Modern Europe
count of the Treblinka rebellion (pp. 7'4-42) is not high school (VZSa skala). For a time he was the
very accurate or convincing, but in a footnote on
page 9]{) the author quotes at length an account
published in 1953 that changes the picture and that
came to the author's notice too late to be included
in the text. He bases his claim on page 22 I that the
Nazis discussed extermination of Jews and Slavs
(sic) before the end of 1940 on an obscure pub-
lication of 1962 that avoids quoting its sources, but
a check of Charles Wighton's book on Heydrich
showed no record of any such discussion. There
are numerous instances of this sort of thing.
The story of Kovno is an example of the author's
treatment of his subject (pp. 6Y9-70I). He claims
the Judenrat, whose chairman, Yochanan Elkes,
becomes Dr. Alex in the book, was compliant.
Ainsztein then contradicts this by saying that the
Judenrat helped the armed underground. Had he
consulted Zvi Bar-on and Dov Levin's The Story of
an Underground (Jerusalem, 1962), among other
sources, he would have realized that the Judenrat
was far from compliant, that the Jews were misled
by Soviet partisans into sending partisans to the
Augustovo forests (which almost destroyed the un-
derground), that Elkes tried to organize a mass
escape from the ghetto, and so on.
Jewish armed resistance deserves better treat-
ment and deeper analysis. Such an analysis would
have to include a differentiated picture of Centile
attitudes, of objective and subjective difficulties,
and of the way they were overcome in those in-
stances where rebellious actions took place. Above
all, armed resistance can hardly be taken out of the
context of unarmed preparations, or unarmed re-
sistance. The picture would have to include Slo-
vakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and the West Euro-
pean countries to be complete. Ainsztein's book
does not fill this need, despite the great effort and
enormous good will that he has obviously invested.
YEHUDA BAUER
IIebrew Unwersity ofJerusalem
GALE STOKES. Legitimacy through Liberallsm: Vladimir
Jovanovic and the Transformation of Serbian Polltlcs.
(Publications on Russia and Eastern Europe of the
Institute for Comparative and Foreign Area Stud-
ies, number 5.) Seattle: University of Washington
Press. IY7'i- Pp. xvi, 279· $11.00.
As the title of this book indicates, this is a study of
liberalism in nineteenth-century Serbia through
the philosophy and activities of one of its principal
exponents, Vladimir Jovanovic, who was among
several young men sent abroad for education by
the Serbian government in tllj9. A politician, pub-
lisher, journalist, and scholar, Jovanovic was also
one of the first members of the Liberal party and
an instructor in political economy at Belgrade's
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principal contributor to Svetozar MiletiC's -<:'astava.
Jovanovic translated and published several impor-
tant works, and he was a member of Srpsko uceno
drustvo. As a representative of Serbia's Liberals, he
helped organize in 1866 the UJedinJena omladma
srpska (Omladina), a nationalistic youth organiza-
tion influenced by the Cerman Burschenschaji and
Tugendbund, the Greek Phillke Hetairia, and the Ital-
ian Carbonarl.
The author discusses at considerable length the
political activities of Jovanovic, his position on
basic issues of the time, and the organization and
proceedings of the six Omladina congresses. He also
compares JovanoviC's philosophy and political
tactics with those of Svetozar Markovic. Until
the appearance of Svetozar Markovic on the
scene in 1870, Jovanovic was the principal
ideologue of the Omladina. The book does not
go beyond the 1870S when Jovanovic became a
member of the government and, in the eyes of
many, compromised his principles.
More than an assessment of Jovanovic's life
and thought, this book is a study of the Omladina
movement as a whole, and as such it contributes a
great deal toward a better understanding of the
political developments and tendencies in Serbian
history during the third quarter of the nineteenth
century. In fact, the author might have done an
injustice to himself by focusing his study on Jova-
novic, who might not deserve the attention he re-
ceives, rather than on the Omladina, which defi-
nitely does. Also, the surprise exhibited over
Westernizing tendencies in Serbia is not war-
ranted. The important thing is, however, that the
author has given us an excellent picture of a highly
complicated period in Serbian history. His study is
based on an extensive list of primary sources and
secondary materials.
WAYNE S. VUCINICH
Stanford Universzty and
Hoover Institution
JOZO TOMASEVICH. War and Revolution in YugoslaVIa,
1941-1945: The Chetniks. Stanford: Stanford {Tni-
versity Press. 1975. Pp. x, 508. $20.00.
MATTEO ./. MILAZZO. The Chetnik l\.fovemen! & the
Yugoslav Resistance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Press. 1975. Pp. ix, 208. $ I 2.00.
F. W. D. DEAKIN. The Embattled Mountain. New
York: Oxford University Press. 1971. Pp. xiii, 284.
