League of Communists of Yugoslavia, before 1952 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, was the ruling party of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1945 until the 1991. The dominant figure in its history was Josip Broz Tito.
Creation and early success
Before World War I the Slavic people in the Balkans were divided among four countries: Austria-Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro and (until 1912) the Ottoman Empire. Each country had their own social democratic party.
After the First World War, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was created, and later renamed the "Kingdom of Yugoslavia". Under the influence of the October Revolution in Russia (brought to Yugoslavia by soldiers captured by Russia in World War I), the different social-democratic parties and organisations created by returners from Russia call for uniting of leftist parties. The idea was widely accepted by parties and organisations from all over the country, except Slovenia. Congress of unification of social-democrat parties and organisations was held from April 20 till April 23 1919 in Belgrade and was attended by parties from every part of Yugoslavia except Slovenia. Congress decided to form a single political party named Socialist Workers Party of Yugoslavia (communists) (Socijalistička radnička partija Jugoslavije (komunisti), SRPJ(k)) which would be a member of Communist International. Filip Filipović was elected General secretary of SRPJ(k).
On the same year, Young Communist League of Yugoslavia was formed, which accepted program and aims of SRPJ(k).
Newly formed SRPJ(k) was rather active and organised several protests against political situation in the country and rallies of support for Soviet Union and Hungarian Soviet Republic. Popularity of the party was shown for the first time on local elections in Croatia and Montenegro in March 1920 where communists won majority in several cities (including big cities like Zagreb, Osijek, Slavonski Brod and Podgorica), but regime refused to confirm communist administrations of these districts. This affirmation of SRPJ(k) led to extending of party's influence to Slovenia and incorporation of whole Yugoslav leftist scene into SRPJ(k).
But, growth of SRPJ(k) incited arguments about party's agenda, since SRPJ(k) was formed from various political parties. Two mayor streams developed: reformists and revolutionaries. Reformists (called "centrumaši") suggested SRPJ(k) participates in parliamentary life of the Kingdom, demands reforms and tries to become ruling party by legal means. Revolutionaries supported position that power has to be gained by revolution. This antagonism will be troubling the party for years to come.
Second congress of the party was held from 20 till June 23 1920 in Vukovar. The congress was escalation of conflicts inside the party. Revolutionary wing (led by Filip Filipović) prevailed, party changed its name to Communist Party of Yugoslavia (Komunistička partija Jugoslavije, abbr. KPJ) and Sima Marković and Filip Filipović are elected as secretaries of KPJ. But, this was in no means the end of struggle inside the party.
In summer of 1920 local elections were held in Serbia and Macedonia and KPJ won a majority in many districts (including Belgrade, Skopje and Niš). Communist administration of Belgrade (with Filip Filipović as mayor) and other cities were not acceptable for the government, so communist administrations were suspended.
On elections for Constitutional Assembly (November 28 1920) KPJ won 59 seats and was third by number of seats.
Unlike most parties in the Kingdom, the Communist Party was very revolutionary and supported many strikes and demonstrations. A turning point was to be a miners' strike in Husino near Tuzla, Bosnia. After one policeman and four miners were killed, the government issued a decree (called "Obznana", "Announcement") banning all communist activity. Only legal communist activity was involvement in Constitutional Assembly, but after Constitution was passed and the Assembly transformed to Peoples Assembly, it passed a "Law of protection of public security and state order (Zakon o zaštiti javne bezbednosti i poretka u državi) which proclaimed communist activity illegal. This law was a consequence of attempted assassination of regent Alexander and assassination of former Interior Minister Milorad Drašković, which were conducted by communists. Following passing of this law, all of communist local administrations and communists members of People's Assembly were suspended and KPJ became illegal.
Underground
Two underground conferences were held in Vienna in 1926 and Dresden in 1928. Althogh still playing an important role in the class struggle the number of party members declined. The persecution of the party culminated after 1929 when King Alexander of Yugoslavia prohibited all parties. Many key members of the Communist Party were killed including the leadership of the youth wing and party president Đuro Đaković.
Party members in exile in the Soviet Union came under scrutiny during Stalin's Great Purge — party president Milan Gorkić was executed. Under the pressure of persecution as well as the problems of having a multinational party, the Communists became highly fractionalised and almost disintegrated.
