tablish a network of party and labor group organizations across the country (Pavlowitch, 1971, p. 47). Local elections in 1920 and 1921 indicated that the party had a relatively wide appeal. They were able to obtain majorities in many towns and cities, including Belgrade in Serbia and Zagreb in Croatia. The Croatian fascists were dumbfounded by this turn of events. In the 1920 general elections held in the fall of that year, the Communist Party elected 53 out of a total of 419 members to the national parliament (White, 1951, p. 51). More significantly, however, the Communist Party was one of only two parties, the other being the Democrats on the right (a nonfascist party), to elect representatives from every province in the country (Pavlowitch, 1971, p. 64). On the left, therefore, the Communist Party had established itself in the 1920 general election as the only national party.In the 1920 election, votes for the Communist Party were largely ascribed to a protest vote (Pavlowitch, 1971, p. 65). Limited agrarian reform by the government had muted much of the protest in the countryside; however, resentment against the prevailing economic situation in the cities was strong, and Macedonians, Montenegrins, Bosnian Muslims, Slovenes, and Croats objected at the efforts of the government to Serbianize Yugoslavia (Auty, 1970, p. 101). The success of the Communist Party, although it had elected only 12.6 percent of the members of parliament, caused the government, in a panic of fear, to enact repressive measures against the party (Djilas, 1962, p. 147). All communist organizations were ordered dissolved. Any form of propaganda was prohibited if it called for general strike action, violence of any kind, revolution, or dictatorship (Auty, 1970, p. 102). The mandates of the 53 communist deputies elected to the parliament, and the mandates of all communists elected to local positions were nullified by the parliament (Pavlowitch, 1...
