Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation

The Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation (Slovene: Osvobodilna fronta slovenskega naroda), or simply Liberation Front (Osvobodilna fronta, OF), originally called the Anti-Imperialist Front (Protiimperialistična fronta, PIF), was a Slovene anti-fascist political party. The Anti-Imperialist Front had ideological ties to the Soviet Union (which was at the time in a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany)[1][2][3] in its fight against the imperialistic tendencies of the United States and the United Kingdom (the western powers),[4][5][6][7] and it was led by the Communist Party of Slovenia. In May 1941, weeks into the German occupation of Yugoslavia, in the first wartime issue of the illegal newspaper Slovenski poročevalec (Slovenian Reporter), members of the organization criticized the German regime and described Germans as imperialists.[8] They started raising money for a liberation fund via the second issue of the newspaper published on 8 June 1941.[9] When Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the Anti-Imperialist Front was formally renamed[10][11][12] and became the main anti-fascist Slovene civil resistance and political organization under the guidance and control of the Slovene communists. It was active in the Slovene Lands during World War II. Its military arm was the Slovene Partisans. The organisation was established in the Province of Ljubljana on 26 April 1941 in the house of the literary critic Josip Vidmar.[13] Its leaders were Boris Kidrič and Edvard Kardelj.

Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation
Osvobodilna fronta slovenskega naroda
AbbreviationOF
LeaderBoris Kidrič
FoundedApril 26, 1941 (1941-04-26)
DissolvedFebruary 19, 1944 (1944-02-19)
Merged intoPeople's Front of Yugoslavia
Succeeded bySlovene National Liberation Committee
Armed wingSlovene Partisans
IdeologyAnti-fascism
Communism
Slovenian nationalism
Yugoslavism
Factions:
Christian socialism
Liberalism
Political positionLeft-wing
Flag of the LFSN
Flag of the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation. The zigzag outline represents Mount Triglav.
Slovene Partisans in winter 1942.

Programme

The programme of the Fronta was outlined by the following fundamental points:

  • Armed struggle
  • United Slovenia
  • Continuity of Yugoslavia as a Slovene state, further Slovene integration into Yugoslav identity and closeness with the Russian people
  • Loyalty of all factions to the Liberation Front and by extension to the Yugoslav Partisans
  • Adherence to democracy after the liberation
  • Acceptance of the Atlantic Charter
  • Outgrowth of the Partisan Units and People’s Guards into a broader front of the National Liberation Struggle.[14]

Internal political situation

Although the Front originally consisted of multiple political groups of left-wing orientation, including some Christian Socialists, a dissident group of Slovene Sokols (also known as "National Democrats"), and a group of liberal intellectuals around the journals Sodobnost and Ljubljanski zvon,[15] during the course of the war, the influence of the Communist Party of Slovenia started to grow, until the founding groups signed the so-called Dolomite Declaration (Dolomitska izjava), giving the exclusive right to organize themselves as a political party only to the communists, on 1 March 1943.[16]

On 3 October 1943, on the session, known as Assembly of the Delegates of the Slovene Nation, which was held in Kočevje by the 572 directly elected and 78 indirectly elected members, the 120-member plenum was constituted as the highest civil governing organ of anti-fascist movement in Slovenia during the World War II.

After the war, the Liberation Front was transformed into the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Slovenia.[17]

External political activity

On 19 February 1944, the 120-member Črnomelj plenum of Liberation Front of the Slovenian People changed its name to SNOS and proclaim itself as the temporary Slovenian parliament. One of its most important decisions was that after the end of the war Slovenia would become a state within the Yugoslav federation.[18]

Just before the end of the war, on May 5, 1945, the SNOS met for the last time in the town of Ajdovščina in the Julian March (then formally still part of the Kingdom of Italy) and established the Slovenian government with Boris Kidrič as its president.[19]

The Liberation Front led an intensive and specific propaganda system. It printed flyers, bulletins and other material to persuade people about its cause and slander the occupying fascist forces and local nazi collaborators who were supported by the Catholic Church.[20] The Front's radio, called Kričač (Screamer), was the only one of its kind in the occupied Europe. It emitted from various locations and occupying forces confiscated the receivers' antennas from the local population in order to prevent listening to it.

