Police dispersing demonstrators in Belgrade during the December 1937 visit of Yvon Delbos, French Foreign Minister in the Popular Front government led by Léon Blum.

European Context

The renowned British historian and one of the most significant historians of the second half of the 20^th century, Eric Hobsbawm, in his memoir “Interesting Times: A Life in the Twentieth Century”, mentions his own participation in the First World Youth Congress for Peace, held in Geneva in 1936, recalling the presentations of Yugoslav students, especially the speech of the later well-known revolutionary Ivo Lola Ribar. Hobsbawm emphasises that the students of Belgrade University in this decade were regarded as the most revolutionary students in Europe, alongside the students of Madrid University.

Hobsbawm belonged to a generation of young British communists at the University of Cambridge who tried to form something akin to a revolutionary student movement, but their movement was neither massive nor did its protagonists become revolutionaries, although some of them, like Hobsbawm, remained faithful to the ideas of the revolutionary left.

The reputation enjoyed by the revolutionary movements at Belgrade and Madrid universities among the relatively small number of radical left-wing students at Western European universities becomes clearer if we recall the fact that as early as the 1920s in several European countries (Italy, Germany, Austria), fascists dominated among politically engaged students at universities there. The influence of the revolutionary left in these countries was primarily present among members of the working class. During the next decade, the influence of clerical conservatives and fascists became dominant at universities in other European countries (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland), while their influence was also noticeable in several countries (Sweden, Switzerland) that did not have monarcho-fascist regimes or undemocratic governments formed after a military coup. In some European countries, such as Greece and Portugal, during the 1930s, the influence of the right at universities was equal to that of the communists, which meant that left-wing students were more exposed to state repression compared to countries where the presence of the left at universities was less visible.

Hobsbawm’s claim about the significance of the revolutionary generation of Spanish and Yugoslav students in the 1930s requires some supplementation. Namely, students at the universities of Madrid and Belgrade, in the decade preceding World War II, were members of the most organised revolutionary movements among students in the world, after the students of Peking University. Students of Madrid and Peking universities participated en masse in armed revolutionary struggle already in this decade, while students of Belgrade University during the next decade made an extremely significant contribution to the Yugoslav socialist revolution and the people’s liberation struggle of the Yugoslav nations. It is estimated that over 5,000 students and graduates of Belgrade University participated in the partisan movement, while 205 of them were declared national heroes. A large number of members of this revolutionary student generation did not survive World War II. Many perished in partisan ranks or became victims of fascist terror in numerous camps. The significance of this generation of revolutionary students is not only reflected in its contribution to the anti-fascist struggle during World War II. The interwar revolutionary movement at Belgrade University was the most militant part of the anti-fascist movement in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In addition, together with the revolutionary workers’ movement in Belgrade, the students of Belgrade University were the most significant representatives of the anti-regime movement in the capital.

Students of Belgrade University, as well as students of Zagreb University and Ljubljana University, already in 1936 got the opportunity to contribute to international mobilisation, within the revolutionary workers’ movement, in the fight against fascism. It should be noted that volunteers from several dozen countries fought in the International Brigades of the Spanish Republican Army, but the share of students in the total number of volunteers was highest among students from Yugoslavia. Therefore, Yugoslav students, proportionally speaking, made the greatest contribution to the ranks of volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, although their number was relatively modest (84).

There were 34 students from Belgrade University in the ranks of the International Brigades (it is also worth mentioning the 19 students of Yugoslav origin from Prague University, many of whom had started their studies at Belgrade University). This number would certainly have been higher if there had not been serious obstacles. Namely, the state authorities prevented activists of the revolutionary student movement from obtaining travel documents. However, a certain number of students, as well as other members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY), travelled illegally to France (from where they would reach Spain) under the train platform. So, there were even such exceptional examples of sacrifice. In 1937, the CPY organised the production of forged passports in Belgrade, but this work was soon thwarted by the political police. Nevertheless, a number of students travelled to France thanks to legal documents. It should be noted that among Yugoslav students, participants in the Spanish Civil War, there were also those who found themselves in Spain at the moment of the fascist coup, staying in Barcelona as participants in the Spartakiad, which was a counterpart to the Olympics held in the capital of the Third Reich. Also, it should be noted that students made up the majority of Yugoslav competitors at the Berlin Olympics. During the opening of the Olympic Games in Berlin, only Yugoslav participants did not return Hitler’s salute, precisely thanks to a few students from Belgrade University who were conscious anti-fascists.

