FOREIGN NATIONALITY GROUPS IN THE UNITED STATES
Memorandum by the Foreign Nationalities Branch to the Director of Strategic Services
Number 198, 28 June 1944
RELIGIOUS-POLITICAL FORCES ADD TO THE YUGOSLAV COMPLICATION
1. Serbian Orthodox Bishop Dionisije breaks with extreme Serb nationalism, disassociates himself from Mihailovich, favors federated Yugoslavia under a king, and despite dread of atheistic Communism looks toward Moscow to fend against disorder in the Balkans and for support against a Roman Catholic organization of Central Europe, which he fears would truncate Yugoslavia.2. Some Roman Catholic Priests have revived a movement among Croatian-Americans for an independent Croatia; they openly approve the Hitler quisling, Ante Pavelich, because they believe he has given the idea of Croatian independence a demonstration of reality; an analogous movement appears among the Slovene-Americans; and ground is thus provided for Serbian Orthodox fear of a new Austro-Hungarian Roman Catholic imperialism.
3. The Communist line is still to denounce the Croatian Peasant Party leader, Vladimir Machek, as a reactionary and collaborationist, but the bulk of Croatian-Americans hold true to the Machek tradition, and except for the Catholic-led Croatian nationalists and the extreme Serbian nationalists, are following with sympathetic interest Ivan Subasich's effort to form a new Yugoslav Government under King Peter. While Croatian nationalists talk of independence, Serbian nationalists, desperate in all other directions, now dream of Moscow as deus ex machina.
THE ever complicated Yugoslav sector of the foreign political scene in the United States has risen to a new pitch of complication, in which a confrontation of Roman Catholic vs. Orthodox takes shadowy form. These are principal factors -
(1) A readjustment of political position by the Orthodox Bishop of North America, Dionisije;
(2) A revived Croatian independence move led by Roman Catholic clergy;
(3) The efforts of Ban Ivan Subasich to form a new Yugoslav Government in the midst of mounting Communist attacks on Subasich's old chief, Vladimir Machek.
Bishop Dionisije's readjustment of position includes divorcement from the extreme nationalist campaign which has been carried on in the United States by the Serbian National Defense Council, and, coincidentally with the recall of Ambassador Fotich, a decision to end the public support heretofore given by the Bishop to General Draza Mihailovich. The Bishop is out clearly now for a federated Yugoslavia under the monarchy, and he opines that preservation of the monarchic principle would make it possible to have a Croat such as Ivan Subasich as prime minister. To implement his break with the Serbian nationalist campaign in the United States, the Bishop is establishing a new organization, the Serbian Patriarchate Fund, to carry on the humanitarian work from which he asserts the Serbian National Defense was seduced by political machinations.
Concurrently, a number of Roman Catholic leaders among the Croatian-Americans are moving definitely against any reconstitution of Yugoslavia. They are out for an independent Croatia and are quite open in their approval of the Croatian quisling, Ante Pavelich, because they believe that at whatever cost he has imparted to the idea of Croatian independence a demonstration of reality. They are again presenting to the American public the case for an independent Croatia which was first heard of many years ago.
This initiative by individual Roman Catholic clerics in the United States has stirred in the mind of Bishop Dionisije, as well as others, the old notion of a Roman Catholic political bulwark crossing Central Europe. The Bishop seems not to doubt the existence of a Vatican design for a new Roman limes, which with Poland on the north would include Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, and Slovenia, and it implies to him a Habsburg restoration and a new Austro-Hungarian imperialism and a ruinous cutting across of the Southern Slavs by political-religious strife. His Orthodox distrust of the Western Church is fired again. He dreads "atheistic Communism" still, but he wonders if Moscow is any more what it has been. He has plainly come to think of Moscow as the emerging champion perhaps of the East against the West and deus ex machina in the tangled drama of the Southern Slavs.
The Bishop and the rest of the Yugoslav-American community meanwhile watch the efforts of Ivan Subasich to form a new Yugoslav Government under King Peter. Extreme Right and Left are hostile to Subasich or at best tolerant, but the middle-of-the-road bulk of the community wish him all success. Subasich's friends have been impressed by the swift fulfillment of the promise he gave them before leaving the United States to dismiss General Draza Mihailovich as Minister of War and Constantin Fotich as Ambassador in Washington as soon as the King entrusted him with power, but they are disturbed by the still mounting Communist attack upon Subasich's old chief, Machek. Meanwhile Serb-American nationalists, in all other directions desperate, see signs that Moscow may be preparing an accommodation with Mihailovich. For them also Moscow takes on the shadowy form of deus ex machina.
