In the socialist Yugoslavia historiography was an important tool for the legitimisationof the Communist Party rule. Its priority tasks became searching forthe traditions of »progressive movements« in the past and proving the linearityof historical development, aimed at constant progress. Historiography shouldbuild on historical materialism and orient itself towards the Marxist explorationof the »history of the people’s masses«, as well as extend its research from theolder periods to the more recent times, especially to the history of the workers’movement and the Communist Party.In the end of the 1950s the strategy of the authorities with regard to historiographybecame apparent in the politically-motivated establishment of institutionsdealing with contemporary and modern history. Institutes for the Historyof the Workers’ Movement were established in almost all Yugoslav republics,and in the beginning of the 1960s they were also joined by the federal Workers’Movement Research Institute. At the same time historical commissions wereestablished with the federal and republican central committees with the aim ofmanaging the activities of the new institutes and historiography of the workers’movement. At the initiative of the Central Committee of the League of Communistsof Yugoslavia (CK ZKJ), in 1963 the Workers’ Movement Research Institutein Belgrade published the Pregled istorije Saveza komunista Jugoslavije(Overview of the History of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia), whichsupposedly represented a synthesis of the research carried out to that day as wellas the foundation for the history of the workers’ movement of the nations ofYugoslavia project, outlined in 1962 with the establishment of the coordinatingcommittee of the CK ZKJ historical commission. Slovenian historians, especiallyFrance Škerl, detected numerous deficiencies in the Overview, related tothe disregard or modest regard for Slovenian particularities, and they were especiallyconcerned by the lack of attention to the specific aspects of the resistancemovement in Slovenia during World War II, which had been adapted to the Sloveniansituation and had developed quite autonomously, especially in the initialperiod. In the increasingly complicated political circumstances in Yugoslavia apart of the Slovenian politics obviously started looking towards the LiberationFront as a model for its operations. Therefore it is not a coincidence that in 1966,at the 25th anniversary of its establishment, the fi rst scientifi c discussion aboutthe Liberation Front was organised. Historians as well as Slovenian politiciansparticipated, either by presenting papers or taking part in the discussion.Meanwhile the ambitious history of the workers’ movement of the nationsof Yugoslavia project, which had been envisioned as a Marxist synthesis of thecontemporary Yugoslav history, came to almost a complete halt. It was beset bymany problems, not only related to financing and lack of expert and simultaneouslypolitically acceptable circle of associates, but also stemming from theincreasingly tense relations between the republics and nations. The participantsfrom different republics were often unable to find common ground, and disagreementswere especially frequent between Ljubljana and Belgrade as well as– due to different reasons – also between Zagreb and Belgrade. Already in 1966– in an interview with Mitja Ribičič – Metod Mikuž, who was to be one of thekey writers of the Yugoslav History of the Workers’ Movement, underlined thatthe plans entailing the common history of the workers’ movement were not at allrealistic. »Every Yugoslav nation should analyse its own history itself, and thenwe shall see what we have in common,« Mikuž thought, and a part of the Slovenianpolitics thought along similar lines. The history of the workers’ movementof the nations of Yugoslavia project dragged out from the sixties to the seventiesand eighties, but it never went further than the publication of documents, bibliographies,Hronologija radničkog pokreta i SKJ (Chronology of the Workers’Movement and League of Communists of Yugoslavia) in 1980 and the extendedIstorija Saveza komunista Jugoslavija (History of the League of Communists ofYugoslavia) in 1977 and 1985.