From: nyxfer%panix.com@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (N.Y. Transfer)
Subject: ANTI-NAZI BACKGRND OF YUGOSLAV FEDERATION
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 19:40:02 GMT



Via The NY Transfer News Service ~ All the News that Doesn't Fit


The Yugoslave Socialist Federation:
Built in anti-Nazi struggle; torn apart by imperialism

By Sam Marcy

"Hegel remarks somewhere," said Marx in the opening lines of The
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, "that all great, historical
facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add:
the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." Marx of course had
reference to Napoleon Bonaparte as a tragic figure and to Louis
Bonaparte, or Napoleon the Third, as the farce.

The 20th century also has its Napoleons.

`Tito, the incredible'

Josip Broz (Tito--1892-1980) may not have been as popular and
certainly not as well known as Napoleon the First, but he cut a
heroic figure in working class history. A metal worker, he was the
first proletarian to become the head of a workers' state in the
European arena.

Somewhere in the middle 1940s, a little pamphlet appeared entitled
"Tito, the Incredible." The title is not an exaggeration. This
worker not only organized the Communist Party of Yugoslavia but led
the Partisans and the Council for National Liberation to a complete
victory over the forces of Nazism, as well as over domestic
royalist reaction supported by Washington and London.

It should be remembered that when the Council for National
Liberation finally liberated the country and in 1945 proclaimed the
Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia, this was the first
victorious socialist revolution on the European continent since the
1917 October Revolution in Russia.

The significance of this victory must be measured against the fact
that Allied imperialism was still armed, the Chinese Revolution had
not yet fully vanquished the remnants of the pro-imperialist Chiang
Kai-shek government, the Cuban Revolution hadn't yet begun, and the
Vietnamese and Koreans were still in the throes of consummating
their revolutions.

United the nationalities

Tito enjoyed genuine popularity in Yugoslavia. His greatest
contribution lay in the fact that, on the basis of a formidable
Communist Party and a working class and peasantry that were ripe
for a revolutionary overturn, he united the nationalities of the
Balkans.

That ushered in a new social and class structure based on the
workers and peasants as against the bourgeoisie and their
supporters in the camp of imperialism. The Yugoslav revolution
united the oppressed nationalities. This worker from Croatia, whose
mother was a Slovene, won the confidence of the workers in Serbia
and the other republics.

It could be likened to a Black worker leading a revolutionary
working class movement in the United States and winning the support
of the white workers, all as part and parcel of a socialist
revolution.

However, Tito's very popularity also endangered the Yugoslav
revolution.

At that time, all Eastern Europe was in the throes of a struggle
against the Nazi fascist Axis powers. But although hundreds of
thousands of brave communists gave their lives in relentless
struggle against fascist reaction even before the war began, and
more continued the struggle against Nazi aggression, the revolution
was not wholly from below. In all of Eastern Europe, it was
supported by the military might of the Soviet Red Army, which both
aided and restricted the momentous revolutionary upsurge.

Role of Red Army

The policy of the USSR at that time was not to uproot the old
ruling classes lock, stock and barrel but to retain them in some
measure. This was to present at least an appearance of compromise
to predatory Anglo-American imperialism, which was most fearful
that the sweep of the communist forces would engulf not only
Eastern Europe but also France and Italy, where the working class
movements had fought the fascists arms in hand.

The East European Communist parties looked to Tito as their
inspiration and guide to an autonomous revolution. This not only
created suspicion in the USSR leadership but led to friction with
the Yugoslav government.

The high point was reached when Georgi Dimitrov, the Bulgarian
Communist leader, on the eve of a regional conference raised the
possibility of an East European federation in which, of course,
Yugoslavia would play a central role. Dimitrov was rebuked by the
Soviet press. (As related in the book "Tito," by Vladimir Dedijer.)

Break between Yugoslavia and USSR

The historic break in 1948 between Yugoslavia and the USSR not only
dimmed the revolutionary prospects of Yugoslavia for leadership in
the European arena of the international communist movement but
opened the road to compromise and dependence upon the imperialist
West.

It will serve no useful purpose to go over the many concessions the
Yugoslav socialist government had to make in order to survive. But
survive it did, believing itself to be a bridge in the struggle
between East and West as a leader in the Non-Aligned Movement.
However, the seeds for the liquidation of the revolutionary
achievements of the Yugoslav Revolution lay precisely in this
connection to and dependence on foreign aid from the imperialist
powers, principally the United States.

Just one small measure of this degree of dependence on the West can
be seen in U.S. aid figures. The U.S. gave Yugoslavia foreign aid
totaling over $1.8 billion between 1945 and 1964 (Readers Digest
Almanac of 1966).

The real turn of the Yugoslav economy toward Western imperialist
dependence came when the International Monetary Fund itself became
the principal figure dishing out aid and loans, and then arrogantly
demanded the introduction of market measures.

None of this is hidden information and has been widely publicized
in both East and West.

Western economic pressure

The havoc caused by the attempt to restructure the planned economy
into its opposite, a capitalist economy based upon individual
ownership, is only too well known for us to go over the dreary
statistics. But most important for our understanding of the present
situation is that notwithstanding the erosion, the dislocation and
the sabotage of socialist construction in Yugoslavia, it retained
for many years the two basic gains of the revolution.

