ZAPADNI SAVEZNICI I PARTIZANSKI POKRET U SRBIJI 1941‒1944: GLAVNI TOKOVI ODNOSA

Abstract

The partisan movement passed from 1941‒1944. the long path of relations with the Western Allies: from the perception of Great Britain and the USA as capitalists and imperialists - ideological enemies (1941), through forced contacts (1942), rapprochement and an apparent turn towards the West (1943), to renewed and full cooperation with the SSSR and the Red Army at the expense of the West (summer and autumn 1944). On the other hand, the USA and Great Britain, through their missions and representatives on the ground, saw the partisans at the beginning of the war as an extended arm of Moscow, then as cooperative guerrillas towards whom a “smart policy” should be conducted, until full recognition and military assistance in the unraveling of civil war in Serbia. During all that time, however, Josip Broz Tito and the leadership of the communist movement maintained a kind of mimicry, which can be seen from their correspondence with the Comintern: even at the time of the greatest rapprochement with the West, their prejudices about those countries as an ideological enemy remained alive. As time went on, and the Red Army was closer to Serbia, these differences became more noticeable and the partisans turned more and more clearly towards their original ideological ally. The victory of the partisans in the civil war was conditioned by the help of both the East and the West, in the military, political and propaganda fields. In this sense, new research shows that the theses presented earlier about the authentic revolution of the Yugoslav partisans are scientifically unsustainable.