ABSTRACT
The Croat Peasant Party (HSS, Hrvatska seljačka stranka) was arguably the most important Croatian political party in the first four decades of the twentieth century. Emerging as a relatively minor party in the late Habsburg era in 1904, largely as a result of the restrictive electoral law in prewar Croatia-Slavonia, it was transformed after 1918 into the only major political party, in actual fact a mass movement, in the Croat lands and the second largest party in the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (“Yugoslavia”). Most of its political gains were made under the leadership of the charismatic Stjepan Radić (1871–1928), who died in August 1928 following an assassination attempt, and sustained by his successor Vladko Maček (1879–1964), one of Radić’s closest aides and confidants.
