An Open Letter to Tito

...They inspired the defenders of Port Said, they move the working class in Hungary and the entire Hungarian people in their magnificent struggle against crude Russian power...

...Then I realized that none of my letters, in which I described some antidemocratic and illegal acts against myself on the part of some bureaucratic and Cominform elements in the country, were reaching you...

...2. The British and French aggression against Egypt, the slaughter of the Hungarian people by Russian troops, the growing power of Stalinists in the USSR and the abandonment of the 20th Congress line and the Belgrade declaration, accusations of the Cominform from 1943 again being publicly expressed in Pravda and by the Cominformists in Paris—all this requires the strengthening of all progressive forces in the country, as well as stressing even more strongly our principled attitudes, born from our social life, which won a victory over Stalinism...

...5. Starting from these positions, principled positions, the only ones that we can start from, I consider that the decision to arrest Milovan Djilas is unjustified and harmful for the interests of our country...

...in relations among countries, movements and individuals, decisions cannot be imposed through pressure, but only through a free exchange of opinion, through mutual conviction...

...At the third plenum in January 1954 I defended our statute, I defended the great principle of our revolution, which you formulated in the struggle against Stalinism: "Our revolution does not devour its children, the children of this revolution are honest...

...I would renounce you...

...Authorized Biographer Writes AN OPEN LETTER TO TITO VLADIMIR DEDIJER Vladimir Dedijer was a member of the Yugoslav Communist Central Committee when he wrote the authorized biography of Tito in 1952...

...Our failure to do this weakens one of our basic principles in the struggle against Stalinism: We should defeat by force of reason theses with which we don't agree, by force of argument but not by naked force, by arrest...

...In 1954, however, Dedijer was stripped of all his positions and expelled from the Yugoslav Communist party when he came to the defense of Milovan Djilas, who had advocated "two-party system for the country...

...If in this moment I had not listened to the voice of my conscience, I would renounce first of all this book...

...6. Even if one could see from the articles that Milovan Djilas had a different point of view from the Government itself on Hungary, I would consider it harmful to arrest him for that reason, particularly in the present international situation...

...The communique regarding his arrest says briefly that "he presents foreign policy and internal development of Yugoslavia untruthfully and by twisting facts...

...Dedijer prerisely as he wrote it, without editorial alteration or comment...

...3. The basic postulate of our struggle for independence of the country and our free internal socialist development against imperialist pressures of all kinds, especially against Stalinism, was and remains: Against brute force there is right and justice...

...It seems to me that in today's world and also in our internal difficulties, especially economic ones, one should follow a different road, a road of unification of all socialist forces in the country, gathering all those people who stand for independence of the country and for socialism, who gave so much in the struggle against imperialism of all kinds, and especially against Stalinism, whose shadow moves again toward us...

...Needless to say, it has not been printed, in part or in full, in the controlled press of Communist Yugoslavia...

...Only in this way are we going to be ready to meet the new tempest that we and the whole world are entering...

...November 22, 1956 Comrade Tito: I am writing you an open letter through the domestic and foreign press, having no other way to tell you what I think, in view of the fact that my letters are not being delivered to you recently...

...We present this open letter by Mr...

...7. I am writing you this letter following the voice of my conscience in these great days...

...4. Those principles brought us victory over Stalin and we inscribed them solemnly into the statute of the Yugoslav League of Communists, passed by the Sixth Congress in 1952, and we realized them through our path to socialism...

...In a conversation I had with you May 22 of this year, you told me how to send letters to you, but this channel has failed...

...This is being done just at the moment when Moscow is applying similar methods against us, which today's Politika justifiably protests...

...The biography was "labor of love, glorifying Communist rule in Yugoslavia...

...In these historic days, it is very important for our country to underline those principles even more, to prove that we are still their persistent defenders, that there is no conflict between our words and deeds, and especially between our foreign and internal policy...

...I did not read his articles in full, and I cannot say whether I agree with them or not before I read them in full, but I consider that we have violated one of our basic principles because we did not acquaint our public with his opinions before reasons were given against his ideas...

...Now that Djilas has been arrested for his vigorous support of the Hungarian Revolution (The New Leader, November 19), Dedijer again rallies to his defense...

...Like Djilas, Dedijer was deprived of all means of earning livelihood by the Party-state...

...At the same time, I also defend my integrity as an intellectual, as a writer who expressed this principle which is also yours, in his last book, which just because it contained these principles has been published in 39 countries of the world so far...

...1. This time I am not going to write about myself, but I am taking the liberty to give my opinion concerning the arrest of Milovan Djilas, because it seems to me that this act is going to harm the country, to undermine its defense powers against the new Stalinist danger...

...As Dedijer points out, it has been published in 39 countries...

...I was convinced that my letters are not being delivered to you from the conversation you had with K. Zilliacus, whose content he passed on to me according to your wish...

...With respect, Vlado Dedijer...

...He was editor of the Party organ Borba, secretary of the Party's foreign-affairs commission, director of its propaganda office, and a frequent member of Yugoslav delegations to the United Nations General Assembly...

...Nor after his arrest did our press carry even one of his articles in which one could see his stand...

...Those principles are today part of all mankind's strivings...

...I do not defend Milovan Djilas as my personal friend, nor did I ever defend him as such...

...The New Leader is printing the full text of the letter for the first time...

...I remain consistent with this stand, I cannot do differently against my conscience...

...He wrote this open letter to Tito and distributed it to reporters in Yugoslavia so that his protest might be known...

...I beseech you by the blood of all our best who fell at Sjuteska [site of a Partisan battle against the Nazis], do think over what I have written and the reasons for my writing...