1978/No.25 by Dennison I. Rusinow Yugoslav Domestic Develop- Europe [DIR-2-'78] ments On the Eve of the 1978 Party Congress Two generalizations about postwar Yugoslavia, who have proclaimed the re-enthronement of a and perhaps only two, have proved to have con- recentralized and re-Leninized Party as the sistent predictive as well as descriptive validity. Autocrat of all the Self-Managers? On the evi- The first concerns the regime's and the Yugoslavs' dence of the subjects being discussed in the con- apparently inexhaustible willingness to experi- text of preparations for the June 1978 Congress of ment, their impatient readiness to discard and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY), devise replacements for organizational forms, and the way they are being discussed, this, too, procedures, epithets, priorities, and even some seems to have been at best an oversimplification. conceptual frameworks at the first signs of defec- tive parts or poor performance on the road. The Particular attention is now focused on the latest second is that every Yugoslav specialist whose pronouncements of Edvard Kardelj, the regime's analysis has led to the conclusion that this or that perennial chief official ideologist. Kardelj himself policy or trend is irreversible, a "moment of is often called the regime's number two man and is truth," or commits the future of the society or the usually considered, to be Tito's most likely first system has invariably been proved wrong. Those successor as President of the Party, unless he loses who wrote about Yugoslavia ca. 1947 in terms of his battle with cancer before that time comes. His irrevocable and particularly zealous loyalty to the views, officially proclaimed "the basis for the Soviet Union and the Soviet model of socialism may presumably be excused by the state of our fac- This Report is a revised version of a Paper pre- tual and of social science theory at that sented at a conference on "Yugoslavia: Accom- knowledge plishments and Problems," held at the Woodrow time. In the later 1960s, many twists and turns and Wilson Center, Smithsonian Institution, Wash- falsified predictions later, this was a less valid ington, D.C., on October 17, 1977. The conference excuse for those of us, this time including myself, was organized by Professor George W. Hoffrnan who saw the then existing level and quality of in- ofthe University ofTexas with assistancefrom the stitutionalized, legally recognized, and assertive External Research Office ofthe U.S. Department interest group pluralism and popular participa- of State and the publishing house of Harcourt tion as an effective barrier to any reversal of the Brace Jovanovich. It was attended by about 90 trend away from Communist Party autocracy and scholars, journalists, and government officials. centralized authorityexcept perhaps through Other papers presented were by Professor Paul S. Shoup of the University of Virginia (on the outside intervention or a coup that would do too Laura much damage to the social and political fabric to Party), Professor D'Andrea Tyson of the University of California at Berkeley (on the be contemplated by those in a position to carry it economy), and Professor Fred Warner Neal ofthe out. Wrong again. And now, what of those who Claremont Graduate School formerly an A UFS since 1972 have with equal confidence composed Associate stationed in Yugoslavia (on foreign obituaries for confederation, pluralism, or social policy). Professor Neal's paper is also being self-management with a meaningful face, and published as an AUFS Report. 2/DIR-2-'78 activity of the League of Communists in prepara- antidote to "spontaneity" and to the reduction of tions for the Eleventh Congress," are set forth in a the political process to simple bargaining among speech made at a meeting of the Presidency of the socialism's "pluralism of interests" without Central Committee of the LCY on June 13, 1977, regard for the general interest; on the other hand, and in a book from which the speech was not a monopolizer of power and an "external fac- excerpted, published in October and entitled De- tor" dictating decisions only formally taken by velopmental Trends in the Political System of "self-managers." Failing to find this formula, Socialist Self-Management. Kardelj wrote in 19652 and again in 1977, the Party will be doomed to founder between "its Kardelj spoke at length about a "pluralism of Scylla and Charybdis," either maintaining its self-management interests" that must be enabled political monopoly as "a classical political party in "to find expression within the framework of a one-party system," which inevitably leads to democratic self-management decision-making as diverse "deformations" and eventually to directly and freely as possible." The 1974 Consti- Stalinism, or finding itself "on the leriphery of tution and the almost equally long Associated social developments," reduced to a seldom- Labor Act passed by the Federal Assembly in listened-to "ideological-propagandistic force." November 1976 provide improved mechanisms For Kardelj both ofthese dangers are still real and