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Yugoslavia's Return to Leninism

Yugoslavia's Return to Leninism

SOUTHEAST SERIES Vol. XXI No. 1 ()

YUGOSLAVIA'S RETURN TO

Notes on the Tenth Congress of the Yugoslav League of Communists

by Dennison I. Rusinow June 1974

After more than two years of major and often the War. It also marks the end of a dramatic changes in leaderships and policies, a clearly definable historic chapter, coincident in Congress of the League of Communists of duration with socialist Yugoslavia's third decade, Yugoslavia assembled in May 27-30, which began with a series of bold experiments in 1974. Its object was to survey and endorse the re- further economic and political liberalization and sults and to declare urbi et orbi that what a ended with serious economic problems and a Belgrade newspaper in 1971 called "Yugoslavia's political crisis. most serious postwar political crisis" is over and The basic outline of the new that the regime and system are stable and back on course is clear both in the of their still different but course-corrected enough, proclamations the Congress again high- and in a new road to . Constitution adopted three months earlier. Personally initiated by President Josip Broz Yugoslavia is to return to stricter control by a re- himself in December 1971,1 the purges and policy centralized and once again disciplined Party. The changes which have now been approved by the Party's right to "intervene" in decision-making and Party in Congress are tantamount to a Titoist coup selection of officers by enterprise and communities, against the system which the Western world calls which was denied and called outdated and "" but which had lately evolved in direc- pernicious by many of those purged since 1971, has tions that seemed to him and others of its guard- been explicitly reaffirmed. Within the Party itself, ians to be undermining both the unity and the whether or not there will be more genuine partici- socialist character of the Yugoslav community of pation "from the bottom upward" in making policy nations. and more genuine workers at all levels, both of which have once again been promised, the other The Tenth Congress of the League of Commu- and more commonly observed side of "democratic nists thus signifies more than a merely chrono- centralism," which is obligatory, unqualified logical transition from the third to the fourth acceptance and active implementation of policies decade of Yugoslavia's restored existence as a state, and directives issued by higher Party bodies, is to of its Communist regime, and of the reign of Tito, be strictly enforced again, with passivity as punish- at 82 the doyen of world , head of the able as opposition. "Liberalism," "spontaneity," Yugoslav Party since 1937, and father of the "pluralism," and "the federalization of the Party" country that he and his Partisans refounded during are categorically condemned. The advantages of an almost uncontrolled market economy, so uncriti- 1. For this beginning and its background, see the present cally accepted in the later 1960s that one was re- writer's four-part series, Crisis in [DIR-4, 5, 6, 7-'72 ], minded of nineteenth century Manchester school Fieldstaff Reports, Southeast Europe Series, Vol. XIX, Nos. liberalism, are being subjected to critical re-evalua- 4-7, 1972. tion. The state may continue to "wither away," as Copyright (C) 1974, American Universities Field Staff, Inc. [DIR-1-'74] DIR-l-'74 -2-

more of its functions are transferred to the sector since the end of 1971, which is to restore the first of described as "direct social self-management" by these hyphens. It is in this context that particular "organizations of associated labor" in collabora- significance should be attached to Tito's statement, tion with "self-managing interest communities," on three separate occasions since that watershed but the Party will not. In brief, Yugoslav socialism date, that the "rot" in Yugoslavia is not of recent will continue to be based on autonomous enter- origin but began with the 1952 Congress. prises and and "social self-manage- ment," but with firm Party direction and more "The League of Communists," Tito said as he . opened the first plenary session of the Tenth Con- gress on May 27, "has once again demonstrated its It is noteworthy that the name of Vladimir Ilich strength by overcoming, in the struggle for the Lenin has been invoked more frequently at the unity, the monolithic character, and the purity of Tenth Congress and during the months that the Party, all those elements which had denied the preceded it than has been customary in Yugoslavia leading role of the League of Communists in - for many years. This, to use a popular Marxist slavia." phrase, "is not coincidental." What is happening here represents a conscious and explicit attempt to "The leading role of the Party" is a key phrase, return to Leninist principles of Party organization to which recent events have ascribed a r/ewor and Leninist doctrines concerning the role of the more accurately an oldermand stricter meaning. Party during the transitional period called socialism. This, however, is not the whole story, and what precisely the new course will mean for Yugoslav Therewith the wheel of Yugoslav Marxist theory worker-managers, intellectuals, and socialist en- in at least one key sector has come, if not full circle, trepreneurs thus remains unclear, both in intent most of the way around. In the beginning, which and in outcome. Authoritative speakers and docu- for Yugoslavia means 1945, there was -. ments at the Tenth Congress and during prepara- Leninism-. By 1950 Stalinism had been tions for it repeatedly insisted that there will be no forcibly ejected from this original ideological return to the bad old days of absolute Party dicta- trilogy. Lenin remained and was important, but torship, centralism, and a command economy. primarily and almost exclusively for one work, Such a return, it is said, would not only be ideo- which was and still is largely ignored in the Soviet logically and politically undesirablesince the Union: his State and , the central thesis rationale and purpose of the return to Party rule is of which provided workers' councils and other early more self-management, not lessmbut also Yugoslav deviations from the Soviet pattern with impossible at the present, relatively advanced stage justification. Meanwhile, although it was never said of socioeconomic and political development and so openly and while icons of Lenin remained oblig- diffused decision-making. In any case, while Tito, atory, the new Yugoslav concept of the Party as an his new lieutenants, and the Congress may propose, ideological and moral mentor but no longer a polit- a more complex equation of social forces will ical monopoly, a concept formally accepted at the dispose, and even the Party is not as united about ' Sixth Congress in 1952 and taken seri- the quantity and quality of optimal intervention as ously in the later 1960s by some of those who have the carefully prepared performance at the Tenth now been purged, was an implicit rejection of the Congress was designed to demonstrate. central doctrine of Leninism as a political meth- odology. So too, was a less premeditated transition At the Congress from a "cadre" to a mass party. For the Yugoslavs, Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism as a set of normative The scene, like the event, was in part familiar principles had in effect if not declaratively lost both and in part different. its hyphenations and only an eclectic variant of Marxism remained. Jamming the parking lot were the same serried ranks of well-polished Mercedes, mostly black and Now the Tenth Congress has officially sanctified mostly new, which have characterized at least the what Tito has been trying to do by coup de main last four quinquennial congresses, bringing cynical -3- DIR-1-'74

