After Tito: Prospects for Democracy
MIHAJLOV, MIHAJLO
A MESSAGE TO THE WEST After Tito: Prospects for Democracy by mihajlo mihajlov Surely there is no longer any need to prove that a one-party monopoly excludes democracy a priori. Nor is it...
...In other words, post-Tito Yugoslavia cannot be a simple continuation of Ti-toist Yugoslavia...
...There is one very important negative factor, however: The almost wholehearted support of the Yugoslav dictatorship by the Western democratic world for purely pragmatic reasons...
...In short, 30 years ago Western support was crucial...
...What would emerge, I am quite sure, would not be a capitalist system, but rather some kind of democratic and pluralistic socialism...
...Yet Yugoslavia's confrontation with Stalin in 1948—the breakup of the monolithic Communist bloc and demonstration that a Communist state could survive independently of Moscow—was no less important than the possible breakup of a one-party monopoly and its movement toward an open society...
...For at the time, let us remember, no one in the world could believe that Yugoslavia would emerge from the struggle with the Soviet tyrant intact, whereas today no one is surprised by the existence of numerous Communist states that are independent of Moscow...
...And paradoxically, the shift from a Communist Party dictatorship to a police-military dictatorship represents a step toward democracy...
...I believe the answer is that they are very good—indeed, that of all the Communist countries at this juncture in history, the potential for such a development is present in Yugoslavia alone...
...Millions of Yugoslav guest workers in Western Europe (more than one quarter of the total Yugoslav labor force) have a perfectly clear understanding of, and strong feelings about, the inadequacies of one-party dictatorship...
...For experience shows that unlike Communist one-party dictatorships, police-military dictatorships are eventually overthrown and succeeded by democratic forces...
...Numerous political legal proceedings against returnees from work in the West testify to this disenchantment...
...Nor is it necessary to show that the current system in Yugoslavia depends directly upon the negation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
...I could offer a long list of reasons for my optimism...
...Some form of ferment can be expected at the outset regardless of who wins the power struggle—whether the liberal "Dub-cek"-like elements, who would seek the help of the now very strong democratic forces outside the party, or the dogmatic elements, who would ultimately have to turn to the USSR to maintain their monopoly...
...We know that becoming a de facto member of nato—when it concluded the Balkan Pact with Greece and Turkey, then members of nato—rescued Yugoslavia from Soviet military intervention...
...1. There is no doubt that thanks to historical circumstances (and not to the liberalism of Tito and the League of Communists), Yugoslavia is the Communist state that has been most exposed to the West...
...Taking into account the remarkable personality cult of Tito himself, the hiding of the full truth about the Civil War and the early years of Communist power, and the continued silence on the subject of Yugoslav concentration camps that existed from 1949-56 on islands in the Adriatic Sea, a de-Titoization campaign that imputed all the sins of the dictatorship to Tito personally would not be too difficult to carry out...
...No, the critical question that must be confronted now in the case of Yugoslavia is: What are the prospects for a transition to a pluralistic society following Marshall Josip Broz Tito's departure from the political scene...
...Unfortunately, history provides us with no precedents for such an expectation...
...To those who would hasten to note that a pluralistic democratic socialism has never existed, I would once more recall 1948...
...In fact, we can observe the strengthening of the dogmatic forces in the Yugoslav Party every day, and to keep their monopoly of power these forces will have no option in the near future other than reliance on the USSR...
...Undoubtedly, a similar situation will develop in Yugoslavia...
...3. All the historical evidence confirms that after the departure of a founder and long-time leader of a Communist state and party, there is a period of liberalization...
...The best known examples of this are the cases of Stalin and Mao Zedong...
...But now, in what I call a "new 1948"—at the moment of transition to a pluralistic society—the role of the democratic world will be more important than ever...
...Given the proper circumstances, I believe a similarly revolutionary development could take place again in Yugoslavia that would produce the breakup of a Communist one-party monopoly for the first time in history...
...I also believe it is very important for Western public opinion, for the democratic world, not only to understand this, but to understand as well that should the potential fail to be realized, there would be an inevitable return to a much more radical totalitarianism in the country than exists today...
...Those pragmatic reasons would still be valid today if we could expect Tito's rule to last forever...
...And the growing understanding reinforces my belief in the prospects for democracy and human rights in post-Tito Yugoslavia...
...Thus far, this has never occurred...
...ment I am optimistic about occurs, it will not be possible to speak realistically of human rights in post-Tito Yugoslavia...
...There are signs that this is slowly being understood by many people, even here in the United States...
...I repeat, both sides are likely to initiate a de-Titoization that is in their interest, since de-Titoization is possible from either the Left or the Right...
...The support of the democratic world during the confrontation with Stalin enabled Yugoslavia to follow its own independent course and made it necessary for the Yugoslav Communists to liberalize certain aspects of life in the country, often against their will...
...We can only imagine that it could have occurred in Czechoslovakia in 1968 in the absence of Soviet military intervention...
...These, then, are what I see as the three main factors that open up the possibility for a radical transition to a pluralistic society in Yugoslavia in the moment of crisis that will inevitably follow Tito's departure...
...But 1 will confine myself here to the three that seem to me paramount...
...True, we can point to no instance where a one-party Communist society has successfully transformed itself into a pluralistic society...
...There is also frequent indictment of the leader himself, and a struggle for power within the Party...
...Therefore, the roles of the secret police and the Army are growing stronger every day...
...The important point, though, is that unless the new revolutionary developMthailo Mihajlov, the Yugoslav dissident writer now visiting the United States, is a frequent NL contributor...
...Consequently, while only 10 years ago support of the Communist regime in Yugoslavia signified support of independence from Moscow and of a more liberal Communist society, today it seems likely to push Yugoslavia into the hands of the USSR once Tito is gone...
...2. After the many purges of the League of Yugoslav Communists, particularly the massive purges in Croatia in 1971 and Serbia in 1972, the Party as a real political force no longer exists...
Vol. 62 • October 1979 • No. 19
