1978/No. 41Europe

by Dennison I. Rusinow[DIR-4-’78]

Notes from a YugoslavParty Congress

A stable Yugoslavia in an unstable world, ingeneral self-confident even in self-criticism athome but worried about the potential conse-quences of revived Superpower confrontation forthe security and independence of smaller coun-tries and for world peace---this is the messagethat the League of Communists of Yugoslavia(LCY) and its amazingly unflagging PresidentJosip Broz Tito were projecting from the Party’sEleventh Congress, which met in Belgrade fromJune 20 to 23, 1978.

Yugoslav Party Congresses, as pointed out inAUFS Reports from earlier ones, do not actuallymake policy decisions or choose the Party’sleaders, although theory and the Party Statutessay they do. These things are done elsewhere andbeforehand. Party Congresses are important,however, in providing a deadline for the conclu-sion of these other more or less private debates,since a Congress must endorse a platform and aroster of top officials and these, although not un-changeable, will be influential in subsequentmonths or years.

In addition, although there is little of the"open dialogue" claimed by official handouts, aCongress provides a setting for a series of mono-logues, actually listened to by others, that are notalways the uninteresting, monotonous repetitionof successes and exegesis of "the Party line" thatinexperienced observers expect and that seems tobe confirmed by a casual reading of first para-graphs in the hundreds of speeches delivered inplenary sessions and in "working" commissions(663 delegates asked to speak in the Eleventh

Congress’s 6 commissions, of whom 412 didand the remainder submitted their remarks inwriting for inclusion in the record.) The reality,as this observer has experienced it in the fourCongresses held in the 1960s and 1970s, wasmore aptly described at a pre-Congress pressconference by Aleksandar Grlikov, the ableMacedonian who is the Party’s principal spokes-man on international Communist affairs.Answering a skeptical resident journalist whoasked how "various views" within the Party everreally become public knowledge, Grlikov said:"You yourself know how every Yugoslav, whenhe makes a speech and from whatever position hemakes it, devotes one-third of it to reportingpositive developments, then he puts in a ’how-ever,’ and then in two-thirds he makes his criti-cism. That Yugoslav ’however’ is universal, asyou’ll see at the Congress Everyone will saysomething about what he thinks is really success-ful, then he’ll use two-thirds of this time for that’however.’" With some important qualifica-tionssome never get that far; Tito, the prin-ciples of self-management and nonalignment,Yugoslav foreign policy in general, the Army,and a select number of basic Marxian tenetshead a list of uncriticizable subjects; and one isnot supposed to attack individuals by name whohave not been officially damned (embarrassingexception: in 1958 one senior Party functionaryused the Congress podium to attack an evenmore senior and distinguished colleague forallegedly seducing his wife)---this is a fair de-scription.

Party Congresses therefore deserve at leastsomewhat detailed analysis. This, it should be

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said hastily, is not the purpose of this Report.Too much time would be needed, and in twosenses: time to read all the verbiage and sort outthe wheat from the chaffof which, pace theabove, there is a great deal!and time for subse-quent events to grant some wisdom of hindsightin order to know what was really important. (Arecent series of articles in a Yugoslav periodicalby Duan Bilandi, a political scientist andParty official whose writing always merits atten-tion, reanalyzes speeches made at the EighthCongress in 1964, picking out passages that wereusually overlooked at the time by those who re-ported a basically no-change Congress, but thatin retrospect clearly anticipated the dramaticpolicy changes that occurred during the followingtwo years.) With this in part cowardly excuse,what follows is at best a preliminary to suchanalysis" random notes, with emphasis on atmos-phere and "color," by an eyewitness who wasexperiencing his fourth such event.

Setting and ThemesFor this year’s Congress the 2,291 delegates,

several hundred domestic guests, guest delega-tions from 120 Communist, Socialist, Social-Democratic, and other "progressive" partiesaround the world, and over 240 foreign plusabout 1,200 domestic journalists had a new sitefor their deliberations and observations. This wasthe ultra-modern Sava Center, an enormous,attractive, and generally efficient conferencecomplex on the banks of the Sava River in NoviBeograd, built in two frenetic stages, betweenFebruary and June of 1977 and 1978. Stage onewas completed just in time to house the prepara-tory and then the main sessions of the Belgrade"follow-up" Conference on Security and Coop-eration in Europe that met here from June 1977to February 1978 to review implementation of theHelsinki CSCE agreements of 1975. Stage two, aseparate building containing additional audi-toriums, the largest seating 4,000 persons, wassimilarly completed only days before the Con-gress opened and despite a fire that destroyedmuch of the new roof only two weeks earlier. Ofthe three Congress locales I have known in myyears in Yugoslaviathe early postwar TradeUnion Hall in downtown old Belgrade, site of theEighth and Ninth Congresses (1964 and 1969),

the then brand new Sports Center near thePanevo bridge for the Tenth Congress (1974),and now Sava Center--this was undoubtedly themost elegant, attractive, and practical, includinga large and well-equipped press center anddespite a size and complexity that sometimesmade it difficult to track down the people onewanted to talk to. Signs of the times on bothscores?

The Congress’s dominant theme was providedby a recently published book by Edvard Kardelj,the regime’s perennial chief ideologist who isgenerally considered its number two person andTito’s likely successor as Party President unlessTito outlives him (Kardelj is known to have hadtwo operations for cancer and was clearly in poorhealth at the Congress). Entitled Directions inthe Development of the Socialist Self-Manage-ment Political System and officially declared "anintegral part of the Platform for the preparationof the Eleventh Congress" by the Party Presi-dency, Kardelj’s study offers a more completeand mature version of his vision of Yugoslavsocialist democracy than any of its prolificauthor’s earlier works and was clearly intendedto be more than a political pamphlet for a Con-gress year. The basic argument, described inmore detail in a previous AUFS Report, is thatthe organization and behavior of the Party andthe political system as a whole must be more con-sistently and conscientiously adapted to a demo-cratically organized "pluralism of self-manage-ment interests" that are legitimately socialist andmust be the primary participants in all publicdecision-making. For this to happen, there mustbe more intra-Party democracy and a more open"dialogue with non-Communist Yugoslavs" whoaccept the basic principles of Yugoslav socialism.Grlikov, using what he apologetically called a"journalistic phrase" in his pre-Congress pressconference, described Kardelj’s and the Con-gress’s thesis as "a general political philosophy ofsearching for democracy in socialism andsocialism in democracy." The Eleventh Congress,Grlikov said, would draw its agenda of unfin-ished business from this philosophy:

In this task the lastfouryears have been devoted,above all, to the economic system. The economic

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system has been adapted to this political philoso-phy,.. [but] there was not enough time and prob-ably not enough intellectual energy for a simul-taneous, parallel, and consistent adaptation ofthe other sphere of public life, and that is thepolitical system. So this Eleventh Congress,following the recommendations of the TenthCongress, will hare to elaborate a rision of thepolitical system that will eliminate possible con-tradictions between the economic and politicalsystems, which normally and by their nature canlead to political, economic and social tensions inany society, including our own.

