The Unspoken Defense of Mihajlo Mihajlov
MIHAJLOV, MIHAJLO
THE UNSPOKEN DEFENSE OF MIHAJLO MIJAHLOV I will explain and document those of my statements used by the prosecution in charging me with criminal activities. I beg the court to allow me to deal...
...As a matter of fact, the Constitution guarantees to all the dissatisfied who wish to do so, the opportunity to organize and carry out through legal channels the struggle for the realization of their ideas...
...But because Stalin as head of the Party had a monopoly of authority, 1936 is notorious in Russian history as a year of wide-scale purges and mass deportations to concentration camps...
...Zhadanovism" and "McCarthyism" after World War II in Russia and America, and so on, to perceive that everywhere the process is the same, differing only in form and intensity...
...So we intellectuals of Socialist societies feel like traitors when we speak the truth????traitors both to our countries and to all who fight for freedom in capitalist society...
...Zhivago or Dudintsev's Not by Bread Alone should provoke a nearly world-wide historical scandal, while similar novels in the West often go unnoticed by the larger public...
...Using this procedure, one may accuse anyone who writes of anything at all...
...Russian Themes will be published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux early in 1968...
...Iam also charged with calling the Yugoslav society totalitarian...
...As long as there is an information monopoly it is possible to mislead the public...
...It was, however, published for the first time in the United States in June of this year, without my permission, by the American organization Freedom House...
...Article 33 states that all citizens are equal before the law in their rights and duties, while Article 70 says that "freedom and rights guaranteed by the Constitution cannot be taken away or limited...
...The indictment reproaches me for having written in one place "the so-called Socialist society...
...But political liberalization is not possible as long as the Constitution is not respected, as long as it is mere empty words and paper...
...The article is not subject to this law because it was read in Yugoslavia only by the editors of two journals who did not publish it, and by one or two friends of mine...
...They actually very often acted from a position of authority: They would give orders, intervene directly in the policy of the local administrative organs and the autonomous bodies in enterprises, by-pass members, issue mandatory punishment, lock themselves behind tapestried doors, usurp all rights for taking decisions...
...But if someone had expressed himself this way before the Fourth Plenary Session he would undoubtedly have come to grief...
...Of course, again the quoted sentence is distorted and only its second part is inserted into the incriminating document...
...so much so that nothing by itself is either reactionary or progressive...
...But this is an old story and an old thesis...
...Article 34, paragraph 2, point 6.) Since I have expressed a negative opinion, is the Constitution to be interpreted as giving permission only for positive opinions on the work of all the government bodies...
...The beginning of the sentence reads as follows: "Still the difference between the Soviet type of open centralization and the fact that Yugoslavia relies relatively heavily on the West for material aid . . ." This relative dependence for material aid is known to us all and in no case means that I have denied the political independence of our country...
...Should this be the case, however, it ought to be written into the Constitution, to avoid future misunderstandings...
...But it is impossible to label this conviction as false, since the truth or the untruth of it can only be proved once it is realized...
...Even Dr...
...Here are the words of Dr...
...Only a complete text can convey the true point of an article, the general drift of its ideas and its aim...
...Now, after the Fourth Plenary Session, who can guarantee that the previous practice will not be repeated...
...In the autumn of last year I negotiated with the Polish publishing house Kultura in France for the publication of a book with my articles entitled Russian Themes...
...I really do not know whether the charges of false information and assertions are meant to imply that the League's monopoly is not unnatural, or that the League is not breaking the law...
...Vladimir Bakaric had this to say about the Fourth Plenary Session in Vjesnik:5 "The Fourth Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia has shaken us more violently and deeply because it has started to discuss problems which before no one dared to discuss...
...Dragan Milojevic, said the following: "That this is so has been shown to us from our experience with the policy of integration...
...I have lodged a complaint with the Federal Court for the protection of legality, but with no result so far...
...Milovan Djilas, Borba, December 31, 1953...
...In the text of my Draft, from which this quotation was taken, I explain what I mean...
...It would be illegal and unconstitutional if I advocated separation with illegal means, that is, by force...
...Zhivago, for example, was first published some years after Pasternak received the Nobel Prize, when the public's interest in the novel had lessened considerably...
...Since this is impossible in the Socialist press, when published only abroad it becomes a powerful weapon against one's society and nation, a weapon that usually falls into the hands of those same forces at which a Hochhuth's criticism is directed...
...George Orwell wrote in 1945: "Totalitarianism is not so much an epoch of faith as it is an epoch of schizophrenia...
...I do not know if it is necessary to speak of how much the help from the West means to us, how much the standards in our country depend on this help, not to mention the very prestige of the Yugoslav authorities themselves...
...Yet today our newspapers are overloaded with all sorts of criticisms and accusations against the same Security Services...
...Not only was no consideration given to these remarks but they were also frequently hushed up...
...Our press is overflowing with these and similar comments, which are even stronger than mine...
...Nor do I think that anyone can say I was spreading false information through the press...
...Because only one party controls the country's information media...
...I have never written a letter to "Freedom House," a constant claim in our press...
...Happily, in our country concentration camps did not exist...
...As is obvious, the incriminating sentence says that the League of Communists is violating the Constitution by trying to maintain its monopoly????a qualified statement...
...It is ridiculous and sad to raise so much dust in the West when it is known that our Constitution proclaims a non-party, direct democracy as the direction of our development and that all anti-Socialist activities are forbidden...
...In fact, they went on to register the protocol of the magazine and continued to work on it...
...The mere concept of socialism in our day is extraordinarily nebulous and, one must admit, in so many ways compromised...
...The witch-hunt in the press was executed with typically Stalinist methods????by charging the political adversary with all imaginable crimes, and primarily the crime of being an enemy agent in the pay of international reactionaries...
...reach the public at large...
...But it is impossible to remain only at that stage, for not a single contemporary society is a polis...
...Now translations are being prepared for the several editions of the book Russian Themes13 in its final form????that is, without Moscow Summer...
...What newspaper in Yugoslavia will write tomorrow that the Socialist Union of Workers in Zadar simply libeled me...
...I am deeply convinced that with free elections????free in the sense that the right to campaign and run for office be given also to non-Communists????the Communist party would not even obtain as many votes as it has members...
...we find this passage: "How can we eliminate monopoly by individuals over Party consciousness, patriotism and Socialism...
...No one, according to our new Constitution, has the right to any ideological or political monopoly whatever...
...In the previously quoted Borba article, "The All-Powerful Committees," we find: "A series of examples clearly shows that many committees had the wrong attitude, the wrong starting premise in their actions...
...The same happened with other articles of mine about which I will speak later...
...Our Constitution, in 10 places, specifies the freedom for social and political activities through organizations and associations which citizens themselves create...
...I first heard of this organization on the day my Draft was published, when Freedom House organized a conference to give moral support to the founding of the magazine...
