The author presents the basic directives, policy of and the situation in the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) during the Independent State of Croatia. He deals with the most important questions from the history of the wartime HSS: separation of the pro-Ustasha wing from HSS, activities of the group around Farolli, Jancikovic and Tomasic, central leadership around Kolutic, the attitude towards the partisan movement, the attitude towards the Tito-Subasic agreement, HSS at the end of the war and emigrating of some of its officials, among them their leader Macek. (SOI : CSP: S. 459)
Croatian Republican Peasant Party (CRPP) was not accepted by Croatian peasantry, and its activity depended already on the Communist Party of Croatia (CPC), the main aim of which was to destroy Croatian Peasant Party (CPP). CRPP had no members, but its activity manifested through the work of its Executive Committee, publication of Slobodni dom and temporary activities of its lower committees. CRPP rejected the "treacherous" leadership and used the organizational form of CPP for constituting its committees, citing its traditional role and continuity of Radic's policy. Finishing the preelection campaigns in 1945 and 1946 in favour of CPP, which acted under support of the National Front, CRPP, rejected by its potential followers, but also despised by its founder, withered away. Preelection meetings of CRPP had only propaganda purposes, not organizational development of the Party. After 1947 the committees were not founded any more, no sessions convoked. A short revival of CRPP in 1950 only confirmed all its hopelessness and its dependence on Communist Party. The communists became strong enough and had no need of the services of that party, and the danger from revival of CPP was anyway dependent only on threat from the outside. (SOI : CSP: S. 87)
This work presents the results of empirical research of the relation among authoritarianism, political worldview, and party choice. Based on the existing research, the starting assumption is that authoritarianism is largely typical for the electoral body of the "right-wing" parties as well as for the conservative worldview. The specially designed scale for measuring authoritarian/conformist tendencies has shown a marked mono- dimensionality and inner consistency. The findings have confirmed the initial assumption; they have also shown a relatively regular correspondence between a party's p0sition on the "left-right" spectrum and the degree of authoritarianism of its electoral body. The sole exception is a higher degree of authoritarianism of HDZ's electoral body than that of HSP's, which may be explained by the fact that the applied scale has measured solely the attitude towards authority and conformity and not the attitude towards minority groups, which is a component of the famous "F" scale. Also, it has been shown that the voters of the so-called "modernist" worldviews (liberal, social-democratic) are significantly less authoritarian than the voters of the so-called "conservative" worldviews (democratic-Christian, Christian- socialist, traditional, or conservative). (SOI : PM: S. 209)
The author presents and evaluates the political program of the wartime Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) in the Independent State of Croatia. HSS wanted a Croatian state organized on democratic bases, not a totalitarian state. They saw the postwar Croatia either as an independent state or, depending on historical circumstances, as a member of a state of confederal type in which it could keep the characteristics of its national sovereignty. Such program was represented by HSS in negotiations with the Ustasha leaders in Summer of 1943 and in the negotiations with the communist leaders in 1943/44. HSS also tried to carry out that program through the military political coup in the Summer of 1944 (Vokic-Lorkovic coup). Conspirators were removed by the leader Ante Pavelic, but the political program of the wartime HSS was not prevented, in the last consequence, by Pavelic, but by the Yugoslav, and among them also Croatian communists: after the World War Two the communists established their centralized one-party Yugoslav state. (SOI : CSP: S. 496)