Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1957-07-28
The New Class

There is soon to be published in this
Judging from all accounts, it is a par
ticularly scathing and impressive con-
demnation of the noisome Communist
system, the more so because it has been
written by man who has played key
role in the spread of that system.
This man is Milovan Djilas, former
Vice President of Yugoslavia. Until re-
cent years one of Marshal Tito's closest
associates, he is now serving a three
year Jail term for having criticized the
Belgrade regimes foreign policy and
exposing the home-front corruption of
some of his top colleagues in that re-
gime. Having lost all faith in commu-
nism, he courageouSly refuses to be ST.
lent about its evils. That is why he has
conSpired to have his book struggled
into the free world, with instructions
to the publishers to get it printed and
circulated, regardless of what may hap
pen to him.
Summed up, with oversimplification,
the thesis of the book is that commu-
nism, although portrayed by its high
priests as an idealistic way of life dedi-
Gated to the achievement of the good
and the beautiful, is in actuality gigan-
tic fraud and failure. Far from creating
a classics and benign society, it has
succeeded merely in enabling a relative
handful Of men to exploit, terrorize and
enslave the overwhelming mass of the
people who have suffered the great mis-
fortune Of having Red totalitarianism
imposed on them. AS described by Mr..
Djilas, this tyrannical and comparatively
tiny minority is "the new class" that has
come into being behind the Iron Cur
tain, and it constitutes not only the
worst despotism ever known, but also
the most inept and most stupid in terms
OF either appealing to mans loyalty
or satisfying his material and spiritual
wants.
Thus, as Mr.. DjilaS sees it, commu-
niSm contains within itself the seeds of
its own destruction. Ideologically, it is
a deSpotiSm whose dogmaS are sterile,
obsolete and self-defeating. And eco
nomically, despite certain basic indus
trial achievements its everyday working
policieS-which are against consumer
goods and which almost automatically
perpetuate miserably low living stand
ardS-are inefficient, wasteful and costly
to the point of utter irrationality. More
than that, the oligarchs who run this
dismal show are intelligent enough to
know in their hearts and minds that
what they are doing is a fraudulent,
hypocritical and savage mockery of the
ideals" enunciated by Marx more than
a century ago. But these men, "the new
Glass;" the new monopolistS, the new
capitalists of the. superstate, have a
vested personal interest in maintaining
things as they are in order to maintain
their own power and wealth, and hence
they continue to strengthen their
brute force and pillage the people,"
However, apparently reckoning with
the way characterization behind the
Iron Curtain has spread education and
stirred up challenging new thoughts
among the masses, Mr.. Djilas argues
that the Bolshevik revolution, while
leading to the most cynical and cruelest
tyranny in human history, has also
created the basis for the abolition of deS-
potism," meaning specifically the even
tual abolition of communism itself. OF
course, much of his book merely echoes
what all informed WeSterners have been
saying for years past. Yet, more so than
those of anybody in the free world. his
wordS-together with his vision of COL
lapsing Red tarianism-promise to
have truly heavy impact on that part
OF mankind now held in serfdom by
Nikita KhruShchev, Mao Tze-tung and
lesser luminaries of "the new class"