Bishop Dionisije expressed his views and stated his plans during a talk with this Branch in New York 12 June. It was his earnest wish, he said, that any sort of hostile confrontation between Orthodox and Roman Catholic interests should be avoided, but recognizing that such an untoward development might come nonetheless, he was quite frankly giving thought to the solidarity which exists among the national churches of the Orthodox communion - Russian, Serbian, Greek, and so on - and to the vast power of the new Russia. He spoke also of the special tie which binds the Orthodox communion with the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. He has not failed to follow the journey of the Archbishop of York to Moscow last September to pay his respects very promptly to the newly elevated Patriarch of Russia, and he had watched with the greatest interest, of course, the ensuing visit of that socially minded Anglican leader to the United States in April.
The sense of brotherhood existing between the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States had been concretely demonstrated on 11 June. The Bishop had come to New York to take part in the consecration of the Serbian Cathedral of St. Sava. Until then a pro-Cathedral, it becomes the first Serbian Cathedral in the United States and the Bishop's new See. The edifice, which is at 15 West 25th Street, was originally built as a chapel for Trinity parish of the Protestant Episcopal Church at a cost of $200,000 or more. Bishop Dionisije and his colleagues in the Serbian Orthodox diocese of North American felt it to be a substantial expression of brotherhood that Trinity parish relinquished the property to them for $30,000.
Bishop William T. Manning of the Protestant Episcopal Church had been another principal participant in the dedication. The ceremony symbolized, Manning later declared, the "close relation of the Protestant Episcopal and Holy Orthodox Churches." Also participating were Bishop Polizoides, representing Archbishop Athenagoras of the Greek Orthodox Church; Bishop Makarij of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Reverend Edward N. West, canon sacrist of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine; five archpriests and three priests representing Serbian congregations from coast to coast, and the Very Reverend Dushan J. Shoukletovich, formerly rector of St. Sava's Church, now elevated to the deanship of the cathedral. Fourteen hundred New York Serbian-Americans and 600 representatives of Serbian societies and congregations all over the country were present. Outwardly the occasion was a success, but for the more fervid Serbian nationalists it was reduced to something of an anti-climax by the failure of Bishop Dionisije to mention the name of General Draza Mihailovich and by the news that day of Ambassador Fotich's recall.
Bishop Dionisije's address was the only one at the dedication ceremonies which bore political references. As originally written the address had contained a complimentary allusion to General Draza Mihailovich, the Bishop told this Branch, but the passage was struck out at the last moment, coincidentally with the receipt of word that Ambassador Fotich had been recalled.
"The whole world knows," said the Bishop in the course of the retained portions of his address, "how great were the sufferings of the Serbian people and of the Serbian Orthodox Church whose property, church buildings, and monasteries in the so-called 'Independent State of Croatia' were confiscated and plundered, and in many cases destroyed, or burned and drenched with Serbian blood. It is everywhere known how at least three of our bishops were murdered by the Ustashi, as were also about a million Serbs, including hundreds of priests, many of whom were exiled with hundreds of thousands of other Serbs, from their parishes, their homes, and their native land. It is also well known how the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, His Holiness Patriarch Gabriel, dearly paid for his resistance to the Germans and for that very reason is at the present time suffering in prison in one of our monasteries.
"And yet again, the whole world knows how Hitler and Pavelich, the leader of the Ustashi in the 'Independent State of Croatia,' attempted to crush Serbian Church unity in Yugoslavia through the organization of the remaining Serbs into a so-called 'Croatian Orthodox Church' by a dissident of the Russian Orthodox Church, Bishop Germogen as head. All of these deplorable conditions put the Serbs as well as the Greeks, the Russians, and other liberty-loving peoples where they must pass between 'Scylla and Charybdis,' and the Serbs through their untold suffering are yet fighting against Nazism, Fascism, and atheistic Communism to pass their 'Scylla and Charybdis,' waiting the coming day of their liberation. So the Serbian people, as well as all other enslaved peoples, on the eve of the Allied invasion of Europe hope that their dearly bought liberty will soon return and that they may, under the beneficent rays of the sun of liberty, heal their deeply inflicted wounds and renew their youth and their national and their Church unity."
