THE DJILAS AFFAIR

...Djilas reflects both the faults and virtues of this haTdy race of fighters...

...On some occasions he is gripped with a passion for action, on others by the indecisiveness of a Hamlet...

...The "hostile propaganda" law was so ambiguous that Djilas' articles could have been simply ignored...

...But the party showed little faith in Djilas...

...Djilas, the Montenegrin Hajduk, was now literally daring the regime to act against him, and it must be said that in the face of this the government showed remarkable restraint...

...It is unlikely that Djilas could have long continued to attract much attention abroad, and at worst the result of his foreign publishing would have been a passing embarrassment of no consequence...

...For one thing, what he began to write was, as Tito said later, "what many of us had already said or written on the matter...

...For five hundred years, while the Turks enslaved other Balkan peoples, the Montenegrins fought and kept free their black mountain fastness...

...What does a Communist state committed to some elements of democracy and personal liberty, as Yugoslavia undoubtedly is, do with a fearless and articulate opponent who persists in defying it...

...Many of them, probably including Tito, realize that in terms of public relations the new persecution of Djilas will do them more harm in the West than good in Moscow...

...Djilas has now been sentenced for writing a book—published in the United States—about his conversations with Stalin and his observations on the U.S.S.R...

...He said he had held Jovanovic, the Montenegrin party leader, in his arms when Jovanovic was a child...

...The essence of his demands as a Communist had been that there should be free discussion within the party, with decisions arrived at not from on high but by genuinely democratic processes and with "ad hoc opposition groups" permitted...

...There can be no doubt about Djilas' sincerity and dedication to his ideals...

...This is the fourth time in nine years that he has been in serious trouble with the regime of which he was one of the founders...

...What is more important than Djilas' politics is Djilas the man...

...When the seventh Congress of the Yugoslav League of Communists met in 1958, Djilas was in Mitrovica prison, where Tito had once been confined in pre-war days...

...These factors, however, are hardly the essence of the matter...

...He was, however, hauled up before the Central Committee in January, 1954, and in a public session—broadcast to the nation—denounced and disciplined...

...The answer was not only that Djilas' articles ended up in a more extreme position than anyone had foreseen...

...Actually, the personal reasons may be the more important...

...And Tito made it clear that however sincerely he might be dedicated to the new liberal line, he and his colleagues had no intention of presiding over the dissolution of their own dictatorship...

...Djilas was perhaps more violent as an anti-Stalinist than he had been as a Stalinist...

...A lesser known but better written book by Djilas—Land Without Justice—vividly describes the Montenegrin milieu in which the author was raised...

...And Djilas...

...Precisely what Djilas, in his anti-Communist phase, wants is not clear, just as the realistic alternatives to the Tito regime are not clear...

...he is only battering his head against a stone wall...

...Yet in 1952, he still had doubts...

...But when it was over and they finally had to face up to their new situation, the Yugoslav leaders were different men, psychologically as well as ideologically...

...For the Tito regime, Djilas poses an embarrassing problem...

...It was as though Djilas was persuading himself at each step of the way that he must go still further...

...The roots of Djilas' fervor and courage go far back into his national past...

...Go on with it...

...To understand why this complex man repeatedly defies the Tito regime against hopeless odds, one must first understand something about that proud and passionate people, the South Slavs...

...In less than fifteen years, he has been an extreme Stalinist, an extreme anti-Stalinist Communist, and an extreme anti-Communist...

...His book, "War and Peace and Germany," has just been published...

...THE DJILAS AFFAIR by FRED WARNER NEAL THE condemnation which Western liberals are showering on Yugoslavia's Marshal Tito's regime for having put Milovan Djilas back in prison is both understandable and merited...

...Repeated urgings from outside sources—such as British and American socialists—to free Djilas were of no avail...

...Immediately after the war, the Yugoslav Communist regime was perhaps the most harsh and dictatorial in Eastern Europe, and few were more extreme in their views and actions than Milovan Djilas, few more adulatory of Stalin and the Soviet Union...

...The New Class leaves Djilas' own expertise in ideology in doubt...

...it was also that they turned out to be more popular than anybody had imagined...

