Äilasovci in Croatia: Forgotten Dissidents In the early 1950s, a group of intellectuals was active in the Republic of Croatia, advocating the idea of "democratization" of political life, the fight against bureaucracy, a greater level of respect for the rule of law, and more responsibility and transparency of party officials towards their voters. After the Tito-Stalin conflict, there was an attempt in Yugoslavia to legitimize the political and economic system, which was developing in the direction of "socialist democracy". From the very beginning, Yugoslavia presented itself as, nominally, a "people's democratic" state with socialist characteristics. The activity of the "Djilasovs" in Croatia was made possible by the social atmosphere that ruled Yugoslavia after the Sixth Congress of the SKJ. Most of them were gathered around the Naprijed weekly, an organ of the SKJ, whose editorial office was joined by a younger generation of journalists in 1952. Over time, the paper became less and less dependent on the Central Committee, and in May 1953 it became an independent weekly. There were also "democratizing" tendencies in Vjesnik on Wednesday and Narodni list, given that they wrote about the harmfulness of bureaucracy and launched columns open to readers' comments. In addition to journalists, SKH Central Committee members such as Marijan Stilinović and Dušan Diminić advocated the continuation of "democratization" and the fight against bureaucracy.
