STUDIA CROATICA
Year II, Buenos Aires, 1961, No. 3-4
Studia Croatica 1
SYMPTOMATIC COINCIDENCES BETWEEN CASTROISM AND TITOISM 2
THE CONTEMPORARY CHAPTER OF THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM 17
AGRARIAN POLICY IN COMMUNIST YUGOSLAVIA 19
TWO POEMS 31
HUNGARIAN-CROATIAN RELATIONS AFTER 1918 33
EXILED CROATIAN PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS 42
NATIONAL PROBLEMS OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE 47
ON THE NATIONALITY OF MUSLIMS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 67
CROATIAN BIBLICAL TRADITIONS 74
THREE MEDITATIONS ON THE COMMUNISM 77
MARITIME NAVIGATION AND CROATIAN MARITIME TRADE 86
DOCUMENTS 95
DETAINEES AND POLITICAL PRISONERS IN YUGOSLAVIA 95
CHRONICLES AND COMMENTARIES 105
EXPLOITATION OF CROATIA FOR THE BENEFIT OF SERVIA 105
FAILURE OF NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN BELGRADE AND THE HOLY SEE TO REACH A
MODUS VIVENDI 109
MINIMUM WAGES AND THE STANDARD OF LIVING IN COMMUNIST YUGOSLAVIA 111
"THE CROATS AND AUSTRIA" - THE OPINION OF A SERIAN POLITICIAN
113
THE FORCED REPATRIATION OF REFUGEES IN ITALY AND AUSTRIA 115
ERNEST PEZET, COMMANDER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR 118
BOOK REVIEW 119
The official
invitation extended to the Yugoslav communist dictator to visit Brazil this
year, and the unconfirmed reports that Tito might be an official guest on this
occasion, along with representatives from other Latin American countries,
cannot be interpreted as a mere act of international courtesy related to
efforts to secure new markets and unrelated to the Cold War and the Cuban
crisis. Above all, such an interpretation is untenable given the evident shift
of the Cuban revolution towards communism.
It is true
that the Yugoslav dictator's visit to Brazil was arranged before the Cuban
problem intensified and the situation in Berlin worsened. This, along with
other recent events, proves that the Soviets conceive of the policy of
"peaceful coexistence" as an effective form of the Cold War, and that
until recently the much-lauded "spirit of Geneva" and "of Camp
David" constituted one of those dangerous illusions of the West that made
possible the expansion of the Soviet empire in Europe and Asia, its penetration
into Africa, and its threatening emergence in the Western Hemisphere.
The expansion
of the Cold War to all continents confirms in retrospect that those who, with
surprise and displeasure, learned that a government of conservative origin and
Western and Christian orientation was preparing to pay official honors, at this
moment, to a odious communist dictator were right.
While foreign
observers struggle to understand Brazil's hesitation regarding the Cuban
crisis, given the potentially unpleasant repercussions for pro-communists in
Brazil's economically underdeveloped Northeast, free international opinion, and
even President Jânio Quadros's own supporters, wonder what interest Brazil
could possibly have, in the current situation, in offering hospitality to one
of the most prominent figures of world communism.
How can one
ignore the displeasure of the Catholic hierarchy, which knows that Brazil, as
the world's largest Catholic country, cannot help but sympathize with the
"Church of Silence"? The Cardinal of Rio de Janeiro declared that
Tito's arrival would be a day of mourning and that Catholics should not grace
his visit with their presence, as he is one of the most vicious persecutors of
Catholics.
TERROR AND COMMUNIST
CONTROL IN CUBA
The arranged visit of
the Yugoslav dictator to Brazil reveals itself as one of the symptoms of
insecurity, imprecision, and contradiction in the criteria and procedures of
political actors and, to some extent, of public opinion in certain South
American countries in the face of the coordinated tactics of international
communism, that is, Soviet imperialism. The culmination of this shock is the
reaction provoked by the degeneration of the Cuban revolution.
The evolution of
events in Cuba took not only the Latin American public by surprise but, to a
great extent, the United States, which bears the greatest burden and
responsibility for defending the free world from the communist threat.
Therefore, more appropriate reactions and, above all, more effective preventive
measures could have been expected.
This surprise is not
only the result of the deep-seated conviction that the Americas, due to their
geographical distance, are beyond the reach of direct Soviet intervention, but
also stems from a lack of understanding of the true nature and insidious
methods of communist subversive action. The Soviet strategy in its struggle for
world domination is based primarily on concealing its true objectives, on
sowing confusion and discord, both among its declared adversaries and its most
immediate victim.
The Cuban Revolution
should have been a painful undertaking aimed at the political and social
cleansing of a young American nation that knows how to value dignity and
freedom and fight for them. Its takeover by the communists was not inevitable,
since the vast majority of Cuban revolutionaries and their sympathizers reject
communism. If it did occur, it can be attributed to the atmosphere of liberal optimism,
typically American, and to a deeply rooted faith in human goodness.
Because of this
mentality, even among those who openly oppose communism, there is a tendency to
perceive it as a form of the extreme left. According to this mentality, the
Soviet Union would be one of the great powers and nothing more. If it is
exporting communism and maintaining inhumane living conditions within its
empire, they benevolently attribute this to revolutionary excesses and the
historical conditions of Russian development. Instead of offering vigorous
resistance, they place their hope in a spontaneous and inevitable evolution of
Bolshevism toward democracy, since the aspiration for freedom, inherent in
human beings, must necessarily prevail.
Without further
reservations, they project the circumstances and mentality of Western society
onto a completely different area of political and social
development, where humanist traditions are conspicuously absent, into a world
hermetically sealed by the Iron Curtain and inaccessible to the liberal and
democratic ideas of the West.
The failure of the
"invasion" of Cuba to overthrow the current tyranny becomes
understandable when one considers that it was all planned within that
optimistic climate regarding the inherently perfidious communist system. It was
reasonable to assume that Castro's current adversaries, his former
collaborators, in deciding on heroic action to liberate their homeland from
communist oppression and all of America from a latent danger, proceeded with a
thorough understanding of their enemy's strengths and weaknesses.
The same could be
assumed of their collaborators in the American intelligence agency, specialized
in methods of combating communism. However, neither group took into account how
oppressive the moral and physical terror exerted by a communist government on
its unfortunate subjects truly was. Ignoring this fundamental fact, they
organized the invasion, certain that it would produce a spontaneous uprising in
the country.
Furthermore, the
communists were able to learn of it in advance and take all necessary
repressive measures. The tragic outcome, therefore, is not only the consequence
of political and technical errors but, first and foremost, the result of
underestimating a dangerous and treacherous enemy.
Those who
conceive of political struggle as fair play tend to be skeptical of
anti-communist refugees, even though they offer them moral and material
support. They expect the refugees to accept their defeat, even though it is
known and understood that communists never play fair.
In this
regard, the experiences of our acquaintances are revealing. They had long
warned the prominent leaders of the Cuban revolution of the serious danger of
being taken over by the communists. These warnings were dismissed as
expressions of pessimism and resentment from anti-communist exiles.
However, they
acquired their significance when these Cuban revolutionaries themselves became
political exiles. Even then, they failed to grasp that what happened in
Cuba—the communist takeover of a revolution with democratic aspirations—was
neither the first nor the last instance. Instead of understanding that those
who had experienced communist methods could foresee the communists' plans in
Cuba, they were interested in knowing where they obtained such confidential
information about the designs of Fidel Castro and his communist cronies.
DISGUISES OF AGENTS
OF SOVIET IMPERIALISM
The same danger faced
by the democratically oriented Cuban revolutionaries and their North American
friends is present in all Latin America for those who ignore the subversive
nature of communism. While the Cuban revolutionaries were preoccupied with the
struggle and praised the contribution of the communist guerrillas for their
effectiveness and outspokenness, they failed to realize that these were
carefully selected activists who coldly and premeditatedly executed with
meticulous care a planned program, developed at the headquarters of the world
communist revolution, conceived based on experiences gathered in hundreds and
hundreds of revolutionary actions.
They did not realize
that these individuals were part of a vast and ruthless apparatus, backed by
the immense Soviet empire, which places all its enormous power and influence at
the disposal of world communist subversion. The greatest danger of communism
lies in the fact that, while it advances using the methods of psychological
warfare and revolutionary activism, it does not operate openly. It disguises
itself in a way that is usually the polar opposite of the political and social
system it intends to implement.
In countries where it
mobilizes the masses against dictatorship, communism presents itself as the
most consistent and authentic champion of democratic rights and freedoms. In
reality, its objective is to replace one dictatorship with another.
In communist
countries, free trade unionism does not exist; strikes are considered a crime
of high treason. Yet, the Soviet fifth column in free countries is the loudest
advocate of free trade unionism and the unrestricted right to strike. They
demand the systematic expropriation of land, without any compensation to its
rightful owners.
The land should
belong to those who work it, the communists argue, but, once in power, they
nationalize it, and the land becomes the property of the omnipotent state.
Invoking democratic freedoms, they imperatively demand that the broadest
democratic rights be granted to communist subversion groups, while under
communist governments all expressions of free thought, political activity, and
even the most lenient criticism are prosecuted as crimes against the people.
Political activity is permitted only to the communist party, under the absolute
control of its "infallible" leadership.
Supporters of
dialectical materialism, ideological enemies and persecutors of religion, the
communists, whenever they deem it convenient, present themselves as defenders
of religious traditions in the Afro-Asian sphere to counteract the influence of
Christian countries.
As exponents of
Soviet and Chinese colonial imperialism, the communists present themselves as
the most tenacious champions of anti-colonialism. But the proletarian
internationalism they advocate is nothing but a disguise for aggressive
expansionism. They are tireless in defending Black people in free countries,
but when it suits the Soviets, they incite xenophobic and racist sentiments.
They fight for the right to self-determination when it can morally damage their
adversary, yet they deny the same right to millions upon millions of human
beings.
While they monitor
governments in various satellite states, they categorically uphold the right to
absolute sovereignty without foreign interference, with the sole aim of
allowing the governments imposed by force in countries under communist rule to
practice repressive and dictatorial policies without hindrance.
They invest vast sums
of money in pacifist propaganda while simultaneously accusing democratic
countries of militarism. All of this is nothing more than a smokescreen behind
which the expansionist power of the Red Army is concealed. It can be taken as a
general rule that whenever communists present themselves in their supposed role
as defenders of democratic and national rights, their purpose is to deceive and
co-opt those who collaborate with them.
In the first
phase of the Bolshevik revolution, the declared Soviet agents inciting
subversion and revolution were less dangerous than later, when large Soviet
diplomatic and commercial delegations appeared in the capitals of the free
world and participated in debates in international organizations.
When they
suggested to the West that peaceful coexistence was feasible and that explosive
Bolshevism was evolving into democratic socialism, they were, in fact, carrying
out a gigantic plan of infiltration involving hundreds of thousands of agents,
more dangerous than divisions of the Red Army.
CONQUESTS WITHOUT WAR
Two decades later,
Soviet expansionism reached a scale that even the most hardened pessimists in
the West could not have imagined. However, the Soviet victories and conquests
on the one hand, and the defeats and setbacks of the free world on the other,
were not achieved in victorious battles of the Russian Empire, but rather
through communist conspiracy.
Communism skillfully
exploits the fact that its adversaries are unaware of its true nature and
ignorant of the internal situation of the communist empire. It primarily
exploits the national and class antagonisms that are a consequence of the
contemporary social crisis. With these means, and without resorting to open
warfare, the Soviets managed to subjugate and militarily control a number of
the old European nations, more advanced than Russia itself, and where, after
fifteen years of red rule, there are relatively fewer communists than in some
free countries.
The communist methods
of conquest were calculated to exploit with the greatest success the internal
conflicts of the world they call capitalist. Despite their claims to the
contrary, they made no distinction regarding the ideological blocs of
non-communist countries.
With the end of the
period of anti-fascist popular fronts, the Soviets abruptly signed, in 1959,
the pact with the Third Reich, so necessary for Hitler to concentrate all his
military might against France and England. The Soviets enabled the Third Reich
to wage war, since with the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact they were able to virtually
reintegrate the Baltic states into the Russian Empire, partition Poland, and
annex the Romanian provinces of Bessarabia and Bukovina.
When, later, attacked
by the Third Reich, the Soviets, due to a confluence of circumstances, became
allies of Great Britain and the United States and, as such, were obliged to
adhere to the principles contained in the Atlantic Treaty—one of the
foundational documents of international ethics—they did so without hesitation.
However, they did not for a moment renounce their program of conquest and
expansion, taking advantage of the fratricidal and suicidal conflict of the
Western nations.
They dissolved the
Comintern solely to be able to use communist fifth columns more effectively for
imperialist ends. Something similar happened to Western statesmen, and
especially to Americans, while they were laying the foundations for the future
world order during the last war, as happened to the democratically oriented
Cuban revolutionaries with their communist comrades.
In the heat of
battle, the foundations for future peace were drawn up assuming that the Soviet
Union was an acceptable partner in achieving the proposed objectives. The war
is over, but peace—true peace, defined by St. Augustine as tranquilitas ordinis—so
longed for by a troubled humanity, has not been established. The threat of an
exterminating atomic war or of global communist domination looms over the
world.
The limited
effectiveness of the UN, which was founded to safeguard collective security, the
failure of the policy of peaceful coexistence, and the turbulent state of the
world are all primary consequences of the grave error of believing that
fruitful international cooperation between powers or blocs of powers, guided by
opposing political philosophies, was feasible.
In the UN, based on
principles rejected by the communists, the Soviets, who were its co-founders,
participate with the aim of undermining this global organization. There can be
no peace in the world until communist governments and some neutralist
governments accept the fundamental principles of natural law and morality as
the unshakeable foundation of international organization.
Until then, the
policy of peaceful coexistence can be nothing more than a truce that will
transform into outright war the moment the communists, through subversion and
psychological warfare, manage to dominate the Afro-Asian region, thus
encircling Western Europe, and then, entrenched in South America, isolate the
United States, their most feared adversary, which they will then attack with
the prospect of final victory.
There is no
doubt that domination over the United States and Western Europe constitutes the
ultimate objective of Soviet strategy on its path to world conquest, but the
first victims will be those Afro-Asian and South American countries that prove
incapable of containing Soviet penetration and aggression with their own means,
rejecting the support of Western powers and lending a complacent ear to the
seductive voices of neutralist propaganda. The communists try to convince them
that they run no risk whatsoever if they directly or indirectly obstruct
measures of common defense.
COEXISTENCE,
NON-INTERVENTION, AND NEUTRALISM: INSTRUMENTS OF CONQUEST
The policy of
peaceful coexistence—which the proponents of ideological neutrality, of the
famous Third Position, take as justification for their stance—is conceived by
the Soviets as an obligation of the Western powers to respect the political and
territorial status quo.
This implies not only
the de facto recognition of the situation imposed by Soviet imperialism on a
number of countries incorporated into that empire, but also its definitive
acceptance. The Western powers should not only refrain from any action aimed at
liberating the subjugated countries, but should even renounce issuing
statements and criticisms of the created situation. If they proceeded
otherwise, this would imply a violation of the principle of coexistence and
would endanger world peace.
On the other hand,
the Soviets have the right to impose communist governments through subversive
actions in countries experiencing internal tensions. In this way, and
gradually, they reverse the balance of power in their favor. Furthermore, under
the guise of democratic freedoms, they claim the right to censor and criticize
all aspects of life in free countries.
They call the
imposition of communist governments "liberation," while
simultaneously condemning any attempt to establish democratic freedoms in
countries under the communist yoke as a sinister work of international
reaction, monopoly capitalism, and Western imperialism.
Likewise, they give a
one-sided interpretation to the principles of international coexistence, namely
national sovereignty and non-intervention, the right to political and national
self-determination, and even the right to neutrality.
They disseminate and
emphasize these principles to such an extent that they become political taboos
for all peoples, except those within the communist bloc. The peoples of the
Soviet Union and its satellite states have no possibility of opposing communist
imperialism.
Even in multinational
communist countries like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, the invocation of the
right to national self-determination by Slovaks, Croats, Macedonians, and
Slovenes is judged and prosecuted as high treason, while at the same time the
independence of the most underdeveloped African territories is vigorously
demanded.
While the Russians
and Chinese monitor the politics of their militarily occupied satellite states
and intervene with weapons in Korea, Hungary, Tibet, Laos, and elsewhere, and
while they interfere in the politics of free countries through the communist
parties they control and finance—parties that the Belgian politician H. P.
Spaak described as a civilian militia, so dangerous that Nazi fifth columns
were harmless Boy Scouts in comparison—they simultaneously denounce the UN's
actions in the Congo as an armed intervention by Western imperialism.
The Soviets invoke
only the principle of non-intervention, derived from the concept of absolute
sovereignty, to prevent any aid to peoples subjected to the communist yoke, who
yearn to exercise their right to self-determination, and above all to undermine
existing international institutions and the creation of new ones whose purpose
is to guarantee and enable the right to self-determination and protect
fundamental political and human rights. With this, they seek to close the only
path that leads to true peace with justice and freedom for all people and all
nations.
Neutralism, which as
a concept and political practice is completely foreign to the communist world,
is interpreted with the same aim. It is inherent to monolithic Eastern empires
not to recognize the right to neutrality, unless forced to do so. For the Soviets,
the normal form of coexistence with weaker neighbors is satellite subjugation,
doubly ensured by the imposition of the communist minority government and by
military occupation. Neutrality is only acceptable in countries that the
communists fail to dominate. In the opposite situation, that neutrality will
never be respected.
Therefore,
communists conceive of and propagate neutrality only as a form of the Cold War,
as an instrument of corrosion and isolation, both in the member countries of
the Western bloc and in the so-called neutral countries that exist as
independent nations only because the balance of power is still in favor of the
democratic world. From the moment that balance shifts in favor of the communist
bloc, neutral countries would lose their internal and external independence.
IDEOLOGICAL NEUTRALISM AND LATIN AMERICA
Only the Western world conceived of the neutral policy of small
countries as a piece in the balance of power. Neutrality, conceived as a
measure to protect small countries during conflicts between large powers, can
be beneficial and justified. But neutrality is ineffective if it is not
recognized and respected by the powers in conflict.
However, when not only economic interests but also the highest
principles of social coexistence are at stake, the policy of neutrality cannot
be conceived in terms of national egoism. Neutrality, therefore, is not
possible between two opposing ideological blocs: the bloc of free countries and
the communist bloc.
During the last war, Switzerland was not ideologically neutral and,
under extremely difficult circumstances, demonstrated its unequivocal
democratic orientation.
The third position today, on the other hand, entails indifference and
even repulsion with respect to democratic principles and institutions. The
supposed equidistant position adopted by certain Latin American countries
between the Soviets, who disregard the sound principles of international
coexistence because they aspire to world domination, and the democratic powers,
which, due to their military and economic might, bear the primary burden and
responsibility for the defense of the free world, including neutral countries,
is both absurd and an abdication of responsibility and duty, so detrimental to
all.
The misgivings of certain countries regarding the potentially excessive
influence of the great powers, systematically exploited by the communists, can
be understood, but they do not justify the demagogic steps of certain
proponents of the Third Position.
The countries that until now have maintained a correct stance toward
communism, controlling its subversive actions and refusing to establish
diplomatic and commercial relations with communist governments, cannot justify
an abrupt change in their policy by invoking the example of the great
democratic powers. There is no doubt that those powers made mistakes that
proved disastrous for everyone.
As stated, the policy of these powers during the last war was based on
the mistaken premise that the Soviets, their circumstantial allies, could loyally
cooperate in securing world peace. The interests of the peoples of Central and
Eastern Europe, victims of the Soviet occupation, were sacrificed to this
illusion. This illusion lies at the root of the subsequent negative political
process, including recent events in Cuba.
If the statesmen of the great powers exchange visits with Khrushchev,
trade with Russia and China, provide abundant aid to communist Yugoslavia, and
pay sovereign honors in London and Paris to an obscure Balkan communist
dictator, this does not mean that other countries should imitate them. By not
acting as they do, they would demonstrate their independence and protect their
people from the dangers of diplomatic, commercial, cultural, and technical
exchange with communist governments. It is well known that communists exploit
these relationships for infiltration purposes, while the political and economic
benefits that democratic countries might obtain are highly problematic.
The fact that certain South American countries deemed it appropriate to
sever relations with some communist countries, and that others had to request
restrictions on the growing number of diplomatic agents from countries behind
the Iron Curtain, indicates that the dangers of communist infiltration are
real.
The problem of diplomatic and commercial relations between communist
governments and countries where there is a danger of subversive communist
interference must be addressed differently than in the case of the great
powers.
Western and Christian-oriented countries should not imitate those
Afro-Asian governments that do not consider themselves obligated to defend
human values and the principles of international coexistence,
which are the fruit of our Western civilization.
It would be illusory to expect ideological identification with the West
from recently emancipated colonial countries that, due to their specific
development, have not been able to establish Western-style democratic regimes.
While in the Cold War era every step taken in international politics benefits
or harms one bloc or the other, making true neutrality impossible, the
neutralist illusions of countries outside the sphere of Western culture can be
understood.
For them, the Soviet Union represents the attractive example of a
formerly underdeveloped power that, by adopting Western technology, managed to
build a powerful industry without the direct involvement of foreign
technicians, entrepreneurs, and capital. Where man is a mere instrument of
state power and where the sacrifices demanded to achieve economic development
are deemed insignificant, such reactions are conceivable. However, the problem
is reversed in developing countries within Western society, and therefore they
have an obligation to resort to humane methods and to share ideals and interests
of solidarity in the face of a common threat.
"The limited effectiveness of international organizations dedicated
to collective security, the safeguarding of peace, and human rights does not
preclude us from taking advantage of their potential. Constructive criticism of
these international organizations is always beneficial and desirable, and
proposals that promote their improvement are plausible, especially since
communist countries do everything possible to save them and create tense and
turbulent situations in a divided world, conducive to their designs of
conquest.
Indeed, it is difficult to make universal organizations in which
communist governments participate effective. However, this should not prevent
nations with a Western cultural background from coordinating their actions on
all the major issues of international politics and striving to promote, at
least, regional institutions that would operate within the framework of
solidarity and according to the principles of the same civilization they comprise.
Recently, a step forward has been taken in this regard. Certain European
institutions already operate on the supranational principle. Similar reasons
and aspirations exist in the Western Hemisphere. The OAS has all the conditions
to become such an organization." The effective governance of free nations
that share identical principles of self-determination and freedom, national
sovereignty, and democratic rights, which are not in conflict as the communists
claim.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Cuban communist government
insists that its relations with neighboring countries be discussed not within
the OAS but before the UN. They maintain that the UN is a universal body and
that the United States' influence within it is less, and therefore its
decisions are more impartial than in the OAS. Castro avoids the Organization of
American States because it reflects the shared views of its member countries,
while the United Nations lacks this attribute.
For this reason, any debate on the Cuban crisis before the UN is
necessarily fruitless due to the incompatibility of political philosophies and
the right of veto. In contrast, at the OAS, Castro can expect a resounding
condemnation, since the American countries cannot share the communist interpretation
of the right to self-determination and non-interference.
Therefore, the rights The sovereign rights of Latin American countries
are not protected by a neutral stance that, politically and ideologically,
implies a betrayal of their own interests and ideals. The national interests
and sovereign rights of the American peoples will find their most effective
protection within strengthened regional institutions, which will also guarantee
individual rights and freedoms.
TITO ALSO FOUGHT
"ONLY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION"
In Latin America,
there is already unanimity of opinion when it comes to defending the continent
from Soviet interference. Certain disagreements arose because the Cuban
government tries to hide and cover up its ideological ties with the Soviets.
However, it is only a matter of time before Latin American countries
unanimously consider the communist nature of the Cuban government. Those who
had the unfortunate opportunity to witness the establishment and consolidation
of people's democracies and socialist regimes in Central European countries
have no doubt about it.
In support of the
argument that a pro-Soviet government was not established in Cuba, the case of
communist Yugoslavia was also cited. It is argued that despite the communist
regime, Yugoslavia cannot be considered a Soviet exponent, since it pursues an
independent foreign policy. Cuba, by analogy, even if it exhibited all the
common traits of communist regimes, would pose no danger to the American
continent until it is proven to be a Soviet satellite.
Perfect analogies do
not exist, nor can they exist, in the historical development of such different
countries. Therefore, in the case of Cuba, due to its geographical location in
the Western Hemisphere, far from the Soviet Union, the same satellite
dependence seen in countries bordering Russia cannot be expected. Even so,
there are symptomatic similarities between Cuban and Yugoslav communism in
terms of their methods of seizing power.
Although in
dissimilar circumstances, both Tito and Castro took control of the government
as leaders of the victorious guerrilla forces. Although a minority, the
communists in both countries oversaw the guerrilla actions and participated in
the struggle with the sole aim of establishing a communist dictatorship.
At the same
time, they categorically affirmed that they were fighting the existing
dictatorship and struggling for the establishment of broad democratic rights
and freedoms. They did not deny their participation in the struggle, but argued
that their objective was identical to that of the democratic combatants who
constituted the majority.
The communists
would be content as long as they could act freely like the other parties once
the conflict was over. They were fighting for national independence just like
other patriotic groups. Several statements by Yugoslav communist leaders during
the war reflect this sentiment. Josip Broz Tito declared at the second session
of the Anti-Fascist Council of the Peoples of Yugoslavia—a body that assumed
the role of a provisional parliament, composed of representatives of varying
political persuasions—held on November 29, 1943:
"We have
been slandered and continue to be slandered everywhere, according to a
pre-established plan. All the occupiers, all the 'Quislings'—the sellouts, the
Ustaše, Nedic's men, Draža Mihailović's Chetniks within the country and
their masters abroad—said and continue to say that our struggle for the
national liberation of Yugoslavia is a purely communist affair: the
Bolshevikization of the country, communist attempts to seize the government,
the abolition of private property, the annihilation of the Church and religion,
the destruction of culture, and so on.
These slanders
are old and worn out. They originated in Goebbels's kitchen and have now become
a uniform argument that Goebbels's coreligionists are instilling in the minds
of the population of 'new Europe' and trying to export beyond Europe. However,
few still believe these lies, and least of all the people of Yugoslavia."
Our struggle for existence is too bloody and costly, and the suffering of our
people too great, for anyone to be able to divert them from the path of that
great and glorious struggle for independence, for a better and happier future,
with such hackneyed calumnies.
Those days are
long gone when a handful of reactionaries, sometimes successfully, attributed
such things and designs to the Yugoslav communists in order to isolate them
from the people...." [1].
On the international
stage, Tito played the same cards. In this way, he even managed to win over
Winston Churchill at their meeting in Bari in 1944. These maneuvers earned the
Yugoslav communists considerable aid from the Allies.
Once installed in
government and protected by the Soviet Union, the Yugoslav communists continued
to disguise themselves, and to that end, they also included the right to
private property in the new constitution, promulgated in 1946. At the same
time, and using all available means, they confiscated property, applying severe
punishments to thousands upon thousands of honest, uncommitted people to strip
them of all their possessions.
This
systematic concealment of the true objective and the authentic nature of their
political actions was necessary for the Yugoslav communists to gain the
sympathies of the masses and dampen the momentum of the anti-communist
opposition. It goes without saying that the communists constituted an
insignificant minority, barely a few thousand activists in a country of over 15
million inhabitants.
The guerrilla
war they unleashed was only possible because they exploited the deep-seated
national antagonisms latent within the multinational Yugoslav state. In this
way, they secured the support of the Serbian masses, especially the younger
generation, by presenting themselves as the only ones who could restore the
Yugoslav state, which had disintegrated in 1941, in which Serbs would once
again be the dominant force. The supposed struggle against the occupier was a
mere pretext, as it was clear that the final outcome of the war did not depend
on the Balkan guerrillas.
To appease the
Western allies, who had given refuge to the Yugoslav monarchist government, and
to eliminate the opposing Serbian nationalist guerrillas, led by General
Mihailovic, who was also the Minister of War for the Yugoslav government in
exile, the communists disguised their intentions by formally accepting several
political compromises. They demanded only that the new Yugoslavia not form a
new anti-Soviet cordon sanitaire.
Similarly, Fidel
Castro sought to persuade Latin America that he was fighting solely for
democratic freedoms and the social progress of the Cuban people. If he
confronted the United States and received moral and material support from the
communist bloc, it could be attributed solely to his uncompromising struggle
against capitalist monopoly and Yankee imperialism.
Winston Churchill,
known for his political acumen, later declared, regrettably, that the biggest
mistake he had made was supporting Tito. This case is particularly relevant for
politicians who wish to learn from the experiences of others.
Under the
Yalta agreements, Yugoslavia was within the sphere of influence of both Russia
and the Western Allies. Once the war ended, the people were to decide, through
free elections, on the regime to be established. The communists were so
subservient that they agreed to allow the Regency to appoint a provisional
government, composed even of representatives from the ranks of the parties
that, before the war, had outlawed the communist party.
Meanwhile, as
in Cuba, they exercised exclusive control over the army and established a
feared political police force, taking a series of measures aimed at curtailing
the right to self-determination and rigging the elections—measures
diametrically opposed to what they had claimed and promised. By acting in a
plurinational state, they also denied the right of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia
and numerous minorities to freely decide their destiny, although, as a
smokescreen, in the 1946 constitution they also recognized the right of
separation of each people that made up Yugoslavia.
What happened
in Cuba after Castro seized power—mass persecutions and executions,
extermination of political leaders from democratic parties, summary trials,
sentences handed down by people's courts without the right to a defense,
suppression of political parties and freedom of the press, persecution of
religion, suppression of trade union freedom, a sham agrarian reform tending
toward nationalization, confiscation of businesses and property, denial of free
elections, relentless police terror, popular militias, mass exodus, etc.—is a
faithful replica of what happened in Yugoslavia when Tito and his cronies came
to power.
All of this
unfolded with an analogous pattern. It is necessary to point out the support
provided by Western governments in light of the claims that Cuban communists
would have treated the United States amicably had they continued to receive its
moral and material support, even after the communist nature of Fidel Castro's
regime was proven. These hypotheses go so far as to argue that Castro's
orientation would have been democratic had his firing squad policy been
approved.
ALLEGED YUGOSLAVIC
AND CUBAN NEUTRALISM
As an argument
against intervention in Cuba, the case of Yugoslavia is cited—a communist
country, they say, but not an exponent of Soviet imperialism. Such
comparisons—a misleading cliché—lack foundation, if one considers Yugoslavia's
geographical location and its initial, unequivocally pro-Soviet orientation.
The changes occurred four years after the communist dictatorship was
established and under circumstances derived primarily from its geographical
position, circumstances that are not applicable in the case of Cuba. Moreover,
the conflict between Belgrade and Moscow is not ideological in nature today
either.
The reasons that
provoked the dispute between Moscow and Belgrade stemmed from the new course of
Soviet foreign policy when Stalin abandoned the apparent alliance with
democratic governments established during the war. Acting in accordance with
the principle of "new policy, new men," Stalin, with the impassivity
typical of Eastern despots, had decided to eliminate the communist leaders of
the satellite states who were implementing his previous policy of accommodation
with Western democracies and replace them with others, more manageable and
docile.
This purge was
carried out successfully in all the satellite states, where Stalin's orders
were backed by the occupying Red Army. It was not implemented in Yugoslavia,
which, by virtue of agreements between the Allies, was not occupied under the
pretext of ensuring the right to self-determination.
The Soviets had to
accept this situation, knowing that the Western powers would not accept a
unilateral Soviet occupation and that, in the event of a multilateral
occupation, as planned for Austria and Germany, those areas occupied by the
Western powers could freely choose their form of government, which would
certainly not be communist. It could even be expected that Croatia, in such a hypothetical
scenario, would regain its national independence to secure Western influence in
the Balkans and prevent the Soviet bloc from gaining access to the
Mediterranean.
However, the Yugoslav
communists, who had been installed in Belgrade by the Red Army—which later
withdrew from Yugoslav territory—and consolidated their power with Western aid,
were building a communist system without Russian occupation. When Stalin, with
his characteristic ruthlessness, attempted to implement measures that would have
meant their political and perhaps physical elimination, the Yugoslav communist
leaders had a chance to avert the blow.
Thanks to Western aid
and the people's hope of shaking off the communist yoke, the Yugoslav communist
leaders managed to save their lives and remain in power. They were also
successful because Stalin's anathema was not accompanied by all available
repressive measures. In their fight against the Yugoslav communist rebels, the
Soviets were able to successfully exploit the discontent of the peoples and
national minorities subjected to Serbian domination, the main backbone of the
communist dictatorship.
The communist
governments of Hungary, Bulgaria, and Albania were able to successfully
organize popular uprisings in the areas annexed by Serbia. If the Soviets did
not resort to such measures, it is very likely that they feared that this would
ultimately benefit the democratic elements. Otherwise, they did not lose hope
that, with the passage of time, the situation would evolve in their favor and
they would be able, without direct intervention, to dominate the Balkans and
reach the borders of Italy.
Despite all
the disagreements and disputes with Moscow, mostly of a personal nature,
Yugoslavia remains a communist country. Its leaders do not renounce communist
ideology and consider themselves more authentic interpreters of
Marxism-Leninism than Stalin and Khrushchev.
Furthermore,
Moscow was able to verify that Tito was a very useful instrument for communist
penetration, particularly in areas where direct interference by Soviet
diplomats and secret agents was not possible. It is seriously doubtful that the
contacts between Moscow and Belgrade after Stalin's death were aimed at
reintegrating the Yugoslav communist schismatics into the orthodox communist
bloc.
This will not
be possible as long as the current communist leaders govern in Belgrade. It is
true that they always appear willing to integrate, even formally, into the
communist bloc, but only on the condition of remaining in power. However, such
a solution contradicts the traditions of the monolithic empires of Eurasia and
would set an undesirable precedent should the Soviets ever be forced to
withdraw their troops from the Balkan and Central European countries.
For all these reasons, the Yugoslav communist dictator, who never
intended to join the Western bloc, is compelled to seek political compensation
by undertaking political and tourist expeditions to various Afro-Asian
countries, with a preference for those with dictatorial regimes, which for
various reasons do not wish to identify with the democratic West.
To maintain the illusion of political and ideological neutrality in the
current phase of the Cold War, this political tourism by the Yugoslav dictator
serves the interests of Moscow and Beijing, as he thus serves their purposes
more effectively than if he were a member of the communist bloc.
On the other hand, Yugoslavia is neutral only in appearance. From an
ideological standpoint, it identifies with Soviet communism. The difference
lies solely in the methods employed. Regarding political action, Yugoslavia's
neutrality is theoretical. In international forums, it votes almost without
exception against the Western powers. Its supposed neutrality was shamelessly
demonstrated when, after crushing the Hungarian rebellion, it handed Imre Tagy
over to the Russian occupiers.
It is conducting intense propaganda in Africa promoting neutrality,
given that the African continent now holds many votes in the UN. These
activities are of substantial interest to the Soviet Union at a time when the
Afro-Asian bloc could scupper the majority of Western votes in that world
organization. The Soviets, by using their veto power, can paralyze the Security
Council. Through the neutralists, they hope to counteract the actions of the
General Assembly.
Furthermore,
communist Yugoslavia proved to be an excellent instrument for the ideological
penetration of communism. The slogans about national communism, which the
Yugoslav dictator categorically denied, served to support the thesis that
communist interference, such as that in Cuba, was a result of the internal
politics of the respective countries. Using such slogans, communism disguised
as nationalism increasingly and successfully exploited the emotional reactions
of national movements in Asia, Africa, and, regrettably, in Latin America as
well.
The position
of Cuba, that is, of Castro, in relation to Moscow, differed fundamentally from
the Yugoslav position due to geographical distance and Cuba's location on the
doorstep of the United States. The Soviets, therefore, could not and would not
benefit from direct control over the Cuban revolution through Russian armed
forces.
Any attempt of
this kind would be considered in both Americas as sufficient reason for a
military intervention that the Soviets could not prevent, unless they wanted to
provoke World War III, which is not in their interest at this time and in Cuba.
If they want to provoke war, they can always do so under more favorable
conditions in Europe and Asia. Therefore, there is no prospect whatsoever of
the Soviets taking steps for direct oversight of the Castro government or for
his personal elimination.
I. DECLINE IN THE
RURAL POPULATION
The rural
population in pre-war Yugoslavia represented more than three-quarters of the
total population. In the 1931 census, that figure reached
76%. [2].
After the war, due to the country's rapid
industrialization, the rural population declined significantly. Comparing
different figures for the rural population is difficult because they are
obtained using different statistical methods and because the definition of
agricultural population is not uniform across all censuses and statistics.
For example,
the 1951 census shows that 73% of the Yugoslav population still depended on
agriculture, while more recent data indicate that this figure fell to 60% in
1953 and to 56% of the total population in 1958. [3]. According to Vladimir Bakaric's report at the VI Congress of the
League of Communists of Croatia, held at the beginning of April in Zagreb, the
number of the agricultural population in the People's Republic of Croatia was
lower than the average for Yugoslavia and reached 50% of the total population
in 1958 [4].
During the
Fifth Congress of the Socialist Federation of the Working People of Croatia,
Bakaric himself announced with great satisfaction "the disappearance of
patriarchal structures in the countryside" since, according to general
statistics, 43% of the population in Croatia is rural, and according to data
from the Social Security Institute, only 37% of the total population is engaged
in agricultural work. [5].
In the
Croatian provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina, this percentage, due to the lower
level of industrialization, is perhaps somewhat higher than in the so-called
People's Republic of Croatia.
Since Croatia was
already overpopulated under the Austro-Hungarian Empire and monarchical
Yugoslavia, the reduction of the rural population due to industrialization is
now a natural process. Before the First World War, the surplus rural population
emigrated to overseas countries and generally did not return. Industrialization
and the development of other sectors of the national economy currently serve
not only to raise living standards but also to employ the surplus rural
population in all underdeveloped countries, regardless of their political
system.
Even in the
economically advanced countries of Western Europe, the relatively low
percentage of the agricultural population continues to decline, as industrial
development absorbs the surplus labor produced by the rationalization of
agriculture and especially by the improvement of the agrarian structure.
The decline of the
agricultural population would occur in Croatia and throughout Yugoslavia under
a democratic regime as an unavoidable process. Only the influence of the State
and the methods of economic policy would be different from those of today. The
current communist regime is pursuing industrialization at an accelerated pace
and with inhumane methods. For ideological and prestige reasons, it seeks to
transform an agricultural country into an industrial one overnight.
To carry out this
plan, incalculable funds are squandered without national control or
accountability; forced labor is applied, and most of the income is invested
long-term. Thus, the consumption of the masses, except for the privileged
communist class, is unsatisfactory, and the standard of living remains
extremely low. On the other hand, the private agricultural sector—that is, the
majority—is not progressing; rather, it is being suppressed and taxed to such
an extent that large segments of the agricultural population are abandoning the
countryside, moving to the city, and seeking new employment, which industry
cannot always provide.
The agricultural
policy of communist Yugoslavia has frequently modified its initial program,
passing through various phases to date.
I will now
briefly outline the development of the agricultural and peasant policy of
communist Yugoslavia to date, highlighting its main phases and indicating the
trends that are emerging for the future. Due to the breadth of the topic, it is
necessary to limit myself to the essentials.
