[Mazhi]

Here's an interesting text dealing with retaliation and persecution measures taken by Yugoslav Communists: http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/getdocument.a ... BD503C8638

I've not read it in its entirety yet, so I can't say if it's all good, but from what I've read it seems decent enough.

This is by no means an in depth analysis but it does do a good job at introducing some basic facts, I think.

I'll copy/paste the beginning:

Communist Retaliation and Persecution on Yugoslav Territory During and After World War II (1943 - 1950)

by Michael Portmann

ABSTRACT:

The following article deals with repressive measures under- taken by communist-dominated Partisan forces during and especially after WWII in order to take revenge on former enemies, to punish collaborators, and “people’s enemies”and to decimate and eliminate the potential of opponents to a new, socialist Yugoslavia. The text represents a summary of a master thesis referring to the above-mentioned topic written and accepted at Vienna University in 2002.

I RETALIATION AFTER WWII IN THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT

It is a general phenomenon in history that transformation processes of states and societies have always been accompanied by persecution, retaliation and political trials and cleansings. Nevertheless, it is a fact that with respect to the extent, intensity and the consequences retaliation upon fascism and collaboration in Europe between 1943 and 1948 stands singularly. Hundreds of thousands of real or imagined war criminals, collaborators, and “people’s enemies” have been killed, even more have been con- demned by courts and millions of people (mostly civilians) have been expelled or were
forced to leave their homes by the new authorities. Especially since the beginning of the 1990s the historiography has asked the crucial questions in this context and found (or is still looking) for adequate answers.

Some of these questions are:

– The whole spectrum of possible activities for people in an occupied country (from active collaboration to open resistance) has to be exactly defined and described.

– Which role played collaboration in the occupying policy of the Axis powers?

– Which power did indeed decide who has to be treated as a war criminal, col- laborator or “people’s enemy”?

– How narrow was the link in the respective countries between legal punishment, revolutionary jurisdiction and – in areas where a civil war took place – retaliation upon former war enemies?

The often one-sided historiography in communist countries stigmatised all former war enemies and also political opponents in general as traitors and collaborators, without making any differentiation. It was exactly this one-sidedness, which led in some of the new states (Baltic republics, Ukraine, Slovakia, Croatia and Serbia) – after the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the dissolution of the old Yugoslavia – to a similar one- sided political and legal rehabilitation of convinced representatives of the collaborationist regimes. It might be one of the most delicate and difficult tasks of European historiography to describe the complex of “occupation – collaboration – retaliation” during and after WWII with all its complex facets.

II

STAND OF RESEARCH AND SECONDARY LITERATURE

The following literature review does not claim to be complete. It may be that a publication was deliberately not mentioned, or it was omitted because this author was not aware of its existence.

a) Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian literature of the 1990s

It almost goes without saying that in socialist Yugoslavia a free, scholarly-based, and public debate about the “dark sides” of communism coming into power was neither possible nor desired. It was only after the violent break-up of the old Yugoslavia during the 1990ies, when in Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia and Montenegro the historiography was to be turned a new page in recent history of their countries.

The articles and books published by Slovenian historians usually do emphasize – but not over-stress – a national point of view and most of them can be characterized as professional and impartial works.

In the light of the difficult political situation in Croatia between 1992 and 1995 not only the population but also a part of Croatian historians and journalists were affected and influenced by nationalistic war propaganda. Among other works, a spate of liter- ature appeared on the sensitive topic of “Bleiburg and the Death marches”, most of it by far not reaching the level of scholarship. It rather seemed to be the intention of the authors to describe the “right” (in both senses of the word) Croats as the good ones and to condemn and stigmatise the (alleged) then and present-day enemies of the Croatian people, such as Communists and Serbs. Therewith they helped – whether on purpose or not – to prepare and legitimate the forthcoming respectively ongoing expulsion and
flight of Croatian Serbs from the Krajina and Eastern Slavonia. Nevertheless, there were also some works about the so-called “greatest tragedy in Croatian history” which tried to support an objective discussion within Serbian and Croatian historiography and public on the events during and after WWII.