In international affairs the dominant theme,influenced by recent developments, was apox-on-both-your-houses criticism of the SovietUnion and the United States--with the SovietUnion implicitly accused of greater responsi-bilityfor a retreat from detente that can lead toa new world war, as Tito warned in a solemnappeal to both Superpowers to think again. Morespecifically, there was repeated sharp criticismof the Soviet Union (under the code word"hegemonism" and never by name) for de-stabilizing and anti-"nonalignment" adven-turism and sphere-of-influence politics in theThird World and particularly in Africaan an-ticipation of the Yugoslav-Cuban duel for thesoul of the nonaligned movement that took placeat the nonaligned foreign ministers conference inthe same Sava Center the following month,a

As in party congresses everywhere and espe-cially in one-party states, there was an element ofunreality, or at least of one-dimensional,abstract, and therefore highly conditional reality,in the way the Congress’s domestic theme washandled. It is worth recalling, in particular, thatevery postwar Yugoslav Party Congress excepttwo---the Fifth in 1948 and the Tenth in 1974--has been more "liberal" in its pronouncements(meaning more talk of intra-Party democracy,freedom for criticism and participation by non-Party Yugoslavs, and "withering away" of stateand Party roles in public affairs) than current orsubsequent developments have warranted. Pre-sumably conscious of this, many observers andeven participants at the Eleventh Confess con-centrated their attention on a second dimension

of "reality": changes in Party structure and"leading cadres," or who’s where in this year’sround of Yugoslavia’s perennial political game ofmusical chairs. This, too, led to no very definitiveconclusions, although more will be said about itlater.

Perhaps more significant, therefore, thanminor changes of proclaimed policy and rota-tions of personnel was the relaxed and self-con-fident atmosphere that pervaded the EleventhCongress and what it indicated. Like the focus on"dialogue" within the Party and with the countryand on the need to "tolerate disagreements," thisatmosphere and associated emphasis on thecountry’s political and social stability (if otherswill leave Yugoslavia alone) and on the appro-priateness of current institutional arrangements(except the role of the Party) were in markedcontrast to the themes and atmosphere prevailingat the last Congress, in 1974. Then, recentlyemerged from a series of crises that had shakenthe regime and with many familiar faces missing,the delegates were nervous and more cautious intheir speeches. The basic theme then was that arecentralized and redisciplined Party mustreassert its direct control over all aspects ofYugoslav life, and Soviet journalists were thehappiest and in their evaluations the most posi-tive of all foreign observers. This time, despiteconstant repetition that the Party’s "leadingrole" is and will remain essential, there was moretalk of too much than of too little direct Partycontrol. This time it was the turn of residentSoviet correspondents to ask provocative ques-tions and shake their heads in sadness or dis-belief at the answers.

In this atmosphere there was also morepointed criticism of the economic situation,which is not rosy if better than that of manysouthern European countries, and of the func-tioning (but not the principle) of "self-manage-ment," the regime’s ultimate sacred cow. Theseand the Party’s continuing inability to find aviable formula for running the country, withoutruling it will undoubtedly prove more trouble-some in the future. For the moment, however, aquiet Congress, boasting of stability and preach-ing the message of more "democracy in social-

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ism," seemed an accurate reflection of a quietYugoslavia, at least temporarily stable and readyfor another swing of the pendulum in the direc-tion of more freedom and participation.

Tito...Presiding over it all, still and perhaps omi-

nously the principal symbol and guarantor of thestability and self-confidence that he and theCongress were proclaiming, was Josip Broz ofKumrovec, called Tito--veteran of the OctoberRevolution, maker of his own, father of his re-created country and its regime, triumphantheretic and doyen of international Communism,last survivor of those who led their peoples in theSecond World War, last of the founders of non-alignment, elder statesman of the world. Inhonor of the past and in apprehension of thefuture, all eyes turned to him whenever andwherever he was present.

Despite his 86 years, occasional use of a cane,and the recent estrangement from his wife thatleaves him more alone in the isolation of powerand high office than ever before, Tito lookedhealthier and more likely to be around for thenext Congress, presumably in 1982, than many ofhis senior associates who are in fact 20 years hisjuniors. His appearance and his emotional state-ment at the very end, when he said that the ova-tion he had received was "such a recognition thatone would be happy to work another 50 years,"were reminders of a popular Belgrade joke: Titomay indeed be mortal, but there is so far no evi-dence to support such a hypothesis.

At the plenary session on the first day, freshfrom a long stay at his favorite retreat on theBrioni Islands, and again as at the last Congressthe only delegate to defy the No Smoking signs inthe auditorium, he read the traditional hour-longset of excerpts from his 86-page Presidential Re-port in a strong voice and with a chair placedbefore the massed microphones as his only con-cession to advancing age. After the session he re-ceived and talked at length with the heads of themost important foreign guest delegations,beginning with Fjodor D. Kulakov, a member ofthe Politburo of the Soviet Party who was con-sidered a possible successor to Leonid Brezhnevuntil his sudden death the following month, and

Enrico Berlinguer, head of the Italian Commu-nist Party and leading "Eurocommunist," whohad received conspicuously more applause thanany other visiting delegation chief when Kardeljread the list at the plenary session. On the thirdday Tito was back in public, briefly listening tothe debates going on in three of the six commis-sions into which the Congress had divided for its’working sessions. The same evening he presidedover a gala reception for foreign guest delega-tions and journalists, and stayed so long that asubsequent reception for the same foreignjournalists, with Executive Committee SecretaryStane Dolanc as host, started late and was a cur-tailed anticlimax. The following morning he wasagain present at the final plenary sessions, wherehe received repeated standing ovations and madehis traditional closing remarks. In these heseveral times departed from his prepared text tomake ad lib additionstypically syntax-mur-dering Titoesque admonitions and parentheticalobservations punctuated by his characteristic"ovaj, kako da kazem..." and "i tako dalje"("that what-do-you-call-it..." and "etc."). It wasas though he were deliberately demonstrating towatchful foreigners that he is still mentally "withit" and not, like Mao Tse-tung and Franco intheir last years, a senile automaton capable atbest of reading a speech prepared byotherswhich, incidentally, he has always donebadly.

A word of caution after such a description isobviously in order. It and others like it by otherobservers, both foreign and domestic, areinspired by justifiable astonishment in view of hisyearsand justifiable caution in memory of rashcolleagues who were already describing theEighth Congress, in 1964, as a then septua-genarian Tito’s "last Congress." He is noticeablyand hardly surprisingly older than in 1964 oreven in 1974, his previously most recent "lastCongress." At his age, after all, any day now mayrender the above description "inoperative"...but not, as an observation in June 1978, inaccu-rate.

President Josip Broz Tito signs the party-membershipcards ofsome young delegates, as he attended the sessionof one of the XI Congress Commissions.

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and Tito’s LieutenantsThe gala reception on the third evening, held

in the vast public rooms of the Federal ExecutiveCouncil building, was one of those increasinglyrare occasions when almost the entire Yugoslavleadership is collectively and quasi-informally"on view," gathered around Tito in a ritualizedand calculatedly semiprivate atmosphere that isreminiscent of a royal leve6 in times past. As theritual prescribes, Tito and his entourage (but nowwithout wives, since Tito’s Jovanka no longerappears with him) make their entrance promptlyat the moment the reception is scheduled tobegin and pass through the applauding throng ofguests to seats arranged around a table in a cornerof one of the rooms. Access to them is restricted,very politely, by men whose dress, sturdy build,and watchful eyes identify them as members of

that multinational fraternity whose Americanchapter is confusingly called the Secret Police.Thus protected from unwanted approaches butnot from observation, the leadership sits, chattingand joking and pretending to ignore the rest ofthe company until Tito leads them out again,signaling the end of the reception. Frequently, ifhe is in a convivial mood as he seemed to be thistime, he will stay longer than scheduled or thanmore easily wearied colleagues apparently wouldhave preferred. Sometimes, when "royal" favor isto be demonstrated, outsiders to the leadershipwill also be at the table. (I recall one such occa-sion, several years ago, when the Patriarch of theSerbian Orthodox Church was seated next toTito and his wife and was the object of theirspecial and friendly attention, signaling an im-provement in church-regime relations). The

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experienced ordinary guest, by standing in theright places, can discreetly enjoy a prolongedclose-up examination of these proceedings and ofthe interplay of personalities, in which rank andstanding are defined by postures that revealindividually graduated mixes of intimacy andobsequiousness.