II. AGRARIAN REFORM
For psychological and
propaganda reasons, the communist government of Yugoslavia did not immediately
address the problem of collectivizing peasant lands. Drawing on Soviet
experience and eager to gain the sympathies of a segment of the rural
population, the communists initially implemented agrarian reform under the law
of September 23, 1945.
This law
confiscated the lands of expelled or murdered Germans and large estates
exceeding 45 hectares, including forests—that is, properties exceeding 25 to 35
hectares of arable land. In addition, the possessions of churches and convents,
banks, missing persons, and possessions not belonging to peasants were
confiscated.
The
fundamental principle of this law was: "The land belongs to those who work
it." Even small properties were confiscated from political opponents. All
the land confiscated by the agrarian reform was taken without any compensation.
This created the rural fund, which comprised 1,560,000 hectares, or 6.8% of the
total agricultural land. The aim was not, therefore, to eliminate large
estates, which in reality did not exist in Yugoslavia, but rather to implement
measures against property ownership. A total of 162,171 landowners were
affected by the agrarian reform, which indicates a tendency toward the
elimination of medium-sized landholdings for political and ideological reasons,
and with the desire to destroy the economy of the majority of independent
farmers.
Slightly more than
half of the confiscated land (51%) was distributed between settlers from other
regions and local peasants. In this way, 42,587 families of new settlers,
mostly communist guerrillas from Montenegro, were relocated from the territory
of other republics. An additional 23,106 settlers came from the territory of
the respective republic. This colonization, like that which occurred following
the first agrarian reform decreed by the monarchical government after the First
World War, bore the unmistakable mark of Serbian nationalist and imperialist
policy. Most of the new settlers were destined for Vojvodina.
18% of the rural fund
created by the agrarian reform was allocated to state properties, 24% to state
forests, and the remainder to collective farms (kolkhozes), official
institutions, and so on.
This reform
was primarily political in nature. Before the war, large estates (latifundia)
were very few. Properties larger than 50 hectares constituted 0.4% of all rural
properties, or 6.7% of the total agricultural area. With the 1945 agrarian
reform, large estates contributed only 235,000 hectares to the rural land fund,
representing 15% of the confiscated land. The vast majority of this land,
37,000 hectares, belonging to Germans, accounted for 41%.[6].
In this phase, the communist government favored the creation of rural
properties for its supporters, justifying this policy with the supposed desire
to maintain agricultural production. Entry into the kolkhozes was still
voluntary and limited to a negligible minority of communist party members.
The creation of peasant work cooperatives, or kolkhozes, was sanctioned
by the Law on Cooperatives on July 18, 1949, and supplemented by the Law on
Agricultural Cooperatives of June 1, 1949.
Immediately after the war, all sectors of the economy were nationalized,
except for agriculture. Knowing that the peasants would offer strong resistance
and fearing for the food supply, the communist leaders proceeded cautiously.
They first tried to persuade the peasants of the advantages of the kolkhozes
over smallholdings. Since peasants did not voluntarily join the kolkhozes,
compulsory collectivization was decreed in 1948, and its pace accelerated in 1949.
With these coercive measures, the number of kolkhozes rose from 1,318 in 1948
to 6,626.
The peak was reached in 1950, with 6,835 kolkhozes. The highest number
of peasant farms registered in the peasant work cooperatives (kolkhozes)
reached 430,000, or slightly more than one-fifth of all peasant properties in
1951. The area of the kolkhozes, state farms, and agricultural
cooperatives accounted for 36% of the total agricultural land. In total,
slightly more than one-third of the agricultural land was collectivized and
expropriated.
The collectivization of agriculture accelerated following the conflict
with the Cominform, which began in 1948, as the Yugoslav communists wanted to
prove they were more orthodox than the Russian Bolsheviks. The authorities encountered
fierce resistance, particularly from Croatian peasants. This resistance
manifested itself, first and foremost, in reduced production, limiting it to
their own needs. As a result, the supply dwindled so much that the non-rural
population depended on imports, and the collective farms failed to meet
expectations.
III. DISINTEGRATION
OF THE KOLKHOZES IN 1953
As a consequence of
the economic crisis and Western aid, a new phase in agricultural policy began
in 1952. The government and the Communist Party concluded that it was necessary
to find new ways to increase agricultural production. A reorientation of
agricultural policy was implemented, to such an extent that the government,
with the decree of March 30, 1953, concerning the ownership and reorganization
of peasant labor cooperatives, allowed peasants to withdraw from these
cooperatives.
Peasants began to
withdraw en masse from the forcibly created kolkhozes, and within a few months
these peasant labor cooperatives disappeared. Their number in 1953 was 1,236,
and it decreased thereafter. By the end of 1956, 578 peasant work cooperatives
were registered in Yugoslavia, most of them in Vovodina.
The remaining
collective farms (kolkhozes) were generally composed of members of the
Communist Party who had previously been landless. The state farms of the
agricultural cooperatives were not dissolved. These properties currently
constitute the most important part of the "socialist sector of
agriculture." They are favored in every way and given considerable attention.
To morally strengthen
the collectivist principle, a law was enacted on May 22, 1953, expropriating
the land of peasant farms larger than 10 hectares, ostensibly to prevent the
capitalist exploitation of rural labour. By setting the maximum size limit of
10 hectares for individual peasant farms, the law effectively reduced
production destined for the market.
For the collectivized
land, the peasants now receive compensation, unlike in the 1945 agrarian
reform. The confiscated lands were allocated to kolkhozes, state-owned
properties, and various organizations and institutions. Through this process,
200,000 hectares of peasant land were expropriated. It was, as can be inferred,
a reform of meager proportions, intended to hinder the development of peasant
landowners.
In parallel
with the dissolution of the kolkhozes and the introduction of a more
"liberal" economic policy, the compulsory purchase of agricultural
products and the rationing of foodstuffs were abolished. With these measures,
the government began, as early as 1951, to delay collectivization.
IV. THE SITUATION OF AGRICULTURE AFTER THE FAILURE OF THE COLD FARMERS
The Yugoslav communist leaders considered granting greater freedom to
the peasants a necessary tactical measure, without having abandoned their plans
to create large socialist estates, the ultimate goal of the communist party,
which they reiterated with complete clarity. The concessions to the peasants
were imposed by the severe food crisis that threatened the development of other
economic sectors.
In enacting these measures, the government expected increased production
on private farms and an improvement in the supply of foodstuffs. However,
continuing its hostile attitude towards the peasants, it took new measures
against private peasant property. With the dissolution of the collective farms,
it is true that they had more freedom to dispose of their assets and products,
but the unfavorable economic and political conditions for progressive
development and increased production persisted, and in some cases worsened.
By abolishing forced food purchases and dissolving collective farms
(kolkhozes), the communists substantially increased taxes on peasant income.
Prices of essential agricultural products were also raised. With these
anti-peasant measures, the government went so far as to decree a special tax in
1956 on oxen and all types of vehicles, including peasant carts.
Peasants could not obtain credit from official banks or credit
institutions, which were also controlled by the state. Only the socialist
sector of agriculture could benefit from credit and other advantages, such as
the acquisition of agricultural machinery and implements or other means of
production. Increasing investments were made in nationalized agricultural
properties, the remaining collective farms, and the properties of agricultural
cooperatives.
For these reasons, peasants produced primarily for their own
consumption, severely limiting production for the market. The consequence was
the paralysis, or rather the return, of food production and agricultural raw
materials. Supplying the population became more difficult, and the shipment of
food subsidies from the US increased.
The characteristic sign of the government's neglect of agriculture is
the vast areas of uncultivated land and the ever-increasing depopulation of
purely rural areas. Thus, in 1955, in addition to fallow land, there were
420,000 hectares of unsown arable land, or 5.7% of the total arable land in
Yugoslavia. These lands belonged to private owners and agricultural
organizations, to which they had been allocated by the rural fund or by the
collectivization decree, and were left completely abandoned.
Every year, the authorities issued new provisions and regulations
concerning the cultivation of these abandoned areas, but without success. This
phenomenon, which arises during a period of acute food scarcity, is a typical
result of the misguided and failed agricultural and economic policies of the
communists. These uncultivated areas still cover large tracts of land,
although they have decreased somewhat in recent years.
With the dissolution
of the collective farms (kolkhozes) in 1953, the communist leadership of
Yugoslavia sought to carry out the socialist transformation of barter
indirectly through general agricultural cooperatives.
According to
statements by leading communist officials, these cooperatives were intended to
be the cornerstone of collective life in the countryside and an important
instrument for increasing collective agricultural production. On the one hand,
it is true that the failure of collectivization in agriculture was officially
acknowledged, without favoring private farms, which were tolerated only as the
lesser evil.
The general
agricultural cooperatives were now required, in addition to buying and selling
agricultural products and everything else the peasants needed, to take on a
greater role in agricultural production. They often owned their own land or
leased it and cultivated it at their own risk; furthermore, they were to
coordinate and control production in the private sector.
These cooperatives
possess the necessary machinery and implements, can lend them to farmers,
provide them with advance loans against their harvest, supply seeds and
fertilizer, and offer technical advice. According to this trend, the
cooperative would eventually assume management of the peasant farm, with the
farmer remaining the nominal owner, while the cooperative would decide on all
important matters related to the organization, production, and exploitation of
its property.
Over the years,
different forms of cooperation emerged between the cooperative and the farmers,
clearly defining two categories: 1) The cooperative performs certain tasks on
behalf of the farmers for an agreed-upon sum, with all relations between them
ceasing once the agreed-upon work is completed and paid for. According to
communist doctrine, this is a typically commercial relationship between the
cooperative and the farmer, an inferior and incomplete form of cooperation; 2)
Participation in the production of the peasant farm, in which the cooperative
and the peasant work on an equal footing during the production process, and the
harvested products are distributed according to their share of the labor.
With this form of
collaboration, the cooperative tends to increasingly control and manage the
private farm. In the opinion of the Yugoslav communists, only in this way is it
possible to promote and develop the insufficient production of
"incapable" individual farms.
The new
agrarian policy of Yugoslavia primarily supports the second form of
cooperation, making it the central focus of all its efforts.
V. RESOLUTION OF THE
FEDERAL ASSEMBLY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND COOPERATIVES IN
PERSPECTIVE OF APRIL 27, 1957 AND RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
Due to the neglect of
the private rural sector, agricultural production remained low even after the
dissolution of the kolkhozes in 1953. Stagnation and even temporary decline in
production lead to greater difficulties in supplying food to the growing population
and raw materials to industry. The persistently low income in agriculture
postpones industrialization and overall economic development, while increasing
imports of agricultural products create new obstacles for foreign trade.
Thus, increasing
agricultural production became the primary concern of the Yugoslav communist
leaders, since the implementation of various economic, social, and political
measures depended on success in this area. Therefore, the Yugoslav communist
leadership decided to adopt new measures formulated in the Resolution on the
Prospective Development of Agriculture and Cooperatives, proposed by the
government and approved without substantial modifications by the Federal
People's Assembly in Belgrade on April 27, 1957.
This resolution set
the course and defined agricultural policy for the following five to seven
years. In principle, it continued the policy initiated after the dissolution of
the collective farms in 1953, with the difference that now more substantial
funds were being invested in promoting agriculture, and the methods for
achieving the proposed goals were more clearly defined than before. However,
many aspects of this new trend remained unclear and imprecise.
Both the
resolution and the report presented by the executive branch's representative in
the Federal Assembly, Slavko Komar, highlighted two factors as the main causes
of the prevailing unsatisfactory state of agricultural production: 1)
accelerated industrialization coupled with insufficient investment in agriculture;
2) the backwardness of peasant farms and their "inability" to drive
rural progress. Price policies, the tax system, and credit are mentioned only
in passing and are not considered significant causes of the observed
shortcomings.
The main objective of the new efforts was to intensify and increase
agricultural production as much as possible. The Belgrade government admitted
that this objective could not be achieved through the collectivization of
agriculture and that such experiments would not yield positive results in the
future either.
However, the government refused to promote and encourage private farming
through subsidies, by modifying its price policies, tax burdens, and credit, by
improving the soil, eliminating the fragmentation of peasant landholdings,
etc., as certain circles advised, since, in the opinion of the communist
leaders, the proposed objective could not be achieved by this means either.
The communists argued that this would facilitate the capitalist
development of agriculture and preserve the backward agrarian structure of
smallholdings. Therefore, the pillars and driving forces of rural modernization
should be socialist agricultural cooperatives and socialist agricultural
enterprises (state lands, properties of agricultural cooperatives, and peasant
worker cooperatives). The greatest importance was attributed to collaboration
between the general agricultural cooperative and the individual producer. The
cooperative must coordinate the peasants' land and labor with the collective
means of production.
Since, according to this conception, the development of agriculture and
the socialist transformation of the countryside constitute a single,
indivisible process, the general agricultural cooperative is considered the
main engine of progress and labor collectivization in rural areas. Only in
close collaboration and within these agricultural cooperatives can—Marxist
theorists argue—a satisfactory solution be found to the problem of large
investments of social capital in agriculture. This is the fundamental point of
the new agrarian doctrine of Tito's government.
The specific objective of the new agricultural policy for the next five
to seven years is to increase the wheat harvest by 50%, that is, to achieve an
average of 23 quintals per hectare. Total wheat production should rise to 3.3
million tons in the same period. The corn yield per hectare should increase
from 14 to 30 quintals. Livestock production should increase by 50%.
Furthermore, a considerable increase in the production of industrial
plants, fruits, legumes, vegetables, potatoes, etc., was anticipated. Over the
next five years, overall agricultural production was expected to increase by
30-35% compared to the 1951-55 average. In predominantly grain-producing areas,
the increase was projected to reach 50%, and on collectivized lands, up to
100%.
To achieve these goals, enormous sums of money had to be invested, and
various technical measures implemented. The plan was, first and foremost, to
complete drainage, canalization, and other soil improvement works, particularly
in Voivodeship. Total investments in agriculture from social funds were to be
twice the amount invested in 1957, which totaled 37 billion dinars.
An average annual investment of 82 billion dinars, drawn from social
funds, was projected for the implementation of the new agricultural program.
The plan also envisioned an increase in tractors from 13,800 units in 1957 to
40,000. The consumption of artificial fertilizers was projected to reach 2.2
million tons, four times greater than the consumption of 1956. A considerable
increase in the production of chemical products for plant protection was also
anticipated, followed by the production of seeds, breeding animals, and so on.
Some of these objectives, given the actual possibilities, appear
illusory. There is serious doubt that the country's industry is capable of
multiplying tractor manufacturing and artificial fertilizer production in such
a short period.
One of the most important measures within this new orientation of agricultural
policy is the government's decision, made on May 28, 1957, to facilitate the
granting of loans to individual rural landowners. Although loans for individual
producers had been previously provided, peasants practically never obtained
them. With the new regulations, peasants could finally benefit from loans for
certain investments and farm improvements.
However, over time, it became clear that, despite the existing
regulations, peasants were unable to take full advantage of the available
loans, which were almost entirely channeled to the socialist sector of
agriculture. All investments, as well as loans, originating from socialized
resources were used in the agricultural sector, which occupies barely one-tenth
of the total land area. The tax system also brought no relief to the private
sector.
In 1957, and
especially in 1959, agricultural production increased, thanks in part to
favorable weather conditions, which led the Belgrade authorities to intensify
anti-peasant measures.
Before discussing the
new course of action, it is worth reviewing the wheat harvests in Yugoslavia
during recent years, compared to pre-war production and the country's wheat
supply, the most important food for the vast majority of the population.
VI. WHEAT
PRODUCTION AND IMPORTS [7]
|
Year |
Total surface |
Yield per hectare in metric quintals |
Total Production
|
Imports |
|
1934/38 |
2.167 |
11,4 |
2.467 |
- |
Despite the
erratic course of Yugoslav agricultural policy, wheat production only reached
and surpassed pre-war levels in 1957, 1958, 1959, and 1960. Considering that
the average wheat yield in Western Europe varies between 20 and 40 quintals per
hectare, the yield obtained in Yugoslavia in 1959, a record year, at 19.0
quintals per hectare, and 17.3 in 1960, is relatively low. [8].
Wheat
production up to 1959 was insufficient to meet the population's needs, so
Yugoslavia provided its inhabitants with bread only thanks to US aid. Until
1959, US wheat shipments accounted for half of Yugoslavia's total bread
consumption. This means that the Yugoslav population would have starved without
this assistance. Meanwhile, Western Europe increased its agricultural
production so much after the war that it had surplus food, despite population
growth.. The abundance of agricultural products poses serious difficulties for
democratic countries, while the so-called progressive order of communist
governments is decades behind. All communist countries face identical
difficulties, including Yugoslavia.
The 1959 harvest was
the best in postwar Yugoslavia and, for the first time, enabled the communist
government to supply the population with bread from its own production.
Although the yield of 19.0 quintals per hectare is not high compared to Western
European countries and considering the potential for increasing it through
modern agricultural techniques (given the favorable natural conditions, it is
quite low), it still represents progress.
The same applies to
corn, which provides exportable surpluses. The excellent 1959 harvest prompted
the Belgrade government to suspend further wheat imports subsidized by the
United States and announce that it had solved the problem of bread production
and supply. Since a large portion of the wheat fields belonged to the socialist
sector of the countryside, more so than for other major crops, government circles
seized upon this circumstance to emphasize that, from then on, bread supplies
would no longer depend on the private sector, as the socialist sector would
soon meet all market demands. Landowning peasants, therefore, would soon be
unnecessary.
With regard to
overall agricultural production, however, the situation is not promising. The
state of livestock production, especially meat, is far from satisfactory. In
this sector, as in wheat and corn, enormous investments are being made aimed at
increasing production. However, even the problem of wheat and bread supply is
not definitively resolved, despite the good harvest of 1959. For propaganda
reasons, Tito's government suspended imports of American wheat before the
harvest was in, and was able to do so because reserves of imported wheat were
large.
Yugoslavian wheat
production has shortcomings, currently masked by propaganda disseminated by the
communist regime both domestically and abroad following an exceptional harvest.
The communists, eager to become independent of the small-scale farmers who
cultivate most of the arable land and still constitute the primary source of
food, are resorting to every means to ensure the socialist sector of the
countryside has the largest possible share of market production.
To this end, they are
investing all available funds in acquiring machinery, livestock, and
constructing houses, silos, and so on, exclusively for this sector. To overcome
the latent bread shortage, high-yield Italian wheat varieties are being
cultivated. Because these wheat varieties are of inferior quality, despite
their high yield, they are not grown in other countries. Mussolini imposed
these wheat varieties, driven by the desire to make Italy self-sufficient in
its bread supply.
It is understandable
that Yugoslavia, also driven by necessity, is trying to solve its wheat problem
in the same way and emerge victorious in the "wheat war." However, it
would be an exaggeration and inaccurate to see this progress as a typical and
intrinsic success of the Yugoslav communist system, given that the average
yield of high-quality wheat in Western European countries is much higher than
that obtained in communist Yugoslavia.
Furthermore,
wheat production in Yugoslavia suffers from another weakness that could cause a
major crisis. As is well known, Italian wheat varieties are not sufficiently
resistant to the harsh winters of Yugoslavia's wheat-growing regions. In recent
years, the winters have not been severe, so the aforementioned deficiency of
the Italian wheat has not yet manifested itself. In the winter of 1959-60,
however, severe frosts struck, albeit briefly, which significantly damaged the
Italian wheat varieties.
According to
the newspaper "Borba" of June 1, 1960, last spring 7% of the wheat
fields in Voivodeship, the center of wheat production, had to be plowed again
due to "adverse weather conditions." The newspaper emphasized that
"this phenomenon is causing major headaches in some districts."
Despite
warnings from qualified experts about the weaknesses of Italian wheat
varieties, official circles underestimated the danger. They are already
experiencing problems, and if the cold weather intensifies, insurmountable
difficulties will arise. Furthermore, there are signs that these types of wheat
are susceptible to various pests in Yugoslavia, which in turn is causing
serious problems.
Incidentally,
the regime's propaganda about wheat self-sufficiency was premature. In light of
the exceptional 1959 harvest, Tito boasted: "We no longer depend on the
grace of heaven; on whether it will rain or not... Until now, we received wheat
from the United States of America as aid, but I believe none of you are happy
about that, for the Yugoslav people, a proud people, do not like to receive
constant help from anyone... All the more so because even in the political
sphere, that aid had unpleasant repercussions, so that for these reasons
political problems arose for us." [9].
However, last year's wheat harvest could not meet the population's
needs, forcing the government to request another 500,000 tons of wheat from the
United States. On April 20th, the Yugoslav ambassador visited the State
Department in Washington, requesting that payment for the purchased grain be
made in Yugoslav currency and not in foreign currency, which the Belgrade
treasury lacked. From 1950 to 1959, the communist government in Belgrade
received 6,858,379 tons of wheat and 247,856 tons of flour from the United
States.
The deficit recorded in 1960 was due not only to the poor harvest but
also to increased flour consumption, resulting from insufficient meat and milk
supplies and rising prices for all food items. Furthermore, farmers refused to
sell their grain due to price instability. American wheat will make it easier
for the government to force farmers to sell their wheat at low prices. The
American contribution is necessary because the "socialist sector" has
not yielded results; that is, it produces at enormous losses that the State
must then absorb, to the detriment of other economic activities.
All this proves that the wheat problem in Yugoslavia is not solved. It
would be more realistic to cultivate the country's quality wheat varieties than
to force the planting of other, non-acclimatized varieties. Cultivating the
country's good varieties requires years of work to obtain good results, but
with lower yields than Italian wheat.
The indispensable requirement for this would be to promote private land
ownership by farmers, the only way to increase agricultural production in both
quantity and quality. As we have emphasized, communist Yugoslavia does not tend
to strengthen peasant smallholdings; on the contrary, it seeks to suppress and
eliminate them through coercive measures and indirectly.
VII. THE
"SOCIALIST TRANSFORMATION" OF THE COUNTRYSIDE CONTINUES
Despite the
many failures suffered thus far in agricultural production, Yugoslavia is
intensifying its efforts toward the socialist transformation of the
countryside. This is evident from the report that Eduardo Kardelj,
Vice-President of the Yugoslav government, presented to the plenary session of
the Federal Committee of the "Socialist Federation of the Working People
of Yugoslavia," held in Belgrade on May 5 and 6, 1959, as well as from the
resolution adopted at that session. Later, Tito, in his report read at the
Fifth Congress of the Socialist Federation in April 1960, in Belgrade, again
emphasized this course of official policy.
This confirms that
the ultimate goal of the Yugoslav communist leaders, regarding anti-peasant
policy and agricultural production, is identical to that of the Soviet Union.
This goal consists of the socialization of land and other essential means of
production in agriculture.
In this sense, the
cooperation of peasants with cooperatives is considered only as a necessary
transitional phase in the socialist transformation of the countryside.
Association with cooperatives implies concessions to the peasants after the
failure of collectivization and the insufficient supply that seriously
threatened the country's economic development.
By returning land to
the peasants and increasing investments, a certain increase in agricultural
production was recorded. However, since, for political and doctrinal reasons,
strengthening peasant ownership is not desirable, it continues to be subjected
to strong pressures. The aim is to solve the food problem and the plight of the
peasants by intensifying production in the so-called socialist sector.
According to official
plans, the socialist sector would have to fully satisfy market needs, becoming
independent of the peasants, who would then be forced to sell their land and
abandon private production. This objective is far from being achieved, and the
policy being pursued is very costly and risky. The Party and the State want to
ensure the population's food supply through the socialist sector, so they must
expand it significantly, as its current capacity is insufficient.
However,
expanding the socialist sector to such an extent would mean the State assuming
exclusive responsibility for most agricultural production. This, in turn, means
investing so much money and taking so many risks that Yugoslavia cannot afford
it. Even the Soviet Union, which in recent years has tended to expand its
sovkhozes (state farms), has not reached such a level of expansion.
By expanding
the socialist sector without creating collective farms, in which the peasants
would bear all the risks and losses, an excessively heavy burden would be
placed on the remaining economic sectors, and the results would be identical to
those of collectivization, with the difference that then it would be the State,
instead of the peasants, that would suffer the losses.
On the other hand, the abandonment and ruin of private peasant farms
presents difficult and dangerous problems for society, the State, and the
Party. Already, the influx of peasants to the cities is such that the question
of employment and housing for so many people is a serious concern for the
communist leaders. With the acceleration of this process, new social and
political problems are emerging, which could prove more unpleasant for the
current regime than the economic ones.
The communists pursue the destruction of peasant properties primarily
for political reasons. The economically independent peasantry represents an
unyielding political force, which the communists fear. It is worth noting a
more recent measure directed against the interests of peasant private property:
the decree-law "on the exploitation of agricultural land," passed by
the Federal Assembly in Belgrade on October 16, 1959.
This law authorizes the People's Committees of municipalities and
districts to prescribe mandatory methods of land cultivation and the
application of agricultural measures. If producers fail to comply with the
established regulations, the respective lands, according to said law, may be
placed under official administration. The compensation that producers must pay
in that case goes into the investment fund and is used for the promotion of
agriculture.
The landowner, therefore, does not receive any compensation. The forced
administration ceases at the owner's request, provided that they commit to
cultivating their land within a specified period, comply with the established
regulations, and offer a guarantee, the amount and form of which are determined
by the municipal or district authorities, with which they must demonstrate
their capacity and solvency to fulfill the obligations assumed. Should the
producer fail to comply, the total amount of the guarantee goes into the
Investment Fund and is allocated to agricultural development.
These measures are expressly directed against individual farmers. They
represent a further step towards the complete elimination of peasant
landholdings. The forced administration of land is generally entrusted to
agricultural cooperatives and, in practice, means the loss of rural possession
and mandatory relocation to the city for the producer. Furthermore, they are
not entitled to compensation for the confiscated land.
The same law contains other measures detrimental to the private property
of peasants. For example, regarding land irrigation, the rounding of plots can
only be carried out for the benefit of cooperatives and other rural
organizations. This means that, as a result of improvements and the
consolidation of plots, the peasant cannot round up their plots, that is,
reduce the number of plots to a minimum or eliminate the parcelling altogether.
Therefore, even in the context of improvements and consolidations,
peasants are forced to cultivate their parceled land inefficiently and at high
cost. Then their land is seized and annexed to agricultural cooperatives,
citing as justification "outdated farming methods and the non-application
of prescribed agrotechnical measures."
This law also modified the land leasing system. Individual farmers, when
leasing their land, must advertise their offer on the notice board of the
respective municipal people's committee. Their land can be leased to another
private producer if, within the established timeframe, no official agricultural
organization has leased it. Thus, the law tends to make it more difficult for
individual producers to lease their land.
The law on the exploitation of agricultural land greatly harms private
producers by limiting the area of individual holdings to 10
hectares. Since farmers are not granted larger investment loans, acquiring
implements, machinery, or other means of production is difficult, and they
cannot modernize their methods or cultivate their land rationally; instead,
they regress and become increasingly impoverished. In this way, the State, with
premeditation and a fixed plan, postpones the individual production sector,
facilitates collectivization indirectly, and destroys the existence of
independent and free peasants.
Brugg/Aarg, Switzerland.
The Hungarian
government, unlike during centuries of coexistence, once again refused to
recognize the legal validity of the Croatian Sabor's (parliament's) decision.
It recognized the separation of Croatia-Slavonia and sent its diplomatic
representative to the National Council of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which
held sovereignty.
Even in this
most tragic period of its history, the Hungarian people, deprived of the right
to self-determination, with almost two-thirds of their territory annexed by
other states and thus reduced by three and a half million inhabitants, followed
with the greatest sympathy the tragic changes in the fate of the Croatian
people, striving, within their limited means, to assert the rights of the
Croats at the Paris Peace Conference. This intention is evident in the
memorandum presented by the Hungarian delegation at that Peace Conference:"No
doubt, the Serbs, who have brought about the union, and who are the most
interested in its stability, will pretend to the hegemony, and try to impress
the Serb character upon every State institution, which endeavours will meet
with resistance on the part of the sister nations, leading to repeated
frictions and collisions making the collaboration sooner or later impossible...
"The Croatian nation especially
will be disappointed by the Serbian rule. The great ambition of the Croatians
was the union under their hegemony of the Southern-Slav territories belonging
to Austria-Hungary, which undoubtedly they would sooner or later obtain, at
least, so far as Croatia-Slavonia, Bosnia and Dalmatia... are concerned -
Hungary desirous to live in fraternal understanding and sympathy with Croatia,
was always favourable to such a plan, and our present government respecting the
principle of self-determination, would have certainly acknowledged the right of
the Croatians to achieve their union.
"The
Croatians therefore might have aggregated - if we add the Croatian part of
Istria - about 5-900.000 inhabitants... Such a political formation built up on
historical, lingual, geographical and economical principles, would have had
much more right to existence, and a more promising future than the
"Yugoslavia to be created on the 'Great-Serbian' basis" [10].
("There is no
doubt that the Serbs, who carried out the unification and are the most
interested in its stability, will seek hegemony and will try to imprint the
Serbian character on every state institution; this endeavor will be resisted by
the sister nations and will provoke repeated frictions and clashes, making all
cooperation impossible sooner or later.
"The Croatian
nation will feel especially disappointed by the Serbian administration. The
great ambition of the Croats was the union, under their leadership, of the
South Slavic territories belonging to Austria-Hungary, which they will
undoubtedly achieve sooner or later, at least with regard to Croatia-Slavonia,
Bosnia, and Dalmatia. Hungary, eager to live in understanding and fraternal
sympathy with the Croats, has always favored this plan, and our current
government, respecting the principle of self-determination, would certainly
recognize the Croats' right to achieve their union.
"The
Croats can thus unite—if we include the Croatian part of Istria—around
5,400,000 inhabitants... Such a political entity, founded on historical,
geographical, linguistic, and economic principles, would have had more right to
exist and a more promising future than 'Yugoslavia,' which is to be created on
the basis of 'Greater Serbia').
The Treaty of Trianon
had not yet been signed when the Soviet Union attacked Poland. The French
government suggested establishing secret contact with the Hungarian government,
the only one among the Central European governments willing to provide Poland
with armed support. When, during the course of the talks, the possibility of a
possible revision of the Treaty of Trianon arose, the Hungarian government
seized the opportunity to request that the right to self-determination be
applied to the Croatian people as well.
HUNGARIAN-CROATIAN
TIES BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS
a) The relationship between Budapest and Belgrade. The Croatian problem.
The main objective
pursued by the Hungarian governments between the two world wars was to disrupt
the unity of the alliance known as the "Little Entente," which
encircled Hungary. With no possibility of a settlement in sight with either
Romania or Czechoslovakia, Hungary twice attempted to reach an agreement with
Yugoslavia, trying to separate it from the "Little Entente," since
the latter received the smallest share of the spoils. Both attempts were made
only when relations between Belgrade and Zagreb temporarily improved,
suggesting that a policy based on Croatia's separation from Yugoslavia was not
feasible.
The first attempt was
reflected in the speech given by Nicholas Horthy, Regent of Hungary, on the
occasion of the 400th anniversary of the Battle of Mohács. This attempt was
made only after Radic and his party had entered the Belgrade parliament,
abandoning their previous abstention; moreover, he had provisionally accepted a
ministerial post. The Yugoslav government, considering its position in
international politics at the time, did not yet deem an agreement with Hungary
necessary.
The Hungarian
government's second attempt took place when, after the Cvetkovic-Maček
agreement of 1939, it seemed that the Croatian people would resolve their
problems within the Yugoslav state. At that time, Europe was ablaze,
Czechoslovakia had collapsed, and in such a situation, the Yugoslav government considered
it necessary to make a friendly gesture to the Hungarians: to grant basic
rights to the Hungarian minority of half a million inhabitants, forced to live
in Yugoslavia; it was even prepared to make territorial concessions.
This rapprochement
was fostered both by Germany, which had economic interests in the Balkans, and
by Italy, which, after its military failure in Albania, wished to see
Yugoslavia neutral. Thus, the Hungarian-Yugoslavian agreement of December 1940
(the Pact of Friendship) was reached, which would soon prove to be the most
misguided step in Hungarian diplomacy between the two world wars. It quickly
became clear that Yugoslavia, or rather the Serbian Orthodox Church and the
Serbian military caste, were far from following the prudent policy of their own
government, which sought to adapt to reality. With the coup d'état of March 27,
1941, the policy based on friendship with Yugoslavia utterly failed.
Apart from
these two attempts, Hungary's foreign policy with respect to Yugoslavia was
guided primarily by the aim of supporting Croatia in its struggle for national
sovereignty. The definitive separation of Croatia would have automatically
caused the total disintegration of Yugoslavia and, therefore, the collapse of
the order established by the Treaty of Trianon in the Carpathian Basin.b)
Relaciones húngaro-croatas entre 1920-1929.
Hungary, in the first decade after the Treaty of Trianon, was struggling
with a severe economic crisis resulting from the First World War. Given the
military superiority of the nations of the Little Entente, Hungary lacked the
power to support the Croats in their struggle for independence, which began on
the very day of the proclamation of the South Slavic Union. Nevertheless,
Hungary did everything in its power to express its sympathy for the Croatian
cause.
Even at the Peace Conference, it advocated for Croatia's sovereign
rights. The Hungarian press never ceased to assert that this sympathy was not
merely official policy, but the sentiment of the entire Hungarian nation. Dr.
Joseph Bajza, a young Hungarian professor, spearheaded this pro-Croatian press
campaign. It was he who, on the eve of the First World War, had pointed out the
fatal errors of Hungarian policy, demanding support for the Croatian Party of Right.
In the autumn of 1918, he participated in the deliberations with the three
representatives of the aforementioned Croatian party, held in Vienna and
Budapest, in which the last attempt was made to resolve the South Slavic
problem from the Croatian perspective and within the Habsburg monarchy.
A highly significant indication of the pro-Croatophile attitude in the
1920s was the desire expressed by the professors of the University of Budapest
for the chair of South Slavic history and literature, temporarily vacant, to be
filled by the most prominent intellectual of modern Croatian nationalism, Dr.
Milan Sufflay. Professor Sufflay accepted the offered chair, but the Yugoslav
authorities denied him a passport. Had Professor Sufflay then traveled to
Budapest, he could have avoided his martyrdom and contributed to his nation's
regaining of independence.
Finally, the chair was filled by Professor Bajza, who continued to
advocate for Hungarian-Croatian friendship, not only in the press but also by
educating a new generation of historians. While he, in his inaugural lecture at
the Society of Saint Stephen, summarized the history of the dissolution of the
Hungarian-Croatian union, his most eminent disciple, Dr. José Deér, wrote a
comprehensive essay on the origins of that union, reconciling the Croatian and
Hungarian conceptions of the Pacta Conventa, a much-disputed issue.
Along with Vienna, Budapest had become one of the most important centers
for Croatian political exiles at that time. While Vienna was primarily the
meeting place for the leaders of the military uprising of December 5, 1918,
Budapest was the center of Dr. Ivo Frank's group, which was active in the Party
of Right.
c) Hungarian-Croatian relations from 1929 to 1941.
After the horrific
attack on the Belgian parliament on June 20, 1928, and the establishment of a
monarchical dictatorship, this time undisguised (January 6, 1929),
Croatian-Serbian relations entered a critical phase. The failure of the idea of
a Yugoslav state was evident. Serbian terrorism in Croatia
reached its peak. The number of Croats forced to seek asylum abroad grew
steadily. Those compelled to emigrate were no longer just politicians, but
ordinary people as well. Dr. Ante Pavelić, leader of the Party of Right
and deputy for Zagreb, organized the Ustaša movement to oppose Serbian violence
and to fight for the freedom of the Croatian nation. Along with Italy and
Austria, Hungary was the most important center of this new and numerous wave of
exiles.
To provide essential
supplies to the refugees crossing the Drava River, Croatian exiles organized an
orientation and supply camp in Jankapuszta, near the town of Nagy Kanizsa.
After a brief stay in this camp, most of the refugees moved to the major
industrial centers of Western Europe. Some were transferred to the military
training camps that the Ustaša movement maintained in Italy. Those who did not
wish to stray too far from their homeland found work on the Jankapuszta estate
and in the surrounding area.
The Yugoslav
government seized upon this situation to accuse Hungary of orchestrating the
Marseille bombing, as the Quai d'Orsay pressured Yugoslavia not to implicate
the Italian government before the League of Nations Council, given that Italy
had given refuge to the leader of the Ustaša movement. Besides Yugoslavia, the
two remaining countries of the "Little Entente" also seized this
opportunity to destroy Hungary, given that the government of Julius Gombös had
officially included in its foreign policy program the demand for a revision of
the peace treaties. With the aim of increasing the war mentality, the Yugoslav
government expelled several thousand Hungarians residing in Bachka, and at the
same time gave free rein to the Chetnik and Dobrovoljci groups (the Serbian
paramilitary formations), which the authorities stationed in the border areas
with Hungary, to commit acts of violence against the Hungarian population of
the region.
During the vehement
discussions in the Council of the League of Nations, Dr. Tibor Eckhardt, the
first Hungarian delegate to that international body, proved that it was not
only impossible to maintain the situation created by the Treaty of Trianon, but
that it was also necessary to resolve the Croatian problem. Once again, Hungary
was the only European country to raise the issue of Croatian independence
before the international body whose specific mission was to resolve such
problems. Only thanks to the energetic intervention of England was it possible
to thwart the military action aimed at dismembering Hungary, this time
definitively.
It was natural
that the outbreak of the Serbian-Croatian crisis of 1928-29 forced the
Hungarian government to make contact with the Croatian leaders, assuring them
that the Hungarian nation stood with the Croatian nation and that it would ipso
facto recognize Croatian independence if it were achieved through fighting on
the internal front or through the actions of exiles. As early as 1929, an
agreement in principle was reached during private talks between Dr. Vlatko
Macek, president of the Croatian Peasant Party and leader of the home front,
and the Hungarian diplomat, Baron Gabriel Apor.
In these
talks, Dr. Macek raised the possibility of a personal union between Hungary and
Croatia. However, Baron Apor, despite being a Legitimist politician, refused to
discuss the possibility of a personal union, declaring that Hungary would be
entirely satisfied if Croatia were to become a free state.[11].
It was only in 1934
that a similar agreement was reached with the leaders of the Croatian exiles,
despite frequent talks and cordial relations. However, while the agreement
stipulated with Dr. Macek was verbal, Dr. Tibor Eckhardt (at the time Hungary's
delegate to the League of Nations) signed a written agreement, on behalf of the
Hungarian Revisionist League, with Dr. Ante Pavelić, leader of the Ustaša
revolutionary movement.
According to the
agreement with both Dr. Macek and Dr. Pavelić, Croatia, should it achieve
independence, would retain possession of Medjimurje (the region between the
Drava and Mura rivers), renouncing, in exchange, all other territorial claims
in southern Hungary. Furthermore, Dr. Macek had committed to persuading the
Bunjevci (in Bachka) to side with Hungary.
Dr. Ivo Frank
formulated the Croatian viewpoint on Hungarian revisionist policy in the
following terms:
"We want to fight shoulder to
shoulder with the Hungarians for the idea of revision; we want to exert our
full influence—and it is considerable—in the Banat region, urging the Croatian
enclaves there and in Burgenland to give their all so that Western Hungary and
Voivodeship can be reunited with the Hungarian motherland. We want to fight for
you, with you, until victory or defeat—but as a free, independent nation.".[12]
d) Independent State of Croatia and Hungary.
