Concept

League of Communists of Croatia

Summary
League of Communists of Croatia (Savez komunista Hrvatske, SKH) was the Croatian branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (SKJ). It came into power in 1945. Until 1952, it was known as Communist Party of Croatia (Komunistička partija Hrvatske, KPH). In the early 1990s, it underwent several renames and lost power. The party was formally founded in 1937 with Pavle Gregorić as its first general secretary. The reasons for KPJ to have its specifically Croatian branch were partly ideological, partly practical. Croatia, just as Slovenia, which would have its Communist Party at the same time, was the most industrialised part of the country, with the biggest percentage of working class in the population, and, therefore, more likely to adopt communism than rural Serbia. The other, more practical, reason was in the increased marginalisation of Communists in Croatian political life due to public more preoccupied with ethnic issues and position of Croatia within Yugoslavia (cf. Croatia in the first Yugoslavia). Territorial aspirations of Fascist Italy towards Croatian parts of Yugoslavia also presented opportunity for the creation of broad Communist-dominated alliances modelled on Popular Front. Prior to the formation of the Communist Party of Croatia there was a Croatian-Slavonian Provincial Committee of the Socialist Workers Party of Yugoslavia (Communists) and there was a developed party structure of the Socialist Party of Croatia and Slavonia. Dalmatia had its own structures up to 1937. KPH, just like KPJ, was illegal and, therefore, remained marginalised, especially after the 1939 Cvetković–Maček Agreement and the creation of the banovina of Croatia within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Party's fortunes dramatically changed with the 1941 Axis invasion of Yugoslavia and creation of the Independent State of Croatia. At the beginning of the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, Aleksandar Ranković was secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia.
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