Much "Belgradology" results from such ob-servations. Most of it is as dubious as most"Kremlinology." On this occasion, however, twomore general and "atmospheric" aspects of thescene made an identical impression on bothforeign and middle-rank Yugoslav fellow-guestswith whom I compared notes. The first, alreadydescribed in more general terms, was that Tito’senergy and apparently robust health (enhanced,to be sure, by dyed hair, Brioni tan, and heavenknows what medical assistance) made him seemmore endurable, and sometimes even younger,than the survivors in his inner circle of those whohad called him "the Old Man" (Stari) in theintimacy of the Partisan army’s Supreme Head-quarters some 35 years agowhen he was in his50s and they in their 20s. This was true not onlyof Kardelj, whose drawn face and tremblinghand shocked his Yugoslav and foreign admirersand indicated an at least temporary recurrence ofthe illnesses that had seemed stabilized at thetime of his American visit last year. Others likeVladimir Bakari and Petar Stamboli, still oragain the leading figures of the Croatian andSerbian regimes, also bore the visible marks ofage and apparent poor health. The secondgeneral impression, more striking because of thefirst, was the conspicuous age gap separating thisinner circle, with the sole exception of StaneDolanc (who is only 53, but whose shocking over-weight and chain-smoking may counterbalancehis youth), from the regime’s second rank as itwas represented at the reception and at the Con-gress. Most of the latter are under 45 and manyare in their 30s. The middle generation, once theyoungest Partisans, now age 45-59 and in normalcircumstances the present leadership’s imme-diate successors, was conspicuous by itsabsence---or, more accurately, by its presencealmost entirely in the form of colorless non-entities. Decimated by the crises of the early1970s, in which most of its leading figures wereon the losing sides, this missing generation may

be sorely missed when the time comes for a post-Tito transition that men and women of their ageand experience could smooth.

Musical Chairs 1978Changes in the organization of the Party

summit endorsed by the Eleventh Congress werenot as extensive or significant as those carried outat the last two Congresses,4 but as usual con-stituted an implicit critique of recent perform-ance.

The Central Committee remains as it was, with165 members: 20 from each ofthe 6 republics and15 from each of the 2 autonomous provincesincluding the presidents of the republican centralcommittees and provincial committees as exofficio membersand 15 from the Party organi-zation in the Yugoslav People’s Army. On theother hand, the Presidency of the Central Com-mittee, which is more powerful in fact althoughnot in theory, has been cut from 38 to 23 members:3 from each republic, 2 from each province, andone from the army, again including the presidentsofthe republican and provincial parties ex officio.(Tito is not elected to or formally listed as amember ofeither of these bodies, but as Presidentof the League of Communists of Yugoslavia heconvenes and presides over both and in the wordsof the Party Statute "supervises their work." Forthis reason both bodies are frequently referred to,even in Yugoslav sources, as having one moremember than stated here.)

The Executive Committee of the Presidencyemasculated in 1967, eliminated by the "decen-tralizing" Ninth Congress in 1969, and restored bythe "recentralizing" Tenth Congress in 1974---hasagain been abolished. Stane Dolanc, whose power-ful position formerly carried the cumbersome titleof Secretary of the Executive Committee of thePresidency of the CC of the LCY. It should benoted that he has not been given the title of"General Secretary" and the implied increase inrank and power that would go with it, as errone-ously reported in the New York Times andseveral other newspapers,s Dolanc’s formalstatus is unchanged, except that in place of an"Executive Committee" of largely first-rankpoliticians he is now to be assisted by nine

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"Executive Secretaries" drawn from the broaderCC and delegated by the republican, provincial,and army Party organizationsnew and formallyless authoritative functionaries whose impor-tance and powers are not yet clear. (Those namedto these posts range in age from 41 to 55 andinclude former federal ministers and top-of-second-rank republican or provincial function-aries.)

One declared purpose of these changes, whichare ostensibly designed to make the Party centermore efficient rather than either more or lesspowerful, is to encourage a re-activation of theCentral Committee. In theory the Party’ssupreme policy-making organ between Con-gresses, the outgoing CC had been singularlyinactive, sometimes meeting only once in a year,as its functions shifted to a combination of thelarge Presidency created in 1969 plus the12-member Executive Committee created in1974. The only other feature of this reorganization worth noting is that the principle of repub-lican parity---equal representation regardless ofpopulation or Party membership, on the CentralCommittee and its Presidency and among thenew Executive Secretarieshas been recon-firmed as an enduring legacy of the Party’s "fed-eralization" in the late 1960s. While this meansthat the smallest republican Party (the Montene-grin, with about 60,000 Party members out of apopulation of about 560,000) has the same repre-sentation at the federal Party summit as thelargest (Serbia with more than 700,000 andCroatia with nearly 300,000 Party members),6 itis based on the overriding principle of national(and therefore republican) equality, alsorespected in the composition of state organs, thatis the regime’s answer to Yugoslavia’s eternalcentral problem, the "national question."

There were no startling changes in the roster ofthose named to federal Party organs at the 1978Congress to compare with those confirmed at theTenth Congress in 1974, when leaderships fromfour out of the six republics and from theVojvodina Autonomous Province were almostentirely manned by new people as a result of thepurges of 1971-1973. (The composition of thenew Presidency and Central Committee was inany case not news when announced at the closing

session. Since 1969, when republican, provincial,and army Congresses preceded rather than fol-lowed the federal one, the all-Yugoslav Congresshas merely "confirmed" the members of itsPresidency and other organs, who had alreadybeen elected at these regional meetings.7 Therewere, however, some changes of personnel or ofbalance of some interest beyond the narrow circleof connoisseurs of Yugoslav politics.

One that attracted the attention of old handsamong foreign observers was the unexpectedunderrepresentation of Bosnia’s Muslims in thenew federal Party leadership and even, to a lesserextent, in that of Bosnia-Herzegovina, their ownrepublic. Now officially counted as a separateSouth Slav nationality, equal in status withSerbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, andMontenegrins, these Serbo-Croatian-speakingdescendants of Bosnians who converted to Islamunder Ottoman rule number more than 1.7million, 1.5 million of whom live in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This makes them the largestnational community in their own multinationalrepublic (just ahead of 1.4 million OrthodoxChristian Serbs in a total population of 4 millionalso including 800,000 Catholic Croats) and thethird largest in Yugoslavia as a whole (where 8million Serbs and 4.5 million Croats are in firstand second place). Of these, 105,569 are members3f the League of Communists, in which they con-stitute 6.51 percent of total, Yugoslav-wide mem-bership, again more than any other nationalityexcept the Serbs (46.68 percent) and the Croats(15.04 percent). In addition to such numericalsignificance, they have lately seemed to begaining in political importance both within theirrepublic and at the federal level, where one ofthem, Demal Bijedi6, served as Yugoslavia’sfirst Muslim prime minister from July 1971 untilhis death in an airplane crash in January 1977.This increase in apparent political weight hasgenerally been interpreted as a consequence oftheir "ethnically neutral" position betweenBosnia’s and Yugoslavia’s rival Serbs and Croats(who both claimed them, as Islamicized Serbs orIslamicized Croats, until they were proclaimed aseparate "nation" and began to take theproclamation seriously), enhanced by Bosnia-Herzegovina’s analogous status as the only offi-cially multinational and hence "ethnically

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neutral" republic in the federation. Their andBosnia-Herzegovina’s political strength have alsobeen viewed with mixed feelings elsewhere in thecountry, in part because of ethnic prejudicesMuslims of all kinds are fairly low in Yugo-slavia’s ethnic pecking orderand in part be-cause of the Bosnian Party’s reputation as abastion of "hardline" conservative communism,which is often linked to the Muslims’ importancethere. This last, it should be added, is unjustified.Leading Bosnian officials usually identified as"hardliners" are mostly Croats or Serbs, andseveral leading Bosnian Muslim functionarieshave been among Yugoslavia’s most prominent"liberals."President of the Yugoslav League of Communists JosipBroz Tito [(seen in left center) while attending a sessionofone of the XI Congress Commissions.