The coup d'état in
Belgrade on March 27, 1941, was an unwelcome surprise not only for the
political and military leaders of Germany, but also for the Hungarian
government. It revealed the complete failure of the foreign policy based on the
Hungarian-Yugoslav Treaty of Friendship, just weeks after its ratification.
The German military
leadership, on the eve of the military campaign against the Soviet Union, could
not accept the situation, seeing supply routes and imports of oil and
copper—crucial commodities for its war industry—threatened by Yugoslavia. For
this reason, Hitler decided that same day, March 27, to eliminate Yugoslavia.
In this new
strategic situation, Hungary's attitude became of great importance from the
German perspective. On the one hand, it was necessary to reinforce the German
troops stationed in Romania by deploying additional forces, primarily in the
Banat region. This was only possible by crossing Hungarian territory.
On the other
hand, Hungary's active participation in the planned campaign would ensure a
faster success. Hitler invited Döme Sztójay, the Hungarian Minister
Plenipotentiary in Berlin, to an audience and sent him on a special plane to
Budapest to deliver his message to Regent Horthy. In this message, Hitler
promised not only the reintegration into Hungary of the territories of southern
Hungary annexed by Yugoslavia (in 1918-19), but also that he was prepared to
grant Hungary complete freedom of action in Croatia-Slavonia. He also alluded
to the possible restitution to Hungary of the city of Rijeka (Fiume), which at
that time belonged to Italy.[13].
Although Regent
Horthy was initially prepared to fully support the German action, at the Crown
Council session held on April 1st, Hungary's specific conditions were
established:
a) Hungary would initiate
military action only after Croatia proclaimed its independence, thereby
effectively dissolving Yugoslavia;
b) The Hungarian army
(honvéd) would only advance as far as Hungary's southern borders, that is, to
the Danube and Drava rivers, without invading Croatian territory.
Hungarian
Prime Minister Count Paul Teleky, the architect of the Hungarian-Yugoslav
friendship treaty, held out hope until the very last moment that Hungary could
remain neutral. But Hungary realized that such an attitude was becoming
untenable when it learned, from reading the report of the Hungarian consul in
Zagreb, Ladislaus Bartók, of the talks held between the political leaders of
southern Hungary and the head of the German minority in Croatia, Altgayer.
The results of
these talks were that the leaders of the German minority in Yugoslavia,
evidently in agreement with the leaders of the National Socialist party, were
planning to form what they called Prinz Eugen Gan (a Danubian state) under the
tutelage of Berlin. Hungary was then forced to act if it wanted to prevent the
creation of an adversarial German state on its southern borders and avoid the
trampling of the rights of the half a million Hungarians previously and
forcibly incorporated into the Yugoslav state.[14].
When, on the
fourth day of the German-Yugoslav War, April 10, 1941, the independence of
Croatia was proclaimed in Zagreb, Hungary was the first country to recognize it
through its consul in Zagreb, Ladislao Bartók. Regent Nicholas Horthy, in a
statement made public on the same day, said:
"We greet this decision with
sincere joy and we are going to respect it in every way. For a thousand years
we have been living together with the Croatian nation in bad and good times,
respecting and helping each other, and now we wish that the noble Croatian
people should find happiness and prosperity in its independence."
("Saludamos esta
decisión con sincera alegría y vamos a respetarla en todo sentido. Durante mil
años hemos convivido con la nación croata en los tiempos malos y buenos,
respetándonos y ayudándonos mutuamente, y ahora deseamos que el noble pueblo
croata encuentre su felicidad y prosperidad en su independencia")[15].
Although Dr.
Ante Pavelić, upon returning to Croatia, had spoken in friendly terms to
the Hungarian delegation that came to Karlovac to greet him, regarding Hungary
and its attitude toward Croatian exiles, relations between the two countries
soon cooled. The reason for this unexpected change lay in the territorial
dispute over Medjimurje. [16].
The Croatian government
considered Hungary's occupation of Medjimurje and its subsequent annexation a
violation of the aforementioned agreements: the one made with Dr. Macek and the
agreement signed with Dr. Pavelic. The military occupation of Medjimurje was
carried out under the terms of the agreement reached in November 1910 by the
Hungarian and German general staffs. The Hungarian government, including Prime
Minister László Bárdossy, were willing to recognize the interests of the
Croatian state in Medjimurje.
Nevertheless, the
Croatian civil administration ceased to function in Medjimurje. Later, when the
Hungarians took power on July 9, 1941, Bárdossy had to yield to those who
argued that, on the one hand, Hungary was being rather moderate in supporting
Croatian independence despite Hitler's offer, and, on the other hand, it could
not fail to claim all the territories of historical Hungary, precisely because
the Germans had appropriated the Banat.
The Hungarian
government's repeated efforts to maintain goodwill relations with Croatia,
despite the Medjimurje dispute, proved fruitless until the war's end. This
tension was also due to the actions of the German ambassador in Zagreb, Kasche,
who did everything possible to foster an atmosphere of distrust between Hungary
and Croatia, thereby reserving for Germany, in the event of a victorious
outcome, the right to arbitrate relations between the two countries.
Furthermore, this policy explains why Germany rejected Croatia's claim to the
Novi Pazar district, even though annexing it to Croatia would have been
logical, even strategically, as it would have separated Serbia and Montenegro.[17].
The lowest point in Hungarian-Croatian relations during the world war
was marked by the fact that, at the beginning of 1943, some Croatian officials
expressed a degree of sympathy for the Romanian government's efforts to create
a new "Little Entente" against Hungary, an alliance that included
Romania, Slovakia, and Croatia. Behind the Romanian action lay the intention to
recover Northern Transylvania, reintegrated into Hungary under the Vienna
arbitration of August 1940. The political leaders of Zagreb must have
understood, first, that the aggravation of the Transylvanian problem was the
result of German political intrigues and, second, that Transylvania for Hungary
is at least as vital an importance as Bosnia-Herzegovina is for Croatia and,
finally, that the defense of the Carpathian line holds transcendental
importance not only for Hungary, but for the entire Carpathian-Danubian region,
especially after the Don catastrophe, when the Russian tide was advancing on
the West. [18].
It seems an
irony of fate that just a few months after that unfriendly gesture, the
Hungarian government, at the request of the German military leadership, had to
consider the possibility of replacing the German troops stationed in Croatia
with Hungarian troops. A few weeks before the Italian armistice, the Hungarian
Prime Minister, Nicolas Kállay, had to include in his calculations, for obvious
reasons, the eventual invasion of the Balkans by Allied troops.
When Georg
Bakách-Bessenyey, the Hungarian ambassador in Bern, learned during his
conversations with the American intelligence officers in Switzerland, Allan
Dulles and Royal Tyler, of the Allies' firm refusal to invade the Balkans,
Kállay definitively abandoned the German plan. [19].
***
It took the final,
tragic phase of the war for the neighboring nations to grasp, in the last hour
before the catastrophe, the common danger and to eliminate, in the traditional
spirit of their long, eight-century-old shared history, the controversies and
quarrels fueled by external forces. According to the official statement of the
Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, concerning the talks held on February 20
and 21, 1945:
"...all
military, political, social, and economic issues of common interest to Hungary
and Croatia were discussed. Among other things, a complete agreement was
reached concerning the situation, development possibilities, and organization
of Croats and Hungarians residing in both countries, as well as regarding the
use of language, teaching and education, the printing and distribution of
newspapers, periodicals, and books in their respective languages, and matters
pertaining to reciprocal cultural and press cooperation..." [20].
In October
1918, Count Stefan Tisza declared to visiting delegates of the Croatian Party
of Right that Hungary recognized the Croatian nation's right to
self-determination and left it to the Croats to decide whether or not to
maintain relations with Hungary in the future, and in what form. He added that
the Hungarian people should support the Croatian nation in its struggle for
existence with all available means. [21].
Isidro Krsnjavi,
painter and writer, made Zagreb the true center of Croatian cultural activity.
Among other cultural institutions, he founded the Croatian Society of Art, the
first hub of modern visual art in Croatia. He surrounded himself with renowned
painters Blas Bukovac and Celestino Medovic, who, in collaboration with other
Croatian visual artists—sculptors Franges Mihanovic (a disciple of A. Rodin)
and Rodolfo Valdec, and painters Csikos-Sessia Bela, Clemente Crncic, and Oton
Ivekovic—became mentors to new generations and forerunners of modern Croatian
visual expression.
All these artists
followed the techniques and styles of the academies of Vienna, Munich, Paris,
and Rome, and shared the prevailing artistic concepts and approaches of those
schools. Miroslav Kraljevic and José Racic, precocious talents, both of whom
died prematurely, reached the level of late 19th-century European art outside the
academic framework and charted new paths in Croatian painting. Their
contemporaries, such as the writer Ksaver Sandor Djalski, demanded that young
Croatian visual artists "preserve, as the most sacred thing, the freedom
of their convictions, their thought, and their taste," taking care not to
fall "under the absorbing influence of any school."
The new ideas and
conceptions that were emerging reflected an intense desire to create an
original and distinctive artistic expression, to plastically highlight the
national characteristics and traits of the Croatian people, and thus, in close
spiritual communion with the peoples of the West, to contribute to European
cultural values and heritage. The Croatian Society of Art, founded by Krsnjavi,
along with other similar institutions, and especially the Zagreb Academy of
Fine Arts, contributed substantially to the formation and creation of Croatian
artistic expression.
Before the war, Ivan
Mestrovic, Jozo Kljakovic, Ljubo Babic, Vladimir Becic, Jerolim Mise, Marin Tartaglia,
and others taught at the Academy of Fine Arts. Under their inspiration,
dedication, and influence, new names emerged, new visual artists, known and
celebrated not only in Croatia but throughout Europe. This artistic movement
and this generation are known collectively as the "Zagreb School."
When, at the end of
the Second World War, the Balkan forces invaded Croatia once again, and with
the help and protection of Soviet troops imposed a communist dictatorship,
freedom of expression and artistic creation were curtailed and restricted in
many ways.
Among the tens of
thousands of Croatian refugees were several painters and sculptors, some
already established, others young and hopeful, who would later settle almost
exclusively in the Americas. Below, we will briefly discuss the work of these
Croatian artists who work in various media, some of whom have already made a
valuable contribution to the cultural heritage of their adopted countries. The
brief references that follow are intended to illustrate the reproductions of
the more recent works by these painters and sculptors published in this issue
of "Studia Croatica."
Ivan
Mestrovic, a leading figure in Croatian sculpture and one of the most renowned
sculptors of our century, has lived and worked outside Croatia since the early
years of World War II, and is currently, nearing 80, a professor at the
University of Notre Dame in the United States.
Given Mestrovic's
worldwide fame and the widespread dissemination of his vast body of work, we
will limit ourselves to highlighting only a few of its most interesting and
essential moments. His early sculptures were born under the influence of the
Vienna Secession. From the outset, Mestrovic's art was profoundly human,
original in its poignant, vigorous, and passionate forms, characterized by its
grandeur, and guided by lofty sentiments of constant ascent toward the eternal.
Moreover, seeking an
expression befitting his inner anxieties, the sculptor achieves stillness,
tranquility, and contemplative concentration (My Mother). The artist strives to
master and spiritualize matter. In search of a personal style and expression,
Mestrovic, beginning with his initial expressionist phase, combines Oriental
and Hellenic art (Psyche), and through the Renaissance (Virgin and Child),
enters his current phase (Pieta), no less creative and fruitful than the
previous ones. With the new works, executed in exile, mostly in Rome and North
America, it would seem that this latest cycle of Ivan Mestrovic's artistic
creation is drawing to a close. Afflicted by serious illnesses, he did not
interrupt his creative work, although he frequently lamented that he might not
have time to realize everything he carried in his mind and heart.
Mestrovic's new
works, in addition to the aforementioned characteristics that distinguish all
his sculptures, exhibit greater spirituality and inner concentration (Pope Pius
XII, Cardinal Stepinac, The Head of Socrates). The forms are more refined,
enveloped in a certain aura of lyricism and tenderness. His preferred subjects
remain Virgins and Mothers. Mestrovic, a prodigious genius of original
expressions and grandiose conceptions, perhaps poured his greatest inventive
wealth into the cycle entitled "Life and Passion of Christ," which
comprises numerous reliefs carved in wood. This cycle, begun during the First
World War and completed in 1954 in North America, was bequeathed by the
sculptor to the Croatian people. The influence of Mestrovic's art on his
contemporaries and on the new generation of sculptors, both Croatian and
foreign, is extraordinary and fruitful. Most European and American critics
agree with this assessment.
Chronologically
and due to the breadth of his work, the painter Jozo Kljakovic occupies second
place among Croatian visual artists in exile. Like Mestrovic, this painter
possesses a perfect understanding of human anatomy, mastering its forms and
movements (Annunciation, Jesus in the Temple, Flagellation, Crucifixion, The
Last Supper, Fishermen). The relief of his figures, the density and plasticity
achieved through tones and mid-tones of his rich color palette, reveal
Kljakovic as an excellent technician and a restless thinker.
Kljakovic is
also known for his numerous monumental murals that adorn various buildings and
churches in Croatia and Rome. In his most recent paintings (Scherzo), the
artist, despite his advanced age, sought to enrich his artistic expression
through broad and vigorous brushstrokes. Like Mestrovic, Kljakovic leaves a
rich artistic legacy, the fruit of his long and tireless creative work, along
with his insightful memoirs collected in the book In Contemporary Chaos,
published in 1952 in Buenos Aires.
Since 1934, the
Croatian painter Maximilian Vanka has resided in the United States. Almost
forgotten by his compatriots, his contribution to American visual arts is
nonetheless significant. Vanka's paintings (Our Mothers, Pilgrims, Ave Maria)
are simple in content and form, much like the peasants of his homeland, aptly
reflecting in his technique and use of color the difficult lives of his figures
and faces (Croatian Mothers in the Homeland).
Though far from his
homeland, Vanka, even now, has managed to convey in the canvases painted in
Pennsylvania the pain and tragedy that befell Croatia during and after World
War II. Vanka is a distinguished portraitist of the old school, clear, refined,
and intelligible in his use of color. Furthermore, the bridges, skyscrapers,
and factories of New York are reflected in his canvases, as are the figures of
the poor, the unemployed, the despised, and the drunk—the types who emerged
from the New York underworld. M. Vanka definitively entered the history of
North American painting with his frescoes in St. Nicholas Church in Milwaukee,
which American critics consider the finest religious murals in the United
States.
In Peru lives
Kristian Krekovic, a Croatian painter known as the "painter with the
golden brush," an interpreter of ancient pre-Columbian Peru, evoking Inca
chieftains, priests, and warriors. In the last decade, his canvases have been
exhibited in major American and European cities, earning critical acclaim. A
painter of imposing figures and enormous canvases with themes drawn from
ancient Peruvian history, he is also known in Europe as a painter "of
masterful conceptions with profound philosophical and social content"
(Gamile Mauclair).
Although exiled from
Croatia, he often evokes in his paintings the luminous and somber moments of
his country's history (The Croatian Widows). Jose Crnobori, having escaped
Tito's communist dictatorship, settled in Buenos Aires in 1947 and subsequently
exhibited his paintings in several Argentine cities. At his first exhibitions
in Buenos Aires, critics unanimously praised his pictorial qualities: a soft
chromatism, the serene tones in his portraits and nudes, the harmony of green
hues, and the distinct polychromy of his floral subjects. The critic for
"La Prensa" noted "that his landscapes with their soft tones
remind us of Corot." However, Crnobori, both in his artistic conceptions and
his personal style and aspirations, reflects more the influence of the Zagreb
school and his teacher Marin Tartaglia, a prominent figure in Croatian
painting, than that of the French landscape painters Corot and Ghardin.
Slavko Kopac, who was
a student and later a professor at the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts, currently
resides in Paris, where he has had several solo exhibitions and enjoys
considerable renown. Akin to the "art brut" style, which some French
critics also call "une autre figuration," of his master and friend
Jean Dubuffet, Kopac is a painter and sculptor of original imagination,
singular freshness, and naiveté. He attracted particular attention for his
unusual and audacious technique of combining plastic paste, cement, wood,
pieces of glass, paper, brick fragments, and clay to create an artistic
universe.
Until
recently, Gustavo Likan, another well-known Croatian landscape and portrait
painter, resided in Argentina. Likan, a man of dynamic temperament, studied in
Munich and the Netherlands and exhibited his works in several European cities.
He is a painter of excellent technique and profound knowledge, and his best
works are his portraits of children and maternal themes. Croatian critics link
him to Franz Hals and Snyhers.
Zarko Simat primarily
dedicates himself to portraits and still lifes. The figures of this painter,
original in their conception and execution, and a series of drawings entitled
"Pagan and Christian Rome," convey firm and established qualities.
After a long trip through Italy and France, he returned to Argentina, and his
new exhibition is eagerly awaited.
Among the Croatian
painters living and creating in Argentina, Zivko Zic deserves mention. A
talented and ambitious self-taught artist, he attempts to interpret the Pampas
landscape.
Zdravko Ducmelic is
also worthy of special mention. He is one of the most original, talented, and
promising visual artists among Croatian émigré painters. Ducmelic studied in
Zagreb, Rome, and Madrid. He has resided in Argentina since 1949 and currently
teaches at the Higher School of the National University of Cuyo. He has held
more than 40 solo exhibitions, and his works are included in several museums,
galleries, and collections.
With a modernist
bent, Ducmelic is a painter of refined sensibility and impeccable draftsmanship.
Boldly forging his own style and color interpretation, averse to all
academicism, this young painter has already produced several works of
surprising maturity and vigor. Certain distortions of his figures, rather
premeditated and forced, do not always enhance a particular artistic idea. It
is clear that within the avant-garde currents of painting, Ducmelic is forging
his own personality. He is an authentic representative of our turbulent times
of the atomic age, of satellites and astronauts, and as such, he strives to be
its faithful interpreter.
To complete this
brief overview of Croatian visual artists who emigrated, it is necessary to
mention Ivan Galantic, a painter of lyrical reveries and a mystical world,
enveloped in meditation, stillness, and gentleness. After completing his
studies in Florence, Galantic moved to Canada, where he currently lives and
works. Also worthy of mention are two young Croatian sculptors, José Turkalj
and Agustín Filipovic, who not long ago chose freedom and fled Tito's communist
regime.
Turkalj, along with
Teodoro Golubic, a young American of Croatian origin, studies and works under
the guidance of his teacher Ivan Mestrovic. The fruitful influence of the great
Mestrovic is evident in the works of these two talented sculptors, as well as
in the sculptures of Agustín Filipovic, who currently resides in Canada.
Therefore, it is still premature to make a definitive judgment on the future
development of this group of young Croatian sculptors.
Aside from the
exiled visual artists, it is worth highlighting the distinctly modernist style
of the Croatian ceramist Sime Pelicaric, based in Buenos Aires, who in 1959 won
first prize for ceramics from the Municipality of Buenos Aires. His numerous
exhibitions, held in South American capitals and in New York, were the subject
of critical acclaim.
Buenos Aires.
In short, Central and Eastern Europe constitutes a free zone of
encounters and conflicts between antagonistic forces and opposing cultural
influences. It was only in the modern era that this region acquired a degree of
political stability, imposed from the outside, when, after the final partition
of Poland, four military empires dominated the area: the Ottoman, the Austrian,
the Russian, and the Prussian or German, respectively.
Even the Holy Alliance could not safeguard this situation. The corollary
of the revolutionary movements of a national and social character during the
past and present centuries has been the formation of numerous and relatively
small nation-states between the Baltic and the Mediterranean. This paved the
way for the "Balkanization" of the region, a complex political process
that resulted in domination, first by the Third Reich and then by the Soviet
Union.
II. ZONE OF THE EFFECTS AND ERUPTIONS OF CIVILIZATIONS
Of all this area, only the countries of so-called Southeast Europe were
located within the sphere of influence of Greco-Roman civilization, while the
countries north of the Carpathians appeared on the historical stage at the end
of the great migrations of peoples, during the period when Europe was gradually
forming and while civilization was spreading in the vast area between the
Adriatic and the Baltic Seas and in the extensive plains of Eastern Europe.
With the definitive division of Europe into two areas—not only political
but also cultural and ecclesiastical—the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe
were faced with the dilemma of choosing one or the other form of Christian
civilization, which was sometimes propagated by the inappropriate means of
military expansion. These uprisings and struggles were the main features of the
development of the new kingdoms and principalities until the Mongol and Turkish
invasions.
A large part of that area has been organized politically outside the
direct reach of the two Christian empires. In that region, the Holy Roman
Empire had only managed to integrate the Bohemian kingdom, the territory
inhabited by the Slovenes, and a small portion of Croatian lands on the Istrian
peninsula. However, Western influence prevailed in the kingdoms of Poland,
Croatia, and Hungary, which emerged over a thousand years ago on the eastern
border of the Holy Roman Empire (see map on page 151). Further north, along the
Baltic coast, lay the territory largely settled by Germans.[22].
Even after the
establishment of the new Western society, Byzantium exerted a notable influence
over all of Christendom. However, the direct ascendancy of the Eastern empire
halted at the age-old dividing line between two civilizations. Braudel, quoting
Madame de Staël, points to this boundary as "the most astonishing scar of
the Mediterranean countries... the one that, between East and West, passes
beyond the maritime barriers... that precise and immutable land barrier that
runs between Zagreb and Belgrade, reaching out onto the Adriatic at Alesio
(Ljes), at the mouth of the Drin, and at the junction of the Dalmatian and
Albanian coasts..."." [23].
Nor did Byzantium,
even within its sphere of influence, manage to politically integrate the Slavic
and Slavic-Bulgarian populations. In the bloody struggles it waged against the
Bulgarians, it was weakened to such an extent that this attrition became one of
the main causes of its subsequent decline.
The political legacy
of Byzantium passed into the hands of the Ottoman Turks, but Eastern Christians
constituted the vast majority in the European part of the Eurasian Ottoman
Empire.
For centuries, they
were submissive subjects of the Turkish conquerors, seasoned rulers. It was
practically in the modern era that the Ottoman Empire began to look beyond its
borders, especially towards Russia, when the latter became a powerful state
aspiring to assume the imperial legacy of Byzantium—the Second Rome—that is,
only when the process of decline became evident within the Ottoman Empire
itself. Russia was able to present itself as the heir to Byzantine culture
because the Greek Church was, with regard to liturgical language, more flexible
than the Roman Church, which clung tenaciously to Latin, seeing in it, and
rightly so, a powerful factor in religious and cultural unity.
For the Bulgarians,
Serbs, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Russians, the Slavic liturgy signified the
beginning of their national cultures of Byzantine origin.
The Mongol
invasions and the domination of the "Golden Horde" halted, but did
not prevent, the development of Russia. With the fall of Byzantium, the Grand
Duke of Muscovy donated the imperial crown. Since then, Moscow has been
considered the legitimate heir of Byzantium, the Third Rome ("since there
will be no fourth"). The Russian Empire gradually became, in the eyes of
the Orthodox Slavs of the Ottoman Empire, the leading power in the world of the
Byzantine tradition.
The rise of
modern Russia put an end to the aspirations of its western neighbors—the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Baltic Germans, the Swedes, and the
Finns—to extend Western influence eastward. Since then, the trend has been in
the opposite direction. Russia is penetrating southward and westward. This
synoptic chart, though limited to the essentials, nonetheless underscores the
characteristic features of this zone of ebb and flow of civilizations,
"those inexorable, subtle tides that nevertheless govern everything, or
almost everything.
The imbalances
they cause are the decisive forces of history." Even the current European
crisis only secondarily concerns diplomats, for it is, in essence, a debate
between civilizations, constantly reignited in favor of the advantages
alternately gained by one or the other contender. "The good cards pass
from one hand to the other, and depending on the winner, significant cultural
currents, richer or poorer, emerge from West to East or vice versa." [24] The demarcation line between Western Europe and
Eastern Eurasia, that border which does not appear on any map, is more lasting
and important than any political boundary, even more so than the fateful
"iron curtain".
III. THE PROBLEMS OF
SOCIAL STRUCTURING
Although Peter the
Great opened Russia's doors to Western technology, his purpose was not to
incorporate his empire into Western society. He sought only to increase Russian
power. However, contrary to his intention, along with Western technology, he
also imported the ferment of the Russian Revolution. Western technology cannot
be adopted without simultaneously accepting its scientific methods, the result
of long and persistent efforts by Western intellectuals who, above power and political
interests, affirmed truth as an intrinsic value.
Conversely, in the
practice of Eastern empires, everything, even scientific truth, is subordinated
to the interests of autocratic state power. For example, in the Soviet Union,
political power sets the standards for artistic creation and even requires
scientists to interpret natural laws according to the regime's ideology.
In Russia, in
addition to the moral crisis caused by the impact of new ideas imported from
the West, a crisis of social structures also emerged in the last century. The
most evident symptom is the emergence and proliferation of intermediaries
between traditional Russian society and the West. This thankless role is played
by the new social class, "the intelligentsia."
The introduction of
new ideas and forms, along with technology, had devastating effects on a
society where they were not the result of a long evolution, as in their native
Western soil. While the Russian Revolution was born from contributions from
Western Europe, Bolshevism does not represent an evolution of Russian society
toward Westernization.
On the contrary, it
signifies the revenge of traditional, Mongolized Russia against the
Europeanized class of Russian rulers of the old regime. It was a deliberate
return to Eurasian traditions. Bolshevism is merely the Eurasian version of a
Western system, Marxism, which Lenin, the true architect of modern
totalitarianism, grafted onto the social body of autocratic and Caesaropapist
Russia. That is why communism, even when it operates in countries with deep
humanist traditions in the West, remains the Eurasian version of Marxism.
Not only is Russia
not Westernizing through Bolshevism, but the Soviet domination of most of
Central Europe constitutes, in essence, one of the most brutal attempts to
impose, by force, the ideas and forms of a foreign civilization. The illusions
of progressives regarding the supposed evolution of the Soviets toward new
forms of human rights and freedoms stem from the optimism of previous
generations, who based their illusions on the idea that our political
institutions could serve as a panacea for all the ills that arise in other
civilizations, as well as in regions that have just appeared on the stage of
history.[25]. The political and social forms of the West, which are a result of
specific historical, political, and social evolution, are not indigenous there
and appear in hybrid forms. Similarly, the formation of the nation-state and
representative constitutional democracy must be considered in those European
countries where Byzantine traditions predominate.
The nation-states
that emerged in the Balkans during the last century are more of the
Nation-Church type than Nation-State. They possess the attributes of Byzantine
Caesaropapism and of the millet, a unique institution within the Ottoman Empire
that treated religious communities as political units, granting them certain
administrative functions. In the Balkans, religious affiliation is still
identified with nationality, leading to religious discrimination. In many
cases, the national Church has been an instrument of the denationalization of
ethnic minorities of the same faith.
Likewise, the
attempt to establish democratic regimes in the Balkans failed. In those regions
where autocracy was a deeply rooted tradition, behind the facades of liberal
monarchies like Belgium, the monarch's omnipotence prevailed. He relied on the
bureaucracy, primarily the large military caste, and even the hierarchy of the
national Church. Parliamentary elections, when they occurred, were a mere
formality, given the passive attitude of the submissive subjects.
It was known
beforehand that the government's candidates, appointed by the monarch with the
mandate to organize the elections, would inevitably win. The deputies, elected
in this manner, could, with varying degrees of restriction, debate and vie for
power—that is, for the favors of the sovereign and his inner circle; the
monarch appointed and dismissed ministers at will.
Only when
these leaders clashed violently with the interests, convictions, or prejudices
of the privileged caste—primarily the army and the clergy—did change occur,
generally in the form of resounding coups d'état. Western opinion, often
scandalized by the cruelty of the conspirators, failed to recognize that in an
autocratic system of government, a coup d'état, almost always followed by the
assassination of the monarch, was the only possible, one might even say
constitutional, path to major political change.
There is a latent
problem with social structures, or rather, with the ruling class, in all the
countries of Central and Eastern Europe. However, this issue is particularly
acute in the countries with Byzantine traditions that were subjected for
centuries to Ottoman rule. The social structure of the Byzantine world differed
from the outset from that of the West. Moreover, the Ottoman conquerors—except
in Bosnia and Wallachia—had uprooted the feudal ruling class.
Entire peoples were
socially leveled and reduced to the status of raiyeh. In these countries, following
national emancipation, a new ruling class, controlled by the rulers, formed
rapidly, so that the new national society—consisting of a ruling class, a
docile instrument of autocratic power, and a mass of obedient subjects—more
closely resembled the structures of Byzantium, Turkey, and Russia than those of
the West.
The absence of social
forces is primarily responsible for the failure of the provisional democratic
government established in Russia in 1917 and the eventual victory of
Bolshevism. In the Balkans, a new social class, called the intelligentsia, also
emerged. Toynbee masterfully outlined the characteristics of this new social
class, emphasizing its hybrid nature.
This social class,
mostly direct descendants of illiterate peasants, distanced itself from
patriarchal traditions without ever achieving parity with the Western ruling
class. Hence the frustration and resentment of xenophobic nationalisms, always
with an anti-Western tendency.
Between the
two world wars, throughout Central and Eastern Europe, there was a surplus of
"intelligentsia," children of peasant parents and the lower middle
class, who could only climb the social and economic ladder through higher
education. These young graduates could only aspire to official
positions.
But in the
countries defeated in the First World War, impoverished and territorially
diminished, those prospects were almost nonexistent, especially during the
Great Depression. In the countries favored by the peace treaties, the
possibilities were somewhat better, at least in theory.
However, a
privileged caste had formed in these countries. Invoking their merits, more
assumed than real, the older generation had filled all the positions and
sinecures, with or without qualifications. A multitude of semi-literate civil
servants and army officers emerged, while university graduates swelled the
ranks of the intellectual proletariat.
This group has
been relatively numerous because certain governments, seeking to favor specific
regions, promoted secondary education, thus considerably increasing the number
of social malcontents within the new ruling class. A similar phenomenon
occurred even in countries like Italy and Germany. This social development
significantly increased the virulence of totalitarian movements, both nationalist
and communist.
In countries
whose national interests were harmed, the intellectual proletariat sought
solutions in extreme nationalist social movements, while in countries
considered more advantaged, this proletariat increasingly turned towards
communism. Thus, the University of Belgrade supplied the communist party with
its cadres, while students at the University of Zagreb gravitated towards
Croatian nationalism.[26].
The social crisis, especially in the Balkan countries, was exacerbated
by frequent cases of bribery and corruption within the public administration,
known as korupcija (corruption). This tradition, dating back to the decline of
the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, facilitated such abuses.
At that time, the state did not pay its employees; instead, public
offices, including ecclesiastical ones, were sold to the highest bidder.
Contemporary Balkan states paid their employees very poorly. Furthermore,
obtaining a position through bribery was already the norm. For these reasons,
and due to a lack of moral balance in the makeshift ruling class, there were
staggering cases of embezzlement, which went unpunished because they were so
widespread.
In the countries that developed within the Western tradition and under
the Austrian model of good administration, the situation was more favorable.
However, there were difficulties regarding social structuring in countries
ruled by foreign nobility, while the indigenous population was reduced almost
exclusively to the social and economic status of serfs. This was especially
true in the Baltic countries, Ukrainian Galicia, Slovakia, and Slovenia, so
that the national movements in these regions simultaneously took on the
character of a struggle for social emancipation.
While in countries ruled by the local nobility under the Old Regime and
where free cities flourished in the Middle Ages, the conditions for social
structuring were more favorable, there were also obstacles to the formation of
a middle class. The cities, targets of Turkish invasions, were sparsely
populated, and their inhabitants were mostly foreigners, German artisans, and
Jewish merchants.
The underdeveloped social structures thus presented serious difficulties
for the democratization of public life in all the countries of Central and
Eastern Europe, albeit to varying degrees. Moreover, in countries whose
destinies had previously been governed by the nobility, the new ruling class
inherited from the aristocracy more a sense of social superiority than skill in
managing political affairs. The example of certain Danubian countries and
Poland is typical in this respect.
Furthermore, after the First World War, the problem of popular
participation in political affairs arose, albeit in a disorganized fashion, in
all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. This crucial social and
political process also unfolded under the impact of the First World War and the
Bolshevik Revolution, which was witnessed by numerous prisoners of war from
Central Europe.
With few exceptions, the working class was not numerous, and agrarian
parties were the ones that channeled popular aspirations. However, these
groups, frequently resorting to demagoguery and faced with the stubborn
resistance of existing socio-political structures, were in the vast majority of
cases unable to fulfill their purpose.
In short, political life and social transformation throughout this
region unfolded in a climate of constitutional insecurity, popular discontent,
and marked by stark social contrasts, all exacerbated by the difficult
agricultural situation. These circumstances, coupled with significant political
difficulties arising from the proliferation of relatively small nation-states
precisely during the era of the concentration of economic and military power,
did not foster the consolidation of democratic individual and political
freedoms, without which true government cannot exist.
IV. THE POLITICAL
CAUSES OF THE FAILURE OF NATION-STATES
The system of small
nation-states, surrounded by Germany and Russia with their enormous military
and economic power, inevitably encountered immense difficulties. This was all
the more true given that these were regions with a high degree of territorial
overlap among populations of different ethnic origins, making it impossible to
draw definitive borders according to the national principle.
Moreover, in some
parts of this area, the process of ethnic definition was still not entirely
complete. It is still debated whether Montenegrins are a separate people or
merely a subgroup of the Serbian people; whether Macedonians are part of the
Bulgarian people or a separate group. Serbian nationalists even went so far as
to claim that Macedonians are simply Serbs lacking national consciousness.
They maintain the
same position regarding the Balkan Vlachs, even though the latter speak a
Romanian dialect. The Yugoslav communists, in turn, officially uphold the
absurd thesis that the Muslims of Bosnia are not Croats, but rather
"nationally undefined Yugoslavs." The pan-Serbian dictatorship of
King Alexander had proclaimed its political dogma that Croatia, Serbia, and
Slovenia are not historical nations, but regional groups comprising the
supposed Yugoslav people.
At the same time, it
was asserted in Czechoslovakia that Czechs and Slovaks are merely two branches
of the same people. Based on these demonstrably false theories, the application
of the national principle was denied in Croatia and Slovakia, officially
declaring Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia as nationally homogeneous states. Thus
distorted, the national principle resulted in Czechs dominating in
Czechoslovakia, even though they constituted half the population, while Serbia,
representing barely a quarter of the total population, held hegemony in
Yugoslavia.
Apart from these
extreme cases of violation of the national principle, several states in the
region include strong pockets of "national minorities" (see map on
page 15), an inevitable phenomenon, but one that worsened when, at the end of
the First World War, borders were drawn according to the "Woe to the
vanquished" principle.
Many problems also
arose because the institution of the nation-state was conceived as a right of
that ethnic group, which confers national character upon the state, as it
asserts itself and expands at the expense of ethnic minorities and neighboring
states. Many difficulties stem from the fact that the countries of Central and
Eastern Europe inherited from their predecessors, the quintessential
multinational empires, the distinction between citizenship and nationality.
While citizenship is
generally determined by place of birth, nationality, in an ethnic sense, is
established according to one's origin or national consciousness. Members of
ethnic minorities are citizens, but they are not fellow citizens. For this
reason, there are millions upon millions of citizens whose ancestors came to
and settled for centuries in their respective countries, yet they consider it
their duty to be nationally loyal to the people of their ethnic origin, who
almost always live nearby, in their own nation-state. This inevitable conflict
between two loyalties, patriotic and national, produces national discrimination
as its corollary.
These two
phenomena are related as cause and effect; a vicious circle is created with
serious repercussions for the internal situation and with strained relations
between neighboring states, which demand freedom for their citizens in other
states, despite generally practicing national discrimination within their own
jurisdiction. Such situations largely motivated nationalist dictatorships,
precisely in the countries favored by the Peace Treaties and considered natural
allies of the great democratic powers.
Thus, the
political constellation, fostered in the name of democratic principles,
contributed to the severe restriction of individual freedoms, so that many
people longed for the pre-war era. Even in Czechoslovakia, the land of Masaryk
and Beneš, lauded as a model of democracy, there were no true democratic
freedoms.[27].
The Habsburg Empire
was dismembered because, within the Austro-Hungarian dual system, most of its
subjects felt their national rights were being violated. However, in the new
situation, the number of national discontents was roughly the same. [28]. The roles were simply reversed.
By opposing
the revision of the Peace Treaties in order to safeguard their territorial and
political status—conceived as a cordon sanitaire against the resurgence of
German militarism and the attempt to export the Russian Revolution—the major
democratic powers in fact facilitated not only the expansion of the Third Reich
but also communist activities aimed at fully exploiting the discontent of
oppressed peoples and minorities. Stalin was the principal theorist and
architect of this policy.[29].
Due to a fatal
confluence of circumstances, the democratic powers deemed it appropriate to
sponsor militaristic cliques, the main backbone of the nationalist
dictatorships. The economic consequences were no less severe than the political
ones. Expenditures on armaments absorbed the greater part of the meager national
income. The standard of living suffered greatly as a result. The finances of
the powers that felt compelled to provide economic support to the national
dictatorships were also affected. Moreover, this ideological inconsistency was
one of the causes of the moral and political crisis in France itself on the eve
of the Second World War.
While some
difficulties, stemming from the system of relatively small nation-states, were
unavoidable, many could have been avoided had the national principle been
correctly applied and the democratic right of the affected population to freely
decide on their government been respected. But the opposite occurred. The
principle of political and national self-determination was practiced flawedly
and inconsistently. New states were founded and their borders decreed based on
incomplete, distorted, and tendentiously interpreted linguistic statistics.
Supposed
nation-states were created that, in fact, turned out to be multinational, and
other quasi-national states, encompassing large and discontented minorities,
were created—states incapable of organizing good governance.
The extent to
which linguistic criteria clashed with democratic rights is demonstrated by the
result of the almost forgotten plebiscite held in Carinthia, a province of
Austria, in accordance with one of the clauses of the Treaty of St. Germain.
The population of southern Carinthia had to choose between the new Kingdom of
Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and the small, impoverished Austria.
According to
pre-war official statistics, which, incidentally, did not favor the Slovenes,
more than 70% of the population in the so-called zone spoke Slovene. A Yugoslav
victory was considered a foregone conclusion. But in the plebiscite of
11/10/1920, Austria obtained 22,625 votes and Yugoslavia 15,278.
This
surprising result, later interpreted in Yugoslavia as a reaction against the
behavior of Serbian troops stationed in Carinthia, includes the recognition
that Central European cultural and political tradition prevailed over Pan-Slavic
nationalist agitation in favor of a Balkan country like Serbia.
