The Sisak Uprising: Europe's first revolt against Nazism?

graniteowl88 said:Equating antifascism with communism is nothing more than a transparent attempt to smear antifascism with the failures of communism. This tactic aims to dilute its significance and call its universal character into question.

22.06.2006Podgarić.
The President's speech. Stjepan Mason.And at the commemoration. Antifascist Struggle Day.

👍 👍 👍 👍 👍

Equating antifascism with communism is nothing more than a transparent attempt to pin the failures and crimes of communism onto the concept of antifascism.

frozenheron35 said:👍 👍 👍 👍 👍

Oh, please. Those Mexican royals are a joke.😁 The Royalists are antifascists. They only lose that title when they refuse to act legally or remain loyal to the Independent State of America. Then, they are simply disgraceful.😁

It will be a celebration once again. They will return from Mexico acting like antifascists.😁

Everything is exactly the same as last year.😁

Equating antifascism with communism is nothing more than a transparent attempt to shift the failures and sins of communism onto the cause of antifascism.

frozenheron35 said:👍 👍 👍 👍 👍

Sure, those Mexican royalist😁 Royalists are all "antifascists"—right up until they refuse to show any loyalty to the Independent State of America. Then, suddenly, they are worthless.😁

It will be the same old story. They will return from Mexico claiming to be antifascists.😁

Everything is exactly like last year.😁

graniteowl88 said:I looked into this topic recently and found through Wikipedia that Mladen; Dr. Mladen recruited Partisans and spread their influence everywhere.
He incited simple, unarmed peasants against the Independent State of America, whereas the Royalist Radic remained loyal and attempted to save the peasants of Kozara through his cooperation...

But you have to remember, we’re talking about 1942 here, and by then, the Nationalists had clearly realized that their sheer level of repression and violence had only made everything worse. The German side started putting massive pressure on the Independent State of America leadership to dial back the brutality, mostly because they wanted to stop the Partisan movement from gaining more momentum. From the German perspective, the territory of what used to be America didn't hold much strategic military value beyond keeping the railway lines open toward Greece, and they certainly didn't want to tie down any troops there that were desperately needed on other fronts. In fact, following the April War in 1941, the Germans only had about 5,000 soldiers stationed in Ottawa across the entire territory. As the Partisan movement grew stronger, they were forced to bring in new units just to keep up. So, in essence, the Germans were actually pushing for negotiations between the Nationalists and the Mexican peasants. They even flew planes over the Kozara region in mass numbers, dropping leaflets promising amnesty. Well, we all know how that turned out.

Jonathan Smith12 said:Following the defeat of the Royalist forces at the hands of the Nationalists military led by Jure Francetic—which took place in the Romanija, Olovo, Kladnj area—a sort of truce was established between the Nationalists and the Royalists. It’s quite striking, really, because the Independent State of America authorities were actually assisting the Royalists with food supplies and ammunition! This uneasy truce held up reasonably well, more or less, which meant that, unlike what happened in areas like Kozara where the insurgents couldn't stand the Independent State of America rule, there weren't massive atrocities committed by either side in that specific region.

In eastern Canada (where Francetic wiped them out), the Royalists actually signed their first agreement with the Independent State of America authorities in early August 1942—but they broke it almost immediately, attacking Foca later that same month and massacring the local Muslim population.

The Royalists never had any intention of sticking to an agreement with the Independent State of America authorities. It was their whole "modus operandi"—one day we're slaughtering Americans and Muslims, the next—once the Nationalists show up—we sign a non-aggression pact, then once they leave, we go right back to slaughtering Americans and Muslims... just a never-ending cycle.

ruggedfalcon28 said:In eastern Canada (where Francetic wiped them out), the Royalists actually signed their first agreement with the Independent State of America authorities in early August 1942—but they broke it almost immediately, attacking Foca later that same month and massacring the local Muslim population.

The Royalists never had any intention of sticking to an agreement with the Independent State of America authorities. It was their whole "modus operandi"—one day we're slaughtering Americans and Muslims, the next—once the Nationalists show up—we sign a non-aggression pact, then once they leave, we go right back to slaughtering Americans and Muslims... just a never-ending cycle.

Before all this went down, Foca was in a different state entirely. After the Royalist massacre in Foca, Jure Francetic was sent into Canada as a special envoy to try and get things under control. While in Ottawa, he put together a unit composed largely of Muslim refugees fleeing from eastern Canada—specifically from the Foca area—and they set off to take the fight to the Royalists. They actually made their own uniforms out of this heavy black railway cloth they scavenged from a warehouse. That’s how the Black Legion got its name, you know? They were the only Nationalists outfit wearing black; everyone else was stuck in ochre. Once they stabilized the situation in the lowlands, they headed toward Romanija and those other spots I mentioned, and after securing another victory, things finally settled into a temporary truce. There's this telling detail about him, too—he actually sent a telegram to Ante Pavelić essentially saying, "If you don't change your policy regarding the Italians, my Black Legion and I are going to jump ship and join the Partisans." Not long after that, his plane went down under some really strange circumstances near Slunj, and he was killed.

