The Young Broz 17
revolution.^54 During the years spent in jail, which he remembered with amused
levity, Broz became a professional revolutionary, as the authorities in Maribor
noted. Under the blank space for his profession they wrote in his file: “criminal,
communist.”^55
In spite of its obvious hardships, the prison probably saved Broz’s life. On
6 January 1929, only a few days after he was sentenced, King Aleksandar dis-
solved parliament, abolished the constitution, and created a dictatorial regime
under the premiership of General Petar Živković, one of his henchmen. The
king and the prime minister were of the opinion that Yugoslavia (as the state
was renamed) should be governed with an iron fist, without any pretense of
parliamentary democracy. They acted accordingly, abolishing all political par-
ties and declaring war on all forces of the opposition: Albanians in Kosovo,
Macedonian separatists, Croat nationalists, both moderates and extremists
(like the newly formed Ustaša), and, naturally, communists. During the years
1929 to 1931, the enemies of the regime were arrested en masse. Some hundred
members of the CPY, the most staunch and pugnacious, were tortured to death
in the terrible “Glavnjača” in Belgrade, or in other police stations scattered
throughout the country, while the prisons of Lepoglava, Mitrovica, Maribor,
Zenica, Niš, Požarevac, and Skopje bulged with their comrades, sentenced to
prison terms with varying degrees of severity. Those who managed to survive
the interrogations and were not simply shot in the back by policemen during
an “attempt at escape” were lucky, since at least behind the bars they were com-
paratively safe.^56
In ExileIn March 1934 Josip Broz, aged forty-two, was set free. He returned to his
native Kumrovec, as the law required former prisoners to do, but shortly after-
ward he resumed his underground activities in Zagreb and Belovar. By order of
the party, he emigrated in June to Austria with the task of improving contacts
between the communists in Croatia and the Central Committee, which had
been operating in Vienna since 1929 to keep clear of King Aleksandar’s per-
secution. There the Austrian communists were still able to offer assistance to
Yugoslav comrades. Under the guise of a tourist and carrying a card of the
Croatian Alpine Club in his wallet, Broz illegally crossed the frontier near
Tržič in north Slovenia. Once in Carinthia, he immediately found himself in
trouble, because it was just then that the Nazis were attempting a putsch against
the clero-fascist regime of Engelbert Dollfuss. When Broz finally managed to
reach Vienna from Klagenfurt, he was beset upon by his comrades, “like bees
to a honey pot,” eager for news from the fatherland. In a coffeehouse, he met a
bunch of grim-looking men who shocked him because of their aggressiveness