Prolonged War and a Fight for Survival: Anti-Yugoslav and Anti-Communist Guerrillas in Socialist Yugoslavia After the Second World War

Abstract For some of the Yugoslav participants of the complex, extremely bloody, and violent Second World War, May 1945 did not mark the end of their war path. A wave of Red Terror between 1945 and 1948 represented the final act of the bloody civil war and socialist revolution that had gone hand in hand with the resistance against the occupation forces of the Axis. This Red Terror, epitomised in mass and often brutal liquidations, claimed the lives of thousands of Serbian and Montenegrin chetniks , Croatian ustashe , Slovenian Home Guard, and members of other anti-communist and Quisling units that, during the Second World War, used to operate throughout the occupied and dismembered Yugoslav Kingdom. Many chetniks , ustashe , and Slovenian and Albanian nationalists who avoided capture or surrender continued to wage war in somewhat altered circumstances. Forced to change their modus operandi, they began to adapt to new international realities. This meant that some of these units started to enjoy the support of Western intelligence communities due to their altered status. Instead of fascist collaborators, they had become victims of communist oppression. Nonetheless, most of these remaining fighters entered a period of extreme hardship marked by constant scarcity and the prospect of annihilation. This paper presents various violent practices used by both sides. These practices were designed to intimidate opponents and encourage supporters. However, the determination of the Yugoslav communist regime to quell any form of opposition led to the gradual violent suppression of all anti-Yugoslav and anti-communist armed formations.