Revolutionary Movement at Belgrade University 1919-1929

The revolutionary student movement in Belgrade emerged in 1919, alongside the constitution of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which until its ban in 1921 was a massive legal political organisation. This political organisation was the third political force in the Yugoslav parliament with a tendency for further strengthening in society, as evidenced by the fact that communists held local power in almost all major cities in Yugoslavia. It was precisely the fear of further strengthening of the CPY that led the monarchist regime to ban the operation of this organisation and expose its members to brutal state repression. After 1921, the CPY would grow from a massive legal organisation into an illegal cadre organisation, i.e., from a parliamentary party into a revolutionary party of the Leninist type.

In the interwar period, the operation of legal political organisations among students was allowed at Belgrade University. After the ban of the CPY, pro-communist oriented students founded the Club of Marxist Students, which operated until 1929 when it was banned. Although the Club of Marxist Students was the dominant political force among students only in the year of its founding (1922), and its influence diminished in parallel with the intensification of state repression against communists, this club managed to animate a large number of students dissatisfied with social reality, the politics of civil parties, violations of University autonomy, as well as the endangerment of the social position of students. Likewise, it should be noted that one part of left-oriented Yugoslav students, mostly from Vojvodina and Bosnia and Herzegovina, studied at the University of Vienna, thanks to the fact that they were born as subjects of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In addition, one part of Yugoslav students, especially those from Serbia, during the 1920s became ideologically and politically radicalised while studying in France.

Members of the revolutionary student movement in Belgrade were exposed to pressures from proto-fascist groups in the 1920s: the Organisation of Yugoslav Nationalists (ORJUNA) and the Serbian Nationalist Youth (SRNAO), who were instructed by the political police. The first conflict between right-wing students and members of the Club of Marxist Students occurred on December 24, 1922, when rightists attacked the assembly of students who were members of opposition, republican parties. Members of these two organisations, with the help of the gendarmerie, dispersed this assembly, seized and burned the red flag.

More intense conflicts between leftist students and their pro-fascist colleagues occurred during the securing of a four-day student strike (December 5-9, 1924). Right-wing students physically attacked members of the student law enforcement service, organised agitation among undecided and uninformed students to force them to attend classes, and denounced their leftist colleagues to the political police. This practice was continued by fascist groups at the University until 1941. It should be emphasised that fascist groups in Belgrade had no political weight among the youth, except at the University, where they influenced a small number of students. Fascist groups especially had no influence on the working youth in Belgrade, who were largely left-oriented.

The students of Belgrade University used the first significant opportunity to express the majority anti-fascist sentiment by organising three days of demonstrations in front of the Student Dormitory “King Alexander” from May 28 to 30, 1928, on the occasion of the ratification of the Nettuno Conventions in the National Assembly. On the first day of the demonstrations, students and working-class youth burned Mussolini’s picture in front of the Student Dormitory, continuing the demonstrations in the direction of Knez Mihailova Street with shouts of “Down with fascism”. After the intervention of the gendarmerie, which tried to disperse the unauthorised gathering, the conflict with the gendarmerie continued at the barricades in the Student Dormitory. For two days, the gendarmerie tried to penetrate this building, intervening with firearms. During the conflict, about 20 students were wounded, and about 50 were arrested.

