STUDIA CROATICA

Year XVI – July – December 1975 – Vol. 58-59

Yalta, Potsdam, Helsinki — A “Permanent Provisional”

Tito and the Serbian Generals Celebrate the Massacres of Croats in 1945

Croatian Well-being in Their Own State

Cultural Issues

The Birth of Art

The Hlebine School

The Exhibition of Paintings by Croatian Peasants

Man in Dr.'s Aesthetics Raimundo Kupareo

Engineer Esteban Horvat, Former Rector of the University of Zagreb — Octogenarian

The Missal of Hrvoje

Prof. Dinko A. Tomašić - His Death (1902-1975)

The Opportunist Ivo Andrić

The Little Corner of Poetry

Antonio Rendić Ivanović: What Does It Matter, Heart?

News and Commentary

The Other Great Succession Process in Europe: Yugoslavia

On Yugoslav Self-Management

Yugoslav Communist Presence in Peru

A Unique Opinion from the Jesuit Fathers of Zaragoza

The Central Political Body of the Croats in Exile Was Established

Documents

Cardinal Stepinac

Basis for Croatian "Chauvinism"

Micro-News

Book Review

Ivo Omrčanin: The Pro-Allied Putsch in Croatia in 1944 and the Massacre of Croatians by Tito Communists in 1945

José Filipovich: The Sources of Energy

Eudocio Ravines: The Rescue of Chile

Yalta, Potsdam, Helsinki — A "permanent provisional"

Were babies satisfactory born? — A historical supremacy that is turning into inferiority

Franjo Nevistić

A few days before traveling to Potsdam in 1945, President Truman received secret information about the most astonishing scientific and technological success of the century. “Babies satisfactory born,” the telegram read—referring to the manufacture and proven effectiveness of the first American atomic bombs.

At first glance, no one can doubt the satisfactory and joyful content of the telegram. Humankind has wrested yet another secret from nature—the most formidable up to that point—and placed at its disposal a tremendous, yet controllable, destructive energy. Homo faber—humankind as scientist, inventor, and builder—has seen its long-held dream become a triumph over the atom. A new and transcendental perspective thus opened up, not only with regard to a swift end to the Second World War but also for all of humanity, and in multiple aspects of its activity and existence.

Human reason, the Greek logos, considered the principal tool at the dawn of Western civilization in its specific aspect, in contrast to the Eastern world of superstitions, magic, myths, and religions bordering on the macabre, has achieved a new and resounding success, a stunning superiority over its Eastern rival. The most powerful nation, and geographically the westernmost, secured for itself and for the world a swift end to the war, the most catastrophic that humankind has waged from the Sumerian civilization to the present day, and likewise cemented its own supremacy over the rest of the world.

The tragic fate of two Japanese cities, with their countless innocent victims, indeed brought the Second World War to a close sooner than anticipated. Nagasaki and Hiroshima paid with their lives for the triumph of Western man over nuclear energy. But were the babies born happy and healthy enough to be sufficient cause for general, almost universal, joy for humanity? Are science and technology not the work of the devil, condemnable in their very essence and form, as some claim?[1] We could answer this question with St. Thomas Aquinas: "All beings are good." In the world of things, in events linked by the law of causality, every being is good. But where free beings intervene, everything depends on the intention, the will, and the actions of these free beings. One of them is humankind. A "conservative and traditionalist" viewpoint, they say, but one of enduring relevance.

Within this framework, we must consider the invention and initial application of the atomic bomb. A serious examination would yield a result of a dual nature, ambiguous, and difficult to accept in its entirety, both positively and negatively. But let us disregard the innocent victims of the two Japanese cities, as well as the tens of thousands of lives thus saved among the belligerents—"aggressors" or "attacked"—and these elements are unconditionally included in the overall assessment, which could be a most interesting subject for philosophical, ethical, and moral contemplation. Let us ask ourselves: Did the atom and its monopoly, in the hands of the Western world, guarantee tranquility and happiness, at least for its part of the world? Did American policy take advantage of its military supremacy to ensure a world where coexistence is based on law, freedom, and well-being without fear? We are therefore primarily interested in the political aspect of the matter. An impartial analysis, concerned only with truth and the common good, we can say from the outset, will not be satisfactory.

The mentality of the trade lawyers

It would mean recapitulating the entire history of the Second World War if we were to attempt here to trace the ultimate historical and explanatory roots of this evil. Nor can we enumerate the topics discussed at the Yalta, Potsdam, and Helsinki conferences. They are known, in general terms and in their most salient importance, throughout the world. We are more interested in the spirit, the mentality, and the purposes with which the problems raised at that time were confronted, problems that remain unresolved even in Helsinki.

"What good is it," Grover Cleveland once grumbled, "to be elected or re-elected, if you don't advocate for something?" writes Allan Nevins in the Introduction to the book *Strategy for Peace*, by the tragically deceased US President John Kennedy. A. Nevins mentions, among the few politicians of his country, F. D. Roosevelt as an example of a statesman who not only advocated for something, but for something "far beyond the current objectives."

But what is this "something" that Roosevelt advocated for? What are the objectives "located far beyond current goals"?

According to Herbert Feis, one of Roosevelt's closest collaborators, the following was his guiding principle regarding Stalin and his international communism: "I have the impression," the former president said, "that all Stalin wants is to safeguard the security of his country. I believe that if I give him everything I possibly can, without asking for anything in return—noblesse oblige—he will not try to annex anything and will work to build a world of democracy and peace."

Indeed, President Roosevelt arrived at the Yalta Conference with these two fundamental ideas: that he was the one in a position to give anywhere in the world and ask for nothing, and that a simple, imagined nobility obliges that tremendous dictator, based in the Kremlin, to collaborate with others in building a democratic and peaceful world.

To better understand his position, we reproduce the following words of the former president: "England is in decline. China is still in the 18th century, Russia is mocking us and we are mocking her. North America is the only great power that can maintain peace in the world. Our role in the future organization of the United Nations (Roosevelt considered it his own idea. Our note) will be to reconcile the divergent viewpoints of the English, who think only of their Empire, and the Russians, who think only of their communism." This is how Roosevelt spoke to his son, according to André Fontaine. The prominent French journalist then adds: "Robert Sherwood perfectly summarized what Roosevelt thought about his own role and writes that it was contradictory to the point of confusion... Roosevelt sat between the two (Stalin and Churchill) and was considered, by common agreement, as moderator, arbiter, and final authority. He rarely intervened in the discussions, and his proposals on the issues sometimes seemed disagreeable, and yet he believed that Yalta was him and that he also had the final say" [2].

Although it could have been all this, it wasn't. A strong dose of idealism, naiveté, and the illness that mortally afflicted him were enough to break him at the very moment when North America was, in effect, "the only great power that could maintain peace in the world."

The consequences

Reading Robert E. Sherwood's "World War II in the Secret White House Documents," we easily understand that Stalin was well aware of the situation. Bearing in mind his physical and mental difficulties, he nevertheless did not underestimate the true importance of the president of the world's largest military and economic power at that historical moment, a power whose potential was still almost undiminished.

For this reason, the astute Kremlin politician was very lenient in his dealings with him. He gave him formal preference at every opportunity, but without softening his own essential demands, whether on the issues of Poland, the Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, not to mention the German problem. When it seemed impossible to reconcile opposing viewpoints—and these were, in most cases, the most important issues—everything was postponed, trusting in a future and favorable solution.

But Stalin, at the same time, faithful to the materialist school of thought, placed everything in the realm of action. The penetration of his armed forces into the heart of Europe was the most important of these actions. Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and half of Hungary were in their hands. Tito was already in Belgrade. Soviet units and their tanks opened the door to the Serbian capital for him. What could not be settled with words and agreements was settled by the force of arms and the will that advocated for "something beyond the current objectives." History proved that this "something" was in the mind of only the Soviet leader and not the American president: the occupation of Eastern Europe, the division of the old continent, the perpetuation of their domination, and, from this new base, something new "beyond the objectives" that have remained in effect ever since. Doesn't political reality throughout this postwar period confirm this?

On this occasion, it is worth highlighting another moment of paramount importance. In one of the plenary sessions in Yalta, while discussing and joking, Sherwood writes, Vyshinsky was not very cordial. The chief prosecutor and later foreign minister said that the Soviet Union would never allow small nations to criticize the actions of the great powers. When Bohlen retorted that the Americans would not so readily accept the loss of such rights to the great powers, Vyshinsky reiterated that "the American people should learn to obey their leaders." Churchill also added his own flavor to the lively exchange. He prided himself on the possibility that he alone could be overthrown at any moment by his people. When Stalin mocked him for his supposed concern, given the upcoming parliamentary elections in his country, Churchill nevertheless defended the rights of small nations, invoking a phrase that sounds like a proverb: "The eagle lets the little birds sing, without caring what they sing" [3].

Unfortunately, this interest-disinterest has turned into total silence in the Soviet orbit, and in the free world, attention is only paid to the voices of the small if they coincide with the exclusive interests of the large.

Vainglory and reality

On the eve of the Yalta Conference's conclusion, a solemn dinner was held on February 10. At this event, the three leaders offered toasts, boasting and praising one another, extolling their military successes and the results of the meeting. But the most noteworthy moment came when Stalin spoke. In his toast, he directed all his political acumen toward the American president: "...there was a third man in the world, whose country was not seriously threatened by invasion (as was his and Britain's. Note from the author of this article), but who possessed a broad conception of national interest and became the principal architect of the instruments that led to the world mobilization against Hitler." He added that maintaining Allied unity during the war was not so difficult, but it would be once it was over. Differing interests could divide them, and he expressed his hope that this would not be the case.[4]

Looking back at these statements by the Soviet dictator, one easily grasps the magnitude of the cunning and perversity of the leader of international communism. To conceal his true intentions—the very person ultimately responsible for the failure of cooperation to secure world peace and well-being—he himself alluded to the difficulties involved, attributing them to external factors, when in fact they were the legitimate desires of his communist and conspiratorial mind. Roosevelt, in his toast, said that "fifty years ago there were vast areas of the world where people had little opportunity and no hope... our aim is to give every man, every woman, every child on earth the possibility and the security of well-being," while Churchill expressed that these goals were within their grasp, as never before in history, and that history itself would not forgive them if, through inertia or lack of will, they failed to achieve them [5]. The following morning, the Quincy, the American ship that brought the delegation from that country to Yalta, entered the waters of the bitter lakes. Sherwood himself observes that it was a name "not very cheerful but also so fitting." Indeed, the bitterness that had been brewing there quickly began to spread everywhere. The secret pacts began to become public knowledge. The recognition of three votes for the Soviet Union in international organizations, the disinterest in the fate of Romania, the lack of decisiveness and firmness regarding the future of Poland, the betrayal to the detriment of Nationalist China, and the Russia's entry into the final attack against Japan, without any military necessity, enabling Moscow to occupy Manchuria, was a fundamental cause of bitterness.

Gustav Stopler, in his work "German Realities" (1948), referring to Yalta, writes: "Yalta was the work of amateurs who knew neither history nor experience in international affairs. Yalta was a contrivance of jurists who believed in solving the world's problems through a couple of subtle formulas that everyone could later read and interpret according to their own discretion." Furthermore, referring to the documents produced there, he adds: "None of these documents reveals a worldview that could be considered general. This lack of conviction and shared ideals was, from the outset, the fundamental fact of inter-Allied relations" [6].

Towards Potsdam

It was in this atmosphere that the Potsdam Conference was being prepared. Roosevelt died on April 12, and Hopkins, his chief advisor, was gravely ill. Churchill, aware of the shortcomings of Yalta, urged a new meeting of the Big Three in person. Now the reins of American policy passed into Truman's hands. After elaborate American and British preparations, the conference was convened in Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin. It took place from July 17 to August 2, 1945. Churchill, defeated in his country's elections, did not return after the initial plenary meetings in Potsdam. His position and responsibilities were assumed by C. Attlee, the new British Labour Prime Minister.

During the preparatory phase of the Conference, Churchill wrote to Truman: "...I think we should take our position with the Soviets very seriously and make them understand how much we are prepared to offer them and how much we are reserving for ourselves."[7]

Attlee, in turn, noted after Potsdam: "The Russians have proven even more difficult than expected. After Potsdam, there was nothing left that could be considered a hope. It was quite clear that they would create difficulties. Thanks to the way the war was conducted, they were given much, far too much, to penetrate Europe. For me, there was no doubt that they would take advantage of this situation" [8].

The "4 Ds" were the fundamental objective of the Conference. They are: the denazification, demilitarization, decentralization, and democratization of Germany. In addition, the payment of $20 billion in reparations. Article 14 of the treaty stated: "During the time of occupation, Germany will be treated as a single economic entity." There was also talk of organizing a central government for the occupied country. "The idea of a common government for Germany is stupid," said former diplomat G. F. Kennan. Indeed, due to differences of opinion among the Allies, the matter ended with the division of the country into occupation zones, in which France was also allowed to participate. There, the Western Allies followed a substantially identical policy. But the Russians closed themselves off in their zone, increasingly establishing a distinctly communist and totalitarian regime. The "Wall of Shame" brutally and concretely symbolizes what Churchill said in his political-literary language about the "Iron Curtain." To accurately characterize the Potsdam Conference, the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" of August 5, 1945, wrote: "...that it was not a peace conference, but only preparations for a peace conference." Substantial and definitive solutions were thus postponed once again, while events and history unfolded rapidly.

And so it lasted Thirty years. With constant back-and-forth, which sometimes brought the matter to the brink of confrontation, the Allies grew increasingly distant from one another. West Germany was recognized as a sovereign state with the de facto presence of Allied troops, for the sake of security against the Soviet bloc, which had become the Kremlin's most virulent satellite.

To characterize inter-Allied relations and the possibility of German reunification, W. Ulbricht, Moscow's chosen successor, wrote in 1970: "There was complete agreement between the fundamental objectives of the Potsdam Convention and the action program of the German Communist Party of June 11, 1945, to which the anti-fascist democratic bloc adhered... The Potsdam document rests on the principle that every nation, even the vanquished and guilty before history, retains the right to its own state... Demilitarization, denazification, and the limitation of monopoly power... these are fundamental axioms of Potsdam." He adds: "These axioms were implemented 20 to 25 years ago in the German Democratic Republic, while their implementation in West Germany is still pending."

Soviet Russia, in the meantime, became a first-rate atomic power. The time granted to it by America, along with espionage and betrayal within its own ranks, contributed to America losing its monopoly on nuclear weapons and the power to guarantee the world prospects for peace and prosperity in freedom. The eastern part of Germany—today a "sovereign" state within the world of Soviet satellites—remains the most imminent danger to the rest of the Germanic world and all of Western Europe.

If the Kremlin could not realize its vision of a united Germany under its protection, in the sense that even the defeated and historically guilty people retain their right to independence and their own state, all of this found its fulfillment in the German Democratic Republic! The rule of law became the rule of force and violence. Washington could no longer—it lacked the will, the audacity, and the courage to expose itself to a confrontation with its principal former wartime ally, and now its open enemy, with whom, as we have seen above, it shared no conception of life or politics whatsoever with the West.

The voices of the small birds were forced into an ever-deepening and widening silence. Vyshinsky's lesson at Yalta refuted Churchill, Roosevelt, and Bohlen. The division of the world between the two superpowers became an almost irrevocable reality, taking another step toward its definitive consecration in Helsinki.

General MacArthur's voice also remained, "a voice crying in the wilderness." If we continue an imperialist, speculative, and commercial policy with the Asian peoples, we will lose all opportunity to win their friendship. Our policy there should be expressed in a purely liberal sense, and we will win the friendship and cooperation of all Asian peoples in the future."[9]

Is it necessary to emphasize now what kind of American policy has been pursued in the Far East after the French withdrawal, and how many peoples in that part of the world have maintained friendship and cooperation with Washington? The current situation of the Americans is dramatically characterized by the following news item (DPA) of September 18: "In Southeast Asia, the defense pact known as SEATO is practically dead..." When the American ambassador asserted that his Seventh Fleet could fill the void created by the catastrophe in Vietnam, the news item from Singapore to which we refer states: "It is unlikely that Singapore or Malaysia, in their strategic and political defense considerations, will assign it a greater role.

The time since the Vietnam War has shown that open aggression presents not the danger but the resumption of guerrilla warfare and subversion. Against such a situation, foreign aid would not be useful." Even with regard to the Fleet itself, she cannot eliminate such considerations. A central point for the merchant fleet would be preferred to the base for the Seventh Fleet. The Fleet itself is crossing the Pacific Ocean. It no longer has its "homeland" on the shores of South Asia" [10].

The Helsinki Conference

In this atmosphere of humiliation, a diminished President Ford agreed to attend the Helsinki Conference. There, by what appeared to be a near-unanimous decision, the Soviet leaders managed to ratify all their gains, which had begun at Yalta, continued at Potsdam, and culminated, through a series of events, in their legalization in the Finnish capital. Despite the fact that the documents of this solemn Conference do not have the formal character of international law, no one doubts that the Soviets gained advantages, just as no one can harbor illusions regarding any eventual advantages for the West.

Washington and the rest of the free world had to reluctantly recognize the current status quo in Europe. The fate of the Baltic states was sealed within Soviet power. Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria, despite the famous "agreed" percentage between Stalin and Churchill, remained firmly under the exclusive influence of the Warsaw Pact, sponsored by the Kremlin. Yugoslavia, with its communist and hegemonic regime, also obtained a guarantee of its territorial integrity and protection against all foreign intervention in its internal affairs. Similarly, as in the Charter of the United Nations, the principle of the absolute sovereignty of states was also established for European security. In San Francisco in 1945, the American delegation expressly requested that the text of the Charter begin with "We the Peoples United" and not "The United States," wishing in this way to emphasize the preeminence of the will and rights of peoples over those of states, which are often created against the interests and free will of the people. Despite all this, in Helsinki, countless voices of the people—the song of the little birds—were ignored. What became of those "vast areas" to which Roosevelt promised prosperity, freedom, and hope in Yalta? What hope do the Baltic peoples, the Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, or the peoples of Yugoslavia, especially the Croatian people, have now?

In Helsinki, it was established that the signatory states of the Helsinki documents must "refrain from all direct or indirect support for terrorist organizations and other subversive actions aimed at the overthrow by force of the regimes of other signatory states... As for the Croatian situation, within its occupied homeland, all opposition is prohibited, and any possibility of using even the most innocuous methods aimed not at the realization of the right to self-determination, but even at any slightly more serious complaint against national and unjust discrimination, is excluded." Abroad, Ford and his entourage, led by Kissinger, agreed to work together against "all the activity of émigré extremists," meaning they are prohibited from fighting for those fundamental rights denied in their native soil. Anyone who does not accept communism, the Great Serbian regime, economic exploitation, impoverishment, and cultural stagnation is an extremist, fascist, or chauvinist and a "rotten liberal." To "perpetuate" the Friendship with that criminal regime. Ford and Kissinger planted a friendship tree in Belgrade as a sign and symbol that the little birds there must remain silent. What kind of hope remains under such conditions for the vast Croatian diaspora and their people in the occupied homeland?

"Every man, every woman, every child must be free and have their well-being assured," Roosevelt said! Now, thirty years later, the Papuans proclaim their independence, and that "vast zone, without possibilities or hope" has moved to Europe and to the Croatia of Bošković, Klović, Radovan, Gundulić, Meštrović, Strossmayer, Tesla, Stepinac, Prelog, and so many other Croatians, among the most prominent figures of Western civilization. American policy, omnipotent at Yalta, continues to cede ground to international communism, and in Helsinki, it had to accept, with grandiloquence but humility, a near-capitulation to the Kremlin leaders. The almost absolute and global sovereignty of the U.S. in 1945, through its own fault, is substantially limited by the Soviet Union, which grew and expanded precisely thanks to Washington's policies. So limited was this situation that Salvador de Madariaga himself had to write, referring to the current situation in Portugal, that "the Soviet Union grants its favors by decree because what it subsidizes is subversion. Communism acts in the West through political, economic, and even social dissolution. Under these conditions, the picture is quite clear. If no one intervenes in Portugal, this country will go to communism through lies and military oppression, thereby reinforcing and consolidating the military, naval, and air positions of the Soviet Union; the poor people of Portugal will become even poorer than they already are, and the NATO front will be disorganized, further demonstrating the non-existence of Europe. If anyone intervenes, it should not be the United States but the European Union. How, when, and by what means, it is up to the European Union to define and implement, if only to demonstrate that it exists"[11].

Does Europe still exist?

But does Europe truly exist? Regarding discontent with the regime of Generalissimo Francisco Franco, there is no doubt. But regarding communist regimes, from Moscow to Belgrade, it's as if they didn't exist. A few subtle remarks from the French president regarding the Helsinki Conference, and nothing more. All contrary to Roosevelt's hope that "noblesse oblige" would bind international communism. According to "The Guardian" of September 17th, and after a secret meeting of the foreign ministers of the US, England, France, and West Germany, the Soviet Union has reopened the "Cold War" without any regard for the "obligations" stemming from the Helsinki documents.

These documents, it is said, are being stored 18 meters underground in an archive in the Finnish capital. Possibly, Moscow considers them definitively buried. They have sanctioned the past, but they must not impede the further advance of communism, whose world leader is still considered to be Moscow itself. The Portuguese case, the subversive virulence in Spain, and a whole chain of subversion and guerrilla warfare in Latin America are more than enough proof of this. And what are the US going to do? According to news that is already in the public domain, Kissinger has declared that one of the pillars of his international policy is recognizing "a world with different centers of power," because "the past decade has shown us how, despite being strong and prosperous, we cannot rebuild the world alone."

It is evident that the "wizard" of international diplomacy of the moment is referring to Moscow and Beijing as the recognized centers of power with which he wishes to ensure world peace. That is why he tries to silence Solzhenitsyn's voice, relegating and limiting him to the artistic-literary field, reserving the political sphere for himself. Even taking into account Andrei Zakharov's recent statement. Upon receiving news of his Nobel Peace Prize, this Russian scientist said, among other things, referring to human rights and the freedom of individuals and nations: "I ask you, shouldn't I speak for them? (Persecuted and imprisoned. Note from the author of this article). To whom can the people of this country turn for help?"

Doesn't this deeply sad statement by the Russian scholar extend to all communist countries, especially Croatia, where there is not only communist oppression but also Serbian hegemony? To whom can we turn for help and protection of human rights, as well as national rights? Kissinger, however, considers guaranteeing the current status quo in the world and thus building world peace to be the crowning achievement of his diplomatic career.

Is it not necessary to repeat, once again, what we said in the last issue of Studia Croatica when quoting Dostoevsky: "Tell me, I urge you to answer me: imagine that the fate of Humanity depended on you, and that your goal was to give men happiness, peace, tranquility, but that for this it was necessary to torture only one small being... to build his edifice on unredeemed tears, would you consent to be an architect under such conditions?"

Is there any basis for hope?

It is our conviction that Kissinger, too, would not consent to be the architect of world peace and happiness under the vastly worse conditions that characterize the communist regimes with which he makes pacts, but what else could he do? Yalta, Potsdam, Helsinki are not accidental phenomena. Alger Hiss, Mata Hari, H. Morgenthau, D. Hiss, H. Dexter White, H. Hopkins, etc., were Moscow's emissaries in the very heart of the American capital during Roosevelt's time. Isn't there a similar chain of events during the Nixon-Ford-Kissinger era? They have made, and are making, the United States, the hope of the oppressed, a "powerless giant."

Eugène Ionesco, in the same issue of the Buenos Aires newspaper "La Nación" mentioned above, writes: "The collectivists threaten to socialize the individual, man, in his entirety, reducing him to nothing more than a social animal, whose metaphysical depths could be neutralized, destroyed. Since metaphysics is a reality and not a gratuitous invention, it will undoubtedly reappear and once again nourish the spirit, the roots of the spirit. But we will have to wait, perhaps, for a prolonged eclipse."

While this eclipse or the "definitive liberation" of man is being debated with ignored arguments or fought mercilessly with firearms, all of us emigrants, including us Croatians, have already been living for more than 30 years in a partial eclipse. But this eclipse advances relentlessly westward. Our duty is to warn of the danger. If, nevertheless, a total eclipse occurs, we will await it with a clear conscience.

In death or in life, our faith in the regeneration of metaphysics will illuminate our paths, even in darkness. Contrary to Jorge Borges, we will leave not "nothing to anyone"—an almost nihilistic skepticism—but this faith and this light to future generations.

We believe that man was not born to be a slave, object, or follower of anyone and anything other than society and authority, whose roots reach out from and are nourished by metaphysics, the ultimate and indispensable ontological foundation of man and his community. Ionesco can be our interpreter in this sense, considering us all as "Danubian peasants" or those who gravitate toward it, and who have retained something of "natural logic." With weak hands, yes, we are stoking the future of this faith and this logic: in the current gigantomachy, we fervently wish that the total eclipse does not loom over the moment of the free world, and that there, in one way or another, the vindication of freedom for all may be conceived, emerging from the same common ontological-metaphysical current of Humanity.

If this does not happen, the "babies" were born unhappily. Almost equally for everyone. Precisely because in Yalta and afterward, only Stalin and his successors "advocated for something more." But to advocate for something more within absolute—historical-dialectical—materialism is to advocate only and solely for pure power, oppressive to the weakest and the enduring source of danger for all. If, among humankind, something superior to pure power is not advocated, the cause of the weakest and, ultimately, of all humanity, even in the darkest conditions, will have no Court of Appeal. The existence of a world without justice, even without hope for justice, renders existence meaningless. Such is the meaninglessness of this "permanent provisional" Russian-American agreement, in effect since 1945.

