September - November 1951

September - Rapid Successes

Things moved rapidly in the aftermath of Marshal Tito’s death on 1 September. After failing to secure the succession of a suitably pro-Soviet leader in Belgrade, and with the successes of the anti-Soviet faction in rounding up suspected pro-Soviet dissidents, Soviet forces, allegedly operating on the invitation of factions within the Yugoslav government, crossed the border into Yugoslavia from neighboring Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.

Immediately, the country was drowned in a full-spectrum propaganda campaign, with all sides wrapping themselves in Tito’s legacy. From Tito’s legal successors in Kardelj’s government and from Radio Free Europe, Yugoslavs heard that the Soviet Union had assassinated Tito and was now invading the country to wipe out his memory. From the Soviets, they heard that Tito had been assassinated by the UDA in cooperation with a clique of Bukharinite-Trotskyite wreckers who were now seeking to align with the West and destroy Tito’s socialist Yugoslavia.

Yugoslav elite opinion was split--especially within the military. Many of Yugoslav officers, be they lifelong communists or converts of the War years, had grown up being told that Comrade Stalin and his Soviet Union were the leaders of the global proletariat. Almost all of them fought alongside the Soviets not even a decade ago during the Great Patriotic War, and many had kept up their ties to the Soviet military establishment since then, attending advanced officer courses at Frunze or Voroshilov. Often, Yugoslav High Command had little ability to discern the loyalty of officers until they came into contact with Soviet forces--and by then it was often too late.

This pro-Soviet penetration was most pronounced in the Air Force: most every pilot had some level of training from the Soviet Union, while the top brass had extensive ties to the Soviet Union. Kardelj and his supporters were never fully able to address this issue. Many of the pro-Soviet commanders were demoted (at which point they would usually take a plane and defect to the Soviet Union), but their pro-Kardelj successors were still never able to fully motivate their pilots. What few politically reliable pilots the pro-Kardelj faction could find were relatively short-lived: their piston-engined fighters were a poor match against the modern jet fighters deployed by the Soviets.

The early days of the Soviet intervention in Yugoslavia enjoyed massive success. The Yugoslav National Defense Force, being a largely reserve force, had not had sufficient time to mobilize its reserves in the time between Tito’s death and the Soviet intervention. With the Army’s few full-strength units deployed on the other side of the country--the 7th Field Army along the Italian border, the 3rd Field Army along the Greek border, and the 8th Field Army along the Albanian border--there were almost no units in position to counter the initial Soviet advances over the flat plains of Slavonia, northern Croatia, and Vojvodina. Things went from bad to worse when one of the few Yugoslav units in the region--the partially mobilized 1st Field Army in Vojvodina--defected to the Soviet cause rather than resisting. This left the way to Belgrade wide open for the advancing 10th Guards Rifle Corps, which arrived on the outskirts of Belgrade on 10 September, about 48 hours after the intervention began. In Croatia, where the Soviet Special Corps met no organized resistance to speak of (the local 5th Field Army was entirely reservist and had not had time to mobilize significant forces), Soviet forces took the city even earlier, on 9 September.

The fighting in Belgrade was brief. Fully surrounded by the Soviets and defected Yugoslav units, the commander of the partially-mobilized 2nd Field Army, Voroshilov graduate Radovan Vukanović, ordered his forces to surrender. Fortunately for the pro-Kardelj cause, Deputy Commander-in-Chief Ivan Grosnjak was able to countermand this order quickly enough to prevent the complete collapse of the Yugoslav defenses, and turned the enlisted men against their pro-Soviet officers, forcing those who were not killed or captured into hiding.

With the 2nd Field Army now firmly under the command of pro-Kardelj forces, General Gorsnjak assessed the situation. Many government leaders still trapped within the city, Grosnjak gave the order to attempt a breakout to the city’s south, facing the Soviet paratroopers of the 39th Guards Airborne Corps that had dropped there to complete the encirclement. This breakout was ultimately unsuccessful. When the Soviets launched their counteroffensive against the city the next day, the 2nd Field Army folded, with the final units surrendering in Belgrade’s city center at about midday on 12 September. Still, it was clear that this would only be the first battle of a longer war. Though the Soviets had hoped to decapitate the Kardeljite leadership by capturing the city within only a few days, many leaders had already evacuated to Sarajevo, where they were digging in for a fight.