Special note may be taken of the elevation of Father Shoukletovich to be dean of the new cathedral. Father Shoukletovich represents the Orthodox Church militant, and spoke in this vein very clearly (as previously reported by this Branch) in a talk 8 May before the European Christian Forum in New York. He emphasized on that occasion his acceptance of Russia's new pre-eminence, not alone in a political and military sense but also in the realm of Eastern Christianity and in opposition to Rome. He prophesied that all the Orthodox Churches would gradually turn toward Moscow and he foresaw disappointments for the Roman Church in Poland, where the people (he said) would break away from that Church if it continued to maintain an anti-Russian attitude.
In calling on this Branch Monday 12 June Bishop Dionisije was accompanied by Dushan Silashki, an American citizen of Serbian extraction, who is a practicing lawyer in Akron, Ohio, and chancellor of the Serbian North American diocese; and also by Bozidar Martinovich, an American citizen of Serbian-Montenegrin background, and a prosperous business man [sic] of Chicago. It was evident that the Bishop and his advisers wished to make definitely known their decision to break with the Serbian National Defense, to set up a new organization to carry on the work of Serbian relief, and in general to set out on a new line.
The Bishop is a public functionary of the Yugoslav State and receives a monthly stipend through the Yugoslav Embassy. Naturally there has been coordination between Bishop and Ambassador, and the Bishop has been associated in the public mind with the inspiration and support which the Ambassador is widely charged with having injected into the nationalist Serb campaign against the idea of Yugoslavia. Like the Ambassador, Dionisije has not denied that he is "first of all a Serb," but like the Ambassador he has also maintained pretty consistently the view that "it will be difficult to have a Yugoslavia but still more difficult not to have a Yugoslavia."
The Bishop's conversion to a forthright support of the Yugoslav idea and his corresponding estrangement from extreme Serb nationalism has been going on for some time. It was perhaps only by coincidence that the precise occasion for the Bishop's full shift to the Yugoslav idea was Ambassador Fotich's eclipse. It seemed plain when he talked with this Branch 12 June that deeper motivations had been in play. These relate as already indicated, to Russia, to the new position of the Orthodox Church in Russia, and to the Bishop's fears of a countervailing Roman Catholic political activity.
It was on the ecclesiastical aspect of international relations that the conversation with the Bishop and his two friends first bore. The Bishop confirmed the existence of a close communion between the Orthodox Churches on the one hand and the Anglican and American Episcopal Churches on the other. When it was remarked that current events showed the Anglican Church leaders to be cultivating relations especially with the Russian Patriarchate, while the American Episcopal Church continued to direct its special friendliness toward the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Bishop answered that the Orthodox Churches exemplified but one religion and one should not forget their essential solidarity.
However, the Bishop was frank in expressing uncertainty and wonderment respecting new developments in Russia. The Bishop speaks Russian, and one senses on his part a timeless respect for Russia as a cultural and religious force, but he still dreads "atheistic Communism." In his address at the St. Sava dedication (quoted above) he had recalled that the Serbs were "yet fighting against Nazism, Fascism, and atheistic Communism to pass their 'Scylla and Charybdis,' waiting the coming day of liberation." What he had in mind, he said during the talk 12 June, was the danger that, when the Nazis were once driven out, atheistic Communism would ravage Yugoslavia in the persons of Tito and his followers in the Partisan Liberation Front.
But the Bishop was by no means convinced that Moscow (as distinguished from Tito) should any more be identified with atheistic Communism. Communism, he remarked, was not necessarily atheistic. The Soviet Union was demonstrating this. The church there was now being allowed its adherents and activities. The Soviet Government had seen that religion was a powerful patriotic and national influence, buttressing the armies, and had accordingly given it recognition. So he readily concluded that the "disciplined and orderly" troops of the Soviet Army might work good for Yugoslavia while the "marauding" bands of Tito certainly would not.
A principal point which the Bishop plainly wished to make during the talk 12 June was his present conviction that Serbian nationalism had overplayed itself in the United States. He said that the Serbian National Defense had been perverted to inappropriate and unwise courses. He recalled that back in Serbia the Serbian National Defense dated from the 13th century, when St. Sava dedicated it to humanitarian purposes. The organization in the United States was intended to serve the same ends but had been turned away therefrom and to political use under the malign inspiration of the late Yovan Duchich, formerly Yugoslav Minister in Spain, and his brother, Michael Duchich, prosperous dairyman of Gary, Indiana.
The diocese now intended, Chancellor Silashki interjected, to dissociate itself entirely from the Serbian National Defense and to establish a new organ, the Serbian Patriarchate Fund, which would care for the humanitarian duties to which the Defense should all along have restricted itself. A communication was being prepared on the subject for transmission to the State Department, and the necessary steps would be taken with regard to the President's War Relief Board.