smiles or puzzled frowns to the faces of foreign ob- Ribar Youth Choruses, 150 voices from a high bal- servers still naive enough to imagine that commu- cony creating an incongruous impression of a nist ethics or discretion should discourage such heavenly choir. (This time, however, we did not ostentation. The physical setting itself, however, have the Young Pioneers, school children in white was new. In place of the pretentiously austere with red neckerchiefs, who swarmed down the "early-socialist" hall on Marx-Engels aisles during the singing of "The International" at Square in downtown Belgrade, site of all previous the Ninth Congress, throwing red carnations to the postwar Party congresses in the federal capital, the delegates.) The opening plenary session then con- 1974 meeting was held in a strikingly modern tinued in time-honoured sequence: greetings to sports center out near the Panevo bridge, a poly- visiting delegations (representatives this year of 98 chromatic building of prefabricated and precast "communist, workers', and other progressive par- concrete structural elements completed last year ties and national movements"), routine for a world boxing championship. An official hand- appointment of a "working presidency" and other out describes the "Pionir Sports Palace" as "lavish Congress committees (no additions, discussion, or architectural sculpture...[which] marks the re- dissent), nonreading of book-length reports on the affirmation of colour as an element which had been work of the Presidency and other Federal Party virtually neglected in Belgrade architecture since bodies since the last Congress (texts already dis- the era of the Art Nouveau or Sezession style." tributed), and keynote speech by Party President Whether moving the Party Congress to such a Tito (only excerpts lasting about an hour read this structure has symbolic significance is a matter of time, a token of respect either to his age or to our conjecture, but the explanation offered by press patience; the text of 82 pages had already been spokesmen was that the sports palace has a far distributed). The rest of the first day, after lunch, larger parking lot. There are apparently even more was devoted to a plenary discussion based on the Mercedes than there used to be. reports and Tito's speech.

The delegates milling about in the corridors pre- Then came two days of discussion in five com- sented the usual picture of the usual mixture of missions, where rank-and-file delegates judiciously self-confident professional politicians (metropoli- interspersed with more authoritative spokesmen tan easily distinguishable from provincial), have their say and are often outspokenly critical of self-important intellectuals and managers, and political and economic performance and even of self-conscious members of the working class, in- the details, if never the principles, of policies. The eluding the obligatory half-dozen peasants in last day, as always, was devoted to another plenary homespun shirts and opanke, traditional Serbian session following a prescribed ritual: reports from shoes with turned-up toes. Published statistics on the commissions are heard and approved, resolu- the social composition of the Congress proudly tions are adopted, and new "leading bodies" are noted, however, that this time there were fewer rep- electedall unanimously and this year invariably resentatives of the first two and more of the last of without further discussion. Finally, the procedure these socialist estates. In addition, it seemed to repeatedly interrupted by enthusiastic acclama- some of us that there were more uniforms of the tions and the singing of wartime songs swearing Yugoslav People's Army than at earlier congresses, fealty to his person and ideas, Tito was re-elected reflecting the more powerful role of the Army in President of the Party. This time it was "without politics which has now been formalized in amend- limitation of mandate" (i.e., for life), which had ments to the Statutes adopted at the Congress and also happened, equally for the first time, at his in the new Constitution. re-election as President of the Republic two weeks earlier, on . He then had the last, brief word of summary and thanks, and the Congress ended. Congressional procedures and rituals also fol- lowed traditional patterns, beginning with the cere- Tito's own display of energy throughout the four monial entrance of Tito and his "closest collabo- days was a forceful and no doubt in part calculated rators," while the delegates applauded and chanted answer to rumors, circulated in the Western press "Tito-Party," and the singing of 'The Interna- in March and April when he postponed an official tional" by the Branko Krsmanovi and Ivo-Lola visit to Hungary and took a prolonged rest after DIR-l-'74 -4-

