Milovan Đilas, in his war memoirs (Revolutionary War) was and remained very explicit until the end of his life in his view of the Chetniks as ""they were once national liberation detachments, but after World War I they transformed into a chauvinistic organization that terrorized non-Serb nationalities"This position is derived from his wartime, but also pre-war Montenegrin-Serbian and Yugoslav revolutionary experience.
Đilas will unswervingly adhere to the supranational or, more precisely, extra-national Yugoslav idea and vision of the socio-political organization of the South Slavic peoples. Enthusiastic about the ideas of communism, anti-fascism and revolutionary struggle, he will strongly advocate for the supranational freedom of all Yugoslav peoples, unlike Chetnik Greater Serbia or any other "great" Balkan national ideas - which are generally hegemonic and conquering - the dissident Đilas will reevaluate his party (KPJ/SKJ) ideological Bolshevism and remain an advocate of Yugoslavia as a democratic and legal state union.
Strengthening of the Chetnik movement in Montenegro
At the end of 1941 and during the first half of 1942, the Chetnik movement in Montenegro had grown so strong, with great help from the Italians, that it marginalized the communist insurgents and almost brought them to military collapse. (There were also internal, intra-communist reasons.) Therefore, the Supreme Headquarters sent Milovan Đilas to Montenegro for the second time to “save what can be saved".
During a four-day journey from Bosnia to the Provincial Committee Headquarters in Gostilje, Đilas noted that the lenient executions of partisans in late 1941 and early 1942, along with hunger and war fatigue, were major reasons for the strengthening of the Chetniks in Montenegro.
On the fourth day after arriving in Montenegro, Đilas/Bakić wrote to their Supreme Command that “Traitorous gentlemen (referring to the collaborators of the occupiers-VP) They are imposing class war at a time when it is a national liberation war. We gentlemen must not fall for this tactic.. "
Ideologically speaking, Đilas states, the Chetniks were favored by the communist emphasis on Montenegrin nationality as different from Serbian. This can explain, Đilas states, the widest spread of Chetnikism in the north of Montenegro, where Serbian consciousness is strong. The Chetniks emphasized their Serbianness and thus gained mass support. Of the Montenegrin Chetniks, Milovan Đilas particularly singles out the king's officer Pavle Đurišić "sometimes to break out of the mold of military academies and demoralized by the collapse of "his" state and "tactical" cooperation with the occupier. And Đurišić had distinguished himself in the popular uprising, in July 1941 in the battles for Berane, where the fiercest battles were fought... but he had no dilemma - neither in choosing the means, nor in cooperating with the occupier, first the Italians, and then the Germans... In the memories of the partisans, he is - along with Keserović from Serbia - the only Dražin commander who, along with hatred, earned respect as a soldier".
It is an old truth that there is no revolution without ideological roots and political organizations grew up on such a basis. The Chetnik and even communist ideological roots were not deep “in the masses” (the Montenegrin peasantry). On the contrary. Tortured by various armies, whether Chetnik or partisan, Đilas concludes, the peasants chose whichever side came along and got out of the war troubles with as little personal and family risk as possible.
Milovan Đilas completed his second war mission in Montenegro in mid-June 1942. At the Štuoc Pass (Durmitor), he met and joined a partisan column of the Supreme Command that was on its way to Bosnia.
The culmination of the Chetnik movement
Many, including Đilas, believe that the German Operation Weiss (the so-called Fourth Offensive - Neretva) was the culmination of Chetniks and Chetniks. The Partisan breakthrough through the Chetnik lines on the Neretva River on the night of March 6-7, 1943, was a defeat from which they would never recover and rise again.
Without military and political leadership, torn apart by quarrels and disoriented, without ideology, with Draža Mihailović who was at that time in Lipovo near Kolašin, the Chetniks had no choice but to face definitive failure. Even the most significant political figure in Draža's staff, the writer Dragiša Vasić, could not help the Chetnik movement. With his narrow national line, Dragiša Vasić, Đilas states, he could not impose and defeat the line of communist Yugoslavism, which had by then already grown into a supranational line of "brotherhood and unity".
