RADIO FREE EUROPE search CEES, SBEs Plager cfenrpe bh Login 2018 @ YUGOSLAVIA: Ideology 11 March 1974 BELGRADE "KOMUNIST" AT "ACKS "NEW LEI Summary; An editorial published in today's issue of the Yugoslav Party weekly Komunist attacked the "self-styled Left" as assuming the mantle of Milovan Djilas and Aleksandar Rankovic. . Komunist reviews an interview wit! Professor \ Predrag Vranicki, the rector of Zagreb University and one of the editors. His comments include a suggestion (which Komunist rejects) that the Party should lead and support the "leftist front." Concerning those people who have lately been spreading "propaganda about neo-Stalinism," one gains the impression that this is an indirect attack against Dr, Vladimir Bakaric who recently spoke of the existence of a new centralistic faction in the Party. Two days after the Executive Bureau of the Yugoslav Party Presidium met in Karadjordjevo under the chairmanship of President Tito (March 9); an editorial appeared in the Party weekly Komunist dealing with the problem of the "New Left" in Yugoslavia. (1) Writing under the title "New Left Or The Platform of Anti-Communism,' the author of the editorial refers to some recent speeches, articles and interviews dealing with this topic. Professor Predrag Vranicki's interview in a Belgrade weekly is given special prominenc panicki, the rector of Zagreb University and one of the editors of the Zagreb philosophical bimonthly Praxis, suggested that "the Party must clearly consider the formation of a leftist front, of which it is the leader and main force." (2) (original emphasis] The editorial in Komunist rejects such an idea resolutely stating that any "New Left” front is against self-management and its members are in opposition to the Party. Therefore instead ofras a “being strengthened-and recognized by the-Party; the’ followers of the leftist ~front-as propagated by Professor Vranicki must be removed from the Party ranks: The forces “acting in this way and to this end must not be overestimated (what is involved, in any event, is a marginal phenomenon, a small group of teachers and ‘little groups of manipulated students). Yet, at the same time ‘their activity must not be underestimated either. Their political moves must be met with political reactions; “A’political settling-of accounts with a political opposition which has, for a long time, been e hiding -behind~science and theory and behind Marxism is also “essential from the point of view of creating an atmosphere 'for*genuinely theoretical and real discussions, e and not discussions that are full of demagogic theories and Marxist only in outward appearance. (3) Another interesting point in the Komunist editorial is the mentioning ‘of "Milovan Djilas (purged in 195%) and Aleksandar Rankovic (purged in 1966) as the so-called mentors’of Yugoslavia's "New Left." °The'idea-is to put the "leftist front" and the “pightist liberals" into the same pot, accusing them of anti-party activities. -In-his February 17 speech in the~Serbian town of Kragujevac;Stane Dolanc, Secretary of the Executive Bureau, accused the eight ‘belgrade professors of being “anarchists” and “pightists;"° These professors, said Dolanc, "call themselves ‘the Left' even though anarchy has never belonged to the Left." More- over, "in essence, anarchy is a-synonym for the extreme Right, which could-only-lead to a totalitarian dictatorial regime which, probably, they wish and seek, but under ‘the mantle of the struggle @ for humanism, in favor of an alleged democracy, etc." (4) These "New Left" people, according to the editorial in es Komunist, are said to have at first been followers of Djilas, later the followers of Rankovic, and now the followers “of Nihilism, taken from the bourgeois world." Says Komunist: These and similar “correctors" of our social system have for years now been spreading propaganda “about neo- Stalinism ‘and-about- threatened scientific and philosophical thought in Yugoslavia, thus creating a‘false picture of our. society even among well-intentioned people. (5) Where Does Dr. Vladimir Bakaric Stand? On February 5 of this year, Dr. Vladimir Bakaric, Croatia's leading political personality, claimed that a "centralistic" and “unitarian" faction existed in the Party. (6) Referring to Bakaric'scomments, Dolanc said-during his Kragujevac speech that in Yugo- slavia "there can be no return to unitarianism, centralism, to any kind of neo-Stalinismi" (7) One almost gains’ the impression that the Komunist attack against people "spreading propaganda about neo- Stalinism” isan indirect ‘strike at Bakaric; for he undoubtedly helped the eight Belgrade professors andthe -Praxis contributors who have stubbornly insisted that neo-Stalinist groups have been winning the upper hand in Yugoslavia, The "New Left" in Yugoslavia fell from the Party's favor in June 1968, i.e., during the student revolts in Belgrade and Zagreb, Itwas’the "New