From the Once Classified Files - Part 5
Here is Balkan States – Report 5
Here is Balkan States – Report 5
Balkan States – Report 5
May 17th, 1945
Mr. Stevenson to Mr. Eden
Belgrade, 13th April, 1945.
(No. 74.)
Sir,
I HAVE the honour to transmit to you herewith an interesting and useful memorandum on the partisan movement in Macedonia and its opponents, by Mr. Stephen Clissold, press secretary at this embassy.
I am sending copies of this -dispatch to the Resident Minister, Central Mediterranean. His Majesty's Ambassador at Athens and His Majesty's Political Representative at Sofia.
I have, &c. R. C. SKRINE STEVENSON.
Enclosure
The Partisan movement in Macedonia and its Opponents
MACEDONIA bas always presented one of the most complex and confusing issues in Balkan politics, and it cannot be said that recent events there have done much to clarify it.
The Yugoslav partisans claim somewhat naively that the problem has been finally “solved” by granting Macedonia the status of one of the federal units of the Yugoslav State. Apart from the highly controversial international implications of this “so1ution,” as far as Bulgaria and Greece are concerned, its acceptance within Macedonia itself has not been so unanimously approved as the partisans would have us believe. They have had to meet formidable opposition from two sides; from the exponents of the old centralist thesis that Macedonia is but an extension of Serbia and should be given no regional autonomy whatever, and from the separatists who claim that Macedonia should be given the status of an entirely independent State. It is in the light of these two opposing schools of thought that the development of the partisan movement in Macedonia may best be reviewed.
Annexation by Bulgaria
It is generally admitted that the entry of Bulgarian troops into Macedonia was welcomed by the mass of the population as a prelude to national liberation. Official Yugoslavia had denied the existence of a Macedonian people and had regarded the inhabitants of “South Serbia” as Serbs corrupted by Bulgar influence. A strict policy of Serbianisation and centralism had therefore been pursued. Serbian co1onists were settled on the land and Serbian officials- often or a very inferior grade- sent to administer the province. What the Macedonians regarded with perhaps, pardonable exaggeration as their national culture was ruthlessly harried by the Serbs as an expression of Bulgarian irredentist propaganda. It is scarcely surprising that the sudden collapse of this unpopular regime should have been hailed as the dawn of a new era.
Disillusionment soon followed, as it become clear that Bulgaria cared as little as the Serbs for the national aspirations of the Macedonians. For the centralists of Belgrade there was substituted that of Sofia. But the false hopes with which the Macedonians had started, continued to colour their outlook for some time to come, and rendered the growth of the partisan movement there of peculiar difficulty. Macedonia, it was felt, had already been “liberated” by the Bulgarians; how then, could the insurrectionary movement sweeping over Serbia bring national liberation to them! If the Macedonians grew discontented under Bulgar rule, they sought to better their lot by a struggle for social, not national, resistance. The first Macedonian Insurgents formed themselves into units which they called National Detachments, not National Liberation Detachments, as elsewhere in Yugoslavia. They formed their committees, too, but these were National Committees, not National Liberation Committees. When they chalked up their slogans on the walls of the houses in Skopje and Bitolj, one would see not the customary “Death to the Invader,” but more often “down with the Filov Government.”
The Beginning of Resistance
The resistance movement in Macedonia threatened therefore to develop along entirely different lines from the rest of Yugoslavia. The first and most vital campaign which the partisans had to win was the conversion of all resistance elements to their own programme. They had to ensure that it should be a Yugoslav and not an exclusively Macedonian resistance movement. It must be made to conform to central directives and give full recognition to the authority of Tito and the Partisan Supreme Staff. This issue was fought out until August 1943, and it was only when the capitulation of Italy brought a fresh accession of strength to the partisans that Tito's line found general acceptance. Even so, the old separatist and pro-Bulgar trends continued - and still continue to- day- to trouble the consolidation of the movement.
The first phase of partisan activity in Macedonia - from the summer of 1941 to August 1943-was largely conspiratorial. Detachments were formed, but they lacked the cohesion of a common aim and leadership, and were mostly soon dispersed. Communist influence had always been considerable in Macedonia, especially amongst the workers and intelligentsia, and here, as elsewhere, the Communists took the lead in building up the underground organization. A partisan headquarters was formed consisting of Mihailo Apostolski, a major – in the old Yugoslav army, Lazar Kulisevski, secretary of the Macedonian Communist party, Straso Pindur, Mirce Acev and others. (The latter two have since been killed; Apstolski is now a lieutenant-general and until recently commander-in-chief for Macedonia; Kulisevski is President of the Macedonian Government.)