$9·5°·
Interpreting the activities of the resistance move-
ments in Yu,\oslavia in World War II, a many-
sided civil as well as international struggle, was a
matter of endless confusion and bitter controversy
 8g8 Reviews of Books
at the time, not only among the embattled Yugo-
slavs but also for the outsiders who were playing
for high stakes in this strategic piece of Balkan
territory. History did not wait for historians to
dispell the confusion and clarify the record; deci-
sions were taken, campaigns fought, aid provided
to one side or another. Tito's partisans won the
civil war, while Mihailovic and the Chetniks lost.
But the legacy of the struggle remained, and the
arguments over what had happened, and what
might have happened, went on. They are likely to
go on indefinitely, no matter how many sober
scholars examine the evidence and present their
reasoned conclusions. But it is a significant fact
that, after thirty years, some competent and objec-
tive historians are doing just that.
Two American scholars, Jozo Tomasevich and
Matteo Milazzo, have now given us admirable
detailed studies of one of the parties in the civil
war, the Chetniks. Working separately, they cover
much the same ground and use many of the same
sources, especially the extensive wartime records
of the German and Italian occupation forces. (Al-
though neither mentions the work of the other,
they must have bumped into each other in the
archives.) ~lilazzo's book is particularly good in
describing the struggles taking place in areas an-
nexed or occupied by Italy. Tomasevich's study,
the first of a planned three-volume set that will
cover the partisan movement and the quisling
forces as well as the Chetniks, is broader in scope
with background chapters on the prewar period
and others on international diplomacy and the
affairs of the Yugoslav government-in-exile.
On the issue that wracked all occupied nations,
that of collaboration with the enemy, it became
fairly clear during the war that the Chetniks were
making deals in order to obtain arms (supplies
dropped by the British were very meager), to carry
on the fight with their domestic rivals, and to
preserve their forces for the eventual rising when
Western Allied armies would come to liberate Yu-
goslavia. Both books provide mountains of evi-
dence that the collaboration was manifold, mas-
sive, and continuous; that Chetnik commanders
made arrangements with the Germans, with the
Italians, and even with the quisling Croatian re-
gime in some instances; and that Mihailovic him-
self, not just his lieutenants, deliberately chose
that course. It flowed logically and almost inevita-
bly from the fact that after the breakdown of the
half-hearted efforts for Chetnik-Partisan coopera-
tion in '941, these rivals were in a war to the death
to determine the country's future.
F. W. D. Deakin's The Embattled Mountain also
covers the question of Chetnik collaboration. As
one who was with the partisans through some of
their most harrowing campaigns under heavy Ger-
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man attack and who admired their fortitude and
resolve, he could not be expected to be benevolent
or neutral in his feelings toward the Chetniks,
whose units were shooting at him and his com-
rades-in-arms. He was a keen and accurate ob-
server, however, and his observations confirmed
what earlier British missions (most of them sent in
to make contact with Mihailovic) had already
concluded, though they had not always been able
to get the word through to those responsible for
high policy. Deakin's conclusions come through
loud and clear, and his reports to his superiors and
his extensive oral briefing of Winston Churchill in
Cairo after returning from Yugoslavia in October
'943 had something to do with the decisive turn of
British policy from Mihailovic to Tito.
Deakin's book is a hybrid, as the author himself
concedes. The first and last parts provide a grip-
ping account of his own experiences when he was
dropped by parachute in May '943 into the caul-
dron of the fierce and bloody battle of the Sutjeska,
and when he later took part in the events of the
dramatic weeks following the Italian surrender. In
between he describes the organization, policies,
and personalities of the partisan movement, and
he also reconstructs the story of the various British
missions to the Yugoslav resistance groups. Here
there is considerable new material, much of it
based on conversations with Britons and Yugo-
slavs who were involved. The book is not the com-
prehensive study of the Yugoslav resistance that
Deakin has declared his intention to write, but it
remains a gem, a remarkable combination of per-
sonal memoir and historical inquiry written with
spirit and style.
The story of the Chetniks, of course, did not end
with the switch of Allied support to Tito in '943-
Mihailovic was still hoping that events and pos-
sible American support would justify his strategy.
He gained encouragement from the presence of an
OSS mission under Colonel Robert McDowell,
which remained with him until late '944, long after
the king and the government-in-exile, under Brit-
ish pressure, had dropped Mihailovic and taken
the road toward compromise with Tito. America's
policy was not as clear as Britain's, but there was
no real chance that Roosevelt would split with
Churchill on Yugoslav policy by accepting the pro-
Chetnik recommendations of McDowell. Toma-
sevich, who interviewed McDowell and looked at
all the other evidence, covers this singular episode
thoroughly and well.
