Tito and the East European Future

...The greater freedom for the press and for workers' and students' rallies, the partial choice of candidates in the coming election, the new religious liberty (Cardinal Wyszynski broadcast a Christmas message on the Polish state radio...

...and Tito's policies since his Brioni-Yalta conferences with Khrushchev indicate that history has left him behind...

...We will probably never know the precise part played by Tito in the bogus November 1-4 negotiations for the withdrawal of Soviet troops conducted by the Soviet command with Nagy's Defense Minister, Pal Mal-eter...

...policy-makers appear to have drawn closer to Tito...

...For Tito's policy on Hungary revealed, in Djilas's phrase, "that Yugoslav national Communism was unable in its foreign policy to depart from its narrow ideological and bureaucratic class interests...

...Objectively, however, Tito's adherence to pre-1956-style Bolshevism has not even served the ends of "national Communism...

...The feeble polemics which Tito and his group now conduct with Moscow do not alter these facts...

...As a Communist dictator presiding over a police, one-party system, he must have been alarmed by Nagy's promise of free elections and his revolutionary coalition cabinet which included peasant representatives and Social Democrats...

...The Secretary of State,' reported the New York Times of April 25, 1956, "suggested the possibility of a new United States approach to the captive countries of Eastern Europe, forecast last autumn when he visited President Tito at Brioni...

...Borba said that the Poznan strike was incited by "reactionary and destructive" forces...

...Tito smiled...

...Although Tito at first welcomed the appointment of Nagy as Premier, he became suspicious once the revolution burst its "national Communist" bounds...

...It is clear, from a study of the Yugoslav and Hungarian Communist press of those days, that since the Yalta meeting Tito had given his full approval to Gero, and was in fact trying to bolster him against the growing popular unrest...

...It was, after all, the legalization of a democratic Socialist party in Yugoslavia which Djilas had demanded, and for which Djilas had been arrested...

...What is surprising is that, since the irrelevancy of Titoism to present conditions in Eastern Europe was demonstrated, even since the panicky arrest and secret trial of Djilas, U.S...

...Although Yugoslavia delivered a routine protest on the kidnapping of Nagy by Soviet security troops, Belgrade continued to support Kadar and the Soviet Army behind him...

...Dulles was claiming that the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe was weakening under the impact of Titoism...

...Since his sojourn at Yalta, he has been staking his all on the triumph of the "liberal" Khrushchev over the "Stalinist" Molotov...

...because of his consistent advocacy of more consumer goods and greater peasant freedom, the analogous figure is the purged Russian "Right-deviationist," Alexei Rykov...

...His espousal of Khrushchev does not jibe with the hatred of the latter on the part of pro-Go-mulka Poles, who detest Khrushchev's anti-Semitism no less than his crude chauvinism...

...Is this back-number, then, to be the political mentor of the world's most powerful democracy, at a moment when strikes and student demonstrations in the Soviet Union itself are showing the truly international character of the East European democratic revolution...

...Gero hoped—and Tito cooperated — that the prestige of Tito's "national Communism" would help him withstand the pressure in Hungary for the return of Imre Nagy...

...How did a Republican administration come to regard Tito's brand of Bolshevism as its ultimate aim for Eastern Europe...

...Since Poznan, he has stood with Khrushchev Tito and the East European Future By Bogdan Raditsa Milovan Djilas was correct in observing that the Hungarian Revolution had revealed Marshal Tito's "national Communism" to be a mere "phase in the evolution and withering away of contemporary Communism...

...The Yugoslav leader on that occasion contended that the West would do well to encourage other Eastern European countries to declare their national independence of Moscow...

...Five months later, however, Mr...

...When Premier Nagy appealed for the protection of the United Nations on November 1, Borba began to discern "fascists" and "reactionaries" among the Hungarian rebels, and Brilej entered upon an elaborate stalling game designed to prevent the UN from acting in support of Nagy...

...It must have been quite a conference, to judge by Dulles's pronouncements ever since...

...The story begins with the visit of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to Tito's Brioni retreat some 14 months ago...

...This was not discussed at Brioni and the question of the East European countries was not presented in this way...

...Although everyone knew that Dulles never had "force" in mind, the Yugoslav radio went on to say that "these interpretations are wrong and biased...

...Furthermore, Tito's capitulation to Khrushchev and Gero at Yalta may have prevented Nagy from coming to power in Hungary without bloodshed...

...In Eastern Europe today, as Djilas pointed out, the struggle for national independence and the people's struggle for democratic freedoms "are gradually becoming one" and the same struggle, which in the long run cannot be stopped...

...Subjectively, this is exciting political manipulation — to Tito's American admirers as well as to the Marshal himself...

