40 The Young Broz
therefore decided to “repent” and to “adapt” to the situation. It was a dramatic
process in which Moša Pijade used every means possible to isolate, malign, and
besmirch Petko and his group, accusing them of being homosexual, of having
tried to poison him, and the like.^176
At the end of March 1938, Nikolai P. Bogdanov, a member of the “Red Aid”
(Medžunarodnaja Organizacija Pomošči Borcam Revolucii) and a Comintern
envoy, came to Paris on his way to Spain. He got in contact with Kusovac and
Marić, ignoring Walter altogether. This worried Walter, as it seemed that Mos-
cow’s sympathies were leaning toward the “parallel center” that had already
started to build a “new team” and declined to obey the directives coming from
the CC. Aware that he could strengthen his position only at home, where it was
urgently necessary to shore up the CPY and halt the spread of sectarianism,
Broz decided to take a bold and dangerous step. Without asking the Comin-
tern’s permission, he disbanded the leadership of the party in Paris and departed
for Yugoslavia.^177 This was an utterly unusual move in the practice of the com-
munist parties that depended on Moscow and was interpreted by Marić as his
victory, since he proclaimed that Walter had “taken flight.” Actually, this was
the first time that Broz truly asserted his leadership and made an independent
decision that showed that he was not ready to be a Soviet puppet. Also telling
is a proclamation published as one of the last acts of the Paris CC that appeared
on 12 May, in view of the crisis provoked by Hitler’s annexation of Austria.
It stressed the need to fight the Nazi menace with determination and to find
allies, even including the bourgeois forces in power. For the first time, Walter
and his comrades expressed their faith in Yugoslavia as a common homeland
for Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes—three interdependent nations. It read in part:
“Peoples of Yugoslavia, who all love democracy, who all love the fatherland
and the country, all patriotic citizens, who do not wish to serve Fascist con-
querors, unite!”^178 Broz affirmed that it was the right time to finally stop the
“sectarians” who had paralyzed the party and develop a common direction in
order to unite all the “healthy elements.” The fact that at an April congress in
Zagreb the Social Democrats and the representatives of the trade unions
decided to collaborate with the communists within the framework of a Popular
Front against Fascism and to abandon anti-Soviet propaganda was a sign that
he had succeeded.^179
At the time, Walter frequently met prisoners who had been released from
Sremska Mitrovica, even if they were followers of Petko Miletić, to see whether
it would be possible to include them in the party’s activity.^180 At home, the new
leadership was definitively installed with a CC of nine members. It had not