To what extent was Josip Tito s definition of Goli Otok as a prison for pro-stalinist state enemies confirmed in practice between ?

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1 To what extent was Josip Tito s definition of Goli Otok as a prison for pro-stalinist state enemies confirmed in practice between ? A. Identification and Evaluation of Sources Between 1945 and 1948, it became evident that the newborn Communist Yugoslavia was determined to pursue its own policies, in close collaboration with, but independently of the U.S.S. R. The Soviet- Yugoslav relationship seemed to be one of the pillars of the post-ww II Eastern bloc in However, by the summer of 1948, they had not only lost their mutual trust, but had also gone as far as breaking diplomatic relations. 1 Yugoslavia s President, Josip Broz Tito, responded to this split by establishing a prisoner camp for all Yugoslavs for whom the state possess incontrovertible evidence of threatening state interests by collaborating with Moscow in any manner. 2 The aim of this investigation is to assess the extent to which Josip Broz s definition of Goli Otok as a prison for pro-stalinist state enemies was confirmed in practice between 1949 and In other words, it attempted to determine whether Tito used the split with Moscow as a convenient excuse for eliminating opponents of the government that were, however, never proven to be state enemies. The investigation is conducted through a variety of sources, ranging from memoirs of Goli Otok prisoners of various nationalities to books written by Yugoslav and a non-yugoslav historians who lived through Eastern Europe s communist Era. Given their close connection to it nature and aim, two sources are particularly important to the investigation. Put Bibliography Citation for the First Source Here The first one is a police statement given by Panko Brashnarov, a respected Macedonian wartime general, as part of the govern investigation into his alleged endangerment of state interest. The statement was taken immediately upon Brashnarov s deportation to Goli Otok on 3 July The purpose of a police statement is to provide the state organs with an account of the perspective of the accused. Brashnarov pleads not guilty, and therefore the purpose of his statement is to show that his actions were not detrimental to Yugoslavia. The statement is a valuable part of the Yugoslav Communist-time archives as a genuine document by a Goli Otok prisoner. Providing a detailed account of Brashnarov s activities, its value mainly consists in aiding a historian in assessing whether the crimes committed by the Goli Otok prisoners really endangered the interests of the state. However, Brashnarov s possible psychological incapacity to make a constructive statement on the very first day of his arrival to the prison, and the suspicion that the policy might have subsequently tampered with it to prove his guilt, limits its reliability. Put Bibliography Citation for the Second Source Here The second one is a book entitle The Horrors of Goli Otok, written by the Macedonian Dimche Najcheski, himself a Goli Otok prisoner, and published in Skopje in Its purpose is to provide an overview of the years in which the prison was the most active ( ). His target audience is mainly the older generation, since much essential Goli Otok-related evidence was kept secret during the regime, but also any history student interested in the post-ww II developments in Eastern Europe. The book s chief value lies in the background of the author. Having experienced some of the Goli Otok practices directly enables Najcheski to provide an informed analysis. However, his personal connection to the topic is at the same time a significant limitation, since the psychological wounds he carries from his time in prison might easily have affected his objectivity. 1 Dimche Najcheski. The Horrors of Goli Otok ( Golootochski svedoshtva ), Page 5 2 Dimche Najcheski. The Horrors of Goli Otok ( Golootochski svedoshtva ), Page 10