strenuous state visits to the Middle East, , and nist and Socialist Parties and the Italian Commu- Nepal, that he had suffered a serious stroke and nist Party. But the Russian visitors were also point- was partly incapacitated or dying. On the first day edly reminded by Tito and other speakers that the he disdained a stool placed by the podium for the Yugoslav Party's earnest desire for comradely re- reading of his long keynote speech and then sat out lations was still conditional, presupposing mutual the entire eight hours of plenary routine and dis- respect for the legitimacy of separate roads to cussion, listening intently and smoking the thin socialism, the independence of each Party and each cigars which have replaced the cigarettes in pipe- 's foreign and domestic policies, the shaped holders that were once his trademark. (No right to disagree, and noninterference. one else ever presumed to smoke on the floor of the Congress, an observation which led Associated The keynote of the Congress in foreign policy was Press correspondent Borislav Bokovi to file a therefore continuity, with Yugoslavia's traditional story light-heartedly suggesting that all the dele- nonalignment and precarious defiance of both gates, except Tito, were impressed by the data on superpowers apparently intact. Frequent critical lung cancer which have been front page news references to "," which means the during an antismoking campaign currently being United States, were carefully balanced by equally waged by a Belgrade newspaper.) During the next critical references to "hegemonism," the Yugoslav two days he granted nonstop audiences to the more code word for the 's behavior toward important of the foreign guest delegations, and on other communist regimes and parties. This could Thursday he was back to sit through and partici- be construed as an answer to the continuing debate pate in the closing plenary sessions with apparently between those observers who speculate about links undiminished energy. He visibly faltered only once. between tighter Party control in Belgrade and a After the Congress adjourned, the newly elected swing toward the Soviet bloc and those who see the stayed behind for its first ses- new line as at least partly inspired by a desire to sion, at which the new Presidium and Executive preclude any appearance of instability which could Committee are named. Tito, chairing the meeting be used as an excuse for foreign intervention in in a more relaxed, informal atmosphere, picked up Yugoslav domestic affairs after Tito's departure. the wrong script, began reading from it, belatedly and confusedly muttered "something's wrong Another novelty was the ubiquity of Tito's pic- here," and was rescued by Executive Committee ture (which appeared even on Congress documents Secretary , who rushed to his side and and the lapel badges which we all wore), of slogans remained there. referring to him, and of often hagiographic refer- ences to his person and accomplishments. To be Novelties at the Tenth Congress included the sure, there has always been a considerable "cult of presence of guest delegations from the Communist the personality" surrounding the man who is simul- Parties of the Soviet Union and all the East Euro- taneously the father of the revolution and the ulti- pean states, only the second time in postwar mate and sometimes apparently only guarantor of Yugoslav Party history that they have come.2 The the unity and continuity of both state and system. Soviet delegation, headed by member At least since the early 1950s, however, Titoist A.P. Kirilenko, was honored by being listed first myths and symbols have never been as exaggerated among the 98 guest delegations and by a decibel and omnipresent as they are this year, and not only lev.el of applause otherwise offered only to repre- at the Congress. Several explanations are possible sentatives of the Chilean and Portuguese Commu- and all may be true: competitive sycophancy de- signed to flatter an old man who has recently dem- 2. The first time was at the Eighth Congress in 1964. The onstrated his continuing ability to behead courtiers ambassadors of the Soviet bloc states appeared at (and, in who displease him; deliberate manipulation of the protest, walked out of) the Seventh Congress in 1958. All of chief symbol of Yugoslav and Party unity as part of the bloc parties were invited and the Rumanian Party dem- the present campaign of reunification and retreat onstratively sent a delegation to the Ninth Congress of 1969, from confederation. It may also be a kind of uncon- but the rest registered their disapproval of Yugoslavia's scious reversion to magic in the face of terrifying condemnation of the oeeupation of Czeehoslovakia by staying uncertainties, a parading of icons with their intima- away. tions of immortality and divine protection and a -5- DIR-l-'74

conjuring with the personification of unity and purposeful placing of political friends and protd- stability to frighten away the demons of divisive g6es in key positions. Also missing for similar ethnic nationalisms, political pluralism, and reasons were Slovenian and Macedonian chieftains foreign intrigues. like Stane Kavi and Krsto Crvenkovski, tarred with both anarcho-liberalism and nationalism. Belgradology: Missing Faces and New Ones Another kind of conspicuous absentee was repre- sented by the redoubtable Koa Popovi6, million- If Tito was omnipresent, both live and in effigy, aire's son and sometime rive gauche surrealist poet, many other familiar faces of the past decade of hero of the and of the Yugoslav Yugoslav politics were missing from the Working struggle, for many years Tito's Foreign Presidency of the Congress and from the "leading Minister, and once the Vice-President of Yugo- bodies" elected or confirmed at its end, although slavia, who resigned his official posts voluntarily some of them were still to be seen among the dele- after the disgrace of Nikezi6, his deputy and then gates on the floor and occasionally at the podium personal nominee and successor as Foreign Min- during the debates. Their places have been taken ister from 1965 to 1968. either by entirely new and until recently unknown faces, often from a younger generation, or by In all, according to statistics presented to the familiar ones from an earlier period, men and Congress, some 143,756 persons left the Party as a women who had faded into the wings of the Yugo- result of expulsion or "deletion from the records" slav political stage sometime before 1969 and who between December 1968 and December 1973, in some cases did not imagine even six months ago reducing total membership by 35,000 in the past that they would ever find themselves in leading four years, to 1,076,711. The magnitude of the posts again. decimation at the top is indicated by the fact that of 52 members of the Party Presidency whose election was confirmed at the Ninth in 1969, 21 included recent heads of Congress The missing Party had ceased to be members by the time the Tenth and/or from four of the six state federal republics Congress convened. Two of these had died. Ministers. The Eight and the last three Yugoslav Foreign had resigned under attack for serious to be removed were Miko Savka deviations, first Tripalo, and seven of them had lost their member- Dabevi6-Kuar, and other Croatian leaders who Party ships. The remaining eleven left the Presidency for resigned their posts in December 1971 and were what can be called technical reasons, from the three months later, accused including a purged Party 1972 decision that members of collec- of "rotten liberalism" in the face of Yugoslavia's separatist tive State Presidency should not at the same time and a "counter-revolution." be members of the Party Presidency, a change of Then came the turn of Serbian Party President rules affecting six of them, and other Latinka Perovi6, appoint- Marko Nikezi6 and Secretary ments, like ambassadorships abroad, which are not like Provincial their p.rclteges Party formally incompatible with in and Min- membership the President, Mirko Canadanovi Foreign Presidency. None of this last was others from the and group formally ister , and Party disgraced and many are certainly still in favor, but of the of . All of state apparatuses Republic changed rules for dual appointments or an ambas- out of office in October these were forced beginning sadorship did provide a convenient device for from the for 1972, but were purged Party---except getting rid of men like Crvenkovski, who were for Tepavac, who is still a memberonly some time some reason not quite purgeworthy but whose later, in the case of Nikezid and Mrs. Perovid only month presence in a powerful place was no longer desir- at a Serbian Party Congress in April 1974, a able. before the Yugoslav Tenth Congress was to meet and a delay of some significance. The principal Those who have replaced the banished leaders charges in the political indictment filed against this are a significantly mixed lot, in background, in age, group were "anarcho-liberalism," a preference for in previous ideological-political position insofar as "technocrats" rather than workers and Party this is known, and in ability. Only two generaliza- forums as primary decision-makers, and "faction- tions can be made. The first is that the median level alism," which in this context means what American of native political talent which they have so far dis- political argot calls "cronyism," the politically played is lower than that of their predecessors, DIR-1-'74 -6-