This was an introduction to the brutal violence of the gendarmerie and political police against revolutionary students at Belgrade University during the next decade, which not only implied a violation of the autonomy of the University by inadmissible police intrusions into University facilities but also very pronounced state repression against revolutionary students, which was reflected in armed interventions against students and other participants in political demonstrations on the street, as well as in the torture of detainees during the investigative procedure by the political police, i.e., the agency of the Fourth Department of the Belgrade General Police, which had the official name: Anti-communist Department of the Police. From this repressive apparatus during the Nazi occupation, the quisling Special Police was organised, responsible for the death of thousands of members and sympathisers of the People’s Liberation Movement in Serbia from 1941-1944.

Reorganised Revolutionary Movement at Belgrade University, its Structure and Dominance Among Students During the 1930s

With the establishment of the open dictatorship of King Alexander Karađorđević, every form of political work in the country was temporarily banned. Political persecutions of opposition groups, including the CPY, were further intensified. Any activity of leftist-oriented students at the University was prohibited.

At the beginning of the 1930s, communist cells were restored at Belgrade University. Although the illegal political work of communist activists among students involved numerous dangers, the least of which was related to the temporary loss of the right to education, the revolutionary student movement at the University, starting from the academic year 1934/35, became the dominant political force among students.

This fact is even more demanding for analysis if we take into account the social structure of the students of Belgrade University in the middle and during the second half of the 1930s.

Immediately before World War II (1939), only one-quarter of Belgrade students came from a social environment that communists recognised as a potential bearer of revolutionary revolt (22% of students came from peasant families, and only 3% from working-class families). However, the fact is that the revolutionary student movement at Belgrade University after 1934 managed to animate over half of the students. How to explain the fact that a significant part of the students, who were of bourgeois class origin, therefore from a social milieu that was not inclined to the ideas of social revolution, was engaged in the revolutionary movement?

The reasons for this phenomenon should be sought in the fact that a significant number of members of the bourgeois class became impoverished due to the economic crisis, as well as in the fact that among the members of the bourgeois class, the number of those who were dissatisfied with the policies of the regime and civil parties was growing. In addition, we should not forget that a significant number of students became ideologically and politically radicalised precisely at the University, in contact with communist students. The tightening of repression against communists at the University only increased the sympathies of their less radical colleagues. In addition, from the mid-1930s, the organisation of the Young Communist League of Yugoslavia (YCLY) was significantly expanded among high school youth (high schools in Belgrade, Užice, Valjevo, Čačak, Kragujevac, Leskovac, Vršac, Petrovgrad, Peć, Berane, Podgorica, Nikšić, Cetinje, Kotor, etc.), which resulted in the enrolment of already radicalised students at the University.

For comparison, we will also look at the social structure of students at Zagreb University, in the same period. About half of the students of this higher education institution came from rural families, while the percentage of students from the working class was almost twice as high as at Belgrade University. However, despite this, the revolutionary leftist movement at Zagreb University was not as massive and politically relevant as at Belgrade University. Also, the influence of the right (first the Croatian Peasant Party, then the clero-fascists) was more visible in Zagreb than in Belgrade. On the other hand, the CPY had an equally strong foothold among the working youth in Zagreb as in Belgrade.

The very pronounced anti-fascist sentiment among Belgrade students contributed to the fact that after 1933, Belgrade University became the most significant stronghold of the anti-fascist movement in the country. Belgrade students and working-class youth demolished the German diplomatic mission in Belgrade on December 23, in protest at the end of the Leipzig trial against Georgi Dimitrov and comrades, accused of allegedly setting fire to the Reichstag.

The government, the Intelligence Department of the Army, and right-wing circles at the University undertook a wider-scale action at the end of 1934 and the beginning of 1935 with the aim of destroying the revolutionary movement among students. The Organisation of National Students (ORNAS) was created and armed with cold weapons from extremely nationalist and pro-fascist students, who would later join Dimitrije Ljotić’s fascist organisation. The honorary president of ORNAS was the then rector of the University, historian Vladimir Ćorović.