Slovene Partisans
Main article: Slovene Partisans

The Slovene Partisans were the armed wing of the Liberation Front,[21] which fought in the beginning as a guerilla and later as an army. It was mostly ethnically homogenous and primarily communicated in Slovene.[15] These two features have been considered vital for its success.[15] It was the first Slovene military force.[15] Its most characteristic symbol was the Triglav cap.[15][22] Contrary to elsewhere in Yugoslavia, where on the freed territories the political life was organized by the military itself, the Slovene Partisans were subordinated to the civil political authority of the Front.[21] The partisan activities in Slovenia were initially independent of Tito's Partisans in the south. The merger of the Slovene Partisans with Tito's forces happened in 1944.[23][24]

The Front's name

It has been traditionally claimed by Slovene historians that the term Anti-Imperialist Front was the first to occur.[25] This may be read for example in a work by Peter Vodopivec from 2006.[26] In 2008, the historian Bojan Godeša published a peer-reviewed discussion about the name. He mentions a leaflet from the end of April 1941 with liberation front (non-capitalised) written on it, two months before the first known mention of the anti-imperialist front (non-capitalised) on 22 June 1941.[25] He also mentions that Josip Rus, who represented the Slovene Sokol Society in the founding meeting of the OF, always claimed they had only discussed the organisation as the Liberation Front.[25] That's contrary to the opinion by Josip Vidmar, also a founding member, who stated that the organisation was renamed as Liberation Front only on 30 June 1941.[27] The claims by Godeša have been cited in a seminar by Božo Repe, another eminent historian, who added that the name Anti-Imperialist Front, written with capital letters, was used particularly in the communication with the Communists of the Soviet Union. He attributed this to the desire of the Slovene Communists to demonstrate that their work corresponded to the aims of the Comintern.[28]