Tito and the Serbian generals celebrate the massacres of the Croats in 1945

The Pro-Soviet and Non-Aligned Opposing Forces in the Leadership of Yugoslavia

Jure Petričević

The end of World War II, within the territory of Yugoslavia, has two fundamental characteristics that continue to decisively determine the country's domestic and foreign policy to this day. After receiving substantial support from the Western Allies during the war, the Yugoslav partisans, under the leadership of the Great Serbs, seized power thanks to the intervention of the Soviet army, which opened the way through Serbia and brought Tito to Belgrade on October 20, 1944. Soviet forces pushed back German and Croatian army units in the northern part of the Croatian state, thus opening the way for Tito's communist units to reach Austria. In the final phase of the war and for weeks afterward, Tito's communist army, under the command of Serbian generals, saw its primary objective not so much fighting the German armed forces as the liquidation of the Croatian state, its army, and the mass extermination of Croats.

This spirit of enmity toward the Croats and their state fundamentally shaped the celebrations held to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the end of the war and the victory of the Greater Serbian policy under Tito's leadership. As early as January 1975, a large-scale propaganda campaign began, reaching its climax in a military parade held on May 9th under the command of the Serbian general—a great enemy of the Croatian people—Djoka Jovanić. At this parade, the units were equipped with new Soviet-made weapons.

Journalistic propaganda in Croatia, on a grand scale, was initiated by Mata Rajković, a Croatian by birth but a servant of the Serbs, known for his bloodthirstiness during the war. He launched a series of articles under the common title "Last Hundred Days of the Independent State of Croatia" in the Zagreb newspaper "Vjesnik," from January 26 to April 2, 1975, totaling 57 articles. With the genuine glee of a national renegade, he described the hardships of the Croatian people, the destruction of the Croatian state, and the rise to power of the Serbian-communist dictatorship.

A further series of highly provocative articles was published in the press by the Serbian Jovo Popović, who, in 27 articles in the Zagreb daily "Vjesnik," from April 10 to June 8/9, described with hatred and glee the devastation and slaughter in Croatia carried out by the communist army, led by Serbian and Montenegrin generals. For his part, the aforementioned Serbian general, Djoko Jovanić, in a series of eight articles presented as a dialogue with two Serbian contributors to the same newspaper—Jovo Popović and Boro Ovuk—described the bloody occupation of Croatia, subtitled "on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the victory over fascism" (VUS, Zagreb, April 2–May 7, 1975).

Jovo Popović, once again, in articles published in the Zagreb newspaper "Vjesnik" in May, under the title "The War After Victory," describes the entry into Zagreb on May 9, 1945, of the 14th, 24th, and 34th Great Serbian Armies, led by the Montenegrin-Grand Serbian Peko Dapčević, the Serbian Kača Popović, and Kosta Nadj, a "Yugoslav" of Hungarian origin.

All three had previously volunteered in the Spanish Civil War, were Great Serbian-oriented, and were mortal enemies of Croatian independence. In these articles, Jovo Popović reiterates his own description of the actions of Kosta Nadj's 34th Army in northern Croatia, as well as the liquidation of Croatian soldiers and civilians after their extradition by British units in Austria, carried out in the town of Bleiburg on May 15, 1945. At that time, the 44th Army, commanded by Pedro Drapšin, was operating in an area of Slovenia. The Serbs Djoko Jovanić and Milutin Morada distinguished themselves there for their cruelty, especially in Croatia.

According to Nadj's reports, there were 130,000 Croatian soldiers in Slovenia at that time. This number was undoubtedly a significant underestimate, as Croatian and British sources mention a rounded figure of 200,000 men, handed over by British units to Tito's partisans. Some sources mention an even larger number. Nadj also mentions that some 7,000 "četniks" (nationalist-oriented Serbian paramilitary units), 10,000 Montenegrin and eastern Herzegovinian "éetniks," as well as General Rupnik's Slovenian "Béla Garda" (White Guard), and finally "about ten of Mussolini's battalions" ("Vjesnik," May 10, 1975), were operating in that area. According to Nadj, along with the Germans, there were almost 400,000 enemy soldiers facing the 14th, 24th, and 34th Yugoslav Armies. In reality, this number was much higher. Tito honored Kosta Nadj, "immediately after the report to him about the massacre of the Croatian army in the Slovenian town of Ceije, as Jovo Popović notes in "Vjesnik," awarding him the "Partisan Star" for the second time." For having received the Croatian army, disarmed by the British, as well as the civilians who had been handed over, Kosta Nadj's 34th Army was praised by Tito in the following terms: "For the conquest of this victory and the swift, successful, and complete execution of the predetermined objective, I congratulate the troops of our 34th Army under the command of Lieutenant General Kosta Nadj." Indeed, Kosta Nadj, Peko Dapčević, Koča Popović, Djoko Jovanić, Blaž Janković, and other commanders of Yugoslav units perpetrated at that time a crime of genocide of unprecedented proportions against the Croatian people, under the leadership of Supreme Commander Tito.

On the occasion of the "victors' parade in Maribor," and in the presence of Peko Dapčević and Kosta Nadj, Tito proclaimed all of this as the supreme act of state.

On the same occasion of the "thirtieth anniversary of the victory over fascism and the liberation of Yugoslavia," the press of that country published on May 9, 1975: "Memories and Messages" from Tito, in which he distorts historical events related to the massacre of the Croatian army and civilians handed over in May 1945 in Carinthia by British units. Tito attempts to present these events as if the Croatian army had not crossed the Austrian border and been handed over to him by the British, but rather had been captured in Slovenia. Meanwhile, Jovo Popović describes in great detail in the Zagreb newspaper "Vjesnik" the extradition of the Croatian army by the British in Austria on May 15, 1945.

Tito declares that Yugoslav units captured "a great number of Germans," including "Ustashas," Nedić's men, četniks, White Guards, and traitors of all kinds." He also attempts to minimize the crime, stating that some of the enemy "managed to escape back across the border, but the bulk were captured." Thus, the "marshal" tries to justify continuing the war after the official proclamation of its end: "We now celebrate May 9th as Victory Day, and this is absolutely correct. But I must say here and now that we only ended the war against the Germans and the Quislings on May 15, 1945. A huge mass of enemies—Germans, Ustashas, četniks, White Guards—were in Slovenia, near the Austrian border." Our armies had to fight against them, not only up to that border but also preventing most of them from crossing the Austrian border" ("Vjesnik" of May 9, 1975). Jovo Popović, in turn, writes the following in "Vjesnik" of June 4, 1975: "The extradition of the bulk of the Ustaša-Domobrani divisions, concentrated on the Dravograd-Ravno-Prevalje-Pliberk road," began on May 15, 1975, at 4:30 p.m. A sunny afternoon. At the Yugoslav Army Headquarters, the following message was proclaimed: "The last enemy forces in Yugoslavia have been liquidated." In Tito's commendation radiogram to Kosta Nadj, it is stated that "the troops of the 34th Army in the last 15 days captured some 100,000 enemy soldiers and officers..." Consequently, the Yugoslav army managed to capture the Croatian army, thanks to its forced extradition by the British in Austria. Tito, therefore, falsely claims that the majority of the Croatian army was captured in Slovenia.

Considering the immediate events at the end of the war, what can be seen from the current official Yugoslav perspective, for Croats and Croatia, is the following: At that time, foreign conquerors—primarily Serbs and Montenegrins—as well as other orthodox Stalinists of the Marxist-Grand Serb orientation, entered Croatia and carried out a genocide of immense proportions against the Croatian people. This policy was devised with a view to the complete elimination of the biological basis of this people, to forever prevent Croatian national liberation and the resurgence of their nation-state. Tito fought tirelessly for this Great Serbian plan, under the pretext of fighting fascism and creating a communist Yugoslavia. His policy of granting Serbs free rein in their massacres of Croats in 1945, his subsequent attitude toward Croatian rights and demands for national liberation, as well as his recent interpretation and justification of the genocide committed against the Croats, make him fully responsible for the crimes perpetrated against the Croatian people both then and now.

On this occasion, it is worth noting the responsible role of the Montenegrins who stood out alongside Serbs in the destruction of Croatian lives and the Croatian state. Along with Peko Dapčević, who, as commander of the 1st Army and at the height of power in communist Yugoslavia, was devastating Croatia, there was also the Montenegrin Milovan Djilas. He later broke with Tito over differing interpretations of the class dictatorship, with Tito coining the term "the new class." But, as we can see, Djilas, on the occasion of this thirtieth anniversary of the "victory over fascism" in Yugoslavia, returns to the line of military and police dictatorship under Tito's leadership. His declaration that Tito's communism would be a better experiment than communism in general, carried out on five continents, justifies this opinion ("Il Messaggero," Rome, June 7, 1975).

This man, of Albanian origin, even during his open rebellion against Tito, remained a Great Serb. Today, at a time of the very real possibility of Yugoslavia's disintegration due to the divisions among its peoples, Djilas feels like a Great Serb, in stark contrast to his pronounced and supposed "democratic-liberal orientation." Frightened by the possibility of Yugoslavia's disintegration, he offers his help to Tito to save that multinational community at all costs.

This man, of a very peculiar temperament, disregards the fact that Tito and his generals are relying on Moscow's support for this purpose. He believes he can thus overcome the state crisis and ensure the integrity of Yugoslavia. This, his new course, leads him to an even more acute conflict, both with the Croats and the Albanians.

Djilas, until now, was Serbia's special card to play to the West: the duty fell upon him to secure aid for the policy of maintaining Yugoslavia at all costs, thanks also to his good relations with Western liberal circles. His motives closely resemble those of Tito at the time of the anti-Croatian coup of 1971. At that time, he asked for and accepted Brezhnev's help in the fight against the Croats, relinquishing some power to the pro-Soviet generals and police. Now, Djilas, concerned about the fate of Yugoslavia, is turning to Tito, offering his help, even though present-day Yugoslavia remains as inhumane as it was when he was protesting against the Tito-Ranković dictatorship and its "new class."

As preparations were underway for the thirtieth anniversary of the victory of communism and Tito's rise to power, the conflict between Moscow and Belgrade resurfaced regarding the extent of Soviet assistance in the "liberation" of Yugoslavia. This conflict was resolved through measured statements by generals to the Soviet press. Tito was unable to seize power in Croatia without favorable developments on the international stage. The Croatian army's strong organization and fighting spirit constituted, in this respect, an insurmountable obstacle, despite the mistakes of Pavelić and his regime. Tito's takeover of Serbia only occurred after the entry of Soviet units into that country.

Moreover, Tito himself openly acknowledges this in his "Memoirs and Messages" of May 9, 1975, referring to said Soviet aid: "I first met Stalin in September 1944, when I traveled from the island of Vis (in the Adriatic) to Moscow. My wish was to reach an agreement regarding the further conduct of the war and to ask the Soviet government to provide us with a tank brigade to liberate Belgrade. I asked for nothing other than that tank brigade. I did this because, except for a British Stewart-type tank brigade, we had no other motorized units. We really needed Soviet T-34 tanks and also some additional armament, a little aircraft, etc. Stalin himself, and in my presence, telephoned Marshal Tolbuhin, who was in Sofia at the time, and said to him, 'Tito is here with me. He requests that we provide him with a tank brigade.'" "Do you have one there?" I heard all this and understood that Tolbuhin answered affirmatively.

Then Stalin added: "Give him a corpus." He ordered, therefore, that a corpus be sent to Belgrade and that, together with our units, it participate in the liberation of the capital. In addition, the Soviet Union gave us a tank brigade as part of its aid, two air divisions, and other heavy weaponry. That is the reality of this aid. All of this was provided to arm an ever-increasing number of soldiers who enlisted with us.

"In the first stage of the final operations, which began in mid-1944 and lasted until the end of the year, we liberated Dalmatia and its islands, Montenegro, Macedonia, all of Serbia, Herzegovina, and a large part of Bosnia. At the same time, Soviet Army troops reached the border of Yugoslavia. At that time, and in accordance with the initial negotiations in Moscow, an agreement was reached between the Yugoslav Liberation Committee and the Soviet government for some Soviet units to enter a portion of eastern Yugoslavia and actively participate in its liberation. The operation to liberate Belgrade represents the pinnacle of our Armies' military cooperation. Until the liberation of Belgrade—on October 20, 1944—we had 53 divisions. We also had the navy and the air force. At the end of the war, we had 800,000 men under arms."

" Consequently, and in accordance with this recognition of Tito's authority, Stalin provided him not only with considerable arms aid during the autumn of 1944, but also, through Marshal Tobulhin, with a force to occupy Belgrade. Under the protection of this force, Tito's units entered eastern Serbia and Belgrade itself. Simultaneously, Soviet troops increased their pressure on the German army in Romania, Vojvodina, and Hungary, forcing it to retreat towards Austria. Faced with this Soviet pressure, the Croatian army also withdrew towards Austria, which enabled Tito's units to achieve victory over the Croats. Pavelić's decision to withdraw his armed forces to Austria, anticipating a more favorable outcome, also contributed significantly to this outcome. However, from there, the British handed the previously disarmed Croats over to Serbian and Montenegrin commanders who subjected them to merciless extermination.

The "non-aligned" forces in Yugoslavia's leadership: Generals restrict Tito's power

The Yugoslav army's high command, headed by General N. Ljubičić, is becoming increasingly visible as a factor on the political stage. The pro-Soviet generals are behaving as Tito's political successors, a position publicly defended by V. Bakarić. In the power struggle with the generals, Bakarić, acting on Tito's behalf, is not only positioned within the Party but also as a representative of state power, in his capacity as Chairman of the Federal Committee for the Protection of Constitutional Order and Vice President of Yugoslavia for a full year, beginning May 16, 1975. Bakarić lacks real power, and therefore his pronouncements cannot be matched by appropriate actions, unlike the actions of Generals Ljubičić and Herljević, who, through the army and the police, control the Party and the State.

The army provided the backdrop for the military parade of May 9, 1975, held in Belgrade, displaying Soviet weaponry. During the celebrations in the Lika and Dalmatia provinces, it was not peasants or workers who spoke, but Generals Jovanić and Kukoč. General Ljubičić, in his speech delivered in Bela Crkva, Servia, near Valjevo, commemorating the day of the uprising, July 7, 1941, threatened internal enemies, reminding the Croats in particular that "in the 1970s we had to confront not only economic aberrations but also ideological ones."

But, on the eve of the 10th Congress of the Communist League of Yugoslavia (the Party), Comrade Tito set the Central Committee in motion to put an end to all anti-socialist and anti-self-management aberrations, so that the Congress itself could only confirm the strength and unity of the Communist League of Yugoslavia. Similar warnings were also issued that same day by the current president of the Communist League of Serbia, T. Vlaškalić, in a speech in the town of Kosmaj.

The army feels so politically powerful that it presents itself to the public with an outline of the perfect plan for a totalitarian, Soviet-style society. Apart from the report by the Secretary of Internal Security on the persecution of the country's internal enemy and Zlatko Uzelac's report on police terror in Croatia ("Vjesnik" of May 13 and June 25, 1975), General Ivan Kukoč, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist League of Yugoslavia, also publicly presented a special plan. concerning the organization of the State. This plan was outlined in Kukoč's report for the fifth session of the Central Committee of the Communist League of Croatia on May 14, 1975, and published in "Vjesnik" of Zagreb on May 18/19. Undoubtedly, this is the Yugoslav army's plan for seizing power and reorganizing Yugoslav society on a military-police basis with Soviet support. According to General Kukoč's statements, the Yugoslav army, in addition to the objective of "the general defense of the nation," would be responsible for organizing all public and state security services under the new name: "the self-protection of society."

In a semi-Serbian dialect, this professional terrorist of Croatian origin attempts to justify the need to "expand the self-protection of society" in the introduction to his speech, stating: "It has already become, as a practice..." daily, that the organizations and leaders of the Communist League of Yugoslavia, have been discussing the achievements and tasks concerning the organization of national defense in general. In recent times, especially after the 10th Congress of the Communist League of Yugoslavia, the interest and commitment of the organizations and leadership of the Communist League have also been growing in the area of societal self-defense.

Kukoč justifies the army's stance on "societal self-defense" by citing "the development of socialist self-management": "The continuous development of socialist relations within the self-managing society and the constant changes experienced in the enemy's methods, both internal and external, require that the organization, relations, and measures of general defense and societal self-defense, as well as their operation, be coordinated with the development of our socialist system of self-management, taking into account the actions of the internal enemy, the state of international relations, and the global political and military situation."

The Yugoslav army, through General Kukoč, communicates to the Croatian people, first and foremost, that the current results of "national general defense and self-defense" of society" are good, but "we must not allow ourselves to be dominated by self-satisfaction and postpone, not for a single minute, the activity that refers to the continuous building, perfection and strengthening of the general national defense and self-protection of society. The current external and internal political situation obliges us to this..."

Kukoč links this need to strengthen the military-police dictatorship to the war in Vietnam and Cambodia, where, "faced with political unity and a well-organized people, one of the world's best-armed war machines, behind which lay vast sources of economic and military-technical power, was brought to its knees." The hope for the defeat of brute force is also fueled, according to Kukoč, by "certain other events in the world that took place during the past year, especially the defeat of fascism in Portugal." Despite all this, as the Yugoslav generals see it, the danger from "imperialist forces" still exists. Kukoč and his associates paint this imperialist danger in black, a danger they do not name but which, in their opinion, lurks in the West, primarily in the US and NATO. Contrary to this Yugoslav assertion are the facts that, precisely, policy The American approach is geared towards helping and preserving Yugoslavia and prolonging Tito's domestic policy of "internal self-management" and "non-alignment" in foreign policy even after his death. Through Kukoč, the Great Serbian generals are spreading blatant lies and creating a war psychosis based on the possibility of American or "imperialist" "aggression," which, for reasons specific and contrary to their interests, does not exist.

Kukoč, acting as a mere instrument of the Serbian generals and ignoring the real situation, warns the Croats: "...we must not lose sight of the great world powers, which apply their policy of compromise only in their reciprocal relations, but that the imperialist forces will continue their policy of meddling in the internal affairs of others, especially small and non-aligned countries, and that many unextinguished pockets of conflict still exist as latent sources of the dangers of war."

Dangers of this nature, according to Kukoč, Yugoslavia is threatened by reactionary forces, both from outside and inside: "As a socialist, independent, self-managing country and one of the leaders of the non-aligned countries, Yugoslavia was constantly the target of different forms of pressure — organized or not — from outside. The reactionary forces never abandoned the hope that, by relying on internal enemies, they could endanger our internal unity, weaken our defense forces, and, at an opportune moment, impose the conditions for achieving their objectives.”

To confuse, especially foreign circles, Kukoč mentions the “propaganda campaign” of some neighboring countries against Yugoslavia, alluding primarily to Bulgaria. But in fact, the Yugoslav military leaders see the only possible danger of war as one that could arise from the West, and thus, artificially, they are creating a psychosis of the danger of war, calling for “the preparation of our working men” for “active participation in the defense.”

Kukoč is particularly dedicated to this “preparation” and announces forced mobilization for this purpose: “I simply believe that every decision to organize society for war, whichever comes first, must begin with the individual, with his right to actively participate in the defense of the country, and with the necessity that all our material potential, above all our human potential, be "used to the fullest extent..."

After justifying the "maximum" organization of "general national defense," Kukoč, at the behest of the pro-Soviet leadership of the Yugoslav army, explains the need for the organization of police terror. According to him, the persecutions in Croatia after Karadjordjevo (1971), as well as the general purge of liberal and anti-Soviet forces, signify only the beginning "of the organization of the self-defense of society, in a greater number of socio-political communities."

Despite some successes achieved—"looking at the whole, the self-defense of society has not yet matured, and in a large number of these communities, discussions have not progressed beyond the general framework of the ideological, social, and political foundations of societal self-defense." Therefore, the Presidency of the Central Committee of the Communist League of Yugoslavia, with the active participation of the Assembly, the Presidency of Yugoslavia, and the government of the Federation of Trade Unions, is preparing "a conceptual document of the Presidency of the Communist League of Yugoslavia, which will more clearly define the foundations of the organization, the organs of societal self-defense, and their tasks in its organization and implementation."

The party leaders are thus developing, according to the plan and under the supervision of the army, a comprehensive system, taking the Soviet model into account. Thus, Kukoč, in his report, implies that intensive work is underway on the "final structuring of said document within the Executive Committee of the Communist League of Yugoslavia," but "that it would not be advisable for now to wait for said document and thereby delay the existing activity related to organizing the self-defense of society. This is especially true given that there are already constitutional provisions and the resolutions of the Federal Assembly and the recently held Congresses of the Communist League, which provide sufficient grounds for working on this task and for involving all social actors, particularly the organizations and leaders of the Communist League, who themselves are obligated to take the initiative in discussions and promote activity aimed at organizing the self-defense of society."

As a corollary, according to Kukoč, this "newly" developed system of "self-defense of society" would create relationships "according to which state sanctions would gradually give way, to an ever-increasing degree, to preventive actions and sanctions by self-organized individuals, labor organizations, and institutions." In this new system of "self-protection of society," the police become the highest political actors, and "the security and protection agencies, adapting to their role in the self-protection of society, must change their methods of operation and their mode of organization. They must gradually create pathways for a more immediate and permanent connection with all subjects of the self-defense of society..."

It is evident that, through terror, society in Yugoslavia was transformed and perfected in the "post-Tito" era. The pro-Soviet military-police dictatorship thus eliminates all the loopholes and weaknesses of the existing dictatorship, so that "the security and protection organs," through preventive actions, can preemptively thwart any opposition. These measures are primarily aimed at the Croats. Belgrade sent Kukoč to Zagreb to announce and explain them.

The strengthened position and power of the pro-Soviet generals are also evident in their implicit message to Tito himself that they, not he, are the true rulers of Yugoslavia. This was formally clarified in the aforementioned report by Kukoč who, unlike the usual phraseology in public addresses to party officials, mentioned Tito only once and precisely referring to his famous "Pism-Letter," with which Tito extended the anti-Croatian provisions of the 21st meeting of the Presidency of the Communist League of Yugoslavia to all liberal and anti-Soviet forces in Yugoslavia, announcing a permanent purge in this regard.

There is no doubt that this and other actions by other representatives of the army are directed against Tito himself. After the failed Bar coup in 1974 (the "discovery" of the pro-Soviet seditious elements), these circles now wish to eliminate Tito "peacefully." Tito, in this dispute, feels insecure and requests the intervention of Brezhnev, whose illness had given Tito hope in Moscow of gaining a little more freedom, especially after the significant concessions granted in recent years.

But Brezhnev's position was strengthened after his reappearance in the public eye and the purge carried out in the Soviet political leadership. The success of Soviet policy at the Geneva Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, culminating in a solemn conclusion in Helsinki, signified a major victory for Brezhnev in international politics over the United States. This also meant a weakening of Tito's position vis-à-vis his rivals within Yugoslavia itself. In Tito's power struggle against pro-Soviet generals, a significant role was played by V. Bakarić, a veteran bureaucrat and staunch supporter of Tito. Tito himself chose Bakarić to deliver a toast on his 30th birthday, May 25, 1975, in the company of his closest associates. The central theme of both Tito's and Bakarić's speeches was their belief that future generations and all the peoples of Yugoslavia would follow and continue Tito's policies. The latter added at the end of his speech: "I am convinced that our community—despite all the speculation about what will happen after this or that or after me—has found the path it must follow in the future, and that this is the guarantee of our great future."

Bakaric, for his part, emphasized, especially on Zagreb television, in "excerpts from his memoirs concerning our revolution and the struggle for national liberation," Tito's merits in this war, contradicting Soviet claims regarding their own assistance, particularly that which facilitated Tito's rise to power. Bakarić attributes all the credit for the victory to Tito personally ("Vjesnik," July 4, 1975).

These statements by Bakarić were undoubtedly made not only on behalf of Moscow but also on behalf of his adversaries, the pro-Soviet Yugoslav generals. But Bakarić's role in defending Tito was more significant than his attacks on the generals, specifically his critique of their concept of "self-defense of society," delivered at the meeting of the Presidency of the Central Committee of the Communist League of Yugoslavia on July 13, 1975, in Belgrade ("Vjesnik" of July 10, 1975). Without mentioning names, Bakarić, in the opening part of his speech, referring to two documents concerning this "self-protection of society," attacked the effective heads of the army, namely Generals Ljubičić, Herljević, and Kukoč, as well as Ranković, who was behind them, and denied the army's right to organize and manage the various security services, "state and public security."

This was a direct attack on the pro-Soviet generals and the so-called "inform-bureauists" (supporters of Stalinism) who held very firm positions in the Communist League, the army, and the state administration. It can also be considered a response to the military idea and formula regarding the "self-defense of society," which were published with the authorization of "Vjesnik."

The documents presented on this matter were indeed approved after the Bakarić report, but its final section makes it clear that a compromise had been reached with the generals beforehand. This was a clear attempt by Tito to weaken the power of the army and the police. The compromise was obtained in writing, but the generals were not defeated; their power remains untouched. Therefore, we can consider Tito's attempt a failure. At the time of this public conflict between Tito and the generals, Djilas himself came to Tito's aid with his statement in the Italian newspaper "Il Messaggero" on June 7, 1975, as we have already mentioned.

Bakarić denied the absolute power of the army, but immediately corrected himself: 'In the documents, as you see, no proposal was made in the sense of the need to proclaim one of the existing security services as the supreme service, nor for the creation of a new service with this character. Referring to all this, I think it must be said that an analogy between general national defense and that of "society's self-defense" is practically impossible. Simply because in the first case there is a single specialized body, while in the second there are many specialized bodies and services, often independent of each other, carrying out essential actions without counting on the other specialized bodies and services."

This is Bakarić's main response on behalf of Tito, referring to the "conceptual document of the Presidency of the Communist League of Yugoslavia on the protection of society", presented by Kukoč on May 15, 1975 in the Croatian capital Zagreb on behalf of the Yugoslav army. This document, as we have already seen, provides for the highest political power for the army and police, as well as "preventive measures", which could also find their application against the current supreme power.