Subsequent
elections in the Yugoslav regions that had formerly belonged to the Habsburg
Empire demonstrated that, had the right to self-determination been properly
applied, the overwhelming majority of the population would have voted against
inclusion in a Balkan state. H. Seaton Watson, one of the foremost experts on
Yugoslav affairs, observed 12 years later that "the people of the former
Monarchy—and not only the Croats but almost everyone without exception, even
the Serbs of the Banat—embrace the slogan:
Return to
November 1918." [30], That is to say, the situation when an independent government was
established in Zagreb for all the territories formerly part of Austria-Hungary,
which on December 1, 1918, were "united" with the Kingdom of Serbia
without consulting the affected population. While in the cases of Yugoslavia
and Czechoslovakia, the union of distinct peoples was forced based on
linguistic similarity, Austria, a German-speaking country, was denied the right
to decide on its potential incorporation into Germany.
This right was
unnecessarily denied, as the majority did not desire such unification. The
Sudeten Germans were also deprived of the right to national self-determination,
even though they formed a cohesive group of more than three million and lived
in territorial continuity with their ethnic roots.
Nevertheless,
when the democratic powers opposed Hitler's demands for the unification of all
Germans, they based their opposition "on moral grounds as dubious as the
denial of the Sudetenland's right to self-determination." The program of
annexing the Sudetenland, Austria, and Danzig was consistent with the national
principle. "Hitler had completed the work begun by Frederick the Great and
Bismarck by finally achieving the unity of Greater Germany."[31].
Hitler, it
should be noted, applied the national principle using undemocratic methods. He
hastened the forced annexation of Austria—the Anschluss—to prevent the
plebiscite announced by Chancellor Schuschnigg. Of course, we have seen that
the architects of the so-called Treaty of Versailles also failed to respect the
right to self-determination, a fundamental democratic principle.
Furthermore,
they supported several dictatorial governments that practiced a policy of
outright national oppression. It is regrettable, but true, that by acting in
this way, the democratic powers were, from a moral standpoint, in a very
awkward position vis-à-vis the Third Reich, which, in the aforementioned cases,
could at least invoke the national principle..
V. THE DERIVATIONS OF
PAN-SLAVIC NATIONALISM
Pan-Slavism, that is,
the ideological and political current that, during the era of nationalist
movements, advocated for the political solidarity of all Slavic peoples, based
on the linguistic factor, proved detrimental both in the realm of international
relations and for the Slavic peoples of Central and Eastern Europe themselves.
Therefore, the problem of Pan-Slavism deserves separate consideration.
Pan-Slavism, a
derivation of modern nationalist movements, is founded on the prejudice that
such a close kinship exists among Slavic peoples that Slavic solidarity with
other peoples—above all ties of neighborliness, history, religion, and
culture—constitutes a patriotic duty. It is, therefore, a completely false
theory. "The Slavs do not represent a racial, historical, cultural, or
political-ideological unity. Only linguistic kinship exists among them. While
the Latin and Germanic worlds are cultural and historical concepts, the
so-called Slavic world is merely linguistic and, to a certain extent,
ethnological."
Consequently, no
analogies can be drawn, for example, between the Latin and Slavic worlds.
Whereas the peoples of the Neo-Latin linguistic group form a linguistic
community while also exhibiting common traits resulting from their unique
cultural and historical development, the peoples of the Slavic linguistic group
have developed in such a way that they are currently divided into two distinct,
if not antagonistic, groups.
At the root of this
differentiation lies the cultural dualism of Europe, which, however, does not
affect the Latin or Germanic peoples, since these, despite linguistic,
political, and, in part, religious differences, belong to the same cultural
sphere. "This difference exists, however, not only between a Russian and a
Portuguese, but also between a Russian and a Pole, and even between a Serb and
a Croat."
As a result of this
division, the possibility of a policy of solidarity among Slavic peoples is
very limited. Politics, state organization, and legal order are simply one
aspect of culture. Therefore, where there is no shared set of value criteria,
which are the essence of culture, it is impossible to organize a lasting
political agreement.
The emergence of
Pan-Slavism and its acceptance by certain political figures, as well as by some
Western powers—during the two world wars, the "slogan" of defending
Slavic peoples from the German threat was wielded as a political weapon—must be
attributed to the historical process during times of national rivalries.
On the one hand, in
the West, precisely during its greatest period of external expansion, the sense
of belonging among its peoples to the same cultural community had almost
disappeared. On the other hand, due to the particular conditions in Central and
Eastern Europe, the national movements of the Slavic peoples arose and took
hold in the context of the struggle against the linguistic supremacy of the
Germans, Hungarians, Italians, and Greeks, respectively.
The defense of the
"sweet mother tongue" was identified with the struggle for
nationality. According to the theories that took shape in an environment where
state power was exercised by large multinational empires and where the national
idea was not a corollary of the prior constitution of states, peoples were
defined as ethnic rather than political units. Simultaneously, J. G. Herder,
author of the famous work *Philosophy of the History of Mankind*, extolled the
Slavic peoples, considered primitive, to whom he assigned a grand historical
mission.
Even today, prominent
professors of Slavic philology are influenced by "German linguistic
racism, which is based on the prejudice that links race, language, culture, and
people as if one were passing from one to another along an uninterrupted
path," although "the study of languages easily shows
that they are formed, evolve, and spread according to causes independent of
race." [32]. Indeed, Slavic peoples are essentially of mixed ancestry.
The national
movements of the Central European Slavs were conceived with a liberal and
humanist spirit, typically Western. The Slavs who comprised the Austrian Empire
saw the Danubian community as their natural protector, both against Pan-German
nationalism and Russian expansionism. The participants in the First Slavic
Congress of Prague in 1848 formulated their declarations in this sense.
Later,
disillusioned by the Habsburgs, the Slavic peoples of Austria viewed the
Pan-Slavic policy propagated by Russia with suspicion. T. G. Masaryk, although
a declared adversary of Austria-Hungary, maintained that Russia was not a
Slavic empire, but a Byzantine one. [33].
Despite all the
antagonisms and discord among the nations of the great family of European
peoples, the Western Slavs realize that they are bound by higher-order
solidarity interests with their western neighbors and that Pan-Slavic policy is
nothing more than an instrument of their absorption by Eurasian Russia.
Lately, they have
also noticed that the propaganda peaks of Pan-Slavic nationalism regarding the
powerful world apart, from Trieste to Vladivostok, cause fears of a
"Slavic threat" among Italians, Romanians, Hungarians, and Austrians
and can be exploited to justify a policy of oppression against Central European
Slavs. Even powers without territorial ties to the Slavs, such as Great
Britain, are indignant to see all Slavic peoples, without distinction, as
potential Russian clients, even when, allied with Russia, they fought alongside
the Slavs against Germans or Italians, as happened in the two world wars.
The primary
beneficiary of these confusions and missteps was Russia, both Tsarist and
Soviet. Prejudices, hatreds, and conflicts between the Western Slavs and their
neighbors of the same culture were knowingly deepened and exploited. At the
same time, the illusions of the West that Russia, after all, is a European and
Christian country and that, with the passage of time, it would become equal to
other European nations were skillfully nurtured. As an ad hoc argument, the
Baroque palaces of Saint Petersburg were brandished in the 18th century; in the
last century, the great novelists and composers were cited; and in our century,
the Russian Revolution.
In the last war, the
Soviets cynically exploited the contrasts between the Slavic peoples and their
Western neighbors in order to forge a lasting enmity between them and Germany,
for example. The massacres and the expulsion of the Germans from Poland,
Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia were designed to force Poles, Czechs, and Serbs
to remain forever bound to Russia, their sole protector. Hitler's
classification of peoples as superior and inferior served as an excellent
pretext for promoting these designs of Pan-Slavic nationalism.
The persecutions of
the Catholic Church, the liquidation of the hierarchies of the Belarusian and
Ukrainian Catholic Churches, and above all, the efforts to establish national
Catholic Churches, all share a similar tendency, with the aim of separating
Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, and Slovenes from other Western Christians.
It is more
than evident that Soviet interference and the emergence of Russian armies and
satellite governments cured, after the last war, all those in Central Europe
who might have had any kind of illusions about the benefits of communism: The
same applies to Pan-Slavic illusions.
VI. IS IT POSSIBLE TO
OVERCOME POLITICAL ANTAGONISM WITHOUT SUPPRESSING NATIONAL RIGHTS?
From this necessarily
incomplete analysis, it can be deduced that Central and Eastern Europe does not
constitute a geographical, political, or cultural unit. Nor is it an economic
unit, as it lacks natural communication routes and its economy, being primarily
agricultural, is supplementary rather than complementary.
The insistence of
certain German authors on presenting Central and Eastern Europe and
Southeastern Europe as economic units corresponds above all to the concept of
viewing this area from the outside as fertile ground for commercial expansion,
without duly considering that Central and Eastern Europe cannot currently be
defined as an area of gravitational pull, from an economic point of view,
exclusively towards either Germany or the European Common Market.
The USSR, having
become a major industrial power, represents an important center of attraction,
culturally, politically, and economically. Generalizations should be avoided,
even when it comes to how to confront the current communist domination. The
peoples of Central Europe, in accordance with their humanist traditions, react
to Soviet supremacy differently than the Orthodox Slavic peoples of the
Balkans, potential exponents of Russian influence, in whatever form it may
take. From now on, the Western powers, as a consequence of the ongoing process
of European and Western integration, will rely primarily on those peoples who
share their cultural and political ideology.
Today it is
obvious that the West, while divided into two antagonistic blocs of great
powers, undermined its own foundations and acted in favor of Russian-Soviet
imperialism. The warring factions sought to consolidate their positions,
securing the favor of the Soviet Union, without considering ideological
differences. This betrayal of their principles had fatal consequences.
Meanwhile, the
small nations of Central and Eastern Europe, surrounded by totalitarian regimes
and lacking territorial ties to the democratic powers, had to find ways to
safeguard their national interests, setting aside ideological differences.
Furthermore,
certain actions of the Third Reich, both before and during the war,
nevertheless seemed more aligned with the national aspirations of the
subjugated peoples and minorities—who had lost hope that democratic governments
would rectify their mistakes by revising the Peace Treaties—than with the
conditions upheld by Western democracies.
"The movement
that led to the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary and the creation of Yugoslavia
and Czechoslovakia had to be followed by the movements of the dismemberment of
Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Once the premises of nationalism were accepted,
its evolution became natural and legitimate and could not be stopped."
The establishment of
the Slovak Republic (1939) and the restoration of the ancient Croatian state
(1941) undoubtedly implied the rectification of the injustices committed at the
end of the First World War. Similarly, the arbitration between Romania and
Hungary regarding Transylvania, as well as the rectification of borders in
favor of Hungary, Bulgaria, and Albania after the collapse of Yugoslavia (1941)
and the return of Bukovina and Bessarabia to Romania that same year, can be
considered progress. "Hitler's Europe," as far as certain small
countries of Central and Eastern Europe were concerned, was formally more in
accordance with the national principle than the pre-war situation. Comparisons
are impossible with the situation created at the end of the Second World War,
when almost all the countries in that region were included within the sphere of
Soviet interests and when the nation-states of Croatia and Slovakia disappeared
from the map, while three Baltic republics were annexed by Russia, as were
large areas of Poland, Finland, and Romania.
Once the
crisis arose in the relations of the circumstantial allies, victorious in the
previous war, accusations intensified against politicians and entire
governments of having acted in premeditated complicity with international
communism. In reality, the true nature of Russian and Soviet imperialism was
unknown. In vain did Western thinkers and statesmen such as Napoleon, De
Maistre, Tocqueville, Renan, and Michelet draw attention during the last
century to the threat emanating from the Eurasian Russian empire.[34].
The future
peace was to be backed by a group of major powers called the "nuclear
alliance," comprised of the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet
Union, and, if possible, China. Europe was excluded from these plans. Walter
Lippmann presented Russia as a "potential friend in the rear of potential
enemies," that is, Germany and Japan, two powers that constitute the
essence of Europe and the other that serves as the main vehicle of Western
influence in Asia.
For the sake
of Soviet friendship, it was necessary to abandon "the basic concept of
the Treaty of Versailles, which considered the border region (with Russia) as a
military barrier, as a cordon sanitaire between Russia and the rest of
Europe." The independence of the nations of Central and Eastern Europe
could not be sustained "unless Russia allows them to exist as independent
states." Lippmann attempted to explain the subsequent surrender of these
nations to Soviet domination by pointing out that "they are by no means
homogeneous or united," so that aid to one of them would automatically
push others into the Soviet bloc.
Starting from
this premise, which was certainly accurate, Lippmann arrived at the least
realistic conclusions. He believed, and it seems that this reflected his
country's official position, that the best way to safeguard the interests of
these nations was to declare them neutral and that Russia would respect the
neutrality of its weak neighbors. The Yalta agreements, so heavily criticized
later on, were negotiated on this erroneous assumption. Only by assuming that
the Crimean agreements fell within the realm of possibility and feasibility
could it later be argued that what had been agreed upon was favorable, yet the
Soviets failed to uphold the famous agreements.
With the
collapse of the political and geographical status of Central and Eastern
Europe, and the unjust and extremely dangerous Soviet expansion, criticism
arose against the system of small nation-states. While the right to national
self-determination is acknowledged and emphasized, and political practice
favors the formation of numerous new or quasi-national states in Asia and
Africa, reservations of both theoretical and practical nature are raised
regarding the future of nation-states in Central and Eastern Europe.
It is stressed
that peoples are cultural communities, not identifiable with the institution of
the state, a political entity. The nation-state, as an instrument of the power
of the people who rule it, is often almost synonymous with statism and the
nationalist extremism that led to the "Balkanization" of that region.
Whereas in the last century the national principle in Europe acted as an
integrating factor—as seen in the unification of Italy and Germany—in our time
of concentrated economic and military power, the same principle has a divisive
effect.
Regarding the
past, the value of such an argument cannot be denied. However, these objections
seem anachronistic today when, instead of the principle of the total
independence of states, the principle of interdependence of Western, and above
all European, countries is being affirmed, and the very concept of sovereignty
is gradually being revised.
While the
system of nation-states presents significant challenges in ethnically diverse
regions, the right to self-determination remains a prerequisite for good
democratic governance.
Nationalist
conflicts and antagonisms cannot be overcome by condemning national patriotism
itself—a sentiment so intrinsic and intense that, in the contemporary world,
human rights and freedoms cannot be realized if national rights are restricted.
Supranational integration guarantees the national rights and freedoms of minorities.
Should such a
necessary security system for the West, and especially for Europe, be
established in the form of supranational collaboration, national borders would
have to disappear as military and economic obstacles. Nation-states would no
longer hinder relations between peoples or impede the integration of economic
and defensive power. Simultaneously, this would create "ample room for the
development of that community of national thought and feeling, of political and
cultural tradition, which are the constructive element of nationalism."[35].
At the same time,
when the national idea, a result of the specific socio-political evolution of
Western society, bursts into the realms of ancient Asian civilizations and
among the newly civilized African peoples, it would be detrimental if the West,
under the pretext of the "international common good," were to deny
European peoples the right to constitute nation-states. Such an attitude would
set a precedent with negative effects on future developments within the Soviet
empire. The Soviet Union does not constitute a Russian nation-state. It is an
empire in which more than half the population is not Russian.
In time, the peoples
of the Russian-Soviet empire will imperatively demand the right to
self-determination. The solutions that the communists are forcing in Asia and
Africa in order to undermine the positions of the Western world will
necessarily turn against Russian-Soviet imperialism.
While the future of
Central and Eastern Europe, after the defeat of communism, should not be a
return to the previous status quo, it remains true that opposition to Soviet
domination is based not only on demands for political and individual freedoms,
but also national ones.
Therefore, any
political action aimed at containing Russia within its natural borders must
take into account the national ideal, and consequently, must include the right
to self-determination. It is not only the right of peoples with different
cultural and political traditions to integrate as free nations into the
European community, but also the right of peoples of the Byzantine-Russian
tradition to develop freely according to their own idiosyncrasies, including
the right to associate with Russia.
It is often
said, with good reason, that the precarious peace that currently exists rests
on two fears: on the one hand, responsible Western statesmen fear the unknown
of atomic war, and on the other, Soviet leaders are concerned about the
discontent of oppressed peoples, which has already manifested itself in East
Berlin, Poznan, and Budapest. Therefore, the political problems of Central and
Eastern Europe, the epicenter of both world wars, and the region where the
current situation is fraught with even greater dangers, deserve special
attention.
VII. CROATIA: AN
IRREPLACEABLE FACTOR IN THE BALANCE OF THE ADRIATIC-DANUBIAN-BALKAN REGION
In our synthetic
overview of the general development of Central and Eastern Europe, Croatia was
given its due. However, because Croatia does not appear on the map as a
political unit, and is the subject of misunderstandings and mystifications, we
consider it appropriate to point out the causes and consequences of this
situation.
This is all the more
important given that the possibilities for making its points of view and
criteria known are very limited for a relatively small and politically
dependent people, while at the same time, official propaganda from Belgrade
tries to silence the Croatian contribution to the general development of
Central Europe and conceal the current positions of the Croatian people.
Furthermore, professors of Slavic philology, who teach at Western universities,
often settle for presenting Croatia as part of the Slavic world, thus obscuring
its historical and national identity.
The drawbacks of the
complex nomenclature of political geography must also be considered, since, as
a consequence of the defensive wars against the Ottomans, the ethnic and
political designation of Croatia in contemporary times is linked only to two of
its six provinces: the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, which until 1918 was
governed by the Croatian ban (prorex) and the Croatian Diet (Sabor), with the
status of a kingdom associated with Hungary, possessing sovereign attributes.
The other Croatian
provinces, during the Turkish invasions, were dependent, to a greater or lesser
degree, on the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice, respectively. Only by
decision of the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) did Dalmatia, along with the
territory of the Republic of Dubrovnik (Ragusa) and the Venetian part of
Istria, come under the rule of the Emperor of Austria and King of Croatia.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, in turn, were occupied by Austria-Hungary by virtue of
the resolution of the European powers at the Congress of Berlin (1878).
However, even then,
these provinces were not incorporated into the Kingdom of Croatia, but rather
administered by the joint Austrian and Hungarian-Croatian Ministry of Finance,
while Dalmatia and Istria, by virtue of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of
1867, which inaugurated the dualist system, remained within the Austrian half
of the Monarchy as autonomous provinces.
Although the
Habsburgs had pledged, since 1527 when the Croats elected Ferdinand I—brother
of Charles V and his successor to the imperial throne—as their king, to
contribute to the liberation and unification of Croatian lands, the second part
of that solemn pact, subsequently ratified so many times, was not fulfilled.
Within the dualist system, Austria's status as a great power depended on its
possession of the Croatian Adriatic coast. For this reason, Dalmatia was never
returned to Croatian rule.
Thus, the aspirations
of the Croatian national movement were thwarted, which was one of the causes of
the fall of the Habsburg Empire. Austria-Hungary entered the war of 1914-1918,
which ended in its dismemberment due to the unhealthy situation prevailing in
its southern part, that is, Croatia.
While the vast
majority of Croatians clung until the very end to the hope that their
aspirations would be fulfilled within a trialist system—the system championed
by Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was precisely for this reason assassinated in
Sarajevo in the well-known attack orchestrated by Serbia and Russia—the
conviction that Austria-Hungary was inextricably linked to the German Drang
nach Osten policy gradually took hold among the Croatian ruling class.
Ultimately, even the proverbial loyalty of Croatian soldiers to their kings of
the ruling House of Austria faltered.
In this historical
process, the transfer of Croatian political leadership to the new ruling
class—largely composed of the intelligentsia—had decidedly negative effects.
This intelligentsia was the inexperienced successor to the nobility, a capable,
numerous, and experienced ruling class, but one impoverished and decimated by
centuries of struggle against the Ottomans. The new political leaders lacked
the means to impose a viable compromise on the rulers of Austria-Hungary, that
is, the imperial court in Vienna, where the influence of the Austrian and
Hungarian aristocracy predominated.
There is no doubt
that the inherent inability of the Austro-Hungarian ruling class to understand
and satisfy the justified demands of the Slavic majority within the Monarchy
proved to be the primary cause of its demise. Fears of the Slavic peoples were
the driving force behind political missteps, fostering intrigues and subversive
activities in favor of Russia's Byzantine ambitions on the one hand, and on the
other, leading Austria-Hungary to become increasingly dependent on Prussianized
Germany.
Thus, the Habsburg
system, by failing to transform itself in time into a community of free nations
and thereby become a constructive factor in the European balance of power,
condemned Austria-Hungary to play the thankless role of brilliant second fiddle
to Wilhelm II's Germany. It lost its freedom of decision in international
affairs, and finally, after much hesitation, the victorious powers of the First
World War resolved to dismember it.
The pressure from
liberal and nationalist Italy contributed significantly to the end of the
Habsburg Empire, which later proved detrimental to Italy itself. Instead of
insisting on the feasible transformation of that empire and its emancipation
from Prussian dominance, thereby creating the conditions for fruitful
coexistence with its neighbors on the Brenner Pass and the Adriatic coast,
Italy, guided by Mazzini's romantic illusions about the peaceful intentions of
the Balkan Slavs and blinded by the prejudices of the Risorgimento regarding
Austria, had established a program that envisioned supposed strategic borders
in the remnants of the Danubian Monarchy, extremely detrimental to its
neighbors.
The shattering
of these illusions triggered a profound political crisis in Italy, unfolding in
successive stages: the end of liberal Italy, the presence of the Third Reich at
the Brenner Pass and its political dependence on Germany, the impossibility of
severing ties with its German ally, the loss of territorial gains in the
Adriatic, the fall of the House of Savoy, Russian domination of the Danube
basin, and the establishment of communist regimes in the restored Yugoslavia
and Albania, which had broken away from Italy.
This situation
posed a constant threat to Italy's Adriatic coast from the proponents of the
communist empire, stretching from Beijing to Trieste. In 1945, Italy itself was
in danger of being engulfed by the Russian-communist tide. It was saved by the
presence of the Allied occupation troops.
Nevertheless, Italy's
ambitions to replace Austria's influence in the Danube basin and the Balkans
were not entirely unrealistic. Italy squandered this opportunity because Rome,
like Vienna before it, failed to distinguish between Slavs of Western culture
and those of Byzantine-Russian orientation.
While the former gravitated
toward their western neighbors and, therefore, despite all national differences
and misgivings, could become their natural allies, the latter were potential
clients of Russia, even when, due to exceptional circumstances, they acted as
protégés of one of the Western powers. Failing to grasp the significance of
this fundamental difference, the Habsburgs, during the era of national
movements, inaugurated a policy of distrust toward their Slavic subjects, thus
becoming dependent on Germany. For the same reasons, Italian policy regarding
the Danube basin, the Adriatic, and the Balkans was confused and contradictory
from the outset, so that Italy, in turn, became the Third Reich's brilliance
second.
While both the left
and right wings of liberal Italy adopted different positions toward the Slavic
peoples, both currents shared a lack of understanding of their cultural
duality. Those devoted to Mazzini saw the Balkan Slavs as their natural allies
against the hated Austria. Politicians faithful to the Mazzini tradition
believed that loyal collaboration with Orthodox Serbia was possible, which, in
turn, considered Italy and the Catholic Church itself as "hereditary
enemies" of all Slavs, identifying the Slavic world with
"Orthodoxy" in the same way as Russian Slavophiles.
The Italian
nationalist movement, for its part, lacked such illusions. For it, all Slavs,
without distinction, were barbarians, a threat to civilization, and a tool of
Austria or Russia. Therefore, they had to be contained by conquering the supposed
strategic borders while simultaneously fomenting and exploiting their conflicts
and mutual rivalries.
For these reasons,
Italy's war aims in the First World War, with regard to the Adriatic and Balkan
regions, were defined with a surprising lack of vision and ignorance of the
true situation and the balance of power, given their immediate proximity. The
aim was to solve the Adriatic problem, which was of vital importance to Italy
and the other peoples of the Adriatic and its extensive hinterland, at the
expense of the Croats and Albanians—legitimate possessors of the eastern
Adriatic coast since the early Middle Ages—and in complicity with Serbia, a
country without access to the Adriatic.
An illusory
friendship was forged with Serbia instead of finding a just solution in
agreement with Croatia and Albania and in view of the general interests.
The misguided Italian
foreign policy regarding the region in question was also due to an erroneous
and anachronistic interpretation of nationalist romanticism, which considered
Italy the innate successor to the role played by Venice.
The Republic of Saint
Mark, although its political center was on Italian soil, was a supranational
political creation in the modern sense of the term, whose purpose was to
organize the common defense of the Christian maritime nations of the eastern
Mediterranean basin against Turkish invasion, playing a role at sea similar to
that of the Austrian Ghasrad system on land.
The initial,
misguided, and adverse step was taken with the secret Pact of London of 1915,
by which France, Great Britain, and Russia pledged to reward Italy for its
entry into the war against the Central Powers with the cession of Croatian and
Slovenes. Italy was assigned the northern and central part and Serbia virtually
the southern part of the Croatian coast.
This promise could only be partially fulfilled because President Wilson,
invoking the national principle, opposed such transactions involving foreign
territories and populations. Thus, Italy failed to achieve its main objective
and also had to bear the negative consequences of the London Pact. The Croats
and Slovenes, as soon as they learned of the pact's clauses, mounted a
fanatical resistance on the Austro-Italian front, where Italy suffered
tremendous losses.
With the Habsburg Empire defeated, the Croats, faced with Italian
ambitions, had to seek, albeit reluctantly, support in the Balkans. On the
eastern Adriatic coast, with the disappearance of Austria, its place was taken
by Yugoslavia, a relatively strong and militarized country which, in the
opinion of the Serbs, was destined to be "the knife in Italy's back."
All of Italy's enemies could count on the support of Yugoslavia.
Thus, Italy failed to gain control of the Adriatic and, at the same
time, lost the potential friendship of Croatia and Albania. By not properly
valuing Croatia as an irreplaceable factor in the Adriatic-Danubian-Balkan
region and by not adequately appreciating its age-old role as a staunch
defender of Western values in this area, Italy was deprived of
the opportunity to consolidate its influence in the Balkans and the Danubian
basin, with the prospect of extending it to the Baltic.
Other major powers, primarily France, had also underestimated the value
of Croatia's position in this sector, considering the new Yugoslav state,
conceived as an expanded Serbia, the cornerstone of a system of alliances aimed
at preventing potential German or Soviet dominance in Central and Eastern
Europe.
The Third Republic did not hesitate to unconditionally support all the
pan-Serbian dictatorial governments that pursued a policy of undisguised
national oppression against the vast majority of the non-Serbian population.
The venerable French tradition of protecting the Christians of the Near
East and its sentimental attachment to Serbia, its small and self-sacrificing
ally in the First World War, were so deeply ingrained that the warnings of
politicians and experts that Yugoslavia, ruled by Serbs, deprived of political
freedoms, torn apart by internal conflicts, and at odds with neighboring
peoples—victims of Serbian pygmy imperialism—could not be a reliable and
efficient ally, were rendered ineffective.
However, what transpired during the European crisis before and during
the Second World War surpassed even the most pessimistic predictions.
Yugoslavia proved incapable of resisting the political ambitions of both the
Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Its dictatorial governments, practicing
pan-Serbian expansionism, forced many politicians to seek refuge and support in
neighboring countries.
Certain revolutionary groups, in their desperation, resorted to
terrorist methods, thereby merely imitating the Serbs themselves. Subsequently,
the Belgrade governments, in order to counter the actions of Croatian and
Macedonian exiles, adopted a policy of appeasement toward Fascist Italy and
Hitler's Germany.
Furthermore, at a time when it became necessary to curb Hitler's
projects in the Danube basin, it turned out that the Serbian rulers of
Yugoslavia were more wary of small, impoverished, and unarmed Austria than of
the aggressive and powerful Third Reich. For the Serbs, Austria remained the
"hereditary enemy," the homeland of the Habsburgs, a potential ally
of the Croats and Slovenes against Pan-Servianism, and a state linked to Italy
and Hungary. During the Austrian crisis, German diplomats were able to report
with satisfaction to their government that Yugoslavia "had categorically
rejected the French government's invitation to join the protest lodged in
Berlin against the proposed annexation—Anschluss—of Austria to the Third Reich.
The dictatorial government in Belgrade, a typical example of the policy
of national oppression, cynically invoked the right to self-determination and
concluded that the question of Austrian independence 'was an internal German
matter' and 'that the Yugoslav state, respectful of the principle of the right
of peoples to self-determination, could not take a position against that
principle.' And, to top it all off, 'Yugoslavia congratulates itself on having
within its borders, as a consequence of its policy toward Germany, not 80
million enemies, but 80 million friends.'" [36].
Yugoslavia, therefore, had renounced its allies of the Little Entente
and, in turn, its great protectors.
Although Serbia was liberated in 1918 with the blood of the poilus
d'Orient, in 1940 Serbian politicians impassively witnessed France's military
defeat. The Serbs adopted a different attitude when it came to Russia. The
much-touted coup of March 27, 1941, proved beneficial only to the Soviet Union,
as did the communist guerrillas unleashed months later.
The coup, supposedly anti-Nazi in nature, had some impact among the
Serbian masses, who primarily demanded the abolition of the limited autonomy
granted in 1989 to Banovina Hrvatska (the Banat of Croatia) and believed in the
imminent arrival of Soviet aid. Despite its Bolshevik system, Russia always
exerted a seductive power over the Serbs, the vast majority of whom are not
communists. Serbia entered the First World War, which it had in fact provoked,
as a Russian protégé and not as an Entente ally.
Between the two world wars, its protector was France, only because
Tsarist Russia ceased to exist. But the new generation was not Francophile but
pro-Soviet. The Croats believe, and with good reason, that because of their
forced union with Serbia in 1918, they now have to endure communist tyranny.
It was the Russians who, better than Western statesmen, understood the
character of Croatia. Even Tsarist Russia, in its program of expansion in the
Balkans, distrusted Croatian influence and never supported its union with
Serbia. Stalin did not desire such a union either.
From the moment of Yugoslavia's disintegration in 1941, he viewed the
Yugoslav Communist Party's plans for its restoration with suspicion. Instead,
Stalin envisioned dividing Yugoslavia into two spheres of influence, with
Croatia and Slovenia gravitating towards the West and Serbia towards the Soviet
Union. Given Croatia and Slovenia's Central European and Mediterranean
location, Stalin realized that the Allies would never allow all of Yugoslavia
to be occupied by Soviet troops.
With a thorough understanding of the national problems of Central and
Eastern Europe, Stalin could easily imagine that Kremlin control of Yugoslavia,
once restored without Soviet military intervention, would be very difficult due
to the natural westward inclination of the Croats and Slovenes and the chronic
rivalry between the Serbs and Bulgarians regarding Macedonia. Subsequent events
justified these fears.
At the same time, the democratic powers, by insisting on their support
for the Yugoslav government of King Peter in exile with its marked pan-Serbian
tendencies, found themselves powerless in the face of Soviet designs to conquer
Central Europe.
With an Allied
landing on the Croatian coast in the final phase of the war—a
political-military operation easily executed because it would have been
supported by the armed forces of Croatia, Hungary, and the resistance fighters
of Austria and Poland—Russian plans could have been thwarted, at least in those
countries. An operation to that effect was being prepared in Croatia.
The Hungarians
notified Allied agents of their willingness to cooperate. The Warsaw
insurgents, betrayed by the Soviets, desired nothing less than to take the same
course of action.
The importance of
this contingency had not escaped Churchill's perspicacity, but Roosevelt's
circumspection in the face of Stalin's proverbial misgivings, as well as his
reservations about the Croats, who opposed the restoration of Yugoslavia, came
into play.
The political and
social development of Croatia coincided with that of the other peoples located
on the eastern border of our Western society. This process was conditioned by
Croatia's location. In the extreme south, between two European civilizations
that the historian Toynbee identifies with the line running from Finland to the
Croatian province of Dalmatia.
Although Croatia,
according to the assessments of the historian Rambaud[37], By the 10th century, Croatia already had over 1.5 million inhabitants
and powerful military forces. Its development was hampered by political
pressures and invasions from Eurasian empires: the Byzantine, the Mongol, the
Ottoman, and the Russian-Soviet.
Although fiercely
protective of their sovereign rights, the Croats allied themselves with other
nations of Western culture for the purpose of common defense. Hence their ties
to the empire of Charlemagne, Pope Gregory VII, and later, the personal and
real union with Hungary. This union, in turn, became part of a broader
community of Danubian peoples, a consequence of the Turkish threat. Even in the
contemporary era of national movements,
Croatia, suffering
new pressures, now from Serbia, which had become an exponent of Russian
expansionism in the Balkans, sought support from its neighbors of Western
culture. It failed in this endeavor because both Italy, its Adriatic neighbor,
and its Danubian partners, Austria and Hungary, feared the Croats simply
because they belonged to the Slavic linguistic group. The Russians, on the
other hand, saw Croatia, a predominantly Catholic country, as an agent of
Western influence and interests.
In the era of sacred
egoism, Croatia's Western orientation could be interpreted as anachronistic:
both backward-looking, echoing the old days of Western Christian solidarity,
and forward-thinking, coinciding with the aspirations for Western, and
primarily European, integration, which fortunately is no longer a utopia.
The Croats, true to
their character, will not accept a future within a Balkan state, but rather
wish to live within the community of free European nations. Croatia, a country
that for 800 years, in the interest of the international common good,
participated in supranational communities, sacrificing parts of its territory
and sovereignty, and contributing great offerings of blood and material goods,
has the right to have the injustice committed against it in 1918 and 1945
rectified.
At that time, it was
subjected to Serbia and, consequently, stripped of the attributes of a
sovereign nation, exploited as a colony, exposed to the bloody political
upheavals in the Balkans, and finally subjected to communist domination due to
Serbia's pro-Russian orientation.
Buenos Aires.
This type of nationalism gained momentum in
Eastern Europe and the Balkans from the mid-20th century onwards, while in
certain Asian countries and especially in Africa, it only took hold in the 20th
century. The reason for this delay is that the disintegration of feudalism and
colonialism, as well as the formation of an intellectual class with national
consciousness, occurred a century or more later than in Western Europe.
In some regions of Eastern Europe, Asia, and
Africa, nationalism is now in its initial phase, since the definitive
elimination of feudal vestiges, the collapse of the colonial system, and the
formation of the national intelligentsia have only recently taken place. Under
these conditions, several factors, primarily tribal loyalty, hindered the rapid
progress of a common national consciousness, as many cases currently occurring
in African countries demonstrate.
Therefore, in our times of the definitive
extinction of feudal vestiges and the final collapse of colonialism, the surest
indicator for assessing the problems of national identity of an ethnic group,
both now and in the near future, is reflected in the orientation of the
intelligentsia of that group. For, sooner or later, this same national identity
will extend to the peasant, working-class, and bourgeois masses.
And not precisely because the popular masses
see their intelligentsia as the sole and exclusive leaders, whom they must follow
blindly, but rather because this intelligentsia, originating from and
identified with a particular ethnic group, champions a national ideology that
aligns with the cultural and other values of the popular masses,
with their way of life and thought, with their aspirations and dreams, with
their philosophy and ethics, with their beliefs and hopes.
The intelligentsia, that is, a group of
individuals specialized in formulating ideas, knows how to express in words
what the people think and feel. In other words, the better the intelligentsia
can express what the broad masses of the people yearn for and expect, the more
quickly the formulated ideology will be embraced by the entire population.
Therefore, when formulating an ideology, it is of paramount importance to know
how to combine local and other traditions with national values and aspirations,
as well as how to integrate local loyalties into national allegiance.
If we analyze the
situation of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina from this perspective, we
see that the intelligentsia began to form towards the end of the last century,
formulating its national ideology, which gradually spread and penetrated the
masses of the Muslim population. Historical and political factors slowed this
development without halting it. However, this delayed evolution was the cause
of the confusion and lack of understanding that existed abroad regarding the
Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Kingdom of
Serbia, in its expansionist policy before the First World War, pursued the
annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and strove to propagate in the Western
world the idea that the Muslims of these provinces were, from a national
perspective, Serbs and that, consequently, Bosnia and Herzegovina belonged to
Serbia.
At that time,
Croatian intellectuals had no way to refute this propaganda abroad, as they
lacked diplomatic missions and other external propaganda institutions, unlike
the Kingdom of Serbia. Furthermore, the Western powers were generally lenient
toward Serbia's expansionist ambitions due to the prevailing international
situation, dominated by the conflict between the Allies (England, France, and
Russia) and the Central Powers (Germany and Austria).
Shortly after
the First World War, just as today, all objective scientists and other public
figures on the international stage realized that the Muslims of Bosnia and
Herzegovina do not identify as Serbian. Do they identify as Croatian, or
perhaps as "Yugoslav"? As for "Yugoslavism" or
"Yugoslav national consciousness," it is generally understood that
this ideology was completely discarded, since the various South Slavic peoples
(Croats, Slovenes, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbs, etc.) are entirely different
from one another.
Each of these
peoples was formed differently, under different conditions and diverse
influences; each forged its own cultural individuality over centuries and,
ultimately, its profound national consciousness, which demands its own
nation-state and, therefore, could not be diluted by "Yugoslavism."
For the same
reason, the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot be "Yugoslavs."
Consequently, the appropriate answer to the question posed concerning the
national affiliation of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina is obtained by
examining the national sentiments and expressions of the Muslim intelligentsia
and verifying whether their national affiliation aligns with the cultural
values, feelings, and aspirations of the Muslim population in Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
In the history
of the formation of national consciousness in all peoples, writers, poets, and
historians have played the most important role. Let us examine, then, what
national sentiments Muslim writers and poets expressed. First, they used almost
exclusively Latin script, not Cyrillic.
They wrote in
the Croatian language and literary style, not in the language and style
typically used by Serbian writers and poets. In most cases, they declared their
Croatian, not Serbian, nationality, considering themselves an integral part of
the Croatian people and literature, to which they made a significant
contribution.
They saw
themselves as called to fulfill a special mission for the Croatian people and
the Western world: to unite the cultural values of the West and
the East. Thus, for example, the well-known Muslim poet Safvetbeg Basagic
wrote: "The sounds of the Croatian language can ennoble and unite East and
West, heart and mind."
These words were frequently quoted among Muslims and adopted as a motto
in the magazine Osvit, published in Mostar.
We have the same situation now, setting aside the rare individuals who,
out of opportunism and for material gain, gravitate towards those in power.
Given that all power, both in communist and monarchical Yugoslavia, was and
remained in the hands of Serbian professional politicians, it is commendable
that very few Muslim intellectuals succumbed to seductive promises.
Thus, for example, today, as in monarchical Yugoslavia, Muslim religious
leaders, ulema, prominent figures, and professors, with few exceptions,
emphasized and continue to emphasize their Croatian identity, even though the
ruling circles viewed this attitude with suspicion and almost equated it, then
and now, with treason. Let us also consider which side the political leaders of
the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina were on at the beginning of the Kingdom
of Yugoslavia, at a time when national affiliation was tolerated, despite
political and psychological pressures.
In the 1927 elections, of the 17 national deputies from the Muslim
population of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 11 declared themselves Croats, 5 were
undecided or declared themselves as such, and only one declared himself Serb,
even though the opportunistic possibilities and economic advantages of
identifying with the Serbs were as great in monarchical Yugoslavia as they are
today under the communist regime.