...Even if no one else were convinced by his polemics, at least Milovan Djilas was...

...Djilas very early concluded that one could go a long way...

...Even if—as is possible—the regime passed this act with Djilas and his new book in mind, still it is a reasonable enough statute by ordinary democratic standards...

...In the meantime, the manuscript of The New Class was somehow smuggled out of Yugoslavia, and its appearance in America in 1957 produced a sensation...

...He also has a tendency to go to extremes...

...Even his former wife, Mitra Mitrovic, voted against him...

...The ideological—like the educational—level of the Yugoslav Communist Party was not very high in 1952, and it is little wonder that a great many party members became confused about their new role...

...On the one hand, it demonstrates the conflict between even "liberal Communism" and individual rights...

...in 1954, he speculated that in a few years the Soviet Union might become more democratic than Yugoslavia...

...For Djilas, however, this decision had just the opposite effect...

...The problem for Djilas as well as other Yugoslav Communists was essentially this: It was necessary to have more democracy, yet how far could they go in this direction without jeopardizing Communism...

...The following year, when the party high command cracked down on bureaucratic abuses among Communists, the Executive Committee's directive sounded almost like excerpts from The New Class, minus its anti-Communist overtones...

...But the Congress could not escape him...

...Meanwhile, his own thinking was developing rapidly...

...Once the law had been invoked, any further obstreperousness on Djilas' part would be in defiance of the law...

...They were now anti-Communist as well...

...He cautioned the Sixth Congress of the Yugoslav Communist Party that although increasing democracy meant risking "revival of not only bureaucratic but bourgeois elements as well," any trend "toward bourgeois democracy would be but a mask for turning back to the semi-feudal conditions which existed before World War II...

...The first time he was convicted—for "hostile propaganda"—the nature of the law itself was undemocratic...

...Djilas soon expressed some of these heretical views in an interview with a correspondent of The New York Times...

...His moods run from brilliant gaiety and optimism to black depression...

...And it is likely that they include many of his Yugoslav jailers...

...In 1952, the Yugoslav party decreed a sweeping decentralization and democratization of itself and the government, and Tito even enunciated the idea that the party, like the state, must begin "to wither away...

...someone asked...

...But finally, in January, 1961, he was paroled...

...Milovan Djilas led the attack, and joined with Tito, Kardelj, Pijade, and others in formulating new ideological positions...

...A breed of warrior heroes grew up in the process, often self-confident to the point of vanity, fearless to the point of foolhardiness, unrestrained in enthusiasms to the point of reckless extremism...

...It is not impossible that Belgrade's new efforts at rapprochement with Moscow may have played a part in the decision to reincarcerate Djilas, but it is highly doubtful ^ l^ls were the determining factor...

...This having been denied, he now concluded that a two-party system should be established in Yugoslavia...

...The first requirement was a theoretical justification of their position as a Communist state outside the world Communist community, and this in turn required a new and critical analysis of the Soviet Union...

...Djilas, however, refused to remain a non-person...

...But he FRED WARNER NEAL, professor of international relations and government at Cfaremont Graduate School, has spent considerable time traveling and working in Yugoslavia and is co-author of the recent book, "Yugoslavia and the New Communism...

...But Djilas was again intent on forcing a showdown...

...Djilas is by no means the only political Yugoslav who has been in trouble...

...The regime, by punishing Djilas without breaking him, only calls attention to ideas it would prefer kept quiet and casts doubts on its own professions of democracy...

...In essence," he told reporters, his views were unchanged, but he said he had hopes that the trend in Yugoslavia was toward more democracy...

...In the privacy of his apartment, he suffered from inactivity and wounded pride...

...Yet Djilas, being Djilas, must continue to defy, and the regime, being the regime, must continue to bat him down...

...responded the old Montenegrin...

...But his latest conviction comes under an official secrets act prohibiting publication of un- cleared material gleaned from official duties...

...Angered beyond words, the Tito regime peremptorily added seven years to his sentence...

...One of his tracts—declaring that the Soviet Union had "as much connection with Marxism as have gods with hatters" —was republished by the anti-Communist Committee for a Free Europe, much to Djilas' annoyance, for he then remained an ardent Communist, Yugoslav style...

