The Presidential Years 381
rejected that argument and told them openly that the rebels would bear the
consequences for their resistance. Savka, increasingly stubborn, attacked him:
“Comrade Tito, beware what you are doing, the entire Croat working class is
with us, the entire Croat nation.” Tito looked at her and answered calmly:
“Savka, you are utterly wrong.”^642 In spite of this menacing attitude, the mar-
shal tried to save Miko Tripalo. When the Executive Bureau was convened in
Belgrade on 8 December in order to resume the discussion of the Croat crisis,
Tito called Savka Dabčević-Kučar and Pero Pirker and asked them to resign
from the CC of the Croat League. At the same time he invited Tripalo, who he
very much liked, to meet him and tried to induce him to go on with his work,
but he refused, saying: “I am responsible. I consider myself responsible for the
policy we have followed.”^643
To fill the gap created by the removal of the disgraced leaders, people were
called in “who would obey,” as Vladimir Bakarić commented bluntly.^644 The
presidency of the CC of the Croat LC was entrusted to the party ideologue,
Milka Planinc, who—it was maliciously rumored—had taken part in the post-
war massacres as political commissar, while the position of secretary was given
to the journalist Josip Vrhovec, another inflexible doctrinaire. The old UDBA
man and former federal secretary for internal affairs, Milan Mišković, took
Tripalo’s place in the Executive Bureau. With such lackluster yes-men in place,
the real power was taken by the local conservative groups such as the Serb-
dominated League of Veterans, and the security apparatus, which had grown
so strong that by the mid-seventies Vladimir Bakarić himself felt compelled to
admonish the party to beware of what was going on.^645
After Ranković’s fall, the “liquidation” of the Zagreb liberals was the most
dramatic event of Tito’s Yugoslavia. With it, he asserted himself as the undis-
puted ruler of the local political scene, proving that a communist regime could
not function without an iron fist.^646 This was also demonstrated by the state
of siege imposed on Zagreb, which was occupied by large numbers of police.
Although the student dormitories were isolated to prevent possible incidents,
the following days saw sporadic clashes between policemen and youths gath-
ered in the Square of the Republic shouting “Savka-Tripalo.”^647 Meanwhile,
trials began that followed a precise choreography determined by Tito: the judges
should not comply with the law “like a drunk at the stake.”^648 The arrested
students were given sentences of four to eight months in prison. The worst
befell the representatives of the maspok, who were accused of having tried to
overthrow the socialist order. According to Savka Dabčević-Kučar, the purge
involved about seventy thousand people, including those who were expelled
from the party or fired from their jobs. In intellectual circles a widespread panic
set in, mixed with desperation over the fate of the Croat nation, which was put