Yugoslavia Ale Čović  Milan Božić (POW) Unknown The Cazin rebellion (Serbo-Croatian: Cazinska buna) was an armed anti-state rebellion of peasants that occurred in May 1950 in the towns of Cazin and Velika Kladuša in the Bosanska Krajina region, as well as Slunj in Croatia, at that time part of Communist Yugoslavia.

[4] The peasants revolted against the forced collectivization and collective farms set up by the Yugoslav government following a drought in 1949, after which they had been punished due to their inability to meet the quotas.

The countryside had contributed the majority of the recruits to Yugoslav Partisans, Ustaše and Chetniks alike during World War II.

Yugoslavia began collectivization and forcing the peasants to start collective farms as early as 1947, in an effort to appease its communist ally the Soviet Union, when Joseph Stalin accused Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito of deviating from Socialism in the direction of capitalism.

To disprove the claim of revisionism, the leadership in Belgrade decided instead to speed up collectivization, demonstrating that it was not Yugoslavia but the Soviet Union and its allies that had strayed from the path of Stalinism.

Failure could also result in a spell at a work camp, where they would join political prisoners and students on construction or mining projects.

To further complicate matters, a drought in 1949 had led to a sharp drop in production and by January 1950, the Cazin district inspectors had collected 800,000 kilos less than their annual quota.

Over the next six weeks, the peasant army attracted hundreds of recruits from their friends and extended families in both Cazin and the neighboring Croat districts.

Božić, a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, set out from his hamlet in northwestern Bosnia to visit his old comrade, Ale Čović, a Bosniak who lived in the Liskovac village 5 kilometers away.

Rebel leaders Milan Božić and Mile Devrnja, also promised the citizens that the Kingdom of Yugoslavia would be restored under King Peter II and that compulsory deliveries of grains and produce, collective farms, and taxes would all be abolished.

[7][8] During the same period, in coordination with the developments in the Cazin area, a group of Serbs from the neighboring Kordun, in Croatia, attacked and held Lađevac and Rakovica.

[9] The Yugoslav government also issued 17 verdicts of death by firing squad which were carried out in November 1950: Agan Ćoralić, Ale Čović, Dedo Čović, Đulaga Šumar, Hasan Kekić, Hasib Beganović, Husein Zekanović, Husein Kapić, Mehmed Tabaković, Milan Božić, Mile Miljković, Muharem Dervišević, Nezir Bajraktarević, Nikola Božić, Ramo Karajić, Smail Ajkić, Stojan Starčević.

In late April 2009, the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina rendered a decision to perform a joint funeral for victims of the uprising, whose remains had never been properly buried.

[10] Today not much is known about the uprising; even close family members of the individuals involved in this historical event do not know clearly what their grandparents and great-grandparents roles were in the revolt, why they were killed, whether they were on the side of good, bad, or just victims of ignorance.