But “Bleiburg” wasn’t the only field of interest of historians dealing with Croatian history after 1945. Other so far unrevealed aspects linked to the socialist metamorphosis of Yugoslavia have been uncovered: The role of the Croatian Catholic church during WWII and the faith of a part of its representatives was almost re-written, although with remarkable differences in quality.

Furthermore some of the most spectacular communist trials against both ecclesiastical and political personalities have been satisfactorily described. Principally due to the outstanding effort of Vladimir Geiger, the history of the German minority in Croatia (and Yugoslavia) is very satisfactorily explored. As far as this author is aware, a reliable summary – comparable with similar works in Slovenia - about the process of transformation seen as a unity has
yet to be published.

In Serbia and Montenegro, the scientific discussion and non-ideological handling of the communist take over of power are in their infancy. The war years and
Milošević’s nationalist-communist dictatorship left its mark on Serbian historiography and amongst the population. While in Croatia “Bleiburg” stood and stands as a symbol for suffering and martyrdom of the Croatian people, a similar function was taken over by “Jasenovac” for the Serbian nation. In the disastrous, highly political-motivated quarrel about Serbian and Croatian victims during WWII, some of the previously respected Serbian historians obviously forgot their scientific obligations and became little more than a tool in Milošević’s nationalist war propaganda. Unfortunately the otherwise excellent book by the Serbian scholar Bogoljub Kočović cannot contribute much to an objective debate. Besides some journalistic publications on communist crimes committed in Serbia
only a handful of source-based, scientific articles and monographs dealing with repressive aspects of the communist take over exist.

However, both the position of the Serbian Orthodox church in the period of 1945 to 1952 and the faith of the Danube Swabians from the Vojvodina are solidly researched.

It is at least this author’s impression, that the most important and delicate records are still waiting to be discovered or, in worst case, have either never reached the archives or have been destroyed. Be as it may, there is still a lot of unavoidable archive work to be done, until an all-embracing and well-balanced history of the first years of Serbia within socialist Yugoslavia can be written.

b) Yugoslav-communist literature

Although communist literature concerning the construction of the second Yugoslavia is often one-sided, there is a quite remarkable number of publications that have to be mentioned and taken into account. Primarily the document editions on People Liberation War and about the construction of socialist Yugoslavia build the starting point for further research. Read in a different way, these documents provide reliable and valuable information. Additionally many Yugoslav historians dealt with other (not repressive) aspects of the transformation process. Although these works are to a great extent ideologically coloured they still represent well-funded, professional contributions to recent Yugoslav history.

c) South-Slavic exile literature

A small part of Yugoslav anticommunists (former ustaše, ćetnici, nedićevci, ljotićevci, domobranci, domobrani and others) who managed to leave the country in
time didn’t let the opportunity slip away to state their position on what happened in Yugoslavia during and after WWII. While the memoirs of ustaše, ustaše-sympathisers and former četnici is hardly worth mentioning, other authors at least tried (more or less successfully) to be scholarly and their historiographic interpretation of the events lies within an acceptable frame.

d) Miscellaneous literature

Not only historians of Yugoslav provenience have been showing interest in recent Yugoslav history. The bloody and tragic end of the centuries long, mostly peaceful coexistence between the Yugoslav Germans and their South-Slavic neighbours after WWII led to an intensive and not seldom half- or unscholarly tackling in Germany and Austria of the history of the German minority in Yugoslavia. A comparable motivation has to be stated for Hungarian historians who tried to enlighten the faith of their co-nationals in Vojvodina during and after WWII. Aleksandar Kasaš however published the most reliable work about Hungarian minority in Yugoslavia. The description of repressive measures undertaken by Partisan forces (mass executions and expulsion) against the Italian minority in Istria, Dalmatia and Slovenia is the subject of some articles published in Italy, Austria and Croatia. Since the author unfortunately
cannot read Albanian it is impossible to say what was published in Albanian about “retaliations with balists”. Only a few other publications dealing with persecution in Yugoslavia appeared in English and German.

