communist Studies XI/18 (2005): 25-60.
McDermott, Kevin, and Jeremy Agnew. The Comintern: A History of Inter­
national Communism from Lenin to Stalin. London: MacMillan, 1996.
Melchin, S.A., A.S. Stepanov, V.N. Yakushev et al. “Cra/iMHCKue cnncKH -
BBefleHne.” Memorial, http://stalin.memo.ru/images/intro.htm (accessed
March 27, 2017).
Milenković, Milisav (ed.). Revolucionarna misao i delo braće Vujović.
Požarevac: Braničevo, 1981.
Nikolić, Košta. Mit o partizanskom jugoslovenstvu. Belgrade: Zavod za
udžbenike, 2015.
222 Stefan Gužvica

Odić, Slavko, and Slavko Komarica. Partizanska obaveštajna služba, vol. 3.

Zagreb: Centar za informacije i publicitet, 1988.
Očak, Ivan. “Ante Ciliga - otpadnik komunizma i staljinske čistke.” Radovi
22 (1989): 267-296.
Očak, Ivan. Braća Cvijići. Zagreb: Spektar - Globus, 1982.
Očak, Ivan. Gorkić: život, rad i pogibija. Zagreb: Globus, 1988.
Očak, Ivan. “Jugoslavenski sudionici Oktobarske revolucije u borbi protiv
fašizma, 1936-1945.” Radovi 18 (1985): 215-248.
Očak, Ivan. “Staljinski obračun s jugoslovenskim partijskim rukovodst­
vom u SSSR-u.” Radovi 21 (1988): 81-106.
Očak, Ivan. s.v. “Bastajić, Pavle,” Krležijana Online. Zagreb:' Leksikograf­
ski zavod Miroslav Krleža, 1993. http://krlezijana.lzmk.hr/clanak.
aspx?id=1281 (accessed February 21, 2019).
Očak, Ivan. s.v. “Horvatin, Kamilo,” Krležijana Online. Zagreb: Leksiko­
grafski zavod Miroslav Krleža, 1993. http://krlezijana.lzmk.hr/clanak.
aspx?id=1598 (accessed December 7, 2017).
Očak, Ivan. Vojnik revolucije: Život i rad Vladimira Ćopića. Zagreb: Spe­
ktar, 1980.
Očak, Ivan, and Mihailo Marić. Danilo Srdić, crveni general. Belgrade:
Sedma sila, 1965.
Oren, Nissan. Bulgarian Communism: The Road to Power 1934-1944. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1971.
Pešić, Desanka. Jugoslovenski komunisti i nacionalno pitanje. Belgrade:
Izdavačka radna organizacija “Rad,” 1983.
Petranović, Branko. Jugoslavija 1918-1988: knj. 1: Kraljevina Jugoslavija
1914-1941. Belgrade: Nolit, 1988.
Petričević, Jozo. Lolo. Zagreb: Globus, 1986.
Piljević, Đorđe O. Čovek ideja i akcije. Belgrade: Zavod za udžbenike i nas­
tavna sredstva, 2001.
Pirjevec, Jože. Tito i drugovi, vol. 1. Belgrade: Laguna, 2013.
Požar, Petar. Jugosloveni žrtve staljinskih čistki. Belgrade: Nova knjiga, 1989.
Radanović, Milan. “Jugoslovenski interbrigadisti pred Kontrolnom komisi­
jom CK KPJ 1945-1949.” Bachelor’s thesis, University of Belgrade, 2016.
Ridley, Jasper Godwin. Tito. London: Constable, 1994.
Schwartz, Stephen. “Ante Ciliga (1898-1992): A Life at History’s Cross­
roads.” Journal of Croatian Studies 34/35 (1993/1994): 181-206.
 Bi:i ORK TITO 223

Shearer, David. “Stalin at War, 1918-1953: Patterns of Violence and Foreign

Threat." Jahrbucherfur Geschichte Osteuropas 66 (2018/2): 188-217.
Stankova, Marietta. Georgi Dimitrov: A Biography. London: I.B. Tauris,
2010 .
Starkov, Boris A. “The Trial that Was Not Held.” Europe-Asia Studies 46/8
(1994): 1297-1315.
Studer, Brigitte. The Transnational World of the Cominternians. Basing­
stoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Studer, Brigitte, and Berthold Unfried. “At the Beginning of a History:
Visions of the Comintern After the Opening of the Archives.” Interna­
tional Review of Social History 42 (1997): 419-446.
Swain, Geoffrey. Tito: A Biography. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011.
Swain, Geoffrey. “Tito and the Twilight of the Comintern.” In Interna­
tional Communism and the Communist International, 1919-43, edited
by Tim Rees and Andrew Thorpe, 205-221. Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1998.
Swain, Geoffrey. “Tito: the Formation of a Disloyal Bolshevik.” Interna­
tional Review of Social History XXXIV (1989): 248-271.
Swain, Geoffrey. “Wreckage or Recovery: A Tale of Two Parties.” In In
Search of Revolution: International Communist Parties in the Third
Period, edited by Matthew Worley, 129-151. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004.
Tumshis, Mihail, and Vadim Zolotaryov. Evrei v NKVD SSSR. 1936-1938
gg. Opyt biograficheskogo slovarya. Moscow: Russkiy Fond Sodeystviya
Obrazovaniyu i Nauke, 2017.
Vasić, Miroljub. “Dr Ubavka Vujošević Cica (1930-2015).” Istorija 20. veka
1/2016: 223-224.
Vatlin, Aleksandr. “Nu i nechist.”Nemeckaya operaciya NKVD v Moskve i
Moskovskoy oblasti, 1936-1941. gg. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2012.
Visković, Velimir. “Krležina uloga u sukobu na ljevici, I. nastavak.” Repub­
lika LV/3-4 (1999): 44-62.
Vojtechovsky, Ondrej. Iz Praga protiv Tita! Jugoslovenska informbiroovska
emigracija u Čehoslovačkoj. Zagreb: Srednja Europa, 2016.
Vujošević Cica, Ubavka. Nestajali netragom: Jugosloveni - žrtve političke
represije i staljinističkih čistki u Sovjetskom Savezu 1927-1953. Belgrade:
Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2019.
224 Stefan Gužvica

Vujošević, Ubavka. “Poslednja autobiografija Milana Gorkića, sekretara

CK KPJ.” Istorija 20. veka 1/1997: 107-128.
Vujošević, Ubavka. “Prilozi za biografiju Mustafe Golubića: (nepoznati
dokumenti iz arhiva Kominterne).” Istorija 20. veka, 1-2/1993:217-230.
Vujošević, Ubavka, and Vera Mujbegović. “Die jugoslawischen Kommu­
nisten in den stalinistischen 'Sauberungen' 1929 bis 1949.” In Kommu­
nisten Verfolgen Kommunisten: Stalinistischer Terror und “Sauberun­
gen” in Den Kommunistischen Parteien Europas Seit Den 30er Jahren,
edited by Richard Lorenz and Siegfried Bahne, 157-173. Berlin: Akad-
emie-Verlag, 1993.
Vukliš, Vladan. Sjećanje na Španiju: Španski građanski rat u jugoslovenskoj
istoriografiji i memoaristici 1945-1991. Banja Luka: Arhiv Republike
Srpske, 2013.
Wesson, Robert. Lenin's Legacy: The Story of the CPSU. Stanford, CA: Hoo­
ver Press, 2017.
Zovko, Marko. Kamilo Horvatin: nestao u staljinskim čistkama. Zagreb:
Spektar, 1980.