It is probable that this break on the part of the diocese with the Serbian National Defense and the Bishop's withdrawal from the support of Mihailovich will surprise the Yugoslav community when they become known. The New York Times (12 June 1944) reported a "spokesman" as saying that the gathering at the dedication of St. Sava's Cathedral was "99.44 per cent pro-Mihailovich." When talking with this Branch the Bishop and his associates deprecated the mistaken zeal of the individual who had taken it on himself to offer the press this information; but the "spokesman," whoever he was, would certainly feel himself to be justified by precedent facts in doing so.
How deeply convictions run, and how intense feeling on the issues of Yugoslav politics has come to be in the United States, was shown in the course of the Bishop's visit to New York. As reported in the New York Times of 12 June, Philip L. Markovich, an active worker of long standing in the Serbian National Defense, took the occasion to assail the Bishop first orally and then physically. Markovich was arrested for disorderly conduct and a police guard was provided for the Bishop. It is recalled that Markovich was in court some months ago for writing a threatening letter to Sava Kosanovich, former Yugoslav Minister of State, who has been active in the United States on the pro-Yugoslav and leftist side, and it is to the leftist side that Markovich probably now feels that even the Bishop has gone over.
The Bishop next declared his views on the future of the Southern Slavs. He favored the principle of a federated Yugoslavia. The old Serbian centralism must be avoided for the future; the monarchy, however, was indispensible. A republic would inevitably bring on social strife and separatism. A King would be a symbol and point of unity above the nationalities, reconciling disparate elements with each other and rallying loyalty as a president could hardly do.
Indeed the cohesive influence of monarchy would be such, the Bishop thought, that it would not be necessary always to have a Serb to head the government. A Croatian such as Ban Subasich would be available. Of Subasich personally the Bishop spoke in a mildly friendly way. He understood, he said, that Subasich was a man of good character and "a faithful Catholic." Events now disqualified Mihailovich, the Bishop felt, and new Serbian leaders must be discovered. If Subasich could find new Serbians and draw them to his leadership in a new Yugoslav government under the King, why then "God bless him."
The Bishop did not speak of a direct intervention by Soviet Russia in the Yugoslav complex, but his forthright support of the Yugoslav idea as against Serbian nationalism, his reference to the "disciplined and orderly" Soviet troops, and the general tenor of his discourse made evident a rising hope in his heart and mind that the new powerful Russia, which had given religion a place along with recedent atheism, might become deus ex machina; and it was no less plain that he thought hopefully of American friendship and help for the Yugoslavs and sensed, in the church ties already referred to, a promise of eventual cooperation between his country's two big brothers.
More specifically, and quite frankly, the Bishop adverted to the need for Russian support to offset influences which the Bishop believed to emanate from the Vatican. He firmly asserted his belief that these influences were promoting a plan for Roman Catholic control in the zone reaching across Central Europe. Poland was the anchor on the north. Then came Slovakia, Hungary, parts of Transylvania and the Ukraine, Austria, parts of Bavaria, Croatia, and Slovenia. Consolidation of these elements under Roman Catholic leadership could spell for the Bishop only a Habsburg restoration. New forms of Austro-Hungarian imperialism would inevitably follow.
In the Bishop's opinion two bulwarks were needed against this danger. One was the union of the Southern Slavs. Certainly, in the face of such a danger, a new federated Yugoslavia was imperatively needed; and beyond that it was desirable, if feasible, to include Bulgaria and Macedonia as well. The second bulwark had to be found externally. The Yugoslavs must cultivate the most cordial relations with Czechoslovakia and Poland, and above all with Russia. Only by these means would it be possible, the Bishop declared, to obviate a political-religious struggle across the face of Europe. Such a struggle would be ruinous. Yugoslavia would be at a cross-meeting and peak of all the strains and stress. War would be an inevitable consequence.
The movement for Croatian independence under Roman Catholic leadership is of long standing in the United States. It came to a new expression with the creation this past May of the Supreme Council of American Croats, as briefly recorded in FN Number 186 of 9 May 1944, "New Yugoslav Conflict Shows Itself Here." Leaders in the new organization are Monsignor Michael G. Domladovac of Akron, Ohio, the Reverend Ivan Stipanovic of Youngstown, Ohio, and Ivan Kresich, editor of the conservative Croatian-language newspaper, Hrvatski List i Danica Hrvatska of New York. The program flatly condemns the recreation of Yugoslavia and instead calls for an independent Croatia. Spokesmen for the Council are unabashed in publicly approving the Croatian Nazi quisling, Ante Pavelich.