See also
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References
  1. Alexander, Robert J. (1970). "The Communist Parties of Latin America". Problems of Communism. 19 (4): 38. the Soviet Union was formally allied with Nazi Germany
  2. Sandbu, Martin (2015). Europe's Orphan: The Future of the Euro and the Politics of Debt. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 1. The Soviet Union was still allied with Nazi Germany
  3. Čuk, Ivan; Vest, Aleks Leo (January 14, 2020). "Prevarani Sokoli - anatomija sovražnega prevzema". Novice. Retrieved May 10, 2021. komunisti so se za upor odločili šele po nemškem napadu na Sovjetsko zvezo 22. junija 1941, dotlej sta bili državi z Ribbentrop-Molotovovim paktom zaveznici
  4. Janez Arnež (2003). "Slovenska ljudska stranka 1941–1990". In Kokole, Metoda; Likar, Vojislav; Weiss, Peter (eds.). Historični seminar 4. Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU. p. 245. Komunistična stranka je doma v ilegali organizirala Protiimperialistično fronto proti zapadnim silam, ker je bila Sovjetska zveza tedaj zaveznica Hitlerjeve Nemčije in si je z njo razdelila ozemlje premagane Poljske.
  5. Griesser-Pečar, Tamara (2004). Razdvojeni narod: Slovenija 1941–1945: okupacija, kolaboracija, državljanska vojna, revolucija. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga. zveza Protiimperialistična fronta sprva, kot pove že ime, usmerjena le proti imperialističnim silam, predvsem proti Veliki Britaniji in ZDA
  6. "Komu Pahor postavlja spomenik?". siol.net (in Slovenian). Retrieved 2021-05-03. ... je bila OF najprej usmerjena tudi proti zahodnim silam.
  7. Žužek, Aleš (April 27, 2021). "Od Društva prijateljev Sovjetske zveze do Osvobodilne fronte". SiolNET. Retrieved May 10, 2021. ... je bila organizacija usmerjena tudi proti Veliki Britaniji
  8. Renton: 1941: Slovenski mediji med prvim letom okupacije: https://www.renton.si/slovenski-mediji-1941/
  9. Slovenski poročevalec, image of second war issue: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Slovenski_porocevalec_1941-06-08_URN-NBN-SI-DOC-V7BF33W2.jpg "Cena 1 din za osvobodilni fond"
  10. Beltram, Vlasta; Plahuta, Slavica (1978). Zgodovinski mejniki za priključitev Primorske k Jugoslaviji. Koper: Pokrajinski muzej Koper. Protiimperialistična fronta, ki se je po napadu Nemčije na SZ 22. junija 1941 preimenovala v Osvobodilno fronto
  11. "Spoštovati je treba vse žrtve, padle v NOB". 24ur.com. April 27, 2011. Retrieved May 10, 2021. Protiimperialistična fronta se je v OF slovenskega naroda preimenovala po nemškem napadu na Sovjetsko zvezo 22. junija 1941
  12. "Razdvajanje slovenskega naroda". Radio Ognjišče. December 20, 2017. Retrieved May 10, 2021. Šele po nemškem napadu na Sovjetsko zvezo 22. junija 1941, ko je SZ, ki je začela vojno na strani Tretjega Rajha, stopila na stran zahodnih zaveznikov, se je situacija za KPS spremenila, V interesu SZ je bilo, da se PIF preusmeri v boj proti okupatorju, zato se je iz taktičnih razlogov preimenovala v OF.
  13. "Godeša: OF je ob koncu vojne predstavljal večino Slovencev" [Towards the End of the War, the Liberation Front Represented the Majority of Slovenes]. MMC RTV Slovenija (in Slovenian). RTV Slovenija. 26 April 2011.
  14. Yugoslavian Encyclopaedia, articles Slovenci and Slovenija, Yugoslavian Lexicographical Institute, Zagreb, 1981, pp. 505–528.
  15. Vankovska, Biljana; Wiberg, Håkan (2003). "Slovene and the Yugoslav People's Army". Between Past and Future: Civil-Military Relations in the Post-Communist Balkans. I.B.Tauris. p. 165. ISBN 978-1-86064-624-9.
  16. Gow, James; Carmichael, Cathie (2010). Slovenia and the Slovenes: A Small State in the New Europe (Revised and updated ed.). Hurst Publishers Ltd. p. 48. ISBN 978-1-85065-944-0.
  17. General Encyclopaedia, article Socijalisti_ki savez radnoga naroda Jugoslavije, Yugoslavian Lexicographical Institute, Zagreb, 1981., p. 547
  18. (in Slovene) 60-letnica Zbora odposlancev slovenskega naroda v Kočevju (2003)
  19. 60 Years Since First Post-WWII Slovenian Government
  20. Vreg, France (2000). Politično komuniciranje in prepričevanje: komunikacijska strategija, diskurzi, prepričevalni modeli, propaganda, politični marketing, volilna kampanja [Political Communication and Persuasion: Communication Strategy, Discourses, Models of Persuasion, Propaganda, Political Marketing, Election Campaign] (in Slovenian). p. 138. ISBN 961-235-029-9.
  21. Repe, Božo (2005). "Vzroki za spopad med JLA in Slovenci" [Reasons for the Conflict Between the Yugoslav People's Army and the Slovenes] (PDF). Vojaška zgodovina [Military History] (in Slovenian). VI (1/05): 5. ISSN 1580-4828. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-07-21. Retrieved 2012-03-02.
  22. Martinčič, Vanja (1990). Slovenski partizan: orožje, obleka in oprema slovenskih partizanov [Slovene Partisan: Weapons, Clothing and Equipment of Slovene Partisans] (PDF) (in Slovenian and English). Museum of People's Revolution. pp. 44–45, 50–52. COBISS 17009408.
  23. Stewart, James (2006). Linda McQueen (ed.). Slovenia. New Holland Publishers. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-86011-336-9. Archived from the original on 2017-02-02. Retrieved 2016-11-05.
  24. "Histories of the Individual Yugoslav Nations". The former Yugoslavia's diverse peoples: a reference sourcebook. ABC-Clio, Inc. 2004. pp. 167–168. The former Yugoslavia's diverse peoples: a reference sourcebook.
  25. Keber, Katarina; Šter, Katarina, eds. (April 2008). Historični seminar 6 [Historical Seminar 6] (PDF) (in Slovenian). Scientific and Research Institute, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. p. 142. ISBN 978-961-254-060-9. Retrieved 25 February 2012.
  26. Quote: "Po nemškem napadu na SZ so se gibanju, ki ga je spodbudila ustanovitev PIF (ta se je konec junija preimenovala v OF) ...". [After the German attack of the Soviet Union, the movement prompted by the establishment of PIF (renamed at the end of June to OF) ...". Peter Vodopivec. "Od Pohlinove slovnice do samostojne države" (in Slovene) [From Pohlin's Grammar Book to an Independent State]. Modrijan Publishing House. Ljubljana, 2006. Pg. 268. ISBN 978-961-241-130-5.
  27. Quote: "In tako smo 30. 06. 1941 na plenumu razpravljali o tem, da je treba našo organizacijo preimenovati. Po dolgem ugibanju smo jo preimenovali v OF Slovenskega naroda." ["And so we discussed at the plenum of 30 June 1941 that our organisation has to be renamed. After a long guess, we renamed it as the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation." (Josip Vidmar, Bitka kakor življenje dolga. (in Slovene) [A Battle Long as a Life]. Cankarjeva založba [Cankar Publishing House], Ljubljana. 1978. Pg. 163)
  28. Repe, Božo (2 March 2011). Gregor K. (ed.). "Mi pa se nismo uklonili njih podivjani sili" [We Did not Submit to Their Rampant Force] (in Slovenian). Radio Študent. Archived from the original on 5 November 2011.
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