World War Two and the Partisan Struggle 81
During a session of the Politburo convened in the village of Drenova in the
Sandžak and attended by Kardelj, Ranković, Djilas, Žujović and Lola Ribar,
in a moment of discouragement Tito offered his resignation—it is not clear
whether from the post of commander in chief or secretary general or both.
The proposal was rejected on the grounds that Moscow would interpret it as a
sign of a split in the CPY. Ranković said that if Tito resigned, they should all
resign. “During the war,” he writes in his memoirs, “Tito was often subject to
depression and was frequently demoralized... but he generally quickly grasped
the situation, made rapid decisions and carried them out energetically.”^175 Tito’s
ability to overcome depression and master the situation was also seen during
this meeting, even though their position was in fact disastrous, since they had
only 1500 combatants at their disposal. The Politburo members kept their revo-
lutionary élan, but concluded that in light of recent events the revolt against the
occupier had been transformed into a class struggle, with peasants and workers
on one side and the bourgeoisie on the other. Certain that Hitler’s military and
political defeat was imminent—as confirmed by the recent success of the Red
Army, which stopped the Germans outside of Moscow, marking the failure of
Hitler’s blitzkrieg—they concluded that the second stage of the revolution had
come. They believed that the imperialists were well aware of this, which
explained why Great Britain had not yet opened a second front in Europe, but
was instead trying to unite the reactionary forces and launch them against the
progressive revolutionary forces—as shown by the attack of the Chetniks on
Užice. It was therefore necessary to continue the fight against the occupiers and
to settle accounts with the class enemy—the bourgeoisie—at the same time.^176
Due to these abstruse considerations, the news that as a result of Pearl Har-
bor the United States had entered the war as an ally of Great Britain and the
Soviet Union had little impact. On 21 December 1941, Stalin’s birthday, Tito
created the First Proletarian Brigade (later called “division”) in the village of
Ruda. It was to be the spearhead of the national and social struggle. Since many
Partisan units had gone over to the Chetniks, or had sought refuge in the woods
near their villages, Tito and his comrades decided to form an armed group that
could be trusted and committed on all fronts, wherever necessary. In Kardelj’s
words, “since we had splendid Serb proletarian forces, a parade was organized
in preparation for the future brigade... when we were still in Sandžak. There
had been a heavy snowfall and it was terribly cold, but the men, half naked and
barefoot, exhausted by marches, marched in columns and sang with incredible
enthusiasm.”^177 Their banner was red with a hammer and sickle because, as
Tito said, “those were the armed forces of the party.”^178
Peasants were not accepted into the First Proletarian Brigade, which con-
sisted mostly of CPY and SKOJ members. It was to become the germ of a