although many have considerable ability as spe- the new eight-member State Presidency of Yugo- cialists, for example in economics. The second is slavia created this year and Federal Prime Minister that almost all, including the most talented, are from 1963 to 1967. He is a colorless old prewar and considered by their fellow Yugoslavs to be posluni Partisan and postwar functionary, ljudi (retainers, or "in-service people" in the British with an undistinguished record in a series of senior idiom) and not "their own men" with an autono- but often titular posts, who had been retired into mous power base, which their predecessors often the shadows by 1969 and discounted as an impor- were. In age and previous experience they tend to tant figure because he was mildly tainted by long fall into two groups, as already noted: young and association with Aleksandar Rankovi and the entirely new to Federal politics or to senior deci- latter's "Serbian nationalist and centralist uni- sion-making posts in general, or over 55 and tarism" and communist conservatism. veterans of an earlier period whose political lives were considered finished some years ago. The Ostensibly the most important of the new team, average age of the new, 12-member Executive as Secretary of the Yugoslav Party's Executive Committee, for example, is 51 years. Its youngest Committee since the end of 1971, re-elected to that member is 40 and its oldest is 56. Three of them did post at the Tenth Congress, is Stane Dolanc. Forty- not participate in the 1941-45 Partisan struggle and nine years old, he was virtually unknown outside only four were in the Party and the Partisans in his native until chance made him, then by 1941, which used to be a kind of union card for jobs rotation, the presiding officer of the Executive at the top of the state or Party hierarchies. Committee when the purges began. He handled a difficult job extremely well and with candor, dem- onstrating in addition his independence of and From come people like Jure Bili and relative acceptability to all factions, both Slovenian , selected from the internal Croatian and Yugoslav, and his apparent total loyalty to opposition to Tripalo, Dabevid-Kuar, and the Tito. For these virtues he has been catapulted into Croatian "national movement" before the purges his present role as primus inter pares in Tito's new of December 1971. Although they had opposed collective lieutenancy. those they replaced on questions of political strat- egy and on the key issue of Croatian nationalism, the new Croatian team's record on the subject of Finally, there are those who are still there but no economic and political reforms was just as liberal, longer in positions of importance. Representative and there are few signs beyond dutiful repetition of and probably the most significant of this group is the new rhetoric that they have changed their Mijalko Todorovi, 61, a National Hero during the minds since 1971 about anything except the again war, one of Serbia's and Yugoslavia's leading and admittedly key subject of the Party's "leading most widely respected political figures until the role." Meanwhile, at least some of them have purges began, generally ranked on the "liberal" shown considerable finesse in handling an awk- side during the political struggles of the 1960s, and ward political situation in Zagreb since the purge of allegedly one of the Serbian leaders who in Tito's genuinely popular leaders. presence dared to oppose the purge of Nikezi and Latinka Perovi in October 1972. Formally Todorovi was still President of the Federal Assem- In Serbia the postpurge replacements consist bly until twelve days before the Tenth Congress almost entirely of an extraordinary collection of opened, when a new Yugoslav parliament elected new or resuscitated nonentities. The new ones are under the new Constitution was installed, and a represented by Tihomir Vlagkalic', a worthy Bel- member of the Party Presidency until a new one grade University professor of economics who suc- was approved on the last day of the Congress; he ceeded Nikezi as Serbian Party President. (Vla- was Secretary of the Party Executive Committee, kali's first partner as Party Secretary, succeeding the post now held by Dolanc, from October 1966, Latinka Perovi, was a skilled worker and thereby a when the Party summit was reorganized after the symbol of the Party's new working-class image. He fall of Rankovi and his conservative faction, until was soon dismissed, reportedly for simple incom, the Ninth Congress in March 1969. At the Tenth petence.) The leading representative of the old ones Congress he appeared as an ea: officio delegate, by is Petar Stambolid, 62, Serbia's representative on virtue of his membership in the outgoing Party -7- DIR-1 -'74