Due to the arrest, torture in the investigative procedure by the political police, and internment of a group of students in a camp in Višegrad, in January 1935, as well as due to the absence of a reaction from the University administration to the brutal repression of students, at the beginning of February, students went on strike. This time too, the protest of the students was brutally prevented: the gendarmerie used firearms, student Mirko Srzentić was killed while standing peacefully on the balcony of the Faculty of Philosophy building (Captain Miša’s edifice). During the first two months, 51 students were arrested and interned in the Višegrad camp. During April 1935, another 19 communist students were arrested.

The strengthening of repression against leftist students contributed to an increase in dissatisfaction among students and the manifestation of solidarity with colleagues who were exposed to repression. In March 1935, a petition was sent to the rector, signed by over 1000 students who demanded the release of students from the Višegrad camp and the dissolution of ORNAS.

During the two-day major conflicts with the gendarmerie and their helpers from ORNAS, in December 1935, in the Student Dormitory, 105 students were arrested, and 40 of them were sentenced by university authorities and state courts at the beginning of the next year.

The revolutionary student movement during 1936 intensified the struggle against university authorities and ORNAS, as well as against the regime in general. At the beginning of April, in solidarity with the students of Zagreb University, i.e., due to the increasingly brutal violation of the autonomy of the University, as well as due to highlighting social demands (reduction of tuition fees and abolition of student fees), a major rebellion of students at Belgrade University broke out, which lasted 25 days. Students suspended classes at all faculties, except at the Faculty of Theology (it is interesting to note that in 1939, out of only 139 state scholarship holders at the University, 80 were from the Faculty of Theology).

In an attempt to prevent the general strike, members of ORNAS started agitation among undecided and uninformed students, intending to convince them of the necessity of attending classes, justifying the financial policy of the University. Members of this fascist organisation clashed on April 4 with anti-fascist students who were members of the student law enforcement service at the Faculty of Medicine. On that occasion, one fascist student fatally wounded student Žarko Marinović, while two anti-fascist students were seriously wounded in the attempted murder. The police tried to mitigate the revolt of students regarding the murder of Marinović by ordering that the killed student be buried the next day, in the early morning hours, to prevent the mass arrival of students and citizens to the cemetery. University authorities were informed about the murder of Marinović and the wounding of two students, as well as about other attacks by the police and fascists on students, but they did not react to this either. The absence of a reaction from the University administration regarding Marinović’s murder and the unwillingness of university authorities to protect students from police brutality, and the University from the violation of autonomy, so angered the students that they stoned the house of Rector Ćorović. The general strike ended on April 28 with a complete triumph of the revolutionary movement. Rector Ćorović was dismissed, the so-called “university guard” was abolished (a kind of university police that had the task of “keeping order at the faculties” and, with the help of fascists, controlling the work of revolutionary students), punishments for leftist students were abolished, and during the year ORNAS was dissolved.

Student and working-class youth, members and sympathisers of the CPY, participated on February 27, 1937, in the dispersal of a political gathering of the Zbor organisation. The fascists scheduled a political gathering in the hall of the Triglav cinema in Sarajevska Street. Leftist youth, about three hundred of them, pelted the cinema windows with stones, shouting: “Down with the fascist Ljotić!” In this way, the holding of this gathering was prevented. After that, the gathered demonstrators headed towards Balkanska Street with the intention of demonstrating in the central city streets, but the gendarmerie prevented them from doing so, arresting several students. The method applied in this action (throwing stones at the building where the fascist gathering was to be held) was not common. It was applied to draw the attention of the owners of the premises not to cede space to fascists. A similar prevention of a political manifestation of the fascist movement Zbor was repeated on October 11, 1937.

Anti-fascist youth participated on March 26, 1937, in demonstrations organised in protest of the visit of the foreign minister of fascist Italy, Count Ciano, to Belgrade. The police learned about the time and place of the gathering and intervened to prevent the demonstrations. Several hundred students, broken into several groups in the central city streets, clashed with the gendarmerie, only to disperse afterwards to prevent arrests.

