The Young Broz 39
attention to the fact that many Yugoslav antifascists, honest but poorly
informed, did not believe in the proliferation of the new ideological plague:
“They do not believe that the Trotskyists have fallen so low as to become a
band of spies, killers, saboteurs and agents of Fascism.” Broz invited his follow-
ers to be cautious and vigilant: “In the future the machinations of the Trotsky-
ist bandits will collide head-on with the monolithic discipline and unity of our
party.”^171
The most dangerous figure, with regards to this monolithism, was Petko
Miletić. When the news came that Gorkić had fallen, in agreement with his
Belgrade comrades Walter decided to inform Miletić and his former cellmate,
Moša Pijade, about what had happened. He urged them to keep the infor-
mation to themselves, so as not to demoralize the comrades in jail. Petko did
not follow this advice, trying to use it as an occasion for “saving” the party
and taking over its leadership. According to Rodoljub Čolaković, by November
1937 he already had plans to escape from prison in order to convene an extra-
ordinary congress of the CPY, where the current “opportunistic” leadership
would be changed for a “Bolshevik” one (it seems that to this end his follow-
ers were already digging a tunnel under the prison wall). These machinations
seriously preoccupied young Broz’s followers in Yugoslavia once they heard
about them. Djilas and Ranković, who in the past had been under the sway of
Miletić, but had renounced his “Wahhabism,” immediately sent Ivo Lola Ribar
to Paris to warn Broz of the danger, advising him to change the party leader-
ship in the Sremska Mitrovica prison as soon as possible. As a result, he dis-
banded its committee, dominated by that “lord of the souls,” Petko Miletić, and
in its place named his old mentor and friend Moša Pijade as a provisional
“commissioner.”^172 This provoked a wave of protest among the prisoners, who
accused Pijade of being “a bandit, a traitor, a Trotskyist.” They were joined by
the “parallel center” in Paris, where Pijade was considered an “opportunist”
of the worst kind.^173 In spite of this adverse reaction, Broz’s will prevailed: at
the beginning of November 1937 he convened the CC CPY in order to con-
demn the “anti-party activity” of the faction in Sremska Mitrovica led by Petko
Miletić. Accused of being a sectarian and opposing the line of the Comintern’s
Seventh Congress, Petko was obliged to renounce his post as party secretary
in jail. This was just the start of his downfall. The “parallel center” tried to react,
proclaiming that the party was without legitimate leadership and that Walter
was a “usurper.”^174 “I don’t know what to say about Železar,” commented Tito.
“But he has done so much harm to our party that he must be either stupid or a
traitor.”^175 In the meantime, a ferocious struggle was raging between Miletić’s
followers and those of Pijade, who were growing more and more numerous.
Many of the prisoners started to realize that the latter was the stronger, and