Search results

This article examines the activity of Yugoslav communist émigrés in Czechoslovakia between 1928 and 1938. Prague was a major center of communist activity and most prominent members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had spent a significant amount of time there in the interwar period. By looking at their political actions at the time and their subsequent reflections on it, the author argues that a qualitative difference exists between the subsequent political development of those who became communists during the so-called "Third Period" of the Comintern (1928–1934), and those who were radicalized during the Popular Front era (1934–1939). The Generation of the Third Period was more conservative and more loyal to Stalinism, whereas the Generation of the Popular Front led the reform process in socialist Yugoslavia after the war.

This second part of the article deals with the communist takeover of "Jugoslavija," the umbrella organization of Yugoslav students in Prague, in 1935. Following their ultimate victory over the monarchists, they continued their agitation in the student dormitory, drawing in large numbers of new communist organizers and sympathizers. Soon after, however, they departed for Spain to fight in the Civil War, after which their organization effectively ceased to exist. Those who survived World War II went on to become the political elite of the new socialist state. Their subsequent writings reveal the impact of their activity in Prague on their later political and intellectual development. They show that, even though the communist students rarely questioned the tenets of Stalinism before 1948, the experience of working in a pluralist left-wing environment, as well as within an internationalist and pan-Yugoslav framework, had been an influence on their postwar efforts aimed at reforming socialism and creating a system different than the one centered in Moscow.

This work deals with the previously under-researched topic of the Yugoslav communist student émigrés in Prague in the interwar period who would go on to become the political and intellectual elite of socialist Yugoslavia in the post-World War II era. Drawing primarily on sources from the National Archive in Prague and the Archive of Yugoslavia in Belgrade, as well as memoirs of the movement's participants, this paper attempts to retrace their political activities and intellectual development through a period in which Comintern policy changed frequently, forcing the young communists to adapt to a constantly changing political climate. The first part of the article examines their attempts to take over the legal organizations of Yugoslav students in Prague, as well as their cooperation with the non-communist left which occurred in spite of Comintern's ultra-left policies in the period between 1928 and 1935. This twofold strategy helped them to ultimately gain the upper hand in their frequent confrontations with the representatives of the Yugoslav Legation in Prague.

Do proleća 1917. godine, na teritoriji (bivšeg) Ruskog carstva našlo se nekoliko desetina hiljada ratnih zarobljenika Južnih Slovena, od kojih su se mnogi direktno uključili u revolucionarna događanja započeta padom monarhije u februaru. Nakon Oktobarske revolucije, hiljade Bugara, Hrvata, Slovenaca i Srba borile su se na strani boljševika. Od 1918. godine, imali su svoju Južnoslovensku komunističku grupu pri Boljševičkoj partiji, kao i novine Svetska revolucija. Grupa se, međutim, brzo sukobila po pitanju ustrojstva posleratnog projekta. Jedni su se zalagali za stvaranje Jugoslavije kao države Južnih Slovena, dok su drugi smatrali da buduća socijalistička država treba biti Balkanska federacija, stari projekat balkanske socijaldemokratije. Ovo neslaganje dovelo je u konačnici do odvajanja Bugara iz Južnoslovenske komunističke grupe. Iako pitanje buduće radničke federacije na Balkanu nije razrešeno čak ni formiranjem Komunističke internacionale, ova zaboravljena rana debata između tada vodećih južnoslovenskih komunista bila je uvod u kasnije marksističke rasprave o nacionalnom pitanju u Bugarskoj i Kraljevini SHS. Analiza ovih projekata otvara pitanja o prijemu boljševičkih ideja među Južnim Slovenima, kontinuitetu i diskontinuitetu marksističke misli među balkanskim socijalistima pre i posle 1917. godine, kao i o razvoju koncepta lenjinističkog prava na samoopredeljenje u kontekstu političke situacije na Balkanu u posleratnom periodu. ; By the spring of 1917, tens of thousands of South Slavic prisoners of war had found themselves on the territory of the (former) Russian Empire, and many of them took an active part in the revolutionary events which had begun with the collapse of the monarchy in February. After the October Revolution, thousands of Bulgarians, Croats, Slovenes, and Serbs fought on the side of the Bolsheviks. Beginning from 1918, they had their own South Slavic Communist Group of the Bolshevik Party, as well as a newspaper called Svetska revolucija (The World Revolution). However, the Group soon became divided over the question of building a future postwar order. Some communists supported the creation of Yugoslavia as a country of South Slavs, while others thought that the future socialist state must be a Balkan Federation, an old project of Balkan social democracy. The pro-Yugoslav current was composed primarily of people who were radicalized by the world war and the revolution and who fought together in the South Slavic units of the Russian Imperial Army before 1917. The supporters of a Balkan federation were those who were active in the labor movement before 1914. The Bulgarian communists, influenced by the theoretical tradition of "narrow socialism" developed by Dimitar Blagoev, were the standard bearers of the idea of Balkan federalism, while most Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes eventually opted for Yugoslavia, also as a federal state. This disagreement eventually led to the separation of Bulgarians from the South Slavic Communist Group. Even though the question of the future workers' federation in the Balkans was not ultimately resolved even after the creation of the Communist International, this forgotten early debate between the leading South Slavic communists foreshadowed the later Marxist discussions on the national question in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. The analysis of these projects raises new questions regarding the reception of Bolshevik ideas among the South Slavs, the continuities and discontinuities of Marxist thought before and after 1917, as well as the development of the concept of the Leninist right to self-determination in the context of the political situation in the Balkans in the post-WWI period.

Le parcours antifasciste du Parti communiste de Yougoslavie a été une importante source d'inspiration pour la gauche mondiale dans la seconde moitié du XX e siècle. Pour l'essentiel de la gauche non stalinienne, la tactique du Front populaire est une forme « défensive » et « opportuniste » de collaboration des ouvrier·ères et des paysan·es avec la bourgeoisie, qui a produit un fiasco en France et en Espagne. Pourtant, le Front populaire a connu de multiples incarnations divergentes. En Yougoslavie, cette stratégie d'alliance a permis au parti communiste dirigé par Josip Broz Tito de jouer un rôle de premier plan au sein de la coalition avec la bourgeoisie, assurant le contrôle du mouvement antifasciste et l'orientant vers une politique anticapitaliste révolutionnaire. Cette réussite repose en partie sur un contexte spécifique à la Yougoslavie ; elle montre néanmoins les perspectives qu'ouvre une orientation offensive de la stratégie de Front populaire.