...Who was ever allowed to criticize Vice President Rankovic" or the Security Services until that session...
...Who can today publicly criticize, say, the present new policy of the Central 4. Alexander Rankovic, ousted from office at the Fourth Plenary Session, had long been head of the Security Services...
...Committee of the Communist party in Yugoslavia...
...How is it that when certain things are written by Bakaric or Tripalo or Crvenkovski they are evaluated as constructive criticism, while those same things written by Mihajlov become criminal acts...
...Party membership dropped, became passive, feeling neglected and powerless to fight against bureaucracy...
...If there had been any truth in what the Zadar group said about me, I would have been tried for "spreading national hatred" and "receiving money and orders from our enemies...
...the society in which a man lives better if he does not think at all...
...Although it was cognizant of the real situation, this court, or rather the prosecution, did not try to uphold the law and to protect me from this obviously libelous campaign in our press...
...Actually, one can speak of a real and not fictitious contradiction between clearly expressed Socialist thought, at least in its basic premises, and an inadequate, inefficient, non-revolutionary practice coming from some organizations of the League...
...To many it was obvious that certain programs would prove harmful, but they simply could not come out and oppose "the general line of policy...
...Similarly, the Hungarian Marxist writer George Paloczi-Horvath wrote in 1956: "Do you realize what has happened to you...
...The Brioni Plenary Session accomplished much but it was only a beginning...
...It was later reprinted a great many times the world over, and especially in the press of Western Socialists...
...A clearer attitude was adopted only at the Eighth Congress, and more detailed and categorical discussion of this topic took place still later at the Third Plenary Session when it was decided that the opinion of experts in these matters was not to be disparaged...
...Imust admit that in a certain sense I was glad this discussion came about...
...I quote my analysis of the situation from my article: "When Western intellectuals, from Sartre to Rolf Hochhuth, write critically of social conditions in their countries, the mere fact that they can speak out without danger of being arrested or losing their means of subsistence elicits respect in Socialist countries for the society, and the country, that allows such free criticism...
...Chauvinists are not defined in connection with their own people but by their hostilities to other nationalities...
...Apart from a few of my friends, I did not send the text to any home newspapers nor did I give my permission for it to be published abroad...
...Who can guarantee today that tomorrow the Central Committee's line will not be changed, and that a criticism which is now considered almost a criminal offense will not be "unanimously" acclaimed as correct...
...I signed a contract with this house without stating precisely what was to be in the collection...
...The answer was clear: Because such events are common occurrences in the West and rare in the Socialist world...
...The indictment accuses me of denying the independence of Yugoslavia...
...The best proof of the muzzled press in Yugoslavia was the Fourth Plenary Session of the League of Communists, held in June of this year [1966], which opened the way for criticism of the Security Services...
...I wrote "Why We Keep Silent" for the following reason...
...The indictment is basing its allegations on a contract which I signed with the Ost Institut of Bern, imputing that I have given the Institut the world copyright for all my writing except Moscow Summer, which will, as was stated in the contract, be included in Russian Themes in Polish...
...I do not think that it is possible to forbid the publishing of an entire book if those parts for which I was tried, and for which an issue of a magazine carrying a section of the book was proscribed, are removed...
...Although Article 207, paragraph 3 of the Criminal Code strongly forbids the misuse and the passing on to outside persons of documents confiscated in the course of criminal investigation, some of my manuscripts confiscated by the authorities of this court were illegally used in the press campaign against me...
...No one can say this article is subject to the law invoked in the accusation against me: "Spreading false information for the incitement of the people...
...However, a few months later I signed a new contract with the Ost Institut which annuls all previous contracts (the contracts can be found in the evidence before the court), and in the last contract it is clearly stated that we are dealing with two books????moscow Summer and Russian Themes...
...It is understandable, then, that I came to the conclusion that the reform was compromised and would not bring great benefits until the society was politically liberalized...
...On the same occasion Crvenkovski said: "Certainly, the League of Communists will, for a certain period of time, have to retain certain elements of a primary political organization...
...All this makes it perfectly evident that the Constitution does not give the League of Communists any monopolistic rights over socio-political activities...
...Vjesnik, August 21, 1966...
...Socialist and Communist consciousness, in spite of their numerous declarations in favor of the working class and its autonomy...
...They identify themselves with authority, directorships, and the 'upper echelon' in enterprises, institutions, communes, and State bodies, considering these functions their own monopoly...
...The Fourth Plenary Session, or rather the reports in the press following it, brought to light that self-government was in practice merely a bluff...
...What would happen if someone in England were brought to trial for expressing the view, in the press, that some government measures for economic stabilization will be a failure...
...Our society cannot be called Socialist even if we take the definition of Socialism given by the well-known Polish Marxist Leszek Kolakowski (who, by the way, is often translated in our country), in his article "What is Socialism...
...I did not give the Draft to the press simply because it was not written in the form of a newspaper article...
...Quite a long time had to pass for them to see that these criticisms were justified and that even decentralization was helpful...
...This was obviously done with the court's consent, for only the Court of Zadar had possession of that manuscript after my manuscripts were confiscated on July 28, 1966...
...otherwise it cannot avoid (however good its intentions) undermining democracy insofar as it continues to conform in its work to political and ideological standards, or even to local criteria...
...There I say that today when "Yugoslavia is, to a certain extent, concerned about world public opinion and the preservation of her reputation as a nation of 'liberal Socialism' where law is respected????because of material aid and economic integration with Western markets?today it is possible, through legal means and within the framework of the Constitution, to found an independent magazine of opposition as a nucleus for future social-political organizations...
...but as long as one single monopolistic political organization exists, the striving for democracy will always go in the direction of demands for the establishment of constitutional rights????that is, for the destruction of monopoly...
...The New Class by Djilas, so agitated the world...
...Vjesnik u srijedu, September 14, 1966...
...And in the incriminated article "Djilas and Yugoslavia Today," I said this about the nationalities question: "As a reaction against the unnatural absence of political life in the country, we see today the appearance of national extremism, religious fanaticism, narrow-minded clericalism, etc.....All this is evident today in Yugoslavia as well as in the USSR...
...The public explanation for the arrest was that I would continue to spread, at the Founding Assembly, the lies begun in my articles...
...Since at the time of the signing of the contract precisely what was to be published in Russian Themes was not yet agreed upon, I did not raise questions about the wording...
...How long shall we use ideological instead of legal arguments...
...moreover, it was not indicated that more than half of the relevant sentence was omitted...
...On the same page I further say: "And very often the appearance of a national question is only the wrong projection of social discontent...
...Much reportage of this kind is published daily in the Western press...
...I emphasize that it is used neither in mockery nor in ill-temper but in its objective meaning????that is, simply to describe a disease which manifests itself in the disintegration of the human personality and the splitting of man's consciousness...