Now, however, none of Bosnia-Herzegovina’sthree positions on the Yugoslav Party Presidencywill be held by a Muslim. The republic will in-stead be represented by two SerbsCvijetinMijatovi6, 65 and a veteran of the old Partisangeneration, and Nikola Stojanovi6, 45 and thenew President of the Republican CCand by oneCroat, Branko Mikuli6, 50, the leading Bosnianpolitical figure of recent years and generallyconsidered a leading Yugoslav "hardliner." Evenin the Bosnian Party Presidency there will now be8 Serbs, 7 Muslims, and 4 Croats. No explanationfor this apparent downgrading of the Muslimshas been offered, and it is interesting thatYugoslav Party officials and senior journalistsattending the Congress seemed genuinely sur-prised, claiming they had not noticed that it had

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happened, when the absence of a Muslim on theParty Presidency was pointed out to them.

Another apparent downgrading, this timeindividual, was not overlooked by these sameYugoslavs, who invariably regretted it in privateconversation. Kiro Gligorov, a 61-year-oldMacedonian, has been one of the architects ofYugoslav economic policies for more than 10years, is widely known and respected in bothYugoslav and international commercial andbanking circles, and from 1974 to 1978 was bothPresident of the Assembly of Yugoslavia (thefederal parliament) and a prominent member ofthe Party Presidency. In this writer’s opinion heis one of the ablest political figures in Yugoslaviatoday. Now, however, at almost the same momentthat his term as Assembly President ended withthe election of a new Assembly this spring, he hasalso been excluded from the more importantParty Presidency, where Macedonia will be repre-sented by Lazar Koligevski (64 and an old Partywarhorse who made a comeback over thepolitical corpses of Macedonian "liberals" after1972), Aleksandar Grlikov (55, the YugoslavParty’s chief spokesman in international Partyaffairs, as noted, and incidentally Gligorov’sclose personal friend and political associate), andAngel (emerski (55 and President of the Mace-donian CC).

Gligorov’s at least temporary demotion is re-grettable not only because his talents and prag-matism are otherwise in short supply at the Partyand state summits, but also because it is theresult of a rule of contemporary Yugoslavpolitical life that has almost invariably had sim-ilarly deplorable consequences. One of the effectsof the new degree of genuine decentralization ofgovernmental and to a considerable extent evenParty authority that has taken place since thelater 1960s--creating what is almost a confedera-tionis that senior and even middle-rank federalfunctionaries really are sent to Belgrade (andrecalled from Belgrade) by the political appa-ratuses of the republics and provinces. Thismeans, among other things, that no one who doesnot have a political base or powerful patrons inhis own republic enjoys security of tenure at thefederal center, no matter how well he functions orhow highly he is regarded there. The only excep-tions are those for whom Tito himself, the most

powerful patron of all, is willing to intervene:then all other rules, including Constitutional orstatutory limitations on tenure (which shouldhave but did not affect Secretary of DefenseGeneral Nikola Ljubii6 this year) are inabeyance. Gligorov’s "sin" is that almost hisentire career has been as a federal official. He hasno base or leverage in Skopje, the Macedoniancapital. Nor does he enjoy Tito’s particular favoror Grlikov’s special untouchability because ofhis brilliant performance on the internationalCommunist scene before, during, and since theEast Berlin conference of European CommunistParties in 1975. So, for the moment at least,Gligorov is reduced to the second rank, not evena member of his republican Party Presidencyalthough still on the 16S-member YugoslavCentral Committee.

At least many delegates to the Party Congressapparently disapproved and would like to seeGligorov back in an important role. There is oneaspect of a Yugoslav Party Congress that is gen-uinely spontaneous and that permits ordinarydelegates to do a kind of "voting" in the securityof collective anonymity: no one can control theway they apportion or withhold the applause theygive to speakers in debates, guest delegationswhen they are introduced, or members of theirnew Party leaderships when the lists are read. Inone such demonstration of sentiment, whenGligorov went to the podium to address theCongress commission concerned with economicproblems, he was the only speaker in that sessionto receive a round of applause, distinctly warm,before as well as after he spoke.

Several other individual "demotions" thatattracted the attention of some foreign observerswere not in fact that, although the changes infunction that led to this conclusion were in mostcases also consequences of the rule of politicallife that sidetracked Gligorov and others beforehim. The lesson of the rule is that an ambitiouspolitician should limit his time at the federalcenter, periodically abandoning even the highestoffices there to return to his own republic andcultivate his political base. Those who have nowdone this should usually be described as smartrather than demoted. A conspicuous example--supposing that his move is voluntary, as it seems

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to have beenis Jure Bili, the leading figure ofthe post-1971 leadership in Croatia and amember of the outgoing Yugoslav Central Com-mittee Presidency and Executive Committee;now he is not even in the new Yugoslav CentralCommittee but is quite definitely a member of hisRepublic’s Party Presidencyunlike Gligorov inboth cases and as an indicator of which postmatters.

One other aspect of the personnel changes inParty and state organs following the Congressand this spring’s general elections deserves men-tion. The Theses for the Congress and Kardelj’sstudy, like Yugoslav theory since as early as 1951,emphasized the importance of a separationbetween Party and governmentspecificallymeaning that no one (except, of course, Tito)should hold both high Party and high state func-tionsif the "deformations" of "Stalinism" areto be avoided and a genuine "socialist democ-racy" based on a "pluralism of self-managementinterests" is to be achieved. As Kardelj puts it,"the personal union of Party and state executiveapparatuses" in Yugoslavia’s past and in otherCommunist-ruled states has been "the real causeof the bureaucratization of society and of theCommunist Party itself. ’’a To this end, forexample, it was explicitly decreed in the early1970s that no one (except Tito) should simul-taneously be a member of the collective StatePresidency (created in 1971 in premature prepa-ration for Tito’s departure) and the Party Presi-dency or its Executive Bureau (the latter elimi-nated in 1974). Later, to enhance the prestige andpower of the State Presidency, it was reduced insize from 23 to 9 members, who were Tito andeach republic’s or province’s most senior andusually leading political personality: Kardelj forSlovenia, Bakari for Croatia, Stamboli6 forSerbia, Mijatovi6 for Bosnia-Herzegovina,Koligevski for Macedonia, Vidoje .arkovi forMontenegro, Stefan Doronjski for the Vojvodina,and Fadil Hoxha for Kosovo.

Now, in unacknowledged defiance of theserules, the trend is in the direction of either re-newed union of Party and state functions or adowngrading of the state ones. All 9 members ofthe outgoing State Presidency are members of thenew, 23-member-plus-Tito Party Presidency, as

are the federal Prime Minister (Veselin Djurano-vi6) and the federal Secretary of Defense (GeneralLjubii). At the same time, names mentioned inthe press before the Party Congress as candidatesfor membership in the next incarnation of theState Presidency (to be named by the new FederalAssembly elected this spring) are generally thoseof second rank and frequently almost unknownpeople. Since then, some people have apparentlybeen having second thoughts about the implica-tions of a State Presidency comprised, except forTito, of nonentities. Its election has not yet takenplace, and several republics are reported to bereconsidering their nominations. This, however,could lead to further violations of the ruleconcerning the separation of Party and statefunctions, since virtually all those who could givethe new State Presidency the prestige of the oldone are now already members of the Party Presi-dency.