Svetozar Pribicevic, a prominent leader of the Serbian minority in
Croatia, a great Serbian nationalist, and one of the founders and architects of
the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, clearly perceived the level of national
consciousness among the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In his book on the
dictatorship of King Alexander, he wrote: “Where to count the Bosnian Muslims,
who are disputed by Croats and Serbs, who speak the literary language, and
number around 700,000? Their intellectuals are, for the most part, of Croatian
origin. The popular masses, in all political actions, blindly follow the
intellectuals. There is no room for deception here. In particular, the
hegemonic system of Serbia—according to which all state power is in the hands
of the Serbs, that is, their representatives, without their authorization—led
Bosnian Muslims to identify completely with the Croats in their aspirations and
visions for the future.”[38].
As can be inferred
from the preceding quote, Svetozar Pribicevic astutely perceived that hegemony
intensifies latent feelings, fosters the integration of oppressed ethnic
groups, and strengthens their national consciousness. Had the latent feelings
and cultural values of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina been
oriented toward Serbia, the Muslim masses in those provinces would have
identified with Serbian hegemony, which would have brought them economic and
political benefits.
On the contrary,
Serbian hegemony strengthened their Croatian feelings and their Croatian
national consciousness. We find the same case with the hegemony of Serbian
communist professional politicians and opportunists, who govern with
dictatorial methods.
Currently in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, with a Muslim and Catholic majority and a Serbian minority,
power rests entirely in the hands of Serbian professional communists, assisted
by a handful of Catholic and Muslim opportunists, denationalized and oriented
as either "Yugoslavs" or Serbs.
It is evident that
this communist hegemony, even more brutal and blatant than the previous
monarchical one, will strengthen the Croat sentiments of the Muslims in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, provinces which Muslims consider their homeland, inherited
from their ancestors since ancient times.
The hegemony
of Serbian-communist politicians and professional opportunists in Bosnia and
Herzegovina is a continuation of Serbian irredentism, which began its
propaganda campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the accession of the
Karageorgevich dynasty to the Serbian throne.
In this
propaganda campaign, whose aim was the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to
the Kingdom of Serbia, the notorious Serbian terrorist and conspiratorial
organization "Union or Death," also known as "The Black
Hand," played a particular role. This irredentist movement did everything
possible to win the sympathies of Muslim intellectuals in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, awarding numerous scholarships.
The proponents
of the Greater Serbian expansionist idea knew full well that, without the
support of the Muslim population, they could not annex Bosnia and Herzegovina
and proclaim them Serbian provinces. Then, when neither the propaganda nor the
scholarships proved effective, the Greater Serbian irredentists resorted to
mystification, declaring that the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina were
"pure Serbs."
But if even a
glimmer of latent pro-Serbian sentiment had existed among the Muslims of those
provinces, it would have manifested itself under favorable circumstances. This
did not happen, however, since the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, as mentioned above, did not declare themselves Serbian in the
elections, which were run by the communist authorities.
II
It is a proven fact
in contemporary psychology that latent and subconscious feelings, deeply
rooted, erupt during times of social crisis, collective revolts, revolutions,
and wars. In the Second World War, for example, the latent national sentiments
of the Muslim population in Bosnia and Herzegovina manifested themselves
unequivocally.
During that war, the Muslims
of Bosnia and Herzegovina, almost without exception, refused to participate as
volunteers in any Serbian nationalist group or organization, and especially not
in the units of the Chetniks, the quintessential Serbian nationalist
guerrillas.
There were some
exceptions regarding the communist guerrillas, but it should be emphasized that
the Muslims who fought in the communist ranks, composed mostly of Serbs, had to
conceal their Islamic faith and pretend to be Orthodox. Furthermore, entire
Muslim villages, including women, the elderly, and children, were exterminated
and razed by the Chetniks.
Dr. Zivko Topalovic,
an associate of General Draza Mihailovic, confirmed these atrocities committed
by the Chetniks against Muslims in his recent book (3).
These outrages
constituted a repeat of the same crime perpetrated against defenseless Muslim
populations after the First World War, when Orthodox fanatics burned several
Muslim villages and slaughtered their inhabitants. It is true that the
communist guerrillas during the Second World War, despite their supposed
"Yugoslavism," did not behave any better than the Chetniks toward
Muslims.
They, too,
exterminated the Muslim population without mercy at the slightest resistance,
showing no pity for women or the elderly. The Serbian writer Branko Copic, in
his recent novel The Silent Gunpowder (Gluvi barut), vividly and in detail
recounted the massacre of a Muslim village by communist guerrillas, while the
Montenegrin politician and writer Milovan Djilas movingly described in his
autobiographical book Bezsudna zemlja (Land Without Justice), New York; 1959,
the horrific extermination of the Muslim population by Orthodox fanatics. There
is no doubt that in all these cases, the centuries-old antagonism, born of
religious and political differences between Orthodox Christians and Muslims,
culminated.
The question
naturally arises: Why do Muslim intellectuals and the Muslim masses nationally
orient themselves toward Croatia and not Serbia, and why have official
pressure, various seductive promises, and brutal oppression failed to alter
this orientation in favor of Serbia? The answer to this question can be found
in the first part of this article.
That is to
say, only a national ideology conceived and formulated by intellectuals in
accordance with the cultural values, feelings, aspirations, and principles of
the broad masses of the people can succeed. Let us take, for example, Serbian
nationalism. One of the fundamental features of this nationalism is the
identification of religion with nationality.
In this
national ideology, as in the ideologies of other peoples of the Eastern
Orthodox Church, religion, people, and state are completely identified and
integrated. Religion and church, in these cases, take on the character of national
and political institutions. Religion and church, in these cases, must be
completely at the service of the state. That is why Serbs call their religion
"Serbian Orthodox." The same applies to the "Russian
Orthodox," "Bulgarian Orthodox," and other religions.
Non-Muslim Croats who profess the Catholic faith cannot even speak of
identifying religion with nationality, since the Catholic Church, by its very
ideology, is supranational and universal.
It is of utmost importance to emphasize here that by identifying
religion, state, and nationality, tendencies arise to consider those who do not
profess the state religion as strange, foreign, and unreliable elements, whose
loyalty can never be fully trusted. Thus, for example, in the aforementioned
lexicon of the "new class" elite in Yugoslavia, although some Muslims
declared themselves Serbs, the number of Muslims promoted to the ruling class
is very small compared to the relative numerical strength of the Muslim
population in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Yugoslavia in general.
Of the 6,000 names contained in this lexicon, only 115 correspond to
Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina, or 1.1%, while their numerical strength
would suggest they should represent at least 6%. In that lexicon, a total of
182 Muslims are listed, representing 3% of the entire population of Yugoslavia,
although their numerical strength (nearly 2,000,000) would suggest they
constitute 12%. This means that even if a Muslim declares himself Serbian or
communist, he is not considered entirely equal to the Orthodox Serbian
communists, who are the ones who truly wield all the power in communist
Yugoslavia.
Such discrimination inevitably breeds political and religious
intolerance, and even religious and political fanaticism. It goes without
saying that the communist authorities did not even attempt to diminish this
religious fanaticism; on the contrary, they sought to exploit it for their
political ends and even exacerbate it.
Texts that address the problems of communism know that entrenched hatred
is one of the main instruments of political power, propaganda, and the
psychological warfare of the communists. Communist educational manuals, as well
as their literature and political ideology, openly advocate the necessity of
hatred. The very concept and practice of class struggle are steeped in hatred
of those who do not follow the communist path.
However, such conceptions directly contradict the religious and ethical
values of Muslims, as the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina
demonstrate a high degree of religious tolerance and altruism. Religious
tolerance is not only highlighted in the principles of the Quran but is also
put into practice. Thus, for example, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was
dominated by Muslims for several centuries, the non-Muslim population not only
did not decrease but actually increased.
The same did not
occur in Serbia and Montenegro, when those states were ruled by Orthodox
Christians. In those states, Muslims were gradually eliminated from the end of
the 19th century onward. The epic poem *The Mountain Garland* (Gorski Vijenac),
considered by Serbs to be one of the masterpieces of their literature, deals
with the struggle and total extermination of the Muslim population.
Njegos, the author of
this work, was both a religious leader and the ruler of Montenegro, an Orthodox
country. Njegos was influenced by Serbian epic poetry, whose protagonists are
chieftains, warlords, and haïducs (part guerrillas and part Balkan bandits) and
whose main merit was the bloody and cruel struggle against the Muslim
"infidels." Serbian epic poetry also influenced the Croatian writer
Iuan Mazuranic during the Romantic period, particularly in his poem "The
Death of Smailaga Cengic," in which he idealized the fighters for
orthodoxy and glorified their struggle against the Muslims.
From the perspective
of physical and cultural anthropology, the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina
largely belong to the so-called "Baltic racial type," characterized
by blond pigmentation. The majority of the Croatian population in various
regions also belongs to this same physical type. Similarly, the indigenous
culture of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina is of the agricultural type
(communal culture), to which a large portion of other Croats also belong.
Linguistically, the
Muslims speak the Ikavski Croatian dialect, which is spoken only by Croats in
certain regions. Furthermore, the folk art of the Muslims of Bosnia and
Herzegovina is identical to that of other Croats. To give an example, Muslim
folk songs are primarily amorous, sentimental, and humanistic, addressed to
humanity and nature, and then, secondarily, heroic in nature.
The popular musical
instrument of Muslims, as of the vast majority of Croats, is the tamburitsa,
which is understandable, since this instrument is very appropriate for
expressing feelings of love and other songs, while the gusle (monochord) is the
ideal folk instrument for singers and reciters of epic poems and legends. The
social organization at the grassroots level of the Muslims of Bosnia and
Herzegovina is based on the principles of equality, mutual aid, philanthropy,
and human dignity, very similar to the communal culture that was maintained in
other areas of Croatia.
Within this culture,
family relationships, for example, are ordered according to democratic
principles, women are highly esteemed, and the treatment given to children, the
elderly, and all those with disabilities is based on humanitarian and
charitable principles.
Like other Croats,
the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from a cultural and political
standpoint, are much more aligned with the West than with the East, as Safvetbeg
Basagic has already pointed out. They consider their historical role to be
uniting, on the western border of the Muslim world, and as an integral part of
the Croatian people, the cultural values of the Muslim East with the cultural
values of the West.
Indiana
University, U.S.A.
It cannot be said
with certainty when the Bible began to be translated into the living Croatian
language, but the oldest texts in Croatian are precisely the biblical texts
found in the Gospel books and lectionaries. The oldest surviving lectionary is
that of Korcula and dates from the 14th century. The lectionary of Friar
Bernardino Spalatense is the first printed Croatian biblical text and, at the
same time, the first Croatian book printed in Latin characters.
The well-defined
purpose of translating the entire Bible into Croatian and publishing it arose
at the beginning of the 16th century, in the years following the Complutensian
Polyglot Bible. The initiative was due to the illustrious Prince Bernardino
Frankopan who, in 1521, commissioned five Croatian Glagolites to translate the
entire Bible into Croatian.
The Croats thus
anticipated the Reformation in their appreciation of biblical texts for the
education of the faithful, and it would later be the Protestants themselves who
recognized these Croatian Catholic efforts and used them for their propaganda
among the South Slavs. However, this attempt by Prince Bernardino was never
realized, probably due to the Ottoman invasions that deprived the elderly
aristocrat of his finest possessions.
Despite the wars with
the Turks, biblical studies in Croatia were not abandoned, and a hundred years
after Prince Frankopan's attempt, the Jesuit Bartolomeo Kašić translated
the entire text of the Old and New Testaments into the living Croatian
language, but he was unable to have it printed because the Glagolitic
traditions were too strong and the priests preferred the archaic ecclesiastical
language for the sacred texts.
Numerous partial
translations followed until 1831 when, finally, the complete text of the Bible
was published in Croatian. Since then, there have been several subsequent
editions, always by new translators who refined the language of the translation
and the critical apparatus, according to the latest findings in biblical
scholarship.
However, there
is a facet of the Croatian people's biblical tradition that distinguishes them
from other peoples and brings them closer to the Spanish. It is the missionary
zeal, common to both Spanish and Croatian Catholics. It has already been
mentioned that the Spanish were ahead of the Reformation in the cultivation of
biblical studies, as were the Croatians, at least with respect to translations
and the reading of Sacred Scripture.
In this
respect, the case of the Croatian Dominican Father Benjamin is very
significant. He traveled to distant Russia and there produced a complete
translation of the Bible into Church Slavonic for Archbishop Gennadius of
Novgorod, incorporating existing parts and completing it with the remainder
translated from the Vulgate. Thus, in 1499, the first complete text of the Old
and New Testaments in Russia was born.
It remained,
incidentally, in manuscript form, but it was used by later translators and
editors, serving as the basis and model for the famous Ostrog Bible, the first
Bible in Church Slavonic (1581), from which all modern Bible versions of the
East Slavs would later derive.
Another
Croatian missionary in Russia, the celebrated father of Pan-Slavism, Georg
Krizanić (d. 1683), offered his services to Tsar Alexander Mikhailovich to
prepare a new and corrected edition of the Bible in Russian. He argued that the
existing edition by Francis Skorina (Prague, 1517–1519) had been produced under
Protestant influences, and the Ostrog edition was outdated due to its Old
Church Slavonic language. Krizanić's initiative, like the rest of his
mission, was unsuccessful because it was Catholicizing.
Like other
European Christian literatures, Croatian literature in its medieval period also
consisted of a large number of mystery plays, poems, and stories with biblical
themes, generally anonymous works by devout monks and priests. The first poem
of the new Croatian literature is Judith (1501) by Marcus Marulić
(1450–1524), a writer also known in Spain for his Latin works.
The psalms
were particularly favoured for translation and paraphrasing. The earliest known
Croatian psalter dates from the late 14th century, and the finest poetic
paraphrases were produced by the great poets of Ragusa's Golden Age of
literature, Gundulic and Gjurgjevic. The biblical tradition also remains a
constant presence in Croatian literature in modern times, and its last great
poet and writer, Vladimir Nazor (1875–1949), included among his poems the cycle
Biblical Legends.
At the same time,
biblical motifs also find expression in the Fine Arts, so that the entire
Croatian national culture is permeated by Holy Scripture. Its cultural
creation, writing, and literary language begin with it, and it culminates in
the present day: the series of several magnificent wooden reliefs with New
Testament motifs by Ivan Mestrovic, which is the finest and most accomplished
example of contemporary Croatian art, worthily crowning a millennia-old
biblical tradition.
Commissioned by the
Croatian Episcopate, Bishop Saric translated the Old and New Testaments
directly from the original, also using the Vulgate and earlier Croatian
versions. The language of his translation is the purest modern Croatian
literary style, interspersed with archaisms characteristic of liturgical texts,
which lend the work a profound, supernatural air. The first edition, complete
with notes, commentaries, and practical advice for parishioners, appeared in
Sarajevo in 1942 and, despite the war, quickly sold out.
The second
edition, published in Madrid in 1953 by order of the Croatia Academica
Catholica, covers, as already mentioned, only the New Testament, with the same
text as the 1942 edition, from which it differs by its Prologue and magnificent
plates by the finest Croatian artists.
Following the
title page is a color reproduction of a miniature by Giulio Clovio (1498-1578),
a friend and patron of El Greco. The text includes eight plates with
photogravures in relief depicting biblical scenes, carved in wood by the
renowned Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. This edition of the New Testament,
well-received by Croatian emigrants, prompted the Osvit publishing house to undertake
the arduous and challenging task of re-editing all the books of the Old and New
Testaments.
Thanks to the
patronage of the distinguished Spanish intellectual, Dr. Mariano Aguirre
Martinez, and the tireless work of the founder and director of Osvit, Croatians
now have a complete and modern Bible, written in a vibrant and up-to-date
Croatian language, and provided with notes and clarifications that present the
reader with the latest findings in biblical scholarship.
THREE MEDITATIONS ON COMMUNISM
George Uscatescu
Generally, the testimonies offered by those
disillusioned with communism, even the most intelligent, tend to be pathetic. A
personal drama almost always resonates within them, the drama inherent in the
discovery of the abyss between revolutionary, pure, and utopian ideals and a
cruel and merciless reality, aimed at annihilating human dignity and the
natural yearning to attain two imperative elements of existence today: bread
and freedom.
Faced with these personal
experiences—thousands upon thousands of experiences lived with singular
intensity—free opinion is moved, and each one adds a new note of infamy to this
degrading and cruel human experience of vast proportions that bears the name of
communism.
Another noteworthy aspect of these testimonies
is that they belong to fortunate survivors who have managed to escape the
enormous communist concentration camp universe. His messages thus become
documents launched from the outside and after the fact, since the communist
system itself is utterly intolerant of any criticism made to the world from
within its own borders.
Given these general characteristics of
personal adventures and widely publicized testimonies aimed at denouncing the
errors and crimes of communism, or simply at subjecting communist reality to
relentless criticism, the personal journey and critical testimonies of the
Yugoslav communist leader Milovan Djilas acquire truly unique characteristics.
Anyone who utters the name Milovan Djilas in the communist world, or rather,
anyone who uttered it until a few years ago, thought of one of the most exalted
figures of that elite of communist leaders, whom the myths and propaganda from
beyond the Iron Curtain relentlessly extol.
A first-rate communist intellectual, the
second most important Yugoslav personality after Tito, consulted by Stalin
himself during critical moments for international communism, a hero in the
partisan war, and the architect of the new communist state in his country,
Djilas represents the unique case of a communist leader who comes to the
conclusion that the system is in a crisis with no possible solution, while
still holding important government positions.
No means, among all
those employed by Tito and his enemies—from persuasion and sentimental
recollections of years of shared struggle to threats, condemnations, and
imprisonment—can stop the great "heretic" of Belgrade in his
merciless critique of the communist system, carried out from within the
communist experience itself. His adventure cannot be compared to that of
Trotsky and other communist "rebels," generally adversaries of
Stalin, who offered a particular interpretation of communism and combated
Stalinist methods.
Djilas offers us the
curious case of a communist who remains within the communist sphere, who
continues to be communist in essence, but who subjects communism to the most
profound criticism, sparing neither prophet nor demagogue. Marx and Lenin,
Trotsky and Stalin, Tito and Khrushchev, permanent revolution and national
communism—nothing escapes his cold and well-documented dialectic, which
inevitably leads us to the conclusion that communism, from beginning to end,
from its earliest prophets to its vulgar epigones of today, who manipulate
ideas with boorish arguments, from the grand initial utopia to the degrading
and cruel reality of today in its means and ends, in the constant interplay
between its ideals and its realities, has been an enormous failure, a latent
revolutionary agony, despite its enormous display of forces and deployment of
energies.
But if Djilas's
personal adventure is singular, his critical testimony is no less new and
interesting. It is not a pathetic document. It is a concrete, cold,
intellectual explanation, delivered without polemical passion, without it
seeming for a single moment that the person offering us this spectral analysis
of communism was until yesterday one of its protagonists and that he is
currently suffering in his flesh and spirit the direct consequences of his
critical stance.
For all this and
perhaps much more, Milovan Djilas's latest book, published with enormous
success throughout the West, is a sensational book. Its title, The New Class:
An Analysis of the Communist System, in itself indicates a new element at the
very root of its diagnosis, in that it attributes to a political caste
resulting from the revolution and the communist state experience the
preponderant role in the expansion, power, and ideological and revolutionary
agony of communism.
Subsequently, Djilas
himself evolved in such a way that, in his book *A Country Without Justice*,
the ideological agony of the doctrine he had once championed led him to the
exaltation of a tribal and primitive mentality, considered in romantic terms.
From the outset,
Djilas wanted to emphasize that his attitude was not the result of
disillusionment, after having climbed the entire communist hierarchy and
contributed to the establishment of so-called socialist society. He sought,
therefore, to separate his personal problems and adventure from his
observations and the diagnosis he formulated regarding contemporary communism.
"These are," he writes, "simply perspectives and ideas about the
world in which I live. I am a product of this world. I contributed to its
birth.
Now I am one of its
critics. I have fought in the past, I am fighting now for a better world. This struggle may not produce the
desired results. However, the logic of my actions lies in the duration and continuity of
this struggle." No revolution in
history has presented such a vast chasm between the promises made to hopeful
masses and what has been achieved in the political, social, and economic
experience following its triumph.
Almost nothing that
the communist revolution promised has been realized. Instead, one of its most
significant outcomes has emerged that no one had foreseen. Neither Marx, nor
Lenin, nor even Trotsky, harbingers of a classless society, had predicted the
emergence of a new class, with caste-like characteristics, unknown to history.
Its origin is simultaneously political, social, and economic.
It is a political
bureaucracy, the ultimate expression of the party's actions once it has seized
power and established the new state. Symbolizing a latent conflict between
society and the state, it nevertheless finds its origin in the myth of the
proletariat and in the initial impetus provided by the support of the masses
swept along in the revolutionary process. Economically, its emergence is justified
from the moment it enjoys unlimited, in the form of personal monopoly and
privileges, all the property of the nation.
This new class is formed from the ranks of professional revolutionaries
within the party after the conquest of power. Its true creator was Stalin in
Russia, and his imitators outside Russia. In his time, Trotsky had observed
that the professional revolutionaries of the pre-revolutionary era were the
origin of the Stalinist bureaucracy, but what Trotsky had not grasped was that
this same political bureaucracy, growing in tandem with industrialization and
collectivization, constituted the basis of a new class of owners and
exploiters.
When this class emerges, revolutionary ideals and genuine ideological
concerns are mere slogans and lifeless schemes. It is symbolized by the
generation of practical men, driven by an unbridled passion for command and
power. Not all party members belong to this new class. As its character becomes
clearer and more definitive, the role of the party itself diminishes,
transforming it into a traditional oligarchy. The party creates the class, but
the class grows using the party as its foundation, breaking the classical model
that makes parties the product of a class and not vice versa.
If this new class were stripped of its property rights over all the
nation's material goods, it would cease to exist as a class, and with it,
communism, conceived as a monopoly and totalitarian system, would collapse.
Stalin destroyed the party as an ideological reality, transforming it, through
the new class, into an impersonal and colorless caste of privileged
individuals.
He made this class directly invested in the process of
industrialization, the only thing capable of justifying its existence and
continuity. Trotsky believed that the new bureaucratic class would disappear
with Stalin through a "palace revolution." Djilas demonstrates that,
even after Stalin's death, the new class endures and can only disappear along
with the monolithic edifice of the communist system.
The world dominated by the new communist class is a world in crisis,
riddled with insoluble contradictions. Only with the disappearance of this
monstrous caste and the system that sustains it can communist society regain
the characteristics of a free society. Milovan Djilas has rediscovered the true
and necessary meaning of the idea of freedom.
Not through revelation, nor because the caste to which he belonged
forcibly deprived him of his privileges, but through uncompromising logic and
the conviction that communist society cannot achieve freedom on the given terms
of its own revolution.
II
The sensibility of our time has proven increasingly averse to global
perspectives. In the manifestations of the spirit—such as cultural diagnoses,
literature, and innovative approaches in art—the propensity to reveal the
arcane meanings of things, the virtuosity of detail, and the magic of the
fragmentary has become evident.
However, the very situation of our time suddenly places us, without
anyone having foreseen the tragic alternative, without anyone's prophetic
anticipation, before the necessity of addressing globally the problem from
which all other problems inherent to humankind emerge: the problem of
humankind's very existence on Earth.
The lack of foresight among the most brilliant minds regarding this
definitive possibility, which implies, through the destruction of human life on
the planet, the exclusion of humanity's very spiritual destiny and cultural
presence, is truly astonishing. In a recent work by Karl Jaspers, entitled *The
Atomic Bomb and the Future of Man*, the German philosopher highlights the
"sorcerer's apprentice" role played by the scientists of our time in
the face of the consequences of their important scientific work.
The attitude of the scientists who have had a decisive impact on the
development of atomic technology is one of genuine perplexity.
"When we heard talk," Jaspers writes, "back in the 1920s
and 30s about atomic energy, we thought it was just a theory. They told us
about wondrous things, and we found them extremely interesting in terms of our
understanding of matter. But they seemed to us to have no practical importance.
Today they are already inscribed in reality."
The documents relating to the last war reveal how Einstein and the
American atomic scientists urged Roosevelt to develop the atomic bomb before
Hitler and the German scientists. Einstein and the American scientists placed
themselves unconditionally at the service of politics, and the first practical
consequence of their attitude occurred on August 6, 1945, in Hiroshima and on
August 9 in Nagasaki. Then, these same atomic scientists, with Einstein at the
forefront, warned humanity that the atomic bomb could bring about the end of
the world.
What, in reality, is the role played by these scientists in the face of
the terrible consequences inherent in the results of their research? Jaspers
outlines their situation in the work we have just cited. "Scientists have
become, as skilled labor, instruments at the service of governments that desire
weapons of maximum destructive capacity so as to always be better armed than
their adversaries. Some scholars, in their hearts and consciences, have
scruples.
They hesitate. Most of them are immersed in the study of the technical
problems they have to solve. They do what is asked of them, without wanting to
reflect on the problem. There is a chasm between the ingenuity of their
technical creation on the one hand and their political naiveté on the other.
Horrified by what they have created, they demand a solution, stirring up ideas
of peace and pursuing their research. These men of such intelligence both want
and don't want, they behave like children and speak of tragedy."
In reality, the problem presents far more serious aspects than the
eventual crises of conscience and moral confusion of atomic experts. In the
game of political forces, in the grand game surrounding atomic weapons, in
which the fate of our world is at stake, the role of these atomic experts,
secondary advisors to today's leaders, is significantly less important than
that played by soothsayers and astrologers in so-called primitive societies.
The atomic bomb has come to occupy an indisputable objective position in
the grand game of political forces. Blackmail, cunning, and threats have always
been instruments of politics, but always limited ones. As long as what was at
stake was not the total destruction of the adversary, much less the destruction
of human life, these instruments possessed persuasive power up to a certain
limit, established by expediency or by war.
Today, politics, with its forces roughly concentrated in the hands of
two blocs, has truly reached what a certain philosophy calls a critical
situation. Namely, an extreme dividing line, beyond which no limits exist.
The great game, what in traditional politics has been called by this
name, is today identified with a singular form of blackmail. This is, in
essence, the problem. The dialogue about the destiny of humanity is currently
taking place between these two colossi. One of them has transformed the idea of
freedom, as it has been understood and used for the last few
centuries, into a mere formula, in which ancient and deeply rooted paradoxical
situations have led to a huge trap.
According to the language of the totalitarian dialoguer, essentially
cynical, since such an essential disturbance of man's moral conscience is
impossible, slavery is freedom; a country dominated by the tanks of the
occupier is sovereign and cannot admit external interference; the total
rebellion of masses desperate from tyranny and hunger, carried out by communist
or ex-communist cadres, is sabotage by reactionary spies in the service of the
adversary; the rule of a ruthless caste over hundreds of millions of starving
people is true democracy from the moment its ideologues decided to call it
"popular."
What is the attitude of the other person in the dialogue? What can they
do when answered in their own language, distorted, disguised, perverted to the
extreme? In pure dialectic, their attitude is, at first, one of genuine
astonishment. How is it possible, they ask themselves, to manipulate concepts
that, for them, are ideals for life? But the dialogue continues.
Astonishment is followed, after the initial psychological shock and once
their own tendency to live in peace has strengthened, by a certain propensity
to "understand the adversary's attitude." But here's the thing: the
adversary... Having partially won the dialectical battle, while the other side
tried to understand, in addition to following its methods in its own field of
action, the threat against the other's positions increases.
In this absurd and tragic dialectical game, relations between Russia and
the United States have developed thus far, pushing both powers to complete
their stockpiles of atomic bombs to a degree sufficient to destroy life on the
planet. Thus, the great blackmail of the tragic alternative facing humanity has
been reached. The atomic bomb, with equal destructive potential held by Russia
and the United States, has created a completely new situation in the game of
political forces. In less than two generations, humanity has had two world
wars.
Now it faces a possible third world war, which could be the final one.
By not reacting at the moment of astonishment at the "rediscovery" of
Soviet methods, the United States has definitively lost the opportunity to
address the problem according to classical methods. In this way, the threat of
the atomic bomb has a violent impact on the classical methods of Politics. The
dilemma is, in reality, posed by Russia, which has not for a single moment
relinquished the initiative in matters, from 1945 to the present day.
The impact of the atomic bomb is already, long before it explodes, a
violent reality and a decisive political factor. We are, therefore, faced with
the unique alternative in history: choosing between slavery and death. We find
ourselves in what is already being called the age of blackmail. If the atomic
bomb means death, the first natural reaction is: "Anything but the atomic
bomb."
But this "anything" means slavery, the absolute degradation of
humanity, without thereby eliminating the fear of the future among those who
still live in freedom. Freedom, therefore, ceases to be a sine qua non of life.
But behind this initial attitude, inspired by the essential reflexes of the
instinct for self-preservation, another attitude emerges, born from reflection
on the destiny of humankind.
There are millions of people in the world today who prefer the risk of
the atomic bomb, of physical death, to slavery and the material and moral
misery in which they live. There, still fresh, is the example of the Hungarian
Revolution, which, faced with the attitude of those who exclaim "Anything
before the atomic bomb" and quickly forget the dead of Budapest, opposes
its own attitude, even more categorical, since it was sealed in blood:
"Anything before this, what we lived through."
But the situation is not reduced to this stark alternative, determined
by the blackmail of atomic war. If that were the case, if the matter were
presented so radically, the alternative would destroy, as long as the blackmail
and the threat remain in effect, any form of conflict. And, in reality, that is
not the case. In reality, the war continues. The two colossi are confronting
each other in what is called proxy warfare.
They have already done so in Korea, in Indochina, in the Middle East.
They will probably do so in other places, without the war, with its multiple
fronts, implying a kind of total destruction. Jaspers is right to define the
situation as paradoxical. He is not, however, right in establishing the
diagnosis.
He views these conflicts as local wars and argues that war is becoming a
"horrific" privilege of small states. Jaspers writes that this leads
to a strange conclusion: "The more powerful the states are because of the
atomic bomb, yet they seem momentarily paralyzed, while the small ones
perpetrate their acts of violence."
In reality, war remains the privilege of the Great Powers. These local
wars are, first and foremost, tentative steps and acts of aggression, as well
as a natural consequence of a lack of world order. Meanwhile, numerous
solutions are suggested and various hypotheses formulated. The first is the
destruction of atomic bomb stockpiles through reciprocal control and a
necessary modification of the old concept of sovereignty. At the same time,
England is manufacturing its own atomic bombs to achieve a kind of strategic
independence.
France, in turn, as Marshal Juin stated in a recent study, also wants
its own atomic bombs, the only means, he asserted, to ensure the defense of
Europe and the continued viability of NATO's strategic apparatus. There is also
much, and perhaps justified, insistence that, if both sides possessed the
atomic bomb, it would not be used, citing as an example the fact that Hitler,
in his most desperate situation, did not resort to total war.
But all of these are mere conjectures. Meanwhile, what gains validity is
the alternative to which the German philosopher alludes: using the atomic bomb
or accepting communist totalitarianism, which deprives the world of freedom.
"The atomic bomb, once used, would probably, though perhaps not
certainly," Jaspers concludes, "destroy all life on Earth. Being
deprived of freedom by totalitarianism would render life worthless, even if we
were not certain that totalitarianism would last forever. Faced with the threat
of the atomic bomb, which risks destroying all life on Earth, rises the threat
of totalitarianism destroying all freedom.
The moment to make a colossal decision may arise. No one can foresee it.
But examining this matter of conscience is justified: we must not allow
ourselves to be blindly driven toward such a choice. Reflection that
anticipates possible situations can have consequences for the decision
itself."
The extreme situation reveals itself in all its irreducible rigor,
inscribed in a reality that defies all finite thought. The very impulses
necessary for politics today find in this a stimulus.
III.
In such turbulent times, in terms of political and social events, as the
one we are living through, there has been no shortage, from an intellectual
perspective of the problems, of what is usually called a diagnosis. The term
itself, borrowed from Medicine, indicates a pathological situation. As often
happens in Medicine, accurate diagnoses have been mixed with false ones, and
the patient—namely, European-type society—has suffered what usually happens to
patients in general: dying little by little, regardless of whether the
diagnosis was accurate or false.
Nothing is more curious, more anticipated, and at the same time more
shocking, therefore, than the appearance—"rari nantes in gurgite
vasto" amidst today's abundant commentary on the merely everyday—of some
authentic work aimed at deciphering the perspective and the distant meaning of
events. Without a doubt, the most interesting aspect of all that has happened
in the field of political and social events in recent years has been the
symptoms of vast popular rebellions against communist tyranny.
The abundant commentary on daily life has devoted enormous journalistic
space to them, but little significance, since, once drowned in blood by
violence, their place in the headlines has been irremediably reclaimed by the
extravagances of movie "stars" and the course of sporting
competitions.
Therefore, a commentary such as the one Thierry Maulnier recently
dedicated to these rebellions, which he considers the true revolution of the
20th century, in a small book published by Plon in Paris, in an interesting
current affairs collection entitled Tribune Libre, deserves special mention.
While it is not a diagnosis, and perhaps not an entirely accurate one, Thierry
Maulnier's work does offer us a concrete foundation, a few ideas that no one
has yet properly emphasized.
Thierry Maulnier is a quintessential French intellectual. Ideologically,
he comes from the intellectual right, a right wing that is as minimally
reactionary as possible, stemming from his initial adherence to the ideas of
Action Française. Born in 1909, he entered the École Normale Supérieure in
1928, a breeding ground for the most distinguished French intellectual elite,
where he was a classmate of such ideologically diverse minds as Robert
Brasillach, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Soustelle, and Simone Weil. A critic, essayist, and
philosopher, he is best known for two works written in his youth, just a few
years before the last war, born from disparate concerns: Beyond Nationalism and
Introduction to French Poetry.
The current commentary on anti-communist popular rebellions, defined as
a prelude to the "20th-century revolution," is closely related to the
ideas in Thierry Maulnier's widely circulated book, particularly among
nationalists in Europe and America, entitled Beyond Nationalism. The
ideological and political contradictions of Marxism and Communism, upon which
Maulnier based his critique at that time, are partly revisited in this new
commentary.
This new commentary draws on concrete events of enormous significance
within "a gigantic concentration camp where a shadowy multitude of men
paid with their servitude and misery for the fanatical will to power of the
masters and the squandering of irresponsible bureaucrats, the reign of terror
and silence, of poverty, ugliness, and despair."
Everyone was accustomed to the idea that anything resembling great
collective rebellions could possibly occur within this bleak, lunar world. But
from 1956 onward, these collective rebellions began. East Berlin, Vorkuta (in
the Siberian steppe), Poznan, and Budapest demonstrated that what had seemed
inconceivable became a series of realities.
For the people of the Soviet world, the masses to whom so many promises
had been made, "had reached a point where the only remaining promise was
that of a third world war and nuclear apocalypse." This level of despair
explains the Hungarian Revolution, a veritable "hurricane of passion and
hope," an unparalleled "heroic madness," especially considering
the impregnability of the Soviet state's repressive apparatus.
Thierry Maulnier refutes from the ground up the claim that these were
reactionary uprisings. The cadres and combat troops of this insurrection, he
asserts, were formed almost entirely by communist or ex-communist
intellectuals, by students educated in Marxist doctrine, by a youth who had
known nothing but the communist regime, by the workers of Csepel, who were the
last to lay down their arms, and by the entire working mass, organized in their
"councils" and "soviets."
While Djilas goes so far as to define the formation and structure of the
new communist oppressor caste as a "new class," and with it the
crisis of communist society, Thierry Maulnier takes his diagnosis further and
examines the active role of the enormous masses of communist society in crisis.
For Djilas, a mind formed in the Leninist school, according to which a
revolution is impossible without organization, without command
"cadres," and without perfected techniques.
Revolutions like those now shaking the communist edifice are
inconceivable. Thierry Maulnier, however, possesses a different perspective,
free from ideological dogmatism. According to Maulnier, the profound rupture
between the "new class"—the privileged caste and a ruling and
intellectual minority—and the popular proletarian masses leads to a
far-reaching phenomenon of rebellion. In Hungary, therefore, we are witnessing
not an end, but a beginning; not the last pre-Marxist rebellion, but the first
post-Marxist one.
Marxism and communism, where they have played out their experiments,
cease to be merely a prospect for the future and become, definitively, in the
eyes of the oppressed, a barrier of interests and privileges that must be torn
down. This fatal
consequence was inexorably inevitable due to the fundamental contradictions of
Marxism and Communism.
A century ago, Marx offered the proletarian rebellion against capitalist
modes of production and wealth distribution a definition and an active
direction. In the collectivist society born of the Marxist revolution, with far
more oppressed people than a century ago, and more desperate, the slaves, in
the midst of rebellion, seek an ideology, a meaning, an active direction for
their liberation struggle.
In this society, class antagonisms have perhaps become stronger than
ever. Following Djilas's thesis, Thierry Maulnier believes that the primary
cause of this state of affairs was that the dictatorship of the proletariat was
merely a mystifying formula in the hands of a new political oligarchy. Berdyaev
asserted, years ago, that instead of the dictatorship of the proletariat,
Communism had established "the dictatorship of the idea of
the proletariat."
This new oligarchy wields unprecedented absolute power. It holds a
monopoly on power over people and things, over goods and ideas, over
well-being, the distribution and consumption of wealth. By increasing the power
of the state, the "new class" expands its own power without limit,
keeping the masses' purchasing power low through the infamous policy of
"priorities"—prioritizing investment in heavy industry over light
industry, in industry over agriculture, and in armaments over peacekeeping
projects.
Examining the figures reveals that the Soviet economy is on par with the
American economy in terms of military investment; the ratio is two to one in
favor of the United States in heavy industry and the production of energy and
steel, four to one in terms of total economic output, and eight to one in terms
of the purchasing power of workers' wages. Soviet investments in workers'
welfare are minimal and represent the portion of production not essential to
these priority investments.
But the contradictions of communism go even further. Marx and communism
combat capitalist surplus value but fail to eliminate it in collectivist
society for the simple reason that "surplus value is inherent in machine
civilization": the machine worker cannot receive remuneration equivalent
to what he produces through the machine, for the simple reason that production
must also pay the machine.
Besides continuing to live in the same sin as capitalist society,
collectivist society itself excludes the worker far more from the formation of
capital and the concentration of power—a monopoly of the State and its
oligarchy—than in capitalist society.
The fact is that both the Marxist and capitalist economic conceptions
are superseded by a series of events that escape both ideological frameworks.
Thierry Maulnier emphasizes this crucial fact, decisive in the future
development of society, the true basis of the revolution of the future. However
advanced they may seem, not even the revolutionary Marxist and communist
schemes could foresee this crucial fact: that a moment would come when the
worker and the consumer would cease to be two different individuals, but rather
one and the same person.
This truth was intuited years ago by Ford, when he invented the policy
of high wages, and by Schacht, when he invented the policy of consumer finance.
Since then, what Thierry Maulnier calls the revolution of the 20th century has
continued to accelerate, "driven by the irresistible, irreversible law of
technical evolution," automation, and the new structure. Today's consumer
is paid to consume, more than the worker is paid to work.