To make the position clear it is necessary to recall that agitation for the creation of a South Slav state began in the United States during the Balkan War of 1912, when Croatia was still a part of Hungary. Much the greater number of Croatian-Americans at that time favored the liberation of the homeland from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and union with the other South Slavs, but there was a minority under Catholic clerical leadership which held to the Austro-Hungarian allegiance. The Supreme Council of American Croats is in the latter line of descent.
After Yugoslavia was formed and, with the Pasich ministry, had passed under Serbian domination, the nationalist feeling of the Croats in Croatia bodied forth in the Croatian Peasant Party, led first by Stephen Radich and then Vladimir Machek. The present head of "Independent" Croatia, Ante Pavelich, and his followers were in their early career members of the Croatian Peasant Party. After 1930 Pavelich fled Yugoslavia for Italy, where Mussolini is thought to have financed his campaign for Croatian independence. Machek meanwhile carried on at home for greater autonomy within the framework of the existing Yugoslavia.
In the United States, the Pavelich-inspired separatist movement came to life first in the Croatian Circle, which had headquarters in New York and for its official organ the newspaper Hrvatski List, now the Hrvatski List i Danica Harvatska. [sic] Ivan Kresich was already editor and publisher. The movement gathered increased vigor in 1933, when Dr. Branimir Jelich arrived in this country and organized the Hrvatski Domobran (Croatian Home Defenders) as a branch of the Ustashi movement in Croatia. The Domobran was understood to be directly under the control of Ante Pavelich, who continued to operate from Italy and had become known as the poglavnik (duce or leader). Dr. Jelich placed Ante Doshen, an adventurer and a leader in the Croatian Circle, in charge of the Domobran. Domobran advocated a separate independent Croatia, glorified fascism, and is believed to have worked closely with the local Nazis.
The Croatians in the United States, who are counted well over a hundred thousand, were much influenced by the Domobran movement. When the United States entered the war the nearly all-embracing Croatian Fraternal Union was deeply split between those who rejected the fascist-inclined Croatian independence movement and those who supported that movement as represented in the Domobran. The latter category included at the time some of the Union's most prominent leaders and numerous Catholic secular clergy and members of the Franciscan Order coming from monasteries in Croatia and Dalmatia.
Soon after President Roosevelt's "state of emergency" proclamation in the spring of 1941, the Domobran was officially disbanded, but its adherents continued to support the idea of an independent Croatia and to regard with sympathetic approval the puppet Croatia sustained by Hitler. In April 1943 these elements organized a short-lived bloc known as the Croatian National Unionists. Now many of the Domobranci have admittedly passed into the Supreme Council of American Croats and have gained there a large measure of control. The Supreme Council of American Croats has put forth its argument in a resolution voted at Cleveland and published in Hrvatski List i Danica Hrvatska 13 May. As the reasoned statement of a position it warrants some quotation. After expressing loyalty to the American Constitution and the Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States, it recites:
"We American citizens have parents, sisters, brothers and other relatives in Croatia. Everyone who would not be interested in the people of his native land would be a traitor, a traitor to his blood. As Americans we have enjoyed all betterments in all walks of life. We wish to see the same truly democratic way of life realized in our native land, Croatia."
The creators of the European map in 1919, the resolution continues, disregarding the will of the Croat nation and failing to apply the principle of self-determination, "hammered together the State of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes." "The Croat people never recognized this state as legal since it was created without their consent."
The victorious American troops will come as liberators to Croatia, the statement proceeds, and will find the Croat nation avid for liberty. "The Croat Nation abroad, and we here in America, will be overjoyed if it is given the opportunity which was denied to it at the end of the last war, the opportunity to create its own State, separated from the Slovenes and the Serbs." Otherwise there cannot be lasting peace.
The Croat nation should not be "pushed into a non-existent 'Yugoslav Nation'." London, the resolution asserts, is "much more careful in this matter than Washington." "When London speaks, it always mentions the peoples of former Yugoslavia. We do not know why Washington mentions a 'Yugoslav Nation' which does not exist. Slovenes, Croats and Serbs are three historic nations and none of them wish or desire to be included in a geographic division which excludes the historic existence of these three nations.
"Therefore, we American citizens, clearly advise our America, official Washington and the Allies - the Croat Nation will never be anyone's slave or servant. We condemn all of those so-called Croats, who by using various tricks, try to mislead the Croat people into a new slavery and under a new yoke. That slavery may be either race or class."