Either outcome---union of functions or a stateleadership conspicuously less distinguished thanthe Party’swill also run counter to the moregeneral principle, endorsed by the Congress, of aParty operating "within self-management"rather than a separate institution "outside andabove self-management," a Party that hasadapted itself to the search for "democracy insocialism and socialism in democracy."

Since General Ljubii6’s name has been men-tioned twice in this section, it is also appropriateto note that the army’s role inside the Party andLjubiiCs role in both and in the government, allof them unchanged, are still important and worthwatching. With 77,791 members, probablyincluding all career officers, the Party organiza-tion in the armed forces accounts for 4.8 percentof total Party membership. Since 1969, when itwas first separately represented at the federalParty summit alongside the eight republics andprovinces, it has been in effect a ninth and almostcoequal member of the federally organizedLCYand by its membership and definition theonly explicitly all-Yugoslav one. Ljubicid, asGeneral of the Army the second-ranking officerin Yugoslavia after Marshal Tito, as Secretary forDefense in the federal Executive Council (thecabinet) since 1967, and as the army’s repre-sentative on the Party Presidency since that

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organ was created in 1969, is also personally inan interesting position. He is in addition a Serb,which is also true of a preponderance of thegenerals and officer corps as a whole, but not ofthe High Command, where Croats unexpectedlyoutnumber Serbs.9 Interpretations vary, withsome observers seeing this situation as a goodpoint of departure for army (and Serb?)supremacy in state and Party after Tito’s de-parture and others seeing it as part of a strategyof integration and "cooptation" that will success-fully maintain civilian Party control over thearmed forces. History, beginning with theeffective fusion of the two institutions under theParty Politburo as the military’s Supreme Com-mand in Tito’s revolution and lack of evidence ofany subsequent army pretensions to an inde-pendent role in policy-making or politics, favorsthe latter of these. The question is neverthelessopen as well as important.

Making a Party Safe for Democracy?Membership in the LCY on the eve of the

Eleventh Congress stood at 1,623,612, an in-crease of some 547,000 or 50 percent since justbefore the preceding Congress in 1974, morethan ever before in the Party’s history, and nearly7.5 percent of the total population. Of the681,679 new members admitted in the 1974-1977period, youth (defined as up to 27 years of age)accounted for 72 percent, women for 29 percent,and t.hose classified as workers for 31.2 percent.These three categories (and, rather hopelessly,private peasants) had been given priority in re-cruitment criteria set by the Tenth Congress anddesigned to improve "the social structure" of anembarrassingly old, male, and nonworking-classorganization. The results: those classified asworkers, up 160,000, are now 29.2 percent oftotal membership and the largest occupationalcategory; 23 percent of Party members arewomen, and 35 percent are less than 27 years old.All of this was praised at the Congress assplendid progress, but not yet enough. With"administrative personnel" the second mostnumerous occupational category (11.4 percent)and "leaders and officials" tied with "engineersand technical personnel" and pensioners forthird place (6.7 percent each), the LCY is not onlyfar from the "workers’ majority" idealisticallyproclaimed as a goal in 1974 but still has more

"apparatchiks" and "technocrats" (when otherrelevant but smaller categories are added in) than"proletarians." Private farmers, the otherpriority target and in 1945 the largest group inthe Party, still account for only 4.8 percent ofmembership!

In addition to at least lip service to continuedefforts to improve this "social structure," therevised Party Statute that the Congress approvedtook two other concrete steps designed to democ-ratize the organization and adapt it to life in apluralism of self-management interests. Both ofthem were more discussed and opposed in pre-Congress discussion than their effects willprobably warrant.

The first, fulfilling a demand voiced in thelater 1960s but silenced in the earlier 1970s,liberalized the Yugoslav interpretation of theMarxist concept of "democratic centralism" (intheory the fullest democracy in adopting policiesand the most rigidly enforced unity in carryingthem out; in practice, by Communist Partiesalmost everywhere, only the latter and with manyexamples of severely punishable insubordinationeven here). Now it is official in the LCY’sStatute: a Party member who finds himself in theminority on a specific issue when it comes to thevote is entitled to keep his opinion, and by im-plication to argue for a subsequent reversal of thedecision he opposed, although he is still obligatedto do his part, loyally and energetically, in imple-menting it as long as it stands.

The second, in the form of a largely dejd vuseries of minor organizational and proceduralchanges and exhortations intended to strengthenthe autonomy of the Party’s local and lowest-ranking "basic organizations" and their relation-ships with "self-managing" economic and socialinstitutions, was more important for what wasrejected than for what was accepted. "You allknow," Kardelj himself told the Congress com-mission debating these issues, "that during thediscussion concerning amendments and addi-tions to the Statute of the LCY there was a wholeseries of proposals, and from all over Yugoslavia,that basic organizations of the League should belinked vertically, from League organizations inwork organizations [presumably meaning’BOALs,’ the basic work units that comprise

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Yugoslav enterprises, etc.] through complexorganizations [enterprises, conglomerates, etc.]and so on." These proposals had been rejected astotally contrary to current objectives, which seeka Janus-like basic Party organization, inwardlooking and fully integrated (and influential) inthe "self-managed" institutions whose Commu-nists comprise it and simultaneously outwardlooking toward the rest of the League and itsmission, which means a detached attitude tolocal and sectional interests in order to speak for"higher" social and socialist ones. Or, as Kardeljput it in speaking of the rejected proposals,

if I wanted to be malicious, I would say thatfollowing such logic would lead to an organiza-tional structure built up to the very largest pro-ducing entities and to the banks, so that in theend the Party [pyramid] would "end" in thebanks. Thus theLCYwould be transformedfroman ideological and political organization into akind offederation ofbusiness organizations. Thisor a similar organizational structure would meanlosing not only the links between the basicorganizations and the communal and republicanorganizations of the League of Communists andwith the central organs of the LCY in generalbut also with what is happening in society as awhole. The LCY would not be the ideologicalengine ofthe revolution but rather an adjunct oftechnocracy.

Earlier in the same speech, in a passage quotedby the leading Yugoslav daily, Politika, as itsfront page lead for its report on that day at theCongress, Kardelj had again restated his and theLCY’s official view of how and how not to be an"engine" at this stage of the revolution (emphasisin the original)"

The League of Communists will not be theleading force by monopolistically ruling oversociety through its own or the state’s bureauc-racy. It can be that only if it is capable of seeingfurthest, if it is capable of indicating paths ofdevelopment that are objectively, historicallyimminent, that is, ifit is the mostprogressive andmost dynamic creativeforce in the society.

At his pre-Congress press conference, Grli-kovhad addressed the same questions in more ex-

tended and commonplace language:

What we are really looking for is the answer [tothe question oj] how, with existing various inter-ests and in the context of a one-party system, toprevent any possibility of stifling pluralism ofinterests by a ruling party on the one hand, andon the other hand to make it impossible for it toturn itself into a marginal appendage to socialand politicalprocesses in the country.

As you see, this problem is very importantfor us,although as such it is not unknown to theworld In seeking an answer, the convictionwith which we are going into the Congressmgeneralizing and simplifying and to be clear andconvincingforyou--is that we shah not renouncethe leading role of the League of Communists.Every political party in the world, in power orseeking power, wishes to be the leading force inorder to realize its mission ofchanging things.