Far to the south, the JNDF was taking preemptive steps to shorten their frontline in anticipation of an attack from Albania. After initial probes by the 8th Field Army found the Albania border only lightly defended, two Yugoslav divisions launched an assault into northern Albania, clashing with the Albanian People’s Army. While the Albanians enjoyed the defensive advantage, they were outgunned and outmanned by the Yugoslavs. After a few days of fighting, they were forced to retreat south of the Drin, leaving the Yugoslavs to occupy Shkodër and the lands north of the Drin.

Elsewhere in Yugoslavia, things were more peaceful. The 82nd Rifle Corps entered Serbia by way of Vidin, advancing to assume positions on the north bank of the Morava river stretching from Kruševac to Niš. They were opposed by the 3rd Field Army on the opposite bank who, with orders to dig in and prepare for a defensive of southern Serbia, were content to exchange artillery fire and small probing attacks rather than any sort of concerted offensive.

In Slovenia, the 7th Field Army, facing a massive Italian military buildup on the opposite side of the border, refused orders from the Kardelj government to abandon the border and redeploy to fight the Soviets. Their first encounter with the Soviets was with the Soviet Special Corps, which entered their area of operations in mid/late-September. After tense discussions between the Frunze-trained officers of the 7th Field Army and the Special Corps, the 7th Field Army surrendered, allowing the Special Corps to take up their position at the border to ensure no Italian forces crossed the border. A small contingent of Soviet-aligned Yugoslav forces was left operable to maintain occupation duties in Zone B of Trieste, while the Soviets manned the international border.

By the end of September, Yugoslavia’s defenses were severely compromised. Of its eight field armies, four had been rendered combat inoperable: the 1st had defected, the 2nd had been destroyed in Belgrade, the 5th had been overrun before having a chance to mobilize, and the 7th had surrendered. That left the 4th and 6th Field Armies defending the Dinarides, the 3rd holding in Serbia south of the Morava, and the 8th split between occupying northern Albania and defending the border between Macedonia and Bulgaria. Yugoslav forces still outnumbered their Soviet counterparts, but as more Soviet units arrived every week--first the 35th Guards Rifle Corps, then the 24th Guards Rifle Corps and the 31st Tank Division, and finally the 3rd Mountain Rifle Corps--that was shifting. To make matters worse, the zones under Soviet occupation contained most of Yugoslavia’s population and the vast majority of its economic output.

September to October - Dogged Defense

The Soviets met the first serious Yugoslav forces around mid-September as they attempted to push into the Dinarides to capture Sarajevo and the Kardeljite government therein. The mountains left many places for the Yugoslav forces to build fortifications and prepare ambushes, relying on the experience they gained during the Great Patriotic War not even a decade ago. The Kardeljites blew bridges, sabotaged rail lines, mined riverbanks, and pre-sighted artillery fire on important mountain passages, making the Soviets pay a heavy toll for each mile they took.

In the west, where the Soviet forces were less numerous, this defensive orientation paid dividends. The 4th Field Army dealt heavy casualties to the Soviet 35th Guards Rifles Corps, who after a few weeks of fighting around Bihać and Novi Grad were forced to fall back and await the arrival of reinforcements. The arrival of the 31st Tank Division later in the month proved to be the game-changer. Equipped with a heretofore unseen tank, the T-54, the 31st heavily outmatched the older T-34-85s and Panzer 38(t)’s of the 4th Field Army, and was able to inflict heavy casualties and begin to gain ground.