That Bakarić on behalf of Tito, to the pro-Soviet generals, is seen even more clearly in the following final paragraph of his speech: "Meanwhile and despite the tendencies already exposed and the propositions that are often reiterated, it is evident that no service among the existing ones, including also the bodies of the Interior Service, cannot appropriate the role of the preponderant or coordinating service, within the self-protection of society. Only the coordinating bodies of the socio-political communities can carry out a coordination of all the subjects of society's self-defense—of the specialized services and bodies as well as of the socio-political factors. Along with them, general services can be organized, but they should not grow into a larger and specialized apparatus."

An especially sharp arrow directed against the army is contained in the following words of Bakarić: "In accordance with what has been said, the practice must be re-examined as soon as possible according to one of the issues of this nature in the OUR basic work organizations - they execute the services provided for the general national defense, because they are not qualified for this objective nor can they, due to their location in the general national defense, impose themselves as a unifying service in the field of self-defense of society."

Aware, however, of the power of the generals, Bakarić ends in the conciliatory spirit and declares that "the proposed documents, although they have not immediately given their answer to all the questions that practice has been imposing, nevertheless they offer ideological and political directives for their solution and oblige the most responsible social factors to, within their authorizations and their responsibilities, find necessary solutions."

This resignation of Bakarić and Tito is very understandable, if we take it into consideration. that the army has very firm positions in the Party, that it has the main security services in its hands and that the key positions in the army are occupied and controlled by the same Stalinist generals and their sympathizers.

In this way, Tito and Bakarić found themselves caught in the middle of the power struggle with the generals and took the short end of the stick. With this, the "Yugoslav self-management society" was "perfected" through "the system of preventive measures," in accordance with the pro-Soviet generals' conception, increasingly resembling their Stalinist model. At the level of international politics, the influence of the army's high command continually transformed Tito's policy of non-alignment into an appendage of Soviet policy.

Many of Tito's and Yugoslavia's foreign policy positions followed the Soviet line and clashed with Chinese interests, while in the West, their policy of "non-alignment" aroused distrust and concern. It was considered a constant threat to Western Europe.

The very close relations with North Vietnam and the displays of Yugoslav-North Vietnamese friendship after the American setback, as well as the Viet Cong victories in South Vietnam, greatly benefited the Soviet policy of isolating China. At the end of May 1975, Mika Špiljak, Tito's former prime minister, visited North Vietnam with a trade union delegation, also stopping in Saigon. Exchanges between delegations from both countries were evidently very frequent.

China rejected the declaration of a state of emergency and the dictatorship of Indira Gandhi in India, while Tito sided with the Soviets, welcoming the suppression of democratic freedoms and the persecution of the opposition in that Asian country. Tito's letter, delivered to President Indira Gandhi by the Yugoslav diplomatic representative on June 27, 1975, received widespread publicity in both Yugoslavia and India. In it, Tito expressed his conviction that the Indian leader could unite all democratic and progressive forces on the new platform... and that they could successfully resist pressure from reactionary forces. Tanjug, the official Yugoslav news agency, launched a virulent attack against the Indian opposition in its commentary: "The support that Yugoslav public opinion is giving to the Indian government to prevent destructive forces from acting found its best expression in Tito's message to President Indira Gandhi..." ("Vjesnik," June 28, 1975). Indira Gandhi's dictatorship was severely condemned in Western democratic countries, but Moscow, with its satellites and Tito, approved and supported it. The Yugoslav delegation at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, held in Geneva, supported the Soviet demands. The Romanian delegation, in turn, resisted them. After the solemn session of the same Conference in Helsinki, its continuation was to take place in Belgrade in 1977. A very curious decision, given that this Conference was a long-held Soviet ambition and had thus far ended in favor of the Kremlin. While Tito, upon arriving in Helsinki and signing the Conference documents, hailed it as a great step forward not only for the European peoples but also for the entire world, the absent Albania, along with China, proclaimed that Conference, by signing its documents, as a weapon of Soviet policy. This clearly represents the alignment of Tito and Yugoslavia with the Soviet Union and a new conflict with the policies of China and its small neighbor, Albania.

Yugoslav policy towards Austria is also not developed in the spirit of "non-alignment" and peace. A few Slovenian issues in Carinthia and some insignificant Croatian problems in Burgenland gave Belgrade reason to cause a tense situation in relations with that country. and that far surpasses the real meaning of the problem. Already the Polarca affair and some subversive actions against Yugoslavia with the temporary base in Austria, demonstrate that Belgrade intends to compromise the neutrality of Austria and "prove" the violation of international contracts by that country to such a high degree, so that military intervention could be invoked, at a propitious moment, in order to "protect" the Slovenian and Croatian minorities. This Yugoslav policy fits very well within the strategic plans of the Soviet Union with respect to the Danubian basin and the Mediterranean.

III

Yugoslavia and the Helsinki Summit Conference

The summit meeting in Helsinki—July 30 to August 19, 1975—culminated in the solemn signing of the documents on European security and cooperation, prepared during a lengthy period of discussions, proposals, and counter-proposals spanning 22 months. Preparations for the Helsinki meeting began on November 21, 1972, and concluded, with interruptions, on July 7, 1973. Among the 33 European states, only Albania was absent, and the only non-European powers present were the United States and Canada. The American delegation was headed by President Ford, the Soviet Union by General Secretary of the Communist Party Brezhnev, and Yugoslavia by President Tito.

The Soviet Union had insisted for over twenty years on the necessity of a conference of this nature instead of the conclusion of peace agreements. The main result of those preparations, their protracted nature, and the summit meeting itself was the recognition of Soviet territorial gains and the political changes that had taken place in Eastern Europe. To this must be added the integrity of the borders of all states, whose eventual change could only occur through common consensus. For this reason, the Soviet Union can count these results as its own victory. Western insistence on "Basket No. 3," concerning the exchange of people and ideas, should constitute a counterbalance to the Soviet policy of free movement of people and reciprocal exchange of cultural cooperation. But it must not be forgotten, as the past has confirmed, that this is merely a Soviet tactic, one that is not sustainable. According to the very provisions of the Helsinki Declaration, demands in this regard can easily be characterized as interference and infringement upon the sovereignty of other states.

The signature of the American president on the Conference documents was of decisive importance because it solemnly confirmed what the Russians desired, both with respect to territorial and political changes in their favor. Ford, in reality, fell short of his mission when, in his speech, he compared the American Declaration of the Principles of Liberty, the foundation of American Independence, with the documents of the Helsinki Conference.

The American Declaration of Independence made possible the realization of fundamental human rights and freedoms in the USA, while its current president, Ford, by signing the documents of the Helsinki Conference, effectively confirmed the end of fundamental freedoms in Eastern Europe.

The promise of such freedoms and democracy to the peoples of Europe during the Second World War was already disregarded by Churchill and Roosevelt at the Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam Conferences, with President Ford crowning the process in Helsinki. Although this time it is a legal declaration without obligations and not a binding treaty, the documents signed on this occasion nonetheless carry political and moral significance, with the taste of yet another Soviet victory.

In public opinion in Western democratic states, as well as in official opinion, a skeptical sentiment prevailed regarding the results of the Conference. This sentiment could not go unnoticed in almost all the speeches of Western statesmen in Helsinki. For example, the speech of French President Giscard d'Estaing was marked by visible caution and reserve, while the representative of neutral Switzerland, Graber, expressed extreme reserve and profound skepticism.

In the Western press, as well as in Western public opinion, a wave of discontent and condemnation of the Helsinki Accords was noticeable. Even within American public opinion, there was scathing criticism of the policies of Ford and Kissinger, who saw in the Conference's results only a unilateral Soviet advantage. But these circles, too, do not advocate a fundamental change in current American policy in Eastern Europe. They highlight, as a negative sign, the moral debt incurred by America, which could foreshadow new concessions in the development of future relations. There are, in fact, few defenders of the Helsinki Accords within the Western world. The principal architect and defender of the Western policy of appeasement is Foreign Minister Henry Kissinger, whose main advisor in this regard is the leader of German socialism, Walter Brandt.

The defenders of Helsinki enumerate the positive results for the West in justifying Kissinger's policy. Thanks to American influence, the West, accepting the idea of the Helsinki Conference, in view of European security and cooperation after the Soviet Union had fulfilled certain "occupations"—among which were mentioned the Four Powers Agreement on Berlin, the agreements between the two Germanies and between West Germany and Poland, and the beginning of talks on the bilateral reduction of armed forces (so far these talks have not yielded any positive results and the Helsinki Conference ended)—in addition to the progress of negotiations on the limitation of strategic armaments between the US and the Soviet Union (the results obtained so far are insignificant).

Indeed, all these results, considered positive, are very small compared to the Soviet advantages. Moreover, all these commitments are borne by the US, to the detriment of Eastern Europe and its subjugated peoples. Not only were Soviet territorial conquests recognized, but also its control over those states and peoples legally recognized as sovereign.

The definitive partition of Germany and the West's inability to prevent the gradual and systematic absorption of Yugoslavia into the Russian-controlled orbit were acknowledged, while the changes currently underway in its foreign policy under the principles of "self-management" and "non-alignment" were overlooked. Helsinki laid the foundations for the status quo and Soviet domination in Eastern Europe, but left the door open to Soviet influence in the West. The events in Portugal provide, once again, a good example of how a communist minority, aided by Moscow, can seize power. A similar development could occur tomorrow, with more or less discreet assistance from Moscow, in Italy or other Western European countries.

The essence of the documents signed in Helsinki lies in the declaration of the 10 principles governing interstate relations. This is the main part of Chapter I on security problems in Europe. The other parts of this conference document are almost irrelevant. The Soviet leadership also considers them as such.

In this Declaration, Principle No. 3 is of paramount importance and refers to the inviolability of borders. According to the text published in the newspapers ("Le Monde" and "Neue Zürcher Zeitung"), this Principle is formulated as follows: "The participating States consider all their borders, as well as the borders of all the States of Europe, to be inviolable among themselves, and refrain now and in the future from any attack on these borders. Accordingly, they will refrain from any demand and any act that would entail the appropriation of a part or the entire territory of any participating State."

From this principle stems the fourth principle regarding respect for the territorial integrity of other participating States, and, in accordance with the fifth principle, all conflicts of this nature must be resolved peacefully.

The most curious aspect of this Declaration is the fundamental contradiction between Principle 3, on the inviolability of borders, and Principle 8, on the equality of peoples and their right to self-determination. Recognizing these rights in accordance with the UN Charter, Principle 8 defines the right of all peoples as follows: "By virtue of the principle of equality and the right to self-determination, all peoples have the right at any time and in full freedom, when and as they wish, to determine their internal and external status without interference from outside and to pursue, in accordance with their own will, their political, economic, social and cultural development."

Furthermore, the participating States reaffirm in Principle 8 the universal significance of respect for and effective implementation of equality and the right to self-determination of peoples for the development of friendly relations among themselves as well as among all States. They reiterate the importance of eliminating all forms of violation of this principle.

Comparing the third principle with the eighth raises the question of how to interpret the Helsinki Declaration in the event of a conflict, for example, in Yugoslavia between Croats and Serbs, or between Albanians and Serbs, or Macedonians and Serbs. In the current state crisis, such a conflict is highly likely, because the issue of borders is being raised by Croats, Albanians, and Macedonians. Albania, for example, opposed to the current borders and wishing to help its compatriots in Kosovo, where they constitute an overwhelming majority, in their struggle for liberation and reunification with the motherland, could raise this issue, which constitutes an international conflict.

According to Principle 3, the borders of Yugoslavia are inviolable, while according to Principle 8, which grants the right to self-determination also to Croats, Albanians, Macedonians, and Slovenes, these peoples can freely determine their internal and external status. Not only they, but also the signatory states of the Helsinki Declaration have the duty to eliminate "any form of violation of the principle of equality and self-determination."

This means that Yugoslavia would invoke Principle 3 regarding the inviolability of its borders, while the oppressed peoples in Yugoslavia and their allies would insist on the application of Principle 8, which guarantees the right to self-determination, and on the application of the Charter of the United Nations itself. Consequently, in practical terms, the contradiction in the fundamental principles of the Helsinki Declaration is so profound that the balance of power, not the Helsinki Declaration itself—which is essentially a worthless piece of paper—will be decisive in resolving concrete problems. However, when it suits them, the Soviets, as well as Yugoslavia, will invoke this worthless piece of paper.

Nevertheless, Brezhnev reached the zenith of his political and diplomatic activity with President Ford's signing of the Helsinki Accords. Aware of his great victory, the General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party displayed a remarkable spirit of conciliation and caution in Helsinki. It is highly likely that this success also marks the beginning of the end for him. Physical illness could hasten his decline from the political stage, thus sparing him any unpleasant surprises in the future. His period of activity culminates in a major Soviet victory, at a time when the political and military blocs in Europe begin, in principle, to lose their significance, especially if Washington withdraws its troops stationed there.

For his part, Tito adopted the status of a "non-aligned" nation, a defender of Soviet anti-European and anti-Western positions. His declaration upon arriving in Helsinki was entirely consistent with the general Soviet line. This attitude became even more evident at the session on July 31, when he delivered a speech.

In formulating his general opinion on the significance of the Conference and placing Europe at the center of colonialism and fascism, Tito, according to the Zagreb newspaper "Vjesnik" (August 19, 1975), stated: "This conference on European security and cooperation is not the result of negotiations solely among European nations, but also of the new trends and changes experienced in international political, economic, and social relations in the postwar period. Therefore, its importance lies not only in the interests of Europe but also of the entire world."

Referring to the guarantee of existing borders, a key Soviet concern in the postwar period that overlooked the need for peace treaties, Tito added: “One of the greatest results of this conference is the consensus of all participating states regarding respect for the principle of the inviolability of borders. This creates one of the most fundamental conditions for strengthening trust among European states and for multifaceted cooperation between them. Yugoslavia, in its constant desire to foster a policy of good relations with its neighbors, has also, until now, respected the principle of the inviolability of its borders with its neighbors. Now, as this conference adopts this principle of the inviolability of borders as one of the fundamental principles of European security and cooperation, I wish to state with all due solemnity that my country considers this principle binding, both for itself and for its neighbors, with regard to existing borders, determined by peace treaties or by other instruments in force of an international legal nature, signed by the governments of Yugoslavia and its neighboring countries.” individually, or they together with the governments of both states.”

Always faithful to the Soviet line, Tito believes that the Helsinki Conference signifies “a new direction, as Europe moves toward coexistence and peace.” According to him, the conference must continue in the direction of eliminating bloc politics: “Therefore, we are very pleased that this Conference has taken place and that consensus has been reached regarding its documents. However, we are concerned that the Conference was unable to address a number of problems that are, in reality, the most difficult and most important for the collective security of Europe. I am referring to the state of armaments and the relations between the two blocs, to non-interference in the affairs of other states, as well as to economic division, the neglect of the interests of the less developed countries of Europe and the rest of the world, and other problems, including the status of national minorities.”

All of Tito's assessments contradict those of the Western world regarding the value and significance of the Geneva-Helsinki Conference, not to mention that this contradiction is even greater in the opinions of China, Albania, and, to a large extent, Romania.

Ford's Visit to Yugoslavia

President Ford's visit to Bonn and Warsaw, before heading to Helsinki, and then his arrival in Bucharest and Belgrade after the Conference, can be seen as a counterweight to American policy in the face of Soviet successes in the Finnish capital.

Both Romania and Yugoslavia are two critical points within Moscow's shadow. In contrast to Romania, which, despite its membership in the Warsaw Pact, bravely resists Moscow in the political, military, and economic spheres, the "non-aligned" and "outside the bloc" Yugoslavia is increasingly aligning itself with the Soviet Union and becoming its satellite. North America recently offered Romania substantial economic concessions, which the Romanians, under Ceausescu's skillful leadership, exploited adeptly to strengthen their country, both domestically and in their vis-à-vis Moscow. America again offered significant economic aid to Yugoslavia and sought to re-establish military cooperation in order to bolster its political influence against Moscow's increasingly large and visible one. Ford's 24-hour visit—August 4 and 5, 1975—must also have served this purpose. On this occasion, as, incidentally, during the visit to the US by Yugoslav Prime Minister K. Bijedić, Ford did not hesitate to interfere in Yugoslavia's internal affairs regarding the demands of the Croats and other non-Serbian peoples fighting for their national liberation and independence. In both cases, the American president sided with the military-police dictatorship in Belgrade.

Incidentally, Ford's visit to Belgrade underscores the great importance Washington attaches to the events in Yugoslavia over the last couple of years. The objective of American policy, in this case, is clearly to diminish and roll back Soviet influence. That is why it is offering Yugoslavia economic aid and trying to renew its direct arms assistance. In this regard, Ford gave a statement to journalists in Belgrade, highlighting, along with economic cooperation, "cooperation on the military front" within the bilateral relationship.

Military cooperation has not yet progressed because the American side has been cautious about Yugoslavia's demands for its modern weapons and technical equipment. It seems that NATO circles oppose such aid, taking into account the close collaboration between the Yugoslav army and the Soviet Union. Ford publicly promised on that occasion that he would personally intervene for both economic and military aid, considering both issues to be of "exceptional significance." This cooperation, apparently in favor of Yugoslavia, could accelerate.

In accordance with the spirit of Helsinki and concerned about the growing Soviet influence on Yugoslav affairs, Ford did not fail to emphasize in his statements America's interest in the integrity of Yugoslavia. The same is found in the "Joint Communiqué on the Yugoslav-American Talks," which stated: "President Ford reaffirmed the United States' abiding interest in and support for the independence, integrity, and non-aligned position of Yugoslavia."

Since the Croats and other non-Serbian peoples are fighting for their freedom and national independence against the existence of Yugoslavia—that is, acting in accordance with the principle of self-determination of peoples against the integrity of that state—the American government is opposing the aspirations of these peoples and violating their right to self-determination. Where this kind of policy can lead us has been amply demonstrated by the case of British policy regarding the Croats, defending the "integrity of Yugoslavia" in the Second World War, preparing the massacre of several hundred thousand Croats, handed over in 1945 by British troops to Yugoslavia.

Ford held intense talks with Tito and his advisors. The American president discussed, especially with Bijedić, the joint fight against emigration. On August 5, 1975, the Zagreb newspaper "Vjesnik" reported on this on its front page: "Ford and Bijedić also agreed that their two governments must undertake everything necessary to hinder and prevent any activity by extremist emigration, because it is directed against both Yugoslav interests and American interests in their desire to develop good and normal relations between the two countries."

This policy, which forces the fight against emigration to its extreme in cooperation between two states, is indescribable and, indeed, wrong. It indirectly acknowledges that the conditions within Yugoslavia compel a large number of people to embark on political emigration. The American conception of liberty has sunk far too low if President Ford feels compelled to wage war against the very people he was forced to abandon in their homeland due to the tyranny and terror reigning there. And Ford does so in cooperation with the pro-Soviet military-police dictatorship in Belgrade. It goes without saying that this Yugoslav-American "enterprise" is primarily directed against the Croats.

In closing, we consider it appropriate to pose this question: Isn't all this recent and enormous American economic and military aid designed to reinforce Soviet positions and expansion in Yugoslavia? We ask this bearing in mind that this aid ends up in the hands of those who are closely collaborating with the Soviet Union. 

Croatian welfare in their own state

Tihomil Radja

Croatia lies between the Danube and the Adriatic Seas and between the Sutla and Drina rivers, covering a total area of over 110,000 km² and inhabited by approximately 8.5 to 9 million people. (It can be assumed that around 700,000 economic migrants and others not included in official censuses come from Croatian territory, so the total population must be estimated.) Approximately three-quarters of the population are Croatian nationals, while the remainder consists of various national minorities, the largest being the Orthodox Serbs. Confessionally, the population of Croatia is mainly divided between Catholics (approximately 70%) and Muslims (around 25%). The latter live mostly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where they constitute a relative majority and, together with the Catholics, an absolute majority, that is, more than 60% of the total population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In a geopolitical sense, Croatian territory is currently incorporated into the "Socialist Republics of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina," and to a lesser extent into Vojvodina and Montenegro, within the framework of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The political events after 1966, when, through the joint action of Croatian, Slovenes, and Macedonian communists, the head of the Yugoslav political police, Alexander Ranković, was dismissed, and especially the events of 1971, when Joachim Broz Tito staged a coup against the Croatian communist leadership and destroyed numerous Croatian cultural institutions, clearly demonstrated... Given the global public opinion that the idea of an independent Croatian state is the dominant political thought in all provinces of Croatia and among all segments of the population, especially the younger generations, the political will of the Croatian people for national independence has always encountered a certain suspicion in various international circles, often for economic reasons. The prevailing view is that the contemporary world is inexorably moving towards large economic communities, and therefore small territories cannot survive independently. It is true that tiny political-economic areas are currently forming around the world, whose future is problematic, especially on the African continent.

However, when speaking of Croatian territory, this objection is irrelevant, as Croatia, due to its size, population, and economic potential, belongs to the group of countries such as Cuba, Portugal, Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, and others. Moreover, smaller economic territories have recently been associating themselves without losing their political individuality and national identity. This is exemplified, for instance, in the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which brings together five Central American republics. In today's world, which justifiably tends toward economic improvement, it is important to simultaneously achieve material well-being and preserve institutions as they have been formed throughout history. Both of these constitute well-being, not only for individual peoples but for all of humanity.

The State and income distribution

Rightly or wrongly, in today's world, political systems are primarily judged by the degree of national and individual well-being they have achieved, measured by disposable income, both personal and general. According to various official and other estimates, in the mid-1970s, the average per capita income in Croatia reached approximately $1,000 per year, with the clarification that in the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this income was half that of Croatia proper. On an international scale, this income level places present-day Croatia in the category of moderately developed countries such as Greece, Mexico, Spain, Argentina, etc., and far below its western neighbors such as Italy (two and a half times less), Austria (three times less), and Germany (four and a half times less).

However, a significant portion of that income, approximately 20%, or $200 per capita, comes directly from remittances sent by emigrants to their families. This is essential for distribution, since the government, according to various estimates, withholds $600 of the remaining $800 in taxes, levies, fees, etc. Without this massive support from migrant workers, the annual disposable income per capita would barely reach $200. This is the main reason for the strong wave of emigration in the 1960s, estimated at 700,000 people. If this income were distributed more equitably between the government and the population—for example, according to a $400/$400 split instead of $600/$200—the number of emigrants would surely be significantly smaller.

The relationship between the government and businesses is similar to the one just described. In Croatian industrial enterprises, the total income per employee amounts to $6,000 per year, and the state retains, directly or indirectly through consumption and depreciation taxes, at least 50%. This explains the constant conflict between economic and state structures, not only in the area of income distribution but also in the sphere of economic and development policy. This conflict arises because state structures conceive of economic policy and development exclusively from the perspective of the interests of state funds and budgets, which are used to cover the excessive expenditures of the most important levers of power: the police, the army, veterans, diplomacy, the Communist Party, and so on.

Under these conditions of rigorous centralization of the most important economic decisions in Yugoslavia, the Croatian national question, along with the Macedonian, Albanian, and others, rises to the forefront of general politics and sporadically shakes the foundations of the Yugoslav state structure. When, during the Croatian Spring of 1971, the brilliant Croatian economist Šime Djodan conclusively demonstrated that radical economic reforms could double per capita income in a very short time, he was expelled from the Communist Party and subsequently sentenced to six years in prison, where he remains to this day.

The problem of income creation and distribution is the fundamental problem of any state structure. The Yugoslav state structure, after three decades of existence, has been far from resolving this issue. Today, this is one of the main reasons why a vigorous "silent majority" movement has emerged in Croatia, aspiring to new state structures where the key problems of income creation and distribution would be resolved much more effectively.

The greatest impetus for this movement, hitherto conceptual, comes from the workers who emigrated to Western European countries. They saw and learned many things and can envision a national economic system without grandiloquence or ideology—a practical and effective system. In Marxist terminology, one would say that social forces have grown so much that they are breaking down existing social relations and, with them, the Yugoslav state as the superstructure of those relations.

The State and the creation of income

Due to the non-economic distribution of income, its creation is substantially hampered. Often misguided industrial investments have resulted in Croatian industrial plants operating at an average of only 60% capacity. Furthermore, 15-20% of the workforce is permanently absent, on sick leave, etc. The ratio of those employed in direct economic activities to those in non-economic activities is 60:40, which has unfavorable effects on income creation in a given technology.

In other words, given this ratio, more than 300,000 workers are surplus to requirements in the production process. The social environment, in general, is unproductive from primary school onward. For every 10,000 inhabitants, there are more than 100 citizens with university degrees, and on the other hand, there is still approximately 15% adult illiteracy. By comparison, in Germany and England, this ratio is around 50 university graduates per 10,000 inhabitants. Meanwhile, Croatia suffers from a severe shortage of middle management personnel, foremen, officers, supervisors, etc.

All of this has led to widespread structural unemployment, resulting in over 300,000 registered unemployed in Croatia, in addition to the 700,000 migrant workers. This figure does not include the unemployed in rural areas, where 3.7 million peasants eke out a living in a closed, subsistence economy, disconnected from the broader economy and lacking any social or health insurance. The largest number of migrant workers are recruited from this sector, and this environment offers the greatest resistance to the current state structures. Consequently, of Croatia's 6 million hectares of arable land, over 20% remains uncultivated, and last autumn more than 800,000 hectares of cultivated land were flooded, causing approximately $300 million in damages.

As early as 1967, UN specialists had drawn up a plan to regulate the confluence of the Sava River, the main cause of the periodic flooding, but the state did nothing to implement even a portion of it. Consequently, food imports are a burden on foreign trade, constituting more than a quarter of total imports, while Croatia should be a major exporter of food products. This example clearly illustrates the state structure's policies in the Croatian provinces, which deliberately exclude more than 40% of the population from the normal economic flow. This policy, of course, does not promote greater income for all social classes.