Presidency, and was one of 45 members of the delegate and took the podium on the first day Commission for the Preparation of Draft Resolu- to make the general debate's most candid, inter- tions of the Congress, appointed on the first day esting, and only obviously unscheduled speech. In and including many of the top hierarchy under it, true to form, he bluntly warned the delegates Dolanc's chairmanship. At the end of the Congress, that the new line will also not guarantee genuine and no surprise to any competent observer, he was workers' power and that the proudly acclaimed new not on any of the Party's "leading bodies," nor is he device of "basic organizations of associated expected to get an important state post, as others labor"a further evolution of the "work units" dropped from the Presidency but still in favor have which he himself enthusiastically sponsored a done. Todorovi6 has been gently relegated to the decade agois unlikely as presently envisaged to sidelines, without formal disgrace. The same thing do the job of dishing the technocrats while pro- happened in 1969 to many moderate and not seri- ducing an efficient and integrated economy.) ously compromised "conservatives," some of whom have now returned to center stage, like Stambolic' All of this does not mean that all Yugoslav and his Macedonian colleague on the State Presi- leaders associated with the great experiment in dency, Lazar Koligevski. This is therefore a posi- economic and political liberalization of the past tion, unlike that of the "liberals" and "national- decade are out or on the sidelines. In fact, the two ists" who have been anathematized and deprived of men most frequently held to have been the key Party membership since 1971, which makes such a figures in bringing about the economic reform of return possible without the embarrassment and dif- 1965, the fall of Rankovi in 1966, and subsequent ficulty of formal rehabilitation. It may also be reforms of the Party and of the structure of the shared, in different degrees, by men like Federation are still at the top, members simul- Crvenkovski and Koga Popovid, who were not seen taneously of the Party and state Presidencies and at the Congress but who remain Party members conspicuously more intimate with Tito at recent technically in good standing. public occasions than any other leaders except Dolanc. They are , 64, the only (Another interesting personality who went into political survivor of the Djilas-Rankovi6-Kardelj limbo in 1969 and who has remained there with triumvirate, Tito's closest collaborators during the little prospect of returning to favor is Svetozar war and the first postwar decade, and Vladimir Vukmanovi-Tempo. Also a wartime leader, in Bakari6, 62, direct or indirect boss of Croatia ever postwar years he was successively Party plenipoten- since the war and erstwhile mentor of the Croatian tiary in the Army, an incompetent boss of the whole leaders who were purged for "rotten liberalism" in Yugoslav economy, and then President of the 1971 and whom he disagreed with and disavowed in Central Committee of the Yugoslav Trade Union the nick of time. Several other members of the new, Federation from 1958 until 1967. In this last post 39-member Party Presidency, including Sergej he played, like Todorovi, an important role in the Krajgher (otherwise Slovenian as 1962-1966 coalition against conservatism without President of the Republic's Presidency)and Kiro becoming compromised by direct association with Gligorov (A Macedonian, otherwise Todorovi6's what is now known as "the liberal faction." His fall successor as President of the Federal Assembly), from grace was in part because his irrepressible also played important and apparently enthusiastic bluntness and administrative incompetence made roles in designing and implementing the reforms of enemies on all sideshe particularly suffered from the 1960s. lack of support from his home base in Monte- negro. But it was also because, taking his formal Gligorov, long considered a leading economic trade union role as tribune of the working class expert in the Federal apparatus and emerging as a with characteristic seriousness, he quarreled with major figure in the restructured leadership, made the "liberals" and their "technocrat" friends after one of the most important addresses of the Con- 1966 about the latter group's growing power in eco- gress, the keynote to the Commission for the Devel- nomic decision-making, splitting the anticonserva- opment of Socialist Self-Managing Socio-Economic tire coalition. On this issue the official line, without Relations and Problems of Economic and Social giving him credit, now agrees with him. Tempo, Development (sic!). What he said there was essen- too, appeared at the Tenth Congress as a simple tially what he had said in an interview with the DIR-l-'74 -8-

present writer in the spring of 1971, before purges The question is therefore how far Tito and the and policy changes began. His message on both leadership endorsed by the Tenth Congress intend occasions was a spirited if now somewhat more to go and how far they will be able to go in reim- defensive apologia for the continuing necessity and posing the Party's authority, and whether they will virtues of a market economy in Yugoslavia. Its thereby solve, merely suppress, or even aggravate operation must be subject to more controls and the problems which led to Tito's coup. more planning than in recent years, he argued then and now, but these should still employ only indirect That pre-Congress documents and speeches, the means of the type developed and used in the West resolutions of the Republican and Provincial con- to compensate for imperfect competition or to gresses which preceded the Yugoslav one, and induce the fulfillment of indicative plans or the those of the Tenth Congress itself all expressly de- optimization of social as well as economic values. clare that there will be no return to a Stalinist Party This is a central issue" in one sense the whole com- dictatorship, or even to the quasi-centralist, quasi- plex economic debate and political struggle of the Stalinist one of the 1950s, can of course be dis- past fifteen years has revolved around the question counted as politically necessary rhetoric, self- of the right mix of market and planning in allo- delusion, or wishful thinking. Atmospheric indi- cating investment funds, structuring output, and cators that it could happen or is happening include distributing income in a developing socialist the significant revival, constant repetition, and ten- society. Statements like Gligorov's, if they really dentious use of certain Marxist terms and argu- represent the majority view of influential persons ments which in other times and places have been who still enjoy Tito's confidence, seem to mean that employed to rationalize Stalinism and which had the market's role as primary allocator will remain been purposefully neglected, differently construed, and may even be made more efficient by more effec- or seldom and usually only ritualistically used by tive indicative planning and judicious use of Yugoslav Party ideologists in recent years. Even modern countercyclical, antimonopoly, and other Yugoslavia's own Stalinist epoch, 1945-1950, is economic tools (adding Keynes and the post-Key- now described as "the period of revolutionary nesians to Adam Smith, as a Yugoslav economist 6tatism," in Marxian language an ominously more put it with conscious irony several years ago). positive euphemism than "the administrative period," heretofore the authorized label. The turn Gligorov's advocacy is important but apparently to the terminology of "the dictatorship of the pro- not unchallenged. In the two days of debate in the letariat" and "the struggle of the working class Commission for Socio-Economic Relations, while with the at its head" is mean- everyone ostensibly agreed with the keynote speech, while accompanied by an escalation of that line or as usual on such occasions, there was in fact both hyperbole of accusations against a defeated genuine support for and disguised criticism of this faction which has always remained one of the more basically pro-market stance. The former was by ominous features of communist political style even economists in particular and the latter usually by in Yugoslavia, where at least so far the conse- delegates from enterprises or economic sectors quences have usually been purely political, occa- whose difficulties can in some way be blamed on sionally economic, and only rarely judicially puni- the imperfect functioning of an imperfect market. tive. While these changes in political style and cadres Debates of this kind, like the mixed composition generally affect only Party members and of the Party's new leading bodies, provided further intra-Party life, there are other indications that a evidence that many vital questions are still open, harder line affecting all Yugoslav citizens is and that it is premature to conclude that a recen- seriously meant. The muzzling of a press which by tralization of authority within the Party and a 1971 had achieved a remarkable level of freedom, verbal reassertion of its ubiquitous "leading role" liveliness, and occasional irresponsibility and the must and will mean a thoroughgoing recentraliza- associated dismissal of a score of editors is only one tion of decision-making in Yugoslavia's still highly harbinger, There is also the arrest of actively dis- decentralized economic and political system. sident students, intense pressure on university -9- DIR-l-'74

