World War Two and the Partisan Struggle 69
throne. It was the start of an impassioned, highly patriotic Serb Orthodox
movement, which was, as one of its followers later admitted, rooted in a hatred
of all other Yugoslav peoples, especially Croats and Muslims. It is clear, he
added, that it was impossible to win the war with presuppositions of this sort.
“Moreover, we built everything on the myths of the past and it is obvious that
today this leads to defeat.”^99
Meanwhile, Stalin tried to do everything he could to stay in Hitler’s graces.
On the eve of Operation Barbarossa, the name given to the Nazi invasion of
the Soviet Union, the Moscow press agency TASS (Telegrafnoe agentstvo
Sovetskovo soiuza; Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union) published an arti-
cle stating that information regarding the great concentration of forces on the
Soviet border was false. For Tito, the fact that there was no reaction on the part
of the Germans was a signal that the attack was imminent.^100 The Nazi aggres-
sion against the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 did not, therefore, come as a
surprise to him, as it did to Stalin. The invasion of the “flowering Soviet gar-
den,” as Tito wrote on behalf of the CC CPY that same day, in a proclamation
called “To Workers, Peasants and Citizens of Yugoslavia,” required all proletar-
ians to take arms in its defense.^101 This audacious, even reckless, decision was
based on the fact that the communists had no doubts that the ruin of the capi-
talist world was imminent, that the Red Army would confront the Wehrmacht
without difficulty, and that its victory was a question of weeks, at most months.
They considered its catastrophic retreat as a brilliant tactical move on Stalin’s
part: indeed, what could happen to an army that had recently celebrated the
construction of a million and one tanks?^102 “The Russians influenced all our
aims, our strategy and tactics. We were convinced that ‘If the Russians win,
we will also win,’” Ranković recalled.^103 In Tito’s inner circle, as well as among
the masses, the rumor spread that the Russians would be parachuting into
Yugoslavia at any moment, and that it was necessary to be ready and welcome
them. When Djilas asked a comrade if the war would end quickly, and received
the answer that it would be over before the year’s end, he reacted angrily: “Hang
yourself on a lamp post, it will be over in two months.”^104 Faith in immediate
Soviet help is eloquently revealed in a message sent from Tito to the Comin-
tern at the end of June 1941: “We are preparing an armed revolt against the
occupiers, since our people are ready to fight. Tell us, what do you think? We
are short of arms. Can we get some quickly?”^105
In the meantime, on 22 June 1941, Dimitrov asked Broz to do everything
possible in favor of the “rightful struggle of the Soviet people.” Well aware,
however, of his radical leanings, he stressed on behalf of Stalin that, at the
moment, the liberation from fascist oppression, and not the socialist revolution,