We do not want theLCY to stifle the pluralism ofsocialist self-management interests by its methodof operating What the Eleventh Congresshopes to do in this area is to redescribe [osmisli]democratic centralism, to give it a democraticcontent through readiness ofthe League ofCom-munists on two fronts---[first] that it tolerates ademocratic dialogue within itself that in theprocess ofpolicy-making it tolerates majority andminority. And second, readiness ofthe League ofCommunists to retreat in a dialogue with non-Communists from what it has offered as a pro-posal or a concrete solution whenever a bettersolution isfound in the course ofsuch a dialogue.

The intention and the values on which it isbased are indeed clear. Although they are notnew, their restatement at this time is significant,since the "democratic" thread in the dialectic ofYugoslav "socialist democracy" had been lessvisible than more orthodox views of the leadingrole of the Party since before and at the TenthCongress in 1974. On the other hand, phraseslike Grlikov’s "we are looking for the answer"(how reminiscent of the phrase that the firstMember of the Praesidium of the CC of Yugoslav Leagueof Communists, Edvard Kardeljpresides over one of theplenary sessions of the XI Congress, President Josip BrozTito attending {/eft), at right, Stane Dolanc, secretary ofthe Praesidium.

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AUFS observer of the Yugoslav scene, FredWarner Neal, heard so often when these sameintentions were first proclaimed ca. 1953: "Weare searching for our way!") are revealing as wellas endearingly self-critical. Like Kardelj’s vagueif sublime definition of how to be a "leadingforce" without "ruling over society," most of therest ofwhat was said at the Congress on this sub-ject was singularly unhelpful to real life andmostly quite ordinary Communists who might bewilling to try if they knew how, but whose careersand other personal and collective goals can moresafely be furthered by more traditional means.

With great sympathy for the difficulty of thequestion and the intractability of society andhuman nature, one must say that it was all veryfamiliar.

Debate in Commissions, and an Atypical"However"

Perhaps to spare Tito or because such anextension of ritual finally seemed unnecessary,there was not even the traditional symbolic mini-mum of "discussion" at the plenary sessions withwhich the Eleventh Congress opened on Tuesdayand closed on Friday morning. The first of thesebegan with a panegyric by Kardelj in honor of thehundredth anniversary of the birth of FilipFilipovi6, a founder in 1919 and first head of theYugoslav Communist Party who was killed in theSoviet Union in 1938, a victim of Stalin’spurgesas Kardelj noted. The further agenda ofthe two plenaries was then limited to Tito’sopening report and closing speech, formal state-ments and greetings, and the business of theCongress required by the Statute: various votes

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and "confirmations" of elections and the briefpresentation and acceptance of reports.

All "debate" was therefore carried on in six"working commissions" that met Tuesday after-noon and both mornings and afternoons onWednesday and Thursday: one to consider eco-nomic matters, the second concerned with thepolitical system in general, the third for Partymatters (including organization, membership,and revision of the Statute), the fourth for cultureand education, the fifth for foreign affairs andforeign policy, and the sixth for national defense.All were open to the domestic and foreign pressand guests of the C0ngressunlike equivalentsessions of the Congresses of some CommunistParties or the first postwar Yugoslav ones. Themimeographed stenographic reports of the 663speeches made in these commissionstranscibedfrom tapes and usually available within an hourof each speech’s delivery, no mean accomplish-ment with 6 simultaneous meetings in whichspeakers often depart from their texts or fail todeliver a copy on their way to the podium as re-questedmake a pile over 3 feet high.

Some start their "howevers" earlier, somelater, and some not at all. Speeches by delegateswho are all-Yugoslav or regional senior func-tionaries tend to be global or topical--e.g., infla-tion or investment problems, the functioning ormalfunctioning of the new parliamentary"system of delegations and delegates," schoolreform in general, etc. Speeches by delegatesfrom Party organizations in enterprises, com-munes, schools, hospitals, youth or women’sorganizations and the like tend to focus on localor special interest issues and generally fall intotwo categories" self-advertising by the speaker orthose who sent him in the form of a fulsomereport, with minimal or no "howevers"; or, aftereither a perfunctory or lengthy introduction ofthat kind, a series of complaints, criticism,and/or appeals for change that may concernbehavior, policy (but not principle!), the func-tioning of some aspects of the system, or even theway some parts (but not the whole!) of it aremade. The latter may be interesting for somepiquant aspect--for example, a delegate fromthe state security service (the political police,commonly called UDB ), where there has latelybeen a heavy turnover of personnel, concerned

about re-employment opportunities for youthful"retirees"or for valuable insights into the func-tioning and malfunctioning of the system at thelocal level.

Once the real garbage in the fulsome reportcategory has been put aside, this observer’s prin-cipal complaint concerns style and delivery morethan uniformity of opinion or lack of content. Asin one-party Communist states farther east anddespite Yugoslavia’s more open politics andmany politicians’ interest in inspiring mass sup-port and enthusiasm, it is still generally the rulethat even public political speeches before massaudiences should be dull, full of popularly in-comprehensible jargon ("Western" social scienceas well as Marxist), and read in a monotone,often stumblingly as though the speaker does notunderstand it either, and with minimum ges-tures. Is it petty and irrelevantor merely animpermissible subjective reaction to an alienpolitical culture--to note this and to wish thatunnecessarily gray functionaries, especially whenthey have something interesting to say, could alsobe lively and interesting in the way they say it? Oris dullness of phrasing and delivery an importantindicator, a rational style for politicians in a sys-tem in which position in the hierarchy is moreimportant than persuasiveness as a source ofpower and influence, and not giving offense tosuperiors through untoward statements or flam-boyance is more important than the response ofmere peers and electors in the maintenance ofthat position? And what does this tell us aboutthe Party’s formal (and in some of its leadersundoubtedly sincere) aspiration to operate"within self-management" and through "demo-cratic persuasion" rather than as an institutionof power "outside and above self-management"?

On the other hand, it must be admitted thatthe Yugoslav style has one advantage. It is easierfor a political speaker to be substantive and asintelligent as he can be when he does not have toentertain and popularize to the point of over-simplification and distortion. Even as it is easierfor him to say hard and unpopular things, or,with due caution, to criticize his own Party’spolicies or performance if there is no organizedopposition with an institutional interest in usingwhat he has said against him and his Party.

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There are some exceptions to this rule of dull-ness. Tito, when he departs from his text, can belively in style and delivery, a slogan-coiningpopularizer and oversimplifier, and a greatcrowd-pleaserlike Krushchev, of blessedmemory in this respect, in another country ofeven duller and more dishonest politicalspeeches. Another is the irrepressible SvetozarVukmanovi6-Tempo, a former senior Partywarhorse and sometime Politburo member, oncethe incompetent tsar of the economy and thenenergetic head of the trade union federation, abear ofvery little brain but considerable integritysidelined from any position of authority since thelate 1960s.

At the Eleventh Congress as at the TenthVukmanovi predictably spoke (in the commis-sion for economic questions) and predictably saidwhat he hoped were provocative things in whatwas undeniably a lively stylecolloquially, withgestures rather than jargon, and without a text oreven notes, another great rarity. He woke theaudience up and enlivened a dull session, even inanticipation, when the chair recognized him andhe came to the podium, since everyone knewwhat to expect. What he said, however, seemed toinspire more amusement or embarrassment thannods of agreement. In a way the audience wasright, and only partly because of the pretentious-ness of the "study" he said he was making. Thetwo more pedestrian speeches that happened tofollow, by Kiro Gligorov on problems of techno-logical dependence, productivity, and politicalsources of economic inefficiency, and by ]akovSirotkovi on imperfections of the system as areason for inefficient investment, undoubtedlycontained more specific, substantive, and useful"howevers." With and despite this caveat, I haveelected to quote Vukmanovi’s speech as aconclusion to these notesnot because it wastypical, profound, or original, for it was none ofthese things, but because the man who was nick-named Tempo for his Partisan haste had onceagain and in ordinary language covered at leastthe economic waterfront in voicing the gripes ofthe man-in-the-street (or the Communist-in-the-street). In so doing he momentarily shattered theglass wall of the one-dimensional reality that wassaid in the introduction to this Report to charac-terize this and any other Congress of any Partyanywhere.