On the anniversary of Žarko Marinović’s death, April 4, 1937, a commemoration was held, which became customary in the following years. About 3,000 students attended the commemoration in the building of the then Faculty of Law (today’s Faculty of Philology). It was a kind of review and manifestation of strength, unity, and solidarity of students.

Due to the visit of the foreign minister of fascist Germany, von Neurath, communists organised demonstrations of an anti-fascist character on June 6-7, 1937, which were attended by over 3,000 anti-fascist-oriented citizens, among whom students were very numerous. The gendarmerie prevented the demonstrators from reaching the city centre.

On the occasion of the visit of Yvon Delbos, the foreign minister of France (in the government of the Popular Front), anti-fascist Belgrade prepared a magnificent welcome for the minister on December 12, 1937. People’s students also massively participated in Delbos’s welcome. Due to political manifestation, i.e., cheering for freedom, democracy, peace, the Popular Front, the police intervened and broke up the demonstrations. On that occasion, a larger number of citizens were injured.

The world communist movement embodied in the members of the Third International (Comintern) at the VII (last) congress of the Comintern (1935) radically changed tactics. The concept of creating popular fronts together with other anti-fascist forces was proclaimed, i.e., the policy of class confrontation was replaced by the policy of concentration of anti-fascist forces.

The Congress of Unification of six student political groups was held on April 3, 1938 (communist students were not allowed to organise under the name of communists, so they called themselves People’s Students). At this gathering, the already achieved unity of student political groups (offshoots of political parties) was proclaimed on popular front and anti-fascist principles. Then the United Student Youth was created, which would become the bearer of anti-fascist tendencies at the University. It should be noted that in the leadership of the offshoots of civil political parties among students, who were enabled to legally engage in political work at the University, were largely crypto-communists or covert sympathisers of the CPY, so the CPY actually had a majority in the leadership of the United Student Youth.

During the night between May 17 and 18, 1938, the police broke into the building of the Technical Faculty and broke into the premises of the Association of Students of Mechanical Engineering, with the aim of planting weapons and compromising material to justify the violation of the autonomy of the University and to endanger the student movement. The regime press published the next day how the police allegedly found weapons. On the same day, a large student protest rally was held at the Faculty of Law (3,000 students). A three-day strike was proclaimed at the rally in protest against the violation of the autonomy of the University. The response to the strike was very significant. For three days, students kept watch at the faculties, in the premises of student associations, to be ready for possible police attacks.

The intrusion into the Technical Faculty and the finding of alleged weapons served the police to arrest about a hundred students. A large number of activists of the progressive student movement were arrested, which was the goal of the police and their superiors. A number of students were released after the completion of the police investigation, while about 40 of them were brought before the court and tried. The sentence for all convicts amounted to a total of 25 years. One student was sentenced to 5 years in prison, the others to multi-month sentences.

After the annexation of Austria by Germany in March 1938, and the erasure of Czechoslovakia from the European political map in September 1938, the Italian occupation of Albania followed in April 1939. The next year, Nazi Germany occupied a whole series of European countries. Anyone with political sentiment could see that war and fascist aggression would not spare Yugoslavia and that the coming war would be fought between fascists and anti-fascists, but only the communists, as an organised political force in Yugoslavia, showed enough readiness to fully oppose fascism. Belgrade University became the centre of manifestation of such political readiness.

Revolutionary students organised on April 22, 1939, at the Faculty of Law (today’s Faculty of Philology) a formal academy at which readiness to defend the country from possible fascist aggression was manifested (the occasion for this manifestation was the Italian occupation of Albania). This was the most massive manifestation of this kind in Yugoslavia. In the Ceremonial Hall of the Faculty of Law (today’s Heroes Hall at the Faculty of Philology), in the corridors of the faculty and in front of the faculty building, about 10,000 anti-fascist-oriented students and citizens gathered. The academy was noted also in European public. All major news agencies and radio stations conveyed the basic information from the academy, and Radio Munich devoted as much as ten minutes of the informative programme to this event.