It was the tragic destiny of Mihailovic-a brave
man, patriotic according to his own lights-that
his base and his appeal were too narrow; he was
essentially Serbian rather than Yugoslav in his
loyalties. The Germans kept a firm grip on historic
Serbia, his source of potential mass support, until
 Modern Europe
the Soviet army came in, and even at that late date
he was still fighting the partisans instead of lead-
ing a rising against the Germans; and in the
struggles waged in Bosnia, Croatia, and elsewhere
the Serb population was decimated in Ustasi mas-
sacres and in the civil war (which was in large
measure a war between Serbs). The Chetniks, as
Tomasevich demonstrates again and again, could
rally only a part of Yugoslavia's Serbs to their side
and none of the other nationalities. Anticommu-
nism was for them a genuine cause, but antifasc-
ism, the partisan watchword, was a stronger one
for the bulk of the population. By fighting in the
present, the partisans helped to shape the future,
while the Chetniks made fatal compromises for a
future that never came.
JOHN C. CAMPBELL
Council on Foreign Relations
ANDREW C. JANOS and WILLIAM B. SLOTTMAN, edi-
tors. Revolution in Perspective: Essays on the Hungarian
Soviet Republic of 1919. (Russian and East European
Studies.) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press. 1971. Pp. x, 185. $10.00.
One of the essays in this volume is of classic stat-
ure. Written by Andrew Janos in an expressive
English laced with Hungarianisms and carelessly
proofread, the essay is based on extensive original
research in Hungarian language sources. It under-
takes. successfully in my opinion, the revision of
the standard view of the history of Ausgleich Hun-
gary as one of intransigent and feudal immobility.
Rather, Janos argues, Hungary in the years
1867-1918 underwent a rapid, far-reaching, and
centrally directed process of modernization.
The driving mechanism in Hungarian modern-
ization consisted of two elements: a new state bu-
reaucracy organized after 1867 and a political
party (the Liberal) that without interruption man-
aged to hold a majority in the lower house of
parliament from 1875 to 1905. Both bureaucracy
and party were made up primarily of persons of
gentry origin. Through its domination of local gov-
ernment the bureaucracy controlled some 160
"rotten boroughs," located in the areas inhabited
by the minority nationalities, so that the party had
only to win some fifty seats in purely Hungarian
districts, where elections were contested, in order
to retain its majority.
Naturally, the party also looked after the inter-
ests of the bureaucracy, but the main concern of
the new machine was that of national power. To
this end the political machine rationalized the le-
gal structure of the country, began the modern-
ization of agriculture, improved the transportation
net, encouraged industrial growth, and, above all,
artificially depressed rural wages in order to pro-
vide for the accumulation of capital. Considering
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899
the emergence of an industrial proletariat as a
necessary evil, the gentry machine championed the
emancipation of a rapidly increasing Jewish popu-
lation, helping it become Hungary's first business
class, in command alike of industry, banking, and
commerce. The bureaucracy simultaneously
swelled as a consequence of the effort to absorb the
talented youth of the minority populations, which
in this way were deprived of their own leadership;
by 1918 roughtly forty percent of ranking bureau-
crats had non-Magyar names.
Modernization created its own opposition, how-
ever. The magnate class, which controlled fifty to
seventy seats in the lower house and harbored
reservations concerning both national state and
market economy, attempted to undercut the new
policy. A more far-reaching opposition developed
among that portion of the ethnically Magyar gen-
try that could not be provided for in the adminis-
tration. On the right, the gentry opposition stood
for independence, the acquisition of a Balkan em-
pire, and the achievement of European great-
power status. On the left, the opposition gentry
ended by collaborating with the Socialists, whose
leadership in turn came from those elements of
assimilated Jewry that could also find no place in
the system. This prepared the way for the KarOlyi
Gironde of 1918-19. The workers, who provided the
Socialist constituency, chose to concentrate on the
fact that their living standards were low in com-
parison with those of Western Europe, rather than
to remember that they were better off than other
Hungarians. The peasantry, whose living standard
under Ausgleich declined in absolute terms, was
sufficiently affected by the growing volume of com-
munication to express its simmering frustration in
the bloody disorders of the Stormy Corner. Even
the state bureaucracy found that its salaries had
become the largest single item in the national
budget. :Vlodernization failed because the
economic base was not broad enough to permit
the Liberal machine to payoff all strategic groups.
The Janos essay takes up the first third of this
tiny volume. Useful and competent chapters di-
rectly concerned with the Hungarian Soviet Re-
public are provided by Peter Kenez, Keith Hitch-
ens. William B. Slottman, Richard Lowenthal,
and Janos himself.
R. V. BURKS
Wayne State University
MARIUSZ KULCZYKOWSKI. Andrychowski osrodek plbcien-
niczy w XVIII i XIX wleku (The Textile Center of
Andrychow in the 18th and 19th Centuries).
(polska Akademia Nauk-Oddzial w Krakowie.
Prace Komisji N auk Historycznych, number 3 I.)
Cracow: Zaklad Narodowy imienia Ossolinskich,
Wydawnictwo Polskiej Akademii Nauk. 1972. Pp.
23 8. Zl. 45.