Fighting on all Fronts (38 page)

The momentum was lost again in 1943, when in April the RNV’s leading members were arrested. However, this move coincided with a change of leadership within the Communist Party, also because of arrests. The KSS’s fifth illegal leadership, formed in August 1943 with Karol Smidke, Gustav Husak and Laco Novomestky, made a sharp break with the party’s strategy up until then. It actively discouraged open party activity: it shut down the party newspapers, halted its agitational and propaganda activity, and forbade large gatherings. This was in response to its organisation continually being smashed by the Tiso regime, but also marked a shift in political direction. Yet, most significantly, the new Communist Party leadership definitively broke with its calls for a “Soviet Slovakia”. Its orientation was towards forging “national unity” with the different resistance currents, with the primary aim of restoring the Czechoslovak republic with equal status for Slovakia. This move was positive, in one respect, as it represented a move that would lead to a real grassroots resistance organisation with a social programme.

However, the major factor behind it was the shifting dynamic of imperialist rivalry and the old Czechoslovak ruling classes’ relationship with the Allied powers and the Soviet Union. During this period Benes’s “pivot” towards the Soviet Union was becoming more definitive as it signed the “cooperation” treaty with the Soviet Union on 12 December 1943.

This put pressure on the Communist Party to push for unity in the resistance movement, but it meant that there was also pressure on the “civic resistance” groups to work with the Communists. This would not be a straightforward process and it would lead to a clash
within
the resistance elements in the old ruling class—both in the Benes group, those working within the “Slovak State”, and in the “civic resistance”—and
with
the Communists. This process would ultimately allow both the old ruling class and Soviet imperialism to assert their interests on the resistance and the uprising. What’s more, the competing interests within the “Slovak State” had begun to fracture, with some looking to do deals.

The tide began to turn against Nazi imperialism during 1943-1944 as the Western Allies and the Soviet Union began to score decisive military victories, namely in Stalingrad and Kursk on the Eastern Front and El Alamein in North Africa in 1943. The majority of the Italian ruling class had switched sides in the war, Romania and Finland jumped ship from the Axis, and there was a ramping up of resistance across occupied Europe, namely in Yugoslavia, against Nazism. In direct relation to
Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union’s army was also gaining ground in its former territory of Ruthenia and nearing the Slovak border.

This fed into a general feeling against the Tiso regime and the Nazis—but this played out in a highly contradictory way. So on the one hand it meant that the resistance groups would get more of a hearing, as many ordinary people had begun to realise that the tide had turned against Nazi imperialism and that the fate of Tiso’s Slovakia was inextricably tied to it. However, elements
within
the “Slovak State” had also come to this conclusion. It included all manner of state officials but also high up members of the legislature, the judiciary and the police.

But by far the most significant group was the Slovak Army’s officer corps, which included officers who had remained loyal to Benes and those who had loyally served in Tiso’s army in the service of Nazi imperialism. Indeed, it is safe to say that by 1943 the majority of the Slovak officer corps saw its allegiance with the Benes group.

It was in this context that part of the “civic resistance” began making moves towards a unity that included the Communist Party and approached the illegal party leadership. The “civic resistance” had also been trying to negotiate with the minor Ludaks minister Karol Sidor, who was considered a “moderate”.
⁵³
In reality, he was no “moderate”. He had been part of the Tuka wing of the HSLS, a Hlinka Guard commander and an ardent anti-Semite, but had fallen out with Tiso over the degree of control Nazi imperialism would have. The London government argued against working with him; not on the basis of any principle, but because he firmly clashed with its aim of restoring the inter-war Czechoslovak republic. Jan Masaryk said in a broadcast from London, “I am strongly warning against any proposals and ideas, which you’ve come to or have come from Karol Sidor. I’m warning against Sidor. He’s a traitor”.
⁵⁴
With this avenue shut, the former Agrarian Party member Jan Ursiny made contact during the latter part of 1943 with the old Communist leaders V Siroky and J Duris who were imprisoned. They recommended that he contact Laco Novomestky, one of the members of the fifth illegal KSS leadership, which kickstarted negotiations.
⁵⁵