Military and Political Consolidation
By the autumn of 1943; partisan activity had reached a more serious scale. The partisan detachments assumed the designation (if not the reality) of a regular army-the Army of National Liberation-and nationalists could boast that Macedonia now had the first army of its own since the days of the Tsar Samuel. Public confidence began to grow. The partisans now no longer drew their recruits almost entirely from the ranks of the intelligentsia and workers; the peasants, too, began to take up arms. Non-Communist politicians like Andonov-Cento began to identify themselves with the movement. The first towns (Debar, Tetovo) were liberated, and partisan patrols could steal through the streets of Skopje and Prilep without fear o being denounced by a hostile population.
In the autumn of 1942 Tito had sent his personal delegate Tempo (Svetozar Vukmanovic) to direct the organization of the movement, and during 1943 he established close relations both with the Albanian F.N.C. and with Greek E.A.M./E.L.A.S. (see Bari dispatch No.62 to the Foreign Office and 64 to Caserta of the 16th July, 1944). At the end of the year the second Macedonian Brigade was formed on Greek soil. It was composed of the Pindzur Battalion and the Kristov Batev Battalion of deserters from the Bulgar army under the command of Dico Petrov.
Tile Opposition –Cetniks
Cetnik opposition was mainly confined to the towns and does not seem to have been a serious factor. The anti-Serb feelings of the Macedonian population naturally prevented the Cetniks from obtaining any great measure of popular support. Their plan was not to offer open resistance to the Bulgar authorities but to build up a secret administration to take over from them on the day of their ultimate withdrawal. A group of Cetniks was arrested in Skopje by the Bulgar police in 1942, made little secret of their intentions in court and were subsequently released. The titular head of such armed Cetniks who did resist was Vojo Trbic, son of a wealthy landowner from Prilep, and Mihailovic's personal representative for Macedonia, and Krstic, who commanded a group of Cetniks in E. Macedonia until they were finally liquidated by the partisans in the Koxjak hills in the spring of 1944.
The Pro-Bulgars
A far more serious and persistent problem was provided by the existence of the various pro-Bulgar groups. A vigorous propaganda was carried on among the Macedonian émigrés in Bulgaria by Dr. Stanisevci, Danail Krapcevci and other leaders to induce them to return to their "liberated" homeland. The usual bribes were held out-land confiscated from evicted Serbian tenants, good posts in the Civil Service, &c. To counter the growing popularity of the partisans, the Bulgars even began sponsoring, a rival movement of Macedonian extremists to demand autonomy, or even a greater Macedonia, including Salonica. The former I.M.R.O. terrorist leader, Ivan (“Vanco”) Mihailovic had been living in Zagreb since April 1941 under the protection of his friend Pavelic. He had, however, his henchmen in Macedonia - Ckatrov, Kiril Drangov and others, who readily lent themselves to these Bulgar-inspired plans. In September 1944 he himself visited Skoplje, under German auspices, to assess the possibilities of enlisting support for a Greater Macedonia under his control (see Belgrade dispatch No.45). It was, however, too late. The partisans had stolen his thunder and summoned their anti-fascist Sobranje for the National Liberation of Macedonia (A.S.N.O.M.) at the beginning of August. Macedonia was to be a federal State enjoying full autonomy within the frame work of the New Yugoslavia.
The Experiment of Home-Rule
The first A.S.N.O.M. was elected at Bitolj on the 2nd August; it was superseded on the 20th December by a second A.S.N.O.M. held at Skoplje, which was in turn developed into a full Government at the third session of A.S.N.O.M. in April 1945.
It soon became apparent that the old opponents of the partisans' Macedonian policy- the Serb Centralists and the Macedonian Separatists-had by no means been subdued by the partisans' success. The Centralists, forced to abandon their former posts in Macedonia, have been obliged to confine their activity to expressions of impotent disapproval from Serbia and have been frequently denounced in the partisan press. The Separatists, on the other hand, have been far more active and dangerous. A.S.N:O.M. itself was permeated with them, and Marshal Tito found it expedient to send his right-hand man, Edward Kardelj, to attend the second session of A.S.N.O.M. and issue a strongly worded warning against the dangers of becoming giddy with success and harboring separatist and irredentist tendencies. These warnings have been repeated on subsequent occasions by such authoritative spokesmen all Cuckov, Minister for Macedonia in the Yugoslav Federal Government, and Kulisevski, now head of the Macedonian Government.
