World War Two and the Partisan Struggle 59
new division of the world and on the oppression of the enslaved nations, worse
than the old one. On the contrary, the working class, allied with peasants, now
has the opportunity to destroy imperialism... and to abolish forever the impe-
rialist wars.”^46
The CPY emerged from the Conference as a monolithic Stalinist party,
convinced that a variety of opinions represented the worst of the worst: “sec-
tarianism.” It only appeared that its organs were elected democratically, since
it was the secretary general who named the Central Committee (CC), which
in turn nominated the other structures of the party.^47 The members of the
CC and the seven members of the Politburo were confirmed on the basis of a
list that was prepared in advance. Because of the conspiracy, their individual
identities were to be indicated only vaguely, so that later it was difficult in some
cases to establish who was who.^48 Generally they were young men in their
twenties. As regards Tito, there was no doubt that he should be elected secre-
tary general, since he had been anointed by Moscow. The result was the cre-
ation of a strong and disciplined party, appropriately compared by a British
diplomat to the Jesuit order. This unintentionally echoed the words of Djilas,
who described the CPY as a collective united in the comradeship, mutual love,
and dedication characteristic of a primordial religious sect.^49 “A clandestine
party like ours,” boasted Kardelj, “did not exist anywhere. We have learned to
trust each other.”^50 And Tito was of the same opinion: “At that time, the results
our party had achieved, what its possibilities were, and the enormous extent
of these possibilities, were evident. The ranks had been purged of factions...
of police spies. This gave us great moral satisfaction.”^51 The judgment of Stane
Kavčič, one of the cleverest representatives of “liberalism” in Slovenia during
the sixties and seventies, was more restrained: “Tito became the effective head
of the party, liquidating different ideological and political factions, reducing it
to one.... He remained a vigilant guardian of this achievement.”^52
The CPY also turned to the Soviet Communist Party in modeling the priv-
ileges granted its leaders. Prior to Broz’s return from Moscow, each of them
received two thousand dinars a month, more or less the pay of a public school
teacher. But since comrades called to posts of responsibility were better treated
in the Soviet Union, he added one thousand dinars to the salary of every mem-
ber of the Politburo and tripled his own. As a gift, the party gave him a vineyard
near Zagreb, with which he increased his monthly income. He passed himself
off as a wealthy engineer called Slavko Babić and bought a small villa with a
garden in the suburbs of Zagreb. He wore elegant clothes and even had a chauf-
feured Ford, with the excuse that he had to live expensively in order to avoid
police suspicion.^53