Aware of the war realities, the exile government in London on May 11, 1943, instructed Draža Mihailović to cease cooperation with the fascists and establish cooperation with the partisans. But it was already too late. In Operation Schwarz, the Germans disarmed and interned the Chetniks, according to Đilas. Pavle Đurišić was interned in Germany, but after the capitulation of the Italians, he was returned to Montenegro to fight against the partisans. On the other hand, the British also definitively "turned their backs" on Draža Mihailović. Šubašić - as the position of the Yugoslav exile government - publicly recognized AVNOJ as the only legitimate government on the territory of Yugoslavia and the NOB as the only legitimate fighting anti-fascist forces. (It is not excluded - we would conclude today - that V. Churchill was behind the granting of legitimacy to AVNOJ and the NOB. He wanted, in exchange for (formal) recognition of Tito's authority, to "push" King Peter back into Yugoslavia and preserve the monarchical system of Yugoslavia. Tito easily saw through and circumvented Churchill's political maneuver.)
The same political stance was confirmed by King Peter in a radio speech over the BBC on 12 September 1944. (By decree of King Peter on 24 May 1943, Mr. Šubašić was entrusted with the formation of a new government, although the previous Prime Minister Božidar Purić did not resign from the same position.)
Although militarily defeated and "betrayed" but still present in the country, especially in Serbia, the Chetniks moved through various areas, killing enemies they encountered along the way. According to Đilas, Goran Kovačić, the poet of the famous poem, was killed. Jama with which he immortalized the hell of the Ustasha massacre of Serbs and Sima Milošević, a Serbian scientist.
Two other cases from that period mentioned by Đilas are interesting. The first relates to a chance “meeting” by Đilas with the king’s lieutenant P. Đokić, commander of the Rogatica Chetnik brigade. At Đilas’s insistence, “that at least now, when the Germans are disarming you, you should see that the occupiers are everyone's main enemies - he did not know how to answer. To my objections about the Chetnik cooperation with the occupier, he replied: That is a tactic! - But the Serbs are paying for that tactic with their heads! - should have been my answer. To my invitation to join us, he replied that he was under oath to the king and that he would not break his oath”. The second case is the opposite and far more severe. Fueled by hatred for the communists and aware of the collapse of his movement, the Chetnik commander Mane Rokvić ordered the burning of Đilas' bed in the village of Drinići, where he had been sleeping in early 1942.
Chetnik tactics of “waiting”
Although the war was drawing to a close, the ever-cautious Tito was “afraid” of greater British aid to Draža Mihailović, especially in the event of the opening of a “Balkan Front” from the south. British Brigadier Fitzroy MacLean allayed Tito’s fears by conveying information that “Britain will not interfere in Yugoslav internal affairs and in the balance of power in Yugoslavia, primarily between the Partisans and the Chetniks.".
It is true - states Đilas - that the USA also "felt" the war balance of power in the Balkans in 1944 and sent its mission to Draža Mihailović with a larger group of volunteers. On December 31, 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt handed over four "liberators" to the Royal Air Force, stating that until the end of the war they would only recognize the Royal Government. On August 9 and 10, General Mihailović helped the Americans evacuate about 250 of their pilots shot down by the Germans over territory controlled by the Chetniks.
So, from the other hemisphere, far from the Balkan mountains and without close knowledge of the internal genesis of the war, President Roosevelt hegemonic thinking opposing Tito's communist coming power, but also the influence of the USSR within it.
As for the internal Yugoslav Partisan-Chetnik war scene, it was approaching its end, leading to the definitive collapse of the Chetnik movement. The Chetnik tactic of "waiting" even at the very end, the finale of the war, proved to be ineffective. cataclysmicTheir Western allies were almost at the border. The Chetniks found their refuge in a one-way retreat towards the Western allies. Partly under the cover of the 91st and 21st German corps which were retreating from Kosovo and Greece.