...The Principles of the Constitution mention the League of Communists only to say that because of the exigencies of historical development, it became the organized leading force of the working class and working people in the building of Socialism...
...Unfortunately, since there is no independent press in Yugoslavia, the courts are the only place where both sides can be heard, and not just the prosecution...
...It is beyond comprehension that the indictment merely quotes one and a half sentences from "Why We Keep Silent" (which covered 10 typed pages) and takes those out of context...
...Why must some people be the arbiters on every occasion and in every situation...
...there were only the disguised powers of the League of Communists...
...there is no society in which all citizens assemble into one parliament or some other body where key decisions are made...
...For the court of public opinion is like any other court, and the principle of any court having pretensions to being even slightly democratic is that both parties to a dispute should be heard...
...Only now is Yugoslav agriculture starting to recover from that blow...
...This is a very crucial difference between the multi-party system under Socialism and the same system under capitalism...
...The Constitution especially emphasizes that every citizen must conform to The Principles of the Constitution (Article 63), and that all arbitrariness on the part of anyone which damages and restricts the rights of a person is punishable (Article 66...
...Stalin's USSR, with its exploitation of concentration camp labor unequalled in history, also called itself Socialist...
...We must not forget that the Yugoslav Constitution guarantees absolute freedom in the expression of all nationalist feelings, including the right of separation...
...Since when are the dissatisfied a priori also reactionaries?????which is what is implied in the indictment...
...I do not understand why the prosecution thinks that I count on the Croatian and Serbian nationalists as the main potential readers of the magazine, in spite of the fact that I mentioned them only at the end of my list of readers...
...It will have to grow as long as the consciousness of our ordinary citizens has not elevated itself to that point where it will no longer be necessary for the Communists to guide them...
...I believe that much can be accomplished in this direction in next year's elections...
...Those few copies which came into the hands of a few friends, and which I occasionally sent to the administration of our newspapers, can in no case be construed as going to the press, for, according to the law, the press is defined as only that which spreads information to the public...
...Is it necessary to talk of the nearly complete economic destruction of our agriculture in the years of collectivization into so-called kolkhozes...
...The indictment reproaches me for trying to unite all those who are dissatisfied...
...On the contrary, its role grows and will continue to grow...
...Hitler's Nazi party, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, was, as we know, both a workers' and a Socialist party...
...Part ii, starting with a section entitled "Concentration Camp Themes," was published the next month and aroused almost immediate Soviet protest?apparently because of its blunt references to Soviet slave labor camps and their legacy...
...This discriminatory practice prevents the intellectuals in Socialist countries and, of course, our Yugoslav intellectuals, from contributing to their societies by their independent thought...
...I beg the court to allow me to deal with the quotations taken from my articles in a somewhat different order than they appear in the indictment, where they are presented in a partially distorted manner and without consideration of logical and chronological facts...
...the roots of bureaucracy are very deep...
...In the indictment itself only this is given: "Talk of social democracy, Yugoslav self-government, is nothing other than sheer bluffing...
...Therefore, for the definition of Socialism I will refer to the new Yugoslav Constitution, which specifies Socialism as social ownership of the means of production with no one having the right of monopoly of these means????that is, the right to usurp power over anything in our society...
...I believe this metaphor is quite accurate and cannot see what is being alluded to in the charge that I was making false and untruthful assertions...
...Mussolini considered himself a Socialist and for many years wore a Marxist badge in his buttonhole...
...reform, which had in view the struggle for an effective and rational organization of production based on a freer play of the economic laws, was not realizable until self-government as proclaimed in the Constitution was in effect in the real sense of the word...
...Although I did not explicitly say this but implied it in a qualified sentence, I do not mind its becoming a statement...
...The same thing happened with another quotation from my Draft, where the prosecution printed only the second sentence from one paragraph which interpreted the deleted first sentence...
...Moscow Summer is now available in hardcover (220 pp., $4.50) and paperback (220 pp...
...Economic liberalization alone (which economic reform is expected to produce) is no guarantee against a Stalinist revival if it is not accompanied by political democratization...
...I have explained to you that they have brought you up in a way which has split you in two: one part for today and one for tomorrow...
...It would seem to me that because totalitarianism is now most intense in the Socialist world, it has the greatest number of active enemies there...
...Acting this way from a position of authority the committees naturally underrated working people and their social...
...The worst part of the split 'me' has swallowed the other part...
...It was also translated into Polish, among other languages, by permission of the American magazine The New Leader, without my being asked for permission...
...It is incomprehensible to me that such a step could have been called the spreading of false news by means of the press...
...The Principles of the Constitution proclaim that all forms of public administration, including the political hierarchy, are guaranteed to the people through the control of constitutional legality by the courts...
...Both these incriminations constitute heavy criminal activities, and it is inconceivable to me that the prosecution is not charging me with them since it at the same time alleges in its introduction: "Our home press and the citizens of Zadar have perceived and discovered who and what the accused man is and what his activities are...
...The sentence referring to this bluff in "Djilas and Yugoslavia Today" has more than 60 words, which in the indictment, following the pattern of all other quotations, was cut down ridiculously to 12 words...
...Therefore, to deny the existence of the nationalist question in our country is absurd...
...in Serbia, the Cetniks and the democratic republicans...
...But an evaluation of events is one thing and false information and assertion is quite another...
...This is from the United States alone...
...It is a known fact that every writer from a Socialist country can publish his views in the world press, particularly if he is critical of his own society...
...It is precisely my confidence that the Constitution and the law are respected in our society that inspired me to write these articles and to think about founding an independent Socialist magazine...
...In the indictment, however, we cannot see what it is that is happening in Yugoslavia because the first part of the passage is not brought against me...
...Let us recall some events that shook our whole country and about which the press was silent...
...My conviction is that a gradual political liberalization would lead to ihe loss of the totalitarian powers of the League of Communists...
...It is exactly this that I wrote about in my articles "Why We Keep Silent" and "Djilas and Yugoslavia Today...
...Mihajlo Markovic, who in Nin of September 4, 1966, writes: "I think that we are beginning to forget that theoretically we adopted very important ideas at the Fourth Congress about the place and role of the League of Communists...
...The indictment also accuses me of "calling all the dissatisfied persons, all the most reactionary elements in the country, to meet and organize...
...Moreover, The Principles of the Constitution come out directly against monopoly by anyone...
...The September 11 Nin carries an article by the same author entitled "Our Analyses of Bureaucracy Are Superficial," in which he says that in no case must we confuse self-government at the level of workers' units ????that is, direct democracy????with the necessity for indirect democracy at the level of the whole State where the League of Communists still has the only word...
...Realizing that the monopoly of information media is a result of the one-party system of government, that only political democracy can guarantee every other kind of democracy, and that our constitution makes possible an independent press, I came to the conclusion that the only way to end this discriminatory practice was to found an independent magazine...
