32 The Young Broz
communists or party sympathizers, Walter organized a series of strikes in the
shipyards of Kraljevica and in the Trbovlje mines, which caused con siderable
worry to industrial circles in Yugoslavia. They spoke about him as a danger-
ous Comintern agent—a certain Brosz, son of a Czech Jew and a Hungarian
woman, who had served in the Habsburg army during the war and had been
a prisoner in Russia. This at least was what A. S. Howie, the Scottish director
of the important Trepča mines in North Kosovo, told Rebecca West, the
famous English writer and traveler, during her journey to Yugoslavia in the
late thirties.^132
Broz’s efforts to create a new party organization—which even succeeded
in infiltrating the royal court—were furiously opposed by the old guard of
political prisoners. In Sremska Mitrovica prison, they had created a close-knit
group of about 150 men who considered the CPY their fief and thought of
themselves as an exclusive sect. It was probably the most efficient party cell at
the time, as much for the number of its adherents as for their orthodoxy.^133
They were known as “Wahhabists,” similar in their fanatical puritanism to
Saudi Arabian fundamentalists. Beginning in 1934, their leader was a member
of the CC, the thirty-seven-year-old Petko Miletić, called Šepo, who had a
turbulent past. In 1919 he had supported the Hungarian Revolution of Béla
Kun and after its failure tried to spark an insurrection in Yugoslavia. After liv-
ing clandestinely in the Montenegrin woods for two years, he was captured by
the police and imprisoned. Once free he went to Moscow where he enrolled in
the party school. At his core, he remained a traditional Balkan rebel, with a
minimum of ideological culture. In Moscow he strengthened his dogmatism,
convinced that all means were allowed in the political struggle. At the begin-
ning of the thirties he became a member of the CC CPY but in 1934 he
was arrested once more. After enduring allegedly terrible interrogations and
tortures, he was sentenced to several years in jail. “Petko” came to Sremska
Mitrovica with the halo of a martyr; a hero and a real communist who had not
confessed anything and had not signed any compromising documents. He was
known as being inflexible, unwilling to collaborate with the “class enemy,” and
as a result his influence among the youth, in prison and out, was particularly
strong.^134 His followers adored him, sang songs dedicated to him, and in Spain
one of the International Brigades was named in his honor.^135 “They wanted
action,” Djilas wrote. “They sought a strong guide and it seemed that Petko
Miletić was what they were looking for.”^136 Petko soon began plotting against
Broz, whom he considered a dangerous rival in the struggle for power.^137 Due
to his popularity in the party and his good relations with Moscow, Petko suc-
ceeded in his intentions, as confirmed by an article published by Rundschau, the
German paper of the Comintern, which reported that in prison Miletić was