The forces of economic expansion have propelled society toward this
essentially new situation. Under the impetus of this reality, a new society is
taking shape. Without fully accepting the perspective offered by the French
writer, since many other factors that he ignores in his scheme (among them the
fact that large geographical and human areas are still far from the direct
action of these forces of economic expansion pushed to the extreme), it is
undeniable that, faced with the prospects of this revolution, collectivist
society remains closed in rigid schemes that will necessarily determine its
agony.
Because beyond the
capitalist economy based on the doctrine of profit, and beyond the
collectivist-Marxist economy of enslaved labor, an economy based on the
distribution of purchasing power is emerging, the indisputable foundation of a
new type of society.
Madrid.
The coastline comprises approximately 400 ports with docks; however,
most of them are only of local importance for coastal shipping and fishing. Few
ports have rail connections to the interior and are therefore more important
for the country's foreign trade. These are mostly medieval ports, and several
of them played a more significant role in the past than they do today.
Present-day Yugoslavia's foreign trade consists mainly of raw materials
and semi-finished products; manufactured goods, on the other hand, are scarcely
represented. Semi-finished products and raw materials are very cumbersome to
transport and require the shortest possible voyage to the sea.
Therefore, it is difficult to concentrate cargo for shipment. Modern
maritime traffic, for its rational development, requires that the movement of
goods to sea be concentrated at a geographically and transit-friendly crossing
point. Decentralization requires even greater capital investment for costly
port facilities. The country's capital shortage gives this problem
extraordinary importance.
Conversely, the need to achieve, even partially, a concentration of
maritime traffic is an economic imperative. Ports generally lack extensive
infrastructure, and the Belgrade government has done very little to date in
terms of technical equipment and adapting ports to current traffic demands. The
outdated nature of the ports is glaringly obvious, especially when compared to
competing ports. The significant lack of storage facilities, cargo handling
equipment, and fire protection systems is evident.
II. THE MAIN PORTS
The economic sphere of influence of the ports is limited. Only the
spheres of influence of Rijeka, Sibenik, Split, Ploce, and Dubrovnik (all
located in Croatia) extend further inland. The other ports, on the other hand,
cover only their immediate surroundings.
The economically developed regions of the country are situated in
relation to the coast in such an unfavorable way that considerable effort is
required to direct traffic toward the national ports.
The most significant problems with domestic traffic relate, on the one
hand, to the aforementioned technical and natural obstacles and, on the other
hand, to the utilization of various existing railway lines, built long ago
according to external interests, which no longer meet current needs. These
problems can only be solved by fundamentally improving the connection between
the ports and the interior of the country.
Rijeka (Fiume), in addition to being well-equipped, is the main port and
the only one with favorable rail connections to the interior. Moreover, in the
geographical and traffic sense, it is the most appropriate port for both the
Croatian and Slovenian interior, as well as for the transit of goods from
Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia.
At the northernmost point of the coast, in Kopar (formerly Kapodistria,
now part of the People's Republic of Slovenia), in the immediate vicinity of
Trieste, new piers with a length of 270 meters have been built in recent years
for ocean-going vessels.
However, since this port—clearly intended as a rival to
Trieste—currently lacks rail connections to the interior, its traffic is hardly
worth mentioning. Pula, an excellent southern port on the Istrian peninsula,
serves primarily as a shipyard and military base. The other important ports,
located in the central part of the coast, are Šibenik, an extraordinary natural
harbor with unlimited potential for expansion, and Split, the second most
important in the country.
Both are connected to the interior by two standard-gauge railway lines,
but with limited capacity. Various industries can be developed in the coastal
cities of Rijeka, Šibenik, and Split. A new port, Ploce, has been built at the
mouth of the Neretva River, impacting a portion of Bosnia's economy. Given the
existence of numerous natural harbors with considerable potential for development,
the construction of new ports represents a pointless waste of resources.
The disadvantage of this new port lies not only in its location in a
marshy region but also in the fact that the Pelješac peninsula blocks its
access to the south and southwest. The new port, connected by rail to the
interior, will attract some of Dubrovnik's maritime traffic and completely
absorb that of Metković.
The southern part of the coast has a larger inland area, but is
separated from it by an impassable mountain range. Constructing a railway line
through the mountains between Serbia and the southern part of the coast is
extremely difficult and costly. Nevertheless, construction has begun on the
extremely expensive and economically unjustifiable Belgrade-Uzice-Bijelo Polje-Bar
railway line, as well as the complete reconstruction of the port of Bar.
It is hardly conceivable that this railway line, traversing mountains
and known as the "North-South-Adriatic Main Line," which is primarily
of military and political importance to Serbia, and whose route touches the
sparsely populated Montenegrin mountains, barren for traffic, will be
beneficial for the transport of people and goods.
Previously, the bay of Kotorska in southern Dalmatia, undoubtedly the
largest natural harbor in the Mediterranean basin, had been planned as the
terminus of this line. However, now this line will terminate at the open and
as-yet-unbuilt port of the Montenegrin village of Bar. Simultaneously, Belgrade
decided not to build the Split-Sarajevo line, which had been planned for
several decades.
This shipping line would have facilitated not only the transport of raw
materials and products from the important industries in these regions, but
would also have enabled the exploitation of the significant natural resources
of the Livno-Duvno area, which until now have remained untapped due to their
distance from transport routes.
These factors, coupled with the neglect of existing ports—for example,
the docks of Rijeka's main port, damaged during the war, have still not been
repaired—have provoked considerable discontent in Croatia, repeatedly reflected
even in articles published in Pomorstvo (Rijeka), the main publication for
maritime traffic issues in communist Yugoslavia, as well as in the newspapers
Vjesnik (Zagreb) and Slobodna Dalmacija (Split).
The ports of present-day Yugoslavia must compete desperately, especially
with the port of Trieste, which is far better connected to Central Europe by
rail and much better equipped. To compete successfully, the ports must be
modernized and expanded. Furthermore, very instructive measures should be taken
to attract traffic from neighboring Central European countries.
The unfavorable situation of the ports is further aggravated by
competition from foreign ports, the Danube waterway, well-constructed railways
to Central Europe, and the country's foreign trade directed towards the
continent. The precarious situation of the ports strongly demands the
application of port tariffs to railway tariff policy, since only through maritime
tariffs can the interior be economically linked to the majority of ports.
From the foregoing, it is clear how difficult the task is for those
responsible for maritime navigation policy. If this policy is to become a
factor in promoting all the economic interests encompassed by maritime
navigation, it must first and foremost be carried out methodically and
consistently. This has not been the case in either pre-war or post-war
Yugoslavia. In all political and economic measures, it must never be forgotten that
Yugoslavia, that is, the Federal Republic of Croatia, is a maritime country
that has natural conditions favorable to the progress of maritime navigation.
III. MARITIME NAVIGATION AND FOREIGN TRADE
The portion of Yugoslavia's foreign trade that is maritime shows a
continuous upward trend; in 1959, this portion represented 53%; in 1934,
however, it was only 39.4%. Since foreign trade continues to make greater use
of sea routes through its own ports, the importance of maritime navigation to
the national economy will undoubtedly continue to grow. The dispatch of goods
from the ports to the sea continued to increase considerably after the war,
almost doubling in 1959 compared to 1939.
Movement of goods by sea (in 1000 T)[39]
|
|
Total |
Internal traffic |
Exports |
Importa |
Transio |
|
1922 |
1.003 |
189 |
691 |
123 |
- |
The table reflects the current development and volume of maritime
freight movement. The majority of all goods shipped—up to 78.4% in
1959—corresponds to international traffic. It is significant that this
international traffic largely consists of imports. In 1959, the volume of
imports was twice that of exports.
Due to the country's pre-war foreign trade structure, this ratio has
been exactly the reverse. The unfavorable ratio of incoming to outgoing goods
is the major weakness of the country's maritime trade, as most ships must leave
ports in ballast, resulting in unfavorable freight costs. The numerical table
of maritime imports clearly demonstrates their one-sidedness. Coal, minerals,
oil, and grains represent a full 75% of all maritime imports. Before the war,
Yugoslavia was a major grain exporter.
In contrast, in recent years, grains have become the leading maritime
import as a consequence of misguided communist agricultural policies. It is
noteworthy that, despite the country's largely agrarian structure, the export
of agricultural products through national ports is barely worthy of mention.
Exports of cement, timber, coal, and minerals regularly constitute the main
categories of maritime exports. These items accounted for 67% of total exports,
demonstrating the policy's unilateral nature.
Maritime freight traffic is concentrated in the five main ports, a
figure that is high for the country's needs. This concentration is much greater
for imports than for exports, which suggests that the main imports are carried
out through ports with good rail connections to the hinterland or to industry.
The share of total freight traffic handled by the five main ports regularly
exceeded 80% (80.7% in 1959, 81.2% in 1958).
The share handled by numerous other ports is therefore very small. [40] (4). The movement of goods in different ports shows varying development
trends. Rijeka shows the greatest increase; its movement during 1959 – 43.1% of
the total movement – exceeded that of the four main ports combined. [41] (5).
Rijeka is also the most important transit port. Even so, it has an
unfavorable balance of shipments, since inbound operations are much greater (in
1959, almost six times) than outbound operations. All the main ports, with the
exception of Dubrovnik, have experienced a significant increase in cargo
traffic, albeit on different scales.
Almost all traffic passes through Rijeka. Austria held first place in
1959, with 45.5% (38.6% in 1958, 27.5% in 1957), followed by Hungary with 30%
(18.7% in 1958, 36.3% in 1957), and then Czechoslovakia with 21.9% (41.5% in
1958, 34.7% in 1957). [42].
The participation of
other countries in transit traffic is negligible. In 1959, transit volume
decreased by 9% compared to the previous year. The Belgrade government
attributes this decline to the People's Republic of China, arguing that when
China concluded its purchase contracts with Austrian, Hungarian, and
Czechoslovakian exporting firms, it stipulated the ship's flag and the port of
transit for the goods purchased. Consequently, Beijing's hostile attitude
toward Tito is also reflected in the transit traffic at the port of Rijeka. [43].
Although maritime trade itself is of paramount importance, the flags
under which freight is carried out have great economic significance. Just a few
years ago, this situation was by no means satisfactory for the country. The
national merchant fleet's share reached 34.9%. This percentage increased
considerably in the interim, reaching 52.6% in 1959. [44]. Before the war,
this percentage was even higher; in 1936 it accounted for 54.57%.
The maritime passenger traffic is constantly increasing; its growth is
due to the well-developed domestic traffic, which is reserved, in effect, for
national flags. In contrast, the international passenger traffic is of lesser
importance. Apparently, this trend is the opposite of that seen in the movement
of goods.
Maritime passenger traffic (in 100)[45]
|
|
Total |
Movimiento al exterior |
|
1939 |
1.421 |
44 |
IV. THE MERCHANT FLEET
During the Second World War, not only port facilities but also the
merchant fleet and maritime navigation organizations suffered serious losses.
The ships that were not sunk were under the administration of the British
Ministry of War Transport.
At the end of 1946, it had more than 86 ships with a total gross tonnage
of 141,000. The ships' service life had been fully utilized, and most of them
no longer met the requirements of maritime navigation, thus necessitating
complete overhauls.
The increase in the fleet was achieved gradually and primarily by
repairing wrecked ships or purchasing old foreign vessels. Yugoslavia also
received a number of German and Italian ships for repairs. In 1949, the situation
improved somewhat with the acquisition of new vessels.
That same year, construction began on the first larger ships in its own
shipyards. The first Five-Year Plan had projected a merchant fleet tonnage of
600,000 GRT by 1951. However, this figure was only reached in 1960.
Yugoslavia's merchant fleet ranks second among the communist states. According
to the most recent data, this tonnage reached 711,928 GRT as of August 1, 1960,
placing it nineteenth in the world shipping rankings. [46].
The current tonnage differs from the pre-war fleet in its composition
and structure. While routeless voyages prevailed before the war, today regular
steamship service is relatively well-developed. A significant portion of the
tonnage is dedicated to regular cargo and passenger service; in several cases,
it serves both purposes simultaneously.
A part of the fleet is dedicated to international voyages without a
fixed route and consists of vessels ranging from 3 to 7,000 GRT, meaning
steamships capable of sailing all the world's oceans, fulfilling orders for
economical freight. Although, due to the rugged coastline, smaller vessels
represent the numerical majority, at the beginning of 1960, 81.15% of the total
tonnage corresponded to steamships of more than 1,500 tons. [47].
If the merchant marine is divided into passenger ships and cargo ships,
it turns out that passenger steamers, with 64 vessels, constitute 22% of the
fleet and barely 5% of the tonnage. The development of passenger traffic is
extremely unfavorable and has been one of the most serious problems for many
years.
In 1939, the fleet had 72 passenger vessels totaling 50,000 GRT, and in
1959, only 64 vessels totaling 28,000 GRT, although the number of passengers
carried has more than tripled. This irregularity in maritime passenger traffic
is criticized not only by the technical press but also by the daily press. [48].
The composition of the fleet, based on the age of its vessels, in no way
meets the requirements imposed by increasing competition. According to official
reports from the "Yugoslavian Maritime Union," 49.1% of the naval
inventory is outdated and 15% requires urgent renewal. [49].
The advanced age of the vessels is a major factor affecting coastal
shipping. Of the 65 steamships of the "Jadranska-Linijska Providba"
(Jadranska-Linijska Providba), 15 are over 50 years old, 5 are over 60, and one
is up to 69 years old. Furthermore, the propulsion systems of most coastal
vessels are completely outdated, with a large proportion—38 units—running on
coal with entirely worn-out boilers. The advanced age of these steamships is
even more striking when compared to foreign fleets. For example, the average
age of all German ships in the summer of 1960 was no more than ten years.
The most important task for the fleet after the war was, first and
foremost, the re-establishment of coastal shipping routes, which are vital for
the coastal and island populations due to the configuration of the coastline.
The problem of coastal shipping is difficult to solve; The coastline is sparsely
populated, so ships' capacity is only utilized at about 10% in winter, while in
summer, the tourist season, it is usually very quiet.
The population's limited purchasing power prevents an adequate increase
in fares. Coastal shipping is also of great importance to tourism, which is
providing the country with an increasing amount of foreign currency. Given the
numerous small towns, several routes with many steamships are needed for the
proper functioning of the traffic. It is understood that on most of these
routes, traffic cannot be carried out with sufficient intensity to ensure
profitability. This is why coastal steamship companies operate at a significant
loss, which is offset by state subsidies.
With coastal shipping re-established, attention shifted to organizing
international routes. The unfavorable ratio between incoming and outgoing cargo
at ports undoubtedly hinders the development of regular steamship service. As
noted, imports through ports are considerably more frequent than exports.
The lack of return freight makes the profitability of regular steamship
service even more precarious. The growing development of foreign trade by sea,
as well as the need to avoid foreign flags and ports, necessitates the
promotion of regular domestic steamship service and the establishment of direct
routes with countries with which intensive foreign trade is maintained.
Yugoslav shipping companies maintain, in addition to cargo and passenger
routes to Italian, Albanian, Greek, and Turkish ports, cargo routes to ports in
Western and Northern Europe, using coastal vessels. Thus, of the 65 steamships
of the "Jadranska-Linijska Proposed for the Near, Central and Far
East."
However, some service lines still lack the required traffic density.
While the shipping network involves practically all countries with which there
is significant trade, it is not sufficient to meet all the demands of commerce,
making an intensification of regular steamship service necessary..
The development of the merchant fleet. - Ships over 100 GRT [50]
|
NUMBER OF UNITS |
BRT CAPACITY IN 1,000. |
|||||||
|
Year |
Total |
Passengers |
Cargo and tankers |
Motor vessels and sailboats |
Total |
Passengers |
Cargo and tankers |
Motonaves y veleros |
|
1925 |
126 |
57 |
59 |
10 |
145 |
20 |
124 |
1 |
SHIPPING COMPANIES
The entire fleet was
nationalized after the war. As in other companies, worker self-management was
imposed in the shipping companies, which faces significant difficulties in this
branch of the economy. The mere fact that two-thirds of the members of the
workers' and administrative councils must be crew members makes the work
economically challenging, since the ships are rarely in port, the headquarters
of the shipping company. Furthermore, each ship has its own council, which,
along with the captain, is formally responsible for the administration of the
respective vessel.
Shipping companies
are grouped into the following unions: "Union of Maritime
Shipowners," "Union of Seaports," "Union of the
Shipbuilding Industry," and "Union of Sea Fishing." The
"Secretariat for Traffic and Communications of the Federal Executive
Council" (the Central Government) in Belgrade is competent for all matters
concerning maritime navigation.
Even the communist
daily and specialized press indicates that maritime circles are dissatisfied
not only with the current organization and work, but also with the government's
shipping policy in general, and are demanding its reorganization. Among the
shipping companies, the largest is "Jugoslavenska Linijska Plovidba,"
headquartered in Rijeka.
Its fleet consists
exclusively of large vessels and is mostly dedicated to regular steamship
service. The second largest shipping company is "Jadranska Linijska
Plovidba," whose ships provide regular service on the sea. The ships sail
the Adriatic, Ionian, and Aegean Seas, and also operate cruises for German
tourism companies in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the North Sea.
The vessels of the
"Jadranska Slobodna Plovidba" of Split engage in itinerant voyages
and also provide regular steamship service between Adriatic, Near Eastern, and
Red Sea ports. The salvage and towing company "Brodospas," based in
Split, has also been established and has achieved notable success in both
domestic and international waters.
Until 1955, the
entire fleet was grouped into these three shipping companies. Due to the strong
insistence of the People's Republics of Slovenia and Montenegro, a large part
of the tonnage of the "Jugoslavenska Linijska Plovidba" of Rijeka,
Croatia, was assigned to the newly formed shipping company, Jugoslavenska
Oceanska Plovidba, of Kotor. (formerly Croatia, now Montenegro), "Splosna
Plovba", from Piran (now Slovenia) and "Atlantska Plovidba",
from Dubrovnik. In addition, "Jugoslavenska Tankerska Plovidba" was
established in Zadar (Croatia), which at the beginning of 1960 had tankers with
a total of 35,307 GRT.
Of the other shipping
companies, only "Kvarneska Plovidba" in Rijeka, which operates
regular steamship service to ports in Israel and the Gulf of Mexico, and
"Slobodna Plovidba" in Sibenik, whose ships undertake voyages without
a fixed route, are worth mentioning. A competitive struggle has already begun among
the various shipping companies.
Last year, an unusual
case arose when the Slovenian shipping company "Splosna Plovba"
inaugurated a new route between Yugoslav ports and those in the United States,
even though "Jugoslavenska Linijska PLovidba," based in Rijeka, Croatia,
had been providing regular and sufficiently frequent service between these
ports for many years.
This occurred despite
the fact that the "Union of Maritime Shipowners of Yugoslavia," the
competent body, had strongly rejected this new route as completely useless and
detrimental to the interests of the country's maritime industry.***
The remarkable
results achieved by the Yugoslav fleet and maritime traffic should not mislead
us, as its vessels are outdated and overused, and port facilities and equipment
are woefully inadequate. The fleet—especially the coastal vessels—has fallen
far behind in terms of operation and performance compared to global
technological advancements due to its extraordinary and intense activity in
recent years.
With the exception of
Rijeka, the other ports suffer from insufficient rail connections and are
equipped with faulty technical facilities. Improved port technical equipment is
an urgent problem, without which all efforts to increase port traffic and
movement are doomed to failure.
Only a radical change
in maritime policy, promoting tonnage modernization and improving port
efficiency, can alleviate the unfavorable state of the country's maritime
navigation. It is highly doubtful, however, that the directors of shipping companies
and ports can resolve the aforementioned maritime navigation problems in the
foreseeable future, due to the neglect and lack of understanding they encounter
in competent circles in Belgrade.
Hamburg.
The doctor usually
examines the detainees once a week, allowing only emergency medical attention.
A few years ago, a special hospital for detainees was opened in Zagreb on
Sarengrad Street, where the doctors and all the staff are highly trusted, to
prevent detainees from having any uncontrolled contact with the outside world.
It is almost standard practice to assign agents provocateurs to every four
detainees. These are generally minor offenders who are promised release if they
extract information of interest to the investigators from the designated
detainees, or often, these agents provocateurs are UDBA officers who spend a
few days in the cells "provoking the detainees."
The UDBA cells in
Zagreb are located at Savska cesta 60 (UDBA for Croatia) and at Petrinjska 18,
where the UDBA headquarters for the city of Zagreb is located. Once the
preliminary investigation is complete, which can take an undetermined amount of
time, the detainee is released, or, more often, transferred to the judicial
prison. Until 1950-52, numerous political "criminals" were tried by
military courts, even though their alleged crimes were not of a military
nature, nor were the accused military personnel.
The criterion adopted
was that they were guilty of "subversive activities" directed against
the "security of the State," and therefore the trials were held in
military courts, known for their cruelty. Furthermore, military courts operate
in secret; hearings are held behind closed doors, and the accused cannot choose
a defense attorney but is assigned one, merely to "maintain a
formality."
Generally, this is an
officer whose role is to assist the court in ascertaining "the material
truth"; in other words, to assist the military prosecutor. The Zagreb
military court jail is located in Nova Ves and consists of spacious cells that
housed between 80 and 140 detainees. The beds are wooden bunks; defecation is
done in two large wooden buckets that emit an indescribable stench.
The Zagreb civil
court jail, or district jail, is located at Petrinjska Street 12. Political
prisoners and common criminals are imprisoned together there. The prison regime
is not as harsh here as in the military or UDBA prisons. Smoking is permitted,
the food is somewhat better, and detainees are allowed a half-hour walk in the
prison yard once a day, although regulations stipulate an hour.
During the walk,
conversation is prohibited, and hands must be kept behind the back. Once the
preliminary hearing is complete, the detainee is allowed to speak with their lawyer
and closest relatives (in the presence of the warden).
For years, the director of Zagreb's judicial prisons was a man named
Korac, a Lika Serb and police officer from monarchical Yugoslavia, a
psychopath, a brutal individual, and a chronic drunkard. For the slightest
disciplinary infraction, detainees were punished with heavy chains weighing 8
to 20 kilos, which remained fastened to the unfortunate man's bare feet for 14
days. Furthermore, this same Korac was responsible for the brutal mistreatment of
those condemned to death.
On the first floor of the Zagreb District Court jail was cell number 26,
where those condemned to death awaited execution. The night before, relatives
could visit the condemned man, and the executions took place at night, before dawn.
After the relatives' visit, Korac would usually arrive with a group of
militiamen, who would beat the condemned man and brutally torture him (if he
was a political "criminal"). The screams of the tortured man echoed
through the building, and in the morning, the inmates responsible for cleaning
removed the bloodstained and torn clothing of those condemned to death from
cell F26.
If, during the proceedings, the detainee complained about the coercion
and torture inflicted by the police and militia, the prosecutor would request
an amendment to the indictment because the accused was "slandering the
national authorities," and therefore, the sentence would be even more
severe. For this reason, most defendants do not dare to report that they were mistreated
during the investigation, for fear of worse reprisals.
The lawyers, that is, the defense attorneys, also do not want to dwell
on the torture of their client, knowing that doing so will only cause them
further problems. As already mentioned, in recent years physical torture is not
as frequent, but it is still inflicted, and the competent judicial and
administrative bodies are aware of it. Torture of common criminals is not as
frequent as that of political prisoners.
Once the judicial
process is complete and the sentence is handed down, the convicted person is
transferred to a Reformatory Penal Home to serve their sentence. There are
several such homes in Yugoslavia; each republic has its own, and they are under
the direct control of the "Department for the Execution of Sentences"
of the respective republic's Ministry of the Interior. In Croatia, these
institutions are located in Lepoglava, Stara Gradiska, and Slavonska Pozega
(for women).
There is also the
correctional-educational institute for minors in Glina and a sort of
concentration camp in Goli Otok, near Rab Island, off the Croatian coast.
Penitentiaries in Serbia are located in Niš, Zabela, near Požarevac (for
women), and in Srijemska Mitrovica. In the town of Indjija, in Srijem, there is
a federal home for convicted women who are pregnant or have children under six
months old.
In Sarajevo is the
central military prison, that is, the penitentiary for officers. In Bosnia and
Herzegovina, there are penal institutions in Zenica, Bileci, and Stolac. In
Slovenia, they are located in Maribor and Ljubljana; in Macedonia in Skopje;
and in Montenegro in Titograd.
At the head of these
penitentiaries is the director, generally a proven communist UDBA officer and
an unscrupulous man. Next come the deputy director and the assistant. The
assistant director is the position reserved for the head of the UDBA in each
penitentiary.
Under their command
are two or three subordinates, obligated to work in the penitentiary's
"intelligence sector," that is, to gather information from informants
operating among the detainees about the conduct, statements, and intentions of
political prisoners and other convicts.
A very important
figure in the administration of the penitentiary is the one in charge of
"the re-education of the convicts," whose task consists of
tenaciously and constantly disseminating communist propaganda. Aside from these
"civilian" officials, a very important position is that of the
militia commander in the prison, usually held by a captain or major. (It should
be noted that in the Lepoglava and Nova Gradiska prisons, this position is
always held by Serbs, originally from Lika or Kordun.)
Then, in each penal
institution, there are a certain number of prison guards and militiamen,
watching over its security. Among them, two classes can be distinguished:
militiamen, affiliated with the Communist Party, trusted individuals, who
occupy positions that allow them to be in daily contact with the detainees, and
rank-and-file militiamen, younger, not affiliated with the party, who guard the
entrance or man the machine gun nests in the "bunkers" and in the
prison towers.
The former, party
members, are "keyholders," "commanders" of workshops, etc.
They perform hierarchical functions and can do great harm to the detainees if they
so choose.
Upon arrival at the
prison, the detainee is placed in "quarantine." This is the first
stage of serving their sentence. "Quarantine" is a large barrack
where 200 to 300 convicts spend the first three or four weeks. Here, too, the
beds are stacked one on top of the other, with two people sleeping together on
each bed, regardless of age, health, education, etc.
There are no
mattresses, so everyone sleeps on whatever they have. There is no heating, not
even during the harshest winter. Here, the convict begins their journey into
prison life. Both "quarantine" and each individual cell are under the
supervision of the "guard." This is a convict, or rather a criminal,
who has been serving his sentence for some time. He is, by necessity, an
informer, a trusted confidant of the administration, that is, of UDBA.
His duty is to
enforce discipline, inform the police, and intimidate new inmates. Several
times a day, he reads the internal regulations aloud so that the inmates
memorize them. According to these regulations, very few things are permitted.
The warden immediately reports every infraction, however minor, to the
militiamen, who, depending on the severity of the "crime," decide
whether the offender will be brought before the Director or punished with
lesser penalties, such as excessive cleaning of the floor, bathrooms, etc.
The warden can
inflict great harm on the prisoner, since if he denigrates him from the outset
before the militiamen or the internal police, his life becomes unbearable due
to the subsequent, relentless mistreatment. An uninitiated observer can hardly
comprehend the "power" of these wardens or how much harm they can do
if a prisoner is not to their liking or their liking.
As mentioned, these
wardens are recruited from among criminals, people of ill repute, prone to all
kinds of evil. They are present when the food parcels that the prisoners
receive from their families are inspected. It is an unwritten rule that the
guard receives a share of the commissary, especially meat, pastries, and
cigarettes.
Sometimes this
escalates to blackmail, and woe betide any prisoner who complains about the
guard. The inmates know them and tolerate their cruelty because they are the
prison administration's loyal agents. Many of these guards come from the ranks
of guerrilla officers, convicted of crimes, often murder. Nevertheless, the
administration considers them more valuable and less dangerous than political
prisoners, since they are "ex-combatants," party members, and
therefore not "bandits," as opponents of the communist regime are
often labeled in Yugoslavia.
Having completed the first stage of the sentence in
"quarantine," the detainee is bathed again, all his belongings are
thoroughly searched, and he is sent to the "cell," his final resting
place. During the search, all valuables are usually taken: pens, watch, ring,
lighter, etc. These items are deposited, but are rarely found upon release.
Few dare to make a fuss about this theft, fearing further complications
and reprisals. In the "cell," the prisoner encounters the warden, his
immediate superior. The warden assigns him a bed and tasks him with cleaning
floors and bathrooms. The cells, previously designed for one prisoner, now hold
six (in Lepoglava).
The beds are arranged in three superimposed rows, with two people
sleeping in each bed. In this confined space, the excrement bin is placed and
emptied two or three times a day. Sometimes the militiaman in charge of the
"squad" forgets to open the door, and it's easy to imagine the suffocating
air the prisoners must breathe and how this affects their health.
There are larger cells, but all are crammed with convicts in far greater
numbers than allowed by basic hygiene and sanitation standards. Prisoners who
work in workshops have somewhat better hygienic conditions, as at least they
can use the toilet that day.
Those who don't work must remain lying down all day in a stale
atmosphere. According to the internal regulations, prisoners are allowed two
fresh air sessions a day, meaning a walk in the yard. However, this is very
rarely the case, as they are taken to the yard once, and if it rains or the
weather is bad, they remain locked up all day. The walk is sometimes a true
torture.
During the morning "dead" walk, talking is not permitted.
Hands behind back and mouths closed. If the militiaman, who watches the
prisoners, thinks someone has moved their lips, that's reason enough to take
them before the warden. That's why many refused to go for walks, fearing they
would be denounced for an infraction they hadn't committed, even though no
argument was valid. Being taken before the warden meant receiving punishment,
and so they avoided giving the warden or militiaman the slightest reason to do
so.
The disciplinary
punishment system is very severe and medieval, brutal to the extreme. The most
lenient punishment is the prohibition of receiving mail and packages for a
month or two. During that time, the prisoner goes hungry, but at least he is
free from mistreatment, which is harmful to his health.
The next disciplinary
punishment is solitary confinement. It's not just about spending 14 days
completely isolated. There's more to it. In winter, the condemned man is taken
to the solitary cell, with a cement or brick floor, a large window without
glass, no bed or other furniture, and no container. Several prisoners are put
in there wearing light, flimsy prison clothing.
Before being taken to
the solitary cell, the guard checks if anyone is wearing two layers of clothing
or two pairs of socks. That is strictly forbidden. They spend 7 to 14 days in
such a cold cell, sometimes longer. Since there are no beds and lying on the
concrete in the dead of winter means ruining your health, these unfortunate
souls are forced to squat or lean against each other for long days and nights.
I know several young, healthy men who, after such punishment, completely lost
their health.
The food, already
bad, is reduced to a minimum, so hunger is added to the cold and physical
exertion. Many are also required to wear chains on the warden's orders. Their
situation becomes even more unbearable, as the weight of the chains, which
varies from 8 to 20 kilos, is added to the hunger and cold.
At night, militiamen
often visit them, mistreating and beating them. Infamous for their tortures at
Lepoglava Penitentiary were Ilija Vujic, a Serbian militiaman from Kordun who
controlled the solitary confinement cells, and his accomplice Ilija Solic, from
Knin, a former Chetnik.
Many former prisoners
of Lepoglava from 1945-49 can testify about the torture inflicted by this duo
on the prisoners, including the cold-blooded murder of several inmates, among
them Zvonko Panic in the summer of 1949, without anyone holding them
accountable for their crime. During the summer, the convicts were not sent to
solitary confinement but to the punishment battalion, where they performed the
most arduous labor, exposed to the sun and heat until exhaustion.
They loaded or
unloaded coal or firewood from wagons, carried bricks at a run, worked the
land, and so on. They worked up to 18 hours a day, that is, until physical
exhaustion. Often such prisoners collapsed from exhaustion, and the case of an
elderly man is significant, who fainted from physical exertion, just 18 days
away from being released from Lepoglava in 1948. In this case too, no
investigation was carried out nor was anyone held responsible.
This is how disciplinary punishments in Tito's prisons actually work,
and the reasons can be trivial and insignificant, such as: a word uttered
during "dead man's walk," smoking during prohibited hours, complaints
about the food or treatment, an unverified accusation, conversation with
prisoners from another group, and so on.
A large number of criminals, especially former communist guerrillas, are
in the service of UDBA (the prison's intelligence unit). Based on their data
and information, the "profile" (criminal record) of each prisoner is
compiled, a very important document, since it determines whether a pardon
request is considered and the prison administration's attitude toward each
individual. It is understandable that the prisoners, and especially the
political prisoners, fear these informers, on whom their lives sometimes
depend. As a rule, these individuals are known, but there are cases where it is
difficult to identify them.
For this reason, the prisoners refrain, as a precaution, from discussing
political matters. Political prisoners share the same cellblocks with common
criminals, regardless of whether they are intellectuals or not. There is no
room for "honest custody" there; on the contrary, political prisoners
receive worse treatment than criminals, who are not "against the
people," as the administration often emphasizes.
Minor political prisoners are sent to penitentiaries, not reformatories,
and must share the same cells with criminals, often murderers. In Lepoglava,
the warden of the minors was a certain Ljustina, a Serb from Lika, convicted of
homicide. His duty was to "re-educate" the minor prisoners because he
possessed the "necessary faculties" for this mission. He had served
in the communist army during the major war and was also an informant for UDBA:
He had to make "good citizens of the socialist community" out of
these minor offenders.
The food in the prisons is meager and insufficient in both quality and
quantity. Many inmates suffer from hypovitaminosis, especially vitamin C
deficiency, and from other illnesses, primarily tuberculosis. Those who receive
food parcels from their families are fortunate in this regard (two parcels per
month, weighing 7 kilos each, are permitted).
Meat is scarce, and when it is provided, it is of very poor quality. The
food is unchanging, especially in spring, when only sauerkraut and turnip,
without seasoning, are distributed for lunch and dinner. The portion of bread,
usually cornmeal, is insufficient. Vegetables, legumes, and salads are rare
exceptions.
Fruit and desserts are practically nonexistent, although all prisons
have extensive farms that inmates cultivate for free. In recent years, canteens
have been established in the prisons, where certain items can be purchased
occasionally.
As a rule, all
inmates are required to work, but many are prohibited from doing so to break
the monotony of prison life, especially political prisoners, considered highly
dangerous. They are kept confined to their cells for months and years, inactive
and bored; they are isolated from other prisoners to avoid "harmful
influences."
There's no need to
mention the mental and physical state of these prisoners, who suffer so much.
Work is generally done in workshops. Each prison has its own "economic
enterprise," with its own administration and, in theory, independent of
the prison administration.
The convicts provide
free labor, thus generating substantial profits for the enterprise, which sells
its products in markets both domestically and internationally. The wooden
products and objects made in Lepoglava are sold in the United States. This
penitentiary has workshops for carpentry, basketry, and leatherwork.
The prisoners receive
a "symbolic wage" for their work, part of which they can spend in the
canteen, and part of which is "deposited" with the administration, to
be given to them upon release. Those prisoners who have served half or
two-thirds of their sentence and have not been punished for disciplinary
infractions work on the farms.
They work all day and
move around the farm with relative freedom, only to be confined to the barracks
at night. They receive a decent meal; better than the other prisoners, they can
receive more visitors, smoke freely, etc. A penal institution is never
exclusively inhabited by its own inmates. In addition to working on the farms,
which are very close to the prison, a large number of prisoners are transferred
to work sites quite distant from it.
A large part of
"New Belgrade," the suburb stretching between Belgrade and Zemun, was
built by prisoners from all over Yugoslavia. Many work in the mines, namely: in
Novi Golubovac, near Lepoglava; In Ivanec, Rasa, Idrija (a mercury mine), and a
large number in the copper mines of Serbia, they work in appalling conditions,
with primitive tools, without the protective equipment afforded to other
miners. As a result, many prisoners become seriously ill due to exhausting
work, lack of hygiene, and unsanitary housing.
Many convicts worked
on the Zagreb-Belgrade highway, although Titoist propaganda claimed it was
built by volunteer youth brigades. In the sawmills of Gorski Kotar, Fuzine,
Delnice, and Lokve, only convicts work. Near Makarska, in Tucepi, a beautiful
hotel was built in 1949 for members of the secret police.
It is called
"Jadran." It was built entirely by the convicts (and currently houses
not only police officers but also tourists). On the Brioni Islands, Tito's
luxurious Adriatic residence, most of the work was carried out by prisoners.
The canalization and improvements at the Lonjsko and Jelas camps were primarily
done by convicts.
The Novi Vinodol,
Jablanica, and other hydroelectric power plants were built by prisoners. The
hardest and most unhealthy jobs were reserved for the inmates. Many were left
disabled because safety and protective measures were minimal and the work was
manual. Tito's villa and vineyard in Samobor, near Zagreb, were maintained by
prisoners.
It is impossible to
list all the places where prisoners worked, as prison labour was fully utilized
in communist Yugoslavia. It is worth noting that many prisoners were employed
in the iron foundries in Vares and Zenica.
As we have already
mentioned, many prisoners work outside the penitentiary (which is why a foreign
observer visiting it believes there are very few), the regime is more lenient,
the food better, and then comes the false promise: "If you perform well at
work, you will gain your freedom sooner."
Very soon, the
prisoner realizes that this is a false incentive to obtain the highest output
and that the sentence is not shortened. This is the two sides of
"work" as a method of "re-education" of prisoners. There
are cases of escape from the workplace, but woe to those who are caught! The
militiamen beat them mercilessly, a practice tolerated by the prison
administration and known to the inmates.
If the escape fails,
there are beatings, then chains, total isolation, and other disciplinary
punishments. Many escapees end up riddled with bullets, and there were cases,
in 1947-48, in which escapes were staged by the prison administration to
eliminate some undesirable convict without having to answer to anyone.
Along with manual
labor, the "re-education of prisoners" plays an important role in
prison life. A special officer is in charge of re-education and, in that
capacity, organizes purely propagandistic events, celebrates important dates of
the Communist Party and the State, and once a week the prisoners attend a film
screening.
Until 1949, only Soviet
films were shown. After the break with Moscow, other films were also shown, but
mainly those produced domestically or by communist countries. Each film is
subject to censorship by the officer in charge of re-education, although the
central censorship office in Belgrade has already reviewed all films.
Likewise, each
performance must be approved by the censor, who removes many paragraphs from
the text (poetry, plays, literary compositions) without regard for logical
continuity, which often leads to absurdity. Prisons often have choirs and
orchestras, made up of inmates, who must provide the instruments, sheet music,
and other materials. The library's books are 90 percent propaganda texts,
Marxist texts, and, as for literature, books by writers.
Partisan works and
some classics are available. The librarian decides when and which book to give
to the requester. Thus, for example, prisoners who do not work for any reason
are deprived of reading material and forced to spend their time without any
entertainment, staring into space. Books from outside are not allowed, even
professional manuals. In exceptional cases, a book is admitted, reviewed, and
often not given to the requester because the censor—an uneducated
militiaman—deems it subversive and counter-revolutionary material. Courses in
accounting, foreign languages, etc., are offered.
However, due to the
transfer of prisoners, disciplinary punishments, and the absence of the
teacher, few courses are successfully completed. Nevertheless, the prison
administration boasts of providing a wide range of knowledge. All inmates who
work in a workshop are considered apprentices and must attend the school of
arts, crafts, and agriculture.
Absurd cases arise,
for example, that lawyers, economists, and certified teachers, or the High
school graduates, even if elderly, must continue their apprenticeship courses.
Each penal institution has "cultural promotion teams" working in this
area. They are usually intellectuals and musicians, but there are always two or
three agents monitoring to ensure there is no "deviation from the
established line."
