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ABOUT US
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The League of Communist Yugoslav Youth (SKOJ) was re-established on January 25, 1992 in Belgrade as the continuator of revolutionary traditions of the original SKOJ which emerged in 1919, and was abolished in 1948. SKOJ was revived in the form a youth organization of the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NKPJ), the only Marxist-Leninist party in the territory of the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, but it is also active as an independent political organization, therefore it is registered as such at the competent authorities. The SKOJ members make one third of the entire NKPJ membership. SKOJ is the only youth organization from this region which is registered as a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth-WFDY.
SKOJ was founded in Zagreb on October 10, 1919 as a political organization of revolutionary youth the youth which followed the policy of the Socialist Workers' Party of Yugoslavia (communist).Regional committees were originally established by they were abolished in 1920. In 1921, the organization was banned together with the party, which had in the meantime been renamed Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Two congresses were held clandestinely during 1920s, the Second Congress in June 1923, and the Third Congress in June 1926. SKOJ was affiliated to the Communist Youth International. Regional comittes were reestablished in 1939.
Between two world wars many of the organization's members were killed by the authorities, along with other communists. Among them were seven secretaries of SKOJ: Paja Marganović, Mijo Oreški, Janko Mišić, Pero Popović Aga, Josip Kolumbo, Josip Debeljak and Zlatko Šnajder. Other secretaries of SKOJ included Ivo Lola Ribar. Nevertheless the organization continued to grow. Regional committees were reestablished in 1939, and by the eve of the Second World War, the organization had 30,000 members.
After Axis powers occupied Yugoslavia in 1941, SKOJ organized a united youth front with the program of struggle against fascism and war, Anti-Fascist Youth Committees which at the Congress of Anti-Fascist Youth of Yugoslavia in Bihać in 1942 united into the Unified League of Anti-Fascist Youth of Yugoslavia (Ujedinjeni savez antifašističke omladine Jugoslavije - USAOJ). SKOJ became a part of the umbrella organization, but continued to act autonomously within it.
In may 1946, USAOJ was renamed People's Youth of Yugoslavia (Narodna omladina Jugoslavije - NOJ), and in 1948 SKOJ and NOJ were united into a single organization, which continued to use the name People's Youth of Yugoslavia, and the use of the name SKOJ was discontinued.
