The Croatian Republican Peasant Party (Hrvatska republikanska seljačka stranka, HRSS) was a political party formed from a faction split from the Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) in 1941. The HSS was once the most popular political party among the Croats in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, but after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, the HSS splintered in several groups including the faction that would become the HRSS. It joined the Yugoslav resistance led and dominated by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) and by its branch in Croatia – the Communist Party of Croatia (KPH). The prewar leader of the HSS Vladko Maček opted to wait for the war to end, while another faction joined the Ustaše movement that ruled the Axis puppet Independent State of Croatia (NDH).

The HSS faction aligned with the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans organised itself as the HSS executive committee, initially led by Božidar Magovac. The KPH welcomed HSS executive committee participation in the resistance as a way to increase Croatian support for the Partisans. Magovac and KPH leader Andrija Hebrang soon came into conflict. Magovac advocated cooperation of the KPH and the HSS faction led by the executive committee as equals and tried to preserve the HSS executive committee's political independence until after the war. In contrast, Hebrang attempted to entrench the dominance of the KPH in Croatia and to publicly establish and widen as much as possible a split between the Magovac-led faction and the pre-war HSS leadership by pressuring Magovac to denounce Maček as a collaborator. The conflict resulted in political domination of the KPH over the HSS executive committee and replacement of Magovac with Franjo Gaži.

After the war, the HSS executive committee was formally renamed the HRSS and joined the People's Front of Yugoslavia—a KPJ-dominated coalition established ahead of the 1945 Yugoslavian parliamentary election. In that election and the 1946 Croatian Sabor election, the HRSS performed poorly and the KPH decided to wind down the HRSS' operations.

Background Croatian Peasant Party

The Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) was established by the brothers Stjepan Radić and Antun Radić in 1904. Prior to the end of the World War I, it played a minor role in the national politics but developed an extensive grassroots network, advocating Croatian national unity and agrarianism. After the death of Antun Radić in 1919, and establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia), the party opposed the Yugoslav monarchy and further unification of the new state. Advocating national self-determination, it demanded a Croat peasant republic be formed. By 1928, when Radić was assassinated, the HSS was the only major political party among Croats. Vladko Maček, elected to replace Radić as the party leader, negotiated the Cvetković–Maček Agreement on 26 August 1939, establishing an autonomous Banovina of Croatia. Maček became the Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia and several members of the HSS joined the cabinet. The agreement angered Italian-backed Croatian nationalist group Ustaše, who launched a propaganda campaign against Maček and the HSS as traitors of Croatian interests simultaneously strengthening their ties to the Italian Fascist regime.

Axis invasion of Yugoslavia

Seeking retribution for their withdrawal from the Tripartite Pact following the March 1941 Yugoslav coup d'état, Adolf Hitler sought to partition the Kingdom of Yugoslavia through annexation of Yugoslav territory to Nazi Germany and its allies. The move was supported by Italian leader Benito Mussolini, who believed that such fragmentation would make it easier for Fascist Italy to expand their territory by absorbing former Yugoslav territories. The German plans for the breakup of Yugoslavia also envisaged some form of autonomy for Croats to exploit Croatian dissatisfaction with the Yugoslav regime. Hitler offered Hungary the opportunity to absorb Croatia on 27 March 1941, apparently referring to the territories largely corresponding with the former Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, but Regent Miklós Horthy declined the offer. Days later, Germany decided to establish a Croatian puppet state.

As the HSS was the most popular Croatian political party at the time, Germany offered Maček the opportunity to govern the new state, but Maček declined. In response, the position was reluctantly offered to the Italian-based Ustaše and their leader Ante Pavelić, Mussolini, meanwhile, sought to capitalise on the promises made in a 1927 memorandum submitted by Pavelić and Ivo Frank, promising territorial concessions to Italy. The Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was declared on 10 April, as the Wehrmacht was approaching Zagreb. The declaration was made by Slavko Kvaternik on the urging of, and with support from, SS colonel Edmund Veesenmayer, attached to the Dienststelle Ribbentrop. Pavelić and the Italian-based Ustaše were only permitted to leave Italy and Italian-occupied territory in Yugoslavia after Mussolini extracted a written confirmation of the 1927 pledge, allowing him to reach Zagreb in the early morning of 15 April with 195 supporters. Yugoslavia surrendered shortly thereafter, on 17 April 1941. King Peter II of Yugoslavia and the government fled the country. The decision to abandon organised armed resistance put the Yugoslav government-in-exile in a difficult position, further weakened by quarreling ministers who appeared united only in their opposition to Communism.