2 B. Investigation The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia s independence came after centuries of foreign rule. Out of the 6 republics within the SFRY, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Servia were part of the Ottoman Empire for five centuries, while Croatia, Bosnia, and Slovenia were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for about the same amount of time; all six countries were invaded by the Fascists (mainly Bulgaria) during WWII. Its lifelong president Josip Broz Tito was highly aware of the importance of preserving a stable relationship with the U.S.S.R. in the upcoming years, but he was also certain his people would not tolerate another epoch of subordination. Accordingly, his subsequent policy was one of gradual distancing from the common course of the Cominform, the Masco-based political body designed to ensure strong interdependence between the post- WW II Communist countries of Eastern Europe. Tito s approach was deemed unacceptable by Stalin, who issued a series of warnings against the recent course of Yugoslavia s foreign policy. After these were largely ignored by Belgrade, Stalin eventually expelled Yugoslavia from the Cominform in June 1948, accusing it of departing from Marxism-Leninism, exhibiting an anti-soviet attitude, meeting criticism with hostility, and rejecting to discuss the situation at official meetings. 3 One theory 4 suggests that Tito s distancing policy was in fact a calculated gamble that was bound to lead his country s expulsion from the common organization. This is supported by the 1947 preventative discharge of more than 10,000 5 party members likely to remain loyal to Stalin in case of a split between Belgrade and Moscow. The discharges continued during the rift, reaching 275,000 6 by It is important to note that Yugoslavia s expulsion from Cominform was followed by a Moscow-instructed unilateral annulment of diplomatic relations with Belgrade on the part of all members of the organization, thus leaving the country largely on its own in a period of intensive ally-seeking global level. Clearly, Tito was setting the stage for the inevitable internal division between people supporting the split with the biggest Communist state in the world as a gesture of complete independence, and people considering it foolish, irrational, and with fatal consequences. Those consequences never occurred. Namely, right after he expelled Yugoslavia from the Cominform, Stalin started considering a military intervention, but eventually dismissed the idea. The Berlin Blockade had just caused a major blow to the U.S.-U.S.S.R. relationship and Stalin was more willing to lose control over Yugoslavia than to create yet another wave of Cold War tension. Clearly, the source of events was gradually proving Tito right, and the disloyalty of his mistaken opponents prompted him to establish Goli Otok in 1949, as a follow-up on the multiple party expulsions, and with the first prisoners arriving in July that year. 7 Forming a separate facility for political prisoners was by no means revolutionary in By this time, Stalin s Gulags had become an integral aspect of his rule, and the idea of such persons no longer seemed extreme in a Communist country. The establishment of Goli Otok did not attract much attention, also because questioning the methods through which the highly reputable state police deemed an action detrimental to state interests seemed unnecessary. After the 1954 Tito-Khrushchev reconciliation, 8 Goli Otok was seen as nothing but a direct product of the political discord between Tito and Stalin. The death of the latter meant the prison no longer served a purpose, and therefore the public thought it would soon be forgotten. The gradual disclosure of secret police files after Tito death in May 1980, however, opened Dimche Najcheski. The Horrors of Goli Otok ( Golootochski svedoshtva ), Page 5 5 B. Milinko Stojanovic, A Trilogy on Goli Otok (Golootochta trilogia ), Vol. II, Page 24) 6 B. Milinko Stojanovic, A Trilogy on Goli Otok (Golootochta trilogia ), Vol. II, Page 24) Martin McCauley, The Khrushchev Era , Page 38