Although he soon rambled, Tempo began withhis own perennially favorite theme, whichhappens to be a question of central political andeconomic importance in any system. Whodecides about the distribution of incomenational, sectoral, enterprise, and personalandby what criteria and rules? For personal incomethe Yugoslav translation of the Marxist principle"to each according to his work" has long been (ineffect) "to each according to the results of hiswork as measured by an imperfect marketeconomy and qualified to compensate forunequal conditions," but how can this be done,especially for units and individuals in jobs wherethe contribution to final market value is hard orimpossible to measure?

This is what Tempo had to say:

Again at the Tenth Congress Comrade Titosaid that income distribution, the materialreceipts ofworkers, must be made dependent onthe real results of their work. This thought,especially the key phrase "’real results of work,"impelled me to speak at the Tenth Congress andto set down a whole list ofquestions that must beanswered if this is to be realized in practice. Isubmitted that list of questions, composed inhaste and taking over 30 pages, to the Congress.But when I look to see ifany questions have beenanswered? No. And still we tend to maintain thatthe measurement of the work of a worker befound in the working place. To be sure, it is saidthat this is linked to the income ofthe enterprise,but in essence it consists ofmeasuring work, evennow in this campaign that is being carried out inthe country, it still comes back to measuringwork in the working place. So when I looked athow that is going in practice, I looked at andbegan to follow how preparations for theEleventh Congress were being carried out. It wasbeing said that everything was clear, that answershave been given to all questions, but there it is,some things aren’t functioning right. But theyaren’t functioning right because people don’twant to work, to fulfill norms, etc. And so wekind of come around in a circle. Because, if allquestions have been given a clear answer, but stillsomething doesn’t work in practice, if practicestill doesn’t give results, then we cannot and mustnot look for solutions in things like mobilizing

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Communists to push it through, etc. First wemust start from the beginning, from the realsources ofthe state ofrelations in production anddistribution, relations in planning and coordina-tion, in order to get the answer to the questionwhy don’t workers behave the way we think theyought to behave?

Look, we can follow--here now in the discus-sion I’ve seen--how consumption repeatedly goesabove production, above our possibilities. Whospends it all? Who? Who takes the decisions andwho spends? Are those Communists? Are thoseworkers, or are those someone else? There is noanswer to that question. I looked at this, and itdrove me, just to explain, drove me to get to thebottom ofthese questions, andfor year and threemonths now I have been writing _an analysisof every single problem in relations amongpeople, and I’m submitting that to the CentralCommittee. I’ve already been writing a year andthree months and already have 600 pages ofanalysis in typescript That’s probably notrelevant, but it does seem to me that we must getinto that analysis, that we must even accept thatnot all will agree with what comes out now, thatwe will be, or some will be, in the minority. Let usbe in the minority. But, ifpractice shows this wasright, it will have to become a majority.., and gobefore the leadership. As I see it, there’s no wayto get awayfrom a situation by being reluctant tolook into the relations, real relations inproduction and in society, that are happeningand that are the basic reasons why the situation isnot what it should be.

As you see, I will not and have not started myremarks with successes. Our successes are great.I remember when we began building theeconomy in those hard years of the [Soviet]blockade, when we built Zvornik [an early majorindustrial project] we began with one technicianand two trucks. Today our engineers and tech-nicians are building all over the world. AtTrepca, our largest mine, we had one engineer.Today our engineers include unemployed ones, toour shame, and a serious indictment... [but theyalso] work all over the world. From a small un-developed country we have risen to the ranks ofthe developed. And in agriculture we have alsomade a great advance, practically a revolution. I

remember when we were barely able to manage10 metric cents per hectare, or 11 at best, andwere satisfied. Today we get 50-60 and even 70.Today we have practical examples of our wholeagriculture of how to get bigger results. Wedidn’t know, then, we only knew that we had totry.

This means, Comrades, that our potentialitiesare enormous. Let me take one official statisticwe utilize [only] 70 percent ofcapacity. We go onbuildingjudging by the presshundreds andhundreds offactories precisely in those brancheswhere utilization of capacity is around 50percent. That means we still follow the line thatsome of our needs are unsatisfied, a line that[means] we do business nonrationally. Whomakes those decisions? Who is in charge of in-vestment? Let’s analyze that a little, let’s talkopenly about it. Are those workers? No, nobodyasks them about it. Were they asked, if they areunemployed, then they are ready even to go alongwith minimum utilization ofcapacityjust to havesome earnings. This means that someone else isin charge of investment, despite the fact that wehere and in all our documents proclaim that theworkers are in charge. Yes, we have proclaimedthat, but do we realize it in practice? And howmany funds are committed in advance? Whatfunds, what is there to decide, who decides, etc.etc. Come on, let’s talk about it openly, honestly,let’s look at the sources, because otherwise we’llnever get to the bottom, we’ll always have thesame things happening again and again.

So our capacities are poorly utilized. Person-ally I reckon 70 percent. But in the press I readthat utilization ofworking time is 50 percent. Soif you put it all together, both poorly utilizedcapacity and poorly used working time, etc., weare losing the use of a third of 40 percent of ourpotential. What are the results? Low personalincomes. And what do low personal incomes leadto, they lead to moonlighting. People have tomoonlight. That works for those who have landin the village. They will work in the village butwill also take ajob in a factory and not show upregularly, not make an effort because they areguaranteed the [legal] minimum monthly per-sonal income, social security, health insurance,and additional income in the village. There are

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about 40-50 percent of these from the village.And then those in the city who have a skilledcraft, they will work privately on the side, etc.,etc. There are no statistics for this, but socialproperty gets eaten up this way. And the worker,what situation is he in now, what are "productionrelations" like now? He looks at his pay, hisearnings, the minimum personal income. Helooks at that. He practically cannot decide, can-not influence general economic policy. We saythat he has an influence in matters of income.What influence? Who decides about customsduties, administration.., no longer thefederationlike we once did it, but now the republicstogether at the level of organs of administration.But a customs duty lowers incomefor some raisesincomefor others, likefrozen prices. I notice thatwhen prices are frozen, some places they areunfrozen, some places they are allowed 15percent, and all that through some agreements,etc., etc. Everyone makes these agreements, butwho decides them, are those workers, do theyhave influence in creating the conditionsfor theirbusiness operations? They don’t

That social relations are not brought in line isseen in the fact that credits dominate in all ourinvestments. Here they say 50 percent, asfar as Iam informed 50 percent by banks. But thesecond source, from working collectives whowork under more advantageous business condi-tions, who have high profit rates, and who alsogive to others in theform ofcredits, that is little,apparently 3percent It is insignificant, that istrue, but the principle is the same if only [finan-cial] means are pooled. The question is howpooling is done, is it pooled as capital or not, etc.

Therefore we arrived at thefollowing situation,that credit relations dominate. But what docredit relations mean? Credit relations mean thefollowing: there is the one who gives credits andwho gets because he gives, he gets in terms ofthedistribution of income, or better said profits,since there’s nothing else to get except profit,guaranteed earnings ofworkers, etc., etc.

This means that the distribution ofprofit mar-gins is such that those who have, who are in moreadvantageous positions, they always have andeven have the possibility to appear as creditors.

