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Unification or Death
I. Purpose and Name
Article 1. For the purpose of realising
the national ideals - the
Unification of Serbdom - an organization is hereby created, whose
members may be any Serbian irrespective of sex, religion, place
or
birth, as well as anybody else who will sincerely serve this idea.
Article 2. The organisation gives priority
to the revolutionary struggle
rather than relies on cultural striving, therefore its institution
is an
absolutely secret one for wider circles.
Article 3. The organization bears the name: "Ujedinjenje ili Smrt".
Article 4. In order to carry into effect
its task the organization will
do the following things:
(1) Following the character of its raison
d etre it will exercise its
influence over all the official factors in Serbia - which is the
Piemont
of Serbdom - as also over all the strata of the State and over
the
entire social life in it:
(2) It will carry out a revolutionary
organisation in all the
territories where Serbians are living:
(3) Beyond the frontiers, it will fight
with all means against all
enemies of this idea:
(4) It will maintain friendly relations
with all the States, nations,
organisations, and individual persons who sympathise with Serbia
and the Serbian race:
(5) It will give every assistance to
those nations and organisations
who are fighting for their own national liberation and unification.
II. Official Departments of the Organisation
Article 5. The supreme authority is vested
in the Supreme Central
Directorate with its headquarters at Belgrade. Its duty will be
to see
that the resolutions are carried into effect.
Article 6. The number of members of the
Supreme Central Directorate is
unlimited - but in principle it should be kept as low as possible.
Article 7. The Supreme Central Directorate
shall include, in addition to
the members from the Kingdom of Serbia, one accredited delegate
from
each of the organisations of all the Serbian regions: (1) Bosnia
and
Herzegovina, (2) Montenegro, (3) Old Serbia and Macedonia, (4)
Croatia,
Slovenia and Symria (Srem), (5) Voyvodina, (6) Sea-coasts.
Article 8. It will be the task of the
Supreme Central Directorate to
carry out the principles of the organisation within the territory
of the
Kingdom of Serbia.
Article 9. The duty of each individual
Provincial Directorate will be to
carry out the principles of the organisation within the respective
territories of each Serbian region outside the frontiers of the
Kingdom
of Serbia. The Provincial Directorate will be the supreme authority
of
the organisation within its own territory.
Article 10. The subdivisions of the organisation
into District
Directorates and other units of authority shall be established
by the
By-Laws of the organisation which shall be laid down, and if need
be,
from time to time amended and amplified by the Supreme Central
Directorate.
Article 11. Each Directorate shall elect,
from amongst its own members,
its President, Secretary and Treasures.
Article 12. By virtue of the nature of
his work, the Secretary may act
as a Deputy President. In order that he may devote himself entirely
to
the work of the organisation, the Secretary s salary and expenses
shall
be provided by the Supreme Central Directorate.
Article 13. The positions of President
and Treasurers shall be un-
salaried.
Article 14. All official business questions
of the organisation shall be
decided in the sessions of the Supreme Central Directorate by
a majority
of votes.
Article 15. For the execution of such
decisions of the organisation, the
absolute executive power shall be vested in the President and
the
Secretary.
Article 16. In exceptional and less important
cases the President and
the Secretary shall make the decisions and secure their execution,
but
they shall report accordingly at the next following session of
the
Supreme Central Directorate.
Article 17. For the purpose of ensuring
a more efficient discharge of
business, the Supreme Central Directorate shall be divided into
sections, according to the nature of the work.
Article 18. The Supreme Central Directorate
shall maintain its relations
with the Provincial Directorates through the accredited delegates
of the
said provincial organisations, it being understood that such delegates
shall be at the same time members of the Supreme Central Directorate;
in
exceptional cases, however, these relations shall be maintained
through
special delegates.
Article 19. Provincial Directorates shall
have freedom of action. Only
in cases of the execution of broader revolutionary movements will
they
depend upon the approval of the Supreme Central Directorate.
Article 20. The Supreme Central Directorate
shall regulate all the signs
and watchwords, necessary for the maintenance of secrecy in the
organisation.
