First session During the first session of the AVNOJ, Tito tasked KPH central committee member
Pavle Gregorić with setting up a supreme political body of the national liberation movement in Croatia as soon as possible. A working groupAVNOJ Delegates from Croatia (
Vijećnici AVNOJ-a iz Hrvatske)was set up in Slunj in early December 1942, and the State Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia (
Zemaljsko antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobođenja Hrvatske, ZAVNOH) was expected to convene in mid-January 1943. However, the Axis
Case White offensive forced the plans to be postponed. The eight-member Initiative Committee of the ZAVNOH (
Inicijativni odbor ZAVNOH-a) was instead convened in the village of
Ponori, near
Korenica. The Initiative Committee was headed by three-member secretariat consisting of Gregorić, Stanko Ćanica-Opačić, and . Balen, a former HSS member who was persuaded to join the KPJ by KPH central-committee secretary
Andrija Hebrang, later headed the ZAVNOH propaganda department. Another former HSS activist, Nikola Rubčić, was brought in as the editor of
Vjesnik (the ZAVNOH's official newspaper). On 17 March 1943, the committee declared that it was assuming all popular authority in Croatia until the ZAVNOH was convened. A 26 May declaration emphasised that the national liberation movement in Croatia was part of the Yugoslav national liberation movement; Croats and
Serbs would independently decide on internal matters and relations with other peoples after the country's liberation. After the successful spring 1943 offensive and recapture of most of the
Banija,
Kordun, and Lika regions by the
1st Corps, the ZAVNOH first convened in
Otočac and
Plitvice as Croatia's supreme representative political body on 13–14 June. The session consisted of 112 members, with an eleven-member executive committee led by president
Vladimir Nazor and three vice-presidents. It adopted the Plivice Resolution, detailing the history of the Croatian people and their struggle for freedom, the backward nature of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the reign of terror of the NDH and the Chetniks, and the betrayal of the royal government in exile. The resolution called for the recovery of Croatian lands seized by foreigners and "full and true democratic freedom and equality of Croats and Serbs". The first ZAVNOH session recognised a "free Bosnia and Herzegovina", relinquishing control of
Livno. In return, it received
Dvor and the coast between the
Neretva River and the
Bay of Kotor originally assigned to the Bosnian or
Herzegovinan Partisans.
Second session Between the ZAVNOH's first and the second sessions, the
national liberation movement in Croatia grew from 25,000 to 100,000 fighters and increased its control – particularly on the coast, after the
surrender of Italy. On 20 September 1943, the ZAVNOH executive committee
decided to add
Istria,
Rijeka,
Zadar and other Croatian lands previously annexed by Italy to Croatia (and thus to Yugoslavia). The AVNOJ confirmed the decision on 30 September. Tito criticised the ZAVNOH for assuming sovereignty in place of Yugoslavia, seeing the decision as an example of latent nationalism in the KPH leadership (which controlled about fifty percent of the Yugoslav Partisan forces at the time). The ZAVNOH's second session was held in
Plaški from 12 to 15 October 1943. It expanded by 66 members, largely drawn from the HSS. The HSS splintered early in the war. Vladko Maček led the party's most influential faction, adopting a policy of waiting for liberation by the Allies. Another group, which included former
Ban of Croatia Ivan Šubašić, fled the country to join the royal government in exile. A third group joined the Ustaše; a fourth group, led by
Božidar Magovac (organised as the
HSS executive committee), joined the KPH-dominated national liberation movement. Magovac saw his HSS faction and the KPH as a coalition of equals. Although some Partisan fighters resented the acceptance of HSS members, the official KPH position was that the newcomers were welcome and free to maintain their political views. This position was taken in the (accurate) belief that a greater involvement of HSS members would lead to broader Croat participation in the Partisan struggle. A group of
Independent Democratic Party (
Samostalna demokratska stranka, SDS) leaders also agreed to cooperate with the movement. Peasant organisations and trade unions sent representatives to the ZAVNOH, which sought to represent as broad a segment of the population as possible. Participation of the organisations depended on their acceptance of the KPH's lead. The second session appointed a 15-member executive committee (led by a president and three vice-presidents) to discharge political functions, and a six-member secretariat selected from the executive committee members as a
de facto Croatian government to perform day-to-day tasks. The secretariat retained its function until the People's Government was appointed in
Split on 14 April 1945. presided over the ZAVNOH sessions. In his speech to the second session, Hebrang urged the KPH to accept the popular "mass movement" instead of pursuing a leftist agenda. He urged the party to ensure that the Partisan struggle was not perceived as exclusively communist, condemning "fanatics flying only the red flag" and extremism in the KPJ. The ZAVNOH replied that it did not intend to radically change social life, and recognised the status of private property. On 12 January 1944, the Serbian Club of ZAVNOH Members was established in
Otočac. It was chaired by Rade Pribičević, a member of the pre-war SDS' Main Committee. Despite Pribičević's assertion that Croatian Serbs would pursue Croatia's interests in Yugoslavia, there was some resentment of their actual, perceived or expected position. The principal complaints were that the Serbs were marginalised in Croatia, Ustaše atrocities were overlooked, Serbs were underrepresented in the ZAVNOH, and their
Cyrillic script was discouraged. Although Hebrang insisted on teaching the Cyrillic script in all schools, he also said that Croatia Serbs had to accept their a minority status (albeit with equal rights) in a Croatian state. Hebrang's efforts to emphasise Croat contribution to the Partisan struggle contributed to perceived Croatian Serb marginalisation. As a result of this (and Chetnik propaganda), four ethnic-Serb Partisan commanders and about 90 subordinates defected to Germany in the
Kordun region in 1944. Hebrang's policies also increased KPJ leadership concern about his effects on Serb Partisan support.