The most glaring example of Croatia's flawed economic development policy is the significant disparity between installed industrial capacity and investment in energy and transportation. In recent years, approximately $100 million has been invested annually in energy and transportation, while $400 million is needed. Due to a lack of electricity, many factories, especially aluminum plants, operate at only a small percentage of their capacity for weeks and months at a time. Electricity consumption is five to ten times lower than in developed countries, and at 1,600 kWh per capita per year, it is even lower than in Greece and Portugal.

Regarding transportation, it is worth noting that Croatia has approximately 200 km of broad-gauge railway, and the length of electrified lines is even shorter. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, over 40% of the railway is narrow-gauge, laid during the Habsburg monarchy. The road network is no better, as two-thirds of the roads are unpaved, and the highways comprise barely 50 km. This situation led the Italians, in their "La Strada del Est" program connecting Italy with Istanbul and Moscow, to divert Croatian territory to benefit Austria and Hungary, even though the natural route passes through Croatia. The situation is similar to that of the eastern gas pipelines that run from the Soviet Union to Italy, through Bohemia, Slovakia, and Austria.

All these and other errors in economic development policy continue to be made and are already jeopardizing the future. This is also evidenced by the recently published document entitled "The Basis of the Joint Long-Term Development Policy of Yugoslavia until 1985," already accepted by the federal government and the Economic Council of Yugoslavia. According to various specialists, this plan resembles other similar plans of the past and, as such, suffers from a series of misguided economic orientations in all sectors, since the document is also dominated by the idea of Yugoslav economic autarky, centralism, and Yugoslav nationalism.

According to this document, industry continues to be the driving force behind all economic development, to the detriment of other sectors, especially agriculture and tourism, which are of vital importance to Croatia. But this industry will depend heavily not only on foreign technology, capital, and know-how, but also on imported raw materials, so its products, as they are now, cannot compete in world markets or even in the Comecon market, which is already beginning to import Western technology, capital, and know-how.

It would be more convenient to use that money to consolidate existing industries. Furthermore, this industrial concept also fails to consider domestic consumption, which is only possible when development is conceived within a nationalist-autarkic framework. Again, a sectarian relationship is outlined toward peasant agriculture, and it is declared that the peasant "is uninterested in agricultural production." A similar sectarian relationship is also evident in this "Base" regarding handicrafts and tourism, while it proposes no practical solutions to address unemployment.

Moreover, this "Base" was conceived and developed in a centralized, top-down manner, in collaboration with several dozen well-paid economists of the regime who had never worked on any concrete production and without considering the regional implications of the plan. This could cause new conflicts between state structures and the economy on the one hand, and the population of the Croatian provinces on the other. Conceived in this way, the new plan will not be a source of new jobs and new income.

Instead of such a plan, Croatia needs a serious program for future development, based on food and energy production and on the Adriatic orientation of the Croatian economy, with the greatest possible openness to the global market.

The State and foreign capital

To this day, in Yugoslavia, the relationship with foreign capital was and remains bureaucratic; that is, foreign capital was imported almost exclusively by the state administration for its administrative and military needs. Thus, from the source of American foreign aid (Foreign Aid), more than two million dollars in economic aid and around 750 million dollars in military aid were imported up to 1973.

This enormous capital never flowed through normal economic channels but rather through bureaucratic ones. Recently, loans from West Germany amounting to 700 million marks flowed through the same channels, and according to some observers, that sum was immediately disbursed to the Arab countries that were at war with Israel in October 1973. Supposedly, Tito committed to providing this aid when the October War broke out. Be that as it may, the only imported capital linked to concrete economic projects is the capital of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) in Washington. Other imported capital is more or less short-term and serves to plug the gaps in current operating deficits. For years, this capital was converted into enormous foreign debt, estimated by some at 5 to 6 billion dollars.

Regarding direct foreign investment in economic enterprises, the results to date are quite modest. Up to the beginning of 1974, this capital was estimated at 35 million dollars in 35 companies, and that was exclusively from Western sources. As for direct Soviet investment in Croatia, the Belgrade government had already planned for about twenty projects in 1972, but these plans have not yet materialized. Moreover, the Soviet partner does not invest its capital in cash but in goods and equipment, which is not beneficial to the Croatian economy, oriented towards Western technology and industrial and commercial practices. For example, Soviet steel plates did not meet the needs of the Split shipyard.

Federal Yugoslavia, that is, the central government, never encouraged foreign direct investment, yet it arrogated to itself the exclusive right to dictate regulations for such investments. To this day, Belgrade has not published a single brochure to inform Western businesses about the conditions for joint ventures. Government circles frequently refer to the Constitution and certain fundamental laws, which is insufficient for the analysis and concrete decisions of their industrial partners. The result is that the current state structure in the Croatian provinces massively exports specialists and labor, when the normal course would be to import capital. In today's world, more and more serious voices are being raised to reverse the current trend of migration, which leads people to capital. Capital must be brought to where people live, to their towns and cities, which in many regions of Croatia are slowly dying out.

In Croatia, there are more than 50 industrial companies with annual turnovers reaching $50 million, and some exceeding $500 million per year. But at the same time, hundreds of companies are incurring losses not only because of general economic policy but rather due to a lack of technology and management. Most of these companies need foreign capital and know-how based on direct agreements between the contracting parties and for their mutual benefit. This is especially true given that the credit potential of Croatian banks reaches $6 billion, and this potential would be increased if these banks could freely access the savings of migrant workers, currently almost entirely deposited in German banks, which, according to some estimates, amount to more than $2 billion.

The current state structure in Croatia is unwilling to take measures that would enable the Croatian economy to open up to the world. This state neglects the economic well-being of the people, caring only about maintaining its political monopoly through economic autarky and reactionary Yugoslav nationalism. That State opens up to non-aligned countries, not for reasons of genuine economic cooperation, but exclusively for reasons of propaganda and prestige and the personal megalomania of the leader of Yugoslavia, Jose Broz Tito, who at the conference of non-aligned countries, held in Lasaka some years ago, spent many millions of dollars to have his bust stand out at the entrance of the palace along with those of the already deceased leaders Nasser and Nehru.

Semejante política es contraria a los más elementales intereses del pueblo croata que cada día aspira a vivir en un Estado capaz de ofrecerle un sistema económico y una política contestes con los tiempos modernos y de promover el bienestar general para todas las capas sociales.

The State versus the workers and peasants

We are speaking here of workers and peasants as economic factors. Together with their families, these social strata make up more than 80% of the total population in Croatia. This numerical predominance does not mean that other social classes are unimportant, especially specialists in all sectors of national life. However, experience shows that it is precisely the workers and peasants that this state treats poorly. And these groups are the foundation of any economy; that is, the wealthier they are, the wealthier the national community.

In the Communist Party, workers have always been a minority. Thus, in 1972, in party organizations in Croatia, there were approximately 30% workers, 5% peasants, and 15% students, with the majority consisting of state officials, professional communists, and military and police personnel. Consequently, the most numerous class—workers and peasants—represents a minority in a totalitarian party that governs in the name of "the workers and peasants." In fact, the ruling class in that party consists of political opportunists, members of the ruling class, and a handful of Marxist futurists who fancy themselves prophets of the future, in whose name they are theorizing about the present.

The marginalization of Croatian workers is perfectly reflected in the role of the so-called trade unions in Croatia. Statistically, things are going very well: around one and a half million workers and employees are affiliated with various unions. However, the role of these "unions" in the struggle for fundamental rights is nil. Above all, workers cannot go on strike. At the recent congress of Yugoslav trade unions (Belgrade, late December 1974), in the presence of 1,400 local delegates and several hundred foreign delegates from 136 countries, it was emphasized that trade unions must be vigilant "to prevent conflicts from arising," and if they do, the dispute should then be referred to "the judicial bodies of self-management." Shortly before, in early December, Milutin Baltić, president of the Croatian trade unions, expressed similar sentiments in Zagreb.

With these premises, trade unions are stripped of their basic weapon: the strike. Everything that workers throughout the world have won in their historical struggle to improve working conditions has been achieved largely through strikes, or the threat of them. A strike in the hands of the workers is a kind of atomic bomb, not to be used, but to be possessed. To speak of union rights and then deny them the right to strike is simply to emasculate them. Moreover, the passive resistance of workers compensates for the right to strike, as it produces significant absenteeism. It is estimated that annually more than 15% of employed workers do not show up for work, resulting in a loss of over 70 million working days in the Croatian economy.

These "workers' unions" have no right whatsoever to decide on issues of wages and salaries; instead, they should dedicate themselves to promoting sports, workers' canteens, kindergartens, etc. The main union leader, Mika Spiljak, declared in a late 1974 interview with journalists that "only higher company revenues can offer higher workers' wages," which is actually a capitalist argument, not from today but from the last century.

The current distribution of income in companies is highly unfavorable for both workers and companies, and highly favorable for the state. For example, of the average output produced by state-owned enterprises in Croatia in 1973, 50% corresponded to production costs, 30% was retained by the state in taxes, levies, and other taxes, 18% went to workers' wages, and the remainder was allocated to the company. Such a low share of wages in production does not reflect the true potential of the Croatian economy. Croatian labor is too cheap, and therefore hundreds of thousands of workers are exported to Western European countries, where they are paid five times more.

Today, in the free world, there are approximately 300 million workers affiliated with free trade unions, and this figure includes 1.5 million workers from Croatia. In all free countries, labor unions have become a decisive political force, while in Croatia, "unionized" workers are expected to behave like servants of the Communist Party. However, many Croatian workers who have emigrated join unions in free countries and gain valuable experience, which they then pass on to their colleagues in Croatia. This is the seed from which future Croatian labor unions will emerge.

In the postwar period (1948-1971), approximately 2.5 million rural inhabitants left the countryside and moved to urban areas. Several hundred thousand peasants emigrated to Western countries in the last decade in search of work. Nevertheless, the rural population numbers over 3.7 million, or more than 40% of the total population of Croatia's provinces. This population's share of the national income is estimated at 12 to 15% of Croatia's total national income. These farmers live on plots of 3 to 5 hectares, and in the best cases, up to 10 hectares, the maximum allowed by law. This maximum is for oxen, not tractors. However, the Croatian state structure favors state-owned farms that have the necessary mechanization and use it to exploit and control individual farmers.

Furthermore, these state-owned farms primarily produce wheat and corn—products that require significant mechanization and little manual labor—and neglect the production of meat, milk, fruit, legumes, vegetables, and other agricultural products. This is why these state farms sublet their plots to individual farmers for $40 per hectare, which is very little and proves that the state operates in an uneconomical manner.

Furthermore, farmers sell their fields to state farms and then sublet them, since in that case they don't pay taxes. But the tax then appears as soon as the individual farmer takes their produce to market. The consequence is that Croatian farmers are becoming trapped in subsistence farming and sending their best labor abroad to improve their income or going to work in the neighboring city to obtain social security and health insurance for their families.

Such an example of agricultural policy is hard to find in the history of humankind, except perhaps in the Roman latifundia, the Stalinist kolkhozes, and the South American plantations during the era of the most brutal exploitation. Under these conditions, the rural population is aging, and young people are leaving in search of work abroad. It often happens in Croatian villages that there are no young people left to bury their dead.

This situation is all the more serious in Croatia, where the land has always been the main source of wealth and national well-being, especially under the current conditions of rising food prices. This is happening in Croatia barely fifty years after the leader of the Croatian peasant movement, Esteban Radić, made the peasantry a political force of the first order, not only in Croatia but throughout Eastern Europe.

Today, the world talks a great deal about oil wealth, and tomorrow there will be even more talk about agricultural wealth, as we will have to feed hundreds of millions of new inhabitants of our planet. In this task of universal solidarity, Croatian peasants should play their part, not within the framework of the artificial communist formation of Yugoslavia, but under conditions of freedom and a peaceful and humanist Republic of Croatia, as taught by Esteban Radić, who in the third decade of this century achieved an electoral majority in all Croatian provinces. The State and the Economic System

The current economic system of Croatia within the framework of Yugoslavia is neither economically efficient nor socially just, nor does it align with the heritage and cultural traditions of the Croatian people. The current economic system is, in fact, a totalitarian state capitalism, with the maximum concentration of financial resources at the very top of the centralist state. The concentration of financial resources in the National Bank of Yugoslavia is so great that it can, with a stroke of the pen, change and alter the operating conditions of the entire economy. This bank, in addition to the classic functions of issuing currency and making investments, holds all economic functions related to credit and money.

The National Bank operates within the framework of the Federal Executive Council (the central government), of which the bank's governor is a member. Formally, the Council is responsible to the Assembly, but it is also accountable to the Presidency of Yugoslavia, which controls the Council's work through commissions that are, in reality, the "political commissars" of the traditional ministries and state secretariats. The Presidency of Yugoslavia is the same as the Presidency of the Communist Alliance, while Josip Broz Tito is simultaneously the triple president of the Presidency, the Republic, and the Communist Alliance. With Josip Broz Tito gone from power, personal changes throughout the system will almost certainly occur, as well as the disintegration of Yugoslavia as a state entity.

But what is important to emphasize now is that this economic and political system is currently cloaked in the mantle of so-called self-management. Historically, this idea, under the influence of Proudhon and Bakunin, first emerged in the work of the Russian political thinker A. I. Herzen (1812-1870). Marx himself, and especially Engels, vehemently attacked Herzen and his ideas on self-management, as did Lenin at the Russian Communist Party congress in Stockholm in 1916. However, this does not prevent Yugoslav state capitalists from invoking Marx and Lenin in their propaganda in favor of self-management.

Furthermore, the practice of Yugoslav self-management proves that self-management exists at the enterprise level in a physical form, not merely as an economic and administrative function. This is best illustrated by the fact that, on average, enterprises pay banks more than 50% of their remaining profits after all taxes and levies have been paid. In this state of affairs, it's easy to imagine how many potential conflicts arise along the lines of business, state, and banks on the one hand, and on the other, in the relationship between businesses and workers. For these reasons, self-management in Croatia takes refuge in smaller companies, becoming a haven for the small and weak, a refuge for democracy, for workers and peasants, for students and intellectuals within a society dominated by a savage, totalitarian neocapitalism where the law of the strongest and the ruling structure reign supreme.

Self-management, in its essence, is a democratic concept—a vision today, and perhaps a reality for all humanity tomorrow. It cannot be realized within the framework of any form of capitalism, and even less so under the conditions of communist-Stalinist state capitalism. Self-management, being democratic in its essence, also represents the democratic rules of the game at all levels and sectors of social life.

In Croatian media, the question is often raised about the system under which the Croatian economy will develop in the near future. Of course, this is a very important issue, but as formulated, it puts the cart before the horse. The crucial problem is how to increase overall national well-being and then adapt the entire system to those ends. This system must satisfy not only the criteria of economic efficiency but, even more importantly, the demands of social justice and the traditions of Croatian economic culture.

Furthermore, this system should not be closed, but open, to the greatest extent possible, to our neighbors, both in Eastern and Western Europe. The future Croatian economic system should be a derivation of the future Croatian state, but not of a state from the last century, rather of a modern Croatian state that will transfer certain attributes of classical sovereignty to narrow or broad regional and global communities, and likewise certain economic functions of sovereignty.

At the beginning, we said that Croatia, according to its basic criteria, can be compared with many similar countries. Finally, it should be added that, even today, no Scandinavian country surpasses Croatia in population or economic potential, and everyone knows that until the last century the Scandinavian countries lived under a common government and only at the beginning of our century did they become "Scandinavianized." Who could claim today that "Scandinavianization" in the Nordic countries was detrimental to each component country and to that community as a whole? Therefore, the future "Scandinavianization" of the current Yugoslavia will not be detrimental to any of the peoples who currently make up that artificial state community, and even less so will it be harmful to Europe and the world.

In contrast, the current modern "Balkanization" of southeastern Europe constitutes a permanent misfortune for Europe and the world and a great historical tragedy for all the peoples who inhabit that area. The restoration of a modern Croatian state with all the Croatian provinces in that region is a progressive, political, and economic necessity of our century. — (Translated by bk).

Guillermo Martínez Márquez, writing on "Soviet-American détente" in "La Prensa," Buenos Aires, November 13, 1975, states:

"Dangerous tension threatens to overshadow the fragile hopes of arms limitation, as a preliminary step to the stage of truly cordial relations between the contemporary superpowers. Washington and Moscow have both publicly expressed their protests...

"Our party does not recognize ideological conciliation," stated Arvid Pelshe, a veteran of the Soviet Politburo.

"Our party does not recognize ideological conciliation," affirmed Arvid Pelshe, a veteran of the Soviet Politburo." “Brezhnev should not come to the United States until the strategic arms limitation treaty is concluded,” Kissinger retorted upon learning of the failure of the 132nd session of delegates from both countries in Geneva.

At the same time, the Secretary of State accused Russia and Cuba of sending weapons and “military technicians to Angola” and confirmed President Ford’s visit to Beijing. Hours earlier, the Senate Appropriations Committee had approved a $90.7 billion budget for U.S. defense, and shortly afterward, the Kremlin offered yet another example of its customary posturing by escalating the military parade in Red Square on the anniversary of its revolution.

Against the dramatic backdrop of this international situation, newspapers are reproducing a historic photograph in which former Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger appears—proud and stern—reviewing an army battalion in his farewell from the Pentagon, as a symbol of the victory of his thesis after his bureaucratic defeat, confident that those who review the events of these days in the future will have to acknowledge that he was right. Absolutely right!

Now analysts are beginning to highlight the visible contradictions in the landscape. On one hand, the still-friendly words when referring to trade relations; on the other, threatening maneuvers. And in the middle—fragile, wavering, insecure—the peace of our times.

"The indefinite postponement of Brezhnev's trip to Washington contrasts sharply with Ford's announced flight to Beijing. Many see in these two decisions a hardening of the American position. A diplomatic challenge to Moscow!

"Those who foresaw the impossibility of a complete understanding between free institutions and totalitarian regimes feel increasingly certain of the reality of their assertion...

"From a historical perspective, everyone can recall that totalitarians have always taken advantage of the democratic electoral calendar to renew their offers of peace and increase their war preparations...

"But when the security of the homeland is threatened, then free men no longer hesitate." Montesquieu rightly said that democratic opinion takes time to form, but once formed, it is stronger than in other societies. Such is the situation in the United States. The bicentennial of its independence could be a doubly historic date! 

Cultural problems

The birth of art

A Tale About the Fantastic History of Art

Lucas Ev. Fertilio

In those days, all things joyfully grew, became more beautiful, and vigorously sought the fullness of their being, the perfection of their existence. But the mud, only the mud, remained unchanged. It always stayed the same, always sad, mute, immutable. Everyone hated it, despised it, and said the worst things about it. It was even the shame of life, useless to nature and human society. The birds hated it because they could not build their nests in its inhospitable and viscous mass. And the flowers were very angry because they could not grow, bloom, and display their beauty from it. But more than anyone, men hated it, for they gained nothing from it. And in their anger, they insulted it, calling it mud, worse than mud, common mire, an outrage in this marvelous world so wisely commercialized and exploited by human genius.

The poor clay, needless to say, suffered greatly, terribly, and didn't know how to defend itself or find comfort. Sadness and despair filled its timid and depressed soul. It had almost lost all hope for a better life.

But it so happened that in those days a nomad passed by, a human being with the soul of God. He wandered the world seeking love and friendship, but found them nowhere. And when he saw the clay's pain, his sensitive and courageous heart trembled, and his joy was immense. At last, he had found what he had been searching for: a heartbroken friend, a sorrowful soul, someone he could love and comfort! And all this, with sincerity, he told the clay. But the clay was very confused because it had never before heard such a kind, loving voice, and it asked the nomad who he was and where he came from.

The nomad whispered affectionately in its ear and told it that it was wandering the world seeking a friend. It seemed the clay hadn't quite understood, and the nomad tried to clarify what he'd said, adding, "I'm an artist!"

"An artist?" asked the clay, surprised, having never heard that word before. "An artist! And what is that?"

The artist smiled kindly, frowned, and finally said, "Actually, an artist is a very strange being... and it's not so easy to explain what and who an artist is... But I think one could say that an artist is a wonderfully indispensable being in this world!"

The clay found this explanation confusing and contradictory and said so to the artist, "How can someone be both superfluous and indispensable in this world at the same time? I think that's impossible!"

The artist, who was neither a philosopher nor a philologist but simply an artist—that is, someone who is better at feeling than thinking—didn't know how to explain to the clay what he wanted to know. But soon an idea occurred to him. He rolled up his sleeves, took clay and more clay in his hands, and began to knead, mold, and work it until, as if by magic, he formed a group of marvelous clay children. So beautiful, lively, graceful, and joyful were these clay children that with their singing and dancing, their laughter and games, they awakened, illuminated, and wonderfully gladdened that sad and silent swampy region.

A fresh breeze cleared the sky, and everything vibrated with light, color, and joy. The tall, solitary branches of the forest, quite surprised, began to whisper, asking what, for heaven's sake, was happening there in the clay and who those beautiful children were. But the flocks of birds and little birds that nested there all flew, curious and joyful, toward the children and began to chat and play with them. It was a delightful celebration such as had never been seen in those parts.

But it so happened that at that moment three ill-tempered men were passing by, all three burdened with petty anxieties and superfluous bitterness. They were fighting, even hurling insults, over a few coins and some meager prestige. But when they saw the celebration in the mud, they stopped fighting and stood dumbfounded, watching what was happening in the swamp. They understood nothing, and one of them exclaimed: "Incredible! The mute, sad mud sings, dances, and laughs!" Another said: "Never have my eyes beheld such graceful beauty, such pure joy!" The third said: "I don't understand! Who awakened, formed, and imbued with spirit the ugly, heavy mud? Who gave it life and beauty?"

None of the three men knew. They watched, enchanted, the celebration of the children and the birds and stopped fighting.

But the mud, too, did not understand what was happening; it was very confused and wondered, "Who had transformed its sadness into joy, its happiness into beauty?" Where had happiness come from?

The artist, who had understood the clay's anxieties and curiosities, whispered softly in its ear: "Don't you understand? Don't you know what's happening?" "No!" the clay replied naively. "I don't understand anything!"

The artist smiled and said with emphasis and joy: "Well, rejoice, rejoice greatly, my dear friend, my dear brother clay: A miracle has occurred!"

"A miracle!" the clay exclaimed, very surprised. "A miracle? And what is that?"

"A miracle," the artist replied, "is what happens when pure pain and charitable love meet. And this has happened here and now! Your pain met my love, and a miracle occurred: Art was born!"

Hlebine School

(The Croatian Naïve Painters)

August Frajtić

"...a unique art that begins with him and ends with him." These are the words of Ernesto B. Rodríguez in issue 143 of the "Pinacoteca de los Genios" (Gallery of Geniuses). His article begins with the words of Lao Tzu: "Naïveté is the veil of perfection."

It is about Henri Rousseau, a Frenchman, a customs officer by trade and also a painter. A rare painter, outside the trends of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, despised, ridiculed, and finally—as always—accepted. Today he is considered the father of naïve art. In his time, truly unique, but if this art began with him (which is not entirely certain), it did not end with him.

It may be that Rousseau had no students, and yet little by little other painters appeared who were just as, or even less, naïve than he.

It would take us too far afield to discuss the naive painters, or "naïve" painters, as they are known worldwide, nor is that our intention. We want to focus on the emergence of this "rare" art form in Croatia. For that, we need some geographical knowledge.

There is a region in northern Croatia called Podravina, which means "Drava River Valley." Plains, ravines, hills, and knolls, relatively fertile with typical smallholdings, lacking wealth but also experiencing little poverty. The climate is continental European, with four well-defined seasons and a rather long, cold winter, with long, unproductive nights—ideal for sleeping, but boring for young people looking to occupy their time with something, useful or useless, as long as it's "something."

In the 1930s, a group of young painters called "Zemija" ("Earth") formed in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. They aimed to connect with the common people through their art... Leftist ideology? It could be, but back in the innocent year 1930.

In a village in Podravina, the boys whiled away the winter with anything they could find, until one of them got the idea to paint. —Painting? What's that?

Well, you take a piece of paper, or a small board, or whatever, a pencil, and draw what you see in front of you. Someone gets colored pencils: the snow is white, the sky blue, the cow brown, the grass green, and... suddenly there's something on the paper. Painting?

The boys somehow heard about the painters from "Zemija," who wanted to visit the village, and went to find them in the capital. There they learned from them something new that was truly called painting, and how to make this kind of paint and what you need for it. They learned the technique.

All of this happened in 1930. The following year, three of these young men exhibited their work alongside the painters from the "Zemija" group. —Little interest—. Then they separated from them. "Zemlja" disappeared by order of the Belgrade government.

The boys continued working, and in 1936—for the first time—they organized an event in Zagreb called the "First Exhibition of Painting by Croatian Peasants." It was a great success. The name of Ivan Generalić stood out.

The boys were natives of the village of Hlebine in Podravina. This name—HLEBINE—would become increasingly famous year after year in the field of naïve art, which we have not yet described.

Naïve painters, the "naïfs," saw life and the places they lived in differently than professional painters in general. Their depiction of human anatomy had nothing to do with Leonardo da Vinci; their perspective and dimensions sometimes surprised us in unusual compositions. Despite that, everything is beautiful, full of color, life, joy, hope—something we all need, something we long for, but that our cultural upbringing doesn't allow us to understand and admire. —Doesn't allow it?— It will!

There's something unusual about these painters. They almost never use canvas or cardboard, but glass, and on the glass they paint their subjects. The dimensions range from 30 x 30 cm and smaller, up to 200 x 300 cm and larger. Winter is long, so the glass should be large.

And to think that a certain Giulio Clovio, who in his native Croatia was called Julio Klović, was the most celebrated miniaturist of all time.