However, the resolution concludes: "If it happens that the free and independent Croat State by her expression of sovereignty decides in a democratic way to enter into an equal union with other states, such a decision and the historic responsibility rests with the Croat State and the Croat Nation."
On 30 May the Hrvatski List i Danica Hrvatska carried an article signed by the Reverend Ivan Stipanovic, president of the Supreme Council of American Croats, appealing to Croatian-Americans to support his organization and calling on them to give aid to their brothers in the homeland. He wrote of the want and distress of the Croat people and announced that American Bishops had contributed $55,000 toward relief in Croatia. He appealed to Croatian-Americans to give to the cause also. The proceeds would of course be distributed through Church channels.
Father Stipanovic is an old campaigner for Croatian independence. In September 1933, at a time when the Ustashi movement was being organized in Croatia, he signed a memorial to the League of Nations urging the separation of Croatia from Yugoslavia. Ivan Kresich, editor of Hrvatski List i Danica Hrvatska, was another signer of this 1933 memorial, and Kresich's tri-weekly newspaper has never desisted from its drive toward the independence goal.
Monsignor Domladovac, the third important figure in the Supreme Council of American Croats, is editor of Nasa Nada, official organ of the Croatian Catholic Union. In the 9 May issue of Nasa Nada Monsignor Domladovac published a straightforward editorial entitled, "A Few Words About Pavelich."
"I am not ashamed . . . ," wrote Domladovac, "because Pavelich hepled [sic] to liberate Croatia from the Belgrade leeches . . . . It is known that I never associated with political parties in the United States but as a Croat I raise my voice because so many Croatian-Americans denounce those who are following Pavelich in the old country. No matter what he is, he is still a Croat. How can we over here know better than he and his followers, the conditions in which they find themselves? Why do you favor the partisans even though you know that they are suckled by Russian Communism. I know that you know what Communism stands for. Still you follow the Partisans. You know well that we Americans often follow a policy devoid of idealism and principle, inspired only by opportunism.
"Our Administration has done many things in this war which are against your and my Christian morality. Our Government maintained relations with the Vichy government . . . but we invaded North Africa. This was un-Christian, this was opportunism. Not long ago our Government demanded that a sovereign state, Eire, should expel all diplomats who were not on our side. This, too, was against our morality. Why such an uproar against Pavelich and his followers? If as Christians and Americans we cannot accept Pavelich's opportunism, then leave him in peace, because he only does what all the others do.
"In conclusion I say: 'Translate this into English and send it to Washington, to the Department of Justice.'"
Anyone reading the above can understand how the Domobran movement, now reincarnate in the Supreme Council of American Croats, has revolted liberal and leftist elements, and those particularly who see the only salvation for the Southern Slavs in their continued union. The close identification of the movement with elements of the Catholic Church has offered a particular point of attack. On 30 May the liberal and sometimes anti-clerical Croatian-language Hrvatski Svijet of New York denounced the Supreme Council as "a clerical-fascist group whose first appeal contains all the dangerous elements of the separatist and black clerical venom which nurtured the Ustashi activities in America before Pearl Harbor."
Viewed more sympathetically, the Domobran movement may be seen to represent, first, the urge of a small people possessing a particular historical and cultural background to express themselves politically in their own way - a wish which may not be feasible but is certainly respectable. Secondly, it is the positive expression of a religious faith and a consciousness of communion which are certainly no less respectable. In the latter aspect the movement is envisaged by the unfriendly as part of a suppositious Vatican plan for a Catholic organization of Central Europe. The Orthodox Bishop Dionisije's outspoken conviction that such a project exists has been mentioned in the preceding section, but plainly this is not a matter susceptible of proof.
A fillip was given to speculation on this subject in Yugoslav and Central European circles in the United States at the beginning of 1944 when the News Service of the National Catholic Welfare Conference in Washington issued a press release which was published, among other places, in Hrvatski List i Danica Hrvatska 15 January. Its subject was Yugoslavia with a question mark. Yugoslavia had failed (it was argued by this statement from an authoritative Catholic quarter) because of its national and religious divisions. The Catholic Croats and Slovenes were wondering what the outcome of World War II would mean for them; "the aspiration" - the NCWC press release asserted - "of the people of Croatia and the Provinces of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Slavonia, Srem, Dalmatia, Banovina, and Istria - all historically and ethnologically a part of the original Croatia - is a free and sovereign State." The hope was expressed that in order to prevent unnecessary bloodshed and retaliation, the United Nations would occupy the Balkans and that affairs in Croatia would be administered "solely by officials of the United States." "The Croats would prefer," it was declared, "that such officials be American Croatian Catholics.
