Ba Congress

The congress denounced the AVNOJ as "the work of the Ustasha-Communist minority", continuing an existing propaganda campaign which claimed that the Partisans and Ustashas had united to exterminate the Serbs.

However, while the congress resulted in a short period of reduced collaboration with the Germans and the forces of the puppet Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia, at this stage of the war, and with the change in Allied policy towards the Chetniks, there was nothing that could be done to improve the position of the movement.

[2] Two resistance movements soon emerged in occupied Yugoslavia: the almost exclusively ethnic Serb and monarchist Chetniks, led by Draža Mihailović; and the multi-ethnic and communist-led Partisans, under Josip Broz Tito.

The Chetniks under Mihailović advocated a "wait-and-see" strategy of building up an organisation for a struggle which was to commence when the Western Allies arrived in Yugoslavia, thereby limiting losses in military and civilian personnel alike until the final phase of the war.

[7] On 29 October 1943, Adolf Hitler authorised German headquarters to utilise "national anti-Communist forces" to fight insurgencies in southeastern Europe.

[8] By the end of the year, due to a drift towards collaboration, the Government of National Salvation and the Germans were at least as influential over the Chetnik movement in the German-occupied territory of Serbia as Mihailović, who was becoming increasingly isolated.

He assured them that the former illiberal approach of the movement, as advocated by his close political advisers, the former republican and Black Hand adherent Dragiša Vasić and the Chetnik ideologue Stevan Moljević, had been replaced with a commitment to democracy.

[10][11] According to the historian Lucien Karchmar, the politician that appears to have taken the primary role in these negotiations was the leader of the small pre-war Socialist Party, Živko Topalović.

Further demands were for a reaffirmation of the Yugoslav idea, a parliamentary system and social reforms, a federally organised country, improved relationships with the British, and a new attempt at reconciliation with the Partisans, preferably with the help of the Allies.

This approach was formalised by the resolution of the Second Session of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian: Antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije, AVNOJ) in the Bosnian town of Jajce in November 1943, which decided to create a federal Yugoslavia, based on six constituent republics with equal rights, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.

Along with this resolution, AVNOJ asserted that it was the sole legitimate government of Yugoslavia, and denied the right of King Peter to return from exile before a popular referendum to determine the future of his rule.

[9][16] On 8 December 1943, in the wake of the Tehran Conference decision,[9] the British Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East, General Henry Maitland Wilson, had sent a message to Mihailović asking him to attack two specific bridges on the Belgrade to Salonika railway line.

A significant number of the younger Chetnik leaders considered the pre-war politicians to be of poor quality and character, and obstacles to political, social and economic reforms after the war.

Mihailović made a personal address to the congress, pledging his loyalty to the king, to the rule of law and to Yugoslavia, and repeatedly denied he had any tendencies towards dictatorship.

[29][30] He forcefully refused to join the drift into collaboration with the Germans affecting much of the Chetnik movement at the time of the congress, but his repeated denials about plans for a military dictatorship indicate an understandable lack of confidence from the politicians in this regard.

The committee established for the new party included a large number of Serbs and Montenegrins, as well as three Croats – Vladimir Predavec, Đuro Vilović, and Niko Bartulović.

[34] Topalović's election was a victory for the moderates among the delegates, and constituted a setback for the Greater Serbia extremists such as Vasić and Moljević, who had dominated the Chetnik political program up to this point.

Firstly, it denounced the decisions of AVNOJ as "the work of the Ustasha-Communist minority", in accordance with the existing Chetnik propaganda that the Partisans and the Ustashas had united to exterminate Serbs.

[45] By agreeing to the resolutions of the congress, the Chetnik leadership sought to undermine Partisan accusations that they were dedicated to a return to pre-war Serb hegemony and a Greater Serbia.

[13] In terms of the socio-economic future of Yugoslavia, the congress expressed an interest in reforming the economic, social, and cultural position of the country, particularly regarding democratic ideals.

Tomasevich observes that these new goals were probably more related to achieving propaganda objectives than reflecting actual intentions, given that there was no real interest in considering the needs of the non-Serb peoples of Yugoslavia.

[30] The most important practical outcome of the congress was the creation of the JDNZ, because all of the representatives present agreed to avoid independent political action until conditions in Yugoslavia were normalised.

[14][31][52] The congress was followed by a significant deterioration in the relationships between the Chetnik movement and the collaborationist formations of the Government of National Salvation in occupied Serbia,[31] led by Milan Nedić.

The Yugoslav government-in-exile reported at the beginning of March 1944 that in response to the congress, the Gestapo and Serbian puppet government arrested 798 people in Belgrade and held them in prison as hostages, threatening to shoot 100 of them for each German soldier killed in Serbia.

Musulin was supposed to depart on the flight that extracted the aircrew, but delayed his departure due to illness, but also because he wished to stay with the Chetniks and gather intelligence.

There remained a significant gap between those who had embraced the new political structure and those that adhered to the original Chetnik ideology, and this divide was carried over into the post-war émigré diaspora.

It also appointed special representatives for the Chetnik movement overseas, including Konstantin Fotić in the United States, Jovan Đonović in Algiers, Bogoljub Jevtić in the UK, General Petar Živković in Italy, and Mladen Žujović in Egypt.

In August, several members of the central committee, including Pribićević, Vladimir Belajčić and Ivan Kovač, along with a senior Chetnik commander, Major Zvonimir Vučković, were sent to join Topalović in Italy.

[14][19] During the balance of 1944, the Chetnik position throughout occupied Yugoslavia continued to deteriorate, as the Germans did not trust them, and tentative agreements between the two provided only limited help against their common enemy, the Partisans.

[64] In late 1944, the Partisans, along with the Red Army, entered the occupied territory of Serbia, forcing the Chetniks to withdraw into the Sandžak then the NDH alongside German troops.