The first was nationalized property--property which had either been
expropriated from the bourgeoisie and the landlords or had been
built up and modernized by the collective efforts of the peasants
and workers in all the republics.

Second, it retained that singular achievement which all bourgeois
nationalists abhor, but which all proletarian internationalists
strive for: a socialist federation of all the different
nationalities, which stood as a bulwark against imperialist
interference, intervention and subversion.

However, the collapse of the USSR, and Eastern Europe in
particular, shook the foundations of the socialist federation of
Yugoslavia and dealt a blow to the communist and class-conscious
workers. Nevertheless, the socialist federation held on,
notwithstanding internal erosion and the growth of centrifugal
tendencies in the republics.

If Yugoslavia had been able to retain its socialist independence
after the revolution, there is no telling to what great heights
socialist construction could have reached. But this is to demand
too much from a proletarian dictatorship surrounded by imperialist
vultures who for years had been preparing assiduously,
clandestinely and openly, to move in at the appropriate time.

The present war

The imperialist bourgeoisie will show us for the umpteenth time the
terror that the Serbs are committing upon the poor and oppressed in
Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are terror and atrocities, all right.
But are they committed only by the Serbs and not by the other
nationalities? What is this war about? Should we not look to see
who among the imperialist powers support whom? Are we to dismiss
that the imperialists, and most particularly the U.S., are
supporting Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia?

Let us grant that this is a civil war in which the toll on the
civilian population is mounting. The imperialists say they are
moving in out of humanitarian considerations, which their entire
history belies. But let us assume that it is like the Civil War in
the United States. Were not atrocities committed on both sides?
What was Sherman's march through Georgia? Should the progressives
throughout the whole world therefore have supported the South as
against the North?

The British were only too anxious to find a pretext to move in and
help the South. The Abraham Lincoln government characterized this
as rank interference.

Let us suppose for a moment that the British, as the leading power
in Europe, had summoned the French, the Germans, the Austrians, the
Italians, the Spanish and the Russians for a conference in London
to settle the American Civil War, to impose the reestablishment of
order in the New World.

London conference

Is this not what we are witnessing today in London? The U.S. has
engineered an international conference there on Yugoslavia. Will we
not see France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc., impose on Yugoslavia
what they might have imposed upon the United States in the 1860s,
had they the power to do so?

Progressive and class-conscious workers throughout the world should
ask themselves the most elementary question: What right have these
European and American ruling classes to convoke a conference to
settle an internal problem of Yugoslavia? What right have they to
carry out armed intervention in a country which has not provoked or
threatened them in any way? Is this not a violation of the most
elementary tenet of international law?

Who among the Yugoslavs has called upon them to convene this
conference? As always, the imperialists have picked up the
smallest, the weakest, the ones most prone to intimidation. Is this
not the case with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia? The
imperialists first and foremost always aim their first blows at the
weakest, either through bribery, corruption or intimidation, and
win the allegiance of the top bourgeoisie.

Enter the farcical prime minister

Now we have as prime minister of Yugoslavia the farce to which Marx
referred. It is a profanity to call Milan Panic the prime minister.
He is a shady, crooked millionaire entrepreneur exported by the
U.S. to Yugoslavia. He can't even boast of any experience in either
the foreign or domestic affairs of Yugoslavia.

His business in the United States is in the sale of
pharmaceuticals, including medicines supposedly to help fight AIDS
that have been found of dubious value. It may be on the verge of
bankruptcy. He is the type of person who comes in at the right time
to serve as a handy tool.

An extraordinary article in the New York Times of Aug. 24 gives a
laudatory account of his exploits. The writer, typical of many
imperialist scribblers, describes Yugoslavia as "one of the biggest
snake pits in the world" and a "daunting challenge" to our poor
entrepreneur.

Should any authentic representatives of the nationalities attend
this conference of exploiters and oppressors? How many times before
in this century have they tried to impose their will in this region
of the world? The earlier Balkan wars had their roots in the
avaricious and predatory nature of the imperialist powers.

This present conference is no different. Acting Secretary of State
Lawrence Eagleburger, who is considered an expert on Yugoslavia
because of his business dealings there, held a press conference
that foreshadows his role in the London conference. In referring to
the Serbians, he said, "They've got to get this into their heads.
..." Would he ever talk about the Rockefellers that way, or the
German or French imperialists?

Napoleon and Tito

Napoleon freed the serfs in part of Europe. He carried the
bourgeois revolution against feudalism on his bayonets and that was
progressive. But he also carved out an empire that subjugated
nations and proclaimed himself emperor.

Tito represented not just the peasants but the workers. He did not
proclaim himself as either the supreme leader or the supreme
theoretician with a new message in the interpretation of Marxism.
His tragedy lies in the circumstances of his time.

Tito carried the revolution as far as he could. The truth of the
matter is that in his time he could only encourage the Western
proletariat by example. Had they been in a position to overthrow
their own imperialist oppressors, the entire history of Europe
would have taken on an entirely different, thoroughly revolutionary
course.

                              -30-

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited. For more info contact Workers World,46 W. 21 St.,
New York, NY 10010; "workers@igc.apc.org".)

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