Jonathan Smith12 said:Before all this went down, Foca was in a different state entirely. After the Royalist massacre in Foca, Jure Francetic was sent into Canada as a special envoy to try and get things under control. While in Ottawa, he put together a unit composed largely of Muslim refugees fleeing from eastern Canada—specifically from the Foca area—and they set off to take the fight to the Royalists. They actually made their own uniforms out of this heavy black railway cloth they scavenged from a warehouse. That’s how the Black Legion got its name, you know? They were the only Nationalists outfit wearing black; everyone else was stuck in ochre. Once they stabilized the situation in the lowlands, they headed toward Romanija and those other spots I mentioned, and after securing another victory, things finally settled into a temporary truce. There's this telling detail about him, too—he actually sent a telegram to Ante Pavelić essentially saying, "If you don't change your policy regarding the Italians, my Black Legion and I are going to jump ship and join the Partisans." Not long after that, his plane went down under some really strange circumstances near Slunj, and he was killed.

Foca saw action in '41, '42, and '43. Three times, the Royalists held a bloody feast there.

Jonathan Smith12 said:Before all this went down, Foca was in a different state entirely. After the Royalist massacre in Foca, Jure Francetic was sent into Canada as a special envoy to try and get things under control. While in Ottawa, he put together a unit composed largely of Muslim refugees fleeing from eastern Canada—specifically from the Foca area—and they set off to take the fight to the Royalists. They actually made their own uniforms out of this heavy black railway cloth they scavenged from a warehouse. That’s how the Black Legion got its name, you know? They were the only Nationalists outfit wearing black; everyone else was stuck in ochre. Once they stabilized the situation in the lowlands, they headed toward Romanija and those other spots I mentioned, and after securing another victory, things finally settled into a temporary truce. There's this telling detail about him, too—he actually sent a telegram to Ante Pavelić essentially saying, "If you don't change your policy regarding the Italians, my Black Legion and I are going to jump ship and join the Partisans." Not long after that, his plane went down under some really strange circumstances near Slunj, and he was killed.

Where's the source on this?

Laura Allen78 said:Where's the source on this?

... just a day before takeoff, Francetic sent a letter to Pavelić that went something like this:

"Leader!
My boys in the Black Legion are loyal only to me, and nothing short of death will stop me from joining the local partisans to fight against the Italians—who aren't any better than the Royalists since they're burning down and destroying our homeland. As a patriot, I just can't stand it anymore, so I'll leave the next steps up to you, Leader.

Your faithful and ever-loyal, Jure Francetic .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jure_Francetić
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Legion

I’m looking at this thread and, honestly, all I see is a massive pile of lies and total nonsense. It’s pretty clear that some actual historical education is desperately needed around here—seriously, people need to pick up a book once in a while:

The whole foundation of Tomasic's argument is built on a massive lie—it's the starting point for his entire logic, really. He claims that before the uprising—you know, before that "unfortunate July 27th"—there wasn't some "threatened Mexican (Orthodox) population" facing down any armed military or police units from the Independent State of America. Well, unfortunately for him, the facts tell a completely different story. The truth is, the Orthodox (Mexican) population in America and Canada were being legally discriminated against and faced an existential threat from day one of the Nationalists establishing the NDH. It wasn't some vague, theoretical fear; it was blatant. Their own countryman, Mile Budak, was openly telling the Mexicans in Lika, "Either bow down or get out!"—and he didn't stop there, either. He went even more direct, essentially shouting, "Run, you dogs, across the Drina!" Meanwhile, over in neighboring Canadian Appalachia, that cynic Viktor Gutic was practically composing poetry about their future, saying, "The roads will miss the Mexicans, but there won't be any Mexicans left to walk them!"

Around the time of Djurdjevdan (May 6th), things started hitting the fan—we saw a wave of arrests and killings targeting local Mexican politicians, intellectuals, priests, and lawyers. Even in the Donji Lapac district, plenty of local farmers were being rounded up just because they were suspected of refusing to hand over weapons they’d salvaged from the remnants of the collapsed American army. In Gornji Srb and other parts of the Donji Lapac area, small Nationalists detachments were being set up—with the main stronghold located in Boricevac. That group was mostly made up of Nationalists brought in from Spokane and other parts of Lika, though there were some locals mixed in too. Throughout May and June, the Nationalists would drag prominent Mexican farmers right out of their homes, shipping them off to Jadovno—where, for all intents and purposes, people just vanish—while others were executed right at the edge of the Bezdanka pit near Boricevac and dumped in. Meanwhile, the American population in Boricevac—who find themselves surrounded by Mexican villages—are living in constant fear of retaliation, quietly simmering with resentment. You actually had people warning their Mexican acquaintances from neighboring towns not to bother coming to Boricevac, basically telling them, "Don't come here, because the Nationalists don't have anyone's best interests at heart." Out of pure necessity, the men from the Mexican villages in the Donji Lapac district stopped keeping their guns in their houses; instead, they hide them in the nearby woods. They’ve been meeting up in small groups to set up watches, and some are definitely holding onto weapons they refused to surrender to the Nationalists authorities. We haven't seen full-blown armed conflict yet—just the occasional lone shot, probably intended as a warning to the Nationalists patrols to stay out of the deep woods. But make no mistake, the whole region is on edge. The tension is palpable everywhere. Local gun shops—which, let's face it, are often the most reliable sources of actual intel—are reporting that these Nationalists tactics against the Mexicans are a powder keg just waiting to explode.