This initial meeting was followed by months of negotiations between Ursiny and co and the Communist Party. It culminated in the signing of the “Christmas Agreement” as the founding document of the Slovak National Council (SNC) in December 1943.
⁵⁶

It was a broad based organisation and this was reflected in its leadership and its general programme combined both national and “socialist” aspirations:

On achieving political liberation, our aim will be to ensure a better and happier life for the socially weak strata of the nation, that is for the Slovak worker and peasant. In order to secure a higher standard of living for the nation we are in favour of equitable distribution of national wealth, and a new land reform for the benefit of the small peasant. The worker shall have wages corresponding to a higher standard of living and share in the results of his labour.
⁵⁷

Karol Smidke, Gustav Husak and Laco Novomestky represented the KSS alongside Jan Ursiny and Jozef Letternich from the former Agrarian Party and the National Socialist M Mosk. Then as the momentum behind the SNC built in the run up to the uprising, it was further broadened, first in January 1944 with the inclusion of J Horvath for the Social Democrats and the economist P Zatko, and then in July 1944 with another Social Democrat and old Agrarian, J Sotesza and J Styk. However, it is significant that the Social Democrats, one of the largest and best organised groups, were not party to the negotiations or on the SNC leadership when it was founded.

The SNC drove a wedge into the non-communist resistance and would trigger a battle for hegemony within the resistance movement. The non-communist resistance was effectively split down the middle on whether to unite with the KSS. Those who argued for unity with the Communists included left wing social democrats and sections of the “civic resistance”. The SNC also did not include V Srobar’s group in its plans for the uprising. He was a direct link to the old order and remained loyal to Benes and the idea of “Czechoslovakism”, and likewise Benes and its military representative J Kratky were supportive, but it was a battle that Srobar’s group ultimately lost.

This led to clashes with the London leadership and more significantly impeded the process of building Revolutionary National Committees in localities. Srobar’s group and “Flora” continued to act as independent organisations and also tried to bring the resistance under their leadership. They had both issued calls for unity, including the “Flora” in August 1943, and despite the formation of the SNC and local RNVs, Srobar continued in his efforts to set up “national committees” and central leadership.
⁵⁸
However, Jan Golian, the old legionnaire who would be the uprising’s military commander, tilted towards support for the SNC.

The Revolutionary National Committees (RNV) were crucial to the armed uprising, both as symbols of a united resistance and in terms of organising. The highest density of RNV networks was in central Slovakia,
which would become the epicentre of the uprising, but this movement still had to compete with Srobar’s “national committees”. Their organisation was further strengthened in October 1943 when the SNC set up a committee to try and organise district RNVs, The first was set up in Zvolen with the Communist R Blazovsky, the Social Democrat D Ert, and V Wittman for the “civic resistance”.
⁵⁹

Through setting up the SNC and the network of RNVs the resistance movement was making an impressive attempt to build an alternative government structure to the Tiso regime. However, the RNVs’ main task would become making plans for the armed uprising and aiding Soviet partisan groups that would infiltrate Slovak territory.

It was during this period that the idea of an armed insurrection was formulated, and it came from both the Benes government and the Slovak resistance groups themselves. For the Slovak “civic resistance” groups it was to give the resistance leverage in the post-war political situation. The bourgeois democrat Fedor Thurz wrote in his memoirs, “We made the Uprising so the Slovaks would liberate themselves, so they could decide politically after the war… The Uprising had a political reason, so the Slovaks wouldn’t be a defeated state”.
⁶⁰
The Benes government had been making its pivot towards Russia, but it still wanted to strengthen its position with the different Allies by encouraging resistance.