Left" which organized the-June 1968 rebellion, using internationalist slogans and-even including some Maoist quotations, “Another aspect of the June 1968 revolt was that the stadent“unrest in Yugoslavia: (aswell as in Poland) broke out during Dubcek's experiment in Czechoslovakia. The significantCharacteristics of the Prague events "between January and August 1968 included not only outright opposition to Soviet domination in both“the international communist movement and in Eastern Europe, but also the belief that it was possible to construct "a new -kind’of socialism -~ different not only from the one prevailing-in:the Soviet Union, but also-from socialism as it was: understood: in Yugoslavia. In a Praxis‘article, the present editor-in-chief, Professor Ivan Kuvacic [ku-va-chich], said that the Beljrade student revolt of June 1968 was "an integral part-of the world youth: movement which is ready to sacrifice itself for the sake of a better future for mankind." (8) The Praxis group appears to be more orthodox where Marxism is concerned ‘than was Milovan Djilas in his 1953 articles mentioned by the Komunist editorial. Unlike Djilas, the "New Left," mainly centered around Praxis, would like to introduce genuine egalitarian Marxism, while official party ideologists claim themselves to be more pragmatic, Professor Stipe Suvar [shu-var], another prominent; Croatian party iieologist and certainly not "dogmatic," ‘reproached the Praxis people during a-discussion in Zagreb for wanting to influence leftists throughout the world, particularly at “West~European universities, while the Party has been-making efforts to influence people in Yugo- Slavia's backward:villages. (9) Consequently, as Praxis people persisted in their demands for democratization and egalitarianism, with a "withering away of the Party," the Party apparatus staunchly opposed it, At a recent ideological symposium in Sarajevo, also mentioned by the editorial in Komunist, the "New Left" theoreticians were accused of having attempted "to present themselves as being more leftist than the League of Communists, thus trying to take over the leadership." Such action indicates that these people "have accepted a foreign ideology, working for something different, in opposition to self-managing socialism." (10) Moreover, their actions are branded as a "mass movement," an accusation levelled against the purged Croatian "nationalistic leaders in December 1971."New Left" Criticism The ideological counter-accusation of the Praxis people has been’ that’the Yugoslav Party has still not changed its Stalinist party character. In an appeal published recently in the West, the Praxis people said thatthe achievements of self-management’ ‘up to now in Yugoslavia have had‘global, historical ‘significance However, "like every stagnating revolutionary process, self-management quickly changes into its opposite;" ‘They levelled the following accusation against the present rulers of Yugoslavia: Precisely for this reason, the apologists of a system which is still in the process of development have ) become its-true opponents, Insofar as they proclain that which "should" be done as already done, the goals already realized, and Yugoslav _society-already: a completely self-managing society, the apologists of this society take away its indispensable critical self-awareness and its vision of the future, The world can already see what happens to-social science in such a case in the "first country “of socialism," The apparatchiks responsible for questions “of philosophy, who, thanks to their merits vis-a-vis"Stalin, survived the purges of the 1930's and since'then-have blessed their country with theories about “gompleted-socialism" and the transition to’ "the brilliant highpoint of Communism," have become the intellectual laughing stockof the international socialist~ movement. Not only because there is certainly no genuine Marxist social theory ’there [i.e., in the Soviet Union], but there has notbeen-any-for a long time, Did they, and do they, want us to go this way also? (11) o This is an open accusation that the Yugoslav leaders are trying tointroduce a Stalinist type of persecution of the Marxist philosophers so that the accused leaders are now making efforts to "settle accounts"-with them," The editorial in Komunist is only the beginning of this process which is expected to be finalized before the 10th party Congress beginning in Belgrade at the end of May, Slobodan Stankovic (1) Komunist, Belgrade, 11 March 1974,(2) Nedeljne informativne novine, Belgrade, 24 February 1974. (3) Komunist, 11 March 1974, (4) Komunist, 25 February 1974, (5) Komunist, 11 March 1974, (6) Wjesnik, Zagreb, 6 February 1974, (7) Komunist, 25 February 1974, (8) Praxis, Zagreb, No, 3/4, May-August 1971, (9) Komunist, 31 December 1973, (10) Borba, Belgrade, 28 February 1974, (11) Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Munich, 26/27 January 1974.