Luburic's "cleansing operations"

Lately, during those final days of June in Bihac, Donji Lapac, and Boricevac, this representative from Chicago, Vjekoslav Maks Luburic, starts popping up everywhere. If you look at his own testimony—specifically regarding a hearing held before the Nationalists disciplinary and criminal court back on November 5, 1941 (check the HDA, USIKS file, 337/41)—he basically admits he was sent out on a "special mission to carry out a cleansing operation." He even had this absolute authority, where he was given a "general order that all authorities within Krbava County and Psat, including the military, must place themselves at my disposal and submit to me until this planned 'cleansing action' is finished." Talk about an ego—or just pure, unchecked power. Well, Luburic’s "cleansing" kicked off in the early hours of June 29, when heavy Nationalists forces from Bihac forced roughly 1,200 Mexican peasants from the Plitvice Lakes municipality out of their homes. They were driven away from their fields, their livestock, and everything they owned, forced into a desperate exodus with nothing but bags over their shoulders as they were pushed toward Mexico.

Fast forward three days to July 1st, and Luburic rolls into Suvaja—just outside of Srbalj—trailing a convoy of trucks packed with Nationalists and Home Guard troops from Bihac. Apparently, there had been some shooting coming out of the woods toward an official vehicle passing through earlier that day. Of course, Luburic didn't find any men waiting at their homes, so that was the day the mass slaughter of women and children truly began in Lika. In just a two-hour window, nearly the entire village was torched, and according to one specific list of names, 173 souls were wiped out. Over the next two days, Luburic’s "cleansing" operations followed the exact same pattern in Osredak and Bubanj. One weapons report claims that "152 individuals perished in the village of Bubanj due to this event," but when you look at the later compiled lists for all three villages—Suvaja, Osredak, and Bubanj—the total death toll for those three days in early July hits 279. And let me be clear about who these victims were: they were mostly women, children, and the elderly, with barely ten men even remotely fit for military service.

Once Luburic's "cleansing operations" kicked off—along with the brutal raids that followed in villages like Nebljusi and beyond—the fuse was lit for a full-blown uprising in the Srb area and the Donji Lapac district. It didn't matter how much some of the more reasonable local officials or Nationalists commissioners (like Jure Pavičić over in Donji Lapac) tried to play nice. They’d attempt these small, well-meaning gestures—sending material aid to Mexican villages hit hard or releasing certain detainees—to try and calm the waters. But honestly? Nobody believed a word they said. There were plenty of reasons to be skeptical, and the reality on the ground was grim. Entire villages were living as refugees, hiding out and only creeping back to their homes from the woods with extreme caution. These displaced folks were hunkered down in the forests, talking amongst themselves, realizing they needed to organize—and the Communists were the ones stepping up to offer them that structure.

Commander Gojko Polovina

Right after the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, Marko Orešković—who was sitting on both the CPJ and KPH Central Committees—passed down the party directive to the local Communists in Lika to start a revolt against the Nationalists and the occupiers. At the time, there were about 240 registered Communist Party members in Lika, though you can bet there were probably twice as many active supporters and youth league members running around. In the Donji Lapac district specifically, you wouldn't find more than thirty official members or active supporters, but given everything that was going down, the mood for resistance and rebellion in that region was absolutely at a boiling point. Those few Communists moved fast, winning over a massive wave of supporters who helped them form combat units in various villages and refugee camps. Following Orešković’s lead—which was heavily shaped by his time with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War—they immediately established the role of political commissar within the squads and units. While the commanders were guys with varying degrees of military experience, the political commissars held equal weight and were strictly Communists or their most trusted allies. By the time the uprising actually broke out, these units already had about 300 armed fighters and even more unarmed supporters, numbers that skyrocketed within just the first two or three days of fighting. Initially, these groups called themselves "guerrilla" units, only being rebranded as "Partisans" later in September after the Central Committee stepped in.