...No important measure taken by the League of Communists during the last 20 years has been subjected to any criticism whatever, with the result that the actual harm done by these measures has first become apparent several years after their enactment...
...I am entitled to do this because the indictment asserts that the press has discovered who and what I am, and that the Zader Socialist Union of Workers is right in demanding my punishment...
...As if by some agreement, all the participants (in this discussion) were of the opinion that these 'trumpeters' organize the scenery and lead the performance in most of the organizations of working people...
...On February 11, Delo was ordered banned...
...It is what I was referring to when I said in "Why We Keep Silent": "Despite the numerous freedoms Yugoslav Socialist society enjoys today, thanks to its doctrine of self-rule, there nevertheless hangs over us the unceasing possibility of a relapse into totalitarianism...
...11...
...The mere fact that I have spoken at the same time about both the Croatian and Serbian nationalists excludes the possibility of my fomenting national hatred...
...Latinka Perovic, a member of the Central Committee of the Serbian League of Communists and president of the Commission for the Ideological Training of Members of the League of Communists, writes in Nin of September 11, 1966: "I think that the League of Communists has in ideological matters as well acted from a position of authority, even though in a more complex political struggle it ought to have used more force of argument and persuasion to show the unten-ability of contrary opinions...
...Comrade Tito has clearly pointed out that we will march on consciously for the further strengthening of the part played by the League of Communists in Yugoslavia????but as an ideological and political directing force through organs of self-government...
...The well-known British historian Hugh Seton-Watson, writes in his book Neither War Nor Peace: "Totalitarian regimes will not permit any institutions or associations that are not directly controlled by them...
...Vjesnik, September 5, 1966...
...There is little need to demonstrate the destructive-ness of an information media monopoly in a given society...
...I cannot agree that those of my incriminating articles published in the West were featured in reactionary papers and magazines...
...The difference, though, should not be lightly dismissed...
...Analyzing the situation in our country, I came to certain conclusions that I brought out in my Draft...
...And what about the "political factories," built for ideological rather than sound economic reasons and still a great burden on our economy...
...Such decisions will inevitably continue to be made in representative bodies, which in our system should more and more strive to be self-governing...
...Now we say again that the League of Communists should be changed from an executive power into a power of ideas...
...You have yourself separated the personality into that which is conscious and that which is subconscious...
...At this juncture the Party cells will have to meet to prevent antagonism between producers and consumers and so that consumers at these meetings, naturally through the Communists, will be informed about the problems of producers...
...In our Constitution not a single word is to be found about a non-party system, but just the contrary...
...In "Why We Keep Silent" I wanted to explain the reasons for that silence to myself and to others...
...The second sentence used, or more accurately half-sentence, comes from a paragraph beginning: "Judging from all the evidence, that cancerous wound of mankind, totalitarianism????in all of its forms (fascist, Communist, economic)????tends to appear synchronously in the European-American part of the world...
...The final composition of the collection became known to me only in March of this year, in a letter from the director of Kultura, Jerzy Giedroycz...
...a newspaper published in Zadar...
...The fact that the Socialist Union of Working People has not been an independent organization but only a satellite of the League of Communists was confirmed by a statement of Latinka Perovic in his September 11 article in Nin: "The most important aspect of all this is that socio-political organizations, including the Socialist Union, are not to be treated as transmitting agents of the League of Communists, which heretofore was usually the practice...
...etc...
...We started with forced integration of enterprises without sufficient further economic analysis...
...What did our press write about the manner and number of persons arrested during the liquidation of Informbureau7 adherents in 1948-49...
...Last December [1965] I wrote in my "Draft of a Program for a Founding Conference in Zadar" of the possibilities for publishing a magazine openly in opposition and within the framework of the positive legal requirements in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...
...The Socialist Union of Workers, Zadar I, regrettably did not state precisely which enemy they were alluding to...
...But as is clear in my Draft, the intention of the magazine was just the opposite: The unification of those potential forces which at this moment can contribute substantially toward democratization in our society...
...I further wrote: "It is just this last which is today taking place in Yugoslavia...
...instead, it in many ways upheld that campaign...
...To describe as reactionary the sympathizers of nationalistic tendencies in Croatia and Serbia is non-dialectical...
...Let us recall a well-known case in the history of the Socialist countries: the extreme economic liberalization of the New Economic Policy in Soviet Russia which stabilized the Russian economy at the time...
...To destroy this reputation of the omnipotence of these committees????symbols of power in the minds of the people????the Communists of Belgrade and Palilula counties even suggested changing the word 'committee' to something else...
...At the same time the indictment asserts that the citizens of Zadar and our press grasped the truth and exposed me and my work, and that they condemned this work as hostile...
...the struggle for freedom in one's own society is simultaneously a struggle for freedom for all humanity...
...This article is especially significant because it was written on the basis of an inquiry among working people themselves...
...I cannot consider a society to be Socialist if one insignificant minority of 6-7 per cent has all the rights, which is the case with the League of Communists, and the overwhelming majority of the population has no rights at all in the socio-political setup...
...N. Burzana, in his article "The All-Powerful Committees" in Borba of August 13, 1966, writes: "The intervention and direct interference by committees in these integrating processes are especially frequent...
...My conclusion given in these articles????concerned with the success of the necessary economic measures and the one-party system of government????was that the Official organ of the Yugoslav Communist party...
...Part iii, which did not appear in Yugoslavia, ran in The New Leader of June 7, 1965...
...A letter from another group of workers, using almost the same wording, appeared in yesterday's Vjesnik u srijedu (September 21, 1966...
...The missing sentence read: "It is possible to maintain the status quo, even for half a century as in the USSR, by police or party dictatorship alone, or, on the other hand, by raising the standard of living and liberalizing the economy through the concession of certain ideological freedoms while at the same time keeping the one-party system of government...
...Krste Crvenkovski, while attacking me directly, emphasizes this: "It should be realized once and for all that Yugoslavia is going forward with determination along its marked road of transforming its society into a non-party democracy...
...The entire report, with a foreword by Myron Kolatch and an introduction, notes and biographical sketches by Andrew Field, was subsequently published as a Farrar, 'Straus and Giroux-NEw Leader book...
...All this despite the fact that we are on the eve of reforming our courts????as the Parliament reported to the Republics????on the premise that "the Law Courts and entire judicial system form one of the basic conditions in a democratic society...
...No police measures can stop it...
...Our Workers' Council and the primary organization of the League of Communists have not got the power to do so...
...Among these, in the first place, are the democratic elements inclined toward all kinds of liberalization, who are drawn more by the Western European social and economic systems than by Eastern 'Socialism,' and are particularly attracted to the Scandinavian countries...
...From 1946 to 1962, economic aid from the United States, without credits, loans, technical aid, etc., amounted to $1.7 billion while military aid amounted to $693.9 million...
