Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia

The latter sought to protect its southern flank before the planned invasion of the Soviet Union, while ensuring the availability of transport routes and economic resources in the Balkans where the Greco-Italian War was in progress.

In response to the pact, Royal Yugoslav Armed Forces generals staged a coup d'état deposing the government and Prince Regent Paul.

Royal Yugoslav Air Force General Dušan Simović became the Prime Minister and the regency was abolished by declaring Peter II of Yugoslavia of age and thus the king even though he was only seventeen.

With the country's defeat imminent, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) instructed its 8,000 members to stockpile weapons in anticipation of armed resistance.

[3] Building experience in clandestine operation across the country, the KPJ proceeded to organise the Yugoslav Partisans[4] as resistance fighters led by Josip Broz Tito.

The KPJ politburo founded the Supreme Headquarters of the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia with Tito as commander-in-chief on 27 June 1941[6] and the Partisans waged war against the occupying powers until 1945.

The decision to abandon organised armed resistance put the Yugoslav government-in-exile in a weak position, further eroded by political differences between ministers.

In combination with fear of communism, this led him to ignore information about Chetnik collaboration with the Axis powers,[12] and appoint their leader Draža Mihailović the Minister of the Army, Navy and Air Forces.

In August, Božidar Purić was appointed the prime minister of a largely administrative government mostly composed of civil servants,[15] although Mihailović retained his ministerial position.

[17] On 26 and 27 November,[18] the pan-Yugoslav Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) was established in the town at the initiative of Tito and the KPJ.

Shortly before the Bihać session, Tito added the expression "Anti-Fascist" to the original name of the AVNOJ to emphasise its temporary and anti-Axis nature.

[23] AVNOJ delegates represented specific parts of Yugoslavia: seventeen for Bosnia and Herzegovina, fifteen for Croatia, fourteen each for Serbia and Montenegro, eight for Slovenia, six for the Sandžak, and three for Vojvodina.

[27] After the Bihać meeting, land councils were established as political bodies representative of what was expected to be individual parts of the future federation.

[28] In January 1943, the executive council of the AVNOJ announced the "People's Liberation Loan", an attempt to raise half a billion kuna for the Partisan cause.

[20] The NDH's Ustaše regime launched a propaganda campaign in November 1942 to discredit the AVNOJ and portray the Partisans' struggle as pro-Serb and anti-Croat.

[29] Tito describes the purpose of AVNOJ in his work The Yugoslav peoples fight for freedom in 1944: In the autumn of 1942, when the greater part of Yugoslavia had been liberated, the necessity arose for establishing a central political body for all Yugoslavia to direct all these committees [former local authorities] and to relieve the High Command of various political functions which had been constantly piling up through the force of circumstance.

[32] Since the previous session, the Western Allies began to support the Partisans,[33] and Tito considered a British landing in Yugoslavia likely.

Instead, the Serbian delegates were appointed by individual Partisan units originally from Serbia; as a result, eastern Yugoslavia was underrepresented.

Only Sandžak was listed with other lower-ranked regional entities, even though its land council was still included among the "seven basic bodies of people's government".

Though the position of individual nations and regions were not further elaborated,[40] the second session of the AVNOJ determined the type of federal system to be introduced in Yugoslavia, modelling it on the Soviet Union.

[41] The AVNOJ also denied the legitimacy of the Yugoslav government-in-exile and forbade the return of King Peter II to the country until its people could decide on the future of the monarchy after the war.

[25] Five vice-presidents were appointed: Antun Augustinčić, Moša Pijade, Josip Rus [sl], Dimitar Vlahov, and Marko Vujačić [sr].

[39] On 15 January 1944, the AVNOJ introduced multilingualism to its proceedings, deciding to publish its official work in Serbian, Croatian, Slovene and Macedonian.

[48][46] The emblem consisted of five lit torches burning as one flame representing five united nations; this was framed by sheaves, topped by a red five-pointed star, and crossed by a blue stripe bearing the name of the country, Democratic Federal Yugoslavia.

[46] Stalin was enraged by the AVNOJ's rejection of Soviet advice in its establishment of the NKOJ as an interim government and explicit repudiation of the government-in-exile.

About 240,000 were evacuated before the arrival of the Red Army, another 150,000 were later deported to the USSR to work as forced labour, 50,000 died in Yugoslav-run labor camps and 15,000 were killed by the Partisans.

[55] At Allied suggestion,[52] in February 1945 the AVNOJ was expanded to include members drawn from Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo-Metohija, which had not been represented at its second session.

[59] The Anti-Fascist Parliament for the People's Liberation of Serbia (ASNOS) held its first regular session between 7 and 9 April, and voted in favour of annexation of Vojvodina, Kosovo and a part of Sandžak.

[64] The second session of the AVNOJ was celebrated in post-war Yugoslavia as the birth of the country and the event was commemorated annually on 29 and 30 November as a two-day national holiday.