Terror or Errors?: From the Socialist Narrative to the Post-Cold War Era

During the Second World War, the Yugoslav National Liberation Movement was one of the most successful resistance movements in Europe. However, it had to overcome various obstacles and its direction was not clear. In the first year of fascist occupation, the Partisans and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia confronted a practical dilemma, the potential solution to which could alter the course of the Liberation Movement's struggle: popular anti-fascism or socialist revolution? According to the existing literature, the latter outweighed the former from late 1941 to mid-1942, but its catastrophic consequences and Comintern's intervention resulted in the abandonment of this radical approach. The 'leftist errors' as this period is known, marked a cycle of serious defeats, setbacks, and failures for the Partisan Army, especially in Montenegro and Herzegovina. The confiscation of properties, burning of villages, and execution of existing or potential enemies were the manifestations of this policy which aimed for the socialist transformation of Yugoslavia as part of the liberation struggle. This paper will investigate how the existing literature has approached this controversial topic.