...So complete was their acceptance of Stalin and the U.S.S.R...

...Djilas once told a visitor that "Tito is not at home in ideological matters...

...that in a literal sense they suffered psychological trauma when, to their horror, they found themselves excommunicated by the objects of their adoration...

...Tito, usually restrained in speech, has called Djilas "a lunatic," "a corrupt person," "a traitor," and "a renegade spitting at the finest achievement of the revolution...

...At first, what Djilas wrote attracted no great attention...

...Once when he took his regular seat at a soccer game, those around him ostentatiously got up and moved...

...Stripped of his posts and perquisites, he was recalled by his Montenegrin parliamentary constituency which earlier elected him by an announced 98.8 per cent of the ballots...

...It is highly unlikely that Djilas can make inroads on Yugoslav Communism...

...He said he had nursed Tito's wounds during the war...

...He repeated earlier warnings against the dangers of bureaucracy, dogmatism, and opportunism and proclaimed that Communism had to be defended by more democracy...

...If Djilas thought the trend had gone so far the regime would now ignore his activities, he was wrong, as his latest arrest, trial, and sentence show...

...In this sense, Djilas and the regime have each other over the barrel...

...He decided to undertake—singlehandedly if need be—the "correction" of what his peers had decreed...

...In the spring of 1956, he complained in a letter to The New York Times that Yugoslav publishers refused his manuscripts for political reasons...

...He later commented wryly to this writer that his survival was a "monument to the Cominform Resolation...

...The determining factor was simply Djilas himself and his relations with his former comrades...

...Djilas was sent to prison, his sentence increased to three years...

...At the same time, such persecution is the exception rather than the rule in Yugoslavia, and Djilas is a special exception...

...Eastern European graveyards are full of the bones of those who committed far lesser offenses, but no legal action at all was taken against Djilas...

...At the same time, his friend Dedijer stalked out of a Party Control Commission meeting called to investigate his ideas and leaked the episode, denouncing the Commission, to Western journalists...

...Whether Djilas was "rehabilitable" at this time or whether he had already gone too far, it is impossible to say...

...Milovan Djilas, now fifty-one years old, has the soul of a poet, the heart of a lion, and a complicated mind...

...In the fall of 1956, in an article in the socialist but anti-Communist New Leader, he sharply attacked Tito's ambiguous stand on the Hungarian revolution...

...Djilas showed every intention of continuing to be obstreperous...

...Communism, capitalism, man, the state—the world as a whole—all began to appear in a changed light...

...They were given suspended sentences, Djilas eighteen months and Dedijer six months, and placed on probation...

...It is a magnificent display of human courage, but it does not hurt the wall very much...

...Even as he did so, he kept up his public barrage against the government...

...But regardless of his motives, his political position is complex...

...He concluded by calling for dissolution of the Communist Party and, to cap the climax, making a biting personal attack not only on the party high command but on their wives as well...

...has become not only a symbol of anti-Communism—as a result of his book The New Class—but also a symbol of personal opposition and challenge to Tito and the other Yugoslav leaders...

...Tito told him: "There are some things I don't agree with, but in the main there are some good things, and I don't think it is any reason for you not to write...

...The story, possibly apocrypha), went around Belgrade about the old Montenegrin who boasted that he knew all the Yugoslav leaders from way back...

...He was formerly a Washington and foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and a consultant on Russian affairs and chief of foreign research on Eastern Europe for the Department of State...

...Yet it is not a great theoretical work...

...It is ironic indeed that the issue of personal freedom versus Communist dictatorship should be posed so dramatically and so frequently in the one Communist state that in some ways, at least comparatively, approaches Western guarantees of personal freedom...

...Both Djilas and Dedijer were promptly arrested, and convicted after a trial, on charges of "hostile propaganda...

...No one in or out of Yugoslavia believes that Djilas poses any kind of real threat to the Tito regime...

...Now the dare was taken up...

...Secondly, to judge the Djilas case out of its peculiar Yugoslav context can obscure the fact that freedom of expression and political opposition are nowhere near as restricted in Yugoslavia as they are elsewhere in Eastern Europe...

