16 The Young Broz
from the jail, in which he exaggerated the “tortures” to which he was subjected,
was published on 24 August 1928 by the Comintern magazine International
Press Correspondence under the title “A Cry from the Hell of Yugoslav Pris-
ons.”^48 At the beginning of November, he appeared before the court and was
sentenced to five years imprisonment on the basis of a law prohibiting “all com-
munist propaganda,” after a trial known as the “bomb case.” During the trial,
Broz behaved as the Comintern expected of its members: “You have to aim for
one thing only. Not the minimum penalty, but the prestige of the party, which
you must strengthen in the eyes of the working masses.”^49
According to instructions, Broz bravely proclaimed himself not guilty,
maintaining that he did not recognize the “bourgeois” tribunal, since it was an
instrument of reactionary forces. “Long live the Communist Party! Long live
the world revolution!” he shouted.^50 The local press, but also the Comintern,
took note of his defiant attitude. Not everyone approved, however, for shortly
afterward Avgust Cesarec, one of the most important left-wing intellectuals in
Croatia, wrote in the party’s illegally published paper Proleter: “If this young
and morbidly ambitious communist becomes leader of the CPY, it will be a
disaster.”^51
In JailAfter the trial, Broz remained in the Zagreb prison for several days. His com-
rades tried to arrange his escape with the help of a guard, sending him a metal
file hidden in a round loaf of bread. Unnoticed, he succeeded in sawing through
five of the six iron bars of the window of his cell. Just as he was beginning on
the last bar, he was transferred to another cell and sent shortly afterwards to
Lepoglava, in the Zagorje region—the site, since 1854, of the most important
penitentiary in Croatia. The fate of the guard who had helped him was more
tragic. Suspected by the authorities for his pro-communist sympathies, he
escaped to the Soviet Union, where some years later he was accused of being
a Yugoslav agent and condemned to death.^52 Broz’s correct behavior and dis-
cipline soon earned him the esteem and affection of the comrades he met
behind bars, first at Lepoglava, later in Maribor (“King Aleksandar’s toughest
pen”) and in Ogulin.^53 There he began to study the Marxist and Leninist clas-
sics that the authorities were forced to tolerate as result of hunger strikes by
the political convicts. With the help of their “criminal” mates they smuggled in
the necessary literature, transforming the jails into Party schools. In this way,
a new generation of revolutionary leaders was formed in these and other pris-
ons of the Yugoslav kingdom. Josip Broz, Moša Pijade, Aleksandar Ranković,
Milovan Djilas, and Edvard Kardelj all seriously studied the ideology, politics,
economics, and military tactics that they considered necessary for the future