Chetniks without any lethal force were killed on the way, and among them was Pavle Đurišić himself, who was killed by the Ustashas on Lijevač Polje on April 12, 1945. Pavle Đurišić had a definitive quarrel with Draža Mihailović and tried to create a Montenegrin army with the Montenegrin separatists with the aim of cooperating with the NDH. He had about 15.000 fighters and civilian refugees. He came into contact with Sekula Drljević, was caught by the Ustashas by deception and liquidated. Dragiša Vasić was also killed, as were numerous other prominent Chetnik leaders and individuals. The Chetnik movement was beheaded.
In Montenegro, Chetniks in the group of Baj Stanišić were captured in the Ostrog monastery. Đilas found out, while he was in Slovenia at the time, that they had all been killed, although they had surrendered. Stanišić and his three nephews did not surrender. He was killed through the window of the monastery and his nephews then committed suicide. (Some historical sources state that B. Stanišić also committed suicide.)
More important is the fate of the main Chetnik group that retreated through Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia towards the West. The group numbered (most likely) between 20.000 and 30.000 people. It was divided into three units. Most made it to southern Carinthia and even deeper into Austria, but the British returned the vast majority to their homeland, although they had no illusions about what fate awaited them. "Everyone was killed, except for women and young men under the age of 18 - that's how it was reported in Montenegro at the time, and I later heard that from participants in those reprisals, anger without measure and conscience, furious and narrow-minded." (Since the war was over, they were supposed to be protected by the 1929 Geneva Convention.)
Tito, however, issued an order on May 14th to prevent the killing of prisoners of war at all costs and ""All prisoners of war to be handed over to the main headquarters of Croatia and Slovenia." However, already on May 18, Josip Broz abolished the aforementioned headquarters and incorporated their units into the Yugoslav Army. In other words, the army was ordered to carry out a “justification” (A.Bajt, Berman's file, Mladinska knjiga, Ljubljana, 1996. p. 927.) over the Chetniks.
The decision on how to deal with the Chetniks returned from Austria was most likely made in Zagreb at a top-secret military conference between Tito and the commanders of the Yugoslav Army. When the British began to repatriate the Chetniks in the second half of May, a colonel arrived in Slovenia with a letter from Ranković to the local Ozna leader Matija Maček and an order to carry out a “justification”. The “justification” was carried out efficiently and quickly.
Tito's ruthless crackdown on counter-revolutionaries had no repercussions in the West, and he received top praise from Stalin. Even at a meeting of the "Kremlin "hazjajina" with the Polish delegation because of their leniency towards opposition forces, he cited the example of Marshal Tito as a role model, Đilas states in his war memoirs.
Let's return to the interesting fate, the end of Draža Mihailović and his group, which is explained by Milovan Đilas.
Congress in the village of Ba and trial in Belgrade
The militarily defeated General Mihailović, at a congress in the village of Ba on January 25, 1944, not far from Ravna Gora, tried to change the image of the Chetnik pro-fascist militarism and nationalism with a new political program and a new “ideology”, as well as to remove the sinister shadow of the Chetnik congress that was held on December 1, 1942 in Šahovići, Montenegro. Of the 274 delegates at the congress in the village of Ba, the majority were from Serbia, some from Montenegro, a few Croats and one A Slovene and a Muslim, or a total of 6 non-Serbs. (In fact, we would conclude, the Congress represented a Chetnik reaction to the decisions of AVNOJ and an attempt to copy it ideologically.)
The Congress adopted a federalist, constitutional, parliamentary system for the future state of Yugoslavia. The union would consist of three economically, culturally, and socially autonomous entities - Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. (Macedonia was annexed to Serbia, while Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro were not mentioned.) The main resolution was adopted on January 27, Saint Sava's Day, which gave the Congress additional Serbian characteristic.