Militiamen, members
of the administration, and the person in charge of "re-education"
attend every event or conference. There is usually an "arts section,"
made up of painters and sculptors. Their work consists of drawing the various
"slogans" for party celebrations or creating designs for wooden
objects, etc., which are then produced in the workshops.
There is also a
modest infirmary, staffed by prison doctor-inmates, whose powers are very
limited. The resources are also minimal, so even simple operations like
appendectomies sometimes cannot be performed. In recent years, the doctors in
these institutions have been employed by the party, but always as party members
who primarily look after the interests of each prison. of the communist regime
and then of the patient. The imprisoned doctors work as assistants.
Offenses against
human dignity are frequent and commonplace in prisons. The warden himself, as a
representative of the authorities, is often insolent and abusive toward the
prisoners. Josip Spiranec, nicknamed Jura, the director of Lepoglava prison,
used to call inmates "thieves and swindlers" if they were political
prisoners.
It is common in
Yugoslavia, and especially in prisons and penal institutions, to label
prisoners "bandits" and "criminals" for being "against
the people." The militiamen receive and control the contents of the
packages. They handle them in such a way that the provisions are mixed up or
torn to shreds, and if there is a photo of the wife, sister, or girlfriend of
the person receiving them, the militiaman usually tears it up, accompanying the
gesture with the insult:
"What kind of
whore is this?" Complaining is counterproductive, since no one believes
the prisoner. Religious worship is not permitted. All the chapels inside the
prisons that existed before have been destroyed or transformed into storage
rooms, cells, etc. The inmates fear that someone will see them praying, as it
is considered reactionary. Clerical, an incorrigible enemy. Breviaries,
rosaries, crucifixes, or other religious symbols are not allowed. Catholic priests are
under close surveillance.
Correspondence with
family is permitted once or twice a month, depending on the institution. If an
inmate receives more letters than prescribed, they are simply torn up and
thrown away. The censor crosses out all paragraphs deemed inappropriate. Often,
the letters are not delivered to the recipient. If an inmate is prohibited from
receiving packages as a disciplinary punishment, he cannot inform his family,
and if a package arrives, it is returned to the sender.
This incurs expenses
for the prisoner's family, as food, especially in summer, spoils. Family visits
are allowed once a month for 10-15 minutes. Prisoners stand against the wall,
hands behind their backs, and next to each one stands a militiaman who listens
to every word of the conversation. Shaking hands is forbidden. If the The
prisoner, who is serving a disciplinary punishment, is unable to receive the
visitor, despite the distance the visitor had to travel. The family's requests
to the warden are futile.
Some inmates, usually
those sentenced to longer terms or considered "very dangerous," were
isolated and separated from the other prisoners. Their warden was a criminal, a
henchman at the same time, who made their lives miserable.
Such special sections
exist in Stara Gradiska (section one, the famous Tower), and in Lepoglava, in
the first wing of section two, called "the black battalion" by the prisoners.
In these separate pavilions, discipline is more rigid; punishment is inflicted
for the slightest infraction; the warden (the prisoner himself) can even
prohibit the receipt of packages and confine prisoners to solitary confinement
without the warden's intervention.
Torture is
commonplace in these pavilions. All priests serving their sentences are held in
the "tower" of the Stara Gradiska prison.
The situation in the
women's detention center in Slavonska Pozega is no better. The female prisoners
perform arduous physical labor, are confined to solitary confinement, and are
tortured; etc. Nuns and prostitutes are imprisoned together. It is known that
in the aforementioned detention center there were cells with flooded floors,
where they housed the condemned women, even those who were menstruating. A
certain Radic, the director of that prison, was particularly notorious for such
brutality.
In the summer of 1948, following the Informburo resolution, the
concentration camp for pro-Moscow communists was opened on Goli Island, off the
Croatian coast. There, they were held indefinitely without trial, by order of
the UDBA (United Socialist Party of Croatia). Currently, other condemned
individuals are also confined on this island, as the orthodox communists have
practically all been released.
Many students who held demonstrations in Zagreb in May were imprisoned
there, mostly without legal proceedings. Living and working conditions are
extremely harsh, as the island is inhospitable, barren, without water or vegetation,
battered by strong winds and heat, and the work consists of breaking rocks.
It is a true concentration camp according to the Soviet-Nazi model,
except for the gas chambers. In closing, this report highlights that the
majority of militiamen, prison guards, and officials in the penal institutions
located within the territory of the People's Republic of Croatia are Serbian
nationals and treat prisoners of Croatian origin with undisguised hatred.
In Serbia, a large number of political prisoners at the end of World War
II were released very quickly. In contrast, in Croatia, even today, 16 years
after the "liberation," there are many prisoners whose crime is
having served in the Croatian army or held an important position in the
Croatian state administration.
They are not eligible for pardon; instead, they continue to be treated
as "bandits," reactionaries, enemies of the people, and so on. Some
were 20 or 30 years old in 1945 and have been imprisoned for sixteen years
without hope of early release, even though there is no justification for their
imprisonment under international criminal codes. The lives of these people have
already faded; they are old, sick, and desperate.
It must not be forgotten that in Yugoslavian prisons there is no heating
in winter, food is insufficient, the work is grueling, and the treatment is
brutal, all of which contributes to released prisoners returning home battered
and sick, broken men. The term "forced labor" is strictly forbidden
in Yugoslavia.
The communists argue that forced labour exists only in a capitalist
system and that prisoners in Yugoslavia are not convicts, but are being
"re-educated." Those who have endured chains, solitary confinement,
disciplinary battalions, torture, or other appropriate means of "re-education"
can attest to the emptiness and absurdity of these claims.
It is difficult to establish the exact number of prisoners in
Yugoslavia, especially political prisoners. The main reason is that these
figures are considered "confidential," and furthermore, as already
mentioned, not all inmates are ever actually in the penal institution to which
they belong, as many of them work outside the prison, often at a great
distance.
Tourists and observers from free countries who sometimes visit a prison
cannot gain an objective impression of the prevailing situation, since the
administration manages to show them only the positive aspects, and moreover,
for reasons already stated, most of the prison population is absent. No
observer or visitor from democratic countries ever saw the prisoners held in
isolation, incommunicado, in chains, mistreated, and tortured. However, this is
the true picture of Tito's prisons and his "people's democratic penal
system."
One of the most blatant forms of popular discontent is the struggle
against Belgrade's centralist measures—that is, Serbia's—which manifest
themselves in all areas, from sports, culture, and education to the economy.
In a state that tends toward rigid control of all economic activities,
national antagonisms inevitably manifest themselves in the daily struggle over
the distribution of national income and the investment of available funds,
which are entirely dependent on the central government.
These controversies have become so acute that even the main communist
leaders participate, partly to counteract the facts and ensure their own
success—that is, the success of the company or institution they lead—and partly
driven by the undisguised discontent of the workers, who rightly see the
exploitation of Croatia as the main cause of their very low standard of living,
and by all the popular classes who blame the communists for the loss of
national independence.
The communists, of course, try to reject these accusations within the
bounds of party discipline. All of this takes on the character of a silent and
tenacious struggle for national rights, so latent that even the main leader in
Croatia, the president of the Socialist Federation of the Working People of
Croatia, had to admit it in his report presented to the Federation's Fifth
Congress, held in Zagreb at the end of last year.
However, the Tanjug news agency report of December 20, 1960, when
referring to this debate, condenses it into two cautious sentences, barely
intelligible to a foreigner. "Speaking about the planning system,"
the report states, "Dr. Bakaric emphasized its relative connection with
the social phenomena we previously called particularism, localism, etc. He also
addressed the problem of nationalism in the economic sphere, which certain
elements invent and promote in the form of a struggle for investment."
The reference to the phenomenon of economic nationalism is intentionally
imprecise, as if it were referring to dirigiste and autarky economic
nationalism. Instead, it concerns the struggle against the economic
exploitation of Croatia and Slovenia by Serbia, which Bakaric labels as
chauvinism.
However, this reality cannot be hidden in the country, and Bakaric
addressed this issue to refute before the public the accusation that the
government of the People's Republic of Croatia surrendered to Belgrade,
behaving as a mere Serbian satellite. For this reason, the text of his report
was published, in its official version, in the newspaper Vjesnik on December
21, 1960.
Bakaric reiterated the official denials regarding the colonial
exploitation of Croatia, justifying it with the Yugoslav communist government's
theory that economic equality between individuals should also apply to peoples,
that is, to equalize the standard of living of all the people's republics.
According to this theory, the surpluses of companies in Croatia and
Slovenia, economically more advanced republics, cannot be used primarily to
improve wages or for the progress of their less developed regions, but must be
invested mainly in Serbia and Montenegro and, to a lesser extent, in Macedonia
and Bosnia.
Advocating once again for "aid to the underdeveloped," outside
of Croatia, Bakaric criticized those who thought the opposite:
"It is well known that in previous years we have often pointed out
particularism, localism, and other chauvinistic phenomena in the economic
sphere, and condemned corruption and similar errors. To suppress these
phenomena, we did much by highlighting the subjective factors behind these tendencies,
and how incorrect and harmful such approaches are. It seems that these
phenomena are disappearing, but some are reappearing in new forms and
continuing to operate. I am referring especially to certain new elements that
fuel nationalist and chauvinistic sentiments."
Consequently, the main communist leader of Croatia knowingly reverses
the terms. The chauvinists are not his Serbian comrades who are exploiting
Croatia and Slovenia, but rather the Croats and Slovenes who condemn this
plunder.
"A new stimulus to nationalism," Bakaric continues,
"arises because of the weaknesses of the current system. It also arises
from the struggles surrounding investments, development issues, and the forms
established by the existing system. Therefore, no serious problems have arisen,
although not everything is being done to eliminate them in their early stages
or to channel them.
Just now, in these last few days, we have had occasion to hear and read
in the press reports about the grouping of political sectors and factors, such
that those from the advanced communes or republics support decentralization,
while those from the backward republics advocate centralism; those from the
backward republics are in favor of the old system, those from the advanced ones
are for the new. If we delve a little deeper, we will perceive the different
national criteria."
Taken in their true sense, Bakaric contradicts himself in the same
report when he states that the regime, through its achievements, "has
totally defeated the last nationalists and chauvinists," and that the
opposition, both in exile and underground within the country, has failed
ideologically and is "constrained" only to formulate vulgar, verbal,
empty, and abstract attacks against communism as such, and to make verbal and
formal chauvinistic demands concerning Croatia's borders and the like.
The communist leaders, however, fear this "vulgar, formal, and
abstract" criticism so much that they strictly prohibit even the slightest
freedom of speech and of the press. As proof of the supposed "total
ideological failure" of the Croatian patriots, Serbia's communist
satellites in Croatia claim that the political police have learned that the
underground opposition in Croatia advised exiled politicians Refrain from any statement
regarding "Serbian rule in Croatia," as this constitutes a
counterproductive slogan.
Such an argument, put forward by Bakaric, proves to those who still
doubt: 1) that a clandestine opposition operates in Croatia despite all
repressive measures, and 2) that the communists censor correspondence. As for
the alleged "total ideological failure" of the Croatian opposition,
the supposed revelations of Bakaric's political police prove the contrary.
While Bakaric and the Croatian communists came to power only as
"Quislings," that is, by subordinating themselves in everything to
the Serbian communists and acting alongside them against the vast majority of
Croats, who fought for their independence in the most difficult circumstances,
Croatian patriots, despite these facts, consider it necessary to reach a level
of coexistence with the Serbian minority that makes possible the common
struggle against the colonial exploitation of Croatia. This is not a matter of
ideological defeat but of the correct orientation according to the The struggle
for national freedom does not exclude the rights and freedoms of minorities in
Croatia. That is something very different from what Bakaric and his ilk tried
to suggest.
The desire of Croatian patriots to establish good relations with the Serbian
minority in Croatia does not equate to approving of the "Quisling"
role played by Bakaric, facilitating Belgrade's colonial domination of Croatia.
That a negligible minority of Croats embraced communist ideology is not
surprising, given the existence of active communist groups in all Western
countries.
Despite all this, and despite all the theories on proletarian
internationalism, no communist party seeks the liquidation of its country's
sovereignty in a political or economic sense. Nor do the communist leaders of
the Kremlin's satellite states. For example, Albania, a small and poor country,
vigorously opposes Serbian imperialism, and recently the Albanian communist
leaders even dared to defy the Russian ukases. In Hungary, too, the communists
rose up against the Soviet occupation.
Gomulka is as much a communist as Bakasic, and yet Khrushchev, too,
doesn't dream of incorporating Poland into the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics, formally liquidating its sovereignty. Furthermore, no communist, least
of all the Poles, currently considers the defense of national sovereignty a
chauvinistic itch, except for the Croatian communist leaders. The same reasons
that argue for Russia and Poland to be two separate states within the communist
bloc also speak in favor of separate Croatian and Serbian states.
Croatia and Poland were established in the Middle Ages as kingdoms, and
their cultural, social, and political development took place within Western
society. In contrast, Russia and Serbia are countries with Byzantine
traditions. Consequently, there are no reasons of international common good
that justify a forced association of Croatia with Serbia, in which, moreover,
the leonine part belongs to Serbia.
The sole cause of Croatia's current subordination to Serbia is Serbian
imperialism and the role of "Quisling" played by the Croatian
communists. Their actions have revealed them to be mere puppets—those who rose
up against their nation-state, allying themselves with Croatia's enemies,
without whose support they could not have seized power in Croatia.
These few communists now claim they rose up against the dictatorship
imposed on their country, even though it was obvious that the regime in power
in Croatia during the war was imposed by circumstances and that, once the storm
of war had passed, a democratic government would be formed. The fact is that
they did not fight against a specific regime, but against the Croatian state
itself and for Croatia's subjugation to Serbia. To achieve this end, the
communists orchestrated the massacre of tens of thousands of Croatians who did
not share their agenda. Therefore, in Croatia, in addition to being exponents
of tyranny, they act as agents of foreign domination.
According to confidential information, even certain communist leaders in
Croatia are aware of their sorry role as "Quislings" and fear popular
anger, hence the warnings and threats that Bakaric directs primarily at these
discontented individuals. Resorting to hackneyed phrases about the chauvinistic
nature of the opposition, he seeks to intimidate the disheartened leaders.
It is truly a thankless task for Bakaric, who also aspires to be
considered an intellectual and is more than likely aware of the weaknesses in
his reasoning. To appease both sides, while attacking supposed chauvinism, he
advocates decentralization and at the same time tries to argue that it would
not harm Serbia, that is, the regions that are industrializing with funds taken
from Croatia.
Bakaric expresses himself in terms that reflect the ungrateful position
of the Croatian communists and the anguish they experience over "their
total ideological failure." "We all want," says Bakaric, "a
major step forward in improving the economic system. This means that the
current system, at least in part, is not suited to progress and, as such, must
necessarily have several flaws and shortcomings. Therefore, every argument
(regarding the colonial exploitation of Croatia) contains a grain of truth and
many outdated prejudices."
"Rectifying the system according to these arguments would amount to
maintaining what is obsolete and clinging to the very foundations of the
difficulties that motivate these conceptions. (The real basis of the
difficulties is none other than Serbian hegemony. Editor's note.) We are not fighting
for decentralization so that the rich republics can become even richer, but
because this system is today more appropriate for the development of the
productive forces and socialist relations, more effectively eliminating the
root of poverty in the backward republics." Et cetera, et cetera.
Bakaric, with this play on words, neither avoids the fact that Croatia
is economically exploited nor can he prevent the growing popular resistance
against this state of affairs. Bakaric claims in vain that he and his comrades
are governing Croatia, since all important measures are dictated by Belgrade
against Croatia's vital interests.
That these are not "vulgar, verbal, abstract, and formal
attacks" issued by supposed Croatian chauvinists, but rather a stark
reality, is demonstrated by the figures contained in the table prepared by our
contributor and economic expert, Tihomil Radja. The data below refers to the
distribution of investment funds by republic during the period 1952-1959 and is
clear proof of the colonial exploitation of Croatia and Slovenia in favor of
Serbia:
|
|
In trillions of dinars at current prices |
||
|
People's Republics |
Accumulation + amortization |
Gross investments |
Percentage of investments |
|
Serbia (including Vojvodina and Kosmet) Croatia Slovenia Bosnia and Herzegovina North Macedonia Montenegro |
|
|
|
(See: The Monthly Statistical Bulletin, No. 115, Belgrade, Index, No. 4,
and 12/1960; The Statistical Bulletin of the National Bank, Belgrade, No. 5,
1960, and Investments 1997-1958, Ed. Investment Bank, Belgrade, 1959.)
It follows from the preceding table that the amount of investment placed
in Serbia is double that allocated to Croatia. It should be noted that the
majority of these investments are in Serbia proper, and that the relatively
advanced autonomous region of Voivodeship is being exploited to a very high
degree. This region, which until the end of the First World War belonged to the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, is now incorporated into the People's Republic of
Serbia, along with the eastern part of Srijem, separated from Croatia. 500,000 German farmers
were expelled, relocated, or exterminated from Voivodeship.
Yugoslavia is often spoken of as a country that practices national
communism and whose government, vigorously fighting for national independence,
does not accept Soviet interference.
However much this may be a matter of safeguarding their own lives and
perpetuating their hold on power, it is obvious that the communists in Croatia
do not practice national communism. They still label as national chauvinism the
aspirations of the working masses in Croatia for better wages and to avoid
exploitation by Serbian imperialism.
Foreign observers who address the problems of Yugoslavia without
considering the existence within Yugoslavia of an absurd form of
colonialism—that is, colonialism practiced by a backward Balkan country against
the more developed regions of Central Europe—are deluded and mislead their
readers.
FAILURE OF NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN BELGRADE AND THE HOLY SEE TO REACH A
MODUS VIVENDI
When, last year, spokespeople for Tito's
government announced that negotiations had begun to reach a modus vivendi with
the Holy See, those intimately familiar with the internal situation in
Yugoslavia and communist methods clearly saw that this was primarily an effort
by the Tito regime to gain propaganda value in Western public opinion. The
economic situation of communist Yugoslavia is so disastrous that only extensive
aid from Western countries can save it from financial and economic collapse.
By providing incomplete and biased information
to the public in free countries and abusing the understandable discretion of
ecclesiastical circles, the communists partially achieved their desired effect.
However, when the expected failure of the negotiations occurred, they resorted
to their old tactics and placed all the blame on the Holy See.
The representative of the Foreign Ministry, at
the press conference held on March 31, confirmed the Associated Press report
regarding the breakdown of contacts established with the Holy See through the
Catholic bishops. The communist spokesman stated that the talks
were not continuing "because the bishops had not obtained the Vatican's
approval."
The truth is that the bishops never requested such
"conformity," maintaining the position, already expressed in the
Memorandum addressed to Titus on September 23, 1960, that the episcopate
"is not competent to enter into decisive negotiations, much less to reach
a definitive agreement.
By the divine constitution of the Church, that belongs exclusively to
the Apostolic See" (Studia Croatica, Year II, Vol. I, p. 81). The bishops
can only "take part in rectifying the situation." However, the
communists persist in their biased approach as if it were a matter of relations
between the Catholic episcopate and the government, in which the Vatican
arbitrarily interferes, and not a bilateral agreement between two sovereign
powers.
The reasons for such conduct must be sought in the mentality of the
Belgrade leaders, formed not only in communist doctrine but also in the spirit
of Byzantine conceptions regarding Church-State relations.
As such, they can only reach a modus vivendi with religious communities
organized on a national basis; that is, they do not recognize ecclesiastical
authority outside the country. In such cases, the all-powerful state imposes an
arrangement on religious communities and their subjects without restraint,
without the need to negotiate an agreement between two equal parties, as is the
case with the Holy See.
A similar view was also expressed in the report that the Federal
Executive Council (the federal government in Belgrade) presented on April 7 to
the parliamentary committee for internal affairs. The report emphasizes that
relations between the state and religious communities are being normalized.
"This process is not evolving in the same way in all religious
communities.
The Serbian Orthodox Church, the Islamic Religious Community, as well as
Protestant communities and other smaller ones, are finding their place in our
society where they carry out their activities." Regarding the Catholic
Church, the report states only that "there were fewer negative incidents
than in previous years" and expresses hope for improved relations.
It should be noted that this report confirms our information that the
government initiated the negotiations for propaganda purposes. "The
Federal Executive Council proposed the negotiations to exchange opinions and
gradually resolve specific problems." The Communists reiterate that these
were negotiations between the government and the episcopate, not between the
government and the Holy See.
The Times of London, in its April 12, 1961 edition, reported that "The Vatican refused to negotiate directly or allow
the bishops to negotiate."
According to our confidential sources, the
reasons for this breakdown are both formal and substantive. On the one hand,
the Belgrade government did not respond to the conditions formulated by the bishops
with proposals that the Holy See could accept as a basis for negotiations.
The Vatican Secretariat of State, in a note
addressed to the Belgrade government (Studia Croatica, Year II, Vol. I, p. 89),
defined the rights of the Church, "which the Holy See cannot renounce and
whose ignorance would render any eventual talks with the Yugoslav government
fruitless."
Such was the case in this instance. On the
other hand, Tito's government insisted that any possible modus vivendi had to
be negotiated between the government and the episcopate and would not entail an
agreement between the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia and the Holy See
on an international scale. After the failures of similar agreements between the
government and the Yugoslav episcopate, solutions of this kind were ruled out,
especially since the Catholic bishops in Yugoslavia shared this view and
followed the line established by Cardinal Stepinac.
Relations between the State and the Church,
particularly in a nationally and religiously heterogeneous country where the
Catholic minority is marginalized and where the communist government combats
religion, cannot be viewed as a purely internal problem. In such a case,
ecclesiastical representatives—in effect prisoners of the communist authorities—risk
becoming defenders of an atheist government by renouncing the support of the
Holy See. Therefore, blaming the Holy See for the failed negotiations proves
once again that the Yugoslav communist leaders are not acting in good faith.
To complete the picture, it is worth adding
that the Catholic bishops of Croatia, in particular, resolutely rejected all
attempts by the government to enter into negotiations directly with the
communist authorities, bypassing the Vatican, as had occurred in Poland. Catholics
in Croatia, both clergy and laity, resist the insidious efforts of the
communists who advocate the establishment of a national church.
It is regrettable that a portion of the world press contributed last
year to Tito achieving his desired propaganda effect by publishing incomplete
information and failing to properly clarify the content of the bishops'
memorandum. While the document itself is moderate and measured in tone, devoid
of recriminations and protests, and offers a balanced account of the difficulties
faced by the Catholic Church in Yugoslavia, the fact that it was officially
accepted by the Yugoslav government as a basis for negotiations implies
recognition of the veracity of its content.
The memorandum (Studia Croatica, Year II, Vol. I, pp. 80-86) clearly
demonstrates the tragic situation of the Catholic Church in Yugoslavia under
the communist regime, which now seeks to portray itself as a victim of Vatican
diplomacy—diplomacy which, according to Belgrade, is at the service of
Yugoslavia's enemies. By distorting the facts in this way, the Belgrade
government seeks to achieve certain political effects after the fact,
especially in Serbia, where there are deep-rooted prejudices against the Holy
See.
Furthermore, the communists strive to conceal the true situation of
Catholics from the public and to present a distorted picture of Yugoslavia,
where the majority of the population opposes the regime and the state itself,
without any evidence of external pressure. Yugoslavia, as is well known, is a
conglomeration of countries where national and religious discrimination is
practiced to the detriment of the majority of the population.
MINIMUM WAGES AND THE STANDARD OF LIVING IN COMMUNIST YUGOSLAVIA
The reforms introduced this year to the wage
system in Yugoslavia reflect the standard of living of workers and employees in
that communist country. The purpose of these reforms is to achieve greater
productivity, both in factories and collective farms, as well as in offices,
through the new distribution of wages.
Under the previous system, the salaries of
administrative personnel were determined by competence, personal
qualifications, and seniority. Now, the following criteria apply: the task
performed by the employee and their performance. Salaries consist of a fixed
base and occasional supplements.
The fixed base salary is determined for each
task, while the occasional supplement, that is, "the bonus," is
distributed monthly or quarterly from a special fund only to those who
"exceeded" the predetermined standard. The bonus fund consists of 5%
of the total wages contributed by each company. The Communist Party organ
"Borba" writes in its December 18, 1960 edition: "This
practically means that employees will not be guaranteed the salary they have
received until now, but they are offered the possibility of earning more if
they are more productive and if their company is rationally organized."
This conditional form is very important, and
it will be interesting to see how "performance-based pay" will affect
organizations such as the "Directorate of National Security," the
army, the People's Committees, social security offices, etc. Another problem
arises, namely: who will determine, and on what basis, whether a worker or
employee has "increased their productivity"? It is obvious, then,
that the new system will lend itself to...
Greater abuses and arbitrary actions by
managers, who will assess each individual's performance according to political
criteria, will also lead to increased bureaucratization if true control of each
worker's work is implemented.
The payment method for workers and employees
in companies also underwent essential changes. Salary scales and pay grades
were eliminated, and instead, each company sets wages according to the task,
each worker's performance, and the company's profits, after deducting all
expenses, including federal taxes and contributions to various municipal funds.
In addition, 15% is deducted from wages for the municipal and district budget,
4% for the housing fund, and 24% for social security.
To facilitate the control of workers and
individual performance, so-called "economic units" have been
established in all large companies. These units decide on the distribution of
available income. In the event that the company does not have sufficient funds
for payment... Regarding wages, which will surely occur frequently, the federal
government established, on March 31 of this year, a minimum wage fund to be
managed by each municipality. Under that decree, all companies are classified into
four categories:
|
|
Average monthly salary |
Per hour |
|
|
|
In dinars |
In dollars |
In dollars |
|
I II III IV |
14.300 16.000 17.500 19.000 |
$ 19. $ 21.30 $ 21.30 $ 25.30 |
$ 0.09 $ 0,10 $ 0,11 $ 0,12 |
(The figures given refer to gross wages, that is, without the various
deductions which, added together, amount to 43%. The data are taken from the
Yugoslav newspaper "Vjesnik" of April 1, 1961.)
The minimum wage fund is thus comprised of the average wage for the
respective category, multiplied by the number of workers. This fund is then
distributed according to the internal decisions of each company, provided that
the average net wage is not less than 9,500 dinars or $12.70 per month, or
$0.06 per hour.
(Salary amounts calculated in dollars were obtained using the official
exchange rate of 750 dinars to 1 dollar, in effect since January 1 of this
year.) It is not yet possible to accurately determine the purchasing power of
wages, as official cost-of-living data for the period following the salary and
wage adjustments and the new exchange rate of the Yugoslav currency are not yet
available. As a guide, official statistics on average prices in 1957, when the
dinar-dollar exchange rate was 400:1, can be used. According to these data
(Yugoslav Statistical Yearbook, Belgrade, 1958, pp. 228-29), the prices of some
items were: 1 kg of rice, 45 dinars (US dollars 0.12); 1 kg of beef, dinars.
198 - 265 (dollars 0.50 - 0.65); 1 kg of bacon, din. 353 - 470 (dollars 0.90 -
1.60); 1 liter of milk, din. 50 (dollars 0.12); 1 kg of butter, din. 600
(dollars 1.50); 1 kg of sugar, din. 145 (dollars 0.36), and 1
meter of domestically produced men's suit fabric, din. 4,485 - 5,333 (dollars
11.20 - 13.33).
Given that prices have doubled due to currency devaluation, it's easy to
imagine the cost of living for employees and workers on the minimum average
monthly salary of 9,500 dinars, or $12.70.
Furthermore, it should be emphasized that the decree on the minimum wage
fund is incompatible with the principles of workers' self-management, primarily
due to the extremely low level of the guaranteed wage fund. Therefore, if a
company is struggling, it cannot balance its finances by withholding its
contributions to the state, but only by reducing wages and salaries. In
free-market countries, during times of crisis or recession, profits are much
more flexible than wages and salaries. In communist Yugoslavia, the situation
is reversed: the state can reduce wages and salaries to the bare minimum, or
even below it. This is the nature of the regulation, which makes no mention of
the different forms of state profits and sets no limits on them.
"THE CROATS AND
AUSTRIA" - AN OPINION BY A SERBIAN POLITICIAN
In the last issue of "S.C." we extensively analyzed the
unfounded claims of Mr. Manes Sperber, published in the magazine Preuves. The
Austrian writer repeated the invectives of Engels and Marx against the Croatian
people who, according to them, did not fight for their national freedom in
Austria. In contrast, Mr. Sperber highlighted the conduct of the Serbs, who
supposedly fought against the Austrian Empire, which the Croats faithfully
served.
To complete our arguments, we transcribe below what Adam Pribicevic, a
prominent Serbian politician who died in exile in 1957, wrote on the same
subject. In 1955, Pribicevic published an article entitled "The Croats and
Austria" in Poruka (The Message), No. 27, the bulletin of the Yugoslav National
Committee of London. We reproduce the main paragraphs of that article and, for
informational purposes, note that its author was one of the representatives of
the Serbian minority in Croatia and a typical Serbian nationalist. In the last
years of his life, he wrote frequently and controversially about Croatian
politics.
Therefore, his opinions on Croatian-Austrian relations cannot be
considered biased in favor of the Croats. We quote his words without comment:
"A large part of the Serbian people take as proof of the political
and moral inferiority of the Croats the fact that they advocated for Austria,
that is, for Croatia within Austria-Hungary. That would be irrefutable proof of
the servile spirit of the Croats, of their subservience to foreigners, and of their
lack of a sense of freedom.
Correspondingly, feelings of superiority are cultivated among the Serbs,
feelings that are very dangerous even for normal social relations and much more
so for relations between peoples, whether that superiority is racial, religious,
cultural, or social... Let's examine whether we Serbs have reason to consider
ourselves superior to the Croats simply because they served Austria and we did
not.
"It is undeniable that the Croats had elected Ferdinand of Habsburg
as their king in 1527. The Hungarians and the Czechs did the same. None of them
out of love for Austria, but out of necessity." The Turkish threat forced
them to this course of action. However, Slavonia (one of the Croatian
provinces) opted for Zapoli against Ferdinand.
Even among the Serbs (who lived in southern Hungary) there was a strong
current in favor of the Habsburgs: the Bakic brothers, Tsar Jovan Nenad, Stefan
Balentic, the celnik (chieftain) Radoslav, and others, while others opted for
Zapoli or the Turks, respectively. "We have no reason to censure the
Croats of that era. Nor afterward, nor to this day.
Both Serbs and Croats fought for Austria, that is, they defended
themselves against the Turks with Austrian aid. Whenever the Austrians invaded
the Balkans after 1683, the Serbs of Serbia joined them and even moved to
Voivodeship to settle. The Serbs of the Military Frontier not only defended the
border against the Turks, but also fought heroically for Austria on every
European battlefield.
"If we want to be objective, we must recognize that the Croatian
ruling class showed greater opposition to Austria than the Serbs: the
conspiracy of Zrinski and Frankopan in 1671, then the Croats' renunciation of
certain sovereign attributes in favor of the Hungarian-Croatian community in
1790 with a view to defending themselves more successfully against
Germanization." Austrian. The Serbs were firmly with the Emperor of
Vienna, since the Imperial Court protected them from conversion to Catholicism,
due to their war merits, and upheld their privileges.
THE FORCED REPATRIATION OF REFUGEES IN ITALY AND AUSTRIA
"Hrvatska Revija" (The Croatian
Review) of Buenos Aires, in its June issue of this year (vols. 41-42),
published an article entitled "The Tragic Situation of Croatian Refugees
in Austria and Italy," which we transcribe below because it deals with a
serious case that affects refugees from both communist Yugoslavia and the free
world:
"Nearly 16 years after the end of the
war, Europe has still not found a definitive solution to the serious problem of
displaced persons, stateless for political reasons. This is all the more
concerning given that new waves of refugees from countries behind the Iron
Curtain, especially East Germany, Hungary, and Croatia, are increasing the
number of those who left their homes in search of political, economic, and
religious security, seeking to escape fear and oppression and find refuge from
persecution.
In recent years, with the exception of
refugees from East Germany, the largest number of exiles have come from
Croatia. Yugoslavia, as is well known, is under a communist regime, and there
is also blatant discrimination between Slovenes, Croats, and Serbian Orthodox
Christians. Political terror and national, religious, and economic
discrimination lead many young Croatians to risk their lives in search of
freedom, fleeing across the Adriatic to Italy or climbing perilous paths in the
Alps to find safety and freedom in Austrian territory.
"We deeply regret having to point out
that in the last two years there have been frequent cases of Italian and
Austrian authorities handing these exiles over to Tito's agents, fully aware of
the severe reprisals that will befall them." In other words, Article 14 of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not being respected:
"Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum
from persecution. This right may be denied only in the case of persecution
genuinely based on common law crimes or activities contrary to the purposes and
principles of the United Nations."
"Such a violation of human rights by the
Austrian and Italian authorities is all the more strange given their full awareness
of the oppressive and terrorist nature of Tito's regime and the motives that
drive thousands of Croats and Slovenes to emigrate. The attitude of the Italian
government is astonishing, considering that it is a Christian Democratic
government, inspired in its governance by Christian principles and aware of how
serious and persistent the persecution of the Catholic Church is in Yugoslavia,
such that no Catholic can be considered safe from communist reprisals.
"We will now point out some exceptionally
serious cases in the San Sabba refugee camp in Trieste. There, a special
section exists, the political quarantine, where Italian police authorities
concentrate behind iron bars the unfortunate souls who are to be
repatriated—that is, handed over to Tito's political police." "On
December 15, 1960, 122 refugees were loaded onto trucks under the pretext of
being transferred to another refugee camp.
Upon realizing they were being taken to the
Yugoslav border, many of these unfortunate souls jumped from the trucks, but
were apprehended by the Carabinieri, handcuffed, and handed over to Tito's
communist militiamen as a 'Christmas present.' Right there, in front of the
Italian police, the militiamen assigned some to forced labor camps, others to
prison, and still others to pretrial detention to be brought before communist
courts."
"Another group, consisting of 35 Croatian refugees, was handed over
to communist militiamen on January 5th. At eight o'clock that evening, they
were loaded onto trucks under the false pretense of being taken to the camp in
Aversa. They were then handcuffed in groups of five and, with fixed bayonets,
taken to the Yugoslav communist militiamen.
"The Italian authorities justify this inhumane and unchristian
practice by claiming that they grant asylum only to the politically persecuted
and not to those fleeing for economic reasons. Framed in this way, more than
60% (in Austria, more than 80%) of the refugees from Yugoslavia cannot prove
political persecution and therefore cannot benefit from the right to asylum,
while such discrimination is not practiced with regard to refugees from Russia
and other communist countries.
The procedure for refugees from other communist countries is entirely
correct. In none of the communist countries are the basic rights and freedoms
of the human person respected." Therefore, all exiles are entitled to
asylum. In all cases, individuals must be freed from want and fear. And in
Yugoslavia, as in other communist countries, want and fear abound. Furthermore,
there is a complete lack of national and individual freedom and economic
security. Or rather, all these rights are closely intertwined and it is often
difficult to isolate them. Finally, as already stated, the majority of refugees
from Yugoslavia risk their lives in search of freedom.
"The saddest thing is that among those returned were many
persecuted for purely political reasons. Among them was Matija Bucar, sentenced
to 16 months in prison, accused of organizing anti-communist propaganda. He
escaped from prison and sought asylum in Italy, only to be forcibly returned,
along with his wife Magda Cvitak.
"On December 15, 1960, Mijo Dabo was returned from Trieste, despite
the political asylum previously granted to him." "Ivan Bodrusic's
family was awaiting extradition on December 22, 1960. The husband was already
on the truck. They went to pick up his wife, who was in a maternity ward with
an eight-day-old baby. Thanks solely to the doctors' compassion, this Croatian
family was saved and later moved to Australia.
"On December 26, 1960, mechanic Stjepan Stokic, 26, born on the
island of Rab, was handed over. He had been sentenced to a long prison term for
subversive activity against the communist government, attempted escape, and
desertion from military service. Part of his sentence was served at the Goli
Otok extermination camp, from 1956 to 1958. He was held in solitary confinement
for three months because he was caught studying English. As a result of
beatings, he suffered a nervous breakdown.
When he managed to escape to Italy, he was denied political asylum and
was handed over to his tormentors." "Jozo Maric, from Makarska, was
also handed over in October 1960. He first took refuge in Hungary, from where
he was returned and sentenced to 8 years of forced labor for having deserted
from the Yugoslav communist army. When he managed to escape to Italy, he was forcibly handed over.""
On January 5, 1961, Luka Veraja, from Metkovic, was returned. He had
previously been sentenced by communist courts to 15 years in prison, of which
he served six.
"All those mentioned, and many more, were persecuted for political
reasons, so they undoubtedly had the right to asylum. Despite this, they were
handed over by the authorities of a country with a Christian Democratic
government to the communist executioners.
Other human tragedies caused by the insensitivity of Italian bureaucrats
must be recorded, tragedies that weigh on the conscience of the rulers of that
Catholic country." "Fearing extradition, Stjepan Telsbuh, born on
December 16, 1937, in Vocinjci, a bricklayer by trade, escaped from the camp on
December 7, 1960, and made his way to France. He arrived in Italy in September
1960 in the company of Radisa Ratkovic, from Markovci. To save themselves, they
huddled under a Simplon-Express carriage. But the unfortunate Telsbuh fell onto
the railway tracks near Monfalcone, and the train severed his head. The
Triestine newspaper Il Piccolo reported on this tragic episode.
"This tragedy reminds us of other equally serious incidents that
occurred in Austria at the Traiskirchen camp, near Vienna, where in November
1960, the Croatian exile Ilija Pavicic jumped from the third floor for fear of
extradition and died from his injuries."
"Furthermore, it is a very important fact that Croatian refugees, upon
leaving the country, expose themselves to grave dangers, which proves that they
are the truly persecuted. Many refugees, climbing the Alps or crossing the
Adriatic, lost their lives. For example, the student Janusic fell into an
Alpine precipice and died. The European press frequently reports other tragic
cases of Croatians who met their deaths frozen under the Alpine snow, such as
the Brcic children, whose photographs appear on Austrian stamps commemorating
the Year of the Refugee. In the winter of 1956-57 alone, more than 20 tragic
incidents occurred in the stormy waters of the Adriatic. Many were killed or
wounded by Red sentries and bloodhounds while crossing the border.
"Moreover, the demoralizing effect of extraditions in Croatia and
Slovenia is tremendous." The people, victims of communist terrorism,
despair because they see that neither Italy nor Austria, neighboring Catholic
and democratic countries, show sufficient understanding towards the fugitives
and, moreover, aid communist repression. What is the point of propaganda
against communism in the free world? Oppressed and persecuted people live on
hope. But when this hope is brutally crushed, then the victims of communism are
plunged into deep pessimism. The principles of human and even Christian freedom
and solidarity become empty.
"Invoking, therefore, human rights, international obligations to
protect exiles, Christian precepts, and humanitarian sentiments, we protest
against the crime of extraditing exiles to the Yugoslav communists. We appeal
to the conscience of both the Italian and Austrian rulers. Croatia, homeland of
the martyred Cardinal A. Stepinac, was for centuries the defensive bulwark of
Italy and Austria, and it remains so. Croatia deserves that its persecuted sons
and daughters be treated as human beings in the interest of its free
neighboring countries. This is also demanded by a sense of human dignity,
European solidarity, and Christian morality."