They paint what they see, but as they see and experience it, as they feel it. They express ideas distinct from others. More than painting, they tell stories. They communicate with us through their impressions, which they fix on the glass, and we begin to understand them and live with them. It is the life of our people, of our land, of our race. But not everything is joy. Life is often hard. In their works, we sometimes encounter a stark realism, yet one full of a strange poetry that is also so deeply our own.

We mentioned Ivan Generalić earlier. He is one of the three young men from 1930. The other two are no longer with us. Today, he is considered one of the most celebrated naïve painters in the world, known on all five continents, and is the leader and master of Croatian naïve painters. He never stopped working, not even during the war, and in 1953 he exhibited for the first time outside his homeland, in Paris. His great success opened the door to the entire world for his students. Today, the fourth generation of those students is exhibiting. Around Generalić and some of his friends, what is known today in the world of naïve painting, and painting in general, as the "Hlebine School" spontaneously emerged.

From 1953 to the present day, dozens of Croatian naïve painters have exhibited all over the world. Their works fill museums, galleries, and private collections everywhere. Ivan Večenaj's "The Crucified Christ" and other works by Croatian naïve artists found their place in the Vatican. The names of Ivan Generalić and his son Josip, Ivan Večenaj, Ivan Lacković-Croata, Mijo Kovačić, Martin Mehkek, and many more appear in exhibition catalogs from around the world. Almost all of them are peasants, with few exceptions, such as Lacković, a former peasant postman, or Kovačić, a former peasant watchman.

*** The "Hlebine School" is not a building with classrooms, but a genuine expression of the spirit of a beautiful region and—why not—of the entire Croatian people.

The exhibition of paintings by Croatian peasants

A Success Tried to Be Passed Off Under Someone Else's Name

Vladimir Ciprin

At the "Gradiva" gallery in this capital city (Buenos Aires), from June 24th to July 28th, there was an exhibition of paintings by Croatian peasant painters, known as "naïve" artists, as the French call them, or "genuine" artists, as the term might be more accurately translated into Spanish. These paintings were acquired by the gallery owner herself during her trip to Croatia and Serbia.

In total, eight paintings by Croatian peasants, belonging to the "Hlebine School," and 22 paintings, supposedly from Serbia, were exhibited. The exhibition organizer states in the brochure prepared for the event that there were also paintings by a small community of "Slovenian and Romanian origin." In reality, these are some peasant painters from villages of these two nationalities, scattered throughout Banat and Vojvodina, two regions that, according to the Yugoslav Constitution, cannot be considered part of Serbia. They are, in fact, an autonomous region belonging to Serbia proper.

However, it is a well-known fact, both in that country and abroad, that this is a cultural movement of Croatian peasant painters, as we said, called "nails," and it began around 1930 in a Croatian village in Podravina (Drava River basin) called Hlebiène. A renowned Croatian academic painter, K. Hegedušić, a sympathizer of leftist ideology, recently passed away. Upon learning of the existence of these painters from Hlebine, he approached them, showed interest in their work, and offered them invaluable assistance, both through technical advice and by opening doors to the public.

The first to whom he offered his help was Ivan Generalić, currently the best-known member of the group. Then, in 1936, he helped them all organize an exhibition in Zagreb, the Croatian capital, where the public showed them particular interest and expressed their attention and admiration.

Later, an increasing number of the Hlebine peasants took up painting to try their luck, thus refining the technique and the distinctive style of the school. Thanks to this support and the collaboration among the enthusiasts themselves, the works of Generalić, as well as those of M. Kovačić, I. Večenaj, and I. Lacković-Croata (who always signs his works as Lacković-Croata), are known almost worldwide. After the last great war, these peasant-painters held exhibitions in various cities, both in free Europe and on the other side of the Iron Curtain. And they also earned money. Their leftist leanings are among the least of the factors contributing to their success.

Artistically, the defining characteristic of this movement, now known as the "Hlebine School," is its depiction of the most salient and everyday scenes of their peasant life, giving preference to winter scenes, that is, scenes from the off-season when the fields don't require as much labor. Their works are executed on wood, glass, or similar materials, imbuing the figures—human, animal, and landscape—with a dynamism and a vital energy, captivating the public with their emotional resonance and the warmth they infuse into them. The vibrancy of their colors and the narrative power of these works are not characteristic of contemporary painting. Therein lies the secret of their success. The color palette is masterfully employed, carefully placing the subject within the framework of the natural beauty and landscapes of their villages.

These Croatians paved the way and secured the renown of the "Hlebine School." Then, several years later, peasants from other regions of that country, then called Yugoslavia—especially Slovenia and Serbia—began to do the same. The success of the Croatian peasants, both moral and material, was an incentive for the latter as well. They sometimes exhibit together, but the Croatian group—Generalić, Kovačić, Večenaj, and Lacković-Croata—exhibits individually. A number of collectors abroad have already acquired their paintings. It is therefore regrettable that they commonly exhibit under the name of the "Yugoslav Naïve Artists." Despite this aberration—perhaps a consequence of the current political situation in occupied Croatia—those interested know who they are and that this artistic success is a genuine product of the Croatian peasants. Books and monographs were written for this purpose and translated into modern languages, clearly stating that this cultural "phenomenon" belongs to the Croatian people.

To summarize, we can say that the Croatian peasant, through this painting, is providing conclusive proof that his village—despite the industrialization of the countryside and the mass migration of peasants to the city or to more industrialized neighboring countries, despite the stepmotherly policies of the Belgrade regime that force them to work as "Gastarbaiter," seasonal laborers abroad—possesses the soul, the richness, and the talent necessary to create a whole cultural movement, intimately linked to its environment, felt and lived in the silence and tranquility of their homes and the intimacy of their families. His work thrills the public, saturated and weary of abstract and empty modernism, and naturally rewards them with admiration. Remaining steadfast and faithful to the orientation of their school, born from their native land, their works signify a departure from fashion and an attachment to the specific life of their authentic human and national environment.

In the exhibition mentioned above, eight Croatian paintings were displayed. These are the works of the recent generation of the "Hlebine School" (N. Kovačić, Tereza Posavec-Dolenc, S. Kečkeš, and J. Lajan), executed on glass in oil paint, a technique that demands meticulous study, great patience, and prolonged experimentation. Ivan Lacković-Croata was represented by a single large-scale painting. It is a lithograph entitled "The Procession," from which a lyrical narrative spontaneously emerges, rendered with exquisite drawing and colors, offering a profound perspective of the winter landscape.

To demonstrate their success in Buenos Aires, it suffices to say that all the paintings by these Croatian peasant painters were sold.

As for the paintings by the Vojvodina artists, it is worth noting that they lack the immediacy characteristic of the Hlebine School, as well as the eloquent narrative quality so prevalent in the works of the Croatian peasant painters. The vibrant colors in the works of the Vojvodina "naïve" artists are lost in the details of the national costumes, thus reducing everything to a kind of folkloric-national poster.

The man in the aesthetics of Dr. Raimundo Kupareo

Radoslav Ivelić Kusanović [12]

i.

Presence of Dr. Raimundo Kupareo in Chile

Remembering the fruitful period in which R. P. Kupareo stayed in Chile (1950-1971) is to remember a time in our lives; is to invoke the flowering of love for the beautiful; the always renewed and renewing attraction, produced by that being so strange, so paradoxical and apparently so insubstantial, that we call a "work of art."

Father Kupareo educated an entire generation of Chileans. His work continues, with increasing impetus, in those who were his disciples and who now have the responsibility of research and teaching, in the broad and fruitful field of Aesthetics.

The work that Father Kupareo carried out in Chile was immense: Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences of the Catholic University of Chile, for two periods (1956-59; 1963-67); Vice-rector of this school (1963-67). His deanships took place in years of fruitful creation of academic units, among which we mention the School of Psychology, the School of Journalism, the Departments of German, Plastic Arts, Vocational and Educational Guidance, Normal Schools and the Institute of Aesthetics.

In addition, he made an effort to concentrate teachers, hiring them on a part-time or full-time basis, with which many of them found the opportunity to research and perfect their teaching. On the other hand, thanks to the provisions of R. P. Kupareo, and without lowering the academic requirements, former classes of graduates who, due to various circumstances, had not been able to do so, were able to graduate.

Added to these realities are the transformations and material acquisitions, without which the academic expansion of the Faculty was impossible: rooms, laboratories, specialized libraries, office fittings, furniture, etc. The image of Father Kupareo does not come unrelated to any convention from the first days of his deanery: with his white habit full of dust he approached us to ask for help, like students to move an immense wardrobe that almost made us disappear, with its imposing mass, as we carried it down the stairs of the building. At that time, the School of Pedagogy only had one person in charge of cleaning the building. and with only one secretary... but with his dynamism and vision, Father Kupareo began to model a new spatial and academic order.

The beginnings are always difficult. Generous dedication and the ability to open new horizons are fundamental conditions: R. P. Kupareo and his predecessors in the deanery demonstrate this. That is why the anecdote that we include above is not gratuitous: it is an approach to the man, the priest, the philosopher and aesthete.

Contagious dynamism, deep spirituality, deep and clear intelligence, practical sense are notes that rarely come together harmoniously in a person; and that allowed the enormous work that we briefly reviewed. Books, essays, criticisms, controversies, classes in various academic units of the Catholic University of Chile. Poet anthologized in his country of origin, novelist and playwright. His drama-mystery "Passion of the Christ" (Madrid, 1949) appeared in Spanish, performed several times and broadcast, with great success, on the radio.

Art and beauty, with this information, begin to take shape as one of the fundamental sources of his work. The Institute of Aesthetics at the Catholic University, unique of its kind in South America, owes its existence to his wisdom, conviction, and tireless efforts, to the point that they led to a serious illness, from which he has not yet fully recovered, and which prompted him to return to his native Croatia, from which he always kept us informed. From his home island of Hvar, in Dalmatia.

How did Father Kupareo establish the Institute of Aesthetics?

It is a long and patient story, which can be summarized in the following stages:

1) In 1950, Father Kupareo was invited by the Catholic University to teach courses in Aesthetics and Axiology at the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences of the aforementioned university.

The first courses began in 1951, with the final year of the Spanish Department, where he was assigned the chair of General Aesthetics. Recognizing the importance of the subject, the students petitioned the administration to extend the courses to all Language Departments. Thus began the course on the Aesthetics of Poetry, Drama, and the Novel in 1952, published on mimeograph at the end of 1953. Simultaneously, Father Kupareo offered the first courses taught in Chile on Film Studies and Choreographic Aesthetics.

2) In 1955, the aforementioned courses were structured according to the new regulations of the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, within the so-called "common courses," mandatory for students in the Departments of Languages, Philosophy, Fine Arts, and History. Chairs in the Aesthetics of Painting, Sculpture, and Aesthetic Axiology were also established, with teaching assistants and professors trained by Father Kupareo.

3) In 1964, the Center for Aesthetic Research was established to guide the writing of dissertations and publish research findings in books and journals. The Center published five volumes of "Aisthesis" (Chilean Journal of Aesthetic Research), the first of its kind in South America; six volumes of the "Annals" of the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, edited by the Center for Aesthetic Research; and seven books by members of the aforementioned academic unit.

4) In 1968, the Department of Aesthetics was formed based on a report submitted to the University by a commission chaired by Father Kupareo. The following year, the Department was structured into three sections to scientifically and organically integrate the courses related to the field of Aesthetics offered within the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences: Theory and Criticism of Art; History of Art; and Psychology and Sociology of Art. Forty courses were offered each semester.

5) In 1971, by resolution of the Higher Council of the Catholic University, the Institute of Aesthetics was created. The sections became Departments, with the authority to grant academic degrees in Aesthetics, with specializations corresponding to each Department.

At the beginning of 1973, the Department of Visual Arts, which maintained a close curricular relationship with Aesthetics, became part of the Institute. In this way, the workshops of this department, which contribute to the training of Visual Arts teachers, seek a deeper interrelation between theoretical and aesthetic principles and the field of their specific application.

Currently, the Institute offers approximately sixty courses each semester. Its agreements with various entities (ministries, embassies, museums, hospitals, schools, institutes, television channels, municipalities, cultural centers, etc.), the multiple actions it carries out in the university field (conferences, recitals, exhibitions, concerts, etc.) and the influx, in the teaching field, of students from all units of the University (in a number close to two thousand every semester), clearly demonstrate that Fr. Raimundo Kupareo was not mistaken nor was he pursuing a pipe dream: the presence of the Institute in the University is a clear demonstration of the implications that the aesthetic experience has in man, the implications that it has in youth, who, with greater spontaneity than the adult, seek the perfection of being, so profoundly revealed in the work of art.

During his stay in Chile, Father Kupareo tirelessly published articles and works on Aesthetics. We cite some free ones: The Value of Art (Aesthetic Axiology); Human Creations. I. Poetry; Human Creations. II. The Drama. In "Aisthesis" and "Anales", mentioned above, and which Fr. Kupareo directed, he published essays on Art Criticism, Aesthetics of the Novel, Architecture, Painting, Sculpture and Music. In "The Value of Art" he included an appendix intended for Filmology, and he is currently preparing, from his homeland, for No. 10 of "Aisthesis", an essay on "Painting and Ballet."

All these publications form a coherent and profound System of Aesthetics, of which we will try to provide a necessarily brief vision of its foundations.

II.

Notions on Aesthetics from Dr. Raymundo Kupareo

1. — Introduction

We find it revealing to begin these lines by joining together certain statements by P. Kupareo:

He, who is a priest, affirms: "some teach that religion is not only the supreme value (what is correct) but the only value that absorbs all the others... This "aesthetic pietism" harms even the Catholic Church itself, which has frequently lost its influence on authentic art, just as in the economic field it has ceased to influence a large part of the working class" [1964, p. 56-57].

He, who is an educator, says: "when we talk about art as a pedagogical medium, we regularly think about the moral, social, religious, etc. content of the work... we are dissociating what cannot be done: the form and the substance" [1971, p&;. 18].

He, who is a philosopher, expresses: "Science and Philosophy are good and useful, they reach the truth in some way, but they reach it very imperfectly. Philosophy is too abstract, too broad; Science is too limited by its experimental-quantitative point of view" [1964, p. 96].

But with these statements he does not renounce being a priest, nor an educator, nor a philosopher, because he knows that, as Vicente Huidobro says in his "Poetic Art", art is "the key that opens a thousand doors." He knows that the artist is capable of "touching" the human spirit, where the specialized language of the theologian, the educator and the philosopher are silent. Hence he so zealously defends the value and autonomy of art. Autonomy that does not mean separation, aestheticism that isolates itself from other human values, but, on the contrary, illuminates them with another light: "Art is nourished by other values, transforming them into absolute signs" [1971, page. 19].

This last statement introduces us fully to the concept of art as a symbol, that is, as perfection of the sign, and which Father Kupareo states in the following way: "Art is the incarnation of human ideas in concrete symbols" [1964, page. 17].

2. — Art and idea

In the definition we have just cited, the "ideational" is affirmed as an essential co-principle of Art: the work of art is not the mere reflection of particular psychic states, or of things in their external appearance. In that case we would be facing a copy and not a creation.

Are we then confusing Art with Philosophy?

Father Kupareo responds that the "ideational" in Art, or artistic "idea", as he calls it, and the idea as we understand it in a philosophical context are not the same (see infra, 3).

Art, by embodying human ideas, asks that we appreciate it with a profound realism and that we notice not only the shell of things, as we usually do in everyday life, because those are, in each artistic creation, not "pure objects" but "pure objects" in which there is nothing gratuitous, accidental, contingent.

The Aesthetics of Father Kupareo reveals this property of the artist, as a creator, it reveals the spiritual richness of the human being, by transfiguring the lines, colors, volumes, metaphors, melodies, characters, events, etc., giving them a new order, unrepeatable in each work, which puts us in the presence of what is not subject to the servitude of time and space, nor to the variability of material things.

This "concretization of invisible realities in perceptible form" [1965, p. 91], characteristic of Art, might, at first glance, be connected with the Aesthetics of German Idealism, where the presence of the "ideational" is a vestige of the Unlimited, of the Infinite (Schelling's Absolute; Hegel's Idea). Father Kupareo always insists that art is a completely human phenomenon... it cannot go beyond the limits of human imagination... the supernatural, as such, does not enter into Art. If it represents revealed mysteries, it presents them in symbols drawn from the human experience, giving them the noblest and highest meaning, but always a human one. Abstractions and allegories can enter into catechesis, but not into Art" [1972, p. 38]. It would seem that this thought places limits, barriers, on the artist, on his yearning to glimpse hidden realities. But if we change our perspective, we realize that it is something very simple: man can elevate the human experience of all mysteries to artistic form. Among these is human nature itself (substantial essence); its ontological richness is so unfathomable that we cannot glimpse its depths; there are no images that can symbolize it without diminishing its reality. "What painter has painted the human soul?" asks Father Kupareo. Unless it is an allegory absolutely in need of explanation; but Art is not a coded message.

What, then, are these "human ideas" that the artist embodies? Man is a mobile being; he is subject to a multitude of incessant changes. This movement (which perfects or worsens man axiologically) "It modifies the ontological richness of human nature without altering its essence" [1964, p. 11]; one can love and then hate the same person without the subject of such acts ceasing to be himself, as an ontological reality. Fr. Kupareo finds in human accidental essences, which reveal the mutability of the human being, the "ideational" field of Art. And this is because accidents receive their entire being from the subject who experiences them. Hence, "only this world of human accidental essences is intelligible to us according to our empirical knowledge; "Only he is the starting point for acquiring ideas in a proper sense" [1964, p. 19]. Despite not constituting it, accidental human essences, by being born from the substantial essence, somehow express it.

If on an ontological plane human nature is the substantive, and its affections (accidents) the adjective, in the artist the potential of creative imagination is such that it suggests that the adjective becomes a being-in-itself: we no longer contemplate a frustrated man, but frustration itself. Personal pain, so hidden at its root, so distant, so diminished before the lives of other men, becomes a torrent that engulfs all human beings:

"and through a pinhole rises a river of inconsolable blood..."

(P. Neruda: from the poem "Illnesses in My House").

How can we fail to glimpse in this way the ontological richness of the particular being who serves as the subject of such pain? The system of Aesthetics we are examining rescues the purity that lies hidden behind the darkness of every human mind and heart. From the perspective of the absolute signs of Art, it is no longer possible to consider man as a "being-in-the-world," in the existentialist sense of the term; that is, as a "situated being" so personal that nothing connects me to others.

3. — Art and Symbol

The symbolic, along with the ideational element, is an essential co-principle of Art, according to Father Kupareo's definition.

The word "symbol" has multiple meanings. It is used in countless different senses (mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, linguistic, logical, psychoanalytic, practical, etc.).

To apply the term "symbol" to aesthetic phenomena, Father Kupareo relies on its etymology: "two things placed together that appear as one" [1964, p. 25].

The experiential and the ideational are inextricably intertwined in Art. The embodiment of human ideas is now understood as intuited feelings, that is, elevated to universality, to the idea, whereby the immediacy of experience does not disappear: "art encompasses the whole person: all their faculties (physical, psychic, intellectual) cooperate in its appearance; all of them rejoice in its presence" [1964, p. 22]. The artistic symbol unites, in an illusion of identity, the historical with the timeless, the particular with the universal, the material with the immaterial, the mutable with the permanent [cf. 1964, pp. 91-103].

Man, as "being-in-the-world," as a reality "situated" in time and space, with his particular circumstances, and who cannot be "displaced" because he is unrepeatable, is outlined in each work of art in his dual bodily and spiritual perspective: at once subject to time and space, and at once dominating them. Father Kupareo observes how instrumental signs (referential, representative, infravalent, alluding to a reality that already exists) rise to a suggestion of formal signs, in which an intentional identity with the signified thing is evident [cf. 1964, pp. 25 ff.].

Language, codes, and technology acquire, through aesthetic intuition, a reality where reference gives way to the representational, to the evaluative, where the sign does not lose itself in order to signify, but rather is itself what matters.

Thus, matter becomes, in Art, and in aesthetic experience in general, translucent, full of spirit, revealing the nature of man: "Philosophical or scientific abstraction does not look at the concrete, while Art unites the abstract with the concrete, the material with the spiritual, offering an example of harmony between matter and form, which is a human ideal [1972, p. 40]. 'To be free from abstraction, to see, to intuit the abstract in the concrete; such is the noble tendency of Art. Franz Marc paints his "Blue Deer" and his "Yellow Horses" in a way that would frighten a zoologist, but his deer are our swift desires; his horses, our mature aspirations" [1964, p. 96]. This symbolic union is possible because the artist transfigures nature (physical and psychic); That is, without breaking with what is inherent to it, it adds a perfection that it did not have before (the ideational element): although the beings are not taken in their physical sense (since then it would be a copy), their very properties entail a "signifying" potentiality that makes aesthetic signification possible:

In "Ode with a Lament," Pablo Neruda says: "...I can only love you with kisses and poppies." Kisses are not transfigured in this verse, but they can be, as the poet himself has done in his magnificent poem "Illnesses in My House," where the kiss is identified with the fragility of childhood ("...there is a whole sky piercing a kiss"). In "Ode with a Lament," kisses remain what they are in their physiological nature, but they serve as a strong contrast to that amorous reverie, which is something psychic, higher and more desired than the purely physiological, and which the poet identifies with "poppy." The poppy here does not have its value as "a papaveraceous plant with red flowers and blackish seeds that frequently abound in sown fields," that is, in its physical nature, but as a "significating" thing of amorous reverie, due to its soporific power [1964, p. 261.

In the aesthetic symbol, man is simultaneously in the concrete material world and at the heights of his spiritual sphere. It is a new cosmos where "the clash of contiguous and discontinuous spaces and times, respectively, contains a suggestion (idea) that does not exist in isolated spaces and times, freeing us from temporal continuity and spatial contiguity, whether in the purely physical sense or in the sense of homogeneity that the mind gives them" [1968, p. 12].

How can we not recall, in this regard, the first three shots of Chaplin's film "Modern Times"? In them, through direct cuts, the siren of a factory appears, announcing the end of the workday; then the workers, as they leave the factory; and in the third, a flock of sheep bursts in, crowded together, from a corral. The suggestion of human depersonalization arises from the union of disparate spaces and an accelerated time (rhythm), characteristic of old-fashioned smokers, which mechanizes movements.

To appreciate a work of art is to unite what is seemingly fragmented, disrupted, and jumbled. The discontinuous and disjointed appear, precisely, to reach their most extreme points (aesthetic asynchrony and asynchrony, as Father Kupareo calls them), so that the spirit, with its tendency toward synthesis, with its simplicity, invites all our faculties toward unity.

4.-Art and Being

With his vision of Art as a concrete symbol, Father Kupareo makes us realize that the deepest meaning of reality is hidden from us because our pragmatic vision substitutes it with appearances, with puppets, with empty shells. It is the forgetting of the experience of being through mere passing by. The artist, with his absolute, intransitive signs, and therefore full of relevance (in the philosophical sense of the latter term), reintegrates the dispersed, atomized man of the twentieth century, whose civilization of practical signs has codified him in his reactions; the man who, in the signaletic—attractive, but cortical, epidermal—believes he sees the very reality of things: a brand of cosmetics is youth; a powerful car is strength, seduction, masculinity itself.

The depths of being are unfathomable, as artistic creation proves: the richness of things' properties allows the creative imagination to symbolically attract even the most disparate elements, so that in their aesthetic embrace, artistic "ideas" may shine powerfully. If we look at a fully realized work, we find that there is only a relationship of reason (a conceptual relationship) between the images that compose it and the idea. Let's take, for example, a rhyme by Bécquer:

"How does that rose live that you have pinned

next to your heart?

Never before have I beheld on earth

atop the volcano the flower."

We know very well that the images "rose," "pin," "heart," "volcano," and "flower" have no real relation whatsoever to the lover's ardent love. Nevertheless, such conceptual relationships move us; we accept them as if they were reality. Logical relations are also based on reason, but they are cold, as, for example, when I say that there is a relation between the concept of the species (man) and real individuals. This is why we call the relations that enter into a work of art "aesthetic."

The difference between these two kinds of relations of the heart, mentioned here, lies in the fact that "logical" relations relate concepts, while "aesthetic" relations relate things, but such things, IN FACT, have no relation to each other in the real, physical sense, but rather in the metaphorical, or better, symbolic sense. Such relations are constructed by the mind, with an extrinsic foundation in things. We can say that this relation is based on the scholastic distinction "rationis ratiocinantis," which is defined as: "A distinction made by the mind in a thing without the thing itself offering the immediate basis for such a distinction" [1964, p. 23].

This profound clarification of the concept of "aesthetic relationship" allows us to glimpse the richness of Divine Creation. It is the analogy of being that, metaphorically, the artist extends in his absolute signs, whereby Art reveals the unity of origin of created things, as well as their diversity.[13] This metaphorical and inexhaustible extension of Divine Creation illuminates each being in a new way, without it losing itself: the trees that rise, vertical and slender in the background of the landscape, symbolize the strength and the realm of the ecclesial, in Fra Angelico's painting, "The Beheading of the Saints."

The splashes of color on the trees in some Impressionist paintings represent the vegetal freshness that refreshes and overflows, and which is identified with the joy of living. The withered, gnarled tree in Van Gogh's "The Sower" is projected onto the sower himself, sowing fruitlessly in the void... Father Kupareo reconnects humanity to God through beauty. Not as a priest or a believer, but because he gazes upon the essence of aesthetic experience with such depth that it reveals to us a call to the Transcendent. One does not need faith to sense its fragrance in the profound experience of beauty.

