The Young Broz 19
National Conference. The first conference took place in September, at the
summer residence of the bishop of Ljubljana, whose half-brother was a “fellow
traveler” (a term widely used for Communist Party sympathizers).^62 The sec-
ond, convened in December in the Slovenian capital and headed by Gorkić,
was attended by eleven delegates but not by Broz. Gorkić used the explanation
that for security reasons the organizers of the gathering should be banned from
it. Tito would later consider this a hollow excuse used by the secretary general to
get rid of him.^63 Both were important occasions, intended to overcome the sec-
tarian policy of the past and to renew the party, linking it more organically with
the environment in which it operated. To this end, the Central Committee
made the decision, with the blessing of Moscow of course, to create autono-
mous parties in Slovenia, Croatia, and Macedonia under the aegis of the CPY.^64
In September, Broz returned to Vienna, but Gorkić immediately sent him
to Zagreb to discuss the organization of the Party Conference with Croat
comrades. From the beginning, these assignments raised doubts in his mind, as
he suspected that the secretary general was purposely exposing him to danger
by entrusting him with clandestine tasks, even though he had only recently
been released from prison. Although he could not criticize Gorkić’s lifestyle,
Broz considered him too confident toward the members of his entourage and,
therefore, not suitable for this complicated position. Furthermore, the secretary
general had no use for those who had grown up and become communists in
Yugoslavia, confining them to bottom-rung positions to prevent them from
getting access to the funds the Comintern assigned to the CPY. “I was truly
disgusted,” Tito said.^65 Wisely, however, he kept his mouth shut and at least
outwardly maintained proper relations with the secretary general. Only years
later did he confess to Louis Adamic what he really thought about Gorkić,
observing that “his red hair and mustache were the reddest parts of him.”^66
At the end of 1934, in the wake of a continuing devastating economic crisis
and a new shattering tragedy, Broz sent instructions from the Politburo to
all Party cells and to the Union of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia (Savez
Komunističke Omladine Jugoslavije; SKOJ) to organize an armed uprising in
Yugoslavia. On 9 October, King Aleksandar I had been assassinated in Mar-
seilles, at the very beginning of his official visit to France. He had just disem-
barked from his yacht when he was shot down by a Bulgaro-Macedonian
assassin sent by Ante Pavelić, the leader of the Ustaša, the terrorist group that
fought for a free Croatia and hoped that killing the monarch would also kill
Yugoslavia. Convinced that the elimination of the hated Aleksandar was the
beginning of the end of the despised Karadjordjević Dynasty, Broz had no
qualms about recommending that the party’s armed units join all other organi-
zations that were also hostile to the regime, including the right-wing extremists.