ERNEST
PEZET, COMMANDER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR
It is with particular pleasure that we note that at the end of last year,
the government of the French Republic promoted our colleague Ernest Pezet, who
currently serves as president of the Union of French Citizens Abroad, to the
rank of Commander of the Legion of Honor.
Ernest Pezet has always demonstrated a steadfast commitment to important
causes. With a profound understanding of the situation in Central Europe, he
has not hesitated to raise his courageous voice in support of the martyred
Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac and his homeland, Croatia, deprived of its national
and political freedoms by the communists of Belgrade.
We join his many friends around the world in expressing our sincerest
congratulations on this high distinction.
BOOK REVIEW
Croatian Review. Jubilee Edition on the Occasion of its Tenth
Anniversary. Buenos Aires, December 1960, pp. 305-784.
The jubilee issue of the Croatian Review
(Hrvatska Revija), a quarterly cultural and literary publication, independent
and democratic, produced by Croatian intellectuals living freely in exile, has
just come off the press. It has been published in Buenos Aires for ten years
without interruption.
This issue is a voluminous book of 480 pages
of text and 82 pages of glossy paper, featuring reproductions of the latest
works by exiled Croatian sculptors and painters. This voluminous, content-rich
volume demonstrates the creative vigor and vitality of the new Croatian
immigrants, as the Croatian Review is the joint work of its 141 contributors
and its readers, whose contributions and subscriptions form the financial basis
of this great publishing endeavor.
The magazine receives no support from any
political organization or cultural institution, nor does it have any funds or
subsidies. Its sole support comes from the Croatian immigrants and the
inexhaustible energy, work ethic, and organizational skills of its principal
initiator, Vinko Nikolic, who is also its director and editor.
A Croatian poet and literature professor, and
a member of our editorial staff, Nikolic has lived in Argentina since 1947 and
works as a modest civil servant to support his family. He dedicates all his
available time and energy to fulfilling the overwhelming tasks required for the
writing, direction, and administration of a leading quarterly magazine.
At the same time, Professor Nikolic is the
director of the publishing house Hrvatska Revija, which to date has published
several valuable books of a literary and political nature, and is about to
publish the memoirs of Ivan Mestrovic, who, in addition to being one of the
most renowned sculptors of our century, took an active part in Croatian
politics in exile during the First World War.
It should be emphasized that the magazine's
contributors do not receive payment and that all efforts are united by
idealistic motives and the desire to affirm Croatian culture in the free world,
given that cultural progress is stagnant in the captive homeland under the
restrictions imposed by the communists and the Serbs.
The result of so much effort and sacrifice is
the 40-volume collection, containing works by Croatian poets, short story
writers, critics, economists, politicians, sociologists, theologians,
historians, jurists, scientists, philosophers, and publicists of all
persuasions, including young immigrants who not long ago fled their homeland in
search of freedom and justice. Thus, the pages of this representative journal
have forged true Croatian national unity, for peoples are—as is well
known—cultural entities.
The Croatian Review, due to its political and
cultural influence, has won the sympathies of all exiled compatriots, who, with
justified pride, acknowledge that they were the only ones among European
emigrants to create such a cultural work under such adverse conditions,
affirming abroad the cultural values of a people deprived of
their individual freedoms and national independence.
The Croatian Review
is both material and spiritual proof that the Croatian people are fully ready
to be free and independent and that the Croatian state must be re-established,
as it is supported and demanded by the high national consciousness of a
cultured people and by ancient state traditions, also reflected on the cover of
this jubilee issue.
It reproduces the
11th-century Romanesque relief of the Croatian king, seated on his throne and wearing
a crown, which is located in the baptistery of Split Cathedral. The cathedral
of the Archbishops of Split, who for centuries held the title of Primates of
All Croatia – Primas totius Croatiae – were successors to the Roman Archdiocese
of Salona, one of the oldest in all of Christendom.
It was formerly the
mausoleum of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, an Illyrian by origin—the Illyrians
constitute one of the main substrata of Croatian ethnogenesis—and the
baptistery is located in what was the Temple of Aesculapius within the majestic
imperial palace. In the Middle Ages, ecclesiastical synods were held in Split
Cathedral, attended by Croatian kings.
While the Croatian
Review demonstrates the creative vitality of the Croatian people, its cover
symbolizes and evokes Croatia's cultural and political past, rooted in
classical, Christian, and national traditions. The outstanding figure of
Cardinal Stepinac, illuminated by various works and illustrations, completes
the profile of Croatian national culture and defines the meaning of our current
struggle.
This volume of the
Croatian Review is an expanded and sumptuous version of its regular issues.
Aside from articles and notes on current political and cultural affairs, it
contains several poems of undeniable artistic value, literary references, and
works by 50 contributors, as well as 32 reproductions of paintings and
sculptures. The Croatian Review also publishes, in each issue, an editorial in
Spanish dedicated to various Croatian issues. Among the prominent foreign
writers who sometimes contribute to the magazine was the late Monsignor Gustavo
F. Franceschi.
The great merit of
the Croatian Review is that it lit the torch of freedom during the most tragic
days of Croatia's thousand-year history, enabling the creative work of Croatian
writers and scholars in exile, while also guiding and encouraging the numerous
Croatian refugees with a patriotic and democratic spirit, maintaining faith and
hope in the victory of justice and freedom.
In this respect, it
exerts considerable influence in captive Croatia, as the main libraries and
cultural and scientific institutions cannot do without this
publication—certainly the most serious and representative one currently
published in Croatian. Furthermore, many copies are smuggled into Croatia and
circulate from hand to hand. Each copy is read by hundreds of intellectuals,
and thus it acts as a beacon and a focal point radiating a love of freedom,
instilling hope for the future, and heralding the end of foreign and communist
tyranny over Croatia.
Buenos Aires. Ivo Bogdan
Dr. Vladko
Macek, In the Struggle for Freedom, New York, 1957. Robert Speller & Sons,
pp. 280.
Following the treacherous assassination of Esteban Radic in the Belgrade
parliament in 1928, Dr. Vladko Macek was elected, in his place, as president of
the Croatian Peasant Party. He has presided over this party, the most important
and powerful in Croatia, ever since. When the communists seized power in
Croatia in 1945, V. Macek went into exile and currently resides in the United
States.
Macek lived through all the phases of the development of the Croatian
Peasant Party, founded in 1905. He contributed to its organization and growth,
and actively participated in Croatian political life when, after the First
World War, the party became the largest Croatian force opposing Serbian
hegemony. The book *In the Struggle for Freedom*, while not a strictly
historical work, is of great importance, as the author recounts his memories
and observations, highlighting the events in which he actively participated or
played a leading role.
The material presented in this autobiographical work is so abundant that
foreign readers can gain a comprehensive picture of Croatian political and
social life from the beginning of the century until 1945. Reflecting his deep
affection for the peasantry, the author recounts the successive stages of their
political and social emancipation and underscores the important role they
played in the political life of contemporary Croatia.
Until 1848, the feudal system prevailed in Croatia. In that year, the
serfs were emancipated, and the feudal diet was replaced by a parliament. The
emancipated peasantry did not immediately experience all the advantages and
benefits of freedom because they were poor, underdeveloped, and neglected. Due
to the electoral system with limited voting rights, it could not influence
political life in proportion to its numerical strength. Pre-industrial Croatia
was composed of 80% peasants and only 20% urban dwellers and nobility.
It was only towards the end of the last century that the brothers
Antonio and Esteban Radic entered the Croatian political arena, founding the
Croatian People's Peasant Party in 1905. The ideology and program of the new
party upheld the following points:
The peasants are, in and of themselves, the Croatian nationality, not a
social stratum. They have preserved, throughout the centuries, the language,
traditions, folk art, customs, and, through these values, true Croatian culture
and national identity. Any political party that aspires to defend the
constitutional and national rights of Croatia, according to the Radic brothers,
must be based on the peasantry, who, in addition to being the incorruptible
custodians of the patriarchal peasant family and national traditions,
constitute the largest numerical force and, therefore, the most important
social factor.
In the period between the two world wars, communist propaganda was very
intense throughout Europe. The Croatian Peasant Party repudiates Marxist
doctrine, which denies the party's basic principles: faith in God, private
property, and national identity. Its social program aims, through political,
social, and educational organization, to raise the standard of living in the
countryside and preserve the moral values of the peasant home.
Currently, the party's ideology and doctrine, while debatable in certain
aspects in light of contemporary sociological science, are not revolutionary.
However, in the days of the party's founding, and in an environment evolving
from the feudal system toward bourgeois democracy, they were denounced as
subversive or, at the very least, unacceptable.
The bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia could hardly accept the idea that
an uneducated peasant mass could enjoy the same rights or even play a leading
role in political life. For this reason, Radic's party had to endure harsh
attacks and fight tenaciously until, with the introduction of universal
suffrage and the end of the First World War, it became the main political
force, leading the fight for the emancipation of the peasants and the
independence of Croatia against Serbian hegemony in the newly formed Kingdom of
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
In fact, the Croatian Republican Peasant Party had not recognized the
legitimacy and legality of the new state, created in December 1918. Two months
later, Esteban Radic convened a meeting of the movement's leading figures in
Zagreb. On that occasion, invoking the right to self-determination, he called
for the creation of "the neutral Croatian peasant republic." It was
decided, to this end, to send a memorandum with 180,000 signatures to the Peace
Conference then meeting in Paris. However, the Serbian police learned of this
action, arrested Radic, Macek, and other deputies, thus interrupting the direct
negotiations of Croatian politicians with the victorious powers.
From that moment on, the history of the new Kingdom was marked by the
hegemonic and dictatorial power of Serbia. Macek spent almost more time in
prison than free. The words concerning his father's death and the birth of his
firstborn son, which occurred while he was imprisoned, are deeply moving.
During the months following Radic's assassination in 1928, great unrest
and discontent spread throughout Croatia. Macek claims to have done everything
in his power to prevent a general insurrection. He maintains that he did so not
only because of his pacifist convictions—he admired Tolstoy and Gandhi—but also
because he considered it foolish to wage an armed struggle, given that the
Croats were unarmed and unable to acquire weapons. The methods of his struggle
against Serbian hegemony were always democratic and pacifist.
He devoted considerable effort to organizing the resistance against the
monarchical dictatorship. In this unequal struggle, the Croatian Peasant Party
became the most powerful political force, not only in Croatia, where Macek
garnered unanimous support, but throughout Yugoslavia. However, despite its
majority, the vast coalition led by Macek failed to gain power, as the
dictatorship was applying an electoral system that favored the official
candidates and decreed public voting.
To illustrate this procedure, Macek cites the example of the Klanjec
electoral district, where in the 1935 elections his list obtained 6,693 votes
compared to 208 for the official candidate, who nevertheless was elected
deputy. Furthermore, in large regions of Yugoslavia, such as Macedonia and the
Kosovo region, where Albanians reside, voting practically never took place;
that is, votes were automatically counted for the official candidates.
Macek was always a firm and convinced supporter of Western democracies,
which did not prevent him from criticizing French policy, which unconditionally
supported the dictatorship at the expense of its own principles of democracy
and freedom. The sympathies of many prominent figures in the West lay with
Macek and the Croatian national struggle.
Besides prominent politicians, parliamentarians, and labor leaders, many
intellectuals, including Albert Einstein and Heinrich Mann, raised their voices
in protest against the Serbian dictatorship. These protests, says V. Macek,
failed to stir the conscience of the great powers.
To illustrate the
mindset of Serbian rulers and politicians and to reflect anti-Croatian
sentiment in Serbia, Macek cites several interviews with representatives of
Serbian parties who visited him to discuss collaboration and coalitions against
the dictatorship. However, Macek argues, these parties feared reaching any
concrete agreement, as Serbian public opinion would interpret it as "concessions
to the Croats" and accuse them of "traiting the Serbian cause."
Finally, in 1939, a
compromise was reached with the government sponsored by the Regent, Prince Paul
Karageorgevic. Dr. Macek accepted a restricted autonomy, considering it an initial
step toward complete political and national liberation, and was also motivated
in this decisive act by the desire to save the people from the calamities of
war. The author dedicates a large part of his book to the preliminary
discussions and negotiations that culminated in the agreement.
Since Macek was the
main negotiator for the Croatian side, sometimes the only one, the recorded
data takes on the character of a historical document. However, this time too
his aims were not achieved, because the Serbian militarist clique, under the
pretext of opposing the influence of the Axis powers, organized a coup d'état
on March 27, 1941, primarily to abolish the limited autonomy granted to the
Croats, and thus dragged Yugoslavia into the war, into which it entered without
a fight and disintegrated in eight days, since no one wanted to defend such a
state. The final result of Serbian chauvinist policy was the establishment of
the communist dictatorship.
Macek seeks to
clarify the events of the critical month of March 1941, still the subject of
bitter controversies, by publishing revealing details. Due to his democratic
orientation, Macek abstained from all political activity after the collapse of
Yugoslavia and the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia. From the
outset, Dr. Macek was an outspoken opponent of the communist government imposed
in 1945; he sought asylum in France and then in the USA, without attempting to
negotiate or compromise with the communist regime, as did several
representatives of agrarian parties in Central and Eastern Europe.
Due to the
circumstances of his turbulent political life, the author was unable to
preserve his notes, correspondence, archives, and documentation. As he resides
abroad and cannot consult his sources, omissions and inaccuracies in details
should not be surprising; these will be corrected in the Croatian edition he is
preparing, based on recent information.
Because it is an
autobiographical book, in which the exposition of events is approached in the
most subjective way, there is no shortage of exaggerated assessments and harsh
judgments about fellow countrymen who did not always agree with his opinions
and tactics during those turbulent and confusing times, especially when his
policy of collaboration and acquiescence with the Belgrade government, thwarted
by the coup d'état of March 27, 1941, did not yield the expected results.
The Croats,
therefore, instead of defending Yugoslavia, which they considered their prison,
seized the opportunity to achieve their national independence, suppressed when
the communists took over the government in 1945, and which is the supreme
ideal, shared by all Croats regardless of their party affiliation or
ideological orientation.
The book under review
is neatly presented and printed. It contains several photographs and a series
of historical maps of Croatia.
Buenos Aires. Angel
Belic
Dr. Stjepan Hefer, Croatian Struggle for
Freedom and Statehood, Buenos Aires, 1959. Ed. Croatian Information Service,
pp. 238.
The author
of this work is a prominent Croatian politician. A lawyer by profession and a
democrat by conviction and political education, he was twice a national deputy
for the Croatian Peasant Party in the pre-war Yugoslav parliament, a member of
the Croatian parliament, and Minister of Agriculture and Livestock in the
government of the Independent State of Croatia during the war.
It was to
be expected that a man with such a political background would present the
Croatian nation's struggle for freedom in a comprehensive manner, without
partisan recriminations and with a high degree of historical and political
objectivity. Although the immediate impetus for this work was the slander
spread by communists and their henchmen against the Croatian community in
Argentina, and especially against the organization "Croatian Defense"
(Hrvatski Domobran) and Dr. Ante Pavelic, in connection with the revolutionary
events of 1955, the work itself, apart from the respective allusions in the
introduction and conclusions, has no relation to the events that motivated it.
Therefore, its present publication is justified despite the four years that
have passed since the manuscript was completed.
The 34 articles into which the work is
divided cover a brief historical overview of Croatia up to 1918 (pp. 15-35);
the political situation of the Croatian people and their struggle through
democratic and peaceful means in pre-war Yugoslavia (pp. 36-130); the political
struggle with the often divergent interests of the Axis powers and the military
struggle with the Serbian aggressors (the Chetniks) and communists (Tito's
partisans), to maintain and protect national independence (pp. 1S1-217), and,
finally, the violation of international law by the British armed forces (Geneva
Convention of 27 July 1929 on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, to which
Croatia acceded on 20 January 1943), by returning Croatian prisoners of war,
who surrendered to said forces, to Tito's communists (pp. 219-224) and, as a
consequence of the aforementioned violation, "the greatest crime of the
war, about which the international community remains silent," namely, the
massacre of some 150,000 Croatian men, civilians and military personnel,
perpetrated by the communists of Yugoslavia in May of 1945, the world war
having ended (pp. 225-230).
Readers interested in the political
circumstances of southeastern Europe will be able to follow step by step the
tragic events in monarchical Yugoslavia that culminated in the assassination of
Croatian deputies in the Belgrade parliament (June 20, 1928). These events not
only provoked a strong global reaction, documented in this work, but also gave
rise to the organization of a revolutionary liberation movement.
After twelve years of tenacious and assiduous
preparation, taking advantage of the favourable political circumstances of the
time, this movement proclaimed Croatian national independence in 1941. Readers
will also find abundant documentation on the negotiations of Croatian émigrés
with various international institutions and organizations in favor of a
peaceful settlement of the Serbian-Croatian conflict, as well as the
international press coverage of these negotiations.
The author concludes his work with a concise
description of the current situation of the Croatian people under the dual
Serbian-communist rule in the second Yugoslavia. Apart from a few observations
that could be made to the author, especially regarding omissions of some facts
and the undue emphasis placed on others, circumstances, or influences, two
technical shortcomings must be highlighted that seriously diminish the value
and usefulness of this work.
First, given that this is a book with
numerous bibliographic references and names within the text, an index of names
should not be omitted; furthermore, the fifteen illustrations contained in this
publication would justify an index of illustrations. Finally, the inexplicable
absence of a table of contents makes the publication technically even more
incomplete. Second, the English translation is quite deficient, especially
concerning specific terms of Croatian state or constitutional law, so
characteristic of relations within the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.
In the preface, John F. Stewart, president of
the Scottish League for European Freedom, with his profound knowledge of the
Croatian cause, highlights Croatia's strategic importance for the defense of
the West, presenting the Croatians as the West's staunchest allies in this
crucial region.
Buenos Aires. Milan Blazekovic
Journal of
Croatian Studies, vol. I, New York, 1960. Ed. The Croatian Academy of America,
Inc. (P.O. Box 1767), Grand Central Station, New York, NY 17, pp. 212.
After the newsletter "Croatia Press"
and the cultural and political journal "Croatian Review," the
"Journal" is the third Croatian publication in the U.S. in English.
Unlike the first two, which have a political-cultural character, the third is
primarily dedicated to Croatian history and culture, as it is the Academy's
purpose to promote the knowledge and dissemination of Croatian history and
culture through lectures, exhibitions, and publications.
To achieve this purpose, since they could not
limit themselves to purely scientific and social studies, the editors were
obliged to accept contributions that deal with political topics. This first
volume already demonstrates that, publishing the highly interesting work
"The New Class and Nationalism" by Dinko A. Tomasic, professor of
sociology at Indiana University, also published in the first issue of Studia
Croatica.
The other contributions are of a historical
nature, with the editors stating that the next volume should give preference to
cultural issues.
In the article "The First Croatian
Contacts with America and the Mystery of the Croatans," the author, George
J. Prpic, addresses the question of the participation of Croatian sailors in
the discovery of the Americas, the first Croatian immigrants to North America,
and whether or not the Croatan Indian tribe received its name from Croatian
shipwreck survivors near Roanoke Island. This last problem, or that of the
origin of the Croatans and their current living conditions, was extensively
covered in the American press in 1958, on the occasion of a clash between the
Croatans (Indians of Robeson County, North Carolina) and some members of the Ku
Klux Klan.
The anthropologist and archaeologist Vladimir
Markotic addresses the topic "Croats in Albania," based on the book
by Professor Halil Inalcik, published in Ankara in 1954 in Turkish, entitled
"The Copy of the Register of the Albanian Province Dated 835 (1431 A.D.),"
concluding that the Croatian settlements in Albania at that time prove the
prior existence of a Croatian population there, in accordance with the Croatia
Rubea of the Presbyter of Diocles and the Illyricum of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus.
The prominent Croatian historian, Professor
Dr. Dominik Mandic, O.F.M., in his well-documented article "The Croatian
King Tomislav Defeated the Bulgarian Emperor Simeon the Great on May 27,
927," refutes the opinions of several Croatian, Bulgarian, and other
historians, according to whom this event took place in the year 925 or 926. The
author maintains that the year in question cannot be The study does not rely
solely on data provided by Constantine Porphyrogenet regarding Serbia, but also
on other Byzantine and Western sources. His thesis is confirmed by the
12th-century "Codex of Korcula," recently discovered by the Croatian
historian Dr. Vinko Foretic.
The article "The 1923 Elections in the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes," by Matthew M. Mestrovic, is a
comparative study of the electoral results of the main parties that
participated in the November 28, 1920 elections for the Constituent Assembly,
which voted on the Constitution of June 28, 1921, and in the first general
elections of March 18, 1923. This study reflects the political programs of the
parties, their changes during the period under study, and the reasons for those
changes.
In the "Documents" section, the
editor, Jerome Jareb, publishes for the first time the 27 reports that Le Roy
King sent from March 6th onwards to May 16, 1919, from Zagreb; to Professor
Archibald C. Coolidge, head of the American mission in Vienna, regarding the
political situation in Croatia. The reports, sometimes inaccurate, are
supplemented in this publication with explanatory notes and other additional
information for the benefit of those interested in understanding the political
situation in Croatia during the first months of its forced union with Serbia.
All contributions are well-documented and
strictly scholarly. The same can be said of the book reviews. In reviewing the
twelve works, mostly foreign, the authors displayed restraint and appropriate
tone in their critiques, limiting themselves to pointing out erroneous data and
correcting mistaken conclusions.
Buenos Aires. Milan Blazekovic
Stephen
Smrzik S.J., *The Glagolitic or Roman-Slavonic Liturgy*, Ed. Slovak Institute,
Cleveland-Rome, 1959, p. 120.
It is a relatively little-known fact that, to
encourage the spread of Christianity among the Slavs, Popes Adrian II and John
VIII approved the use of the Slavic language in the liturgy.
The origins of this Romano-Slavic liturgy are
linked to the names of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Saint Cyril (827-869) is
also credited with the invention of Glagolitic, the alphabet in which the
liturgical books translated by him and his brother into the Slavic language
were written.
This script declined rapidly after the death
of the two Slavic apostles, except in Croatia, where it became the national
script and developed steadily from the 11th to the 16th centuries. Not only
were liturgical books written in Glagolitic script, but also public documents
and literary works. Croatia is also the only Slavic country where liturgical
rites in the national language have been preserved to this day in numerous dioceses,
although Glagolitic script was definitively replaced by the Latin alphabet in
1927.
The particular significance of this liturgy
lies in the fact that it is, to date, the only exception to the general rule of
the Western Church, which prescribes the Latin language for its liturgy.
S. Smrzík's book is an excellent introduction
to the study of the Romano-Slavic liturgy. The author presents the evolution of
this liturgy clearly and concisely, and discusses and weighs the opinions of
leading Slavic scholars on numerous issues related to its origin. Controversy
still exists as to whether the brothers Cyril and Methodius brought the
Byzantine rite to Moravia in the Slavic language, or whether they had already
adopted the Roman rite in Thessaloniki, in preparation for their evangelizing
mission. The author supports the latter opinion.
S. Smrzík renders a great service to all
those interested in liturgical matters who, due to the language barrier, lack
access to knowledge of this special liturgy.
Buenos Aires. Branimir Anzulovic
Ante
Kadic, Croatian Reader with Vocabulary, Mouton & Co. Publishers, 1960, The
Hague, pp. 276.
Dr. Ante Kadic was for several years
Professor of Croatian Language and Literature at the University of California,
Berkeley, USA, and currently holds the same chair at Indiana University.
Croatian Reader was published in 1957 in mimeographed form, and the edition
reviewed here has been revised, expanded, and supplemented. The prestigious
Dutch publishers have now printed this book with meticulous attention to
detail.
There was an urgent need to publish an
anthology of Croatian literature with selected texts of prose, poetry, and folk
art, along with appropriate commentary and explanations, and an accompanying
dictionary to facilitate its use. However, this required the compiler to
possess extensive knowledge, teaching experience, discerning criteria for
selection and classification, and, moreover, a long and dedicated effort to the
meticulous work of composition. All qualities that Professor Dr. Ante Kadic
possesses in abundance.
In preparing the Croatian Reader, the author
pursued a dual purpose: to provide his students with a suitable textbook and to
compile a representative anthology of Croatian literature. By studying the
selected texts, students will perfect their knowledge of the Croatian language,
learn about many salient facts of Croatian history and culture, and, moreover,
become familiar with the names and works of its prominent poets and writers.
Professor Kadic divided his anthology into
four parts: the first contains popular creations of a folkloric nature; the
second comprises selected texts by Croatian prose writers, beginning with
contemporary authors and ending with writers from the mid-20th century; the
third part is dedicated to the poetry of authors living in Croatia or in exile;
Part Four, subdivided into two chapters, contains selected fragments written in
the "cha" and "kai" dialects and transcribes chosen pieces
of classical Croatian literature, respectively.
An extensive dictionary follows the reading
texts. Each Croatian word is accented to facilitate pronunciation for the
foreign student. Both at the foot of many texts and in the dictionary, the
author adds the corresponding idioms, set phrases, and expressions.
Since this is an anthology, it is understood
that the compiler's subjective criteria prevail in the compilation of the
texts. Except for minor omissions, no serious objections are warranted, always
bearing in mind the nature of the book and its specific purpose.
Professor Ante Kadic's book, the first of its
kind, represents a significant contribution to the study of Croatian literature
in the English-speaking world. Its author, applying both scientific and
aesthetic criteria, has filled a void with his meritorious work and, moreover,
it is hoped that it will contribute even further to clarifying Croatian
cultural and literary values in the English-speaking world.
Buenos Aires. Branko Kadic.
Historico-Iuridica Dilucidatio Vitae et
gloriae B. Nicolai Tavelic, Incliti martyris Ordinis Minorum, Splendoris et
Protectoris Gentis Croatorum, Canonizationi eius aequipolenti dicata. Recurrent
triplici anniversario a diffusione cultus eius et gloriae. Auctore P. Antonio
Crnica O.F.M. s. Theologiae et iuris utriusque Doctore, causae canonizationis
B. Nicolais Tavelic, Vice-Postulatore. Romae, 1953.
Documenta Martyri B.
Nicolai Tavelic et sociorum eius Ord. Min. Collegit, diggesit notisques
illustrativ. P. Dominicus Mandic, Rome, 1958.
Croatians await with pious confidence the prompt canonization - God
willing - of their first saint, B. Nicholas Tavelic, a Franciscan martyr in
Jerusalem in 1391, would also become the first saint of the Franciscan Custody
of the Holy Land.
The Croatian episcopate initiated the cause, and its representative,
Archbishop Louis Stepinac, leading a Croatian pilgrimage, read the Postulatory
Letters before Pius XII at the solemn audience of November 14, 1939, requesting
the equivalent canonization of Brother Nicholas Tavelic. Father Antonio Crnica,
O.F.M., a renowned jurist and author of several works on jurisprudence, was
commissioned to write, from a historical and legal perspective, an account of
the life, martyrdom, and glory of Blessed Nicholas, so that this critical work
could serve as an introduction to the canonization process. Meanwhile, war
broke out, along with the painful event of the communist invasion of Croatia,
so that this documentation could not be published until 1958.
The book is divided into four chapters, successively addressing the
origins of Blessed Nicholas, his Franciscan life, his missionary work in
Bosnia, and finally, his martyrdom and veneration.
In the introduction, through a detailed legal analysis, the author
provides important information on the Church's practice regarding the issue of
equivalent canonization, since the Code of Canon Law does not mention it. The
Church, however, practiced it both before and after the publication of the
Code, and the doctors of the Church discuss it. (The reigning Pope, John XXIII,
canonized Blessed Gregory Barbarigo " equipolente - equivalent" this
year.)
For the equivalent canonization of Blessed Nicholas Tavelic, the author
cites several reasons: 1. the Blessed was a true martyr of Christ; 2. a man of
great holiness; 3. his veneration is extraordinary; 4. the merits of the Friars
Minor, to whom the Blessed belonged, in Croatia, and especially in Bosnia, are
of great importance to the Church; 5. likewise, the merits of the Croatian
people in defense of the faith for several centuries are great; 6. finally, the
requested canonization would exalt the Church, comfort the faithful, and
confound the enemies of God in a country so harshly oppressed by the communist
regime.
Regarding the life of the Blessed, documents are unfortunately scarce
for the simple reason that, shortly after his martyrdom, the part of Croatia
where the Blessed... Nicholas was born and carried out his missionary work in a
region invaded by the Turks, who remained for several centuries, destroying not
only libraries, archives, and convents, but also the towns themselves, thus
erasing all historical traces of the blessed man.
However, the author, with perseverance and a critical spirit,
successfully reconstructed the main historical data regarding the place and
year of his birth and his apostolate. The author establishes the date of his
birth as 1350, in the town of Velim, in northern Dalmatia.
He clarifies his surname and his lineage from the ancient Croatian
nobility of Tavelic; the Tavelic family coat of arms is the same as that of the
Croatian Subic banos (viceroys), from whose family he indeed descended. Upon
examining his entry into the Franciscan Order, the author states that he did so
at the age of fifteen, entering the convent of Brihir, where he pursued his
studies in philosophy and theology, being ordained a priest in 1375.
Based on a document, he conjectures, not without foundation, that for
the next four years Friar Nicholas dedicated himself to higher studies at the
Universities of Paris, Oxford, or Florence. It is certain that missionaries of
the time, like professors in general, pursued higher studies, and Friar
Nicholas was assigned to the missions in Bosnia, where we find him in 1379.
Father A. Crnica dwells at length on the much-debated and never
definitively clarified spread of the Bogomil heresy (also called Cathar,
Albinian, Manichean, etc.) in Bosnia, and, moreover, on the Holy See's efforts
to eradicate it. Nicholas was one of many missionaries sent to Bosnia for this
purpose, where he remained for 12 years, since in 1391 he was in the Holy Land.
The author continues to examine the reasons for this change, which are
not insignificant in the life of a saint. Some cite as the reason the fall of
Serbia under the Turkish yoke in 1389, as the Turks were approaching the
borders of Bosnia. Others believe that the King of Bosnia, Stephen Tvrtko, had
ordered the missionaries not to preach against heretics due to the greater
danger posed by the Turks, but the author is inclined to believe that the true
cause was the sudden death of King Stephen Tvrtko and the subsequent civil war
caused by the succession, which made all missionary work impractical.
Why did the Blessed choose the Holy Land? His biographers agree that it
was the desire to obtain the crown of martyrdom, which he truly achieved on
November 14, 1391, along with his three Franciscan companions. What is lacking
in biographical data about the Blessed is fully compensated for by the
abundance of documents and eyewitness accounts of his martyrdom, to such an
extent that there are almost no medieval martyrs whose details are as copiously
known as those of Blessed Nicholas and his three companions.
Regarding the martyrdom, the author divides the documents into those
known and gathered up to the beatification process (in 1889), and those
discovered from then until the present day. This gives him the opportunity to
recapitulate the acts of the beatification process as well as to elaborate on
the cause of the martyrdom, proving that he is an authentic and true martyr of
Christ, all of which he supports with new documents, unknown at the time of the
beatification, concluding the chapter with the miraculous signs during the
martyrdom and the spread of his veneration.
The final chapter is dedicated to the spread of the martyr's glory
within the Franciscan Order, in the Diocese of Šibenik, where he was born, and
among the Croatian people. It also describes this spread in the Holy Land,
where in 1937 Archbishop Stepinac consecrated an altar in his honor in the
presence of Croatian pilgrims. The veneration of Blessed Nicholas in Croatia
became widespread, surpassing that of any other saint except the Mother of God
and St. Anthony of Padua.
Indeed, in Croatia, there are more than 800 churches, altars, chapels,
statues, and images erected in his honor, and countless graces received through
his intercession; numerous publications and treatises on his life and martyrdom
(all now banned by the current regime).
Without a doubt, this work by Father Crnica is fundamental, the most
critical and comprehensive on the life and martyrdom of Blessed Nicholas
Tavelić published to date. Father A. Crnica, in an appendix, transcribes
the documents that refer to the martyrdom, but it is Father Domingo Mandic,
O.F.M., the renowned historian of Franciscan affairs, author of several works
that honour his name, who dedicates his book to the documents on the martyrdom
of Blessed Nicholas and his companions. As early as 1939, Father Domingo Mandic
was commissioned by the Croatian episcopate to gather all the documents
concerning Blessed Nicholas.
Residing in Rome at that time, as Definitor General of the Order of
Friars Minor, Father Mandic set about collecting and investigating, with a
critical method, all the documents and references relating to Blessed Nicholas
and, above all, to his martyrdom. This was a demanding task, and the author
accomplished it perfectly. His work was published by the Postulator of the
cause only in 1958 together with that of Fr. Crnica and jointly delivered to
the cardinal ponens for the canonization process.
[1] The
course of the national liberation struggle in Yugoslavia in relation to
international events, Ed. Naprijed, Zagreb, 1959, pp. 11-12 (in Croatian).
[2] FAO: Yearbook of Food and
Agricultural Statistics: Production, volume XI, Part I, 1957. Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 1958, p. 16.
[3]
See E. Kardelj's report: The Problems of Socialist Policy in the Countryside,
presented at the ninth plenary session of the committee of the Socialist
Federation of the Working People of Yugoslavia (SSRNJ), on May 5 and 6, 1959,
in Belgrade. The data are taken from the Borba newspaper, May 5 and 6, 1959.
[4] Borba,
Zagreb, 8/4/1959, El desarrollo reciente indica que la proporción de la
población agrícola sigue disminuyendo rápidamente.
[5] Vjesnik, Zagreb,
21/12/1960.
[6] K. Günzel, Planwirtschaft
und Aussenhandelpolitik der F.N.R.J. Osteuropa-Hand-buch: Jugoslawien. Böhlaü-Verlag,
Köln-Graz, 1954.
[7] FAO, Yearbook of Food and
Agriculture Statistics, 1958, Part 1, Production, and Part 2, Trade, Rome,
1958. Statisticki Godisnjak FNRJ 1958. Savezni Zavod za statistiku Belgrade,
1958 (Statistical Yearbook of Yugoslavia, 1958, Federal Statistical Institute).
OECE,
4e Rapport sur les politiques agricoles en Europe et en Amérique du Nord,
Paris, March 1960. FAO,
Bulletin mensuel, économie et statistique agricoles, volume IX, November 1960,
N°11,
[8] Ibid.
[9]
Speech given in Zenica, on 8/10/1958..
[10] Hungarian Peace
Negotiations, Budapest, 1920, Note XII, Annex 6, Vol. I, páginas 426-427.
[11] C. A. Macartney, Op. cit.,
Vol. I, pág. 86.
[12]
("Lucharemos con Hungría hombro a hombro por la idea revisionista, haremos
valer nuestra influencia - que no es exigua - en Bachka, Baraña y Banat y
recomendaremos a los islotes croatas allí y en Burgenland para que hagan todo
lo posible a fin de que la Hungría Occidental y Voïvodina se reúnan nuevamente
con Hungría, su madre patria. Vamos a combatir por vosotros, con vosotros hasta
la victoria o la derrota, pero como nación libre e independiente") Dr. Ivo
Frank, La revisión y la nación croata, Budapest, 1933, pág. 20 (en húngaro).
[13] Ullein-Reviczky Antal,
Guerre Allemande-Paix Russe, Neuchatel, 1947, pág. 89. Richard K. Burke, Two
Teleky Letters, Journal of Central European Affairs, abril 1947, págs. 68-73
[14] C. A. Macartney, October
Fifteenth, Edinburgo, University Press, 1957, t. I, pág. 479
[15] Keesing's Contemporary
Archives, Vol. IV, 1940-1948, Londres, pág. 4560.
[16] La
región entre los ríos Drava y Mura desde el punto de vista étnico netamente
croata. De 1867 a 1918 formaba parte de un condado de Hungría, pero en la
jurisdicción eclesiástica pertenecía a la arquidiócesis de Zagreb (N. de la
R.).
[17] John A. Lukács, The Great
Powers and Eastern Europe, Chicago, University Press. 1953, Pág.
451.
[18]
Eugen Kvaternik, From the Vienna meeting to the signing of the Rome Pacts, The
Croatian Review, June 1953 (in Croatian).
[19] Miklos Kállay,
Hungarian Premier, Columbia University Press, New York, 1954, pág. 318-319.
[20] El
periódico Vasvármegye (en húngaro), Szombathely, febrero 24, 1945.
[21] Dr. Ivo Frank, Op. Cit. Pág.
8.
[22]
Christopher Dawson, Hacia la comprensión de Europa, págs. 115-16.
[23]
Fernand Braudel, The
Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the time of Philip II, Mexico,
1953, I, p. 872.
[24] Fernand Braudel, op. cit.,
I, pages. 644 45
[25] Carl J.
Friedrich, Teoría y realidad de la organización constitucional democrática ,
México, 1995, pág. 553.
[26] Vojo
Rajcevic, El movimiento estudiantil en la Universidad de Zagreb (1918-41) (en
croata) Zagreb 1959. Reseña del libro y datos suplementarios por el Dr. F.
Nevistic en "Hrvatska Revija" (La Revista Croata), Buenos Aires, año
X, vol. 4, págs. 684-97.
[27] Pablo
Tijan, op. cit., págs. 361-70.
[28] Kurt Von
Schuchnigg, Requiem por Austria, Barcelona, 1949, pág. 94.
[29] J.
Stalin, El marxismo y el problema nacional y colonial, Buenos Aires, 1946.
[32] J. T.
Delos, La nación. La sociología de la nación, Buenos Aires, 1948, pág. 40.
[33] Pablo
Tijan, Crisis del liberalismo en la Europa Central, págs. 213-222.
[34] Gonzague
de Reynold, El mundo ruso, págs. 399-445.
[36] Les
archives secrétes de la Wilhelmstrasse, I, París, 1950, págs. 306, 319, 329.
[37] L'empire grec au
dixieme siècle, París, 1870, page. 459.
[38] Svetozar
Pribicevic, Dictadura del rey Alejandro, 2° edición, Belgrado, 1953, pág. 24.
[39] Statisticki
Godisnjak FNRJ 1960, Belgrado, agosto 1960, pág. 179 (Anuario Estadístico de
Yugoeslavia).
[40] Pomorstvo,
Rijeka. marzo 1960. pág. 117
[41] Pomorstvo,
Rijeka, marzo 1960. pág. 117.
[42] Pomorstvo,
Rijeka, marzo 1960, pág. 118
[43] Pomorstvo,
Rijeka. marzo 1960. pág. 119
[44] Statisticki
Godisnjak FNRJ (Anuario Estadístico de Yugoeslavia), Belgrado, agosto
1960, pág. 179.
[45] Statisticki
Godisnjak FNRJ (Anuario Estadístico de Yugoeslavia), 1960.
[46] Statistik
der Schiffahrt, Bremen, septiembre 1960, pág. 2.
[47] Pomorstvo,
Rijeka, mayo 1960, pág. 190.
[48] Vjesnik, Zagreb,
8/7/I960, pág. 5.
[49] Pomorstvo,
mayo 1960, pág. 192.
[50] Statisticki Godisnjak
FNRJ, 1960, pág. 177.