...a systemized, planned schizophrenia...
...Among these dissatisfied persons he counts as most important the main advocates of nationalism in Croatia and Serbia...
...It is with the second part of the last sentence that I am incriminated in the indictment...
...Only the whole article can convey its true meaning, whereas the prosecution cuts one sentence in half and by so doing changes the meaning of both sentences cited to incriminate me...
...The withering away of the role of the Communists as an organization is accomplished by the strengthening of the consciousness of the whole social structure, and thus it will be less necessary for the League of Communists to be the teacher...
...Parts i and ii of "Moscow Summer, 1964," then appeared as a special expanded issue of The New Leader for March 29, 1965...
...False information would have been disseminated if I had written, for instance, that Yugoslavia made a secret agreement with, say, Indonesia, directed against Iceland, or that in Zagreb 50,000 people were arrested...
...In short, am I fomenting national hatred, as asserted by our press and repeated in the indictment, or am I uniting the nationalists as is asserted in the very same indictment...
...After all, I am not the first person who has called the one-party government an organism afflicted with schizophrenia...
...If anyone is to be tried for spreading false information and assertions in order to incite the citizens, it should be those members of the press who initiated the campaign against me and those people who deceived the members of the Zadar Socialist Union of Workers...
...This trial certainly shows that it is still impossible to speak here of a struggle of ideas...
...This was carried out in the book Russian Themes...
...Obviously the Draft itself was in no manner a call for public rallying but only an analysis of current conditions, an analysis which may be wrong (I do not consider it wrong) yet one which cannot under any circumstances be characterized as a means of "spreading false information or an assertion aimed at inciting citizens...
...I rejected the explanation that intellectuals in the Socialist countries keep silent only out of fear...
...At the heart of the matter lies a cruel paradox: Those who prevent us from speaking the truth here in the Socialist world abet the repression of freedom in the capitalist world...
...I personally know the situation in the publishing establishment, which now cannot prosper without government subsidy...
...The article "How Sound is the Reputation of the Red Booklet," in Vjesnik u srijedu,?of August 10, 1966, contains the following statement: "The reputation of the League of Communists has declined because some of its members behave as if they were the only ones invited to decide on the future of our collective...
...The President of the Republic himself acknowledges that "there are still people in some republics who think that somehow a day will come when we will separate from one another...
...Stojanovic writes: "Although at the Fourth Congress it was said that they are not transmitting agents, they are de jacto that to this day...
...Moreover, I am incriminated with an incorrect quotation because the prosecution has evidently employed the English translation in its entirety, not my original text, as proven by its use of The New Leader's title for "What We Want and Why We Keep Silent...
...These articles declare unconstitutional only that activity which is anti-Socialist, but nowhere in the constitution is Socialism identified with the League of Communists...
...And whether a certain potential social current at a given moment is aiming toward democracy should be discussed ideologically in magazines and not in a court...
...The monopoly of information, no matter in whose hands it may be, is a priori undemocratic and carries within itself the possibilities for incredible crimes...
...But there is nothing unconstitutional in this...
...It is evident that this trial is not based on my articles, because a full investigation of them was completed in the spring of this year, whereas I was arrested two days before the Founding Assembly in Zadar...
...For this reason, when speaking about a one-party system, I have used the metaphor "schizophrenia of the body politic...
...Nirf> of September 11, 1966, published a discussion on "The League of Communists Today and Tomorrow" in which a member of the Central Committee of the League, Dr...
...The President of the Republic says: "The role of the League of Communists is not declining, as is being said abroad and by our class-enemies at home...
...Immediately thereafter, the most virulent Stalinism erupted, destroying that economic liberalization because the New Economic Policy was not accompanied by political liberalization and the party maintained its monopoly over authority...
...The only remedy for the creation of a healthy society is in political freedom...
...Already in 1953 we find the following in Borba: "In my opinion the judiciary must...
...Why does a group of 10 or 15 persons hold, year after year, a monopoly over membership in workers' councils, the steering committee, the syndicate in various enterprises...
...Such was the case of my "Draft of a Program for the Founding Assembly in Zadar," from which sentences and parts of sentences (as in the indictment) were maliciously deleted...
...As far as I am concerned, I salute the League's wish to wither away, and the sooner the better...
...Hitler claimed that he learned most from Lenin and Trotsky...
...This charge would be correct if the powers of the League of Communists were in fact controlled by the workers...
...What about the interminable education reforms that have done so much to undermine the reputation of our secondary schools...
...Thus in Croatia, it is difficult to lump together the Ustasi and the sympathizers of the Croatian Peasant Party...
...In this we can discern the spirit of all totalitarianism...
...We do not even have the rights given to Negroes in the United States????those of political association and the right to fight legally for their own constitutional guarantees...
...whether they like it or not, they concretely strengthen reactionary forces of all kinds in the opposite camp...
...Article 136 of the Constitution reads: "The Courts in the execution of their functions13...
...Who was allowed in those days to publicly call attention to the damages inflicted upon the country by Party politics...
...Iwill give only a few quotations from our press which illuminate the question of self-government...
...And it does not need to be pointed out that Milovan Djilas' The New Class and the books of the condemned Soviet writers, Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, could sell in enormous numbers...
...3. This document, in which Mihajlov outlined his plans for the formation of an opposition journal within the legal framework of the Yugoslav Constitution, is referred to in detail later in the text...
...The Socialist intellectual who expresses himself freely before the Western public begins to feel, somehow, like a traitor...
...The article was published more than one year ago in the American magazine The New Leader,1 the organ of the American Labor Conference on International Affairs...
...Throughout this case nearly the entire press was bombarding me and my collaborators with the most perfidious libels, while we had no opportunity to reply, not even with a single word...
...It is evident, in the Zadar Declaration of the Organizing Committee of August 9, 1966, that my friends who espoused the intentions of my Draft adopted an identical attitude toward our nationalities question...
...In my Draft I contended that "the 'national question' is not to be and cannot be solved by the disintegration of the federal union, but only by a social-political plan and by the democratization of the entire system...
...If not for such a monopoly, neither Hitler nor Stalin would have been able for years to keep the existence of the concentration camps from their people, or to hide their numerous other crimes...
...notes...
...I think that in these cases we are dealing either with a conscious or unconscious mystification of the public...
...the society which considers itself to be Socialist merely because it has eliminated private ownership of the means of production...
...It is unnecessary to document the monopoly on information in Yugoslavia...
...Articles 39 and 40 of The Principles of the Constitution specifically state that freedom of opinion and association is guaranteed, as is freedom of the press and other forms of information, freedom to speak freely and discuss publicly, freedom to assemble and hold public gatherings...
...The situation is almost exactly the opposite in the case of criticism of conditions at home by people who live in Socialist countries...
...the judgments do not differ...
