The Young Broz 23
Kardelj, during the Great Terror Broz did everything in his power to save as
many Yugoslav émigrés as possible, sending them home to work underground
or to Spain, where the Civil War broke out in July 1936.^89 The Soviet Union
decided to help the republican government against the right-wing generals, led
by Francisco Franco, who had organized an armed revolt. Walter embraced this
policy, convinced that Spain could be an excellent school for future Yugoslav
military and political cadres, which indeed turned out to be the case. During
WWII, no communist party had as many “Spaniards” in its ranks as the CPY.
They were the ones who took the lead in the Partisan struggle.^90
In July and August 1935 Walter participated in the Seventh World Congress
of the Comintern, as secretary of the Yugoslav delegation and as a delegate
with a consultative vote—a vote without full value, but merely an opportunity
to express his opinion. In the multilingual form he had to compile on that
occasion, he gave two names, “Tito” and “Rudi,” in answer to the question
about which pseudonym he was using in the party. With regards to the code
name under which he was taking part in the congress, he answered “Walter
Friedrich.” Of the more than seventy pseudonyms he used during his life, Tito
and Walter were the most important and frequent. He also gave his birth date
as 1893 instead of 1892, and slightly stretched the truth when he said that his
education was “primary, partially secondary.” Describing himself as a “mechanic”
from 1910 on was also an exaggeration. The photo attached to the questionnaire
bears witness to the fact that he had not set foot in a factory for a long time,
showing a young bespectacled man who looked more like a university lecturer
than a manual laborer. At the congress he saw Stalin for the first time, but from
afar and only briefly. He caught a glimpse of him when Stalin came to the ses-
sions once or twice and stood behind a marble column: “Now you see me, now
you don’t,” Tito later remembered mockingly.^91
The Seventh Congress was important specifically because it changed the
Comintern’s political strategy. It was decided that the international revolution-
ary movement should abandon the belief that the communists had no political
friends, not even among Western socialists and social democrats (accused of
being “Social Fascists” because of their adherence to parliamentary democracy).
Considering the Nazi threat, which began in Germany with Hitler’s accession
to power in 1933, the Soviet Union realized that it was no longer possible to
march toward the splendid goals of communism without allies, who must be
sought not only among the social democrats but also among Christian or even
nationalist and conservative parties. Consequently, the Comintern implemented
the policy of a “popular front,” which encouraged the creation of a united bloc