Original scientific paper
Croatian Peasant Party Worker Policy, from 1921 to 1941
Bosiljka Janjatović
Abstract
The worker policy of the Croatian Peasant Party, i. e. Croatian Republican Peasant Party, had been so institutioned that its ability came to life through its own instrument of activity - The Croatian Workers' Association. The Association worked, from almost the very beginning of its founding in 1921 until the fall of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941, under the ideological and political leadership of the Croatian (Republican) Peasant Party. That is why article is studying the worker policy of this more or less strongest opposition party of that-time Croatia through the program and activity of the Croatian Workers' Association (CWA) itself.
The policy of the CPP could be understood better if divided in two different stages of activities: the first one starting with the very foundation of the Croatian Workers' Association until 1929, the other one beginning with the renewed strenght of activities of CPP organizations after the elections of 5th May 1935 until the fall of Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941. Both stages were clearly defined by the general political and social situation of CPP as well as by the situation inside syndicalist movement. Owing to these general circumstances one could even set down two subdivisions in each one of the stages. The very first subdivision is marked by the Croatian Republican Peasant Party increasingly interested in workers and limitating the program and activities of CWA in accordance to its own standard ideas on the creation of the peaceful peasant republic; this implies the fact that the workers were given the place in the envisaged future society as well as the confirmation that they had definitely become an important factor of the society. The anti-marxist viewpoint had already been decided on and had remained unchanged all through to the end of the activity of CWA under leadership of CPP; it was only stronglier and more un-compromisingly marked after that first subdivision period. The second subdivision period started with 1924 and went through 1925 and was marked by the anti-marxist standpoint: that the workers should accept the policy of CPP, i. e., that in the structure of the peasant state they would have to take up the place strictly defined by the party itself. But really, the worker policy of the CPP during that subdivision period was directed to the idea that the worker interests should be always submitted to the interests of the bearer of the policy, i. e. the party itself, and to the intentions of the party to put the workers off from the marxist, comunist influences.
During the first and the second subdivision of the second stage (the first lasting until 1935 up to the founding of the "Banovina" - governed by Ban - Croatia in autumn of 1939, the other from that time onwards till 1941), the worker policy was showing more and more anti-marxist, anti-communist tendencies, and it was revealing, without any doubt, the idea that the workers should have no class interests whatsoever, meaning neither the political nor the social ones, but should therefore accept the policy of the CPP. The basic statement lay on the fact that the fight of the workers for better working and material conditions (the party recognized only certain economic interests) should proceed in the view of the cooperation with the capital, i. e. the party was stating, for its own interests, that the employers and the employees have the same interests. Thus considered, the worker policy of CPP showed to be an anti-worker one really - the party tried to submit the interests of the worker to the interests of the bourgeois class (and that was coming out ever more clearly during the second subdivision of this stage). Those were surely the reasons why the Croatian Workers' Association, the instrument of such a policy, could not fight successfully the communist influence on the workers nor could it drive the activities of the worker class in the direction required by the CPP.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
219233
URI
Publication date:
2.2.1973.
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