Balkan Bubbles (1941)

From the May 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The spectacular changes that have recently transpired in the Near East have induced many people to study the geographical features of the locality affected who heretofore never troubled to do so. Greece has a large coastline for so small a country, with many islands in the vicinity and is so situated that its importance from the standpoint of naval and military strategy can at once be perceived. In the old days it was often stated that the control of Corinth meant the control of Greece, but that was when danger came from the East. The points that comprise the gateway between Europe and Asia are the Serbian plateau, Salonika and the Dardanelles. Germany has already captured two of these and is preparing to make a bid for the third. The extension of the sphere of operations to Asia can be anticipated, from which in all probability it will spread to the American continent. This means that practically all the human family will be involved and it would be of interest to discover how many of them have any clear idea of what the trouble is about.

The Prussians are marching with seven-leagued boots; they have often marched before. Under a Frederick, a Bismarck, the Kaiser, or Hitler, they indulge periodically in military adventures. Their recent trek is the longest they have made and their enemies are apparently determined it shall be their last. The reason why Germany has been able to move so rapidly in the Balkans is because ever since the days of Charlemagne, large numbers of her people have been moving South-East. In all the Balkan countries German minorities had settled themselves and many of these had for years been preparing the way for the invader.

In a previous issue of the Socialist Standard it was pointed out what is at stake in the present conflict. The control of the Rhine and the Danubian Waterways is the German Dictator’s ambition. He also aspires to cut a canal from Bucharest, in Roumania, to Salonika, in Greece. If the Rhine and the Danube are connected by a larger canal than the one now in operation, and the connection above referred to established with the Mediterranean, boats will be able to travel from the north to the southern sea without having to pass through either the Straits of Gibraltar or the Dardanelles. If the scheme above referred to could be put in operation, Germany thinks she would be in a position to tap the wealth of practically all the European countries and lay a foundation of power upon which she could build a superstructure strong enough to enable her to successfully challenge the rest of the world.

In times of peace British working-men take little or no interest in international politics, and the consequence is that when the country in which they live is involved in a war, they are totally dependent upon the ruling class for any ideas they may have in regard to the cause. To some extent the same thing prevails in all countries, but in many other lands there is a keen interest taken in what is going on in the world as a whole; there is not more class-consciousness, but a greater knowledge of international affairs.

The “Unofficial Observer,” in his book “Our Lords and Masters,” says (commencing page 64):

“Terrorists play an especially important part in the affairs of eastern and southern Europe and one of the most important groups of them originated with the ‘Green Organisation’ of deserters from the Austro-Hungarian Army. After the war this organisation fell into the hands of General Sarkotich, a Croat who fought on the side of Austria and devoted himself to the cause of the Hapsburg Monarchy and of detaching Catholic Croatia from orthodox Yugoslavia.”

Sarkotich became Croatian and Yugoslavian ‘expert’ on the monarchist Reichpost of Vienna, where the movement maintained its intellectual headquarters until the assassination of Dollfuss in July, 1934. The most active terrorists, however, were Percec and Pavelic, who were connected with several attempts to bomb trains running from Italy to Austria via Yugoslavia. In 1932, when Goemboes became Prime Minister of Hungary and appointed Koloman as his Foreign Minister, the Hungarian Government became an open party to the terrorist plots. Percec and Pavelic were given Hungarian passports on the theory that they were really Hungarians and they established a training ground for terrorists on a big estate at Jankapuszta, near the Yugoslav frontier. The men trained here were assigned the task of leading domestic revolts in Yugoslavia in the event of trouble and the whole organisation modelled itself pretty faithfully on the Serbian ‘Black Hand’ society, which had plotted the Sarajevo murders.

In 1933, the year after Goemboes came into power, Mussolini himself began to aid the Croatian cause and the terrorists established training camps for larger bodies of troops on Italian soil at Borgotaro, Bonegno and Bardi. Here Croats were given uniforms provided by Italy and were shipped to Zara by Italian ships and then made their way inland along the Dalmatian coast. Giorgio Sanza, an Italian journalist who spoke Croat, was put at Pavelic’s disposition. The climax came when the assassin of King Alexander was revealed to be a member of this terrorist group and when Italy refused to surrender Percec and Pavelic, who were on Italian soil after the murders at Marseilles. Germany has also maintained connections with the Croat cause, via a certain Wilhelm Singer, who travelled on a German passport issued in the name of Guttman, and after the Dollfuss murder Germany supplanted Austria as the brain centre of the Croatian terrorists, who now publish their official organ, ‘Gric,’ in Berlin, although all their actual printed matter bears the mark of the Free City of Danzig.

Hungary is the one country in which terrorists associate openly with the governing officials. In 1921, Premier Goemboes gave refuge to Schulze and Thyllessen, the assassins of Matthais Erzberger. The noblemen who forged the French francs back in 1926 belonged to the move organisation, of which Goemboes was the head; and Count Julius Karolvyi, who served as Premier for a brief interval between Bethlen and Goemboes, was a business associate of Slavisky’s. Between 15,000 and 17,000 political murders are said to have been committed in Hungary since 1919, the victims having included a Catholic priest of 75 who attacked the advocates of treaty revision, and a Czechoslovak journalist who was imprisoned and beaten up because Czechoslovakia opposed changing the frontiers. Bela Somogyi, editor of a right-wing Socialist paper, who had refused to support Bela Kun’s Soviet regime, was also murdered by some high army officers, who were never punished.

“The dean of the European terrorists, however, is found further south, in that terrific geographic, religious, racial and national scramble known as Macedonia. Here all the races and creeds of the Balkans are intermingled and it has dominated the political struggles of the Near East for the last fifty years. When a new stick of dynamite cracks in the Balkans to-day, the chances are better than ever that the political detonator is the little known Ivan Michailoff, leader of the Imro (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation). Like Lawrence of Arabia, Michailoff became a legend in his own lifetime. So widespread are tales of his deeds of heroism and cunning, that Michailoff is often called “King Ivan” by the Macedonians. His secrecy and skill at conspiracy make him one of the most dreaded figures in the Balkans, with a price on his head in Greece, Yugoslavia, and at times even Bulgaria. . . . Michailoff says: There will be no peace in Europe until Macedonia is free.'”

The above will give the readers of the Socialist Standard some idea of the undercurrents in the Balkans and will show them how foolish it is to judge these people from a modern capitalist standpoint. Their views of life differ from those of the rest of the western world. Socialism is the child of Capitalism and in taking stock of the struggle now raging, let us realise that those members of the proletariat who have been trained and disciplined by the industrial mechanism are the only section of the working-class yet capable of taking the initiative in the building of a Socialist Society.

The writer will return to the situation in the Balkans in a later article.

Charles Lestor