councils to fire faculty accused of propagating disunited by politically unrealistic and ideologically ideas contrary to the Party line (so far almost in- unacceptable theories that are now scathingly de- variably unsuccessful, which is also significant), scribed as "anarcho-liberal," or sometimes simply and directives calling for more Marxist education as "liberal." These theories were espoused in vary- and the ideological purification of teaching staff at ing degrees and forms by key political leaders in all levels. Newspaper stories describing with ap- four of the six federal republics. In the language of proval the successful intervention of a local Party the indictment accepted by the Congress, they held committee to secure the dismissal of a factory that the further development of "social self-man- director or a change in enterprise policy are also agement" now could and should be characterized indicative; such a story would have been reported by more "spontaneity" and "pluralism"and disapprovingly three years ago. therefore by a decreasing political or "interven- tionist" role for the Partyif Yugoslavia is to move To discount even partially these specific restric- on toward a genuine "direct socialist tions of existing freedoms and approval of political without political intermediaries" in which interventions in "social self-management" is more "self-managers" and those elected by them would questionable than discounting a change in style or freely decide about the distribution of national in- rhetoric or even leaders, and may be an unwar- come and all other public choices. ranted concession. It is nevertheless worth noting that what is now happening represents a rescinding The theories and policies of the "liberals" were of a recent and marginal extension of the previously ideologically faulty. They overlooked the "class existing limits of freedom of expression, associa- content" of socialism, specifically in assuming that, tion, and participation in decision-making, and in what is not yet a , the working that what remains is still (so far) more than what class could already be equated with Yugoslavs as a Western liberals considered remarkable and praise- whole (which they liked to call "the working worthy only seven or eight years ago. Bearing this, people," an ideological obfuscation now gingerly too, in mind, it is presumably not irrelevant to ask blamed on Kardelj himself). Of more immediate, whether the clock is only being turned back an practical importanCe, but for sound Marxist hour or two, and why, or whether such happenings dialectics inherent in that basic ideological error, are only the first installment of the reimposition of they assumed that the present level of economic a total dictatorship. and social development and of "social conscious- ness" was adequate as a support and guarantor of Some suggestive if contradictory and inconclu- "spontaneous" democracy and genuine "self- sive clues are discernible. They lurk in that signifi- management" without the protection of a powerful cant segment of pre-Congress and Congressional and active Party. What happened instead was that documents and speeches which abjured the sim- "liberalism," with its insistence that the Party plistic slogans and anathemas that usually charac- could warn and advise but must not otherwise in- terize Marxist polemics and "settlings of terfere in self-management and that the Party accounts," and which attempted to analyze the center was no longer entitled to dictate to subordi- crisis and to justify the purges and the new line in nate Party organs, permitted and encouraged the the detached, sophisticated, and tentative style of revival of centrifugal or hegemonistic nationalisms the amalgam of Marxist and post-Marxian social in the multinational state and the rise of a "tech- sciences that the Yugoslav Party establishment pro- nocratic-managerial elite" controlling and "repri- fesses to admire and certainly holds in awe. vatizing" the economy. Both drew their strength The Post-Purge Party's Perspective from under- and asynchronous development and from the class distinctions which assume altered The central message of the Tenth Congress was forms but still exist during the transitional stage that a newly reunited, recentralized, and rediscip- called socialism. lined League of Communists must and will reas- sume the effective control over the country's polit- Therefore, instead of the further development ical and economic life which it had virtually abdi- and expansion of that "direct social self-manage- cated when and because it became disoriented and ment with political intermediaries" which is still DIR-1-'74 -10-