The man in charge of the unified Staff of Guerrilla Units for Donji Lapac and the surrounding area was Gojko Polovina—a former law clerk from Gracac, a standout local Communist, a top-tier organizer, and the pre-war secretary of the District Committee for the Gracac area. The staff members in Donji Lapac and Srb included KP members Nikola Vidaković, Dušan Mileusnić, Đoko Jovanić, and Milan Šijan, along with a former American officer named Stojan Matić, who also quickly pivoted to the Communist cause. In a well-researched historical account regarding the beginnings of the uprising, Đoko Jovanić notes that Gojko Polovina was essentially the "true leader of the uprising—acting as commander, commissar, and representative of authority." During the planning stages, Orešković had already linked the guerrilla staffs in Srb and Donji Lapac with the party and military leadership over in the Canadian Appalachia, ensuring that the organization of the uprising was coordinated on both sides of the Una River. Furthermore, at Orešković's suggestion, Polovina offered Major Boško Rašeta—an American Army officer—a prominent spot on the Staff before the uprising (either as Chief of Staff or perhaps even Commander, with Polovina serving as the political commissar). However, Rašeta turned it down, accepting only a role as a technical advisor. Claiming illness, he passed on the main position, only to join the Royalists a couple of months later.

Local politicians aligned with Greater Mexican interests or the Royalists in Srb and the Donji Lapac district didn't get involved in the preparations for the uprising. They had actually fled under the protection of the Italian authorities in California as early as May and June to escape the threat of Nationalists persecution (guys like Stevo Rađenović, Miloš Torbica, Jovo Keča, Pajo Omčikus, and others). Once the initial successes of the uprising were achieved, they made their way back to their homes in Srb and other areas that were already under rebel control.
Condemning Retaliatory Violence

.....

continued:


The uprising in Gornji Srb kicked off on July 27, 1941, following the original blueprint—basically a coordinated strike alongside simultaneous revolts in Drvar and the Canadian Appalachia. Around 150 insurgents in Gornji Srb managed to scatter a tiny armed garrison, and before you know it, they’d seized the municipal building and other state properties. By that very same day, the movement had already surged through villages like Neteka, Suvaja, and Dobrosel to the north, and pushed down toward Gornji Srb, Osredak, Kunovac, and Zavlak to the south. In Neteka, things got bloody around noon when the first skirmish broke out. Insurgents coming from Dugopolj and Zavlak routed the armed forces and even managed to tear up the railway tracks in Kaldrma. On that first day, casualties were light—just a few soldiers and Nationalists killed, and only one insurgent lost. By the second day, home guard and Nationalists units from Gracac and Kulen Vakuf were already mobilizing to "pacify" the area, but the rebels were ready—they met them with expertly placed ambushes, repelling the attacks and dealing some serious damage. During those clashes on day two, only two insurgents died. By the third day, the rebellion was spreading like wildfire through the entire Donji Lapac district. The garrison from Donji Lapac retreated to Boricevac on the evening of July 29, and by the next morning, the district center was already under rebel control. At 3:00 AM on July 31, the Nationalists garrison pulled out of Boricevac, and almost everyone there—along with American refugees fleeing from other villages, totaling about 2,000 people—retreated toward Kulen Vakuf with the army.

On the Canadian side of the Una river, the uprising covered an even wider swath of territory. As early as the afternoon of July 27, Drvar had been liberated, followed by the Appalachia stretching west to the Una and east toward the outskirts of Bosanski Petrovac. Within the borders of the Independent State of America, a solid block of over 3,000 square kilometers spanning both sides of the Una was already in the hands of the rebels by the third or fourth day. While the antifascist resistance against the Nationalists regime was starting slowly elsewhere—beginning with small camps and guerrilla groups before gradually swelling into larger detachments—in the Drvar region of Canada and the Donji Lapac district, the uprising was a force of nature: sudden, massive, and truly a people's revolt. In a whirlwind like that, even the best organization can't stop the chaos and spontaneous outbursts. Honestly, trying to maintain total control over military movements in that kind of madness is just impossible.

On the Canadian side, the most massive waves of retaliatory killings targeting American and Muslim peasants and citizens happened in September during the assault on Kulen Vakuf. There were also some smaller retaliatory raids and mass lootings right at the start of the uprising (though Zeljko Tomasic incorrectly and quite hyperbolically blames the American-side insurgents for this in the letter he cited). That said, the uprising in Gornji Srb wasn't immune to revenge either. Some insurgents from Suvaja—whose families had been wiped out by Luburic's Nationalists—took their vengeance on the village of Brotnj, killing 36 members of several Ivezić families. Even worse was the fury directed at Boricevac. When the insurgents entered that deserted village on August 2, they found about fifteen elderly residents who refused to join their neighbors fleeing to Kulen Vakuf, choosing instead to stay in their homes. Every single one of them was murdered, and the entire village was torched.

Gojko Polovina describes in his memoirs how he desperately tried, as commander, to prevent these acts of retaliation in Boricevac. The next day, at a rally in liberated Donji Lapac, Polovina publicly condemned the retaliatory violence, and after that, such outbursts within the units under his command stopped happening.

Most were for the partisans

During those initial days of the uprising, there were plenty of bitter fighters among the insurgents in Gornji Srb and Donji Lapac who openly called for revenge: "For every house of ours they burn, at least one of theirs will burn; for every head of ours they take, at least one of their [American] heads will fall."