But those who don’t have, whose conditions ofbusiness operation are poorer, we help withcredits, but credits have to be paid back. Thusthey are in a worse situation, a continually wor-sening situation. Think about these relations,how they happen in our reality. Some in difficultconditions and others in easier positions, wholebranches, groups, not to mention individualenterprises. Fine, that’s o.k., one enterpriseworks better, the other works poorer, that’sanother question. Great, equal opportunity foreveryone, and ifyou want to work, please do and[have] the largest income and larger personalincomes. But if there is unequal opportunity, ifconditions vary, some can in some branches besure of three times, four times larger averagepersonal incomes, largerprofits, those profits canon the principle of "past work" be placedwherever, etc., while others can’t but have to waitfor someone to offer credits that have to be paidback, etc. Differences in average profit rates bybranches are very great, and I don’t see how todetermine whether that is because of the resultsof work or because of conditions for businessoperations that we have created. For in the lastanalysis it is we who create the conditions forbusiness operations

That is, Comrades, it seems to me that it wouldbe very important for us to see the question andnot just mobilize Communists. [We shallmobilize Communists, and easily when they areplaced in a position in production relations thatare such that they have togofor increasedproduc-tion and productivity. That will be a completelydifferent situation.] And instead of singinghymns, better that we get on with an analysis ofthe sources in society that lead to all this. Be-cause, look, it is commonly saidmfine, we haveachieved great results. Indeed, an industrial pro-duction [growth rate] of 7.5 percent, that’s nosmall thing, that’s a big thing. But, Comrades,let’s look at whether that is enough now and howthat rate of growth was achieved. That rate ofgrowth was achieved at the cost of[international]indebtedness ofa billion to $2 billion a year, twobillion dollars have to be paid back. Ifyou don’tinsure greater production, then the living stan-dards offuture generations will have to go down,there is no alternative. That means it would bebetter to analyze how those billions that we get in

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credits can gofor the more rapid development ofthe economy. That’s one thing.

Second, what kind is that level of industrialproduction? We are stagnatingfor years nowThe question is why? Ifthere are such unutilizedpossibilities in production, unutilized in the workforce, in an unemployed workforce abroad? Youknow what it is. Our unemployment has gone up,despite the fact that we have employed so manyworkers in this period. I look at Montenegro [hisnative region according to some informationmitmay be off2percent or 5percent more or lessmitis 27 percent for little Montenegro Measurehoweveryou like, but ofthese 27,000 people whoare without work, who come out ofschool and arewithout work and must wait for 7, 8 years to getit, imagine, they finish their studies at 25 or 26and have to wait another 7, 8 years, so what willhappen to their pensions, their working period,etc. Not to speak about the present situation, howthey keep themselves, etc., etc. Obviously thoserates are undesirable. Both economic rates andrelations to the schools are inappropriate. Whydo the schools deliver people we don’t need, howlong will we repeat that?...And so it goes on, Isee no end ifwe do not look into the whole prob-lem area ofplanning.

I have enough to say, but I know that hundredsofothers must speak, that each has something tosay. I would only like to say thefollowing.

I quote Comrade Tito, already 15, 20 years agohe said it to us in the trade unions, there is nogreater taskfor Communists in building a social-ist soqiety than to resolve relations in society, con-tradictory relations in society and whether theyare in harmony with socialist principles of dis-tribution according to work, according to the realresults of work. And I look around now, atleast.., according to what the press says and thetelevision, etc., there is nothing about these rela-tions, about the real reasons why these relationsare the way they are, etc. Nothing. The only thingis: a meeting was held, it was attended by soand so, pictures were taken, etc., etc., andnothing more. And I turn off the television I tell

you the truth, I turn it off. But there is somethingto be said. For years you have to wait to get anapartment, and one gets an apartment andanother does not, but why does one get it and theother does not? This means, this system that wehave proclaimed, something is not right with it.Let us discuss basic things. This means there isno other task before Communists other than rela-tions in society, and contradictions in our societyare big, beginning with that between those whowork and those who decideand that is the situ-ation todaythose who work in difficult condi-tions and others in easier conditions, those whohave a right to work and others who don’t, etc.,etc.

Communists must b’e there. We do not needCommunists who know from memory fivephrasesfrom the classic ofMarxism or know thestages ofa capitalist economy. No, relations in acapitalist economy do not suit our relations. Allof what we would adapt here, all that is false,because there is no decision that you make, thatdoesn’t touch on relations among people. Incapitalism that is easy, there it is a matter ofrelations among capitalists. Or capitalistsnegotiate there with their state, government, etc.,etc. That is their task, but our task must be suchthat we harmonize our relations so that decisionsthat are taken for the sake of harmonization inthe economy, that there the workers participateand with regardfor the relations that are realizedamong the workers. Then we can expect both anincrease in production and an increase of pro-ductivity and socialist relations, etc., etc.

Yes, Tempo, etc., etc., etc.

(September 1978)

[Photos by Fototanjug, Belgrade]

DIR-4-’78/19

NOTES

1. The same hindsight also informs this reporter’s similarbut briefer re-examination of that Congress in my re-cently published study, The Yugoslav Experiment 1958-1975 {London and Berkeley, 1977), pp. 163-72. I did notreport it that way in 1964, nor did any colleagues whoseaccounts I read at the time.

2. D.I. Rusinow, "Yugoslav Domestic Developments"[DIR-2-’78], A UFSReports, 1978/No, 25, Europe.

3. A companion Report, "Yugoslavia and the World,1978" [DIR-5-’78], A UFS Reports, 1978/No. 42, Europe,describes the foreign affairs issues discussed at the Con-gress, the nonaligned meeting in July and Hua Kuo-feng’svisit in August.

4. Subheadings under "League of Communists" in theIndex to The Yugoslav Experiment provide thumbnailchronologies of the ups and downs {including dis-appearances and reinstatements} of LCY organs like theCentral Committee, Executive Committee, ExecutiveBureau, and Presidency.

5. Including a report under my by-line, in which aneditor, presumably thinking I had missed an importantpoint carried in other papers, inserted a paragraph re-peating this error.

6. This is not strictly accurate for Serbia, because thatrepublic includes the autonomous provinces of Vojvodinaand Kosovo, whose parties elect their own representa-tives to the federal organs at their own congresses {calledconferences) and then participate in electing Serbia’srepresentatives at the all-Serbian Congress. Figures forthe republican Party membership cited here are from theYugoslav press at the time of the republican congressesand do not tally with other Party membership figurescited in this Report, which are from a mimeographedhandout, entitled "LCY Membership Statistical Over-view," available at the Eleventh Congress. The handoutincludes breakdown of membership by nationality {andby occupation and the age and sex of recent new mem-bers}, but not by republic and province.

7. At the Ninth Congress in 1969 there was, however,one surprise: the previously unannounced creation of anew body, an Executive Bureau of 15 members, above theCentral Committee and Presidency. Again eliminated atthe following Congress, the Executive Bureau was one ofTito’s first efforts to recentralize authority and stop the"federalization" of the Party into rival republican-ethnicunits that was one of the sources of the crises of 1971-72.My version of this story is found in A UFS Reports at thetime and in The Yugoslav Experiment, ch. IX.

8. On this much disputed factual question, see BogdanDenitch’s convincingly documented analysis of thenational composition of the YPA in The Legitimation of aRevolution {New Haven and London, 1976), pp. 113-20.

9. Directions in the Development of the Socialist Self-Management PoEtical System (second edition), p. 179.

10. The remaining categories: educationists and culturalworkers, 6.3%; economists, lawyers, scientists, artistsand other professionals, 5.9%; doctors and other medicalpersonnel, 1.9%; security services personnel, 2.3%;private craftsmen, 0.3%; unemployed, 2.3%; housewives,1.3%; students, 5.9%; secondary and vocational schoolpupils, 2.9%; Army members, 4.8%; working abroad,0.5%. {See note 6 for source.)