In the east, the Soviets saw more success, in large part due to their great numbers. Even bolstered by a fresh division raised using Italian equipment provided through the port of Split, the 6th Field Army was outnumbered by the Soviet 10th Guards Rifle and 39th Guards Airborne--with the mismatch only becoming more unbalanced after the arrival of the 3rd Mountain Rifle Corps. Bit by bit, the Soviet offensive closed in on Sarajevo, leading the 8th Army to redeploy some of its forces out of Albania and into Bosnia in hopes of stopping the bleeding.

In the south, the long-anticipated Soviet offensive into Macedonia arrived. As the 25th Guards Rifle Corps crossed into Macedonia by way of Pernik, they were ambushed by an infantry division of the 8th Field Army. Though this ambush succeeded at dealing outsized casualties to the 25th, their commander, Major General Andrei Nikitovich Petrushin was able to successfully rally his forces and gain ground in the mountainous terrain. Over the coming week, his men pushed the 8th Field Army into Macedonia, taking control of Skopje, while the Albanian People’s Army took the opportunity to occupy Albanian-majority areas along the Albania-Macedonia border.

The Soviet offensive in all sectors was significantly aided by their dominance in the air. The Yugoslavs, with few airbases left after the initial Soviet successes, and with their stock of politically reliable pilots quickly dwindling, were left unable to meaningfully contest Soviet air superiority. Promises of American aid in the form of M1 40mm AA systems and P-51 fighters never arrived.

October to November - Yugoslav Collapse

In late October, the Yugoslav defensive lines started to falter. With Sarajevo coming under Soviet threat and the 4th Field Army in western Bosnia starting to break, the Kardeljite government decided to flee Sarajevo for the coastal city of Split. The decision came none too soon--not a few days later, the 31st Tank Division achieved a critical breakthrough on the Dalmatian coast, and came speeding down the region to capture the city of Split. They arrived too late: the Soviets rolled into Split only to learn that Kardelj and his associates had fled to Greece by boat a day or two beforehand.

With the front collapsing and with the last major ports fallen, the remnants of the Kardeljite forces wavered. Some--the most diehard among them, or those with the most stalwart officers--fled to the mountains to continue the fight. For most of the army, many of whom were conscripts, surrender was a preferable alternative to an indefinite partisan campaign.

By 10 November, the last Kardeljite combat formations had surrendered. There remained partisan formations sprinkled throughout the Dinarides, organized by a few Great Patriotic War officers still in-country, where they were likely to remain for some time

Casualties as of November

1: Includes those dead from disease.

2: Includes treatable wounded and disabled wounded, includes double counts of wounded.

3: Includes only those who became seriously ill, but did not die.

4: Number is prone to double counts: someone captured by the Soviets might be counted as an MIA. Likewise, a soldier who went partisan may be reported as MIA.

Aftermath

As Soviet forces pushed further and further into Yugoslavia, increasing amounts of the country were placed under the civilian administration of the “correct” Yugoslav government. The remnants of the Central Committee elected perhaps the best-known (living) member of the pro-Soviet bloc, Sreten Žujović, to serve as “interim” President. He was supported in this endeavor by the few pro-Soviet members of the Central Committee, including Rodoljub Roćko Čolaković and Blagoje Nesković. This new government--equipped with the defected 1st Field Army and what pro-Soviet elements they could salvage from other formations (including the 5th Field Army)--assisted in keeping civil order in the rear areas, led by Minister of Defense and highest-ranking Yugoslav officer Arso Jovanović.

In the face of the Soviet intervention, a small refugee crisis struck neighboring Italy, Greece, and Austria, as political moderates sought to flee the country. Before Soviet forces assumed direct control of the borders in late September, refugees numbering in the thousands had fled into the neighboring states. A few thousand more would trickle out from the port of Split as the Kardeljite government grew weaker and weaker, before the final victory of the Soviets in November more or less closed the spigot entirely. In total, perhaps somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 refugees fled the country in total--well below the initial estimates, and perhaps evidence of a stringent border policy by the Soviet forces in Yugoslavia.