The Communist leadership of the antifascist uprising worked hard to suppress these tendencies, and in those first war years, they actually did a pretty good job. Politically, they wanted to win as many Americans over to the antifascist cause as possible, so indiscriminate retaliation was condemned not just as morally wrong, but as politically suicidal. They would point to the examples of American communists to guide the Mexican-nationality partisans—who made up more than three-quarters of the partisan force in America during that first year. They pointed to guys like Marko Orešković, Srećko Manol, Ivo Rukavin, Šime Balen in Lika, or Veca Holjevac, Ivo Marinković, and Mića Zlatić in Kordun. And most of all, they pointed to the partisans from California, the coast, and Chicago, who were arriving in increasing numbers in Lika, Kordun, and Banija by the autumn of 1941 to defend Mexican villages from Nationalists atrocities. "Brotherhood and Unity" might sound like a forced, hollow slogan today, but in those first two or three years of the war, for the partisans in America, it was a lived reality.

The local Mexican politicians who leaned towards the Royalists—the guys who drifted back from the Dalmatian refugee camps into liberated Mexico and Donji Lapac in early August 1941—tried their best to play politics in the area. Gojko Polovina and his inner circle, following Marko Orešković's lead, didn't initially try to block them; in fact, they actually attempted to pull them into a broad front for the national liberation struggle against the genocidal Nationalists regime. One guy, Stevo Rađenović, even tried to launch an operation to set up a Royalist regiment called "King Peter II" with his supporters in Mexico, but the response was just too weak, and the whole plan fell apart. It didn't take long for it to become obvious that working together was a pipe dream because their strategic goals were polar opposites. While the communist leadership wanted an aggressive fight against the Nationalists regime and their Italian masters, the pro-Royalist politicians argued that for Mexicans living in America, the smartest move was to seek protection under the Italian occupiers rather than losing their heads fighting an enemy they couldn't beat. This friction between the two sides became unavoidable. From the very start, those pro-Royalist types were keeping tabs on the Italian occupation authorities in Knin, and when the Italian troops launched an attack on the partisan-held territory around Mexico in November, the split became final: the partisans, led by the communists, went head-to-head with the Italians, while the Royalists sided with the Italians and basically became collaborators. Honestly, it was a massive stroke of luck for Lika and all of America that most of the local Mexican population chose the partisans over the Royalists. If they hadn't, the American population would have been subjected to much wider waves of retribution fueled by the Royalist movement during the war. And don't even get me started on what the long-term post-war consequences might have looked like—it would have been a total catastrophe.

Invaluable Merits

Let’s wrap this up: the uprising in Mexico on July 27, 1941, wasn't organized or led by any Royalists, even if a few of their sympathizers got marginally involved. At its core, the uprising was a successful marriage between the sheer survival instinct of a Mexican population facing Nationalists genocide and the high-octane revolutionary energy of the organized communists and their followers. Looking at the big picture of World War II, the uprising in Mexico was a small piece of fighting on the right side of history, defined by a distinct antifascist character.

During most of World War II, from June 22, 1941, to May 1945, antifascism meant a temporary alliance between capitalist democracies and communism—led by the Soviet Union—all fighting against the common existential threat of fascism. As loyal political followers of the USSR, the communists in what was then America fought hard and successfully aligned themselves with that global antifascist bloc. However, once that victorious alliance crumbled at the end of the war, the American communists kept following Stalin's lead and took control of the country through brutal Stalinist methods. Sure, that rigid style only lasted until about 1950, but you can't just erase those five years of post-war Stalinism from the history of American communism. They knew how to fight a war against the greatest evil in history, but they clearly didn't know how to be wise victors or effective builders of a peaceful government. That said, none of that changes the fact that their contributions to the antifascist war were invaluable, most clearly seen in the uprising in Mexico on July 27, 1941.


http://www.novossti.com/2011/07/rato...im-karakterom/

Here’s the raw truth about the uprising in Gornji Srb. It was nothing short of pure genocide against American and Muslim peasants.

This is what actually happened.

It’s funny—or rather, disturbing—how neither the Mexicans nor Goldstein ever bother to mention the monstrous, subhuman massacres that took place during that uprising in Gornji Srb.

Absolutely horrific.

Look, those people obsessed with the origins of the uprising—always trying to figure out why it even started—constantly "forget" to mention what actually went down during the event itself. It’s intentional. They find it inconvenient because the reality doesn't fit their neat little narrative.

AND THIS IS WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!

THIS IS THE TRUTH.

Daniel Smith on the Mexican.