Armed resistance

With the Yugoslav defeat imminent, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) instructed its 8,000 members to stockpile weapons in anticipation of armed resistance, which would spread by the end of the year to all areas of the country except Macedonia. Building on its experience in clandestine operations, the KPJ created the Yugoslav Partisans, as resistance fighters led by Josip Broz Tito.The KPJ assessed that the German invasion of the Soviet Union had created favourable conditions for an uprising and its politburo founded the Supreme Headquarters of the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia with Tito as commander in chief on 27 June 1941. In the territory largely corresponding with the present-day Croatia, the Communist Party of Croatia (KPH) operated as a nominally independent branch of the KPJ. At the beginning of the war, the KPH had 4000 members.

Executive committee Fracturing of the HSS

The HSS fell apart in 1941. Its leadership split into different factions over how to respond to the occupation of Yugoslavia, and the HSS's internal structure consisting of about 7,000 organisational units before the war was disbanded after the NDH banned the party in June 1941. Maček led the most influential faction of the party—adopting the policy of passively waiting the Western Allies to liberate Croatia. Another group, led by former Ban of Croatia Ivan Šubašić and HSS general secretary Juraj Krnjević (appointed by Maček to represent him abroad), fled the country to join the royalist government-in-exile. The third group joined the Ustaše. The fourth group joined or cooperated with the Communist-dominated Yugoslav resistance. This group was initially centered around Maček's close associate Božidar Magovac, who was highly regarded in the HSS.

Disappointed by the absence of any resistance, even nonviolent resistance, to the NDH in light of violence perpetrated by the NDH in 1941 and by the HSS faction supporting the NDH, Magovac raised the issue of starting a HSS resistance or organising an uprising with several HSS leaders from Maček's faction, but received no support. Magovac contacted the KPH organisations in the Podravina region, where he moved after the outbreak of the war, seeking to arrange the establishment of separate Partisan units for HSS members. After the request was declined, he called upon HSS members to join the Partisan movement in as great numbers as possible to "deprive it of the communist tone". Magovac moved to the Partisan-held territory at the end of May 1943.

The principal difference between Magovac and the KPH was Magovac's desire to establish HSS-specific basic party organisations right away and the KPH's wish to postpone this until after the war. Magovac saw the cooperation of (his faction of) the HSS and the KPH as a coalition of equals. Soon after his arrival to the Partisan-controlled territory in the aftermath of the first session of the ZAVNOH, Magovac proposed to establish a HSS executive committee and launch a HSS newspaper Slobodni dom. Even though the newspaper was launched and the HSS executive committee was established, the KPH sought to curb further consolidation of the HSS and supported Magovac's opponents within the HSS executive committee.

Work in the ZAVNOH

The State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia (ZAVNOH) was convened as the supreme political representative body in Partisan-controlled territory of Croatia in June 1943 and expanded for its second session on 12 October with the addition of 66 new members, largely drawn from the HSS. The KPH wanted to use resistance supporters within the HSS to increase support for the Partisan resistance among the Croats. At the session, the ZAVNOH proclaimed its determination to pursue the establishment of a free Croatia in a Yugoslav community of equals and to support the equality of nations, a multi-party system and religious tolerance.

While some Partisan fighters resented the acceptance of HSS members into their ranks viewing them as late arrivals joining the struggle only when Partisan victory became more likely, the official position of the KPH leadership headed by party secretary Andrija Hebrang was that the newcomers were welcome and free to keep their political views. Hebrang believed that greater involvement of the HSS members would lead to increased participation of Croats in the Partisan struggle. His belief turned out to be correct, although the level of recruitment of HSS members varied by region. The best results were achieved in Dalmatia, the Croatian Littoral, Lika and Slavonia, and the poorest in the area north of Zagreb. Besides the HSS members, the ZAVNOH included a group of Independent Democratic Party members, representatives of peasant organisations and trade unions. Participation of such organisations depended on their acceptance of the KPH's lead. In mid-August 1943, Tito and KPJ politburo member Edvard Kardelj discussed Magovac's request to establish the HSS executive committee, concluding that this would help extend Communist control over Magovac's faction. The HSS members cooperating with the ZAVNOH elected the HSS executive committee among themselves in Plaški on 12 October 1943—the first day of the second session of the ZAVNOH. Magovac was elected the first chairman of the body, which came under his sole control.

Twelve out of 30 members of the 1944 ZAVNOH presidency were HSS members. Franjo Gaži was one of its vice-presidents, and Stjepan Prvčić was one of the body's deputy secretaries. Nikola Brozina, Tomo Čiković, Frane Frol, Aleksandar Koharević, Ivan Kuzmić, Filip Lakuš, and Magovac were among the members. Several HSS members were appointed by the ZAVNOH as a part of the Croatian delegation to the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ)—the supreme Yugoslav representative and legislative body established by the Partisans—including Lakuš, who was a member of the AVNOJ presidency. Magovac was appointed the vice-president of the National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia (NKOJ), established as a provisional government of Yugoslavia by the AVNOJ. Frol was appointed as the NKOJ commissioner for the judiciary.

Hebrang–Magovac conflict