Even though the main stage of their intervention had been completed successfully, the Soviets and their allies in Belgrade had their work cut out for them. Many of the pro-Soviet leaders with a national profile had ended up on the wrong side of the hangman’s noose. Whenever the Soviets entered a new town during the intervention, they were greeted by “Stalinist traitors” hanging in the square--victims of the hasty purges that would come to be known as the “Kardeljite terror.” Rade Žigić, Dušan Brkić, Andrija Hebrang, Stanko Opačić Ćanica, and Vlado Dapčević all met their ends this way.

A second, longer-term issue facing the Soviets was factionalism within the new Yugoslav government. During the intervention, the pro-Soviet factions in Yugoslav politics had been unified by political necessity. In many instances, members of the pro-Soviet faction had lent their strength to the Soviet intervention not out of any great love for the USSR, but out of a desire to survive (for those who had power and were at risk of losing it) or to advance (for enemies of Tito and his allies who had been forced out of power in the years since 1946). With the Kardeljite threat mostly destroyed, that unifying force withered away, revealing the disparate visions of the pro-Soviet forces. In the Yugoslav federal government, Žujović, Nesković, Čolaković, and Jovanović, were all, to varying degrees, “Great Serb” nationalists, advocating greater centralization of Yugoslavia (and, accordingly, greater concentration of power in the country’s Serbian leadership). Serbs remain, without a doubt, the strongest supporters of the new pro-Soviet government, which draws its support largely from Serbia, Montenegro, and from Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia.

This stance brought them into sharp conflict both with Soviet allies and enemies alike. In Macedonia, the pro-Soviet faction consisted primarily of old pro-Bulgarian, heavily autonomist Macedonian communists that had been purged since the 1945--figures like Bane Andreev, Lazar Sokolov, Venko Markovski, Petre Piruze, and Blagoja Fotev. These folks had fought hard for Macedonia’s autonomy in Yugoslavia--or in some cases, even its integration into Bulgaria over Yugoslavia--and were unlikely to accept a heavily centralized, pro-Serb federal government sitting down. Even ethnically Bulgarian regions of Serbia, Dimitrovgrad and Bosilegrad, were clamoring for inclusion in Bulgaria proper.

It was much the same in Kosovo, where pro-Soviet (which can perhaps be better described as pro-Albanian) sentiment was strong. Local Albanian leaders like Lieutenant Colonel Qamil Brovina-Bujku (the only Albanian member of the Communist Party’s Kosovo Regional Central Committee, and a graduate of Frunze), Major Faik Pruti-Telli (secretary of the Party’s local committee in Djakovica), Xhelladin Hana (editor of Rilindja (Awakening), the largest Albanian newspaper in the USSR), Omer Cerkezi, (a member of the Kosovo Regional Committee), Nexhat Agolli (an Albanian Deputy Minister in Macedonia), and Xhafer Vokshi (the secretary of the Communist party’s youth league in Kosovo), long oppressed under the Yugoslav government, uniformly clamor for Kosovo’s integration into Albania. Comrade Hoxha, for his part, is all too eager to platform their demands, while (cautiously and privately) making demands of his own that the Albanian components of neighboring Macedonia, currently under Albanian occupation, should perhaps be appended to Albania as “reparations” for the Yugoslav invasion. A similar scene played out in miniature among the Hungarians of northern Vojvodina around Subotica, who, under the leadership of Sándor Ivános and István Dobos (both longtime party members with extensive ties to the USSR--Dobos was previously a member of the CPSU) argue for reunification with Hungary.

For regions less inclined towards pro-Soviet outlooks--most notably Slovenia and Croatia--the prospect of a more centralized, more Serb-led Yugoslavia is equally unenticing. Regrettably, the Soviets may be forced to work with what support they have if they want to keep Yugoslavia functioning. The simple truth is that there are few Croats, and even fewer Slovenes, who sided with Stalin against Kardelj. Many who had were promptly executed, with those who survived (among the Croats: Šime Balen, Nikola Rubčić, Savo Zlatić, Đuro Tiljak, Lovro Kurir, Ivan Flec, Jozo Rusković, Djuro Špoljarić, Alfred Pal, Ante Zemljar, and Vladimir Frajtić; and among the Slovenes, Dragotin Gustinčič, Dušan Kermavner, and Ludvik Mrzel) having little government influence. In this sense, reliance on the Serbs--who supported the Soviets in greater number and with larger influence--makes sense, but is unlikely to make the Soviets any friends in Yugoslavia’s richest regions.