We conclude with the following words of Father Kupareo, which we wholeheartedly endorse: “Beauty is a completely human phenomenon, given to us by God to intuit in a beautiful object the perfection of being, so desired by the spirit. It is a game, a suggestion, but a pure game, a suggestion of the spiritual. There is no doubt that philosophers and artists experience the highest satisfaction in the natural order. However, it is true what René Le Senne said, that these two 'developing thoughts' demonstrate our imperfection: philosophy and science are based on abstraction; art on unreality, since it is a symbol, 'an illusion of identity with the thing signified.' This very imperfection leads us to admit a Perfect Being. Artists are imitators of the Creator, but only by analogy. No one, except Him, can bring beings into being from nothing with His word. For Him, a simple 'Fiat' was enough for everything to appear in its perfection and fullness.” The artist works with matter, which refuses to yield to the breath of the spirit. His work only suggests the perfection of being. However, this suggestion soothes our spirit more than scientific and philosophical abstractions, because we are human beings; that is, we want to see, look, hear, and touch—metaphorically—the essences hidden in objects [1964, pp. 153–154].

Works cited by Dr. Raimundo Kupareo:

[1964] The Value of Art. (Santiago: Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, Center for Aesthetic Research).

[1965] Human Creations. Part One: Poetry. (Santiago: Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, Center for Aesthetic Research).

[1968] Novelistic Time and Space. (In "Aisthesis", No. 3, Santiago, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, Center for Aesthetic Research).

[1971] Art Education. (In "Aisthesis", No. 6, Santiago, Catholic University of Chile, Institute of Aesthetics).

[1972] Art, the Preeminent Human Value. (In "Aisthesis", No. 7, Santiago, Catholic University of Chile, Institute of Aesthetics).

Engineer Esteban Horvat, Former Rector of the University of Zagreb — Octogenarian

Outline for a Biography of the Scientist and the Man

Rakovac - Nevistić

ESTEBAN HORVAT is a multifaceted, versatile personality. He is one of the Croatians who have been working abroad for many years as renowned scientists or artists. Capturing and defining the essence of his personality as a man or as a scientist in a short article dedicated to him on the occasion of his 80th birthday is no easy task. Based on his professional activity, we could categorize him among scientists with an empirical-mathematical orientation. But that is not enough. His innate inclinations also suggest a talent with a humanistic vocation and legitimate aspirations in the art of music.

Despite all this, and perhaps precisely because of this versatile talent, Mr. Horvat is a man who dedicates himself solely to his work. He prefers to develop it in silence. His love for knowledge and creation almost excludes everything else. Propaganda or self-promotion are of no interest to him. Values, if they exist, assert themselves. Artificial improvisations also dissolve on their own.

Engineer E. Horvat was born in Srijemski Karlovci, Croatia, on November 29, 1895, the son of a humble but experienced bricklayer. After completing his primary and secondary education in his hometown, he entered the University of Zagreb (Advanced Course in Geodesy at the time, 1917). He distinguished himself through his talent and, alongside his studies, dedicated himself to practical work in this field, financing his education. Enlisting in the army, at that time the monarchist army of Yugoslavia, he attained the rank of second lieutenant and always worked in his specialty as a surveyor.

However, feeling his Croatian identity incompatible with the Great Serbian spirit that prevailed in that military environment, he resigned from his military career and began working independently in the city of Zemun, now part of Belgrade. After a series of successes in his work (notably the urban development plan for the town of Tetovo, Macedonia), he was appointed substitute professor in the Faculty of Technology, specializing in Geodesy. Soon after, thanks to his evident and internationally recognized professional merits—a point to be discussed later—he was appointed full professor and, subsequently, during the last world war, rector of the National University of Zagreb.

From our first personal encounters with him—quite some time ago—until today, as he celebrates his 80th birthday, Engineer Horvat has retained all the qualities of a serene, insightful mind and keen observer of the social reality around him, despite being apolitical. In discussions, he knows how to respect his interlocutor, but also how to command respect for himself. In matters of politics and culture, he does not accept definitive solutions and leans toward opinions that allow for continuous change and progress, as in the scientific field itself. Listening to others' opinions and calmly and attentively expressing one's own is one of the methods for promoting both knowledge and collaboration and friendship among people. He dislikes dogmatism of any kind.

Despite his apolitical stance in life—apolitical in the sense of not belonging to any party—his concern for the general well-being of his people was always unwavering. As a true humanist, he believes that pure, positive science, especially as expressed in technology, does not and cannot provide solutions to the crisis currently afflicting the entire world, even though it provides humanity with the necessary means to increase and refine consumer goods. Horvat is one of the few in his profession convinced that humanity and the world today must undergo a radical change in their lives and customs to overcome the current global crisis. The economic, social, political, cultural, and institutional crises are all reflections of a deeper crisis: the moral crisis.

Within this way of seeing things, he never succumbed to the temptation of believing himself or others capable of solving all problems. Acting throughout his life as a man of the positivist scientific school, despite his humanist and idealist inclinations, he remained within the bounds of the possible and defined himself as follows: "I always keep in mind what I must and what I can, as well as how far I can go." In this way, he reminds us of Goethe's idea that man is not called to solve all problems. It is enough to pose them and see what can and cannot be done. "For me," he said recently in a conversation with friends, "unsolvable problems are no longer problems."

Analyzing events in his homeland—Croatia—occupied by Serbia and communism, Engineer Horvat, with a mixture of admiration and reproach toward Churchill—"the one most responsible," as he often calls him—says: "Bolshevism is a disease, an infection, not a political doctrine" that would offer acceptable solutions for free men.

Consistent with his humanist spirit and his general concern for the well-being of the Croatian community, at the most critical moment during the last war, Engineer Horvat published a book entitled Open Letters to Croatian Intellectuals, appealing to their sense of responsibility. All of them, without exception, faced with the danger looming over Croatia, should have united and resisted what was coming. Such courage and bravery are not virtues of many intellectuals. They often seek to survive, adapting to regimes of all kinds, invoking their supposed apoliticism and their exclusive interest in and dedication to science. (Zakharov, an admirable exception today!)

This courage of his was the main reason that forced him to leave his homeland and seek refuge abroad in the face of Serbia's reoccupation of Croatia and the imposition of an atheist, totalitarian, and hegemonic regime.

In the "leisure" imposed upon him after the war in the refugee camps, Horvat devoted himself to musical compositions. Four folk cycles, dedicated to four main regions of Croatia, are the fruit of this hobby, which proved highly appreciated by connoisseurs. Vatican Radio has broadcast his composition "Ave Maria" several times. Croatian choirs in exile, especially "Jadran," known to the Argentine public, continue to perform these folk cycles in their programs to this day, 30 years later. In honor of Cardinal L. Stepinac, martyr of the Church and witness to the freedom of Croatia, Horvat composed a solemn mass for choir, entitled "Beatae Mariae Virginis." Unable, therefore, to work in his professional field, Horvat dedicated himself to the art of music, so necessary to the human soul, especially in the sad times that all Croatians experienced at the end of the last world war. Praying and singing, singing and praying, as If it were an inexorable law, two profound human needs would compel the scientist Horvat to both pray and sing. They even demanded that he create music so that others, too, could sing and pray, inspired by what he felt and how he himself expressed it artistically.

Once he arrived in the Republic of Argentina, the overwhelming realism of the motto "primum vivere" (first live) was imposed upon him... and Engineer Horvat returned to his professional work at the Military Geographic Institute of the Republic of Argentina, where he has worked for 27 years.

To obtain information regarding Engineer Horvat's scientific and practical work at this military institution, an interview was granted to Engineer José Ivandić, his former student, and F. Nevistić, director of SC., with Colonel Ernesto J. Tacchi, Major Restelli, and Surveyor Rubén Rodríguez. The interview took place on June 13th. 1975. Below, we reproduce the data and opinions gathered on this occasion. These are the elements provided by Argentine specialists. We have thus sought to avoid any bias on our part and to refrain from issuing any subjective judgments regarding the actions, successes, and significance of Engineer Horvat's work in the Republic of Argentina.

Engineer Horvat and his work at the IGM.

—Since when has Engineer Horvat worked at the IGM? How did he get the job there—through personal merit or based on a recommendation?

— Engineer Horvat has worked at the IGM since September 11, 1948. In 1948, a commission for the recruitment of foreign personnel was formed with the purpose of reviewing the backgrounds of all world-class personnel who could potentially join the IGM. This commission was chaired by Engineer Guillermo Riggi O'Dwyer, then head of the Calculations Division and Advisor to the Directorate, who considered that, among all the backgrounds reviewed, Engineer Horvat's were of particular significance.

— In what specialty does he work, and has he worked in the same specialty throughout this period? What position does he currently hold at the Institute? What specific tasks does he perform?

— Since joining the IGM, his main activity has been numerical calculation, applied to problems in geodesy, error theory and compensation calculations, spherical trigonometry and its application to the ellipsoid, and general cartography, especially geodetic cartography. His current position within the Civilian Personnel Ranking of the Armed Forces is Senior Personnel, Class I, the highest rank within said ranking. His current role is that of advisor in matters of his specialty, and he is also dedicated to writing monographs on the same topics.

— We are told that Engineer Horvat has published several of his scientific works, which are almost inaccessible to those outside his field. Could you tell our readers and the general public approximately how many there are? What is their scientific value? We are particularly interested in knowing: Are there any original elements in Engineer Horvat's work, and if so, what do they consist of? What value does his work have for the Institute, given that it is not a matter of scientific originality but rather the application of general knowledge from his specialty to the conditions and needs of the Institute? Does his work, due to its importance, transcend the strictly institutional boundaries of the Institute, or can it be considered of national value, or perhaps even of international scientific significance?

The following scientific works, authored by Engineer Horvat and published by the IGM (National Geographic Institute), the IPGH (Pan American Institute of Geography and History – Organization of American States), and the Geodesy Directorate of the Province of Buenos Aires (Ministry of Public Works), are:

SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS

1. — Resolution of a large system of normal equations by applying the ideas of Pranis-Prañevich and Dr. Boltz. — Publication No. 5 of the Cartography Commission, Geodesy Committee of the IPGH (No. 135), p. 129, Buenos Aires, 1954.

2. — Exact solution of the angular normal equations of simple triangle systems. — Third Series M. 1. Special Publications. Geodesy Directorate, Ministry of Public Works, Province of Buenos Aires; pp. 144, La Plata 1958.

3.— Gauss-Kruger and spheroidal polar coordinates. — IGM Technical Publication No. 29; p. 40, Buenos Aires 1960.

4.— Adjustment of a new point using the condition equations. — IGM Technical Publication No. 32, p. 50, Buenos Aires 1962.

5.— A simple method for solving the normal equations, composed in part of the angular equations. — Third Series No. 16, Special Publications. Geodesy Directorate, Ministry of Public Works, Province of Buenos Aires, p. 119, La Plata, 1965.

6. Compensation of a triangulation by transforming the coefficients of the error equations. — Technical Publication No. 39 of the IGM, p. 47 of text and pp. 29 of spreadsheets, Buenos Aires, 1966.

7. — Problems of geodetic calculation, represented in the forms corresponding to the application of electronic computers. Calculations related to the ellipsoid. — Technical Publication No. 41 of the IGM, p. 168, Buenos Aires, 1968.

8. — Solving geodetic-topographic calculation problems with the IME electronic calculator. IGM Publication, p. 87, Buenos Aires, 1968.

9. — Gauss-Kruger coordinate conversion. — Technical Publication No. 42 of the IGM, p. 25, Buenos Aires, 1968.

10. — New formulas for calculating magnitudes related to the Earth's ellipsoid. Their adoption for mechanized calculation. — Technical Publication No. 43 of the IGM, Buenos Aires, 1969.

11. — Calculations in the Stereographic Projection. Contribution to the study on the most suitable projection for urban areas. — Publication of the Geodesy Directorate of the Province of Buenos Aires, 1969.

12. — Numerical calculation with relatively small angles. — Publication No. 331 of the Cartography Commission of the IPGH, p. 113, Buenos Aires, 1971.

13. — Formulas and tables for the conversion of Gauss-Kruger coordinates. — Technical Publication No. 44 of the IGM, p. 35, Buenos Aires, 1969.

14. — Calculation and Compensation of Polygonal Systems. — Technical Publication No. 45 of the IGM and No. 348 of the IPGH, in 3 volumes, Buenos Aires, 1973.

Articles and studies published in journals:

A) Cartographic Journal, published by the Cartography Commission of the IPGH.

15. — Exact Determination of Reductions in Mercator Projection. — No. 1, p. 10, Buenos Aires, 1952.

16. — Calculation of Geodetic Coordinates with Machines. — No. 6, p. 26, Buenos Aires, 1957.

The method developed in this article has been applied at the Military Geographic Institute since 1958.

17. — A Simple Method for Determining Numerical Values of the Functions:

W = (1-e'2 sin2 α)(1/2)

V = (1 + e² cos² α)(1/2) and their reciprocals.

— No. 8, pp. 12, Buenos Aires, 1959.

18. — Gauss-Kruger Projection with Reduced Coordinates.— No. 9, pp. 25, Buenos Aires, 1960.

The 3rd National Congress of Cartography in 1958, in one of its recommendations, suggested to the Military Geographic Institute that it consider replacing the current Gauss-Kruger Projection systems with 6° wide strips and a secant cylinder. Since this suggestion—if accepted—would represent significant drawbacks and expenses, it was necessary to investigate the problem thoroughly, considering all the influencing aspects and not just one: linear distortions, which were the reason for the recommendation.

This article considers the problem of the so-called secant cylinder in general and in relation to the extent of the national territory. From the argument developed, it follows that the introduction of wider strips and The secant cylinder method does not lead to the advantages assumed in the recommendation; on the contrary, in the south of the country, the distortions would be much greater than in existing systems.

19. — Compensation of a specific point by intersection of arcs: Trolateration. —No. 10, p. 30, Buenos Aires, 1961.

20. — Coordinate transformation in the Gauss-Kruger projection. Formula for electronic computers. —No. 12, p. 32, Buenos Aires, 1963.

21. — Compensation of one or more new points by coordinates. Procedure adapted to electronic computer calculations. —No. 13, p. 40, Buenos Aires, 1964.

22. Coordinate compensation of a point by means of the combined intersection of lines and arcs. —No. 14, p. 12, Buenos Aires.

23. — Modifications of Boltz's development procedure for matrix enlargement reversed. — No. 15, pp. 24, Buenos Aires, 1966.

24. — Gauss-Kriger Coordinate Conversion. —No. 16, p. 25, Buenos Aires, 1967. Corresponds to Technical Publication No. 42.

B) "Geodesy" Magazine, published by the Geodesy Directorate, Ministry of Public Works, Province of Buenos Aires.

25. — Replacement of Triangulation with a Precision Polygonal Network. —No. 1, p. 6, La Plata, 1957.

26. — Formation of a Large System of Normal Equations. —No. 1, p. 6, La Plata, 1957.

A procedure is presented that facilitates this formation by dividing the total system into units, applying mechanical rules derived from the analysis of the equation structure, and using auxiliary graphical aids. This method is applied at the Military Geographic Institute.

27. — Compensation of traverses linked to triangulation points. — No. II, 1, pp. 6, La Plata, 1958.

28. — Considerations on the use of triangulation in urban areas. — Conference presented at the 3rd National Congress of Cartography. No. II, 2, pp. 2, pp. 6, La Plata, 1958.

29. — Some observations on the Gauss-Krüger projection with reduced coordinates. — No. II, 4, p. 3, La Plata, 1958.

30. — Direct formulas for a double projection of an ellipsoid onto a plane. Isometric latitude. — No. III, 4, p. 17, La Plata, 1959.

31. — Problems and methods of geodetic cartography. Conference at Cartography Week, 1960. — No. IV, 1/4, pp. 10, La Plata, 1960.

32. — Simple formulas for coordinate transformation in the Gauss-Kruger projection. — No. V, 2, pp. 14, La Plata, 1961.

33. — A simple method for determining the numerical values of the constants in the Gaussian sphere. — No. VII, 1/2, pp. 8, La Plata, 1963.

34. — Functions of small angles. — VIII, 1, pp. 8, La Plata, 1963.

35. — Simplified formulas for calculating the functions. — No. X, 1, pp. 8, La Plata, 1966.

36. — Formulas for calculating isometric latitude and its functions. — No. XI, 2, pp. 23, La Plata, 1967.

Yearbook of the Military Geographic Institute, Volume XIV, 1952

37. — Compensation of High-Precision Leveling, p. 16 — Provisional Calibration of the Western G4A No. 25 Gravimeter, p. 5. Gravimetric Observations at the Fixed Points of High-Precision Lines and Their Compensation, p. 25.

Presented at the General Assembly of the II.G.G.T. in Rome, 1954

38. — Influence of Earth's Crustal Tidal Movement on High-Precision Leveling.

— Considerations on the World Gravimetric System.

— Trigonometric Leveling and Plumb Line Deviation.

— Geographic Latitude and Movement of the Earth's Pole.

As the published works show, the special topics are the problems of compensating large trigonometric systems and their practical implementation, and then the problems of numerical calculation in geodetic mapping.

Several original methods have been developed for forming and solving equations and dividing them into groups in order to facilitate practical implementation.

Regarding geodetic cartography, the author was among the first to practically utilize hyperbolic and exponential functions, not only to find exact relationships but also to facilitate and simplify numerical calculation problems. The experience gained in this field has enabled its extension to other numerical calculation problems in general, and in particular to calculations with small angles (corresponding to the linear dimensions on the surfaces of spheres and ellipsoids).

The compensation of the fundamental Argentine triangulation has been studied in particular. This system is characterized not only by a large number of unknowns but also by the need to continuously adjust new parts of it, ensuring that the previous and new adjustments represent a homogeneous system and that all calculations already performed are preserved as much as possible with minimal repetition. Evidence of the international scientific value of Engineer Horvat's work can be seen in its mention by Jordan-Eggert in his treatise on Surveying. (This work is universally considered one of the most important in the fields of Geodesy, Topography, Cartography, and Photogrammetry.) We have included a photocopy of the pages containing the reference, along with its translation:

"Another procedure for determining the difference in spherical latitude and vice versa is provided by Horvat in Zeitschrift für Vermessungswesen, 1939, p. 624. Here, the difference in spherical latitude is calculated using the ellipsoidal meridian arc, from which, using a table of meridian arcs, the difference in spherical latitude can be determined."

"This method was established by Horvat in Zeitschrift für Vermessungswesen, 1939, p. 62, and it is evident that the series expansions found in this way do indeed coincide with the formulas developed directly for the ellipsoid. In the preceding formulas (1) to (11), we have demonstrated the validity of this procedure in a general way."

— How is it that Mr. Horvat continues to work at such an advanced age? Is he considered so valuable to the Institution that it would be inappropriate to dispense with his collaboration?

— Mr. Horvat does not work full-time, but he remains active as a consultant and advisor given his experience and ability, and bearing in mind that, despite his age, his intellectual gifts have not diminished.

— We have learned through a private channel that Engineer Horvat belongs to an Argentine national organization called—if we understand correctly—the Scientific Potential of the Argentine Republic. If this is true, and barring any objections, could you tell us what the objective and tasks of this organization are? Who selects its members, and based on what merits and criteria? Since when has Engineer Horvat been part of this organization? Does he have a specific role there?

—Due to his personal merits, Engineer Horvat is considered one of the country's intellectual leaders.

Finally, could you tell us what your opinion is of Engineer Horvat, both as an Argentine man and citizen, and as a man and scientist of Croatian origin? Can the Croatian community in the Argentine Republic have the right to take pride in this son, exiled from his native Croatia, occupied by foreigners and subjugated to a totalitarian and communist regime?

—Engineer Horvat has generously shared his wealth of technical and scientific knowledge, as well as his rich and varied wisdom, with Argentina. The Croatian community can be proud of a representative like Engineer Horvat, and Argentinians can be proud to count him as one of their fellow citizens.

The editorial staff of Studia Croatica, its sponsoring Latin American Croatian Institute of Culture, and all its contributors and partners, congratulate Engineer Horvat, the last rector of the Croatian University before its takeover by Tito's communists, on his birthday. We consider this eightieth anniversary, fruitful in every sense, a source of our satisfaction and pride.

(The "Jadran" Choir, whose founder is Engineer Horvat, through its president, Mrs. Muller-Terrazas, presented him with a commemorative bronze plaque and greeted him with prolonged applause from the audience at the concert on November 22, 1975. The Argentine Military Institute, at the ceremony held on November 28, 1975, offered him a reception, presenting him with a parchment and an acrylic plaque, both carefully prepared. His daughter, Ljubica, was also invited and honored with a large bouquet of flowers.)

The Missal of Hrvoje

Croatian Gift to Pope Paul VI

The missal bearing this name was presented as a gift to Pope Paul VI on the occasion of the Croatian pilgrimage to Rome in May (Holy Year). The Archbishop of Zagreb, Monsignor Dr. Francisco Kuharić, who led a multitude of faithful from his homeland, Croatia, presented the Supreme Pontiff with this valuable work of medieval Croatian culture. Below is a Spanish translation of the article written in English about this Missal, published in issue 4, Vol. II of the magazine "British-Croatian," 1975:

The first complete photostatic edition of one of the most beautiful Croatian and European manuscripts from the late Middle Ages.

On the text of Prof Branko Franulić, there is the following note in Latin: "Missale Hervoiae ducis spalatensis croatico-glagoliticum transcriptio et commentarium editionem euraverun. Biserka Grabar, Anica Nazzo, Manija Pantelić sub redactione Vjekoslav Štefanić, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Graz, 1973."

"The missal, known as the Missal of Hrvoje, Duke of Bosnia and after 1391 Ban (Viceroy) of Croatia and Dalmatia, is the most beautiful Glagolitic missal[14] in existence. Its history is interesting. The manuscript of this missal was discovered in the Sultan's library in Istanbul by three Hungarian scholars who, in 1872, were investigating manuscripts belonging to the Hungarian King Matthias I Corvinus in the Sultan's library. These manuscripts had been transferred to Istanbul by Suleiman and Abrahim Pasha and had since been lost. Another group of five Hungarian scholars, who continued the first group's research in Istanbul in 1889, was authorized by the Sultan to take some manuscripts to Budapest for study and publication. Among these manuscripts was also the Hrvoje Missal.

In 1891, a monograph entitled Missale Glagoliticum Hervoiae Ducis Spalatensis was published in Vienna." Reviewed by V. Jagić, L. Thalloczy, and F. Wickhoff. The well-known Slavist V. Jagić focused on the philological and paleographic aspects of the manuscript; L. Thalloczy addressed the historical aspects, and F. Wickhoff analyzed artistic depictions within it. Jagić established that the missal had 247 pages and was probably written in 1407 in the Croatian version of Old Church Slavonic, containing some elements of the čakavšan dialect, which was spoken at that time along the Dalmatian coast.[15]

The name of the copyist. Butko, mentioned in the prayer for the living (memento vivorum), is, according to Jagić, an affectionate diminutive of the name Budislav or Budimir, which was quite common in Dalmatia. Jagić could not provide further details to prove the identity of the copyist Butka.

In the additional section Providing a paleographic and philosophical (philological) analysis of the entire manuscript, Jagić also published in the same monograph some original fragments of the missal with parallel texts in Latin and Greek. The monograph, which also includes 16 miniatures and 26 initial letters, appeared in a very limited print run, and is therefore considered a bibliographic rarity. Eighty-two years later, this monograph on the Hrvoje Missal was published in full for the first time as a complete edition of 404 pages (247 folios), in its original size (310 x 220 mm) and in color.

There is also an additional volume containing its translation and a scholarly commentary on the text. The transcription of the Glagolitic text into the Latin alphabet was done by Marija Pantelić, comparing the text of the Missal with three other Glagolitic texts, selected from among 17 Croatian Glagolitic missals. The commentary on the text was written by Biserka Grabar and Anica Nazor. Under the direction of V. Štefanić, they have corrected some of Jagić's conclusions. These are the questions that the monograph left open and concern the Latin model of the Missal, the origin of certain original texts specific to the rites of the Eastern Church in the Glagolitic Missal of the Roman Rite, the relationship between the Hrvoje Missal and other Croatian Glagolitic missals and their different versions, the exact date of its composition (1403 or 1407), etc. All these questions are now resolved. The editors needed ten years to complete this truly scholarly and highly specialized work.

But setting aside the historical and linguistic interest of this Missal, its greatest value lies in the artistic beauty of its illustrations: 380 ornamental initials and 94 miniatures, all by an unknown master painter. The initials are zoomorphic or anthropomorphic and adorned with heraldic or botanical motifs. On some pages, the miniatures alternate with initials, forming a truly harmonious whole. The text is illustrated with scenes from the Old and New Testaments, with portraits of prophets, apostles, saints, and evangelists, as each month of the calendar is illustrated with scenes from seasonal work. Research on the iconographic compositions in the Missal has revealed a combination of Byzantine and Eastern elements with distinctive characteristics of Western iconography, originating from the royal palace of Naples.

At the end of the Missal is a portrait of Hrovje seated on horseback. One of the most prominent figures in Croatian history, Hrvoje was a strong and decisive leader. He had his own court, his own army, and his own currency. As Duke of Bosnia, Hrvoje wavered between Bogomilism[16] and Catholicism. When Ladislaus, King of Naples (from 1380) and of Hungary (from 1390), was crowned King of Croatia and Hungary in Zadar (southern Croatia) in 1403, he appointed Hrvoje, who had been regent in Croatia since 1398, as Duke (Herzeg) of Split. This likely occurred in 1404, when the Missal was planned and completed on the Dalmatian coast between Split and Omiš. The title "dux Spalatensis" bestowed upon Hrvoje by Ladislaus in the autumn of 1403 appears in one of the illustrations, and it is quite likely that Hrvoje gave the order to produce the Missal and thus solemnize (give a solemn character to) the event. — (Translated by f. n.)

