TITO: Charisma As Political Legitimacy
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THE TITO EFFECT Charisma as political legitimacy TITO: behind an imaginary collective identity – I Charisma as political legitimacy know nothing about Broz while I feel that I know everything. - an excess of memory As for Max Weber, however, it can be said Radonja Leposavić with certainty that he was not aware of Josip Broz. In fact, there is some slight possibility that the two of them may Tito’s results still endure, today in the shape have passed each other by chance in the of the active impact of his revised picture. streets of Munich or Mannheim before the Todor Kuljić Great War – in the period when Broz was wandering around Germany looking for a Josip Broz never heard of Max Weber. Or job, but this is merely a literary possibility. perhaps he did. Perhaps he even knew, In 1918, Weber would become a consultant perhaps he was acquainted with the social to the German delegation at the Versailles theory of this “Marx of the bourgeoisie”. Peace Conference – the same one at Both possibilities – that he knew and that which the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and he didn’t – are equally likely and unlikely. Slovenians, the future Yugoslavia, was And equally insignificant today. But they dealt with as a “state in progress”. He was speak eloquently of the fact that we know then involved in drafting the Constitution virtually nothing about Josip Broz while of the Weimar Republic. He died of the we feel that we know everything – down to consequences of the Spanish Flu on June the smallest detail. Or – not to hide myself 14, 1920, in Munich. He was 56. In May 1920, Josip Broz turned 28. And had a fair amount of union, political, military, war, revolution and – most certainly – life experience. The “black waiter’s suit” – of which, as a teenager, he dreamed – had not yet materialised (don’t let the photograph fool you), and yet it had already become too small. The symbol of a naïve desire from early youth; an unrealised, anecdotal past. It may be assumed that it would have been no different even if Broz had fulfilled this wish of his in time, but we will never know what the history of the international workers’ movement, the history of the communist movement, the history of World War Two or the history of the “second” Comrade Tito in the village of Veliko Trojstvo, outside Samuel Polak’s mill in 1922 or 1923. Comrade Tito is wearing a villager’s hat on his head. (photograph and caption from Vladimir Dedijer’s book Josip Broz Tito – prilozi za biografiju, Belgrade, 1955) (Josip “Tito” Broz - Appendices to a Biography) Yugoslavia might have been had Broz read, legitimacy may be based on: in 1922, Weber’s posthumously published 1. rational grounds: resting on a belief in book Wirtschaft und Gessellschaft (Economy the legality of enacted rules and the right of and Society), at least the third chapter those elevated to authority under such rules on types of domination. Perhaps even if to issue commands (legal authority) – or he had, everything would have been the 2. traditional grounds: resting on an same, and perhaps it would not have. Both established belief in the sanctity of possibilities – that it would have and that immemorial traditions and the legitimacy it wouldn’t have – are equally likely and of those exercising authority under them unlikely. And equally insignificant today. (traditional authority) – or finally, Unless they are not insignificant. 3. charismatic grounds: resting on devotion In 1976, Belgrade publishing house to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or Prosveta published Weber’s book in a exemplary character of an individual person, translation by Olga and Tihomir Kostrešević and of the normative patterns or order under the title Privreda i društvo. Tito was revealed or ordained by him (charismatic 84 at the time. The book was published authority). in two volumes, in a print run of 5,000, as (...) In the case of charismatic authority, it is part of the series Karijatide (Caryatids). The the charismatically qualified leader as such third chapter, Types of Domination includes who is obeyed by virtue of personal trust in the following: his revelation, his heroism or his exemplary There are three pure types of legitimate qualities so far as they fall within the scope of domination. The validity of the claims to the individual’s belief in his charisma… It doesn’t matter... today it doesn’t matter grounds. The present exhibition how it would have been – because it was demonstrates this well. So how can this how it was, but I think ... in fact I believe contradiction be resolved. Something here that it would have been different had Josip does not add up. Broz read Weber’s book. If he had read it Because I am neither willing nor able to “in time”, soon after it was first published, relinquish my faith in enlightenment, I in the twenties of the last century. Later, it am left with no choice but to consider this would have been too late, later: when Tito other matter: the seriousness of Josip Broz. was already caught up in the machinery of Why, in fact, do I believe that at issue here history, when the battle had begun, when is a serious man. Because I think… because the war had begun, when domination had I know that the project at whose helm “arrived”… he stood – which, as Tito, he symbolised I believe that it all would have – was a very serious project of economic, been different, because I believe in national, class, native, individual and every enlightenment. In spite of everything. other kind of emancipation. Liberational, And I believe that Josip Broz was a serious modernisational… in one word, man. And I cannot imagine a serious man enlightenmental. And so here, once again, who would “agree to” any type of legitimate it’s a matter of faith. I know that something authority other than that based on rational is good and I believe that only serious grounds. And here I am caught in a trap, people stand behind it. There is also a because it is evident that Tito based his Dadaist twist possible here – and this, by authority to a large extent on charismatic the way, is something very dear to me in artistic practice, but this time I’m betting in knowledge and in the seriousness of on dual belief. For Pascalian reasons – but the person who symbolises an important after the death of God. Otherwise I could project. bid you farewell immediately! Because if I Perhaps – having read Max Weber’s book – didn’t believe in this unfortunately unlikely Josip Broz would have headed to America combination – what else would there be for by sometime in 1923 and forged a great me on Planet Earth? acting career based on charisma. Perhaps, So I believe in enlightenment and that but this again is only a literary possibility. Josip Broz was a serious man. And I don’t The real question is: would what we had know how to explain the apparent – here have been possible without the perhaps even the dominant – charismatic charismatic grounds for Tito’s domination? grounds for Tito’s domination. So once But this is a historically impossible again I shall resort to nothing other than question because – as we well know – the enlightenment in which I believe everything is mutually interwoven. But and assume that everything would have theoretically: was it possible in a society been different had Josip Broz read Max such as Yugoslavia after World War Two, Weber’s book in time. Then he would have to implement any emancipatory project known… and he would have endeavoured through domination which wasn’t based not to base his domination on charismatic on charismatic grounds? This is a difficult grounds at all. I believe that he would question and opinions are divided. have made this endeavour because – given In the second edition of the sociological- that I believe in enlightenment – I believe historical study TITO, published in Zrenjanin in 2005, Todor Kuljić introduces the an exception). There are more frequently following definition: The presumption examples of imposing modernisation of modernisation is rationalisation and, through the authoritarian exercise of in politics, as in other activities, this is undivided power which relies on traditional separation from religion and then the political culture (one-party socialist regimes acceptance of technological and economic and authoritarian power in undeveloped novelties, the encouragement of horizontal countries) or the cruel consolidation of and vertical mobility, the strengthening capitalism with the help of classical slavery, of legality, the canvassing of broad as in the U.S in the nineteenth century. popular support and the lessened use of compulsion. So, if modernisation presumes So things get more complicated. Without rationalisation, it would be coherent for it the charismatic grounds for domination to be implemented by domination based by Tito or someone else – that is, on the on rational grounds (legal authority). basis of the rational grounds of legitimacy However, in the very next paragraph, Kuljić or by means of legal authority – the writes: Because modernisation is not always project of rapid modernisation could based on a less or more voluntary acceptance have been carried out in Yugoslavia after of new experiences (because of the resistance World War Two only on the very unlikely of tradition or the lack of institutional presumption that it would be exactly here channels, it is thus not always linked with that the historic exception of nineteenth- the strengthening of divided domination century European liberalism would be (nineteenth-century European liberalism is repeated.