Odnos hrvatskih, slovenskih i talijanskih komunista prema NOP-u i državno-pravnom statusu Istre (1941. - 1945.)
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CROAT, SLOVENE, AND ITALIAN COMMUNISTS TOWARD THE NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL STATUS OF ISTRIA (1941-1945)

Summary/Abstract: The attitude of Croat, Slovene, and Italian antifascists towards the constitutional status of Istria during the period from 1942 to 1945 is seemingly one of the most complex issues in Croatian historiography. We cannot congratulate ourselves on the research done on this issue thus far, not only because of the scarcity of archival materials, but also because until now there has been a decided lack of goodwill to clarify this problem more comprehensively and also because the political structures which participated in clarifying this issue heretofore have politicized it entirely. Furthermore, the problem is complicated due to the fact that it involves not only the members of national communist parties and their adherents, but also bourgeois antifascist groups and members of former parliamentary parties and their followers who were reactivated after the capitulation of Italy. This knot of complicated and often delicate interpersonal relations in the matter of the postwar constitutional status of Istria must be carefully untangled in order to prevent the researcher from becoming even more entangled. The few members of the Communist Party of Croatia who stood with the insurgents in September 1943 stated to all parties very clearly in their proclamations that the Croats of Istria wanted Istria with Croatia in the Yugoslavian federation. The disagreement with the Slovenes (member of the Slovene Communist Party) concerning the geographic notion of Istria and its Croatian and Slovene parts was relatively quickly smoothed over because they proclaimed the annexation of the north western part of Istria to Slovenia (north of the Dragonja to beyond Buzet). Along with the Communist Parties of Slovenia and Croatia this question was taken up by the Slovene and Croat narodnjaci and the majority of the so-called nationalist clerics, as well as a large part of the "ordinary" people; therefore, national movements came into existence. The membership of the Italian Communist Party was variously consternated, surprised, concerned, yet divided by these proclamations and nationalist programmes of the Croatian and Slovene antifascist movements. The younger Italian communists, for the most part, wanted to attach themselves to the National Liberation Movement, that is, to join the call of the Croats and Slovenes to a common antifascist struggle. The older Italian communists who for the most part occupied certain positions were in favour of a "policy of waiting". These latter were expressly opposed to the annexation of Istria to Slovenia and Croatia within the scope of a Yugoslavian federation. In this matter they were in agreement with the bourgeois Italian politicians (Republicans, Social Reformers, Social Democrats, and Populists). Moreover, even the younger members of the Communist Party of Italy who were allied to the National Liberation Movement and accepted the direcction of the Communist Party of Croatia (even when they entered its

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