That is the positive aspect of the Domobran movement. On the negative side it may be noted that this Catholic-led Croatian independence movement is, first, uncompromisingly anti-Serbian and, secondly, anti-Orthodox. Since the Serb and his religion are deemed to be inseparable, practically Serb and Orthodox melt into one symbol of a Serbian oppression which must be withstood. Explaining the failure of Yugoslavia, the NCWC press release continued:
"With the Serbian Church the established Church - although theoretically there was religious freedom for all - and the former King of Serbia the head of the Government and residing in Belgrade, the fromer [sic] Serbian Capital, other population groups in Yugoslavia regarded themselves as very much in the minority and tolerated for economic reasons, rather than accepted on an equal footing culturally, socially and nationally."
No less, therefore, than in the political speculations of Orthodox leaders such as Bishop Dionisije and Father Shoukletovich the problems of the South Slavs and the other peoples of Central Europe may array themselves in the minds of Croatian Catholic leaders along an Orthodox-Catholic confrontation - ecclesiastical East vs. ecclesiastical West, that is, the line cutting midway through Yugoslavia.
Americans of Slovenian origin are about equally numerous with their Croatian-American cousins. Among them also there is a clerical right wing, but since no serious movement exists for Slovenian independence, this right wing is simply aligning itself against Tito and the Partisans and in favor of King Peter and General Draza Mihailovich. In doing so it is at odds with the Socialist elements in the principal Slovenian-American organization, the Slovenian-American National Council (SANC). These elements, under the lead of Louis Adamic, put SANC behind Tito and the Partisans, and SANC has for this reason come under attack by the clerical right, heard chiefly through a priest, Reverend Bernard Ambrozic.
Father Ambrozic writes in the Cleveland daily, Ameriska Domovina. He condemns the republicanism of the Partisans and strongly supports the monarchy. "It is not right," he has written, "to spit on the people because they haven't toppled the throne from their hearts and plans. Hold on! History doesn't travel by leaps and bounds."
With Louis Adamic giving most of his attention in recent times to the United Committee of South-Slavic Americans, and now fallen ill, the conservative view tends to gain among the Slovenian-Americans and may show itself rather strongly when SANC holds its annual convention in July. Ameriska Domovina has already printed a statement of the Union of Slovenian Parishes warning Slovenian-American Catholics against participation in the SANC convention, "since the Catholic Party has broken off relations with SANC."
While, as related to the two preceding sections, religious-political leaders gain definiteness on the Yugoslav-American scene, liberal, Socialist, and Communist leaders join with them in watching the progress of Ivan Subasich in his efforts, as Prime Minister designate, to bring a new Yugoslav Government into being under King Peter.
The Croatian nationalists who follow the lead of Monsignor Domladovac, Father Stipanovic, and the Supreme Council of American Croats, are against Subasich. Though a devoted and trusted lieutenant of the Croatian Peasant Party leader, Machek, Subasich has always been suspect among these extreme Croatian nationalists because he has believed in Yugoslavia and has had his contacts in Belgrade. When Subasich was reported to have told reporters in London that he was "in the first place a Yugoslav and in the second a Croat," the old animosity was refired. The conservative-clerical Hrvatski List i Danica Hrvatska devoted a burning editorial on 3 June to denunciation of Subasich on this score, and a few days later attacked him again for "appeasing the Serbs."
The views of the liberal and moderate Socialist middle-ground bulk of the Croatian-American community are heard in Zajednicar, organ of the Croatian Fraternal Union, and in Hrvatski Svijet of New York. Both these papers support and applaud Subasich. In an editorial 7 June Zajednicar delineated the special difficulties of Subasich's position. His success or failure would not turn on Yugoslav factors alone; great international forces were in play. Admittedly, wrote Zajednicar, King Peter in naming Subasich Prime Minister had acted only after a good deal of pressure from Great Britain, and possibly the United States and Russia. Many dangers lurked for Subasich in the dark corners of world diplomacy. It was also dangerous business, Zajednicar apprehended, to "step across the line and meet King Peter and his men," as Subasich was doing; but Zajednicar wished him well and sincerely hoped he would succeed.
The numerous friends Subasich won while in the United States have been impressed and pleased by the swift fulfillment of the gauge he left with a group of them at the time of his departure for London. He promised that his first act, in case the King entrusted him with power, would be to remove General Draza Mihailovich as Minister of War and Constantin Fotich as Ambassador in Washington.