...That it is impossible simultaneously to execute economic reform and retain a monopoly of organized ideas by the League of Communists is confirmed by a statement of the President of the Republic in the speech referred to above: "Now we raise the issue of collaboration between Communists in enterprises and those outside of them...
...That entire sentence reads as follows: "As long as there is no respect for the Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations, which was signed by Yugoslavia, as well as for the Yugoslav Constitution and Yugoslav laws, and as long as there is no real possibility for the existence of a legal opposition of Social Democratic forces which would be under no control of any kind by the League of Communists, to talk about social democracy, Yugoslav self-government and Djilasism without Djilas is nothing else but sheer bluffing...
...I further rejected the explanation that they have no opportunities to put their views before the world public...
...However, the leading and ideologically directing factors are in no case also monopolistic, as is confirmed by the qualifications appended to Articles 39 and 40...
...Our Constitution guarantees "the right of every citizen to discuss the work of State bodies and autonomous social bodies and organizations dealing with subjects of public interest, and the right to express their opinions regarding such work...
...Mihajlov was on the Faculty of Philosophy at Zadar before his difficulties with the regime and continued to live there until his one-year jail sentence last September...
...That is why the majority of us are silent...
...For Socialist criticism is employed not only as a weapon against the Socialist states but also against socialism, and against all those oppressed by poverty or racial prejudice in the Western world...
...It is as if there existed connected vessels of freedom: Pressure against freedom in one part of the world automatically lowers the level of freedom in all parts of the world...
...It is impossible to put the nationalistic democratic elements and the chauvinistic extremists in the same basket...
...However, our Constitution gives no one the right to take on himself the role of teacher and to treat the rest of the citizens as non-rational pupils...
...There will not be a single word about the fact that I was libeled by the Socialist Union of Workers, Zadar I, for spreading national hatred and receiving money and orders from our enemy????libel, as proven by today's trial...
...In the summary of the indictment I am accused of "calling, rallying and organizing" the most reactionary elements in the country, the Croatian and Serbian nationalists among others...
...Article 40 guarantees the freedom of political association...
...But it is evident that the life of our society has been greatly damaged by the Party's control of all information...
...or why Pasternak's Dr...
...What guarantee exists that tomorrow a new Rankovic will not emerge...
...Today there are very few of the old-line opposition capitalistic elements...
...For me the question was why this simple reporting by a man in a Socialist country should create such an outcry...
...The prosecution is charging me with "equating the government of a workers' society and that of terror-ruled Fascist factions...
...For nationality is an undeniable, existing entity, conditioned historically, culturally and economically, which, with its own characteristics, contributes to the variety and richness of the entire human community...
...Totalitarianism is precisely the monopoly of an ideology without considering whether or not it is by itself positive...
...I think it contains the same ideas that are to be found in my other two articles, which were written specifically for publication...
...Why have many functions become a 'hereditary right' in the hands of some individuals...
...All of our newspapers have written that I am "spreading national hatred" and that I am "getting money and orders from our enemy," but you can see for yourselves that I am being tried for the criticisms in my articles...
...By-passing the interests and the rights of workers, thrusting upon them their own policy, they inevitably began, perhaps unconsciously, to reduce the system of self-government and the democratization of society to a mere formality of procedure...
...The withering away is a long process, and it does not mean the withering away of the Communist ideology but rather the growth of the consciousness of the citizens...
...In this Draft it is altogether clear that my aim was not to "incite the citizens," as the indictment charges, but only to found an independent magazine????which resulted in the registration of the magazine by my friends in August of this year...
...and that social consciousness which is present only in personal contacts between people...
...Let us remember the case of Milovan Djilas and the consequences of his criticisms, even though he was Vice President of the State...
...Yet the indictment incriminates me for this sentence: "It is char to all that today in Yugoslavia it is precisely the League of Communists which departs from the Constitution and breaks the laws, inasmuch as it is attempting, with all the means at its disposal, to maintain this unnatural monopoly over the socio-political life of the country...
...Thus in fact it did not 1. This article appeared in The New Leader of August 30, 1965, under the abbreviated title, "Why We Are Silent...
...Regrettably, out of six sentences, only the first and third are quoted fully so the whole meaning of the passage is lost...
...That is why writing of this kind by Westerners, regardless of whether it is published in the West or in the Socialist press, cannot be successfully exploited here as a propaganda weapon...
...why a simple sociological study...
...Whether a thing is reactionary or progressive depends on the given historical moment...
...Since our Constitution says nothing about a one-party system, this monopolizing of power by the League of Communists is naturally in contradiction with the intentions of the Constitution and the laws...
...But now we must be teachers...
...And do you know how doctors diagnose such a condition...
...It is not necessary to document the great liberating significance of so many nationalistic uprisings in the world...
...Naturally, in a society where the discussion of certain social matters is permissible during some periods and forbidden in other periods, depending upon the Central Committee's policy of the moment, a corrosive division is created between what is said officially and what concerns people privately...
...Schizophrenia, and the splitting of the personality...
...These allegations are based on a quotation from my Draft which consists of one entire paragraph...
...This Draft was an analysis of the current historical, socio-political and legal realities in our country, and it was not intended for publication...
...Some Communists, on the other hand, are very active but more as the protagonists of power...
...in Slovenia, the White Guard with the Christian Socialists who, in coalition with the Communists, have since 1941 taken part in the national liberation struggle...
...Moscow Summer was translated and published in many languages while I was still in prison last year...
...Accordingly, all levelling and obliterating of national characteristics is reactionary in its intent, for the human race is a symphony and not a chant in unison...
...The special Wednesday edition of Vjesnik which carries many special feature articles and has the largest circulation of the weekAgain, in Nin of August 28, 1966...
...that same day Marshal Tito branded Mihajlov a "reactionary...
...I asserted that ideological and economic liberalization, which is the aim of all the reforms, is not possible without political liberalization...
...That I was entirely right in saying the reform had produced a drop in living standards is proved by the statistics published in Borba" of September 14, 1966...
...For it appears to us that not a word from the Fourth Plenary Session has so far reached our leadership...
...The statement "Most likely you agree that by means of its power the League of Communists has up to now dictated to a large extent what decisions were to be taken by autonomous bodies," gets the following reply from Mika Tripalo, political secretary of the Town Council of the Zagreb League of Communists: "If by the League of Communists you mean the committees, then this is right...
...which state that since the beginning of the reform the standards have actually declined by 32.8 per cent...
...And this sense of treachery is a much more decisive factor in inhibiting free expression than fear of the reprisals to which Socialist intellectuals submit themselves...
...5. Vladimir Bakaric is President of the CP Central Committee in Croatia, where Vjesnik is the leading daily...
...This situation could very easily be changed, were it not for the ideological restrictions on the publishing of certain books...
...7. The Yugoslav section of the Cominform...
