World War Two and the Partisan Struggle 65
On the real independence of the Yugoslav peoples a new fraternal community
will be built.”^78
No one else in Yugoslavia at that time used language of this sort. “I think
that the proclamation of 15 April had historic significance,” said Tito later,
and with reason, “since in that critical moment the CPY indicated to the Yugo-
slav popular masses the real problems of society and the prospect of the fight
against the Fascist occupier.”^79
The CPY did not reach the decision to fight without internal conflict, since
it was not easy to decide whether it would be better to organize an armed revolt
or limit themselves to sabotage. “Against the revolt,” writes Kardelj, “there were
not only large democratic circles and many leftist intellectuals, but also some of
the communists. The prevailing thought was that the party and the resistance
forces should concentrate mainly on the political struggle, combining it with
sabotage. Many considered the attitude of those in the Party who were favor-
able to the idea of armed uprising to be an adventurous one that would help the
Fascists destroy the people.... They opined that it was better to postpone the
struggle until the final stage of the war and only then to call the proletariat to
arms in order to take power. They were convinced that the ‘right place for the
revolution was not the woods but the cities.’”^80
The day the royal government fled the country, Tito informed the Comin-
tern that the CC CPY had decided to resist the occupier, strong as it might
be.^81 In order to assess the situation created after 6 April, on 4 May 1941
he convened a series of meetings in Zagreb, attended only by Croats, some
Serbs, and Slovenians, whereas the comrades from Montenegro and Bosnia-
Herzegovina were absent due to difficulties traveling. Those from Macedonia,
led by the local secretary, Metodij Šatorov, called Šarlo, decided to join the
Bulgarian party, thus recognizing the dismemberment of the state. The dis-
appearance of Yugoslavia was confirmed by Moscow shortly after, which sev-
ered diplomatic relations with the royal government in exile, informing the
Yugoslav ambassador 8 May 1941 that the Soviet government did not foresee
any juridical reason for the presence of the Yugoslav mission in USSR.^82 The
discussions in Zagreb, however, refuted the dismemberment of the state and
expressed the fear that the enmity between the Yugoslav peoples could be used
both by the occupiers, in order to dominate them, and by the domestic bour-
geoisie, prone to collaborate with the Axis. According to Tito and his followers,
it was necessary to close ranks and under the leadership of the party begin the
fight against the German, Italian, and other Fascists, but also against the Eng-
lish imperialists. On that occasion, Tito once more asserted that the moment
to seize power had come, affirming that it was not correct to wait, as Marxist
doctrine preached, for the democratic bourgeois revolution. The communists,