Another issue facing the Soviets is the matter of all of the Yugoslav politicians who did not support their intervention, or who ultimately came to support their intervention only in the weeks and months after it began. Many of these currently retain positions in the government, while others have been kept in captivity alongside other Yugoslav nationals in Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. If Yugoslavia is to function as an independent state again, something must be done to integrate at least some number of the late Žujovićite converts.

Many Yugoslav leaders had been captured or killed during the fighting as well--particularly during the fall of Belgrade. Prime Minister Milovan Djilas, Deputy Commander-in-Chief Ivan Gošnjak, and Minister of Industry [Boris Kidrič]((https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Kidrič) had all been captured in Belgrade, while Kardelj diehards Svetozar Vukamnović (Minister of Mines and one of the principle Montenegrin allies of Tito) and Aleksander Ranković (Minister of Interior in charge of the Secret Police) were killed in the fighting. Bosnian party boss Đuro Pucar (a Bosnian Serb and President of SR Bosnia) had been captured on the retreat from Belgrade to Sarajevo. Still, other leaders had escaped abroad--President Edvard Kardelj, Kosovar regional secretary Đorđije Pajković, and Croatian League of Communists leader Vladimir Bakarić--and would likely prove a persistent thorn in Moscow’s side going forward, particularly if the loyalties of members of the new government still (secretly) resided with the Kardeljites.

In addition to the government-in-exile, there are still substantial Kardeljite partisan groups operating within the Dinarides. Several notable Yugoslav generals, most notably Peko Dapčević, Ljubo Vučković, and Mitar Bakić, elected to remain behind in Yugoslavia to lead partisan groups, which maintain intermittent contact with Kardeljite high command under Koča Popović.

SUMMARY

• The Soviet intervention in Yugoslavia, beginning in September and ending in November, was a success. Kardelj and the remaining members of his government have fled into exile in Greece (though they may move later). The Soviets have installed Central Committee has elected Sreten Žujović as President of Yugoslavia. Many pro-Soviet leaders--and many innocent people suspected of having Soviet sympathies--were summarily executed by Kardeljite forces.

• There remain thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Yugoslav partisans operating in the Dinarides. The new Yugoslav government remains remarkably unpopular in Slovenia and Croatia, but enjoys large popular support in Serbia, Montenegro, and parts of Bosnia.

• The new government consists primarily of Serbs who favor a more centralized government. This may lead to future conflict between the various pro-Soviet factions in the country, as other groups, such as the Macedonians, Albanians, and Hungarians, are heavily opposed to such centralization.

• During the course of the war, Kardeljite soldiers invaded and occupied northern Albania, bringing Hoxha’s Albania into the war. During the closing days, the Albanian People’s Army crossed into Macedonia and occupied Albanian-majority territory in the region. Pro-Soviet forces in Kosovo are clamoring to be integrated into Albania.

• The war was the first combat deployment of new Soviet equipment, including the T-54 and BTR-152.

• Somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 Yugoslav refugees fled across the border into Italy, British-occupied Austria, and Greece.

• The Soviet Union currently occupies the land borders to Greece, Austria, and Italy. Traffic is presently closed.

• Key members of the Kardeljite government, including Prime Minister Djilas, are in Soviet captivity.

• Žujović’s Yugoslavia is open as a claim. However, it requires mod approval to claim. Please contact me if you are interested in claiming.

• The Kardelj government-in-exile, in keeping with our policy surrounding insurgent claims, is not currently open for claim at this time.

• Greek volunteers took part in the conflict on the side of the Kardeljite government.