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- From: nyxfer%panix.com@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (N.Y. Transfer)
- Subject: ANTI-NAZI BACKGRND OF YUGOSLAV FEDERATION
- Message-ID: <1992Aug29.194002.13065@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
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- Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
- Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 19:40:02 GMT
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- Via The NY Transfer News Service ~ All the News that Doesn't Fit
-
-
- The Yugoslave Socialist Federation:
- Built in anti-Nazi struggle; torn apart by imperialism
-
- By Sam Marcy
-
- "Hegel remarks somewhere," said Marx in the opening lines of The
- Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, "that all great, historical
- facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add:
- the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." Marx of course had
- reference to Napoleon Bonaparte as a tragic figure and to Louis
- Bonaparte, or Napoleon the Third, as the farce.
-
- The 20th century also has its Napoleons.
-
- `Tito, the incredible'
-
- Josip Broz (Tito--1892-1980) may not have been as popular and
- certainly not as well known as Napoleon the First, but he cut a
- heroic figure in working class history. A metal worker, he was the
- first proletarian to become the head of a workers' state in the
- European arena.
-
- Somewhere in the middle 1940s, a little pamphlet appeared entitled
- "Tito, the Incredible." The title is not an exaggeration. This
- worker not only organized the Communist Party of Yugoslavia but led
- the Partisans and the Council for National Liberation to a complete
- victory over the forces of Nazism, as well as over domestic
- royalist reaction supported by Washington and London.
-
- It should be remembered that when the Council for National
- Liberation finally liberated the country and in 1945 proclaimed the
- Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia, this was the first
- victorious socialist revolution on the European continent since the
- 1917 October Revolution in Russia.
-
- The significance of this victory must be measured against the fact
- that Allied imperialism was still armed, the Chinese Revolution had
- not yet fully vanquished the remnants of the pro-imperialist Chiang
- Kai-shek government, the Cuban Revolution hadn't yet begun, and the
- Vietnamese and Koreans were still in the throes of consummating
- their revolutions.
-
- United the nationalities
-
- Tito enjoyed genuine popularity in Yugoslavia. His greatest
- contribution lay in the fact that, on the basis of a formidable
- Communist Party and a working class and peasantry that were ripe
- for a revolutionary overturn, he united the nationalities of the
- Balkans.
-
- That ushered in a new social and class structure based on the
- workers and peasants as against the bourgeoisie and their
- supporters in the camp of imperialism. The Yugoslav revolution
- united the oppressed nationalities. This worker from Croatia, whose
- mother was a Slovene, won the confidence of the workers in Serbia
- and the other republics.
-
- It could be likened to a Black worker leading a revolutionary
- working class movement in the United States and winning the support
- of the white workers, all as part and parcel of a socialist
- revolution.
-
- However, Tito's very popularity also endangered the Yugoslav
- revolution.
-
- At that time, all Eastern Europe was in the throes of a struggle
- against the Nazi fascist Axis powers. But although hundreds of
- thousands of brave communists gave their lives in relentless
- struggle against fascist reaction even before the war began, and
- more continued the struggle against Nazi aggression, the revolution
- was not wholly from below. In all of Eastern Europe, it was
- supported by the military might of the Soviet Red Army, which both
- aided and restricted the momentous revolutionary upsurge.
-
- Role of Red Army
-
- The policy of the USSR at that time was not to uproot the old
- ruling classes lock, stock and barrel but to retain them in some
- measure. This was to present at least an appearance of compromise
- to predatory Anglo-American imperialism, which was most fearful
- that the sweep of the communist forces would engulf not only
- Eastern Europe but also France and Italy, where the working class
- movements had fought the fascists arms in hand.
-
- The East European Communist parties looked to Tito as their
- inspiration and guide to an autonomous revolution. This not only
- created suspicion in the USSR leadership but led to friction with
- the Yugoslav government.
-
- The high point was reached when Georgi Dimitrov, the Bulgarian
- Communist leader, on the eve of a regional conference raised the
- possibility of an East European federation in which, of course,
- Yugoslavia would play a central role. Dimitrov was rebuked by the
- Soviet press. (As related in the book "Tito," by Vladimir Dedijer.)
-
- Break between Yugoslavia and USSR
-
- The historic break in 1948 between Yugoslavia and the USSR not only
- dimmed the revolutionary prospects of Yugoslavia for leadership in
- the European arena of the international communist movement but
- opened the road to compromise and dependence upon the imperialist
- West.
-
- It will serve no useful purpose to go over the many concessions the
- Yugoslav socialist government had to make in order to survive. But
- survive it did, believing itself to be a bridge in the struggle
- between East and West as a leader in the Non-Aligned Movement.
- However, the seeds for the liquidation of the revolutionary
- achievements of the Yugoslav Revolution lay precisely in this
- connection to and dependence on foreign aid from the imperialist
- powers, principally the United States.
-
- Just one small measure of this degree of dependence on the West can
- be seen in U.S. aid figures. The U.S. gave Yugoslavia foreign aid
- totaling over $1.8 billion between 1945 and 1964 (Readers Digest
- Almanac of 1966).
-
- The real turn of the Yugoslav economy toward Western imperialist
- dependence came when the International Monetary Fund itself became
- the principal figure dishing out aid and loans, and then arrogantly
- demanded the introduction of market measures.
-
- None of this is hidden information and has been widely publicized
- in both East and West.
-
- Western economic pressure
-
- The havoc caused by the attempt to restructure the planned economy
- into its opposite, a capitalist economy based upon individual
- ownership, is only too well known for us to go over the dreary
- statistics. But most important for our understanding of the present
- situation is that notwithstanding the erosion, the dislocation and
- the sabotage of socialist construction in Yugoslavia, it retained
- for many years the two basic gains of the revolution.