Third session The AVNOJ's decision on the self-determination of all Yugoslav nations was meant to be confirmed by representative bodies of all future federal units. The ZAVNOH met for this purpose on 8–9 May 1944 in
Topusko. The session convened in a spa restaurant in the evening, and concluded the next morning to minimise exposure to potential air assault. One hundred five of 166 delegates attended, along with AVNOJ president Ivan Ribar and vice-presidents
Moša Pijade,
Marko Vujačić and
Josip Rus, and
Ivan Milutinović as a non-Croatian member of the
National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia. The Partisan forces in Croatia were represented by the 4th Corps (previously designated as the 1st Corps) commander and
commissar,
Generals
Ivan Gošnjak and
Većeslav Holjevac. General
Ivan Rukavina and Colonel Bogdan Oreščanin were also present. The Allied forces in Yugoslavia were represented by
Red Army Colonels Vladimir Goroshchenko and
Mikhail Bodrov, British
Major Owen Reed, and US
Office of Strategic Services Captain George Selvig. The ZAVNOH adopted four fundamental constitutional acts. It approved the work of the Croatian delegates at the second session of the AVNOJ and, as the representative of the
Federal State of Croatia, approved the establishment of the
Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. It praised the latter as an expression of the wish of Croatian Croats and Serbs to live in a truly democratic
South Slavic state offering full equality, the unification of Croatian lands, and the realisation of Croatian statehood. The declaration of a Croatian federal state was greeted favourably by its general public. The ZAVNOH declared itself the "true national assembly of democratic Croatia" and its highest authority as a federal unit in Yugoslavia. Its assembly was designated as the legislature, and its 30-person executive committee as the highest executive body. The third document adopted at the session was the Declaration of the Basic Rights of Peoples and Citizens of Democratic Croatia. In addition to the rights of ownership and property, private enterprise, and the freedom of religion and conscience, speech, the press, assembly, consultation, and association (the latter four within the Partisan movement for the duration of the war), the document specified that the Croats and Serbs of Croatia were equal regardless of politics, ethnicity, race, and religion. Worded in consideration of Ustaše repression against the Serbs, it was considered a contribution to improving Croat–Serb relations. The fourth constitutional decision determined the hierarchy of the regional national liberation committees. In his speech at the session, Hebrang declared that the struggle was not for communism, but for democracy and national liberation (displeasing the KPJ leadership). A further point of conflict between Hebrang and the KPJ was support of the Magovac-edited HSS publication,
Slobodni dom. Hebrang considered the newspaper a useful tool against Maček loyalists, but the KPJ feared the re-establishment of the HSS (although the publication was issued by the ZAVNOH). Magovac wanted to pursue HSS independence from the KPH and, finding this objective unrealistic and receiving no support from other former HSS members, he resigned his editorial and political positions.
Fourth session The conflict between Tito and the KPJ, on one hand, and Hebrang, ZAVNOH and the KPH gradually deepened. In September 1944, Tito criticised the ZAVNOH regulation introducing religion as a mandatory educational subject in Croatia's Partisan-held territory. Days later, he accused Hebrang of nationalism for establishing the Croatian Telegraphic Agency as an independent
news agency. By 20 October, Hebrang was replaced by
Vladimir Bakarić as secretary of the KPH central committee. Due to his popularity in Croatia, however, he was called to
recently captured Belgrade and appointed Yugoslav minister of industry. In early January 1945, the ZAVNOH moved its seat to
Šibenik to prepare for the post-war period. Its executive committee met in Split on 14 April to proclaim the Decision on the People's Government, presided over by Bakarić. The ZAVNOH moved to Zagreb on 20 May, holding its fourth session on 25 July at the Croatian Parliament building in
St. Mark's Square. It renamed itself the
National Parliament of Croatia (
Narodni Sabor Hrvatske), emphasising the Croatian legislative body's continuity as representative of Croatian state sovereignty. ==Legacy==