The prevailing mood of over-confident nationalism resulting from the expulsion of the Bulgar and German forces of occupation has found expression in many ways. Attempts have been made to close the frontiers to Serbs wishing to enter Macedonia, and the Federal Government in Belgrade was forced to issue a sharp reminder that every Yugoslav subject has the right of access to any of the federal units, regardless of his national origin. To bring the lesson home, a Serb doctor, resident for many years in Macedonia, has been included as Minister of Public Health in Kulisevski's Government. In Church matters too, a marked tendency can be discerned to break away from Serbian influence. The exact position in this respect is not yet altogether clear, but a start has already been made with the holding of a congress of Serb Orthodox priests in Skoplje as a preliminary to the establishment of an autonomous Macedonian Church to be associated with the Serb Orthodox Church in some sort of ecclesiastical federation.
Irredentist ambitions in respect of Greek and Bulgarian Macedonia have increased in proportion with the desire to loosen the ties binding Macedonia to Serbia. As early as November 1944 a Greek Macedonian Brigade had been, formed under Yugoslav auspices in Bitolj and this was followed a few weeks later by the setting up of a commission "to direct the struggle of the Macedonians in Greece." Finally, matters came to a head when certain Yugoslav units in Bitolj demonstrated their preference to fight for the expulsion of the Greeks from Salonica rather then that of the Germans from Yugoslavia.
The reaction of the Yugoslav federal authorities to all these manifestations of irredentism and separation has been vigorous. Whatever the ultimate desires of Marshal Tito and his advisers may be - and there are some grounds for thinking that they do envisage an eventual Great Macedonia, possibly comprising one State member of a Balkan federation - they are at present bent upon steering a middle course between the Scylla of separation and Charybdis of centralism. The extent to which they have succeeded in establishing their authority over the more impetuous elements is not easy to determine. It would seem that they still have a long way to go before those tendencies towards separatism and dependence upon Bulgaria, which have so handicapped their movement in the past, are finally eradicated.
May 17th, 1945
Mr. Stevenson to Mr. Eden
Belgrade, 13th April, 1945.
(No. 74.)
Sir,
I HAVE the honour to transmit to you herewith an interesting and useful memorandum on the partisan movement in Macedonia and its opponents, by Mr. Stephen Clissold, press secretary at this embassy.
I am sending copies of this -dispatch to the Resident Minister, Central Mediterranean. His Majesty's Ambassador at Athens and His Majesty's Political Representative at Sofia.
I have, &c. R. C. SKRINE STEVENSON.
Enclosure
The Partisan movement in Macedonia and its Opponents
MACEDONIA bas always presented one of the most complex and confusing issues in Balkan politics, and it cannot be said that recent events there have done much to clarify it.
The Yugoslav partisans claim somewhat naively that the problem has been finally “solved” by granting Macedonia the status of one of the federal units of the Yugoslav State. Apart from the highly controversial international implications of this “so1ution,” as far as Bulgaria and Greece are concerned, its acceptance within Macedonia itself has not been so unanimously approved as the partisans would have us believe. They have had to meet formidable opposition from two sides; from the exponents of the old centralist thesis that Macedonia is but an extension of Serbia and should be given no regional autonomy whatever, and from the separatists who claim that Macedonia should be given the status of an entirely independent State. It is in the light of these two opposing schools of thought that the development of the partisan movement in Macedonia may best be reviewed.
Annexation by Bulgaria
It is generally admitted that the entry of Bulgarian troops into Macedonia was welcomed by the mass of the population as a prelude to national liberation. Official Yugoslavia had denied the existence of a Macedonian people and had regarded the inhabitants of “South Serbia” as Serbs corrupted by Bulgar influence. A strict policy of Serbianisation and centralism had therefore been pursued. Serbian co1onists were settled on the land and Serbian officials- often or a very inferior grade- sent to administer the province. What the Macedonians regarded with perhaps, pardonable exaggeration as their national culture was ruthlessly harried by the Serbs as an expression of Bulgarian irredentist propaganda. It is scarcely surprising that the sudden collapse of this unpopular regime should have been hailed as the dawn of a new era.