for such expression and participation, he said, but are described in much detail, but in the portions of there is still "a certain discrepancy between pro- his treatise that constituted his June speech the claimed and constitutionally established demo- Party's prevalent failing is again an excessive de- cratic principles and our social and political pendence on "administrative means" and misuse practice." This discrepancy has its "objective of power. "It often happens," he said, "that causes," including "the level of development of social-political organizations [an umbrella term the revolution and society, the level of economic for the Party and its subsidiary organizations like development and equality, the power ratio of the Socialist Alliance] illegitimately intervene in social forces, the sharpness of social conflicts, the decision-making by responsible, self-managing, impact of world contradictions on our internal state, and social organs and organizations." The social life, and the like." It is also the result of consequences, in his view, are harmful for both "subjective factors," among which he lists democracy and responsibility, since "real" and "bureaucratic centralism, technocratism, the formal responsibility are no longer one and scramble for political control of man and similar the same thing." The Party is condemned to the phenomena in the sphere of social relations, or status of a dictatorial minority dangerously iso- sectarianism, opportunism, too much reliance on lated from the influence of the masses and their administrative means [Marxist jargon for coer- variegated interests, and the regime takes on cion], individualistic ambitions and similar the appearance if not the reality of basic insta- phenomena in ideology and politics." While "the bility. system itself cannot eliminate all such phenomena," Kardelj said, improvements in the Kardelj's answer is not new and still lacks system can help, and to this end "the changes specificity, as he seems at one point to acknowl- which have necessarily to be introduced in our edge,a but it has not been heard at this level and in political system largely concern the position, role, these phrases in recent years: and manner of operation of the League of Com- munists itself. '' Our point of departure here must be that every organ and every institution should autonomously it has still not found the The Party, seems, take decisions in its jurisdiction and be fully magic formula of organization, membership, made responsible both politically and materially of that will attitude, and "manner operation" these decisions, they are taken, it to its role" as for whiqh, before enable perform "leading properly, must be subject to consultations and that role has been defined in since the of influence principle by all creative socialist forces, and especially early 1950s: on the one hand effective as a social-political and other social organizations, influential of socialist values, uniquely interpreter as well as andprofessional institutions. proponent of "socialist solutions," mediator, and scientific DI R-2-'78/3 The practitioner and the theoretician:Stane Dolanc, Secretary of the Executive Committee of the LCY since 1971, and Edvard Kardelj-both Slovenes-are the most talked about and generally considered the most influential of Tito 's lieutenants today.., and tomorrow? To achieve such influence, he writes elsewhere in ministrator of society," acting outside and above the treatise, the Party must fully "integrate itself" the self-management system, On the other hand, in today's complex system of workers' and social he warns, doing these things properly means self-management. By itself and through other learning to play by a new and more difficult set of "social-political organizations" it should begin by rules, one in which the Party "has to be prepared "ensuring that key positions in the assemblies, to retreat and make compromises when a conflict state organs, and other institutions of self-man- of interests in the sphere of self-management agement are firmly in the hands of socialist democracy or a lagging behind of the social con- forces." These social-political organizations sciousness of the working masses is involved."4 should also more regularly and consistently ex- ploit .their right, which has been expanded and Kardelj's often obscure, always verbose, and made explicit in the new Constitution, to have frequently pedantic utterances have traditionally their own direct representatives present and heard given rise to two contradictory reactions. The first at various kinds of meetings of these institutions has been to invest them with more impact and and at basic as well as higher levels. Failure to do more positive consequences than subsequent these things or doing them ineffectively is the developments have usually justified, and to credit major reason why the Party has too often been their author with more "liberalism" (in the forced back into reliance on "administrative Western sense) and antidogmatism (in a generic means" and the position of "a monopolistic ad- sense) than careful analysis warrants.