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p The history of the liberation struggle of the working people of Yugoslavia under the leadership of the League of Communists abounds in examples of the Yugoslav freedom fighters’ solidarity with progressive and revolutionary movements in other countries. Thousands of Yugoslavs took part in the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia, among them such celebrated generals as Aleksa Dundic, Danilo Srdic, and others. In Yugoslavia itself mass solidarity movements arose repeatedly: in defence of the young Soviet Republic against the imperialist intervention, in support of the Hungarian revolution and the revolutionary struggle in Bulgaria, in defence of Dimitrov during the Leipzig trial, for saving the life of Thaelmann and other victims of nazism. In the thirties, very important was the movement of assistance to the Spanish people who fought courageously in 1936-1939 against Spanish and foreign fascists.

p The participation of Yugoslav anti-fascists, many of them Communists, in the Spanish national-revolutionary war was a milestone event in the History of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and in the struggle of all its peoples against fascism. Since the early days of the Spanish war the LCY explained to the masses that German nazism and Italian fascism were the masterminds of and accomplices in the fascist revolt in Spain, which was part of the imperialist conspiracy against the progressive forces of the world.

p In July-August 1936, Proleter, organ of the LCY Central Committee, appealed to the working class, the peasantry, all friends of peace and all progressive people to raise their voice in protest against the aggression of world fascism assisting the Spanish insurgents. The LCY stressed that a defeat of the Popular Front in Spain would deal a heavy blow to the cause of peace and freedom not only in Spain but also in the rest of the world. "The Spanish people’s struggle is our own struggle,” Proleter wrote in August 1936. "This is the people’s struggle for the right to shape their own destiny, a struggle for freedom, decent life and peace, a 350

A group of Yugoslav volunteers in a Benicasim hospital
struggle against fascism and war. Let us give it our quick and wholehearted support with the same inspiration as Spanish fighters show when they give their lives for the cause of democracy and freedom.”

p The working class and all progressive people in Yugoslavia followed with admiration the heroic struggle of the Spanish people against the fascist insurgents.

p The large-scale campaign for support to the embattled Spanish people was led by the Secretary of the LCY Central Committee, Josip Broz Tito. It was directed to organisational, ideological and political cohesion and consolidation of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the struggle against the fascist aggression and mobilisation of all progressive forces for the struggle against fascism.

p The Communists explained to the peoples of Yugoslavia that fascism threatened them with slavery, plunder and even physical extermination. Therefore, the League’s first priority task was to organise a mass movement against the reactionary forces in Yugoslavia which increasingly gravitated to Hitler nazism and Italian fascism. Huge demonstrations held at the time in many towns of Yugoslavia evidenced the widening influence of the League of Communists. The democratic and anti-fascist movement led by the Communists became a powerful factor in the country’s political life.

p The LCY exposed false declarations by the pro-fascist royal government of Yugoslavia of its alleged neutrality in the Spanish 351 war as camouflage to cover up its complicity in the actions of the Spanish insurgents. This complicity was manifested daily by the actions of the police and censorship against any expression of solidarity with Republican Spain and by their complete tolerance of statements in support of the reactionary and fascist forces in Spain.

p The Yugoslav Government persecuted its subjects who expressed their solidarity with the Spanish people. The Minister of the Interior issued an order banning any activity in favour of the Spanish Republic and proclaiming that persons who enlisted in the Spanish Republican Army would be deprived of Yugoslav citizenship.

p No reprisals, however, could prevent progressive people of Yugoslavia, particularly Communists, from fulfilling their duty of international solidarity.

p The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, jointly with other progressive forces of the country, organised and inspired numerous and varied acts of solidarity with the Spanish people’s struggle: the raising of funds, collection of foodstuffs, medicines, clothes and other goods needed by the population and servicemen of the Republican Army; printed publications and public speeches in defence of the Spanish Republic and the people of Spain against slander by reactionary, clerical and police agents provocateurs; selection and transport of volunteers to the Spanish Republican Army.

