In 1922, the Party of Rights established the Croatian National Youth (HANAO), and the People's Radical Party founded the Serbian National Youth (SRNAO) – the former ostensibly to hold ORJUNA's actions in check, and the latter on the basis of the belief that ORJUNA was inadequate for full realisation of Serbian interests.

The leadership became divided in 1928 when Split district and Pribićević accused the ORJUNA organisations in Vojvodina and Serbia of espousing the Greater Serbian agenda.

A portion of the HSNO, disappointed in pro-regime policy of the HSK, split and formed the JNO abandoning parliamentary political struggle for revolutionary methods.

[9] The JNO espoused the integral Yugoslavist ideology, arguing that the ethnic Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes were the single "three-named people".

Cvijić also associated the population of the Pannonian Plain in the northern and eastern Croatia with anti-democratic non-national mentality caused by centuries of foreign rule.

In Marjanović's view, the two differed only in Starčević being an advocate of conservative and feudal ideas, while the Karadžić's position was modern and democratic and therefore preferable.

The coalition issued a memorandum calling for reform of Yugoslavia into a federation and Yugoslav authorities interpreted it as a cause for concern.

It advocated subordinating political and social liberties of individuals to the needs of the state, aiming to achieve national unity through paligenetic unitarist revolution and development of corporatist communities.

[16] ORJUNA glorified violence,[13] and regarded Young Bosnia and Gavrilo Princip who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand as their role models.

[17] Historian Ivo Banac described ORJUNA as an openly terrorist organisation whose members advocated abolition of parliamentarism in favour of a dictatorship of corporatist legislature.

[18] Due to absence of radical measures aimed at changing the social structure, historians Roger Griffin and Stanley G. Payne characterised ORJUNA as a proto-fascist organisation.

[25] At the time of the organisation's founding, its members saw Pribićević as a possible Yugoslav version of Italian Duce Benito Mussolini.

[28] In 1922, local and district-level organisations were established in Serbia, especially in Vojvodina (Yugoslav parts of Bačka, Banat, and Baranya), in Slovenia, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[30] ORJUNA established special units, its armed wing, known as Action Groups (akciona sekcija, plural akcione sekcije).

[32] Bulat, Berislav Angjelinović [hr], and Uroš Bijelić gained high prominence in ORJUNA through their brutal conduct in the Action Groups.

[16] One of the first public actions of ORJUNA took place following the assassination of the Interior Minister Milorad Drašković by the Crvena pravda [sr] faction of the KPJ in July 1921.

[38] In Croatia (including Dalmatia), ORJUNA activities were primarily aimed against the HSS, and independent federalist politicians Ante Trumbić and Mate Drinković.

There were instances where the Action Groups targeted Croat-owned shops for staying open for businesses on the public holidays meant to celebrate the anniversary of proclamation of Yugoslavia.

[45] Namely, in the province, ORJUNA targeted Germans, Hungarians, and Hungarian-speaking Jews as foreign elements threatening the state.

[47] The People's Radical Party (NRS) challenged ORJUNA by establishing a competing Serbian National Youth (SRNAO) in 1922.

The attacks included bombing of newspaper offices, assaults on social events organised by the minority and public protests against the Germans involving ransacking of German-owned homes.

[36] One of the final large actions of ORJUNA took place in May 1928, when it organised protests against ratification of the Treaty of Nettuno between Italy and Yugoslavia.

The decline coincided with Pribićević's break with the DS (subsequently forming the Independent Democratic Party (SDS) and going into the opposition.

[56] In its final act, ORJUNA declared its support to the onset of dictatorship, believing it was the fulfilment of its programme of integral Yugoslavism.

[57] The initial issue of the newspaper received congratulatory messages from Speaker of the Assembly of Yugoslavia Ivan Ribar, Pribićević, and others, as well as a poem by Aleksa Šantić that became the organisation's anthem.

Those included communists, clericalists,[c] Croatian Bloc supporters, Trumbić and HSS leader Stjepan Radić specifically, and Jews of Zagreb in general.

The logo consisted of overlaid black letters J, N, and O set in an octagon having triple border of blue, white, and red.

[34] Due to its opposition to the parliamentary democracy and advocation of dictatorial rule in the country, the general public largely viewed ORJUNA as a fascist organisation.

Despite ORJUNA's efforts, Yugoslavism as an idea did not appeal to a wider public even though the organisation enjoyed significant support in Dalmatia in its early years.

[61] During the Second World War, following the 1941 Invasion of Yugoslavia, the largest portion of ORJUNA's prominent members joined the Axis collaborating Chetniks.