World War Two and the Partisan Struggle 91
his usefulness to the Allies by sabotaging the communication lines between
Greece and Rommel’s troops in North Africa. At a time when the Allied
armies under the command of General Montgomery were starting an offensive
against the Germans and Italians in the Libyan Desert, such sabotage would
have been welcome. But Mihailović, still afraid of possible reprisals and their
effect on his own authority, turned a deaf ear, compelling the British to offi-
cially ask on 5 November 1942 the Yugoslav government in exile to order its
minister of war to attack the Belgrade-Thessaloniki railway. This attack never
took place.^223
Increasingly confident in his strength, at the end of 1942 Tito made a daring
decision. On 1 November, he ordered the formation of regular armed forces,
initially the two Proletarian divisions, and, some weeks later, a third.^224 He also
convoked an Antifascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia
(Antifašističko veće narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije; AVNOJ) in order to get
its approval for the creation of a new government to replace the royal govern-
ment in exile. He communicated his proposal to Moscow as early as August
1941, certain that he was in tune with “Grandpa’s” recommendation to unite
all the democratic forces active in the country in a common front. When he
received news at the end of July 1941 that the Soviet Union had resumed diplo-
matic relations with the government in exile, he gave up the idea, but only for
the time being, proposing it again the following year. In its answer, Moscow
praised the Partisans highly, but also invited Broz to see the struggle within its
larger international framework and to refrain from taking initiatives that could
disturb Stalin’s coalition with Churchill.^225 Grandpa was so worried about the
possibility of Broz making rash decisions that he sent the same dispatch to
Kardelj in Slovenia, asking him to curtail Broz’s ambitions to become president
of the National Liberation Committee (i.e., the new government). The West-
ern Allies might interpret this as proof that a revolution, and not a patriotic
war, was taking place in Yugoslavia.^226
This compelled Tito to be prudent, but only in part. He renounced the idea
of replacing the royal government, but not the Anti-Fascist Council, which had
convened in Bihać on 26 and 27 November 1942. The delegates, few of whom
were communists, had been chosen from a list prepared by Ranković and con-
firmed by the CC. They were mostly from Bosnia and Croatia, since the war
prevented the Slovenians and the Macedonians from reaching Bihać. People
from the Partisan ranks represented Serbia and Montenegro. The discussions
at the council were full of pathos but lacking in substance, since everything had
already been decided behind the scenes. Moscow’s recommendation not to
raise the question of the monarchy and not to oppose the government in exile
was followed. However, the First AVNOJ, in which thirty-four delegates took