82 World War Two and the Partisan Struggle
regular revolutionary army, unlike the Partisan units, which had a guerilla char-
acter.^179 According to Edvard Kardelj, this decision had an extraordinary influ-
ence on the further development of the resistance. “The appearance of the First
Proletarian Brigade radically changed the political and military situation in
Bosnia, compensating for the fall of Užice with new successes. There was also
a long-term effect. The nucleus of a revolutionary army was born, capable in
the following months of organizing widespread operations in Yugoslavia and
of beginning to take on the enemy in frontal combat—especially in the final
stages of war.”^180
Under the command of Koča Popović, scion of a Belgrade banking family
and veteran of the Spanish Civil War, it became an excellent fighting body.
Together with the Second Proletarian Brigade instituted some months later,
it became the symbol of the revolutionary forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the
region where the majority of Tito’s troops fought over the following two years.
Tito described the spirit that animated them at the 1 March 1942 ceremony
to mark the founding of the Second Proletarian Brigade, proclaiming: “We will
even open fire against our father, if he opposes the people.”^181 As this really
happened, Tito later remembered the horrors of the revolution with a certain
embarrassment. At the same time, he was unable to hide his admiration for
those capable of committing acts of this sort: “This is the real consciousness
of the party.”^182 However, it must be added that he did not participate directly
in these atrocities. “He never himself signed anything that was compromising,”
Ranković observed later, not without reproach, “death sentences, burning of
villages, everything dirty and bad, but he allowed others to do it. He was always
conscious of his role in history and behaved in such a way as to be victorious,
just and magnanimous.”^183
On 7–8 January 1942, Tito held a party council in the village of Ivančići,
which decided to “give impulse to the revolution” and increase the class strug-
gle. A document prepared for this occasion lays out the CPY ’s intention to
change its tactics: “The policy of our party was clearly aimed at unifying the
people in the fight against the occupier, regardless of ethnic, religious or politi-
cal affiliations. Our adversaries, however, the pan-Serbian bourgeoisie and its
representatives, gave priority to the future organization of the state, going so far
as to openly collaborate against us with the occupier to preserve the old regime.
They have imposed the class struggle on us and we accept it.”^184
After its flight from Serbia, the Supreme Staff found refuge in eastern Bosnia,
nominally part of Ante Pavelić’s Independent State of Croatia, in the mostly
Muslim city of Foča, where it remained three months in spite of continual
German air raids. There Tito was able to see with his own eyes what kind of