Article 21. It shall be the Supreme Central
Directorate s duty
punctually and officially to keep all the members of the organisation
well posted about all the more important questions relative to
the
organisation.
Article 22. The Supreme Central Directorate
shall from time to time
control and inspect the work of its own departments. Analogically,
the
other Directorates shall do likewise with their own departments.
III. The Members of the Organisation
Article 23. The following rule, as a
principle, shall govern all the
detailed transactions of the organisation: All communications
and
conversations to be conducted only through specially appointed
and
authorised persons.
Article 24. It shall be the duty of every
member to recruit new members,
but it shall be understood that every introducing member shall
vouch
with his own life for all those whom he introduces into the organisation.
Article 25. The members of the organisation
as amongst themselves shall
not be known to one another. Only the members of Directorates
shall be
known personally to one another.
Article 26. In the organisation the members
shall be registered and
known by their respective numbers. But the Supreme Central Directorate
must know them also by their respective names.
Article 27. The members of the organisation
must unconditionally obey
all the commands given by their respective Directorates, as also
all the
Directorates must obey unconditionally the commands which they
receive
direct from their superior Directorate.
Article 28. Every member shall be obliged
to impart officially to the
organisation whatever comes to his knowledge, either in his private
life
or in the discharge of his official duties, in as far as it may
be of
interest to the organisation.
Article 29. The interest of the organisation
shall stand above all
other interests.
Article 30. On entering into the organisation,
every member must know
that by joining the organisation he loses his own personality;
he must
not expect any glory for himself, nor any personal benefit, material
or
moral. Consequently the member who should dare to try to exploit
the
organisation for his personal, or class, or party interests shall
be
punished by death.
Article 31. Whosoever has once entered
into the organisation can never
by any means leave it, nor shall anybody have the authority to
accept
the resignation of a member.
Article 32. Every member shall support
the organisation by his weekly
contributions. The organisations, however, shall have the authority
to
procure money, if need be, by coercion. The permission to resort
to
these means may be given only by Supreme Central Directorate within
the
country, or by the regional Directorates within their respective
region.
Article 33. In administering capital
punishment the sole responsibility
of the Supreme Central Directorate shall be to see that such punishment
is safely and unfailingly carried into effect without any regard
for the
ways and means to be employed in the execution.
IV. The Seal and the Oath of Allegiance
Article 34. The Organisation's official
seal is thus composed: In the
centre of the seal there is a powerful arm holding in its hand
an
unfurled flag on which - as a coat of arms - there is a skull
with
crossed bones; by the side of the flag, a knife, a bomb and a
phial of
poison. Around, in a circle, there is the following inscription,
reading
from left to right: "Unification or Death", and in the
base: "The
Supreme Central Directorate".
Article 35. On entering into the organisation
the joining member must
pronounce the following oath of allegiance:
"I (the Christian name and surname
of the joining member), by entering
into the organisation "Unification or Death", do hereby
swear by the Sun
which shineth upon me, by the Earth which feedeth me, by God,
by the
blood of my forefathers, by my honour and by my life, that from
this
moment onward and until my death, I shall faithfully serve the
task of
this organisation and that I shall at all times be prepared to
bear for
it any sacrifice. I further swear by God, by my honour and by
my life,
that I shall unconditionally carry into effect all its orders
and
commands. I further swear by my God, by my honour and by my life,
that I
shall keep within myself all the secrets of this organisation
and carry
them with me into my grave. May God and my comrades in this organisation
be my judges if at any time I should wittingly fail or break this
oath!"
V. Supplementary Orders
Article 36. The present Constitution
shall come into force immediately.
Article 37. The present Constitution must not be altered.
Done at Belgrade this 9th day of May, 1911 A.D.
Signed:
Major Ilija Radivojevitch
Vice-Consul Bogdan Radenkovitch
Colonel Cedimilj A. Popovitch
Lt.-Col. Velimir Vemitch
Journalist Ljubomir S. Jovanovitch
Col. Dragutin T. Dimitrijevitch
Major Vojin P. Tanksoitch
Major Milan Vasitch
Col. Milovan Gr. Milovanovitch