Disillusionment soon followed, as it become clear that Bulgaria cared as little as the Serbs for the national aspirations of the Macedonians. For the centralists of Belgrade there was substituted that of Sofia. But the false hopes with which the Macedonians had started, continued to colour their outlook for some time to come, and rendered the growth of the partisan movement there of peculiar difficulty. Macedonia, it was felt, had already been “liberated” by the Bulgarians; how then, could the insurrectionary movement sweeping over Serbia bring national liberation to them! If the Macedonians grew discontented under Bulgar rule, they sought to better their lot by a struggle for social, not national, resistance. The first Macedonian Insurgents formed themselves into units which they called National Detachments, not National Liberation Detachments, as elsewhere in Yugoslavia. They formed their committees, too, but these were National Committees, not National Liberation Committees. When they chalked up their slogans on the walls of the houses in Skopje and Bitolj, one would see not the customary “Death to the Invader,” but more often “down with the Filov Government.”
The Beginning of Resistance
The resistance movement in Macedonia threatened therefore to develop along entirely different lines from the rest of Yugoslavia. The first and most vital campaign which the partisans had to win was the conversion of all resistance elements to their own programme. They had to ensure that it should be a Yugoslav and not an exclusively Macedonian resistance movement. It must be made to conform to central directives and give full recognition to the authority of Tito and the Partisan Supreme Staff. This issue was fought out until August 1943, and it was only when the capitulation of Italy brought a fresh accession of strength to the partisans that Tito's line found general acceptance. Even so, the old separatist and pro-Bulgar trends continued - and still continue to- day- to trouble the consolidation of the movement.
The first phase of partisan activity in Macedonia - from the summer of 1941 to August 1943-was largely conspiratorial. Detachments were formed, but they lacked the cohesion of a common aim and leadership, and were mostly soon dispersed. Communist influence had always been considerable in Macedonia, especially amongst the workers and intelligentsia, and here, as elsewhere, the Communists took the lead in building up the underground organization. A partisan headquarters was formed consisting of Mihailo Apostolski, a major – in the old Yugoslav army, Lazar Kulisevski, secretary of the Macedonian Communist party, Straso Pindur, Mirce Acev and others. (The latter two have since been killed; Apstolski is now a lieutenant-general and until recently commander-in-chief for Macedonia; Kulisevski is President of the Macedonian Government.)
Military and Political Consolidation
By the autumn of 1943; partisan activity had reached a more serious scale. The partisan detachments assumed the designation (if not the reality) of a regular army-the Army of National Liberation-and nationalists could boast that Macedonia now had the first army of its own since the days of the Tsar Samuel. Public confidence began to grow. The partisans now no longer drew their recruits almost entirely from the ranks of the intelligentsia and workers; the peasants, too, began to take up arms. Non-Communist politicians like Andonov-Cento began to identify themselves with the movement. The first towns (Debar, Tetovo) were liberated, and partisan patrols could steal through the streets of Skopje and Prilep without fear o being denounced by a hostile population.
In the autumn of 1942 Tito had sent his personal delegate Tempo (Svetozar Vukmanovic) to direct the organization of the movement, and during 1943 he established close relations both with the Albanian F.N.C. and with Greek E.A.M./E.L.A.S. (see Bari dispatch No.62 to the Foreign Office and 64 to Caserta of the 16th July, 1944). At the end of the year the second Macedonian Brigade was formed on Greek soil. It was composed of the Pindzur Battalion and the Kristov Batev Battalion of deserters from the Bulgar army under the command of Dico Petrov.
Tile Opposition –Cetniks
Cetnik opposition was mainly confined to the towns and does not seem to have been a serious factor. The anti-Serb feelings of the Macedonian population naturally prevented the Cetniks from obtaining any great measure of popular support. Their plan was not to offer open resistance to the Bulgar authorities but to build up a secret administration to take over from them on the day of their ultimate withdrawal. A group of Cetniks was arrested in Skopje by the Bulgar police in 1942, made little secret of their intentions in court and were subsequently released. The titular head of such armed Cetniks who did resist was Vojo Trbic, son of a wealthy landowner from Prilep, and Mihailovic's personal representative for Macedonia, and Krstic, who commanded a group of Cetniks in E. Macedonia until they were finally liquidated by the partisans in the Koxjak hills in the spring of 1944.