Prof. Dinko A. Tomašić - His death (1902-1975)

Ante Kadić

Professor D. Tomašić died on August 7th of this year, a victim of a heart attack. His death occurred in Bloomington, Indiana, USA. Born in the small town of Smokvice on the island of Korčula, Croatia, he completed his secondary education at the classical school in Split and his law studies at the University of Zagreb. After obtaining his doctorate in law, he first worked as a statistician at the National Institute of Health (Belgrade), and then obtained permission to specialize in sociology at the Sorbonne and several universities in the USA. While studying at the University of California, Berkeley, he received news of his appointment as an assistant professor of sociology at his alma mater (Croatia).

In his first book, Društveni poredak hrvatskog naroda (The Social Structure of the Croatian People, 1937), and "Personalnost i Kultura u politici istocne Evrope" (Personality and Culture in the Politics of Eastern Europe, 1948), he put forward a theory according to which the peasants of Hrvatsko Zagorje (a region of northern Croatia, around Zagreb) are democratic and peaceful, in contrast to the Dinaric type, which he portrays as belligerent and aggressive. This thesis was strongly criticized by scholars both in his own country and abroad. While there is some truth to it (and for this reason, some Croatian publicists still consider it valid, even if it has been established as a principle and rigorously applied to two specific nations (the Croats and the Serbs)), it could become a source of bitter controversy. Despite his youthful orientation, rigorously Pro-Yugoslav, Tomašić gradually but steadily moved closer to Croatian national and social demands, and belonged closely to the more leftist faction within the Croatian Peasant Party, but his views brought him into sharp conflict with the prevailing ideology of his students. In 1940, the young professor accepted an invitation from St. Louis University and settled in the United States. Two years later, he moved to Lawrence College (Wisconsin), and in 1943, he was appointed to the Department of Sociology at Indiana University, where he spent the remainder of his long teaching career and remained until his death.

When Yugoslavia capitulated during World War II, some of its officials sought refuge in the United States. Among them was the ruler (Ban) of Croatia, Ivan (Juan) Šubašić, who appointed Tomašić as his personal secretary. Thus, he became very active among Croatian émigrés, collaborating closely with Dr. Šubašić, along with Tito, believed that the new Yugoslavia, under Tito's leadership, could be better and more favorable to its various national components than monarchical Yugoslavia. After the war years, Tomašić completely disappeared from the political scene and distanced himself from all Yugoslav politicians, with the exception of Dr. Juraj Krnjević, currently president of the Croatian Peasant Party, whom he highly esteemed for his selfless generosity.

Tomasić's second book in English, *The Impact of Russian Culture on Soviet Communism* (1953), was well-received by some scholars, while others rejected it. This book was published at a time when the American public did not believe, and for a long time, that the Soviet system bore much resemblance to that of Nazi Germany. Tomašić's position was not well-received by Russian émigré intellectuals because their homeland had never known genuinely democratic institutions.

In his book *National Communism* In his book *Soviet Strategy* (1957), Tomašić addressed various factions of Titoism; he insisted that this "promised land," in reality a ruthless dictatorship, should not receive substantial American financial aid. Some of the American professors who criticized his book wrote as if they were proponents and defenders of the official Belgrade line.

In 1958, Tomašić worked at Radio Free Europe in Munich, where he studied the communist system in various Eastern European satellite states. For decades after returning to Bloomington, he published numerous articles (in The Slavic Review, Journal of Croatian Studies, Studies on Communism, Studia Croatica, Hrvatska Revija [Croatian Review], etc.). Some of these articles were translated into several languages. In his observations and analyses, Tomašić acknowledges that the communist movement, especially after Stalin's death, allowed for the development of a certain polycentrism; however, he repeatedly insists that all communist parties share a common trait: once in power, they disregard the will of the people and entrust population control to the secret police and the army. It was quite natural that Tomašić, who studied the communist structure of Soviet and Eastern European communism, would also turn his attention to China, that Eastern giant which has now aroused tremendous interest in this country (North America).

After his retirement, Tomašić delivered a lecture in Montreal in August 1973 on the "charismatic power" of Mao Zedong. His book on China, on which he worked for the last ten years, is now complete; his widow, Carla, is preparing its publication. She is also planning to lay her late husband to rest in Korčula, in accordance with his lifelong wish to "rest forever in peace" among his relatives in his native village.

An excellent teacher, beloved by his students, Professor Tomašić was a true friend, a man of firm convictions, a staunch Croatian patriot, a proud and loyal American citizen, a loving husband, and an admirable father. His widow was survived by his three children: Veronica, Francisco, and Antonio.

*** As is evident from the text above, Professor Tomašić was an excellent contributor to Studia Croatica. On this occasion, we pay him posthumous tribute, express our gratitude for his contributions, and offer our deepest and most sincere condolences to his wife and children. We wish that the remains of your beloved father and husband may rest eternally in his native village on the Croatian island of Korčula, nestled in the sunny blue waters of the Adriatic.

With the passing of Professor Tomašić, a piece of the history of Croatian national political struggle, so turbulent at the University of Zagreb between the two world wars, also disappears. The undersigned, in his capacity as a student, was an opponent of Tomašić's leftist ideas and his support for the impossible integration of the peoples of Yugoslavia. Thanks to natural and human law, Professor Tomašić, with experience and time, returned to the Croatian national community and repudiated Yugoslav leftism, which led our people and the other peoples of Yugoslavia to communism and a ruthless, communist-hegemonic dictatorship with a Great Serbian character.

May he rest in peace, and may his mortal remains soon be laid to rest in the sovereign state of Croatia, the ultimate ideal and the desire of all the Croatian people! (F. N.)

The opportunist Ivo Andrić

In the major German daily newspaper "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung," in March 1975, the commentary under the title above, written by Ivona Dončević, appeared. Below, we reproduce the text in Spanish, endorsing the commentary in its entirety:

"No one who has read Andrić's works will doubt his poetic talent, his extraordinary culture, and the poetry of his language, which encompasses everything in its breadth. However, talent and character do not necessarily coincide, as Ortega y Gasset demonstrated in his 'Tripticon.' What, then, is the purpose of your contributor A. Razumovsky's attempt ("The Chronicler of Bosnia," F.A.Z., March 14, 1975) to absolve Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić of opportunism?

"Even in his youth, Ivo Andrić was an opportunist." Despite his Croatian origins, he opportunistically opted for Serbian nationality after 1918, that is, after the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later known as Yugoslavia. The matter is quite clear. In that state, a Croat could not pursue any significant career.

The internationally renowned Croatian philosopher and Albanianist, Šufflay, was murdered with a machete in the street in Zagreb; the poet and novelist M. Budak was seriously wounded in the same manner; and the president of the Croatian Peasant Party, S. Radić, and two other members of parliament were shot dead with revolvers in the Belgrade parliament. But Andrić had other ambitions that were not strictly literary: the circle of high diplomacy in the Yugoslav Kingdom was a closed field for Croats.

"Andrić returned to Belgrade in time (1941) from his post as ambassador in Berlin to avoid internment by the German authorities. There, due to his previous diplomatic activity in Berlin, he enjoyed the tolerance of the Germans in occupied Serbia. Thus, he lived in Belgrade during the war without the hardships or high cost of living to which the Serbian people were subjected, and he wrote his best works during this period, ready to deliver them to the new communist rulers as his personal endorsement. The fact that the Chronicles of Bosnia were written with serious historical distortions, to the detriment of the Croats, is justified by 'poetic license.'

"Incidentally, Ivo Andrić was not a communist and, as Razumovsky argues (FAZ, March 14, 1975), he 'considered all the powers of the world to be corrupt and necessarily repressive.' For this reason, he likely expected a healthy influence from the representatives of the European humanist spirit, to which he felt he belonged." But can one be a person of stature and renown, consider oneself a humanist, and at the same time receive the highest honors from a regime that had exterminated an entire generation of its own people and scattered the next generation across the globe after the failure of the Croatian Spring? Can one do all this without being opportunistic? Andrić, under the protection of his adopted nationality, has written some of the most beautiful pages about the Serbian wars of liberation.

A young poet who showed promise of doing the same for Croatian literature has been in Yugoslav prisons for four years now. This is Mirko Vidović, who years ago belonged to Mihajlo Mihajlov's circle and who, after the latter's imprisonment, sought refuge in France. When he went to visit his dying mother as a French citizen, he was arrested in Yugoslavia and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. He stands unwaveringly by what he wrote, and in addition to splendid poetry, he penned inspired analyses that delve into the heart of contemporary Yugoslavia. His situation in the Yugoslavian prison is very precarious: he is not an opportunist, and besides, he is a Croat. A worse situation in Yugoslavia is barely imaginable. Ivo Andrić avoided it. The price was his flight into opportunism.

The Little Corner of Poetry

Antonio Rendić Ivanović: What Does It Matter, Heart

What does it matter, my heart, that the hour of departure draws near

if, vibrant,

the soul lives in eternal spring

and love is redeemed from all guilt.

What does it matter, my heart, that, without feeling it,

time stands still on your shore

if your joy sings like the blackbird

and there is light, color, and life everywhere.

What does it matter that death lies in your footsteps

and your star is eclipsed, if another star

will ignite in the ether beside the sun.

Do not fear, my heart, for you have loved,

the wound that blossoms in your side

does not die: it is eternal like God.

News and commentary

The other major succession dispute in Europe: Yugoslavia

Manuel Aznar [17]

Political Europe is currently preoccupied with two succession processes. The Spanish one enjoys—or suffers, I don't know—a profusion of press coverage. The other process is discussed and written about much less. And yet, it will, in due course, assume a particularly dramatic importance. I will address it today, as an introduction to the larger topic. I will not go into too much detail because that is the task of futurists, and I have very little inclination toward futurology. But, at least, this commentary may serve as an initial warning to my readers.

Franco and Tito will both be eighty-three years old in 1975. Tito before Franco. If the authority of the Spanish State has been concentrated for nearly eight lustrums in the historical titles, military privileges, victories, economic development, and the establishment of national peace corresponding to the very person of Francisco Franco Bahamonde, it can be stated, without the slightest doubt, that the authority of the Yugoslav State has been sustained, for six lustrums, on the legitimacy of the power of a guerrilla leader victorious against the German occupation, on a popular clamor that exalted a leader, on material well-being that lifted considerable sectors of the Yugoslav population out of misery, on unyielding independence and sovereignty in the face of Stalin's immense power, and on a peace maintained at all costs, without weakness of any kind. This is the case of Tito.

Looking at things from certain angles that need not be pointed out because they are obvious, and keeping in mind the immense ideological differences that separate Franco from Tito, it doesn't seem far-fetched to suppose that tomorrow there will be historians and exegetes inclined to study the aforementioned personalities as two parallel lives, which, consequently, will never meet, but will look at each other as two destinies of undeniable similarities.

The fact is that the Yugoslavs, like the Spanish, are intensely experiencing the anxieties of a succession. And from beyond their respective borders, political circles are dealing with the issue with increasing care and renewed impatience. These political circles, both for Yugoslavia and for Spain, are of two kinds: one comprises all the meddlers, opportunists, and fools who have awarded themselves, simply because they felt like it, the title of Hispanist or Yugoslavist; The other group comprises the leading political minorities, those responsible for addressing the international problems that will inevitably arise in each of the two aforementioned countries, given the importance of the Iberian Peninsula and the Yugoslav Federation in maintaining the balance of power among the forces vying for imperial dominance.

I reiterate that today I only wish to touch upon this matter, as it pertains to Yugoslavia.

Whether or not the Yugoslav Federation is, in reality, a communist state has been endlessly debated. Tito and his followers categorically assert that it is. Russia has sometimes argued in the affirmative, and sometimes in the negative. In each case, it depended on the degree of practical friendship prevailing between Belgrade and Moscow. For China, there is no such thing as Yugoslav communism. Nor for Cuba, although Havana's condemnations seem to have softened somewhat recently. The truth is that Tito has ruled as a dictator since 1945; that the system admits no parties other than the Communist Party; that the national economy is organized around the nationalization and state control of businesses; and that Tito proclaimed the Marxist-Leninist creed as the essential doctrine of the state.

In contrast, Yugoslav communism has tolerated a certain degree of dissenting opinion; it has allowed, albeit with controls and exceptions dictated by circumstances, the circulation of the foreign press; it has permitted a degree of parliamentary freedom; it has not made a closed issue of the movement of people across borders; and it has imprisoned fewer opponents and dissenters than most other communist countries.

Early in his career, nearly thirty years ago, he felt compelled to take a drastic measure, and he hesitated without wavering. It was 1946. The Chetniks of Draža Mikhailovich and the communist guerrillas of Josip Broz, who at that time adopted the pseudonym Tito, were vying for power. Tito won. And, without hesitation, he executed Mikhailovich, abolished the monarchy, launched a program of socialization, and, relying on his "partisans," who easily won an election, established a communist dictatorship. Since then, neither flattery nor threats from the East or the West have deterred him from his course. Politics in Belgrade has been a mixture of paternalism and violence; the administration a well-balanced combination of personal centralism and federal concessions.

There has been considerable debate about whether Tito commanded or failed to command any international units in the Spanish Civil War. The matter is of relative interest. What is clear is that he played a very prominent role in the recruitment, integration, and logistical support of the International Brigades. His closest followers and friends were on the Spanish fronts. I have had the opportunity to meet some of them, even establishing a loyal and pleasant friendship with them. The United Nations is a magnificent forum for overcoming old, bitter disputes.

But in relation to the problems that the Yugoslav succession and the establishment of post-Tyrianism will raise, all of this is of relative importance. What may be concerning, and indeed will be concerning, the opinion of other governments, and indeed the entire world, is the series of consequences that the succession transition will produce in the delicate balance of international power. Therein lies the serious reality of the situation.

First and foremost, will the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia remain in existence? This federation, rife with divisive forces, has been maintained from Belgrade thanks to Tito's iron fist, cunning, boundless popularity, and economic policies. His armed forces and state security police have been decisive instruments. The Republic is federated with Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. Preserving the unity of these five former nations, in which, as I mentioned, separatism is actively at work, has been one of the clearest demonstrations of Tito's power—he is the lifelong head of state and de facto president of the government, although for reasons of internal expediency there has almost always been a prime minister, merely an executor of orders from the head of state.

When the days of positivism arrive, how will each of the federated regions react? What will the Croats of Zagreb, the Serbs of Belgrade, the Slovenes of Ljubljana, the Montenegrins of Titograd, the Bosnian-Herzegovinians of Sarajevo, and the Macedonians of Skopje do? I won't be the one to prophesy. There is, however, one thing that is beyond all doubt. The post-Islamic Yugoslavs will fight tooth and nail against external pressure; they will battle with the courage and spirit of sacrifice that have made them famous.

But the reasons for concern don't end there. The Yugoslav Federation is virtually surrounded, in several of its main areas, by Austria, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria; countries—leaving the Austrians aside—that the USSR can mobilize in no time, and which it will surely mobilize as soon as the succession process begins in Belgrade. To the south, we have Greece and Albania. The Greeks could be allied with one of the imperial blocs: the Western one; the Albanians will deploy their revolutionary potential, which is not great. But to the southeast and east we have the Adriatic Sea and Italy. Italy with a communist party of enormous power and worrying influence.

The problem, in general terms (though with countless and extremely complex nuances), will be posed as follows: which of the two blocs capable of global power—the United States, with NATO, and the USSR with the Warsaw Pact—will be the dominant ally of the new Yugoslavia? Moscow has not forgiven Tito for his independence from the Kremlin. It will seek to settle that old score and collect with hefty interest. It might well dream of an operation that, in some ways, and with all due respect, will somewhat resemble those of Budapest and Prague. Militarily, the undertaking will be extraordinarily tempting. It would represent the possibility of deploying the Soviet army's formidable armored divisions to the Adriatic and achieving strategic control of this sea. Moreover, they will join forces with the Italian Communist Party in Trieste. And if this Muscovite dream were to come true, all of Central and Western Europe, and especially Germany and France, would be enclosed in an iron semicircle, with no exits other than the Atlantic coasts and Spain. The military situation that such a scenario could generate would be catastrophic; so decisive and grave that the United States would have no choice but to deploy its full military might.

Therefore, I imagine that before reaching such agonizing realities, Washington, well supported by London, Paris, and Bonn, would decide to implement a proactive policy. Otherwise, God help us!

I will not continue for today. I have sketched a brief outline of the future. Among other aims, I seek to emphasize to my readers the crucial importance of Spain's role in this possible future game. Some may think I am simply dreaming. I don't care. I am convinced that my reflections, unfortunately, stem from a most agonizing series of possibilities; and that the vast challenge between Moscow and Washington, and between East and West, could be played out, much more than in the Middle East, in the lands and seas that comprise the current Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, an ideal arena for global maneuvering, kept out of the major conflicts thanks to Tito's political genius; but, destined for God knows what fate the day Tito fails.

(This article was published in "La Vanguardia Española" on July 13, 1975).

*** This article is extremely interesting. Not only because of its topicality and its dramatic approach, which is quite fitting for the situation, but also because of its two fundamental, yet somewhat contradictory, aspects.

Indeed, according to its author, Tito's power is legitimate and, at the same time, he characterizes it by an immense ideological distance from that of Franco. These two theses of Aznar, it seems to us, are contradictory and, consequently, untenable. If, indeed, we approach the legitimacy of power in light of classical doctrine on the matter—for example, that of G. Ferrero or Ortega y Gasset—Tito's political power is not, and cannot be, legitimate power. Rather, it is a paradigm—also classical—of illegitimacy. (See our article in SC, Nos. 28-31 of 1968, pp. 95-109.)

If Mr. Aznar says that an immense ideological distance separates Tito from Franco, he professes an indisputable truth. An authoritarian regime, resting on transcendentally Christian foundations (Franco), and a totalitarian regime grown from an absolutely materialistic background and superimposed on the population (Tito) are immensely different.

Bearing in mind the essence of the doctrine concerning the legitimacy of power, Tito's regime cannot be legitimate in any way. Where, in his case, is the common belief, specifically religious belief, considered by Ortega y Gasset as a primary, fundamental, and essential element of legitimate political power? Where are G. Ferrero's "i genii romani" in the Yugoslav case? Historical and dialectical materialism, as the ideology or philosophy of "scientific" socialism under Tito's regime, is in flagrant conflict with the religious beliefs of the vast majority of the entire population of Yugoslavia, whether Christian or Muslim. Let us examine this briefly in specific cases.

In Slovenia, occupied and divided during the last war by two Axis powers, there were resistance movements, a preparatory history for Tito's Yugoslavia. One was a minority communist movement, and the other a majority national-Christian movement. That first one, an integral part of international communism, aided and manipulated from the center of the international communist branch based in Belgrade, formally slaughtered 12,000 officers and soldiers of that Slovenian national-Christian resistance movement. Can one, then, speak of the legitimacy of Tito's power in Catholic Slovenia, considering only this fact that illuminates with crystal clarity the illegitimacy of that power?

The recent "affair" of the prominent Slovenian writer, E. Kocbek, with international repercussions, eloquently confirms what we are saying. So, what is happening in Croatia? If, in the tragedy known as the Bleiburg Massacre, Tito's "legitimate" power sacrificed some 200,000 lives of the cream of Croatian youth and intelligentsia, continuing the policy of genocide to this day, does Mr. Aznar have sufficient justification to speak about the legitimacy of Tito's power over this people? Are arguments necessary to demonstrate the illegitimacy of that power over more than a million Albanians, illegitimately separated from their motherland Albania and subjected to Tito's "legitimate" power? It is true that the situation of the Macedonians has improved overall in present-day Yugoslavia compared to the pre-war period, but who dares to say that the Macedonian people would not opt for the same decision they made in 1941, giving preference to their pro-Bulgarian orientation? If the minority in Bosnia and Herzegovina—37.2%—wields absolute power over the Croatian majority—Muslim and Catholic, at 39.6% and 20.6% respectively—is Tito's power there legitimate?

Clearly, it lacks everything necessary to be a legitimate power. There is no unity of religious or ideological creed, no majority to support Tito, no free elections, no hereditary transmission of power, no party pluralism, no democracy. What remains?

Mr. Aznar speaks to us of a "popular clamor that exalted a leader, about material well-being... about independence and sovereignty in the face of Stalin's immense power." But he forgets that the popular clamor of an armed mass is only valid as a means of moral intimidation, and nothing more, as a means to make a power that is patently illegitimate.

If Tito rose to power at the end of the last war, when the Western Allies handed over his unarmed adversaries to him, even denying them the right of exile, can one seriously speak of a leader and guerrilla fighter victorious through his own efforts and successes? It was the Russians who paved the way and opened the gates of Belgrade through which they entered; Allied tanks and planes cleared the roads through Croatia; it was the British, first and foremost, who disarmed the Croatian army, the Slovenian and Serbian resistance fighters, and handed them over to Tito's communists, who exterminated them without mercy.

On what, then, does the legitimacy of Tito's power rest?

The esteemed contributor to the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia also mentions the economic prosperity of Tito's country, without saying a word about the billions of dollars gifted to it by the Washington government "on behalf of" its taxpayers, nor about the million "Gastarbeiters"—migrant workers—who work in the rest of "capitalist" Europe, injecting hundreds of millions of dollars annually into Belgrade's banks. These banks distribute the money in such a discriminatory manner that the republics and regions whose workers send this money receive disproportionately less than Serbia, which recruits soldiers, police officers, and secret agents to safeguard the "legitimacy" of the "caudillo's" power. This is all without mentioning the approximately 300,000 to 400,000 unemployed people in the country itself.

But it must be acknowledged that Mr. Aznar does say something else that alters his favorable and optimistic outlook. "That federation, teeming with divisive forces, has been maintained from Belgrade thanks to an iron fist and political cunning... Its armed forces and state security police have been decisive instruments." Indeed, if Belgrade's iron fist, its army, and its police are factors in the legitimacy of Tito's power, then Mr. Aznar certainly has every right to speak. But an inexorable question arises: If Tito's power is so legitimate, that is, if it rests on the trust and will of the people, how is it that so many divisive tendencies are proliferating? Why so much concern about Tito's "succession process" and the very existence of Yugoslavia? Mr. Aznar's contradiction becomes quite evident.

The following paragraph by Mr. M. Aznar is unclear, at least to us: "There is, however, something that is beyond any doubt. The Yugoslavs of the post-dictatorship era will fight tooth and nail against foreign pressure; they will fight with the courage and spirit of sacrifice that has made them famous." Will they fight, then, among themselves or against foreign pressure? Or both? Such a heterogeneous, unjust, and tyrannical community will disintegrate as soon as the possibility arises. Whether due to internal struggles or external "pressure."

A human community without spiritual cohesion is incapable of resisting the pressure that promises change. Internal national, social, economic, and traditional differences will each try on their own to achieve something new, something better. The Serbs will try to retain hegemonic control, while the other non-Serbian peoples, especially we Croats, will try, and must try, to free ourselves from the "fraternal embrace" of that hegemony.

The internal factions—pro-Stalinist, pro-Western, and neutralist—will each try to seize this new opportunity for themselves. Thus, a whole range of possibilities remains for Soviet speculation. We must remember 1941! When the prison door opens, its inhabitants flee in all directions seeking refuge and freedom. It doesn't matter that this freedom is sometimes illusory. Belgrade's iron fist has exceeded the limits that many can bear.

Consequently, it is sad to note here that the eventual future disappearance of Yugoslavia is lamented, even within the Western world itself. The precarious and delicate situation that has arisen after Tito's death is the direct consequence of a profoundly misguided policy, both during and after the last war. After providing Tito with abundant aid during and immediately after the war, they supplied him with a wide variety of means to sustain his totalitarian, communist, and Great Serbian-hegemonic regime. All of this is in accordance with what was almost a slogan of the "visionary" Winston Churchill, who said that he was not interested in what kind of regime the Yugoslavs would live under after the war, nor should anyone else. Besides being absurd within the framework of a liberal politician's ideas, Tito's regime has taken things to such an extreme that today, the succession process is once again highly uncertain and difficult.

Mr. Aznar points this out with an elegant and truly dramatic style. The dangers of the alternatives after Tito are a direct consequence of that sinister and adventurous figure, exalted as a "hero" and "victorious guerrilla," but actually driven to be so against all the laws of true politics in accordance with Western tradition, in its most beautiful and traditional sense. The extermination of his adversaries, orchestrated by Her Britannic Majesty's policy at the end of the war, lies at the heart of Tito's utterly illegitimate power, a power contrary to the will of his people, a truly quisling power, if that term isn't already worn out.

Mr. Aznar seems to be advocating a new future Yugoslavia. We would be interested to know where to find the "genius" of his justification, of the legitimacy of the power of such a new political creation. This is the desire of the Spanish journalist and former diplomat. Doesn't this resemble the ardent desire of Don Francesco, about whom G. Ferrero tells us, who tried to give his wine the authenticity and legitimacy of Falernian wine, preferred by Orazio, a clearly impossible undertaking?

Those who believe they can find other factors for the legitimacy of power besides the right of peoples to self-determination are all mistaken, whether in good faith or bad; a right deeply rooted in the history of nations, intimately connected to human freedom, to its very rational-spiritual essence, uniting with factors "that are more akin to those intermediary essences between divinity and humankind," as G. Ferrero aptly puts it.

All other speculations surrounding Tito's "succession process," even the "pleasant friendship" that Mr. Aznar forged with some of those Balkan terrorists within the United Nations, inevitably lead to new and increasingly complete catastrophes. Ignoring the laws of man and his society leads to misfortunes, as it ignores the laws of nature. — (F. Nevistić).

On Yugoslav self-management

An authoritative French opinion

Bertrand Renouvin, former candidate for the presidency of the French Republic in the last national elections, published a book at the beginning of 1975 entitled *Le Désordre établi* (The Established Disorder). The author is also the editor of the magazine *Arsenal* and a columnist for the weekly *La Nouvelle Action Française* (The New French Action).