...At that time, Dulles may have had some grounds for believing that Tito, as Djilas put it, had an important role to play "at the beginning of the transition of Eastern Europe countries to national Communism...

...a new ideological weapon in his Pula speech of November 11, even accepting its assertions that, while Soviet intervention was an "error," the triumph of the Hungarian Revolution would have been a "catastrophe...

...Dulles was off for Duck Island in Lake Ontario, and the State Department refused comment, when reporters learned of the Yugoslav rebuke...

...On October 31, Tito closed the Yugoslav-Hungarian frontier, and Tito's delegate to the United Nations, Joza Brilej, abstained on the Security Council resolution condemning the first Soviet intervention in Hungary...

...The Times account went on to speak of the "joint view" of Dulles and Tito on the future of the East European countries...

...Finally, there can be no doubt that Belgrade's ambiguous attitude in the decisive days of the Revolution worked to impose what Tito knows to be outright Soviet military occupation on Hungary...

...State Department, apparently applying the maxims learned by Dulles from Tito at Brioni, assured the Soviet Government that the U.S...

...In other words, the Hungarian events demonstrated that Tito cares more for his standing with the Soviet Communist ruling clique than with the East European masses rebelling for democratic socialism, national independence and military neutrality...

...But the events in Eastern Europe since Poznan have made it clear that this transition has moved far past its opening stages...

...But what sort of "accident" was the ten-day tour of Yugoslavia by Gero, Janos Kadar and other Hungarian Party leaders on the very eve of the Hungarian uprising...

...Will Dulles stand with Khrushchev, too...

...They profess to see Bogdan Raditsa, Professor of Modern European History at FairLeigh Dickinson, is a former Yugoslav diplomat...

...The "release" of the Nagy party, by agreement between Tito's men and Kadar, bespeaks a ruthless duplicity, or else a naivete which has hardly been common in Yugoslav Communist circles...

...Although Tito approved the transfer of power in Warsaw to Gomulka, he has had grave misgivings about the struggle of the Polish students and workers which made it possible...

...During these very days, the U.S...

...Nor can editorials in Borba alter the fact that, under the pressure of the Polish people, Gomulka has gone farther in ten weeks toward liberalizing his regime than Tito went in eight years after his break with Stalin...

...Undoubtedly, Tito was embarrassed when Nagy, Geza Losonczy, Julia Rajk and the other supposed Hungarian "Titoists" sought asylum in the Yugoslav Embassy, especially when the Budapest Workers' Council's leaders were advising them to stay there until the Revolution could restore them to power...

...After the meeting on November 5, 1955, Dulles declared that "we arrived at the joint accord that it is necessary to recognize the importance of the independence of the East European countries...

...At Pula, Tito later claimed that he hail met Hungarian Stalinist Erno Gero "accidentally" at Yalta during his huddles with Khrushchev...

...As this new struggle has unfolded in the last three months, the politics of Tito's Yugoslav Communist party have become less and less relevant...

...would not intervene in Hungary...

...Washington's new respect for Tito is manifested not only in the invitation to him to visit the United States, but in the numerous officially-inspired articles which assert that the Hungarians went "too far too fast" and that "national Communism" is the proper stage for the East European peoples at the present moment...

...The broadcast went on to say that Americans had tried to ""persuade the public that Yugoslavia had agreed to the problematical conception of changing the status of East European countries by force...

...When that revolution reaches high tide, Tito will stand with Khrushchev—as he has stood ever since the Poznan strike...

...The latter, by the way, is mistakenly termed a "Titoist...

...But it is crystal clear from the record that delegate Brilej was the leading spirit in postponing UN discussion of Hungary until the "conclusion" of those negotiations...

...Tito was also quick to hail the puppet regime of Janos Kadar installed by Soviet tanks—if he did not actually have a part in its organization...

...Forced to choose between political democracy and Stalinist police repression, Tito rationalizes his choice of the latter by pretending that he can alter the character of the Soviet Communist leadership...

...When American newspapers interpreted this "accord" as a pledge by Tito to "free the satellites from Russia's iron grip," the Yugoslav radio on November 22 declared that "such stories" were "nonsense...

...The latter possibility is indicated by official Yugoslav press agency comments on November 2-3 warning of "right-wing elements" and "fascist groups" under Nagy...

...Cardinal Stepinac is still in a Yugoslav jail), the abolition of compulsory delivery quotas for peasants, the cuts in the Communist bureaucracy and the wages of state officials—all these measures by Gomulka make Tito a back-number even in the rolls of "national Communism...

...In the Hungarian events, Tito's ambivalence was all too plain...