The congress in the village of Ba had no practical, concrete political value or programmatic importance, so, Đilas reveals, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia did not attach much importance to it. One of the participants in the congress, later historian Dimitrije Đorđević, called this congress "our swan song". (See more, S. Pavlović: Hitler's New Anti-Order, Clio, Belgrade, 2009, p. 227.)
Everything had already been resolved, except for the fate of Draža Mihailović himself.
Fate “willed” that Draža Mihailović would spend the winter of 1944-1945 in Dugino Polje, on Mount Vučjak in Bosnia. Defeated everywhere in the country, a group of about 1.000-1.200 of Mihailović’s Chetniks crossed into Serbia “to start all over again like in April 1941, this time against the new communist order". The group gradually disintegrated.
Đilas reveals that OZNI deserted or was forced to “desert” Draža’s radio operator who gave away the code and agreed to send false dispatches. Thus, the connection between Draža and OZNA in Belgrade functioned “orderly"With the help of a Chetnik defector and Nikola Kalabić, Draža Mihailović himself and his group of Chetniks of about 20 people were finally captured in March 1946 and brought to Belgrade.
The trial of General JVO Mihailović could begin.
The trial was held in the barracks at the Guards' House in Topčider, which gave the trial a military character and significance. The importance of the trial was all the greater because part of the Western press sided with Mihailović's defense. His anti-communism was particularly praised, and the government "Moreover, the USA, as early as the beginning of April 1946, handed us a note proving that Mihailović was not a traitor and demanding the participation of the American aviators he had saved as witnesses at the trial.".
The importance of the trial was all the greater from the internal side. Especially for Serbia and the Serbs, where Mihailović "was considered a traitor to whom only the spread of the communist uprising and the evil of the communists prevented the fight against the occupiers and the healing of the state and the Serbian people.".
As with any major military-political or ideological-political trial, the guidelines for the trial of General Mihailović were set by the Politburo headed by Tito. The legal and operational direction of the trial was led by the state security, within its jurisdiction, in cooperation with the military legal and intelligence service, according to Đilas. Information about the trial was provided by Agiptrop, headed by Milovan Đilas. The trial was widely covered by the domestic press and was also broadcast on the radio.
Prosecutor Miloš Minić and the judges were - not coincidentally - Serbs, born in Serbia.
"It was necessary to prove that Mihailović collaborated with the occupier against the communists. But not only that, but that in this cooperation he was no different from other collaborators, Nedić's collaborators and Serbian fascists, Ljotić's, but that he was in league with them. That is why the fascist and police helpers of the German occupiers were also included in the process. And since Mihailović's units, especially those from mixed regions, exterminated Muslims and Croats, and Mihailović was the Minister of the Army of the émigré royal government - it was only natural that Mihailović's chauvinistic, Greater Serbian activities should be exposed to the public.".
Prosecutor Minić “handled” the case, the heads of the security service studied Mihailović, especially the enterprising Josif Malović. The latter managed to convince Draž to shave his beard before the trial, which gave him the authentic effect of a man from the distant past. In addition, the obviously skilled Malović “became close” to Mihailović, so he “suggested that his life could be spared if he was seen to and confessed to collaborating with the occupier. Draža accepted this - I don't know whether tacitly or explicitly, and he confessed to collaborating with the occupier when Minić pressed him with documents: that moment was a turning point for the trial - Western journalists rushed from the trial to their phones to report Draža's confession."
Draža Mihailović's lawyers Nikola Đonović and Dragić Joksimović could do nothing to defend their client, who "gullibly surrendered to the fate that befell him". All the more so because Tito considered this trial to have a political character and state significance, in addition to its military nature.
And in defending his policies and government, Josip Broz was not (judicially) merciful to anyone, especially his open, "yesterday's" war enemies and pro-fascists.
Mihailović was sentenced to death and secretly executed in the presence of a high-ranking state security official, concludes Milovan Đilas.
And beyond the end.
Today's neo-Chetniks in Montenegro, embodied in numerous leading municipal and state officials and church dignitaries, are the same as the Chetniks from World War II, except that their clothing is different.
At least for now.
Bonus video:
