“Why We Have Become Revolutionaries and Murderers”: Radicalization, Terrorism, and Fascism in the Ustaša–Croatian Revolutionary Organization

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Title: “Why We Have Become Revolutionaries and Murderers”: Radicalization, Terrorism, and Fascism in the Ustaša–Croatian Revolutionary Organization
Authors: Iordachi, Constantin, Miljan, Goran
Source: Terrorism and Political Violence. 35(8):1704-1723
Subject Terms: Radicalization, terrorism, violence, fascism, Holocaust, charisma, martyrdom, Ustaša, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Historia, History, Statskunskap, Political Science
Description: This article advances an interdisciplinary and multifactorial socio-cultural approach to the fascistization of the Ustaša in interwar Yugoslavia, leading to terrorism and racial cleansing. It concentrates on the life-trajectories of Mijo Babić and Zvonimir Pospišil, two nationalist activists notoriously known as the first Ustaša terrorists. Drawing on the previously unknown political memoirs of Pospišil and Babić, the article argues that the two activists bridged several phases of cumulative radicalization in the Ustaša organization, from the adop- tion of political violence at the grass-root level in the 1920s to international terrorism in the 1930s and then state-sponsored genocide in the first half of the 1940s. The article points out that Ustaša underwent most forms of political radicalization to terrorism identified by McCauley and Moskalenko (2008), but it also adds to their typology a case of radicalization to mass violence in the regime phase. Ustaša’s trajectory thus illustrates a rare process of transition from the radicalization of an oppositional, non-state group to mass radicaliza- tion leading to racial genocidal policies under a fascist-totalitarian regime. It is hoped that the biographical approach to radicalization advanced by the article contributes to a better understanding of politically motivated terrorism and mass violence in post-1918 Europe
File Description: electronic
Access URL: https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-476229
https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2022.2077730
Database: SwePub
Description
Abstract:This article advances an interdisciplinary and multifactorial socio-cultural approach to the fascistization of the Ustaša in interwar Yugoslavia, leading to terrorism and racial cleansing. It concentrates on the life-trajectories of Mijo Babić and Zvonimir Pospišil, two nationalist activists notoriously known as the first Ustaša terrorists. Drawing on the previously unknown political memoirs of Pospišil and Babić, the article argues that the two activists bridged several phases of cumulative radicalization in the Ustaša organization, from the adop- tion of political violence at the grass-root level in the 1920s to international terrorism in the 1930s and then state-sponsored genocide in the first half of the 1940s. The article points out that Ustaša underwent most forms of political radicalization to terrorism identified by McCauley and Moskalenko (2008), but it also adds to their typology a case of radicalization to mass violence in the regime phase. Ustaša’s trajectory thus illustrates a rare process of transition from the radicalization of an oppositional, non-state group to mass radicaliza- tion leading to racial genocidal policies under a fascist-totalitarian regime. It is hoped that the biographical approach to radicalization advanced by the article contributes to a better understanding of politically motivated terrorism and mass violence in post-1918 Europe
ISSN:09546553
15561836
DOI:10.1080/09546553.2022.2077730