-
- The first was nationalized property--property which had either been
- expropriated from the bourgeoisie and the landlords or had been
- built up and modernized by the collective efforts of the peasants
- and workers in all the republics.
-
- Second, it retained that singular achievement which all bourgeois
- nationalists abhor, but which all proletarian internationalists
- strive for: a socialist federation of all the different
- nationalities, which stood as a bulwark against imperialist
- interference, intervention and subversion.
-
- However, the collapse of the USSR, and Eastern Europe in
- particular, shook the foundations of the socialist federation of
- Yugoslavia and dealt a blow to the communist and class-conscious
- workers. Nevertheless, the socialist federation held on,
- notwithstanding internal erosion and the growth of centrifugal
- tendencies in the republics.
-
- If Yugoslavia had been able to retain its socialist independence
- after the revolution, there is no telling to what great heights
- socialist construction could have reached. But this is to demand
- too much from a proletarian dictatorship surrounded by imperialist
- vultures who for years had been preparing assiduously,
- clandestinely and openly, to move in at the appropriate time.
-
- The present war
-
- The imperialist bourgeoisie will show us for the umpteenth time the
- terror that the Serbs are committing upon the poor and oppressed in
- Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are terror and atrocities, all right.
- But are they committed only by the Serbs and not by the other
- nationalities? What is this war about? Should we not look to see
- who among the imperialist powers support whom? Are we to dismiss
- that the imperialists, and most particularly the U.S., are
- supporting Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia?
-
- Let us grant that this is a civil war in which the toll on the
- civilian population is mounting. The imperialists say they are
- moving in out of humanitarian considerations, which their entire
- history belies. But let us assume that it is like the Civil War in
- the United States. Were not atrocities committed on both sides?
- What was Sherman's march through Georgia? Should the progressives
- throughout the whole world therefore have supported the South as
- against the North?
-
- The British were only too anxious to find a pretext to move in and
- help the South. The Abraham Lincoln government characterized this
- as rank interference.
-
- Let us suppose for a moment that the British, as the leading power
- in Europe, had summoned the French, the Germans, the Austrians, the
- Italians, the Spanish and the Russians for a conference in London
- to settle the American Civil War, to impose the reestablishment of
- order in the New World.
-
- London conference
-
- Is this not what we are witnessing today in London? The U.S. has
- engineered an international conference there on Yugoslavia. Will we
- not see France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc., impose on Yugoslavia
- what they might have imposed upon the United States in the 1860s,
- had they the power to do so?
-
- Progressive and class-conscious workers throughout the world should
- ask themselves the most elementary question: What right have these
- European and American ruling classes to convoke a conference to
- settle an internal problem of Yugoslavia? What right have they to
- carry out armed intervention in a country which has not provoked or
- threatened them in any way? Is this not a violation of the most
- elementary tenet of international law?
-
- Who among the Yugoslavs has called upon them to convene this
- conference? As always, the imperialists have picked up the
- smallest, the weakest, the ones most prone to intimidation. Is this
- not the case with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia? The
- imperialists first and foremost always aim their first blows at the
- weakest, either through bribery, corruption or intimidation, and
- win the allegiance of the top bourgeoisie.
-
- Enter the farcical prime minister
-
- Now we have as prime minister of Yugoslavia the farce to which Marx
- referred. It is a profanity to call Milan Panic the prime minister.
- He is a shady, crooked millionaire entrepreneur exported by the
- U.S. to Yugoslavia. He can't even boast of any experience in either
- the foreign or domestic affairs of Yugoslavia.
-
- His business in the United States is in the sale of
- pharmaceuticals, including medicines supposedly to help fight AIDS
- that have been found of dubious value. It may be on the verge of
- bankruptcy. He is the type of person who comes in at the right time
- to serve as a handy tool.
-
- An extraordinary article in the New York Times of Aug. 24 gives a
- laudatory account of his exploits. The writer, typical of many
- imperialist scribblers, describes Yugoslavia as "one of the biggest
- snake pits in the world" and a "daunting challenge" to our poor
- entrepreneur.
-
- Should any authentic representatives of the nationalities attend
- this conference of exploiters and oppressors? How many times before
- in this century have they tried to impose their will in this region
- of the world? The earlier Balkan wars had their roots in the
- avaricious and predatory nature of the imperialist powers.
-
- This present conference is no different. Acting Secretary of State
- Lawrence Eagleburger, who is considered an expert on Yugoslavia
- because of his business dealings there, held a press conference
- that foreshadows his role in the London conference. In referring to
- the Serbians, he said, "They've got to get this into their heads.
- ..." Would he ever talk about the Rockefellers that way, or the
- German or French imperialists?
-
- Napoleon and Tito
-
- Napoleon freed the serfs in part of Europe. He carried the
- bourgeois revolution against feudalism on his bayonets and that was
- progressive. But he also carved out an empire that subjugated
- nations and proclaimed himself emperor.
-
- Tito represented not just the peasants but the workers. He did not
- proclaim himself as either the supreme leader or the supreme
- theoretician with a new message in the interpretation of Marxism.
- His tragedy lies in the circumstances of his time.
-
- Tito carried the revolution as far as he could. The truth of the
- matter is that in his time he could only encourage the Western
- proletariat by example. Had they been in a position to overthrow
- their own imperialist oppressors, the entire history of Europe
- would have taken on an entirely different, thoroughly revolutionary
- course.
-
- -30-
-
- (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
- source is cited. For more info contact Workers World,46 W. 21 St.,
- New York, NY 10010; "workers@igc.apc.org".)
-
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