CRISIS in CROATIA Part III: the Road to Karadjordjevo by Dennison I
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SOUTHEAST EUROPE SERIES Vol. XIX No. 6 (Yugoslavia) CRISIS IN CROATIA Part III: The Road to Karadjordjevo by Dennison I. Rusinow September 1972 In November 1971, only a few weeks before the circulation of over 100,000 only six months after fateful meeting at Karadjordjevo, an old friend starting publication, but my friend was not (to my from Zagreb accosted me in a Belgrade hotel. knowledge) a Matica man. He was always, however, well informed. Divisions within the Croatian "You live here," he said, "so tell me: What in leadership were apparently reaching a point of cli- God's name do these stupid Serbs really think is max at which someone, sooner or later, would have going on in Croatia?" to go. On all the evidence then available, it seemed certain that this would mean those to whom the I replied with cautious understatement that there damning label "unitarist" could be made to stick. was a widespread feeling that the Croatian Party, in its pursuit of democracy and mass support on a na- Hrvatski Tjednik and the Zagreb student press tional platform, had encouraged a national eupho- had in recent months begun naming names, in- ria and tolerated nationalist activities and "ex- cluding some members of the Croatian Party's cesses" that many non-Croats, conscious of recent Executive Committee, the President of the Cro- history and the hypersensitivity of the national atian Parliament (Jakov Blaevid), andsome- question in Yugoslavia, found alarming. what more cautiouslyBakarid himself. The definition of a "unitarist" had also undergone "Are they really so badly informed?" my friend some refinement" it connoted even more clearly a asked desperately. "Don't they realize that Croatia traitor to the Croatian national cause and denoted, is still ruled by our Croatian unitarists, not even by inter alia, anyone identified by the Tripalo-Savka- nationally conscious much less nationalist Croats?" Pirker triumvirate or the Matica as deviating from "the line of the League of Communists of Croatia Did he mean, I asked, to call Miko Tripalo a as defined by the Tenth Session." "unitarist"? No, not Tripalo. Kraljica Savka, then? (Mme Dabevid-Kuar had come to be known The split in the Croatian leadership and its ex- popularly as "Queen Savka"for the Croats an ploitation by political forces outside the League of affectionate and for the Serbs a sarcastic nick- Communists had, we learned later, played a crucial name.) No, not really, although one could not quite role in the evolution of the Croatian crisis since the be sure. Vladimir Bakarid? Yes, certainly, and spring of 1971. So, too, had the consequences of a most of the rest, and theynot Tripalo and stubborn determination on the part of both fac- Savkawere still the principal holders of power in tions to hide their differencesthe basic reason the Party. Not understanding this and its implica- why even normally well-informed observers were tions was one source of Belgrade's complete mis- only vaguely aware until late in the game that they interpretation of events in Croatia. existedand the ambivalent public attitude of the ultimate arbiter, President Tito. The Croatian This, I knew, was the view of Hrvatski Tjednik, drama was being played out, with increasing com- the new "cultural" weekly of the aggressively plexity, at three closely interrelated political levels: nationalist Matica Hrvatska that now claimed a within the Croatian Party leadership, between the Copyright (C) 1972, American Universities Field Staff, Inc. [DIR-6-'72] DIR-6-'72 -2- parts of that leadership and other political forces process, and isolated "extreme" nationalists and (both Party and non-Party)in Croatia as a whole, separatists, rendering them harmless.2 and at the all-Yugoslav level as a dialogue between Croatian spokesmen and Tito. Another group in the leadership, including as time went on seven of the nine members of the Ex- Action at the first and last levels took place ecutive Committee, argued that the "escalation" of largely behind closed doors, and it is only since nationalism which had taken place since the Tenth Karadjordjevo that the general public and even Session (and which, ironically, had been foreseen at Party leaders and members not privy to such the Tenth Session) indicated the urgent advisability councils have been given selected but extensive of a thorough review of the Party's tactics in this information about what was really going on. How- field. If statements made by members of this group ever incomplete and one-sided, the volume and since Karadjordjevo are complete and accurate, quality of what has been released is in itself also their initial dissent was based on two observations. highly significant. Seldom if ever in the annals of The first was that the Croatian Party's toleration of Communist movements has there been such an nationalist "excesses," whether or not these were instant replay of intimate details of a decisive really marginal phenomena, was causing