1978/No. 41 by Dennison I. Rusinow Notes from a Yugoslav Europe [DIR-4-'78] Party Congress A stable Yugoslavia in an unstable world, in Congress's 6 commissions, of whom 412 did general self-confident even in self-criticism at and the remainder submitted their remarks in home but worried about the potential conse- writing for inclusion in the record.) The reality, quences of revived Superpower confrontation for as this observer has experienced it in the four the security and independence of smaller coun- Congresses held in the 1960s and 1970s, was tries and for world peace---this is the message more aptly described at a pre-Congress press that the League of Communists of Yugoslavia conference by Aleksandar Grlikov, the able (LCY) and its amazingly unflagging President Macedonian who is the Party's principal spokes- Josip Broz Tito were projecting from the Party's man on international Communist affairs. Eleventh Congress, which met in Belgrade from Answering a skeptical resident journalist who June 20 to 23, 1978. asked how "various views" within the Party ever really become public knowledge, Grlikov said: "You yourself know how every Yugoslav, when Yugoslav Party Congresses, as pointed out in he makes a speech and from whatever position he A UFS Reports from earlier ones, do not actually makes it, devotes one-third of it to reporting make policy decisions or choose the Party's positive developments, then he puts in a 'how- leaders, although theory and the Party Statutes ever,' and then in two-thirds he makes his criti- say they do. These things are done elsewhere and cism. That Yugoslav 'however' is universal, as beforehand. Party Congresses are important, you'll see at the Congress Everyone will say however, in providing a deadline for the conclu- something about what he thinks is really success- sion of these other more or less private debates, ful, then he'll use two-thirds of this time for that since a Congress must endorse a platform and a 'however.'" With some important qualifica- roster of top officials and these, although not un- tionssome never get that far; Tito, the prin- changeable, will be influential in subsequent ciples of self-management and nonalignment, months or years. Yugoslav foreign policy in general, the Army, and a select number of basic Marxian tenets In addition, although there is little of the head a list of uncriticizable subjects; and one is "open dialogue" claimed by official handouts, a not supposed to attack individuals by name who Congress provides a setting for a series of mono- have not been officially damned (embarrassing logues, actually listened to by others, that are not exception: in 1958 one senior Party functionary always the uninteresting, monotonous repetition used the Congress podium to attack an even of successes and exegesis of "the Party line" that more senior and distinguished colleague for inexperienced observers expect and that seems to allegedly seducing his wife)---this is a fair de- be confirmed by a casual reading of first para- scription. graphs in the hundreds of speeches delivered in plenary sessions and in "working" commissions Party Congresses therefore deserve at least (663 delegates asked to speak in the Eleventh somewhat detailed analysis. This, it should be 2/DI R-4-'78 said hastily, is not the purpose of this Report. the then brand new Sports Center near the Too much time would be needed, and in two Panevo bridge for the Tenth Congress (1974), senses: time to read all the verbiage and sort out and now Sava Center--this was undoubtedly the the wheat from the chaffof which, pace the most elegant, attractive, and practical, including above, there is a great deal!and time for subse- a large and well-equipped press center and quent events to grant some wisdom of hindsight despite a size and complexity that sometimes in order to know what was really important. (A made it difficult to track down the people one recent series of articles in a Yugoslav periodical wanted to talk to. Signs of the times on both by Duan Bilandi, a political scientist and scores? Party official whose writing always merits atten- tion, reanalyzes speeches made at the Eighth The Congress's dominant theme was provided Congress in 1964, picking out passages that were by a recently published book by Edvard Kardelj, usually overlooked at the time by those who re- the regime's perennial chief ideologist who is ported a basically no-change Congress, but that generally considered its number two person and in retrospect clearly anticipated the dramatic Tito's likely successor as Party President unless policy changes that occurred during the following Tito outlives him (Kardelj is known to have had two years.) With this in part cowardly excuse, two operations for cancer and was clearly in poor what follows is at best a preliminary to such health at the Congress). Entitled Directions in analysis" random notes, with emphasis on atmos- the Development of the Socialist