Original scientific paper
Stanislava Koprivica-Oštrić
Abstract
A study of the history of the Autonomous Workers' Party in Yugoslavia (NRPJ) is significant for a number of reasons. Apart from the Yugoslav Communist Party during the time when it operated legally, this was the only workers' political party in the period between the wars which represented the views of the revolutionary wing of the workers' movement and based its activities on their views. Hence the history of the NRPJ is not only a significant component in the history of the revolutionary workers' movement, but as well in the history of the entire workers' movement in Yugoslavia between 1919 and 1941. Studying the distinctive features of the NRPJ as a political party, its ideology and its organization is significant for the synthesis and typology of Yugoslav political parties in general.
This study reconstructs the formation of the NRPJ, from the first initiative to the territorial founding conference, then the beginning of activities in Croatia. Programmatic documents are analyzed (theoretical and action programs), as well as further activities in this area; a discussion of the national question, a referendum in the party where membership was clarified, and on the new programmatic orientation of the party (new views on the national and agrarian issue, the organization of a united proletarian front and a worker-peasants' front). The party's organizational structure is analyzed on the basis of pertinent documents (the statute and resolution on the organizational question) and a reconstruction (according to existing source materials) of the organizational network of the NRPJ in Croatia and data on the membership numbers in Yugoslavia and in Croatia (in comparison to membership in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia). Basic forms and an overview of the NRPJ's activities in Croatia are also noted: theoretical discussions and disagreement with the opposition, organization, organizational forms and greater action and cooperation of the NRPJ in assembly elections.
The NRPJ's significance, as the only workers' political party of the left, communist wing in the workers' movement in Yugoslavia during the period between the wars (except for the Communist Party of Yugoslavia when it operated legally between 1919 and 1926) touched on various aspects of the further development of the Communist movement in Yugoslavia and in Croatia. The existence of such a legal party, its voice and its theoretical magazine enabled live public discussions to take place with regard to the further programmatic, organizational, and action orientation of the Yugoslav Communist movement. Significant results in the development of the Communist movement's strategy and tactics were realized, and a new relationship towards the national and agrarian question was drawn up, which was particularly significant for the development of the movement in Croatia. On the issue of organization a new structure was established for the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and NRPJ. The NRPJ's activities influenced membership growth in the Communist Party, since the most active members, raised in the NRPJ, joined the Communist Party when it ceased operating. Because of the results which were realized in the two years in which it was active (1923—1924), the NRPJ signified the beginning of a period when the Communist movement began to overcome the consequences of prohibition (isolation and sparse membership, lack of a complete network of Party organizations) and to build a new strategic orientation and a new organizational structure which began to break up the fetters of isolation in which it found itself in 1921. Because of this, the period of NRPJ's activities can be characterized as a n important period in the history of illegal activities of the Communist movement in Croatia and Yugoslavia.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
216343
URI
Publication date:
28.8.1975.
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