Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR MIHAJLOV At a time when American intellectuals are busily engaged in canonizing "Titoism," it is refreshing to read Mihajlo Mihajlov's moving testimony of the impact of Djilas on...
...New York City George Field Executive Director Freedom House...
...I submit that in comparing the strength of the Birchers and the Communists one should take into account that the former consist only of private citizens in the United States...
...Yugoslav law forbids publication of newspapers in any way susidized from foreign countries, with the exception of subscription fees...
...It is misleading to imply that either the new class or the Communist party in Yugoslavia are tending to be more liberal...
...I should infinitely prefer being "wrong" with Djilas and Mihajlov to being "right" with Lippmann, Steel and the master strategists of the New York Review of Viet-Nam...
...It is true that both of them will try establishing broader quasi-democratic political alliances outside the Party, but this is merely to strengthen their own non-democratic position...
...My statement at the Freedom House press conference specifically pointed out that "my brother does not solicit any financial backing for his journal...
...In other words, what he seeks to demonstrate is that political and social criticism is possible in Yugoslavia under the existing legal framework...
...Future developments will show whether the present situation is merely a growth pain, or a symptom of a major crisis...
...Thus, the struggle is beginning, rather than ending...
...A decade ago, Milovan Djilas diagnosed the process of power concentrating in a few hands at the top of the party when he spoke of "the new class...
...There should be no misunderstanding about my reference to a section of the report on the John Birch Society by the Anti-Defamation League...
...Now the new class has collided with the middle and lower Party apparatus and converted it from a wielder of power into an instrument of the new class power...
...If so, I am prepared to acknowledge with pride that I, too, am a naive fossil...
...Epstein and Forster, in their friendly criticism of my article, reinforce my judgment about the "blind spot...
...DEAR EDITOR MIHAJLOV At a time when American intellectuals are busily engaged in canonizing "Titoism," it is refreshing to read Mihajlo Mihajlov's moving testimony of the impact of Djilas on the new generation of Yugoslavs ("Djilas and Yugoslavia Today," NL, July 4...
...Waltham, Mass...
...A basic tenet of my brother's philosophy is that frank and open criticism of oneparty rule in Yugoslavia is proper, in his own words, "within the framework of the positive laws and regulations of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...
...At this moment Americans in Vietnam are engaged in combat with one element in this deadly force...
...Nenad D. Popovic Department of Economics Syracuse University BIUCHITES AND COMMUNISTS I fully expected and was pleased that Benjamin Epstein and Arnold Forster ("Dear Editor," July 18) agreed with the substance of my article "For a Dynamic Center" in your May 23 issue...
...In contrast, the Communists, subservient to the direction and manipulation by the rulers in Moscow and Peking, are the overseas branches of forces that include an enormous, world-wide propaganda apparatus and scores of millions of armed men, equipped with atomic weapons and the intercontinental missiles to deliver them anywhere...
...John P. Roche Your editorial comment ("Between Issues," NL, July 4) concerning my brother Mihajlo Mihajlov's plans to publish an opposition magazine in Yugoslavia erroneously implies that he is seeking funds from sources outside Yugoslavia to finance his projected publication...
...And his own remarks, which were published by Freedom House and distributed the day before the press conference, make perfectly clear that "no financial support from anybody living outside the country will ever be accepted-this is absolutely beyond question...
...Syracuse, N. Y. Prof...
...Washington, D. C. Maria Mihajlov Mihajlo Mihajlov's "Djilas and Yugoslavia Today," and Bogdan Raditsa's "Tito's Final Test," in your July 4 issue, offered a well-prepared and illuminating picture of recent developments in Yugoslavia...
...Nevertheless, as my critics have pointed out, the differences between us on this score are minor compared to our agreement on the significance of maintaining a vital Center in order to sustain the viability of our democratic society...
...The substance of the conflict, however, focuses on the issue of power...
...Though stronger, perhaps, Rankovich was maneuvered into the weaker position...
...they may be dialectically quite naive in arguing the primacy of political freedom...
...I have always been a staunch admirer of the work of the Anti-Defamation League and am proud of my collaboration with that organization during the 18 years its Metropolitan Chapter was housed in the Willkie Memorial Building of Freedom House...
...Considered from abroad, the situation in Yugoslavia appears somewhat confused because there is a bitter fight going on between two groups, both Communist...
...It may be that Djilas and Mihajlov are ideological fossils...
...Consequently, he is not interested in financial support from outside Yugoslavia...
...Because this would be improper under Yugoslav law, your remarks subvert my brother's main purpose in undertaking this project...
...As a whole, the report was valuable and, as I noted, excellently documented...
...In Yugoslavia, therefore, the question is not whether the regime will become less totalitarian, but how it will further develop its authority most effectively...
...This military might is not merely for display...
...They clarify the reason for their comparison of the John Birch Society of today with the Communist party of 20 years ago and the point they make should be noted, but they then proceed to measure the respective strength of the extreme Right and Left in the narrow terms of their relative membership at this time within the United States...
...The struggle involves various issues-who is going to succeed Tito, how will the economic reform be enforced, how can the nationalities problem be settled, etc...
...While we are in agreement on fundamentals...
...For those (like your European correspondent Ronald Steel) who hope to see Ho Chi Minh emerge as an "Asian Tito"-as a totalitarian counterforce to totalitarian China-there must be a quaint and archaic flavor about the notion that intellectuals will naturally be willing to fight all totalitarianisms in the name of individual freedom...
...It is only moral support that he needs...
...From the viewpoint of those mandarins of the Zeitgeist, Djilas and Mihajlov presumably should realize that their real duty to History is to strengthen "Titoism" and to abandon the posture of infantile libertarianism...
...Just as both Edvard Kardelj and Alexander Rankovich (together with Tito) eliminated Djilas, so they are now fighting among themselves...
Vol. 49 • August 1966 • No. 16