p During the war, more than 1,600 Yugoslav volunteers went to Spain mostly from Yugoslavia, and also from France, Belgium, the USSR, Canada, Czechoslovakia, the U.S.A., Argentina and other countries where they had gone in search of work or as political emigrants. Ten Yugoslav immigrants living in Spain immediately joined in the armed struggle of the Spanish workers and peasants.

p By no means all Yugoslavs who went to the aid of the Spanish people reached their destination. Many were arrested by police, detained in prisons and concentration camps in Yugoslavia and elsewhere.

p The Yugoslav volunteers included representatives of all the peoples of Yugoslavia: Croats, Slovenes, Serbs, Montenegrins, Macedonians; more than 600 of them were Communists, including prominent leaders of the LCY.

p Most volunteers were workers of various trades and peasants. There were many intellectuals, too: 15 doctors, 17 engineers, 11 teachers, 10 journalists, army officers, lawyers, actors, artists, office employees. Among the volunteers from Yugoslavia were also women doctors, medical nurses, workers and students. Spain was visited by well-known Yugoslav cultural and art personalities, in particular the Communist author August Cesarec and the 352

Vladimir Copic, commander of the 15th
International Brigade (right) and Blagoj
Parovic, commissar of the 13th International
Brigade
Communist painter Djordje Andre jevic (Kun). Special note is deserved by the student members of the International Brigades and their vigorous activities in the campaign of assistance to the Spanish people. Commenting on this fact, the bulletin of the Spanish students’ organisation wrote in its February 1, 1938 issue that Yugoslavia was a beautiful country. Oppressed by a cruel tyranny it had made, along with the other Balcan countries, a great contribution to the defence of the Spanish people. The fields of the Jarama, Villanueva de la Canada, Belchite keep memories of the heroic exploits of the Dimitrov and Djuro Djakovic battalions, the Matija Gubec Company. Yugoslav students were

to be found in other army units, serving as commissars, commanders, pilots and tankmen.

p The young Communist students Milun Bozovic, Mojsije Stefanovic, Djordje Kovacevic, Bastijancic, Turk and many others gave their lives for the cause of the Spanish people.

p Yugoslav volunteers served in all the International Brigades. Their largest body was in the 129th International Brigade (in the Dimitrov, Djakovic and Masaryk battalions) and in the Divisionario Battalion of the 45th Division. Others served with the Liebknecht, Stjepan Radic, Kolarov, Rosa Luxemburg, Gottwald artillery batteries and other units. Yugoslavs also fought in the ranks of the 14th Guerrilla Corps. They could be met with in the Air Force, the Navy and in the medical corps. Army units containing Yugoslav volunteers fought at almost every front in Spain from the defence of Madrid in November 1936 to the last 353 rearguard battles in the spurs of the Pyrenees early in February 1939. Everywhere, Yugoslav volunteers displayed courage and valour, for which many were decorated by the Spanish Republican Government. Yugoslav volunteers also served as commanding officers: 2 lieutenant-colonels, 8 majors, 35 captains, 105 lieutenants, 39 company and battery commissars, 7 battalion commissars, 1 brigade commissar. Vladimir Ćopić, an outstanding leader of the LCY, was commander of the 15th International Brigade. The prominent leaders of the Yugoslav working-class movement, Bozidar Maslaric and Marko Oreskowic also held commanding posts.

p More than half of the Yugoslav volunteers were killed in action in Republican Spain, among them Blagoj e Parovic, member of the LCY Central Committee, commissar of the 13th International Brigade, who fell in the battle of Villanueva de la Canada on July 6, 1937, and Djordje Kovacevic, commissar of the Djakovic Battalion, former secretary of the League of Communists Committee at Belgrade University. The commander of the Diakovic Battalion, Aleksa Demnievski (Bauman), and a leader of the Young Communist League of Yugoslavia, Veljko Vlahovic, were severely wounded.