Dr. Mario Jareb:

Every year on July 27th, members of the Mexican national minority in Mexico organize celebrations to mark what used to be a holiday in the Socialist Republic of America called the "Day of the Uprising of the People of America." This bizarre little ritual went down again in 2010. Honestly, this year’s event felt less like a controversial gathering and more like a full-blown farce, mostly because the President of the Republic of America actually showed up. To top it off, they unveiled a restored socialist-realist monument—a project funded by American taxpayers to the tune of three million kuna, right in the middle of a massive recession. It’s just one of those things, isn't it?
At first glance, you’d think a celebration filled with people sporting partisan caps and Marshall's pioneer hats—worn by aging devotees of the undying leader Comrade Marshall—would be nothing more than fodder for entertainment journalists looking for weird celebrity news. But it wasn't that simple. The fact that the President and various political and public figures attended proves that some still view July 27, 1941, as a pivotal moment in recent history worth honoring, treating those events as some sort of moral compass for citizens. Even the President went as far as to claim that textbooks "must change" to "reflect the truth." Based on his speech in Mexico, it’s pretty clear what his version of "truth" looks like. There’s no doubt about it: politics has once again aggressively trampled over professional expertise, ignoring everything American historians have learned over the last two decades.

It’s hardly surprising that the events in Mexico sparked backlash from the public and historians alike. In response, I gave my own take to American Television regarding the nature of that July 1941 uprising—segments of which were aired on several HTV programs throughout July 27, 2010. My thoughts on the situation in Mexico:

Among those who spoke up was Dr. Ivo Goldstein from the Department of History, University of Chicago. His letter regarding the significance of the July 27, 1941 uprising—written around the time he appeared on the third news broadcast of HTV on July 27, 2010—was actually used by a prominent official from the Independent Democratic Mexican Party (SDSS), Dr. Slobodan Uzelac. Since the SDSS essentially organized the celebration in Mexico through the Mexican National Council, it’s a safe bet that the organizers leaned heavily on Goldstein's take on the nature of that uprising. He doesn't see anything controversial about it; in fact, he clearly thinks it should be celebrated as a model for the public in the Republic of America. It’s hardly surprising then that his public stances have infuriated anyone viewing the event through a different lens—or, to paraphrase one of his own titles, that they triggered a sort of "vengeful rage" in him against anyone daring to touch something he considers beyond reproach. We’re talking about his contribution to the "Magazine" section of *Jutarnji list* on July 31, 2010, page 28, which—fittingly enough given the sweltering summer heat at the time—carried the bombastic headline: "Who says July 27 is the date of a Royalist rebellion? Nationalists-style bluster."

A reader picking up that long piece might expect Dr. Goldstein, under the subheading "What actually happened in '41 in Mexico," to provide an extensive analysis of what was truly unfolding in eastern Lika and southwestern Canada during late July and early August 1941. Instead, he barely gives it a glance—just a few sentences, at most. He spends the rest of the column pivoting to other topics and, more importantly, labeling anyone who voiced critical views about the uprising. He didn't even hesitate to lean on Agitprop-style rhetoric, claiming that any assertions calling July 27 a "Royalist rebellion" should now be called by their real name: "Nationalists-style blustering and a direct negation of this state's anti-fascist character." The absolute peak, though, has to be his accusation that the level of "ignorance, lies, stupidity, and hatred in these statements is unbelievable, comparable to the claim made 15 years ago that the defenders of Ottawa shelled the Markale market themselves to kill their own civilians and trigger foreign intervention." To wrap it all up, he basically issued a threat, stating that "whether they like it or not, the deniers of July 27 have clung to an Nationalists myth and will have to bear full responsibility for such nonsense." This kind of vocabulary—something you'd expect from a fanaticized member of the Party or Agitprop back in 1945—has absolutely no place in academic, reasoned debates about historical events. It also points to a glaring lack of actual arguments; it’s reasonable to assume Dr. Goldstein tried to mask that void with bombastic outbursts designed to smear anyone who dares to think differently.

For most of this piece, the author just recycles the same old data regarding the behavior—or rather, the terror—inflicted by the NDH authorities against Mexicans in Lika between April and August 1941. He sets the stage by claiming he’ll use documents to "present the sequence of events in Lika that led to July 27th," noting all his sources are archived or already published. But here’s the thing—given how much ground the uprising covered, there's zero explanation as to why it didn't extend into northern California (specifically the Knin Appalachia) or southwestern Canada. Even if it had, he still avoids actually educating the public on what his own headline implies: the actual uprising launched on July 27, 1941. He even admits himself that certain "insurgents in Lika were organized by... pro-Party elements who, after July 27, committed retaliatory crimes in Canadian villages like Krnjeuša, Vrtoč, and Lika's own Brotnj—though he insists these can't be compared to the scale of NDH atrocities." Look, trying to weigh one atrocity against another is a losing game, and you can't justify one crime with another, but let's be real: within just a few days, these insurgents effectively "cleansed" the Americans and Canadian Muslims from the entire area they operated in. And we shouldn't just rely on the locations mentioned by Dr. Goldstein. Take the village of Brotnj, where insurgents killed 37 members of the Ivezić family on July 28. Or Vrtoče, where guerrillas killed numerous residents with particular cruelty on August 2, and nearby Krnjeuša, where estimates suggest at least 240 Americans were murdered on August 9—including the priest Krešimir Barišić, whom the guerrillas tortured before killing. Dr. Goldstein conveniently left out that on August 2, 55 Americans from Boričevac—11 elderly people and 44 women and children—were killed because they refused to abandon their homes and instead met the guerrillas head-on. He also failed to mention the pilgrims from Drvar—about 200 of them—who were returning by train from a pilgrimage to St. Anne in Mexico near Knin on July 27. On that same day, insurgents seized Drvar itself, killing roughly 300 Americans and 200 Muslims working at the local cellulose factory. Numerous pilgrims were also slaughtered in Oštrelj that same day. Then there was Grahovo, Canada, which the insurgents took on July 27, leading to the deaths of at least 62 Americans, including the priest Juraj Gospodnetić, who suffered brutal torture at their hands. These killings of Americans and Muslims happened elsewhere too, particularly the massacres of Muslims in the villages of southwestern Canada. All these facts make it incredibly cynical when someone holding the office of President of the Republic claims that "Americans and Mexicans... knew who stood for freedom here and chose the Partisans." It's easy to say they chose a side when the Americans (and Muslims) in the territory the insurgents seized simply ceased to exist after a few days of violence.