the proclaimed goal of the Yugoslav system, the equitable, more efficient, and more honestnot to gradual relaxation of firm Party control and of cen- mention more democratic and socialistor less tralized Party authority led to power being grabbed replete with "alienated" power and responsibility? by local politicians who were often more nationalist And, in the struggle for an equitable share of polit- than communist, and by "technocrats" in industry, ically redistributed values, what will make it less commerce, and banking who admired Western likely to breed factionalism and nationalism than managerial techniques more than they did the the confused and inchoate polycentric polyarchy of Yugoslav working class. The "liberals" who the past decade? Yugoslav skeptics, who include countenanced these developments were conse- many at all levels in the Party who are often as quently either "objectively" (unwittingly) or troubled as Tito himself by nationalism, by the "subjectively" (consciously and deliberately) pro- growing significance of "alienated centers of eco- moting the restoration of a bourgeois-type economy nomic and financial power" in industry, commerce, and multiparty democracy and undermining the and the banks, and by the less desirable conse- unity of a state in which multiple parties have quences of a laissez-faire market economy, are also always been ethnic parties. asking it. At the moment, however, they are not doing so in public without cautious circumlocution. It follows, in the argument endorsed by the Tenth Congress, that a reassertion of Party auth- Meanwhile, the ideological essence of the new ority in all sectors of public life and of strict ob- line has been summarized in a Yugoslav Marxist servance of the rules of "" in neologism, constantly repeated at the Tenth Con- Party life is necessary for the sake of unity. It is gress and worthy of more careful exegesis than it similarly crucial to the protection of the Yugoslav has yet received. What Yugoslavia has now, we are worker against continuing usurpations of his right told, is "self-management democracy as a specific to control the results of his labor and his own form of the dictatorship of the destiny and against nationalism in classical, appropriate to the present stage of social "bourgeois" alliance with those who control the development." Superficially reminiscent of Orwel- and commerce and who seek lian "double-think," the new coinage, in this the support of the state to protect and expand their specific form an innovation of the past 18 months, control and their markets. is also a subtle ideological device for reconciling ideals and reality by again shoving the former into To this declared necessity a corollary has been the future while construing the latter as a step added during the agonizing reappraisal of these toward its realization. Until recently the Yugoslav pre-Congress months of purge: the social structure concept of self-management has been described as of the Party itself must also be altered until a though it were a satisfactory end system, at the "workers' majority" is achievedmembership at moment still imperfectly developed. Now authori- the time was less than one-quarter working class tative documents and speakers are reminding the in order to guarantee its own "class character" and deputies and the Party that communism remains a responsiveness to working class interests. There- distant goal and that socialism, including "self- with the weak point in the entire argument is im- management socialism," is a process, a transition plicitly recognized if not adequately answered. One full of contradictions and imperfections which only does not have to take impassioned talk about a "conscious guiding force" like the Party, in- "," "self-management," and structed in scientific Marxism, can resolve and "working class rule" more seriously here than one remove in ways that move a society on certainly does analogous political ideals in other societies. toward the goal. Nor must one assume that Yugoslav political leaders are either more or less hypocritical in making claims for their practice than those of other Stalin once argued that the state, instead of be- countries, to ask the obvious question. What is ginning to wither away, must in fact become there in this return to autocratic Party interference stronger to protect the revolution during the in decision-making in all spheres and to the rigidly traumas of socialist transition. The official enforced hierarchic Party discipline called "demo- Yugoslav view, while still insisting that the state cratic centralism" that will make the system more must begin withering away at once to avoid a -11- DIR-l-'74

Soviet-type stagnation at the stage of "state social- among the final arbiters, a Equally credible, ism" and retrogression to "state ," now although marred by unsubstantiated and unlikely holds with similar logic that the Party must remain accusations of bad faith and antisocialist intentions powerful and active to protect socialism throughout on the part of some of the leaders who have since the transition. This is not abtually new: Tito, been purged, is the description which these more Kardelj, and the rest said the same thing in answer thoughtful and less polemical Party documents and to Djilas in 1954. It was, however, deliberately or speakers offer of patient but vain attempts to find a incidentally forgotten by those, now condemned as constitutional and orderly solution to this state of "anarcho-liberals," who came to see a powerful, affairs during the last years before the purges intervening, and internally undemocratic Party as a began. brake rather than an accelerator in the process of economic and political modernization. If this picture is accepted as a reasonable ap- proximation of reality, then one must also recog- With due allowance for cynics and ideological nize the strength of the argument that there was a illiterates in the League of Communists, ideology is pressing need for a major change of strategy and not unimportant or merely a disguise and rationali- policy, and that, given the critical impasse reached zation of practice in Yugoslavia. The argument by 1971, this could only come about through some presented here is a distilled version, based on pre- kind of coup de main. This, too, seems to be the Congress and Congress documents, of a serious honest as well as politically necessary appraisal of attempt to understand what did happen, what is those who attempted a serious analysis of the recent now happening, and what should happen. It was past for the Tenth Congress. They do not add that and continues to be made by men who are inti- the only available alternatives to Tito as the initia- mately involved in picking up the pieces after the tor of such a coup were the Army, which has never purge, who are not always defending precisely the played such a role in a communist-ruled state but same values and interests, and who happen to be was mooted as a candidate by Yugoslavs as well as Marxists by training and often by conviction. outsiders during 1971, or a Party or ethnic faction too weak to undertake it without outside support, Some (Optimistic ?) Speculations raising the specter of civil war and a dangerous East-West confrontation in the . The picture that emerges from these official per- ceptions is of a system which was producing social Tito did it. It does not necessarily follow, and economic consequences too much at variance however, that the solution which he is now attempt- with official or socially accepted norms and expec- ing to impose is particularly relevant or that it will tations and with its own legitimizing myths to be solve the problems it is supposed to in the way that tolerable for long. It was shaking itself apart as the author intended. Tito's answer, reduced to its well. Many outside observers, including non- Marxists, would agree to the accuracy of much of 3. Of particular interest on this last point is a book by an this picture: the dangers to the social fabric inher- American economist, Deborah Milenkovitch, Plan and Mar- ent in the revival of active interethnic feuds, quasi- ket in Yugoslav Economic Thought {Yale, 1971}, which institutionalized in the growing and otherwise pointed out the "group property" tendency in the Yugoslav laudably beneficial independence of the federal re- system of autonomous enterprises and ever less planning publics after 1966; the negative economic and and control before many Yugoslavs had done so. This thesis, social consequences of a curious mixture of a presented to scholarly conferences and in an article some laissez-faire market, centralized funds, and bur- two years before the book was published, was understand- geoning monopolies; and a "self-management" ably not well received by the then predominantly liberal which, in ceasing to be state and Party manage- Yugoslav establishment, who saw how such arguments could ment, was becoming management by managers, be used against them and who seem particularly to have re- not workers, and a form of "reprivatization" as sented their being put so cogently by an economist from the "group property," moderately efficient but in West, where they expected and otherwise generally re- dangerous contradiction to official, socialist values ceived, from both socialist and "bourgeois" commentators, and expectations endorsed by social groups whose support and applause for their experiment in "market social- political power or supportive role placed them ism." DIR-l-'74 -12-

