Books and Rifles: Political Activity of Yugoslav Communist Students in Prague 1927–1937 (Part II)

Abstract

This second part of the article deals with the communist takeover of “Jugoslavija,” the umbrella organization of Yugoslav students in Prague, in 1935. Following their ultimate victory over the monarchists, they continued their agitation in the student dormitory, drawing in large numbers of new communist organizers and sympathizers. Soon after, however, they departed for Spain to fight in the Civil War, after which their organization effectively ceased to exist. Those who survived World War II went on to become the political elite of the new socialist state. Their subsequent writings reveal the impact of their activity in Prague on their later political and intellectual development. They show that, even though the communist students rarely questioned the tenets of Stalinism before 1948, the experience of working in a pluralist left-wing environment, as well as within an internationalist and pan-Yugoslav framework, had been an influence on their postwar efforts aimed at reforming socialism and creating a system different than the one centered in Moscow.