The Postwar Period 187
for light industry had been sworn in.^197 That day a plenary session of the CC
was convened, before which a commission charged with examining the activi-
ties and the political stances of Hebrang and Žujović read a report accusing
them of having plotted before, during, and after the war against the party
and the state. They were then stripped of all their offices.^198 A few days later,
the general prosecutor ordered their arrest. Djilas writes that Tito decided this
himself, without consulting his comrades. It would be ridiculous, said the mar-
shal, if Yugoslavia were to fall into the hands of an “Ustaša” and a “Chetnik.”^199
According to information gathered by the British ambassador, Sir Charles
Peake, militiamen visited Hebrang’s villa four times in one day, first abducting
him, then his wife and children, and finally removing all the family belongings.
The same must have happened to Žujović because, as the ambassador observed,
his house was empty and guarded by the police.^200 Initially, the two were con-
fined in a villa near Belgrade, but later were transferred to the main prison in
the capital so that Stalin’s agents would not have a chance to kidnap them. As
Kardelj stated, this was the main preoccupation of the Yugoslav leadership:
Hebrang and Žujović had been arrested, above all, because it was feared they
would be taken out of the country by the Soviets and proclaimed the true rep-
resentatives of the CPY.^201 Rodoljub Čolaković who, like Žujović, was in touch
with the Soviet ambas sador, was luckier. Prudent enough to engage in some
“self-criticism” in time, he was not prosecuted but only deprived of his power
and functions, becoming “a pale image of his name and prestige.”^202
Stalin was so upset by the arrest of the two that he immediately requested
the engagement of Soviet observers in the judicial inquiry against them. Tito
and his comrades refused, considering the proposal an unacceptable interfer-
ence in Yugoslavia’s internal affairs. Stalin replied at the beginning of June,
threatening that he would consider them to be “criminal killers” if something
serious were to happen to Hebrang and Žujović.^203 Subsequently, the Belgrade
newspaper Borba published a Politburo decree announcing their expulsion from
the party and accusing them of being enemies of the people, sectarian elements
who had been plotting against the party since 1937. This was the start of their
ordeal. They were subjected to ruthless interrogations. Žujović was accused of
having been a follower of Gorkić (the secretary general of KPY who in 1937 was
deposed and shot by the NKVD as a British spy), of having taken reckless
military measures during the war, and of having implemented a policy after
1945 aimed at undermining the country’s economic development.^204 In protest
he went on a hunger strike but broke it off when they convinced him to write
Tito a letter.^205 It is not known whether he received an answer. Hebrang be-
haved with more self-control. An agent who entered his cell while he was read-
ing a book informed him, on Ranković’s instructions, that he had been expelled