...The Djilas affair had its real origins in the rupture between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in 1948...

...But to make sure, Djilas cleared with "Stari," as Tito is called by close party associates...

...Montenegro, of course, was in many ways atypical, but as the violent fratricidal conflict that raged in Yugoslavia during World War II showed, it was not wholly atypical...

...His colleagues ostracized him...

...When Tito was in Moscow that June making up to Khruschchev, Djilas wrote a series of articles for the Hearst and other foreign newspapers criticizing the new Soviet leadership and attacking Tito for seeking a rapprochement...

...I never heard of him...

...In December, 1953, he called for the abandonment of Communism as a goal because it was too distant to be meaningful and because "in the end it will come anyway...

...There is no evidence that in the beginning Djilas had any idea of "opposing the party...

...The New Class is a burning indictment of Communism, and it makes some telling points against the Yugoslav variety in particular...

...Furthermore, Djilas has, without doubt, violated the laws of his country...

...Regardless of how one feels about Titoism, all who believe in the human spirit and admire courage must be moved by Djilas...

...But now the power and prestige of the state were involved...

...Suddenly he began to train his fire on sacred concepts...

...And feelings of abused friendship and betrayal as well as the aversion of the faithful to the heretic are strong indeed...

...This he set about doing by writing a series of articles in the fall of 1953 in Borba, the leading Communist newspaper, and in the party's theoretical magazine, Nova Misao...

...Only his friend Vladimir Dedijer dared to suggest that the week before nearly all the hierarchy agreed with Djilas and to wonder "how we can think one thing today and all of a sudden change our opinions overnight...

...Looking at the post-Stalin situation in the U.S.S.R...

...He emerged from prison pale but defiant...

...Although the outcome of the trial reflected, again, the liberalized nature of Yugoslav Communism, as things turned out it was a serious tactical error from the viewpoint of the regime...

...But gradually the articles took a sharper turn...

...Although he was roundly denounced by the leadership, the party adopted a program embodying some of the ideas he had advocated...

...Djilas proceeded to write The New Class...

...If we permitted this," he warned the Central Committee, "in a year's time our socialist reality would not exist . . . without a bloody battle...

...It convinced him that more speed toward democratization was necessary, rather than less, "if bureaucracy and dictatorship" were not to triumph...

...First, it will not help Djilas and might even hurt him...

...The South Slavs as a whole are not known for their prudence and restraint...

...It is at least open to question just how favorable a climate such a background provides for Western-type political institutions, to say nothing of the almost Utopian system Djilas seems to favor...

...And Djilas, as a Montenegrin, is a member of that least numerous but most fiery of the national groups comprising Yugoslavia...

...It is almost certain that their action was primarily visceral...

...Yet for reasons both personal and political, the Yugoslav leadership feels it cannot take what amounts to continuing dares without doing something about it...

...Two things should be observed, however...

...He denied bitterness, but he confided to the rare visitor who came to see him that Tito had outlived his time and was blocking progress...

...Only press criticism greeted these almost certain violations of the terms of his probation...

...The Yugoslav leaders do not have much appreciation of Western politics, but they are not all stupid...

...Stalin's expulsion of Yugoslavia from the Communist community had a profound impact on all the Yugoslav leaders, who regarded themselves as the most faithful of the faithful...

...He quietly resigned from the party...

...He told the Central Committee that he had regained his "faith in the party...

...More than any other time, this, perhaps, was Djilas' real moment of decision...

...To understand why the Tito regime permits him to defy it, one must understand something about Yugoslav Communism...

...The trouble with the Djilas case is that neither side can win...

...It was a milieu of blood and brutality and betrayal, in which human dignity fought an unending battle with poverty, prejudice, ignorance, and exaggerated individualism...

...Back in the solitude of his family, his views were no longer merely anti-Tito...

...So great was the confusion that in June, 1953, Tito summoned the Central Committee to apply the brakes...

...This regime is inhibited by its own nature from meting out to Djilas the punishment he would long since have received in any other Communist country...

...On the other hand, the fact that the Djilas affair keeps popping up demonstrates the difference between Titoism and the other Communist regimes...