The Pro-Bulgars
A far more serious and persistent problem was provided by the existence of the various pro-Bulgar groups. A vigorous propaganda was carried on among the Macedonian émigrés in Bulgaria by Dr. Stanisevci, Danail Krapcevci and other leaders to induce them to return to their "liberated" homeland. The usual bribes were held out-land confiscated from evicted Serbian tenants, good posts in the Civil Service, &c. To counter the growing popularity of the partisans, the Bulgars even began sponsoring, a rival movement of Macedonian extremists to demand autonomy, or even a greater Macedonia, including Salonica. The former I.M.R.O. terrorist leader, Ivan (“Vanco”) Mihailovic had been living in Zagreb since April 1941 under the protection of his friend Pavelic. He had, however, his henchmen in Macedonia - Ckatrov, Kiril Drangov and others, who readily lent themselves to these Bulgar-inspired plans. In September 1944 he himself visited Skoplje, under German auspices, to assess the possibilities of enlisting support for a Greater Macedonia under his control (see Belgrade dispatch No.45). It was, however, too late. The partisans had stolen his thunder and summoned their anti-fascist Sobranje for the National Liberation of Macedonia (A.S.N.O.M.) at the beginning of August. Macedonia was to be a federal State enjoying full autonomy within the frame work of the New Yugoslavia.
The Experiment of Home-Rule
The first A.S.N.O.M. was elected at Bitolj on the 2nd August; it was superseded on the 20th December by a second A.S.N.O.M. held at Skoplje, which was in turn developed into a full Government at the third session of A.S.N.O.M. in April 1945.
It soon became apparent that the old opponents of the partisans' Macedonian policy- the Serb Centralists and the Macedonian Separatists-had by no means been subdued by the partisans' success. The Centralists, forced to abandon their former posts in Macedonia, have been obliged to confine their activity to expressions of impotent disapproval from Serbia and have been frequently denounced in the partisan press. The Separatists, on the other hand, have been far more active and dangerous. A.S.N:O.M. itself was permeated with them, and Marshal Tito found it expedient to send his right-hand man, Edward Kardelj, to attend the second session of A.S.N.O.M. and issue a strongly worded warning against the dangers of becoming giddy with success and harboring separatist and irredentist tendencies. These warnings have been repeated on subsequent occasions by such authoritative spokesmen all Cuckov, Minister for Macedonia in the Yugoslav Federal Government, and Kulisevski, now head of the Macedonian Government.
The prevailing mood of over-confident nationalism resulting from the expulsion of the Bulgar and German forces of occupation has found expression in many ways. Attempts have been made to close the frontiers to Serbs wishing to enter Macedonia, and the Federal Government in Belgrade was forced to issue a sharp reminder that every Yugoslav subject has the right of access to any of the federal units, regardless of his national origin. To bring the lesson home, a Serb doctor, resident for many years in Macedonia, has been included as Minister of Public Health in Kulisevski's Government. In Church matters too, a marked tendency can be discerned to break away from Serbian influence. The exact position in this respect is not yet altogether clear, but a start has already been made with the holding of a congress of Serb Orthodox priests in Skoplje as a preliminary to the establishment of an autonomous Macedonian Church to be associated with the Serb Orthodox Church in some sort of ecclesiastical federation.
Irredentist ambitions in respect of Greek and Bulgarian Macedonia have increased in proportion with the desire to loosen the ties binding Macedonia to Serbia. As early as November 1944 a Greek Macedonian Brigade had been, formed under Yugoslav auspices in Bitolj and this was followed a few weeks later by the setting up of a commission "to direct the struggle of the Macedonians in Greece." Finally, matters came to a head when certain Yugoslav units in Bitolj demonstrated their preference to fight for the expulsion of the Greeks from Salonica rather then that of the Germans from Yugoslavia.
The reaction of the Yugoslav federal authorities to all these manifestations of irredentism and separation has been vigorous. Whatever the ultimate desires of Marshal Tito and his advisers may be - and there are some grounds for thinking that they do envisage an eventual Great Macedonia, possibly comprising one State member of a Balkan federation - they are at present bent upon steering a middle course between the Scylla of separation and Charybdis of centralism. The extent to which they have succeeded in establishing their authority over the more impetuous elements is not easy to determine. It would seem that they still have a long way to go before those tendencies towards separatism and dependence upon Bulgaria, which have so handicapped their movement in the past, are finally eradicated.
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