Croatian Peasant Party during World War II
During World War II, the Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) splintered into several factions pursuing different policies and alliances.
Prior to the German invasion of Yugoslavia, it was the most powerful political party among ethnic Croats, controlled the administration and police in Banovina of Croatia, and commanded two paramilitary organisations.
After the successful invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in April 1941, Nazi Germany proposed that HSS leader Vladko Maček could rule Croatia as a puppet state.
The plotters expected an Allied landing in Dalmatia, which they intended to use to negotiate as an equal party and prevent the establishment of a Communist regime in Yugoslavia after the war.
Prompted by the failure of the government to secure the rule of law and public order, the HSS established the Croatian Peasant Defence [hr] (HSZ) as a party paramilitary force in 1936.
Aiming to improve support for his cabinet among ethnic Croats, Simović continued to cooperate with the HSS and expanded the authority of Banovina of Croatia to include the police and armed forces.
[7] In retribution for Yugoslavia's withdrawal from the Tripartite Pact, German dictator Adolf Hitler planned to partition the country and annex parts of its territory to Nazi Germany and its allies.
Lightly armed HSS militias—the Peasant Guards and the Civic Guards—switched allegiance to the NDH,[15] and several units helped disarm parts of the Royal Yugoslav Army.
The decision to abandon organised armed resistance to the Axis powers left the Yugoslav government-in-exile in a weak position, a situation exacerbated by quarreling ministers who appeared united only in their anti-Communism.
[21] Maček's decision to resign his ministerial position, with the HSS secretary Juraj Krnjević taking his place, was resented by Serb ministers because it further reduced the prestige of the government.
[22] With the Yugoslav defeat imminent, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (Komunistička partija Jugoslavije, KPJ) instructed its 8,000 members to stockpile weapons in anticipation of armed resistance,[23] which would spread, by the end of 1941 to all areas of the country except Vardar Macedonia.
[24] Building on its experience in clandestine operations across the country, the KPJ proceeded to organise the Yugoslav Partisans,[25] as resistance fighters led by Josip Broz Tito.
[26] The KPJ believed that the German invasion of the Soviet Union had created favourable conditions for an uprising and its politburo founded the Supreme Headquarters of the Partisans with Tito as commander-in-chief on 27 June 1941.
[30] Maček led the most influential faction of the party, which adopted the policy of passively waiting for liberation by the Western Allies[31] and maintaining equal distance from both Ustaše and the KPJ-led Partisans.
[31] Another faction led by Janko Tortić and Marko Lamešić, who signed a resolution declaring the end of Yugoslavia and asking for German help, split off to support the Ustaše.
[33] His position deteriorated when an envoy of the Plenipotentiary General to the NDH Edmund Glaise-Horstenau visited him in Kupinec in late summer or early autumn to see if he would replace Pavelić.
Instead, he initiated contact with the KPH in the Podravina region (where he had moved after the outbreak of the war), seeking to arrange separate Partisan units for HSS members.
[39] While some of the Partisan fighters resented the entry of HSS members into their ranks, the official position of the KPH under the leadership of its secretary Andrija Hebrang was that the newcomers were welcome and free to keep their political views unchanged.
[40] Magovac's faction elected the HSS executive committee among themselves on 12 October 1943—the first day of the second session of the KPH-dominated State Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia (ZAVNOH),[41] and reformed this organisation at their 29–30 June 1945 meeting in Zagreb, under the name Croatian Republican Peasant Party (HRSS).
[43] The HSS leadership loyal to Maček became increasingly active in late 1942 and early 1943 in response to Partisan military successes and political developments, especially the assembly of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (Antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije, AVNOJ) and the ZAVNOH.
[35] To obtain an armed force and exploit the expected Allied landings, in the second half of 1942, the HSS attempted to gain control over the Croatian Home Guard.
These negotiations stood virtually no chance of success[50] because of the defection of HSS paramilitaries to the Ustaše, the abandonment of the entire police apparatus of Banovina of Croatia without resistance, Maček's call to submission in 1941 and especially the wait-and-see policy.
In January 1944, lieutenant colonel Ivan Babić flew to Bari in an airplane belonging to the NDH armed forces minister Miroslav Navratil.
[53] By late March or early April, Tomašić and Farolfi learned from British military intelligence personnel in Switzerland that the United Kingdom preferred that the HSS cooperate with Tito.
[59] The Interior and Armed Forces ministers in the NDH government Mladen Lorković and General Ante Vokić—the first high-ranking Home Guard officers to come into contact with Farolfi—joined the HSS-devised plot to switch allegiance to the Allies in early 1944.
[61] After the arrests, Košutić fled Zagreb and headed to Partisan-held Topusko, where he met Hebrang and British liaison officer Major Randolph Churchill to pursue negotiations on HSS–KPH cooperation proposed in April.
[64] In consultation with party loyalists and at the suggestion of the NDH leadership, Maček decided to leave Yugoslavia before the Partisans entered Zagreb and continue politics from exile.
[70] On 20 October, the HSS members closest to Košutić published the newspaper Narodni glas čovječnosti, pravice i slobode [hr] (National Herald of Humanism, Justice and Freedom).
[72] Two days after the elections, a bomb or some type of explosive device exploded in front of Marija Radić's bookshop, preventing the publication of additional issues.
The independent candidacies were rejected by the Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Croatia Vladimir Bakarić and the KPJ conducted a series of show trials, completely dismantling the party in 1947–1948.
