Original scientific paper
Ivan Šubašić and Juraj Šutej under the supervision of the State Security Police
Zdenko Radelić
Abstract
The article examines how the communist government’s State Security Police (OZNA) followed and watched the leaders of the Croat Peasant Party (HSS), Ivan Šubašić and Juraj Šutej. The research for the article is largely based on the reports of OZNA which are held at the State Archives in Zagreb, and to a lesser extent on secondary literature dealing with Yugoslavian international relations after 1945. The inquiry proceeds on two levels: the level of high state politics, as far as the ministry of foreign affairs and a ministry without portfolio of the federal ministerial council are concerned, as well as local politics, in so far as mention is made of many unknown local officials and supporters of the HSS and several details which are interesting to a history of everyday life in the immediate postwar period. From the very beginning of coalition rule in postwar Yugoslavia, the communist party (KPJ) left nothing to chance. The communist party controlled all the key pillars of power. OZNA was staffed entirely by party cadres, and it sought to know all it could know about the government’s coalition partners. In Croatia, the only possible partner or rival to the Communists was the HSS, thus Šubašić and Šutej, as the potential leaders of any serious HSS revival, were placed under constant surveillance, their phones were tapped, and they were followed. The Communist Party wanted to enforce its monopoly. It wanted to know the intentions of its rivals and reluctant allies, to prevent them from using the tactic of accepting and preparing for multiparty elections to revive their own party organizations and thereby cut short the revolutionary aims of the communist movement.
Keywords
Ivan Šubašić; Juraj Šutej; Croat Peasant Party; OZNA; UDBA; Communist Party of Yugoslavia; Yugoslavia; Croatia; Zagreb
Hrčak ID:
19016
URI
Publication date:
16.10.2007.
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