...They often paid no attention to the disposition of the unions of working people and of organs of self-government, or to the economic soundness of integration...
...They consider their functions as their monopoly...
...If a one-party system and Socialism are synonymous, then I am certainly guilty...
...In spite of the greatest effort, I did not succeed in grasping why it states in the summary of the indictment that I assert "that it is the Socialist intellectuals who have a hostile attitude toward our Socialist system...
...This shows that when we speak today of the withering away of the League of Communists we do not necessarily mean this will happen...
...are independent and pass judgment in accordance with the Constitution and the Laws...
...And in this struggle Socialist intellectuals are in a tougher, incommensurate situation because they are condemned to silence...
...Consequently, as long as a minority has all the civil rights and the majority has only restricted rights, I think it is absolutely appropriate to say that we are dealing with a so-called Socialist society...
...This is confirmed by a Marxist from Belgrade, Dr...
...I deny the prosecution's allegation that I wrote my articles for the purpose of weakening the citizens' confidence in the building of a Socialist socio-economic system...
...How long will decisions be based on dialectical and historical materialism instead of the law...
...Chapter Two states: "Every form of directing production and other social activities, and every form of distribution which, through arbitrariness and privileges based on monopolistic positions or through selfish private ownership and particularism, prevents social relations based on this condition of man, is contrary to both the general and particular interests of men and to the social, economic, and political system confirmed by this Constitution...
...In Nin of September 13, 1966, in the continuation of the discussion entitled "How to Separate from the Authorities...
...And of course just as before everyone was "unanimously" for Rankovic, now everyone is "unanimously" against him...
...These elements differ in many ways in their conceptions and tendencies, but are uniform in their wish for the creation of a positive social force which would be able to place itself in opposition to a totalitarian dictatorship at the moment when Tito abandons power...
...I could give 10 more quotations, but I think those mentioned should suffice...
...the society which decides who may criticize and how to criticize . . . the society in which one man is unhappy because he speaks what he thinks and another is happy because he does not speak what he thinks...
...It always involves the unification of thought and social life in some single ideology...
...Let us recall the Stalin Constitution of 1936, an unusually humane document...
...We started off with some clear ideas, looking at economics as a whole and at its development in the world and in our own country...
...At the assembly of the Zadar Socialist Union of Workers which condemned me, the citizens were presented with the claim that I received the unbelievably large sum of 70 million dinars from "our enemy...
...Perovic expressed this opinion in a discussion published by Nin to clarify the following statement in a lead editorial: "How can we determine the real place of the League of Communists in society under the new conditions, or, in other words, how can we remove the mechanism of self-government and direct democracy from the shadow of such a powerful and influential political organization...
...In its entirety, the passage mutilated by the indictment, reads as follows: "The primary potentially antagonistic forces in Yugoslavia are still unorganized...
...1.95...
...To avoid repetition, I will speak of my articles in the order of their appearance...
...A non-party society as an object of development exists in the Program of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia...
...But the citizens of Zadar, that is, the local organization of the Socialist Union of Workers, Zadar I, proclaimed that I was fomenting national hatred...
...However, we should certainly distinguish the nationalists from the chauvinists...
...Totalitarian rulers deny all absolute standards external to themselves...
...That such a possibility could become a reality in our society was shown by the Fourth Plenary Session...
...The last sentence, taken out of context, is invoked in the accusation against me, yet this very trial proves the correctness of my assertions about the reasons for silence...
...Accordingly, there exists a fully accepted definition of totalitarianism...
...Slobodna Dalmacija, August 23, 1966...
...It is understandable that as long as there is only one political party that may act legally and that possesses a monopoly of all the information media, the realization of economic liberalization will be impossible...
...This is because there is no practical way Yugoslavia could defend itself, should the power now in the hands of top Yugoslav Communist party members fall into the clutches of a Stalinist...
...This has been proven by our own press which, particularly in the last few months, has carried a wealth of material confirming my assertions...
...3 The Polish Marxist thinker Andrzej Stawar writes this about totalitarian societies: "Their common features are: the existence of a single party with a cult of its leader, ideological unification, etc...
...The remarks were made not only by the persons who study these matters, like economists and technicians, but by other individuals and by entire groups of working people...
...Speaking about the conservative forces he goes on: "Very often the slogan of these forces is to reduce democracy to 'direct democracy,' with which we certainly made a great break-through...
...If the market laws and the play of economic factors really operated without the interference of Party controls, that is, if business enterprises were truly self-administrative, then what our press tells us simply could not be...
...It is important to remember that my Draft was written in December 1965...
...The League of Communists was even very active in fighting against these criticisms, operating always with the conviction that integration is a good thing...
...They have often supported certain definitely techno-bureau-cratic positions or interests, be it in organizations of working people or communes...
...The primary characteristic of totalitarianism and totalitarian societies is the monopoly by one political party of all information media...
...Reading the latest declarations by our government leaders, it is not difficult to discern that the League of Communists is trying to hold on to its monopoly...
...These freedoms and rights are realized on the basis of the Constitution itself...
...All these forces could, at any given moment, unite under the banner 'Djilas????djilasism.'" The prosecution removed all that is italicized from this passage and thus distorted the meaning...
...This was a time when, according to the testimony of the Fourth Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the League of Communists, very strong factions supported by the most centralized alliance of all????the State Security Services????were stifling and obstructing reform by every possible means...
...Who ever dared to criticize anything of importance...
...The judiciary must become an organ of the State and the law????which means the people?not an organ of political interest or opinion from the Party ranks...
...When will the Communists step down from this platform of authoritative, very often formalistic and unobjective appraisal of other people's conduct, without public control of their own work and behavior...
...In my Draft I expressed the opinion that a magazine independent of the League would be supported, as I put it, by the potentially democratic forces: "Inside the Framework of the League of Communists, particularly among the younger members and intellectuals, there exists great sympathy for that potential force which I will call democratic and about which I will speak...
...I used this metaphor intentionally to characterize the disease of our body politic: the separation of the public consciousness (and in our society this is represented by the press, radio, 6. Published in The New Leader of July 4, 1966...
...Even if I were to campaign publicly, through legal means, for the separation of a Yugoslav nation (since my parents are Russian I cannot imagine which one it would be), my campaign would not be unlawful and unconstitutional...
...I believe this feeling has been experienced even by writers who, thanks to unusual circumstances, have succeeded in speaking the truth about their society in their own country: Pasternak, Dudintsev and Solzhenit-syn must have felt this uneasiness...
...But that is precisely what I have refuted in my articles...
...Also, it is not clear to me what the indictment considers as false in my assumptions regarding the potential opposition elements in our country...
...we came to the conclusion that integration is a positive thing...
...All this could have been avoided if the monopoly of the press did not exist...
...This is why I wrote that there cannot be anything but either a return to police dictatorship or liberalization in Yugoslavia...
