Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1957-11-11

ment. Movement away iron
doctrinaire communism and TO-
ward free enterprise, ava.
from the pastoral and towart
the industrial.
How far the movement to-
ward free enterprise is likely Il
90 no one knows. So far thu
pace has been glacially slow.
Yugoslav planners, one sus
poets, cannot know much NOR,
about it than the bystanders
The people Of Yugoslavia hav'
been shown that there is a GER
tain amount of play in TIT
tight Communist economic sys'
tenn. They have had a small
taste of economic freedom.
Whether their leaders car
turn the freedom on and of
indefinitely is question ever
the ' leaders are not qualified
to answer now.
AS for the bystanders. they
make conflicting predictions.
Economists Amused
Yugoslav economists are con.
stantly amused at the reac.
tons Of foreign visitors who
come to study their Socialist
(Communist) economy with the
brand-new, built-in incentives
Soviet observers go away
wagging their heads. predict
ing 1t will never work. Giving
so much autonomy to so many
local regions, to peasants and
to workers will lead only to
chaos. they say.
Western observers generally
scoff at what they take to be
an anemic attempt to stimulate
initiative in agriculture and
industry while retaining most
of the sitting Communist tech
niques of control.
YugoSlavs themselves think
their system now lies someplace
in between. Being Communists,
they insist on public owner
ship of the means of produce
ton" Being independent Com
muniSts. however, they have
recognized that the fatal flaw
in Stains communism-and in
Khrushchev's today-has been
the repression of individual
initiative.
Predict Similarity
The 4ugoslavs even have
enough confidence to predict
that eventually the Russian
and Western economic systems
will become similar to theirs.
In the nine years since their
break with Moscow, Yugoslav
planners have been trying to
stimulate individual initiative
by gingerly steps toward decen-
tralization.
Several foreign observers in
YugoSlavia suspect the decen-
tralization has been more ap-
parent than real. They have
the backing of Milovan DjilaS,
once the principal theorist of
the Yugoslav Communist Party,
now jailed as renegade for
his sharply critical articles. He
contends that small Yugoslav
Communist Party bureaucracy,
the new class" continues to
control the whole economy,
merely shifting the scenery pc
riodically to conceal their ma
nipulationS.
Ten days in Yugoslavia -
the length of this correspon-
dents visit is not nearly
enough time to Judge which
appraisal is correct. 1t is
enough, however, to develop an
interest in the Yugoslav econ
omy's progress.
Basically. Yugoslavia is an
underdeveloped country with
all the familiar aspirations for
quick induStrialization. Under
the Communist system. the
emphasis has been on indus
trialization at the expense of
the peasant. as in the Soviet
Union and other Red countries.
See Higher Farm Outlay
The Yugoslavs claim to have
invested an average of IS to
IS per cent of their gross ma
tional product each year. OF
their total investment. how
ever, less than one dinar in 10
has gone into agriculture in
the past. This year that level
is expected to be reached for
the first time. Yet 6 out of
10 Yugoslavs live on farms
today. and in the early post
war years the proportion was
8 out Of 10,
With some 9 out Of 10
investment dinarS going into
industry, production has
jumped impressively. This year
the level is expected to be three
times that OF 1899. Yugoslavia S
last normal" pre-war year.
Considering the handicaps OF
great wartime devastation and
post-l94S heavy military ex-
penditures to parry angry Mos
COW threats after the Tito
Stain falling -out, Belgrade
planners probably have good
reason to boast.
The 1913 break with the
Kremlin also set Yugoslavia on
a separate path to socialism
a unique form of communism
BY 1850 President Tito and his
principal advisers had decided
the central themes should be
decentralization and fostering
of private initiative within a
system keeping ownership OF
the means of production in
public hands.
Several government minis
tries were disbanded. Individ-
ual enterprises we're grouped
into industrial associations.
The associations we're grouped
d, rntN,s rA,,ar,at,aa,,taI 81, - - /. a,.r