The Croatian Republican Peasant Party (Hrvatska republikanska seljačka stranka, HRSS) was a political party formed from a faction split from the Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) in 1941. The HSS was once the most popular political party among the Croats in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, but after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, the HSS splintered in several groups including the faction that would become the HRSS. It joined the Yugoslav resistance led and dominated by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) and by its branch in Croatia – the Communist Party of Croatia (KPH). The prewar leader of the HSS Vladko Maček opted to wait for the war to end, while another faction joined the Ustaše movement that ruled the Axis puppet Independent State of Croatia (NDH).