p Early in the war, Yugoslav volunteers were scattered between different units of the International Brigades. As their numbers grew, however, the Balcan Company of the Dabrowski Battalion was formed into the Djuro Djakovic Battalion, named after the secretary of the LCY Central Committee brutally murdered by gendarmes on April 29, 1929, in which most of the officers and men were Yugoslavs. The battalion also included Spaniards, Bulgarians, Rumanians, Greeks, Turks, Albanians, Frenchmen, Latvians, etc. In July 1937, the battalion took part in the battle of Brunete as an independent unit of the 45th Division. Taking part in the Brunete operations was also anti-tank battery consisting of Yugoslavs under Mirko Kovacevic, a Communist student from Montenegro. The battery commissar was also a Communist student, Branko Krsmanovic, from Serbia. Both died as heroes in 1941, fighting against the fascist invaders in the ranks of the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. In 1945, Branko Krsmanovic was awarded the title of People’s Hero of Yugoslavia posthumously.

p After the fighting at Brunete, the Djuro Djakovic Battalion was transferred to the Aragon Front late in August, where it lost more than half of its men when breaking through enemy fortifications and defending captured positions.

p In the autumn of 1937, after its reinforcement with new volunteers the Djuro Djakovic Battalion was added to the reserve group of the 45th Division, which also contained the Georgy Dimitrov Battalion. In February 1938 in Chillon (the Estremadura front) the group was reformed into the 129th International Brigade, which contained, in addition to the above battalions, the T. Masaryk 354

Yugoslav volunteers at the Aragon Front
Battalion, the Yugoslav anti-tank battery, a mortar company and a cavalry squadron. At the end of March 1938, the 129th International Brigade was moved to the Teruel sector and took part in defensive action against fascist units pushing towards the Mediterranean coast. In these battles, the brigade suffered heavy casualties, particularly in the Monroi-Morella area on a route where the 3rd company of the DjuroDjakovic Battalion was almost completely wiped out and where Mojsije Stefanovic, Vlado Brkic and many other Yugoslav volunteers were killed.

p After these operations, the 129th Brigade continued to fight at the Levante Front, but a batch of its men who had retreated to Catalonia took part in the fighting on the Ebro in the ranks of a separate battalion of the 45th Division. After the internationalist volunteers had been recalled from the fronts by a decision of the Spanish Government, most of the Yugoslav servicemen had to stay in Spain for a while as they could not return to their homeland. In January 1939, they again went into battle jointly with international brigade volunteers of other nationalities to check the advance of fascist troops on Catalonia. Together with the Republican Army they retreated to the French border and were interned in French camps, where some 500 of them languished for more than two years.

p The League of Communists organised in Yugoslavia the collection and delivery of funds and provisions to aid the Yugoslav 355 volunteers interned in French camps and prisoners of war detained in Franco concentration camps and gaols. Simultaneously, the party launched a broad campaign for the repatriation of Yugoslav volunteers from foreign camps. “The struggle for the return of our volunteers,” Proleter wrote, “is a component part of the people’s struggle for democracy and for preserving our country’s independence___We demand that the government take urgent measures to repatriate all of our surviving volunteers.”

p The Communists’ demand was supported by the popular masses. Conferences and meetings of protest were held throughout the country. More than 300,000 people signed an appeal to the government, demanding the repatriation of volunteers. The government demanded in turn that the volunteers sign a “statement of repentance" as the pre-condition for a permit to return to their homeland. This demand was naturally rejected, and the struggle went on. Immediately after the end of the Spanish war, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia helped about 50 veterans of the International Brigades to come to Yugoslavia for revolutionary work and to other countries for work among Yugoslav emigres residing there.

p In 1941, the LCY secretly transferred to Yugoslavia another 250 volunteers, who immediately joined the national liberation movement. They travelled from France across Germany to the Yugoslav-Austrian border and further to Zagreb’s underground station for assembly and transfer of volunteers to the People’s Liberation Army and guerrilla units.

p The experience Yugoslav anti-fascists gained in the nationalrevolutionary war in Spain helped them a great deal in their homeland.

