Italy was a major trading partner of Yugoslavia in the initial years after World War I, but ties fell off after Benito Mussolini came to power in 1922. In the grim economic situation of the 1930s, Yugoslavia followed the lead of its neighbors in allowing itself to become a dependent of Nazi Germany. The small middle class occupied the major population centers and almost everyone else were peasants engaged in subsistence agriculture. The largest ethnic group were Serbs followed by Croats, Slovenes, Bosnian Muslims (now known as Bosniaks), Macedonians (at the time also considered Bulgarians) and Albanians; further historical minority groups included German, Italians, Hungarians, Slovaks, Jews and Rusyns. Religion followed the same pattern with half the population following Orthodox Christianity, around 40% being Catholic, and the rest Muslim. Beside "Serbo-Croato-Slovene", the most widely spoken languages by number of speakers were Macedonian, Albanian, Italian, Hungarian, German, Slovak and Rusyn. In a multiethnic, multireligious and multilinguistic society, ethnic tensions and regional interests commonly surfaced in both politics and daily life, especially between the two largest and most influential groups who monopolized all political power in the country, the Serbs and Croats. Other quarrels were those between Serbs and Macedonians, as the Yugoslav government had as its official position that the latter were ethnic Serbs from "Old Serbia" (). In the early 20th century the international community viewed the Macedonians predominantly as regional variety of Bulgarians on the basis on linguistics and cultural similarities, but during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Allies sanctioned the Serbian control of Vardar Macedonia and its view, that Macedonian Slavs were in fact Southern Serbs. Bulgarian politicians later interpreted the decision as punishment for it being a Central Power during World War I and as sanctioned Serbian irredentism. Rights of the Muslim minority were never enshrined in law but concessions were made to accommodate for religious relativism. Some regions of the country were allowed to exist as enclaves of Islamic law. Aside from Vlachs, the Yugoslav government awarded no special treatment to non-Slavic ethnic minorities in terms of respect for their language, culture, or political autonomy. With the language of the country being institutionalized and mandatory, ethnic minorities were expected to gradually assimilate into the Yugoslav panethnic identity. Although Yugoslavia had enacted a compulsory public education policy, it was inaccessible to many peasants in the countryside.