Since Ambassador Fotich had become identified in the minds of Yugoslav-Americans with the aggressive Pan-Serb agitation of the Serbian National Defense (from which, as previously reported in this paper, the Ambassador's lieutenant, Bishop Dionisije, has now turned away), as well as with the Serb National Federation and the Pittsburgh Serbian-language newspaper Amerikanski Srbobran, Fotich's recall has elicited wide approval in the Yugoslav-American community, except of course among the Serbian nationalists. On 14 June the Serb National Federation telegraphed a protest to King Peter against the dismissal of Mihailovich and Fotich and the telegram was printed the next day, in both Serbian and English, on the Srbobran's front page. The dismissals, the message charged, were an attack upon the honor of the Serb people; the only effect would be "to strengthen the influence of the Communist and Croatian Ustashi criminals."
The big question mark of this particular moment of Yugoslav history is enfolded in the Communist attitude, still veiled, toward Subasich. So far the two Communist newspapers - the Serbian-language Slobodna Rec and the Croatian-language Narodni Glasnik, both of Pittsburgh - have shown a good-natured indulgence toward Subasich's efforts to construct a government. Slobodna Rec (6 June) could not see what all the commotion was about. The Government of Yugoslavia, it wrote, "was formed long ago. It is in Yugoslavia. . . . If the King and Dr. Subasich really want to have these Ministeres provided with portfolios . . . he should give them to the members of the existing Yugoslav government of Marshal Tito. Simple and practical. No pain, no delay, no difficulties."
But what will the definitive attitude of the Communists, and Russia, in due course show itself to be? The mounting sense of expectancy in this regard goes back to last March, when, as related by this Branch in FN Number 186 of 9 May 1944, the Communist papers in the United States began publication of denunciatory items directed against Subasich's revered and life-long political chief and mentor, Vladimir Machek, leader of the Croatian Peasant Party. These were received through the Moscow press agency, Inter-Continent News, and originated with Partisan sources in Dalmatia. The question inevitably occurred to all, would not Subasich in due time be bracketed with his chief in this political fusillade?
The firing on Machek has continued with increasing precision. The June issue of Free World contained an article on Yugoslavia ascribed to Marshal Tito. It is known that the Free World Association received the text by cable from the All-Slav Congress in Moscow. In this article Tito names Machek along with Dragesha Cvetkovich as having played leading roles in the "shameful" adherence of Yugoslavia to "the Axis regime of the traitor Prince Paul." Here seemed to be something close to a Russian official endorsement of the three-months-old Communist-line impeachment of Machek as a "fascist" and a "traitor."
Still further evidence of Tito's complete hostility to Machek, coupled with at least a waiting attitude on official Moscow's part, is seen in the press dispatch datelined Moscow and carried first (3 June) in Novosti in Toronto and then in some part in Slobodna Rec (8 June) and Narodni Glasnik (6 June). In this dispatch, marked as originating with the Press Bureau of the All-Slav Congress, General Djilas, a Serb-Montenegrin Communist,who is chief of Tito's military mission to Moscow, is quoted as branding Machek a traitor, specifically because even before war was declared he (Machek) was insisting that Yugoslavia must take the Axis side, and because when he was in the Government he opened concentration camps throughout the country and arrested and placed there "those Yugoslav patriots who demanded the defense of the country," that is, the Communists, among others. When Germany attacked, Djilas is reported to have said further, these patriots were not liberated and so were caught by the Germans and brutally beaten to death. This denunciation of Machek has recalled to some of Subasich's friends, with a touch of gooseflesh, that it was Subasich who had directly in hand the measures (much exaggerated, according to Subasich's friends) which are now described by Djilas.
In this setting the expectancy grows that something definite may come out of Moscow pretty soon. The nationalist Serbs, who have been deepening in despondency since Tito's rise and Subasich's triumph over Fotich, turn their eyes toward Moscow now as a last hope, as all the baffled and disconsolate tend to do these days; and what they, and not few others, are saying came into print with the 15 June issue of the Srbobran. The Srbobran notes that compared with Britain, Russia has all along given only lukewarm help to Tito. The Russians have now cooled off still further in their attitude toward Tito, Srbobran believes. The Russian representatives at Tito's headquarters, it remarks, were not politicians but soldiers and they were not impressed by Tito's "legions." Signs are not lacking for the Srbobran that the Russians are casting eyes at Mihailovich.