Yet for Benes this crucially meant trying to get Soviet sponsorship for the uprising, which would tie its fate to Stalin’s imperialist interests. Stalin received repeated appeals from both the London government and the Slovak resistance groups to support their plans. Benes made the first appeal directly, when he personally met with Stalin while signing the “cooperation” treaty in December 1943. Then the Czechoslovak mission in Moscow, headed by general Heliodor Pika, appealed for support. Most significantly the SNC leadership itself made a direct appeal just before the uprising broke out in August 1944, which included both Lieutenant Colonel Mikulas Ferjencik
and
the Communist Karol Smidke.
⁶¹

However, Stalin had no intention of supporting a “Slovak National Uprising” just as he was letting the Warsaw Uprising go down to defeat. The Stavka, the Soviet high command, had said from the beginning that such an uprising was unrealistic, but the Soviet Union’s imperialist considerations are of greater importance here. It is not coincidental that, only 12 days before signing the Czechoslovak “cooperation” treaty, Stalin
had won important concessions regarding the “Soviet sphere of influence” at the Tehran conference.

Nonetheless, Stalin still wanted to have a degree of control over what was about to unfold, while doing nothing to help the Slovak resistance. So not long after Benes’s appeal for support, the Soviet Union set up partisan training camps in Ukraine with their command headquarters in Kiev. They began training partisan units in February 1944 and by the summer of 1944 the Soviet partisan units were infiltrating eastern and the north of central Slovakia. Following the war much was made of the fact that “volunteers” from 30 countries fought in the uprising, but they were in fact sent from the Ukrainian training camps.

The Slovak resistance, whether the SNC or the generals, had no control over these units. They were under the direct command of the Stavka in Moscow.
⁶²
This would have two significant impacts on the resistance both in the run up to and during the uprising, and was where the resistance would visibly clash with Soviet Union imperialism. The units were tasked with disrupting Nazi supply lines, transport links and sometimes targeting Wehrmacht officers, This sort of activity would help the Soviet war effort but leave the Slovak resistance without support for liberating itself.

The uprising’s planners were immediately concerned that the Soviet partisan activity would lead to a brutal crackdown directly from the Nazis before the Slovak military was ready. The Benes government sent several communiqués to Moscow asking them to make the partisan units stop their activities until the SNP had begun. General Jan Golian held meetings with partisan commanders and sent a delegation to Moscow, protesting against “premature actions” and the Slovak leadership’s lack of control.
⁶³

These concerns were raised again and again throughout August 1944, but again and again were ignored. The Slovak resistance and the fate of the uprising were becoming caught between the Soviet Union’s interests and being tied to the old order. Not long before the uprising the Soviet senior lieutenant and partisan commander Peter Aleksejevic Velicko agreed to dampen partisan actions on 13 August, but within a week it had restarted with its previous intensity.
⁶⁴

The tensions between the uprising’s planners and the Soviet Union’s imperialist interests only intensified. Lieutenant Colonel Mikulas Ferjencik, General Golian’s chief of staff, departed to Moscow with details for the uprising. But when Ferjencik’s party arrived in Moscow they were placed under arrest. Soviet authorities refused to acknowledge they had ever arrived and only let them go back to Slovakia on 5 September once the uprising had already started.
⁶⁵

These clashes were not because of some tension between Czechoslovakia’s “democratic” leadership in London and the “civic resistance” groups on the one hand and “Soviet totalitarianism” on the other. There was a real clash of interests between imperialism and the SNC’s programme that combined national and social aspirations—and the former did stamp on genuine potential for a
people’s war from below
being waged. But the tensions that damaged the uprising were the logical conclusion of the old Czechoslovak ruling class’s strategy of finding an imperialist sponsor—from 1943 increasingly the Soviet Union—and using the resistance movement to do so.

In the summer of 1944 the Tiso regime was rotting from the inside. The unity forged under the tutelage of Nazi imperialism had cracked as the different competing interests splintered and this combined with the splits among the generals. General Ferdinand Catlos was the minister of national defence of the “Slovak State”, but was one of those officials who realised the tide was turning against Nazi imperialism and the Tiso regime. He sought to make a deal with the new imperialist power or preferably broker a rapprochement with the Benes government.