At the beginning of May 1939, with the support of Rector Dragoslav Jovanović, who was inclined towards progressive students, the Student Committee for the Defence of the Country (a body formed by the United Student Youth) organised a shooting course, which soon grew into professional military training under the leadership of officers of the Royal Yugoslav Army. Military training lasted one month. The bulletin of Ljotić’s Zbor warned the military authorities to “be careful to whom they give weapons”, given that “this communist action is an opportunity to create cadres who will one day lead the bloody act of class struggle”. This was a reaction of powerlessness. At the end of 1940, the revolutionary student movement won a definitive victory over the fascists at the University. During this and the previous year, there were frequent physical confrontations between fascist (Ljotić’s) and communist youth on the streets of the capital. Revolutionary students also participated in these street conflicts, which were transferred to the University. The last significant assault by fascists, with the tacit support of the police, on revolutionary students followed in 1940 when fascists, unable to thwart the student strike at the Technical Faculty, shot at the students and on that occasion wounded several strikers.

The CPY organised massive anti-regime demonstrations in Belgrade on December 14, 1939. During these demonstrations, the gendarmerie intervened against the participants with firearms. Five people were killed (three of whom were students), dozens were wounded, while a large number of demonstrators were arrested. It is worth noting that the police (gendarmerie and political police) killed nine students from 1929 to 1940 (six of them were killed on the street by the gendarmerie, during demonstrations, and three disappeared after arrest: it is assumed that they were killed during the investigative procedure), In the same period, about 95 students were wounded in demonstrations. In the period from 1929 to 1941, over 2,000 students were arrested (some of them several times), while several hundred were judicially processed. In the same period, 75 demonstrations, 64 protest rallies, and 12 strikes were organised at the University.

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Note from ESSF editors
The August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (also known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact) significantly affected how communist parties worldwide responded to Nazi Germany. This non-aggression pact lead many communist parties to moderate their anti-fascist stance in alignment with Soviet policy.
The Yugoslav Communist Party (CPY) had a unique approach. The CPY did initially follow Moscow’s line and moderated some of their rhetoric against Nazi Germany. However, their anti-fascist activities never completely ceased, particularly at the local level. The party retained a degree of independence in its practical approach, continuing to organise against domestic fascist groups like Ljotić’s Zbor movement.
The CPY leadership under Josip Broz Tito maintained a somewhat more autonomous position than many other European communist parties. While officially adhering to Comintern directives, they continued preparations for resistance against the expected Axis invasion. Yugoslavia’s proximity to Italy (which had already occupied Albania) and obvious threat from Nazi Germany meant that theoretical alignment with the Soviet position was often superseded by practical opposition to fascist expansion.
The article’s description of demonstrations in 1939-1940 is generally accurate, though it fails to mention the party’s ideological adjustments following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Student activists indeed continued their resistance activities, often focusing more on domestic fascist elements and the Yugoslav government’s policies during this period.
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the CPY immediately returned to full anti-fascist resistance, becoming the backbone of the partisan movement that would emerge as one of Europe’s most effective resistance forces. AN

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Milan Radanović’s text was written in 2012 based on his presentation the same year within the programme “Why it is important to think about student protests in the 1930s” which the Context Collective organised as part of the project Context in the local community in the Hall of the local community “Student City” in New Belgrade. At that time he wrote “In place of an epilogue — What is the attitude of the administration of Belgrade University towards these facts, in the last two decades? To put it mildly, the University administration has for many years completely ignored the existence of these facts, or even mocked the memory of a revolutionary generation, which was decimated in the anti-fascist struggle, by allowing, about ten years ago, the return of the pre-war name of the Student Dormitory in Boulevard of Revolution (Student Dormitory”King Alexander Karađorđević“), after the name of the monarch whose gendarmerie shot at students in the building of this Student Dormitory. Research on this topic, within the university scientific community, was interrupted at the end of the 1980s with the abolition of the Centre for Marxism of the University of Belgrade. The most significant contribution to the research of this topic was made by Prof. Đorđe Stanković, whose scientific works represent the basis of the majority of this text.”