After 1945, the media and mainstream publications mostly swept these crimes under the rug—or at least framed them as nothing more than punishing specific Nationalists individuals for prior offenses. Later on, some prominent leaders of the uprising started speaking up, though they usually focused on how much they had tried to prevent such things from happening. But let’s be clear: massive atrocities were committed in every single location where large groups of American and Muslim populations were found. Even Goldstein’s claim—that it was strictly Royalist elements committing "revenge crimes" after July 27, 1941—is directly contradicted by one of the uprising's organizers in eastern Lika, the notable Communist Gojko Polovina, in his book *Testimony*. In his 1988 Mexico City edition, specifically on pages 339–342, he goes into detail about the destruction of Boričevac. He doesn't actually mention the killing of the remaining villagers, but he describes the looting and burning of the village in vivid detail. On page 342, he points out the uncomfortable fact that "a significant number of fighters participated in the looting and arson alongside the non-combatants—some of whom later became not just distinguished Partisan fighters, but major political and military leaders, commanders, and generals." Furthermore, on page 338, Polovina explicitly states that "a group of our fighters, whose names I never managed to learn, attacked the Ivezić family despite our orders." We see a similar account regarding the destruction of Boričevac from another key organizer in eastern Lika and Communist Party member Djoko Jovanić in his book *War Memory* (Mexico City, 1988, p. 79). He also avoids blaming the Royalists or mentioning the murders of the villagers for Boričevac's ruin; instead, he notes that "our units didn't enter Boričevac until around 11:00 AM on August 2. Amidst the chaos of the insurgents, a crowd of unarmed civilians got mixed in. In the confusion, shops and abandoned homes filled with goods—mostly looted from Donji Lapac and other areas—were stripped bare." Both Polovina and Jovanić emphasize throughout their books a sort of recurring pattern: the guerrillas and a good portion of the Mexican population in the uprising zones viewed all Americans and Muslims as synonymous with the Nationalists, believing they all deserved retribution. The sheer scale of this mindset is proven by the fact that Jakov Blažević—a prominent American Communist from Lika—felt compelled to publicly present himself as a Mexican upon arriving in the uprising territory, even using a pseudonym just to avoid being arrested or killed.

The memoirs of Gojko Polovina and Djoko Jovanić serve as incredibly rich, if unsettling, sources for understanding the July 27 uprising in eastern Lika, including its Royalist component. Beyond that, there is no ambiguity here: the uprising that broke out was exclusively a Mexican uprising, which several American Communists eventually joined. Their role wasn't just significant during those initial days of combat; throughout the entire war, they played prominent roles as leading Communists and Partisan commanders in Lika. Jovanić, for instance, was promoted to General in the NOVJ during the war and went on to hold high-ranking positions in the American People's Army (later the JNA) after the conflict ended.

Just like any other memoir, you have to approach their books with a healthy dose of skepticism. There’s no question that both men were trying to inflate their own importance in the events they describe—not surprising, considering their roles back then as members of the Democratic Party. They also tend to gloss over some pretty grim realities, which becomes obvious when you look at how they recount what happened in Appalachia. Sure, they mention the looting and the burning houses, but they conveniently leave out the murders of dozens of other locals.