Self-Manage- phere and "color," by an eyewitness who was ment Political System and officially declared "an experiencing his fourth such event. integral part of the Platform for the preparation of the Eleventh Congress" by the Party Presi- Setting and Themes dency, Kardelj's study offers a more complete and mature version of his vision of For this the Yugoslav year's Congress 2,291 delegates, socialist than of its several hundred domestic democracy any prolific guests, guest delega- author's earlier works and was clearly intended tions from 120 Communist, Socialist, Social- to be more than a political pamphlet for a Con- Democratic, and other "progressive" parties The basic described in around the and over 240 gress year. argument, world, foreign plus more detail in a previous A UFS Report, is that about 1,200 domestic journalists had a new site the and behavior of the Party and for organization their deliberations and observations. This was the political system as a whole must be more con- the ultra-modern Sava Center, an enormous, sistently and conscientiously adapted to a demo- attractive, and generally efficient conference cratically organized "pluralism of self-manage- complex on the banks of the Sava River in Novi ment interests" that are legitimately socialist and Beograd, built in two frenetic stages, between must be the primary participants in all public February and June of 1977 and 1978. Stage one decision-making. For this to happen, there must was completed just in time to house the prepara- be more intra-Party democracy and a more open tory and then the main sessions of the Belgrade "dialogue with non-Communist Yugoslavs" who "follow-up" Conference on Security and Coop- accept the basic principles of Yugoslav socialism. eration in Europe that met here from June 1977 Grlikov, using what he apologetically called a to February 1978 to review implementation of the "journalistic phrase" in his pre-Congress press Helsinki CSCE agreements of 1975. Stage two, a conference, described Kardelj's and the Con- separate building containing additional audi- gress's thesis as "a general political philosophy of toriums, the largest seating 4,000 persons, was searching for democracy in socialism and similarly completed only days before the Con- socialism in democracy." The Eleventh Congress, gress opened and despite a fire that destroyed Grlikov said, would draw its agenda of unfin- much of the new roof only two weeks earlier. Of ished business from this philosophy: the three Congress locales I have known in my years in Yugoslaviathe early postwar Trade Union Hall in downtown old Belgrade, site of the In this task the lastfouryears have been devoted, Eighth and Ninth Congresses (1964 and 1969), above all, to the economic system. The economic DIR-4-'78/3 system has been adapted to this political philoso- of "reality": changes in Party structure and phy,.. [but] there was not enough time and prob- "leading cadres," or who's where in this year's ably not enough intellectual energy for a simul- round of Yugoslavia's perennial political game of taneous, parallel, and consistent adaptation of musical chairs. This, too, led to no very definitive the other sphere of public life, and that is the conclusions, although more will be said about it political system. So this Eleventh Congress, later. following the recommendations of the Tenth Congress, will hare to elaborate a rision of the Perhaps more significant, therefore, than political system that will eliminate possible con- minor changes of proclaimed policy and rota- tradictions between the economic and political tions of personnel was the relaxed and self-con- systems, which normally and by their nature can fident atmosphere that pervaded the Eleventh lead to political, economic and social tensions in Congress and what it indicated. Like the focus on any society, including our own. "dialogue" within the Party and with the country and on the need to "tolerate disagreements," this In international affairs the dominant theme, atmosphere and associated emphasis on the influenced by recent developments, was a country's political and social stability (if others pox-on-both-your-houses criticism of the Soviet will leave Yugoslavia alone) and on the appro- Union and the United States--with the Soviet priateness of current institutional arrangements Union implicitly accused of greater responsi- (except the role of the Party) were in marked bilityfor a retreat from detente that can lead to contrast to the themes and atmosphere prevailing a new world war, as Tito warned in a solemn at the last Congress, in 1974. Then, recently appeal to both Superpowers to think again. More emerged from a series of crises that had shaken specifically, there was repeated sharp criticism the regime and with many familiar faces missing, of the Soviet Union (under the code word the delegates were nervous and more cautious in "hegemonism" and never by name) for de- their speeches.