Bela Crkva incident

Outlawed in the interwar period, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) began its preparations for an uprising as soon as the Royal Yugoslav Army capitulated.

The Politburo of the CPY Central Committee decided at its meeting held in Belgrade on 4 July 1941 (attended by Josip Broz Tito, Aleksandar Ranković, Milovan Đilas, Ivan Milutinović, Ivo Lola Ribar, Svetozar Vukmanović, and Sreten Žujović) that the time had come for armed resistance.

[1] The group of 15 armed partisans entered Bela Crkva from the nearby forest around 4:00 p.m. and headed toward the tavern to give a speech.

Following him, Miša Pantić, Čeda Milosavljević and Žikica Jovanović addressed the gathered people from the steps of the tavern that was located there.

They spoke about the shameful capitulation, about the occupation of the country and the regime of terror and exploitation, about domestic traitors who help the occupiers, about the Soviet Union and the strength of the Red Army.

Reminding the audience of the fighting traditions of the area, such as Cer, Mačkov kamen and Gučevo, they invited them to join the partisan ranks.

[3] Sergeant Bogdan Lončar [sr] and Corporal Milenko Braković were on patrol, and they began to ask about the identity of the partisans and disperse the gathered people to their homes.

To the gathered peasants, who were surprised by the speed of events and the unexpected turn of the situation, Jovanović said, "This is how all those who will serve the occupier will pass."

The people spun various stories, which were usually exaggerated, but the collaborationist press from Belgrade itself, writing about this event as the "beginning of communist riots in Serbia", spread the news about the appearance of partisans.

In subsequent years, representatives of state institutions and anti-communist individuals from the ruling civic parties, as well as revisionist historians, with the parallel efforts of the Serbian Orthodox Church, tried to revise the historical event.