The Young Broz 25
The Conflict with Gorkić and
Work in the UndergroundThe split mentioned by Walter was the result of the policy Gorkić tried to im-
plement after the Seventh Congress. In the new, relatively more liberal atmo-
sphere in Yugoslavia after King Aleksandar’s death, he thought the moment
had come to forge an agreement with the other opposition forces. The elections
of May 1935 brought good results, showing that these forces, first of all the
Croat Peasant Party, were still alive and kicking. He was ready to enter into
an alliance with socialists and form a common list at the next elections. The
majority of the CC, however, rejected this idea, although the socialists accepted
a radical program, opening the way for collaboration between the parties.^96
Walter, in the meantime, licked the wounds Manuilskii had inflicted on his
ego, and accompanied Yugoslav delegates on a long trip to the eastern regions
of the Soviet Union at the end of August and in the first half of September.
They visited large factories and kolkhozes, traveling as far as the Urals. They
were greatly disappointed by the reality they encountered, by the appalling
conditions of peasant and worker life, which they tried to justify in terms of the
backwardness of pre-Bolshevik Russia and the enormous difficulties the Soviet
regime had in coping with a hostile world. “My revolutionary duty compelled
me not to criticize and not to support foreign propaganda against this country,
being at that time the USSR, the only state where the revolution has been
accomplished and where socialism should be built,” mused Walter. “What I saw
produced a great conflict within me, but I tried to excuse the Russian commu-
nists, considering that it was not possible to achieve everything in such a short
time, although a fairly long period has passed since October 1917: more than
seventeen years.”^97
Meanwhile, struggles between the CPY factions continued. At home in
Yugoslavia, the police succeeded in capturing and interrogating several impor-
tant communists (the party had been outlawed since 1920) who, under pressure,
decided to collaborate, and this resulted in mass arrests in the winter of 1935–
- At a certain point, between 69 and 70 percent of all party members were
behind bars and the party was nearly destroyed in Montenegro, Dalmatia,
Croatia, Slavonia, Serbia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.^98 Hopes for
greater freedom, nurtured when Milan Stojadinović came to power in 1935, van-
ished quickly, fueling opposition to Gorkić in the party. In April 1936, Gorkić
hastily convened the CC of the CPY, without informing the Comintern and
without waiting for the arrival of its delegates from Moscow. This was consid-
ered an insult, and the fact that he was unable to implement the decisions of
the Seventh Congress regarding the popular front was seen as a failure. At the