3 an entirely new, at the time unimaginable, filed of debate that had remained heated to this day: were the Goli Otok prisoners really state enemies? By 1952, there had already been a significant number of detainees, and Tito felt the need to publicly reflect on Goli Otok s functioning in the past three years, thus reinstating how essential the prison was to state security. This reflection occurred in the form of a typically Communist long and pompous speech at the 4 th Party Congress, which took place at a time when Tito s popularity was at its all-time peak. He referred to the prisoners as a bunch of Stalinist malicious individuals, opportunists and liquidators, and then complimented that work of the police, announcing, they had never imprisoned an individual not meeting above descriptors. 9 In this statement, Tito described Goli Otok as a facility meant to protect Yugoslavia from state enemies. Certain cases that are nowadays publicly known seem to contradict this in various ways. For instance, could Ivan Tochko, 10 one of the most renowned Macedonian Yugoslav WWII fighters, be regarded as an opportunist? Having already reached a decent position in the existing social hierarchy, he had nothing to gain by cooperating with Russia. Nevertheless, he was imprisoned at Goli Otok under allegations of being a liquidator, even though the official pretest for his arrest was formulated as inactivity and decadence. A similar example is the case of Branko Ljumović, a Croatian Yugoslav teacher who was back in the day given a party task to explain to his students why Trieste belonged to Yugoslavia. The moment Yugoslavia s soldiers left Trieste, however, he was ordered to start preaching that the city had nothing to do with the country, which he understandable refused. 11 His disobedience does not even nearly match any of Tito s descriptions of a state enemy. As Zlatko Hill, one of the few living Serbian Yugoslav prisoners at Goli Otok once put it: They were cable of imprisoning you for looking east at sunrise just because Russia is in the East. 12 Throughout Goli Otok s five years of existence, no less than 774 people younger than 23 were imprisoned, and 178 of these were underage at the time imprisonment. 13 Common sense makes it hard to believe that a country of Yugoslavia s size could possibly produce so many youngsters capable of endangering state interests in such a short period. On the other hand, the line between disagreeing with the government and acting against state interest is quite thin. Panko Brashnarov s meticulously elaborated objection to the split with Moscow may sound very reasonable, but fact is that he also admits to numerous blatant crimes. Sending money to prisoners may not seem to harm state interests, but by aiding someone deemed detrimental to the state one directly conflicts that state s judicial system, and therefore the state itself. Furthermore, opening illegal channels to neighboring countries may seem unrelated to the U.S.S.R., but the very act of exposing the country to states under Moscow s sphere of influence is in itself an action potentially detrimental to national security. In its essence, the Goli Otok prison was Josip Broz Tit s preventative measure against the dangers of splitting with one of the two biggest world powers of the century. It was established with a clearly defined purpose: relentless dealing with any elements detrimental to national security, which was significantly shaken by the conflict with Moscow. Generally, the five Goli Otok years seem to confirm that the purpose of the facility never changed, but the numerous flaws in the fulfillment of this purpose are evident. After all, the above mentioned central dilemma of where to draw the line between passive 9 Dimche Najcheski. The Horrors of Goli Otok ( Golootochski svedoshtva ), Page Dimche Najcheski. The Horrors of Goli Otok ( Golootochski svedoshtva ), Page B. Milinko Stojanovic, A Trilogy on Goli Otok ( Golootochta trilogia ), Vol. II, Page 105

4 resistance and an endangerment of state interests can only be properly resolved in court, and 90 percent of the 16,000 Goli Otok prisoners never entered a courtroom. 14 C. Reflection I knew from the very beginning that this investigation could only work if it is based on personal accounts from Goli Otok prisoners, as it discusses a matter that had contemporarily been a huge taboo, thus having been largely bypassed by contemporary historians. What I did not expect, however, was to spot such a significant difference in the difficulty of interpreting documents by professional historians, as opposed to materials created by people without any background in historiography. Most of the prisoners accounts I came across throughout the investigation must have been written shortly after their writers time at Goli Otok (an obviously kept private until the 80s), since the freshly experienced trauma evidently gets in the way of the development of a historically relevant testimony. I do believe that the same people would be much more capable of providing a more meaningful reflection on the Goli Otok period today, but unfortunately, most of them are approaching the end of their lives. This reminded me how the role of historians today might be more important than ever, as most living witnesses of WW II (one of the most humanity) shaping events in history) and its aftermath, are gradually vanishing. It is essential to carefully document their experiences for coming generations to learn invaluable lessons on what should be emulated, and what must never be repeated. Furthermore, this investigation acquainted me with the intricate interdependence of history and languages. Since the early stages of the Cold War is one of those historical periods to whose understanding Westernbased and Eastern-based sources are really equally instrumental, the speed and the efficiency of my investigation were significantly enhanced by my proficiency in both English and Serbo-Croatian. While mathematicians enjoy the enormous advantage of speaking the universal numerical language of their predecessors, historians are heavily dependent on, if not even shaped by, their linguistic capacity. Overall, this investigation was an excellent opportunity for me to apply my freshly acquired historiography skills through the study of global history to matters from my national history, thus being a unique and enormously beneficial experience. 14

5 Bibliography McCauley, Martin. (1995) The Khrushchev Ear Published by the Longman Group Limited, Essex, England Najcheski, Dimche. (2002) The Horrors of Goli Otok ( Golootochski svedoshtva ), Published by Sv. Kliment Ohridski, Skopje, Macedonia Stojanovic, Milinko. (1993). A Trilogy on Goli Otok ( Golootochta trilogia ) Published by Struchna knijga, Belgrade, Serbia Websites (Date of Access: January 14, 2014):