...terests whether in forcing non-economic integration or in putting the brakes on economic integration...
...Remarks were made about this procedure and about this policy...
...This is a very bold statement on my part but I am telling you that it is correct...
...As long as the monopoly of information is exclusively in the League's hands there will not be any guarantee that the Fifth, Sixth or Seventh Plenary Sessions will not declare that, say, Veljko Vlakhovic, Edward Kardelj or Mika Tripalo is a new Rankovic...
...the society which considers that people must be happier with Socialism than with any other form of society...
...With us the self-management of the workers has not functioned in the past nor does it function now...
...You must realize that you cannot create a bright and happy future with a split personality, with two different standards for morals...
...I personally think that a multi-party system can achieve a true renaissance precisely in a Socialist society????in a Socialist society it is impossible for great concentrations of capital to influence the development of political thought...
...At the time my Draft was written I could not foresee such an event as the Fourth Plenary Session and my prognosis and estimates of the economic measures taken by the government were pessimistic...
...All that was said today is material for a polemic of ideas and not for a courtroom...
...At that time I could not forsee that Moscow Summer would be included, because I had sent a great number of old and new articles to Kultura and Moscow Summer had already been translated into Polish...
...Why did our press keep silent about the student demonstrations in Zagreb in 1959...
...I hold that we were dealing here with a conservatism which was dearly paid for...
...This was precisely the reason for the failure of many economically justified cases of integration????they were not appealing to certain committees (or, more accurately, to some individuals in these committees...
...Naturally, the part where I discuss Yugoslavia's development favorably and contend that on the historical scale Yugoslavia is about 10 years ahead of the other Socialist countries is omitted...
...Naturally, it is impossible to liberalize the economy, which is the intention of the economic reforms, if the policy of various enterprises is dictated by the League of Communists and not by economic laws...
...I then requested that on all accounts the page for which I was tried last year be taken out of the text...
...Regrettably, then, this discussion is my only public defense, as I was unable to defend myself through the press, all of which published the resolution of the Socialist Union of Workers in Zadar charging that I was "spreading national hatred" and "receiving money and orders from our enemy"????a serious libel...
...It is precisely because I cannot defend myself through the medium that attacked me, the press, and because the prosecution has shown no desire to protect me from libel, that 1 can only now answer the incredible assertions of our press...
...In our country (and that was the position when I wrote these articles) no authentic self-government existed...
...Thus, for most of us it is impossible to write critically in the Western press as well, despite the ample opportunity to do so...
...In my "Draft of a Program for a Founding Conference in Zadar," which was illegally used by this court in a press campaign against me, I defined totalitarianism as follows: "Totalitarianism is an absolute monopoly in the socio-political life by any one ideology, religion or political party...
...but as the basic law for the citizens of Yugoslavia, undoubtedly the State Constitution itself is more important...
...when many prices were frozen and the economic reform had reached a crisis...
...At the same time this case shows that there is no freedom of ideas without political freedom, and that it is impossible to have only one organized social force and, at the same time, several opinions...
...That the assertions for which I am tried today are absolutely truthful will be proven by tomorrow's Yugoslav press...
...He speaks thus of what Socialism is not: "The society which wishes that all its members hold the same views on philosophy, foreign policy, economics, literature, and ethics...
...the society in which philosophers and writers say the same things as generals and ministers but always after the latter...
...Similarly, those in the West who outlaw Communist parties, and engage in censorship and McCarthyism, strengthen Communist totalitarianism...
...nationalistic tendencies are constructive while chauvinistic tendencies are destructive...
...be freed of the recent Party intervention in its work...
...I will conclude by citing two short letters from groups of workers in the editorial office of Vjesnik u srijedu: "We are turning to you because we do not know whose duty it is to help us...
...One need only compare the dates of the coming of dictatorship in Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain...
...What did our press write about the Djilas case...
...Not only is it illogical to accuse someone with a part of a sentence, but it is also illogical to quote only one part of an entire text...
...Borba, September 14, 1966...
...into honest private individual men, and the ruthless, amoral builder of happiness...
...the simultaneity of "enforced collectivization" and the economic crisis in the West...
...However, we started by applying it incorrectly...
...Selected Articles About Marxism...
...Krste Crvenkovski, political secretary of the Central Committee of the Macedonia League of Communists, writes in Vjesnik of August 21, 1966: "The primary organs of the League of Communists in various organizations have not always been, nor are they now, the leaders of a decisive struggle for self-management and for consistent application of the Socialist principle of distribution according to the work accomplished...
...We are concerned primarily with the technological and cultural intelligentsia, religious people of all faiths, those in the highest cultural strata who are ideologically opposed to Marxism, the sympathizers of Christian individualism in Slovenia, those who sympathize with the nationalist tendencies of the Croatian people in Croatia and the Serbian people in Serbia, the supporters of Djilas, and with great numbers of the young in the League of Communists...
...the present charges were brought against me after it became clear that my arrest alone did not frighten my collaborators from founding an independent Socialist magazine...
...I have shown that everything I wrote in my articles has lately been printed in our press...
...Is it not bureaucracy, for instance, when a Workers' Council takes important decisions behind closed doors or when someone always goes around displaying the banner of self-government and in reality, with the help of various official and informal groups, carries through what he wishes...
...Vladimir Bakaric in the August 14, 1966, Vjesnik: "Now it has come out that it was possible to maintain a certain attitude against the autonomous tendencies in the central organization because similar conditions were to be found in the establishment itself...
...Regarding the second point of the indictment, my conditional punishment of last year was only a formality, since the court has freed me from the charges for which Delo was proscribed...
...This means that it is not so much a question of what is said, but of who says it and when he speaks...
...That is also asserted by our press, especially by the Narodni listu and Slobodna Dalmacija'2 of August 6, 1966...
...A year and a half ago my reportage from the Soviet Union, "Moscow Summer, 1964," created a great sensation,2 although it was nothing more than an ordinary report written in haste from my travel 2. Part i of "Moscow Summer, 1964," was published in the January 1965 issue of the Belgrade literary monthly Delo without incident...
...Naturally, it would be illusory even to attempt this without the moral support of world public opinion...
...China today calls itself a Socialist country...
...a newspaper published in Split...
...It is self-evident that without political democracy there cannot be a democracy of ideas, and the teaching role of the League of Communists manifests itself in a totalitarianism of ideas...
...This assertion from my Draft was also mutilated in the indictment...
...In other words, local interests often came before general in 9. a Belgrade weekly...
...I firmly believe I am right in calling it totalitarian...
...That is why I am convinced that today the conservative forces are those which try to maintain a one-party system and the monopoly of one ideology...
...The earliest article of the three for which I am today accused is entitled "What We Want and Why We Keep Silent" and is presented by the prosecution as my second article...
...And what has happened to some personalities...
Vol. 50 • May 1967 • No. 10