Josip Broz (using the pseudonyms of "Walter" and "Tito") was able to unite the party after taking over the leadership in 1937. Under instructions from the Comintern, he reactivated the Party and started preparation for the fight against fascism.
Second World War
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia quickly fell when attacked by Germany in 1941. The Communists organized the largest resistance movement in Europe under the leadership of the Yugoslav National Liberation Army and was able to use guerrilla warfare with assistance from the British and Americans to establish liberated territories under its control. The Communist-led partisans enacted elements of socialist revolution in the territories they liberated and used propaganda to popularize their aims. At the end of the war the Partisans consisted of 800,000 soldiers under the leadership of 14,000 members of the Communist party.
Rise to power
The other parties formed before the war were unable to reestablish themselves as credible forces. Eight of them entered the coalition with the Communists and founded the People's Front of Yugoslavia (Narodna fronta Jugoslavije), while the Democratic Party of Milan Grol tried to boycott the first post-war elections of 1945.
The elections were held more in the form of a referendum: the People's Front candidate list received 91% of the vote while the option of "no list" won 9%. Yugoslavia became a republic and the other parties disappeared. The People's Front (later called the Socialist Association of Working People of Yugoslavia, Socijalistički Savez Radnog Naroda Jugoslavije) remained open to those who did not consider themselves to be communists, such as members of the clergy.
In 1948, the party held its fifth Congress. The meeting was held shortly after Stalin accused Tito of being a nationalist and moving to the right branding his heresy Titoism. This resulted in a break with the Soviet Union known as the Informbiro period and experiments with decentralization and other departures from the Soviet model of a Communist state.
Under the influence of reformers such as Milovan Đilas, Yugoslavia experimented with ideas of workers self-management where workers influenced the policies of the factories in which they worked and shared a portion of any surplus revenue. This resulted in a change in the party's role in society from holding a monopoly of power to being an ideological leader. As a result, the party name was changed to the Communist League of Yugoslavia (Savez komunista Jugoslavije, SKJ) in 1952 during its seventh Congress. Likewise, the names of the regional branches were changed accordingly. SKJ consisted of the following regional bodies:
Dissidents
The Communists had a number of dissidents within its ranks at various periods:
- From 1948 to 1953 during the conflict with Stalin, cf. Informbiro, a number of party members were accused of being pro-Moscow and jailed at Goli Otok
- In 1954, Milovan Đilas was expelled from the party due to his criticisms and his proposals for a multi-party system with a decentralized economy.
- Aleksandar Ranković argued for a highly centralized system more akin to the Soviet model and was expelled from the party in the early 1960s.
- In the course of the so-called Croatian spring of 1971, some of the Croatian party members were disciplined due to accusations of liberalism and nationalism, along with Serbian communists accused of liberalism. Many of their ideas were ultimately adopted in the new 1974 Yugoslav constitution.
- In the early 1980s some members such as Vojislav Šešelj turned to an extreme form of nationalism which ended up overtaking the movement under Slobodan Milošević.
Crisis and dissolution
After Tito's death in 1980 the party adopted a collective leadership model with the occupant of the top position rotating annually. The party's influence declined and the party moved to a federal structure giving more power to party branches in Yugoslavia's constituent republics. Party membership continued to grow reaching two million in the mid-1980s but membership was considered less prestigious than in the past.
Slobodan Milošević became president of the Communist League of Serbia in 1987 and combined Serbian nationalism with opposition to liberal reforms. The growing rift between the branches of the Communist Party and between the republics of Yugoslavia led to the effective dissolution of the Communist League of Yugoslavia at its 14th Congress held in 1991 with rifts between Serbian and Slovenian Communists leading to the breakup of the party into different parties for each republic. The Communist associations in most republics later changed their names to Socialist or Social-Democratic parties.
Remnants
There were several attempts to reactivate the Communist League of Yugoslavia. One pro-Stalinist group, called New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NKPJ) claimed to continue in the tradition of the original Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ), but not of the "Titoist" Communist League of Yugoslavia (SKJ). Another attempt to revive the party was the Comunist Leagues - Movement for Yugoslavia (SK-PJ), which was mainly a soldiers' party, and later joined the Yugoslav United Left (JUL). There is also another minor party calling itself the Communist League of Yugoslavia, which organised what it claimed to be the party's 15th and 16th congresses, the latter in 1994 claiming that it continues the tradition of SKJ but they are weak and have lacked the resources to organize a 17th Congress.