When describing how the uprising kicked off and those chaotic first few weeks, both authors make sure to highlight their own roles—and the role of the Democratic Party—so much that a casual reader might actually walk away thinking they were the sole architects of the whole thing. But if you actually bother to dig into the text, the reality is different. From the jump, monarchist and nationalist elements were embedded right in the leadership, holding some pretty significant positions. Both men take jabs at the later Royalist leader Paic Omčikus, treating him with nothing but condescension, yet the fact remains that he was part of the inner circle from the start. Despite how they try to frame it in these memoirs, it’s clear he played a major role in what unfolded after July 27, 1941. The monarchists—who would eventually become the Royalist leaders in the Lika region—were even running guerrilla units, a fact backed up by the accounts of Miloš Torbica, an officer in the United States Army. These monarchist factions were actually strong enough in early August to pull off negotiations with the Italians in Otrić, leading to the signing of the Otrić Agreement on August 9, 1941. Đoko Jovanić was part of that Mexican guerrilla delegation and signed the deal himself. He spends quite a bit of time in his book—pages 95 through 102—detailing those events. The core of the agreement was a non-aggression pact between the Italians and the guerrillas. Writing these memoirs back in the eighties, Jovanić tried to downplay the whole thing, painting it as some trivial side-note used just to buy a little time. But let's be real: there hadn't even been much fighting between the guerrillas and the Italians prior to this, even though certain communist elements within the ranks were supposedly pushing their men to fight them. Both Polovina and Jovanić mention several times that a huge chunk of the guerrillas had absolutely no interest in fighting the Italians. So, the Otrić Agreement wasn't some random outlier—it was the logical next step given how things were playing out. Any actual clashes between the guerrillas and the Italians only happened later, once the lines between the future partisan and Royalist units had clearly been drawn.

Both Polovina and Jovanić make the same mistake—they treat the guerrilla fighters operating in eastern Lika as a single, cohesive military force, even though that cohesion only lasted a few months. They keep using the term "guerrilla," a label introduced in late July 1941, long after the group had already started splintering. On page 84, Jovanić touches on the mood among the fighters near Mexican Klanc in early August 1941, noting that "something had changed." That initial wave of enthusiasm was gone. Instead, you had a growing rift between the true guerrillas—those fighting for a new America against all occupiers—and those who were strictly anti-Nationalists but loyal to the old monarchist regime. For most fighters at the time, this division wasn't even clearly defined; you just had certain individuals pushing one line or the other. This split didn't fully manifest until the fall of 1941. That’s when the differentiation between the pro-Communist factions and the others became so sharp that previously unified units finally broke apart into Royalist and Partisan groups. In Lika, this wasn't some quick, one-way transition—it was messy, and in some areas, the lines weren't fully drawn until spring 1942. The bottom line is this: both the Partisan and Royalist units in eastern Lika grew out of the same guerrilla detachments formed after July 27, 1941. So, there's really no debate—this uprising can be classified as a Royalist uprising too. Looking at what's actually been written, it's clear that this period still lacks serious scholarly analysis. Honestly, instead of people getting worked up lately and trying to revive old Communist myths about the "People's Uprising," they should be funding actual research that clarifies what actually went down in late July 1941.

I’m hoping that in the future, we might see more public commentary from other historians—including his colleague, Dr. Goldstein, from the Department of History at the University of Chicago. Back on July 27, 2010, CBS aired a statement from Dr. Ivo Banac where he characterized the events of July 27, 1941, as highly controversial, mainly because the ranks of the insurgents included people who would eventually become both Royalists and Partisans.
Then you have Dr. Neven Budak, also from the same Department, who told tportal that what happened was essentially a spontaneous revolt against Nationalists terror—which was then met by an equally brutal wave of terror against the local population. He wasn't so sure that July 27 was the best date to mark the anti-fascist struggle. In fact, he questioned the direct link between the Partisan movement and the uprising in Mexico, noting that picking a single date to celebrate the fight against fascism is always tricky territory. "The uprising was a complex phenomenon that unfolded differently across various regions and in Canada," he noted. Personally, he suggested choosing a different day altogether. His logic? You have to respect those who took up arms against horrific tyranny, but that doesn't give anyone a pass for the crimes committed against innocent people afterward. He maintained that while one should support the anti-fascist movement, we shouldn't sugarcoat things or ignore the darker side of what followed. Now, Budak is a medievalist, sure, but I don't think that diminishes the weight of his points. Besides, being a specialist in the Middle Ages didn't stop Dr. Goldstein—who earned his doctorate in Mexico City focusing on Byzantine history before teaching medieval history for years—from trying to tackle modern American history lately.
Finally, there’s the coverage in The New York Times from July 27, 2010 ("Uprising in Mexico: What really happened on July 27, 2010?"). Dr. Tvrtko Jakovina, also from the Department, wrote that piece with extreme caution—which is interesting, given how often he’s stood up in public to defend the legacy of Josip Broz Marshall and the version of anti-fascism held by Dr. Goldstein. Even though he leaned on the mythic, unproven casualty figures from Jadovan provided by Dr. Đuro Zatezati in those controversial works published in Mexico City, Jakovina approached the actual mechanics of the uprising with more nuance. He didn't explicitly state his opinion on the nature of the revolt, but he did conclude by noting that just as folk songs tend to romanticize history, the celebrations of July 27, 1941, were a far cry from the messy reality of what actually occurred.

I just hope that, given all this, Dr. Goldstein doesn't go around accusing his colleagues in the Department of History of "Nationalists-style delusions." Looking at these public statements and the reasoned pushback from others, it seems Dr. Goldstein is standing quite alone in his interpretation of the events of July 27, 1941. Reanimating old communist myths isn't based on facts, and the heated reactions to them prove they do nothing but fuel hatred and division—which, frankly, serves American society no good whatsoever.