Socialist Republic of Croatia

The Socialist Republic of Croatia (Serbo-Croatian: Socijalistička Republika Hrvatska), commonly abbreviated as SR Croatia and referred to as simply Croatia, was a constituent republic and federated state of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. By its constitution, modern-day Croatia is its direct continuation.

Along with five other Yugoslav republics, Croatia was formed during World War II and became a socialist republic after the war. It had four full official names during its 48-year existence (see below). By territory and population, it was the second largest republic in Yugoslavia, after the Socialist Republic of Serbia.

In 1990, the government dismantled the single-party system of government – installed by the League of Communists – and adopted a multi-party democracy. The newly elected government of Franjo Tuđman moved the republic towards independence, formally seceding from Yugoslavia in 1991 and thereby contributing to its dissolution.

Croatia became part of the Yugoslav federation in 1943 after the Second Session of the AVNOJ and through the resolutions of the ZAVNOH, Croatia's wartime deliberative body. It was officially founded as the Federal State of Croatia (Croatian: Federalna Država Hrvatska, FD Hrvatska) on May 9, 1944, at the 3rd session of the ZAVNOH. Yugoslavia, then called Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (Demokratska Federativna Jugoslavija, DFJ), was not a constitutionally socialist state, or even a republic, in anticipation of the conclusion of the war, when these issues were settled. On November 29, 1945, Democratic Federal Yugoslavia became the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (Federativna Narodna Republika Jugoslavija, FNRJ), a socialist People's Republic. Accordingly, the Federal State of Croatia became the People's Republic of Croatia (Narodna Republika Hrvatska, NR Hrvatska).

On April 7, 1963, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (FPRY) was renamed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Yugoslavia (and therefore Croatia) gradually abandoned Stalinism after the Tito–Stalin split in 1948. In 1963 the People's Republic of Croatia also accordingly became the Socialist Republic of Croatia.

On December 22, 1990, a new Constitution was adopted, under which the Socialist Republic of Croatia was simply renamed as the Republic of Croatia. It was under this constitution that Croatia became independent on June 25, 1991.

The republic is commonly referred to simply as Croatia.

In the first years of the war, the Yugoslav Partisans in Croatia did not have considerable support from Croats, with an exception of the Croats in the Croatian region of Dalmatia. The majority of partisans on the territory of Croatia were Croatian Serbs. However, in 1943 Croats started to join the partisans in larger numbers. In 1943, the number of Croat partisans in Croatia increased, so in 1944 they made up 61% of the partisans in the territory of Independent State of Croatia, while Serbs made up 28%; all other ethnicities made up the remaining 11%.