essential core, is in fact little more than a rather Party's "leading role" as a return to principles of simplistic attempt to return to the purity of first permanent validity and those who see it as a reculer principles, to the old myth of a Marxist-Leninist pour mieux sauter which must be carefully limited Party's paternalistic and enlightened despotism as in scope if it is not to become permanent. Both the surest diviner and confounder of counter- groups are instructed in their respective percep- and the somehow ultimately infal- tions by the interests and roles they feel closest to, lible guardian of socialism, of the interests of the by their reading of what is acceptable to those working class, and of the of social strata, organized interests, and individuals the Yugoslav people. whose at least passive support is perceived as essen- tial to their own and the system's survival, and also There is a transparently obvious inherent flaw in by ideological preferences. this proposition, one involving well-tested clich6s about wise and benevolent philosopher-kings, which the one million members of the League of Communists or even their "leading cadres" are not, Yugoslav Party congresses do not make decisions and about the corruptive power of power, "new in the sense of openly debating and voting on dis- classes," and a necessary connection between re- puted issues or electing officers from competing sponsive and responsible . What is in- slates or among individuals representing different teresting is that once again the flaw is implicitly currents, social forces, or factions within the Party. and at times explicitly recognized by authoritative They do, however, provide a deadline for a more Party documents and by some important speakers invisible and subtle form of debate and decision- at the Congress, who apparently do not include making. A congress must have policies and people Tito himself, the more sycophantic delegates, and to endorse, and these will be influential if not un- true or calculating believers in the magically incor- changeable in the years immediately ahead. In ruptible wisdom of the Party. The recognition is addition, Party rules and traditions, inherited from there, for example, in the caveats about a "workers the necessities of a period of revolutionary and majority," referred to above, and in amendments to often underground struggle and kept alive by the the Party Statutes requiring in significantly firmer paranoid mythology of a continuing, merciless and more specific terms than ever before that struggle with tirelessly encircling and infiltrating higher Party organs must respond to initiatives "class enemies" and "alien ideas," require an from below. appearance and preferably the reality of monolithic unity and its public display at a congress, when This is not to say that that such recognition is the friends and enemies are watching. If there are dis- same thing as a solution, or even that one exists. agreements within the leadership, the approach of Nor do party platforms and declarations of prin- a congress therefore lends urgency to their resolu- ciple produced by Communist Party congresses tion. This may be through the triumph of one have more significance than those of other parties group (or coalition) and their ideas, in which case and politicians of another persuasion. But it does the losers will be silenced or removed to avoid the seem to mean that some of the reconstructed risk of an awkward display of disunity or indecisive- Yugoslav Party leadership, strong enough to insert ness at the congress. Alternatively, if no one view their views into the Party's most authoritative has prevailed in time, the same imperatives of unity declarations and have them endorsed by the Con- and decisiveness will produce a program and slate gress, have accepted Tito's coup in the name of the of officers which experienced observers promptly Party with reservations and for pragmatic reasons. identify as a compromise, which sometimes only These include recognition that it was the least-risk transparently papers over continuing differences, way out of an impasse and associated crisis which and which is therefore far less desirable to all con- were threatening the stability of the regime, their cerned for both political and ideological reasons. own positions, and political or socialist values that The former type of resolution is, roughly speaking, at least some senior Yugoslav Communists really what happened at the Ninth Congress in 1969, seem to believe in. The post-purge establishment is when a liberal policy was clearly endorsed, while apparently still divided between those who see the the latter represents a reasonably accurate picture reassertion of hierarchical discipline and the of the Eighth Congress in 1964. In either case, the -13- DIR-l-'74

nuances of speeches made and the composition of compromise. Again as in 1964, the details of agree- the leading bodies endorsed at a Party congress ment and dispute, the precise line-up of protag- always provide useful clues to the balance of polit- onists, and hence the consequences of the com- ical forces at the Party center after the clarification, promise are temporarily obscure, but the overall reordering, and polarization which have been ac- balance is clearly lopsided. The difference is that celerated by the approach of the deadline that the the balance which emerged from the Eighth Con- congress represents. gress was weighted in favor of Yugoslavia's Com- munist Whigs, while the Tenth leaves the Party The Tenth Congress, on first reading, resembled Tories in by far the stronger position. It is in this the Eighth. Declaratively a "congress of stabiliza- sense that the political chapter which opened with tion" after the traumas, crises, and purges of the preparations for the Eighth Congress has closed past three years, it has really caught a continuing with the pronouncements of the Tenth. disagreement in media res and produced another

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