Right for self determination as driving force of Slovenian resistance in 1941-1942

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SloveneLiberal
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Location: Slovenia

Right for self determination as driving force of Slovenian resistance in 1941-1942

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Post by SloveneLiberal » 24 Jul 2018, 12:17

In Slovenia after the occupation by the Germany and Italy in 1941 there was soon a big rise of resistance movement. People were gathered under the banner of Liberation Front or Osvobodilna Fronta ( OF ). OF became specialy strong in the Italian part of occupied Slovenia or so called Ljubljanska pokrajina. Communist always played the most important part in Liberation front, but other groups were involved to. At the beginning OF was not dominated or ruled yet by the communists as it was in the later stages of the war from winter 1942/43.

One of the reasons for the power and popular support for the Liberation Front was that old politicians escaped from country after occupation and the remaining leaders of two main old political parties accepted the policy of collaboration with Italians. Former ban Natlačen for example joined the fascist council led by Emilio Grazioli the civil commisar for annexed Ljubljanjska pokrajina. He was even trying to achieve for some time that whole Slovenia would be occupied by Italy. Of course with no success. German occupation was considered more harsh because they started imediately with forced germanization and expulsions of unfavourable elements.

The second driving force for OF and resistance movement was because they declared the right of Slovenian nation for self determination. That was especially advocated by the group of Christian socialists which were the most big group in OF at that time. In their newspaper ''Slovenska revolucija'' or ''Slovenian revolution'' they propagated this idea strongly. In the june 1942 edition of this newspaper they write about the national revolution which will not just liberate Slovenian nation but give to it all those rights which it did not have under old kingdom of Yugoslavia. The right for self determination included. All those rights should be given to the Slovenian nation even before it starts the negotiations with Croats and Serbs about the future Yugoslavia as it is underlined in the August 1942 edition. And in no way another way around - so first Yugoslavia and then negotiations for national rights. It should be said also that the first Slovenian national governament on liberated areas was established in July 1942 ( communist leader E. Kardelj was writting later he was not glad with this decision ) yet because of big Italian offensive against slovenian partiasans the governament stopped with work after one month or so.

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