Finally the international comparative studies intending to stress both the differences and similarities in the process of coming into power of communist parties in the respective European countries after WWII deserve to be mentioned. The unhindered access to Eastern European archives made it possible for historians to focus on so far neglected fields of research, such as terror against alleged and true enemies, show trials, “cleansings” within the Communist Party and so on.
It is both the wish and hope of this author that within a reasonable period of time a professional team composed of historians from all parts of the former Yugoslavia and abroad will write an all-embracing, source-based and balanced history about the Stalinist époque in Yugoslavia. Since this process historically has to be considered as a unity (whenever with special developments in the respective republics or regions) it must also be described as one. Thus it should be possible to answer the question, what price in the hour of birth had to be paid for the fragile harmony in Yugoslavia during Cold War.

I'll also c/p the final remarks, and the appendix:

V FINAL REMARKS

Nowhere else in Europe after WWII the link between legitimate and legal punishment of “real” (domestic and foreign) war criminals, collaborators and “people’s
enemies”, retaliation upon war enemies and elimination of political opponents in order to consolidate power is closer than in Yugoslavia. These three elements have to be considered as the main motives and causes for all communist repressive measures between 1944 and 1950. It is often impossible to state which of these three motives in a specific case finally prevailed and each of them could have played a role already since the end of 1941.

There’s no doubt that Communist repressive measures must not be considered in isolation: the not seldom brutal and awkward occupation policy by Germany, Hungary and Italy, the racist, anti-Serb and anti-Semitic policy of the Croatian ustaše, the disloyal and often arrogant and violent behaviour of Yugoslav Germans, Hungarians and Kosovo Albanians against their South-Slavic neighbours and the great-Serbian, nationalistic and also ruthlessly acting četnici made a bloody end to the war almost unavoidable. Hatred and animosity between the different groups increased steadily during war. The presumption that either the domestic war enemies (ustaše and četnici) or the foreign occupying forces (in case of their victory) would have dealt similarly with Tito’s Partisans at the end of war is probably true but nevertheless no excuse or legitimation for the Partisan actions.

Above all the systematic, forceful and thorough elimination and suppression of “national forces” during and immediately after the war made it possible to rebuild a second Yugoslavia, where all nationalities of the country were to be equally treated. Thus the taboo in historiography and public to discuss openly the events of WWII (including crimes committed by Partisan forces) both helped to construct a new Yugoslavia in 1945, and to destroy it in the 1990s.

APPENDIX

Appraisal of numbers of victims bases on the entire material used for the master thesis

Period: 1943-1945
Place: Dalmatia, Istria and Coast Land
Groups: Italian officials, soldiers and civilians, German soldiers, political enemies
Estimated death tolls: 10'000

Period: Autumn 1944
Place: Belgrade
Groups: Serbian political enemies and collaborators
Estimated death tolls: 10'000

Period: Autumn 1944
Place: Serbia and Vojvodina
Groups: Serbian political enemies and collaborators
Estimated death tolls: 10'000

Period: After Autum 1944
Place: Vojvodina
Groups: Hungarian officials and civilians
Estimated death tolls: 5'000

Period: Autumn 1944 to 1948
Place: Banat, Bačka, Baranja, Syrmium Slavonia, Slovenia
Groups: Yugoslav German civilians
Estimated death tolls: 50'000

Period: January to March 1945
Place: Kosovo
Groups: Albanian soldiers, officials and civilians
Estimated death tolls: 2'000

Period: May to August 1945
Place: Slovenia, Northern Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, Istria, Bosnia, Vojvodina
Groups: ustaše, domobrani, četnici, domobranci, members of the Wehrmach-SS, Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian civilians
Estimated death tolls: 80'000 (thereof 60'000 under the keyword "Bleiburg" and 20'000 under the keyword "Vetrinje" and "Kočevje")

Period: May 1945
Place: Bosnia
Groups: četnici
Estimated death tolls: 10'000

Period: May 1945 to 1948
Place: Yugoslavia
Groups: Collaborators and "people's enemies", political opponents, "agents" and "spies"
Estimated death tolls: 3'000

Period: Total (1943-1950)
Place: Yugoslavia
Groups: Soldiers and civilians of all nationalities under the keywords persecution and retaliation
Estimated death tolls: 180'000

P.S.: This text apparently does not deal with the repression of Stalin's supporters following the Tito-Stalin split in 1948 because that's part of a related, but different story.