alarm in moment in Party life or one in which the losing fac- the rest of the country and among non-Croats (es- tion has been treated with such relative fair play pecially Serbs) in Croatia. It was thus tending to that the retention of some traditional epithets of isolate the Croatian leadership, thereby weakening Marxist-Leninist abuse seems oddly out of place their bargaining position, and to provoke the and demands for criminal prosecution of the losers "greater danger" of Serbian nationalism. The appear singularly ill-founded. second touched the basic but rarely articulated principle on which the League of Communists' It is on this kind of information that the follow- continuing monopoly of ultimate political power in ing tentative and partial political chronology of an increasingly pluralistic Yugoslav polity is Croatia in 1971 is based. Such a chronology is one founded: that dissent and even opposition can be essential prerequisite for passing judgment on the tolerated and can even make a positive contribu- judgments passed at Karadjordjevo and after. 1 tion as long as they are not organized. It was an in- fringement of this principle that these members of Doubts in the Spring: Are They Ours? the Croatian Party leadership were sensing when they noted that in some recent incidents connected Seriously contrasting evaluations of Croatian with the "national euphoria" individuals who were nationalism and its implications for Party strategy "not ours" were presenting themselves and being apparently first became evident in closed meetings accepted by Party as well as populace as legitimate of the Republican leadership in February 1971. spokesmen and intermediaries. If they were "not One group, headed by the Party President (Savka ours," whose were they? 3 The suspicion that they Dabdevid-Kuear), the Secretary of the Executive represented organized political forces outside the Committee (Pero Pirker), and the Party's most control of and in competition with the League of active and visible politician (Miko Tripalo), con- Communists and its network of "pre-emptive" tinued to maintain that nationalist "excesses" were subsidiary institutions was to grow with the months marginal phenomena of little significance and that and an accumulation of evidence that it might be the "national euphoria" was socialist and therefore so. For the Communist mind, even in its open and positive in essence and direction and supportive of protestant Yugoslav variant, the mere existence of the Party's program and goals. The strategy set at such forces raises a priori suspicions of the Tenth Session a year earlier and as interpreted antisocialism and images of conspiracy and by them should be continued, including a cautious counterrevolution. Empathy with such predisposi- alliance with "moderate" nationalists that tions is essential if the nature and seriousness of the simultaneously strengthened the Croatian bar- accusations made at Karadjordjevo and after are to gaining position, facilitated the Party's opening to be understood. the masses, contributed to "democratization" by permitting more non-Communist but essentially The story of the coming months was to be fur- prosocialist elements to participate in the political ther complicated by the fact that the two-faction -3- DIR-6-'72 division suggested in these pages is a misleading part of an otherwise largely abortive effort to re- simplification. The Savka-Tripalo-Pirker group, form higher education after the Yugoslav-wide for convenience referred to in this Report as the "student revolt" of June 1968. The "official" can- "triumvirate" and their followers, was by no means didate of the Party-sponsored student organization as monolithic as the label implies. For example, was unexpectedly defeated by a "spontaneous" mutual personal jealousy and sometimes important candidate, Ivan Zvonimir (i6ak, a non-Communist differences of opinion always divided Savka and and sometime seminarian who told the assembled Tripalo, who had partly distinct followings. On the students in a speech accepting the nomination that other side there was an even broader spectrum of they probably should not vote for him because he political judgment and philosophy, ranging from was non-Party, a Croatian patriot, and a practicing mild dissent on an occasional question of tactics to Catholic. 5 disagreement on fundamental ideological premises. The clearer bipolarization that existed by It could be argued and was that (i6ak's candi- November was the product of a year of slowly dacy and election had been genuinely spontaneous, evolving political struggle and was never quite com- a protest by students against the "irrelevance" of plete. Party-dominated student organizations whose leaders, because they were not genuinely respon- Events at Zagreb University and the activities of sible to their ostensible electors, moved in an unreal the Matica Hrvatska before and immediately after world of political theory and practice divorced from the debate on the Party's attitude toward Croatian the realities of student life and problems.