restrictions on communist propaganda. The violence served as a pretext for prosecution of the KPJ. On 30 December, the government issued a Proclamation () outlawing the KPJ. A faction of the KPJ named Red Justice () attempted to assassinate the Regent Alexander on 28 June, and then killed former Interior Minister Milorad Drašković on 21 July. This led to proclamation of the Law on the Protection of the Realm turning the KPJ ban into legislation on 2 August, annulment of the KPJ seats in the national assembly two days later, and numerous covert police agents infiltrating the KPJ. Move abroad and underground Despite the electoral success, the ban and KPJ's consequent move to covert operation took a heavy toll on the party in the next decade and a half when, faced with factional struggle, it would increasingly look to the Comintern for guidance. By 1924, the KPJ membership was reduced to 688. Additionally, some members emigrated abroad – most to Moscow, but also to Vienna, Prague, and Paris. Indeed, the KPJ held a land conference in Vienna in 1922, where the party leadership moved the year before. In the early 1920s, KPJ saw more factional struggle between its right wing led by Marković and Belgrade-based trade union leaders Lazar Stefanović and Života Milojković advocating work through legal means to regain government approval, and leftists, including Đuro Cvijić, Vladimir Ćopić, Triša Kaclerović, Rajko Jovanović, and Kosta Novaković, favouring Leninist undercover struggle. The leftists also supported a federalisation of the state, while the others pushed for limited regional autonomy only. The leftists prevailed at the January 1924 Third Land Conference held covertly in Belgrade where the KPJ proclaimed the right of each nation to secede and form its national state. In June, the Comintern instructed the KPJ that self-determination should take shape of independent Slovenian, Croatian, and Macedonian republics. The stance taken by the Cominform was influenced by Moscow visit by Stjepan Radić, the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (, HSS) when Radić added the HSS to the Peasant International (Krestintern) – itself an agency of the Cominform. Furthermore, the Comintern criticised the factional clashes in the KPJ over the national question in its 1924 Resolution of National Question which linked social emancipation to national one in strategic considerations. In response, Milojković was expelled, but Marković remained a part of KPJ leadership. This changed in 1925 when he was denounced by