p Of those who had secretly returned to Yugoslavia, more than 150 died in the national liberation war of 1941-45. Many of them were organisers of uprisings, commanders of guerrilla and army units: Marko Oreskovic, Mai]"an Krajacic, Mirko Kovacevic, Branko Krsmanovic, Ilija Engel, Ratko Pavlovic, Fadil Jakic, Milan Blagojevic, Danko Mitrov, Ahmet Fetahagic, Robert Domani, 2ikica Jovanovic, Franjo Ogulinac, Henrik Znidarsic, Miljenko Cvitkovic, Bozo Dakic, Veceslav Cvetko. The Chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army and guerrilla units of Croatia was Ivan Gosnjak, an ex-captain of the Spanish Republican Army, now General of the Army in Yugoslavia. The General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army of Slovenia was also headed by an international brigade veteran, Franc Rozman, People’s Hero of Yugoslavia, who was killed in the war. The commanders of all the four armies of the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia were veterans of the Spanish war. Other veterans became commanders and political commissars of divisions and corps, among them People’s Heroes of Yugoslavia Koca 356

Volunteers of the Dimitrov Subunit in trench lines (in centre: subunit
commander Matija Vidakovic)
Popovie, Kosta Nad], Vlado Popovic, Peko Dapcevic, Ivan Rukavina, Danilo Lekic, Dusan Kveder, Veljko Kovacevic, Srecko Manola, Vlado Cetkovic, Vojo Todorovic, Otmar Kreacic, Vizko Antic. High military and political posts were held by other ex-volunteers in the Spanish war: Karlo Mrazovic, Ivan Krajacic, Gojko Nikolis, Ivan Haris, Maks Bace, Stane Bobnar, Stanko Semic, Grga Jankez, Cedo Kapor, Djuro MeSterovic, Jolisije Popovski, Isidor Strok, Ivan Vejvoda, Cvetko Uzunovski, Ratko Vujovic, Joze Gregor£ic.

p During and shortly after the end of the national liberation war in Yugoslavia, many veterans of the International Brigades were promoted to senior ranks of officers and generals.

p For their outstanding exploits in the war against the nazi and Italian fascist invaders more than 50 veterans of the Spanish war were awarded the title of People’s Hero of Yugoslavia, and all the others received high government decorations.

p Many of the Yugoslav volunteers who were unable to return to Yugoslavia joined the Resistance movements in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland, served with the fighting forces of the Soviet Union, Britain, the United States and other allied countries. The metal worker Koturovic (Cot) of Belgrade became a hero of the French Resistance. Among its outstanding figures 357 were the Yugoslavs Ljubo Ilic, Vlajko Begovic, and Lazar Latinovic.

p Graves of Yugoslav Communists and anti-fascists, veterans of the Spanish Republican Army, who fought selflessly and died in the struggle for the freedom of other countries during World War II are scattered throughout Europe—from Madrid to Russian forests. This is a vivid expression of the Yugoslav people’s devotion to international solidarity.

p Slightly over 300 veterans of the International Brigades are still alive; the people affectionately call them “our Spaniards".

p Many of them have held of still hold key political and public appointments in Yugoslavia, are members of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) and republican central committees.

Veljko Vlahovic, Ivan Gosnjak, Vlado Popovic, Koca Popovic are members of the Executive Committee Presidium of the LCY Central Committee and the Federal Council. Ales Bebler, Vlajko Begovic, Peko Dapcevic, Veljko Kovacevic, Ivan Krajacic, Kosta Nadj, Jolisije Popovski, Ivan Rukavina, Vojo Todorovic are members of the Federal Council, many others have been elected deputies to the Federative Skupstina and the Skupstinas of the constituent socialist republics, appointed members of the Executive Council of the Federal Government and the constituent republics, ambassadors, trade-union leaders and account for a large proportion of the high-ranking officers of the Yugoslav People’s Army.

p The civil war in Spain became an important event in the history of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia not only because it coincided with the struggle of the LCY and the entire international working-class movement against the fascist menace, for peace and national independence. Equally important was the fact that the lessons of this war helped towards the LCY’s better preparedness for future trials, for stepping up operations in the war of liberation in its own country. Many future rank-and-file men and commanding officers of the People’s Liberation Army and guerrilla units were steeled in the Spanish war and acquired valuable military and political experience.

Yugoslav veterans of the International Brigades, all Yugoslav Communists and the people never forget their great duty to the Spanish people, who were the first victims of the fascist aggression in Europe and the first to take up arms in defence of their freedom and independence, their revolutionary ideals, and who are now waging a selfless struggle against the fascist dictatorship.