In the book we are referring to, Renouvin, among other things, writes about the "famous" Yugoslav self-management, also stating the following: "Reconciling Marxist socialism with freedom—this is the greatest ambition and concern of leftist movements after experiencing the failure of the Soviet revolution. The Yugoslav model continued to seduce them, marking the beginning of self-management practice, which was presented in the West as a kind of panacea within the internal contradictions of socialism. It is an ambiguous practice, because self-management has been discussed for twenty-five years, yet it has not been fully implemented. This is because it clashes with realities often underestimated by theorists and cannot be adapted to the dogmas and structures of Marxist economics.

Thus, for example, until 1966, Yugoslav self-management, grafted onto bureaucratic planning "à la sovietique" and subjected to the dictatorship of the The Communist League (the Party) never went beyond words: "For fifteen years, the workers' councils lived under the constant control of the secret police," writes Djilas, a proponent of self-management, in his book "The Imperfect Society." It was necessary, therefore, to wait until 1965, when the transition from state socialism to market socialism was proclaimed, and especially the fall of police chief Ranković in 1966, for the attempt to take shape. Eight years later, everyone agrees that the self-management revolution is still waiting to become a reality.

"Indeed, in the complex system of a socialist market economy—that is, planned and self-managed—only the market achieved consistency, while the plan was neutralized and self-management reduced to a modest role. But the market itself is also going through a rough patch: inflation, at a considerable rate (21% in 1973), is causing repeated devaluations of the dinar. The structural imbalance in foreign trade only contributes to the difficulties of the Yugoslav economy. Moreover, businesses are in a state of permanent insolvency, which generates various forms of embezzlement. This difficult situation, however, does not prevent the red bourgeoisie from enjoying a certain degree of prosperity, displaying luxury cars and weekend residences in a country that still has areas of extreme poverty. The market triumphs with its imbalances, excesses, and injustices at the very moment of the implementation, after 1965, of a banking system that distorts the system of self-management: when the economic reform of 1965 aimed to increase the Self-financing saw bank participation rise from 36.6% to 50.6%, while state financing fell from 26.6% to 15.7%. As a consequence, the share of self-financing decreased from 28.9% in 1965 to 27.6% in 1970. This occurred because the new constitutional amendments of 1971 stipulated the restitution of the fruits of labor to the producers. This was a clear acknowledgment of failure after twenty-three years of experience, and this new reform has not yet changed the situation.

"In truth, self-management still exists, but much more in principle than in practice. E. Kardelj himself recognized this: a new ruling class has emerged in companies," a technocracy that has seized power, while workers are becoming increasingly disinterested in the self-management of their companies. Thus, as sociologist Zdravko Mlinar writes, one observes "a socio-economic differentiation, where managers are opposed to workers. For example, the proportion of workers tends to decrease among the members of workers' councils in favor of engineers and equipment; thus, the higher one goes in the hierarchy of territorial units, the more the workers' representatives decrease."

"The domination of the 'managers,' where there is growing dissatisfaction among workers who realize that self-management doesn't eliminate the wage earner as much as it does the laws of supply and demand, leads to increasing wage inequalities from one republic to another. The anarchic market, the pronounced regional inequalities (one can travel centuries from the Dalmatian coast to Montenegro and Kosovo), state control of the banks, social inequalities, the economic model—everything is in crisis.

This crisis is exacerbated by the national question that currently threatens the Yugoslav Federation. Everything is interconnected: economic centralism and state control of the banks not only challenge the self-management experiment, they also transfer an imbalance to the internal life of the Federation, which the nations within it are increasingly less willing to accept. As Ante Ciliga demonstrates ("Crise d'Etat dans la Yougoslavie de Tito," Denoël), Yugoslavia was built on Serbian hegemony." This system, despite certain concessions granted to some of these peoples, continues to strengthen, especially at the expense of Slovenia and Croatia. Thus, the profits of Croatian and Slovenian companies are concentrated and managed by Belgrade banks; all Yugoslav import companies are headquartered in Belgrade; and all Croatian tourism revenue is sent to central financial institutions (according to "Vjesnik," Zagreb, October 3, 1975, tourism revenue that year amounted to $1.3 billion; see translation of this article).

These exploitative practices ensure Serbian domination over Yugoslavia as a whole, because the wealth extracted from Croatia and Slovenia is being partially distributed (in the form of prestigious investments) to underdeveloped regions in order to neutralize them. Furthermore, the economic crisis in the Federation is felt particularly acutely by non-Serbs and especially by Croats. Until 1970, of the approximately 700,000 Yugoslav emigrants, 350,000 belonged to the Republic of Croatia and the other 100,000 were Croats from Bosnia-Herzegovina.

"Hence the nationalist demands that have been agitating Yugoslavia since 1969 and generating multifaceted crises, especially internally on the Croatian side. This situation is poisoned by Moscow, which supports all nationalist movements against Tito and pushes neighboring nations to assert their rights over certain parts of the Yugoslav Federation (Bulgaria over Macedonia, Hungary over Vojvodina). So many contradictions, spontaneous or provoked, cast doubt on the survival of Yugoslav unity after Tito's death.

"The failure of self-management caused by central planning or financial control; The failure of the Federation, undermined by national realities, all of this compels us to recognize the more general failure of Marxism exposed to the unforeseen phenomenon of the new technocratic class and the conflict of a national reality that refuses to be swayed by a dogmatism of an international proletarian character. Yugoslavia can serve, in this sense, as a living symbol that forces those who dream of perfect societies to turn their gaze to other horizons.

We could add little to these insightful observations and analyses, worthy of a perceptive and impartial French spirit. — (FN)

Yugoslav communist presence in Peru

A "Yugoslavian" Peruvian viceroy

Eudocio Ravines in his pamphlet Communist Escalation in the Peruvian Revolution, says on pages 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20 and 21, among other things, also the following:

On the Yugoslav way

"Since May 1970, Peruvian revolutionary-nationalism has been firmly oriented towards the Yugoslav communist route. Industrial Communities are promoted in private companies, Co-management and Self-management are proclaimed as a system of basic economic organization, in the image and likeness of the institutions created by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia...

"The ideological influence and political, economic and social domination of Yugoslav-type communism over the Peruvian revolution is exhibited in the essential question of the decisive difference between Capitalism and Communism. It is the question of ownership, of her style, of her relationship between her and the man.

"Yugoslavian-type communism - unlike the Soviet or Chinese - has been the creator of three types of property: Private Property - which is only tolerated; State Property - which is considered a forced type of transition -, and Social Property - which has a preferential, privileged and, through the revolutionary process, hegemonic character.

These same types of property implemented in Yugoslavia and Peru, with the same character and the same specific differences, are proclaimed as the original creation of the Peruvian generals. In Peru, due to what has already been done and due to the official statements of the government, private property is being eliminated, until it is reduced to a minimum expression; to impose state property as a transition and to found and make prevail the so-called social property, exactly as is done in Yugoslavia. The Peruvian copy is complete with respect to the Yugoslavian original.

"Under the tutelage of Kardelj, the Peruvian generals have presented themselves to their country and to America and the world, as the creators of an original transformation, of a style unprecedented in the world, which is following a path that will be neither capitalist nor communist.

"The living and operating reality and the documents that we make known later demonstrate that we are in the presence of the most cynical of the present era...

Branko Horvat, the viceroy

"In colonial times, Peru was a powerful viceroyalty, which was governed by the viceroys appointed by the Crown of Spain. At present it happens as if a new kind of viceroyalty had been restored. In Peru, it is not the Peruvians who are in charge or governing, but the communist agents sent by Marshal Tito.

"After the departure of Edvard Kardelj from Lima in May 1970, the activity of the Titoist advisors and advisors was surrounded by the thickest secrecy. The following year, in 1971, there were leaks that suggested foreign interference in the activity of the generals' government. At the end of 1971, important aspects and moments of the intervention of foreign communist advisors were known.

"In February 1972 traces were discovered in the high circles of the government of a Memorandum No. 1, which ratified the action in Lima of a communist Aparatchik that operated under the direction of the high Yugoslav communist leader, Branko Horvat, appointed by Kardelj in 1970. Towards mid-1971, it was rumored that Peruvian generals were acting as members of the communist Aparatchik of Belgrade, José Graham Hurtado, head of the “Presidency Advisory Committee”; Leónidas Rodriguez Figueroa, head of the organization called “National System of Social Movitization” —SINAMOS— and the Minister of Industry and Commerce, Alberto Jiménez de Lucio. Three communist agents within the government.

"In 1973, the rumors were confirmed, and the clauses of a second Titoist Memorandum were revealed, leading to a purge of communists suspected of Soviet sympathies, who were acting as a faction led by the civilian Carlos Delgado.

"In May 1973, copies of Memoranda 1 and 2 circulated abroad, mentioning the team led by Branko Horvat and giving Titoist directives to the Peruvian generals.

"Memorandum No. 1, dated January 1971, is a comprehensive report outlining Yugoslav recommendations regarding the future of the Peruvian generals' nationalist revolution. The main recommendations concern types of property ownership and the need to gradually eliminate the cooperative ownership established in the sugar mills and plantations expropriated by the agrarian reform. This cooperative ownership was to be transformed into social ownership."

" "The second Yugoslav Memorandum, drafted with a greater understanding of the reality and the specific situation in Peru, contains precise recommendations regarding the development of the Peruvian revolutionary process. A reading of the various clauses of this Memorandum No. 2 leaves no doubt about the future that awaits Peru under the leadership of the generals, under the tutelage of Viceroy Branko Horvat and the directives from Belgrade and Kardelj.

This reality, expressed in verified statistics, is not a success. It is a spectacular and dramatic failure. It exposes the fraudulent bankruptcy of Titoist communism and presents, in perspective, the future that awaits Peru, whose generals have had the unfortunate idea of embarking on the adventure of copying the Yugoslav communist model.

The Yugoslav Constitution, exactly in accordance with the plan announced by the Peruvian generals, considers labor as the sole source of income for the individual." The written word becomes rhetorical, demagogic, when one realizes that more than two hundred billionaires now operate in Yugoslavia, and not in dinars but in dollars.

"The Yugoslav communist magazine 'NIN' publishes enlightening reports about the individuals involved, the methods they employed, and the corruption in which they are mired. The Zagreb newspaper 'VUS' protests against the tidal wave of corruption and writes: (In Yugoslavia, everything has become for sale: school certificates, university degrees, construction contracts, public positions, health certificates, driver's licenses, and even customs declarations...)

"The entire Yugoslav press reproduces in large headlines the accusations leveled by Marshal Tito against his high-ranking comrades. 'Whether it involves millions or billions, it is still theft.' But the Yugoslav Constitution, like the revolution of the Peruvian generals, categorically states that 'only labor is the source of each individual's income.'

Degrading Frustration

"The blatant contradiction between legal theory and reality is the stark expression of the failure of socialism, of degrading frustration." of Yugoslav communism. It is the patriotic duty of Peruvians to look at the future of their country in the mirror of the model that their generals are copying.

The Zagreb newspaper "Vjesnik" reveals, as an example, the dealings of the state-owned enterprise "Legumes and Flowers." For International Women's Day celebrations, it ordered 300,000 carnations. Only 50,000, imported from Italy, actually arrived. The newspaper concludes its report by stating: "Some employees have acquired more wealth than others could in two lifetimes."

"High-ranking Yugoslav communist officials own subsidiaries of the companies they manage, employing workers in Switzerland, Italy, and West Germany. Directors of state-owned enterprises indulge in expensive safaris in Africa. Meanwhile, Yugoslav workers beg for jobs in Austria, Italy, West Germany, and France." Despite the social ownership system and the Constitution that exclusively recognizes labor as a source of income, in Yugoslavia there are currently some 400,000 private entrepreneurs who are government officials and prominent members of the League of Communists..."

A unique opinion from the Jesuit fathers of Zaragoza

In the magazine "Roma," Buenos Aires, No. 40/75, a highly interesting article is published, entitled: "Regarding Socialism in the Church." Its author is Vladimiro Lamsdorf Galagane. The author analyzes the current phenomenon of collaboration between a part of the Church, or rather, the ecclesiastical hierarchy, with "socialists," focusing his attention especially on the magazine "Hechos y Dichos" (Deeds and Sayings) published by the Jesuits of Zaragoza, Spain. In 1968, for example, on pages 58 and following, the magazine refers to the cult of Cardinal Louis Stepinac. Commenting on the case, Vladimir Lamsdorf Galagane says: "There is an abundance of news from the Eastern Bloc countries. The overall assessment, in general, is more favorable to Yugoslavia than to the USSR." But the Church is reproached (by these Jesuits—SC's observations) for having preserved its "maladjustment" there, essentially, because the faithful live a life of prayer and sacrifice for the faith, and disengage from the world around them (read: socialism). I quote verbatim: "The Church boasts that before its faithful people (Stepinac) was a martyr and blameless.

The tomb of Cardinal Stepinac, in the Zagreb Cathedral, continually visited, is a testament to the people's admiring reaction. But let us not deceive ourselves. To whom did this attitude serve as a shining example? To a faithful people whom we ourselves have molded with the complex that communism is utterly nefarious, but not to the great mass who see in socialism an effective force for liberation." ("Rome," No. 40, 1975, p. 11).

***

Thus, the Jesuit fathers of Zaragoza acknowledge having shaped the people who admire religious heroes, such as, without a doubt, Cardinal Stepinac. And they feel guilty for this very reason, because in doing so they make the Church "unadaptable," and the faithful feel inferior to the benefits that communism, or, to avoid the odious term, socialism, might bring them. Truly a strange opinion from the Jesuit fathers! For them, the historical moment has arrived in which absolute and totalitarian materialism and supernatural faith, a spiritualism as a purer conception of life, would no longer be antithetical or mutually exclusive terms or concepts. On the contrary, the latter should humbly bow before the former. What is the motive for this new "political theology"? Opportunistic fear and the consequent adaptation, or the loss of supernatural faith, entrusting humanity's destiny to the art of diplomacy? Be that as it may, this voice of the Jesuit fathers must sadden those who consider themselves believers and faithful to the doctrine of Christianity.

It is worth repeating here that well-known anecdote concerning the conversations between two Jesuit Generals and two Popes in different eras. On the first occasion, the General replied to the Pope, who had requested the reform of his Order: "Sint, ut sunt, aut non sint" — (Let them be as they are, or let them not exist). A General in our time, in turn, asked the Pope for the reform of his Order, and the Pope replied: "Sint ut erant, aut non sint" — (Let them be as they were, or let them not exist). This is a painful dilemma that troubles the consciences of the faithful. Especially those in Stepinac, Croatia! — (S'C Red.)

The central political body of the Croats in exile was established

After lengthy discussions and exchanges of opinions in newspapers, meetings, and lobbying efforts undertaken over the past few years to organize a central body representing the political will of Croatian exiles, these efforts culminated in a decisive success in September 1975. Indeed, at the assembly held from September 4 to 3, 1975, in Toronto, Canada, the organization HRVATSKO NARODNO VIJEČE (Croatian National Council), founded in the same city on February 4, 1975, was ratified. The organization's statutes were accepted, and its fundamental political principles and other instruments of importance to its activities were approved.

On that occasion, a total of 30 councilors, elected from among 92 candidates in the elections organized and held in June 1975 across all continents and countries where Croatians are politically active, met. Due to the participation of the majority of politically active forces in the organization of this Council, and the massive support of other Croats for this body, it can be considered the most representative and the most authorized to publicly present, interpret, and defend the rights and will, first and foremost, of Croats in exile and, subsequently, of the entire Croatian people in the occupied homeland.

The principal organs of the Croatian National Council are: the Sabor, or Diet, composed of all elected councilors; the Executive Committee; the Supervisory Committee; and the Court of Honor. The first has the character of a legislative body, and the second, an executive one. The latter publicly represents the Croatian community thus organized worldwide before all the authorities of the free world. Professor Dr. Stanko Vujica, from Wilkes Barre, USA, was elected Chairman of the Executive Committee, and Mr. Janko Skrbin, a prominent public figure and organizer, was elected Vice Chairman. Mr. Božidar Abjanić, from Cleveland, and Mr. Miro Gal, from New York, were elected as Secretary General and Treasurer, respectively. Dr. Dinko Šuljak, a lawyer and journalist from the USA, was elected President of SABOR, and Professor Cement S. Mihanovich, from St. Louis, USA, was elected Vice President. Mr. Šime Letina, from Washington, USA, was elected Secretary of SABOR. Professor Bogdan Radica, the most prominent Croatian journalist in the free world and a professor at Farleigh University, USA, was entrusted with leading the Subcommittee on Relations with the Foreign World. Jakša Kušan, editor of the Croatian fortnightly "Nova Hrvatska," published in London, was appointed in charge of press and information. Colonel Ivan Babić, a career military officer from Málaga, Spain, was appointed for political and military affairs. The Sabor presidency, along with the aforementioned president, vice-president, and secretary, is comprised of Mr. Karim Reis of Toronto and Friar Ante Čuvalo of Detroit, respectively. The Supervisory Commission is chaired by Dr. Friar Častimir Majić, journalist and head of the Croatian Franciscans in the USA, and its members are Dr. I. Kisić of Venezuela and Mr. Taib Čordić of Canada. The Court of Honor consists of Dr. Milan Blažeković of Buenos Aires as president, Professor Ivo Porić of Buenos Aires, and Mr. Ragib Avdić of Sydney, Australia, as advisors.

At the close of the assembly on September 8, 1975, the following resolution was formulated, adopted, and sent to all member states of the UN and to world public opinion in general:

RESOLUTION

"Our main and only objective is to restore the democratic and independent State of Croatia.

"We demand the right to self-determination for the Croatian people. We base this claim on the natural and international law recognized by all peoples.

"In principle we are opposed to the use of force, but we do not exclude it as a possibility, if we are denied the means - political, social, moral and other peaceful means - to achieve this objective.

"We do not particularly support any Croatian political party but we recognize their existence and appreciate their work and integrity.

"We invite all freedom-loving peoples to give us their support in the fight for the reestablishment of the Independence of Croatia and in this way compensate for all the political abuses committed against the Croatian people since the formation of Yugoslavia in 1918 to the present.

"Furthermore, we invite all other subjugated peoples in Yugoslavia to join us in the just struggle.

"We invite our brothers and sisters in Croatia and all Croatians and their organizations in the world to join us, thus becoming a greater and more effective force for the achievement of our noble cause.

"The realization of independence in Croatia is a goal of freedom itself. The independent and sovereign Croatian State is at the service of the security of both regional and global peace, its sovereignty and integrity being truly the realization of the right of self-determination of a people.

"Denying help for the restoration of the Croatian State would mean disturbing and legalizing injustice and condoning and approving genocide; denying the principles of democracy and harming the fundamental ideals on which all order-loving authority in justice and freedom rests.

"Failure to support and carry out the Croatian cause would represent the embodiment of man's inhumanity to man.

"We believe that a free and independent Croatia would greatly invigorate the spirit of the free world and restore faith and hope to all oppressed peoples in the world.

"We will continue with our fight, until the complete achievement of its main objective. We hope, we pray and we are confident that the people of the world will align with us in this noble cause.

"Yugoslavia, as a political creation, does not have the conditions to survive today, any more than it did in the past. It was created against the will of the Croatian people, illegally and artificially; its unsustainable socio-political and economic system was implemented by force. Bearing all this in mind, that State can only exist for a short time and through brute force.

"As the collapse of Yugoslavia is inevitable, precisely due to its plurinational nature and the manner of its erroneous creation, the reestablishment and existence of a sovereign State of Croatia is an imperative and the only way to avoid negative consequences that will arise with the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the not distant future.

"Consequently, the creation of a democratic and independent Croatian State constitutes one of the preconditions for safeguarding peace and avoiding the global crisis that could occur in that crucial part of the world."

Toronto, Canada, September 8, 1975.

Documents

Cardinal Stepinac

A man of profound faith and incorruptible conscience

The speech of Monsignor Dr. F. Kuharić, Archbishop of Zagreb, on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary (February 10, 1975) of the death of that great ecclesiastical dignitary and Croatian national pride.

"Today marks the fifteenth anniversary of the blessed death of the Archbishop of Zagreb and Cardinal Louis Stepinac. Tonight, in silence and with dignity, we pay homage to him, for we are witnesses that throughout his life he was imbued with faith and the desire to do good, only good, to each and every person. So many poor people, refugees, prisoners, the persecuted, and those burdened by misery felt his presence. All of this is an incontrovertible fact. Within the limits of his abilities, he interceded for humanity, for human dignity, without any regard for ideology, race, or social class. He recognized the inalienable rights of every person and every people and demanded respect for these rights from all those responsible for public life.

Knowing all this well, the Holy Father Paul VI, in his capacity as Archbishop of Milan, in his address on the occasion of the death of our Archbishop, also said the following: Next: Is it permissible to assume in general that a cardinal archbishop, whom no one who would deny the light of day could deny, did not love his homeland or faithfully observe just laws? (In the Diocesan Magazine of Milan, No. 110-112/1960).

"The era in which the Archbishop of Zagreb, Aloisius (Luis) Stepinac, lived and acted was an exceptionally grave time. War was devastating the world, and hatred blazed across all latitudes. A tremendous darkness had descended upon the nations. Even after the war ended, hatred and vengeance were not extinguished.

"In those very difficult times, Archbishop Stepinac was fulfilling his specific duty in a particular place." He could have been none other than what he was: the Catholic Archbishop of the Church of Zagreb, a man of profound faith and incorruptible conscience, deeply moved by the suffering of his neighbor; ready to lend a hand to all those in need and within his power. Because of the mandate of his spiritual mission, he could not be a conspirator or rebel against any power whatsoever. Respecting divine law, international law, and human law, he spoke the truth resolutely to all those he encountered by virtue of his mission and responsibility; he was uncompromising when it came to principles, but always attentive and respectful to others.

"If he had to confront various ideologies that proclaim God as an illusion, Jesus Christ as a legend, the eternal meaning of human life as a deception, the Church as an enemy of humanity, and faith as something that should be extinguished in the human conscience, no one, under any pretext, can blame him for having been a consistent defender of eternal and divine values. This was his duty. But it is also the duty of all of us.

Saint Paul was aware of this duty when he wrote to the Galatians: 'If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ' (Gal. 1:10)."

" "On this occasion, I consider it my duty to publicly express my profound sorrow that even today, thirty years after the war, Stepinac is still publicly referred to as 'Stepinac of ill memory' and 'the criminal.' This happened last year, precisely on August 3rd at 9:15 a.m. on television, during the evening's second broadcast. The commentator went so far as to denounce him as responsible for the war's devastation in our country. The same thing is being repeated in the press and in schools. It even happens here, in the cathedral—over his tomb. Eyewitnesses told me that some tour guides are so forgetful that they utter insults at the very place of the Cardinal's eternal rest."

"We consider these procedures and this attitude a grave injury to truth and to people. This is how human relationships are damaged. Every member of our Church feels wounded by this in their soul and deeply troubled. Some rights do not die with the dead.

The assurance regarding the archbishop's human and Christian integrity was also confirmed by Pope John XXIII before the Church and the world at large, that Pope known as the Good, who, on the occasion of the funeral prayers for our archbishop of blessed memory, also formulated the following thoughts: 'Cardinal Stepinac, who gave 26 years of archbishopric to his renowned diocese, was truly a faithful and inspiring image of the Good Shepherd. First, in his tireless and zealous apostolic work.'" Then, in the long and painful years since his separation (from his flock), he has accumulated so many merits that the Divine Father counted them as a capital of grace and blessing for all the families and all the parishioners of devout and fervent Croatia.

“Dear brothers and children, let us not forget the call of his solemn testament, which urges us to forgive and to promote peace. How gentle and moving is his plea for forgiveness from all whom he may have offended in life, even with the purest and noblest of intentions! How sublime is his repetition of the words of the dying Jesus: ‘Have mercy on those who do not know what they are doing…’” (Discourses, Messages, and Conversations of the Holy Father John XXIII, Vatican City 1961, pp. 202-205).

We, brothers and sisters, gathered around his tomb, profess our faith and our ecclesial community. We would dishonor his memory if we were to renounce in the slightest this faith and this community. His spiritual testament warns us against errors and urges us toward fidelity and religious integrity within the Church, which is a community of truth and love, headed by the Successor of Peter.

"Let us, finally, allow him to speak these words himself: '...My dearest children, since God is love,' as the Apostle says, love one another! Always love one another as brothers and sisters! Always be of one soul and one heart, but love even your enemies, for this is God's commandment!...' (From the Cardinal's Testament, written in 1957).

"We humbly believe that Jesus fulfilled with his soul the promise: '...where I am, there also will my servant be...' (John 12:36)."

Basis for Croatian "chauvinism"

Benkovac is a town (commune according to the current official communist name) in the very heart of maritime Croatia, that is, the province of Dalmatia. In this town there are 35,565 inhabitants. Of this total, the Serbs (of the Serbian minority in Croatia) constitute 5.4.5%, the Croats 43.4% and the "Yugoslavs" 1.8%. But the Serbian will and hegemonic power, in order to increase the number of its population in Croatia in general and on the Adriatic shore in particular, through the municipality of Benkovac, gave up the land of "social property" for private construction in the village of that commune, Karin, to the following people:

Stevo Šuput, from Belgrade, Serbian; Dragomir Jerenić, from Belgrade, Serbian; Jovan Vujnović, from Belgrade, Serbian; Nikola Mišćenević, from Belgrade, Serbian; Milica Vujović, from Belgrade, Serbian; Djuro Radovanac, from Belgrade, Serbian; Drago Marić, from Belgrade, Serbian; Djuro Trašnjić, from Belgrade, Serbian; Dragan Djakuia, from Belgrade, Serbian; Savo Drača, from Belgrade, Servian; Drago Žepač, from Belgrade, Serbian; Debrila Uzelac, from Belgrade, Serbian; Miloš Čanković, from Belgrade, Serbian; Mile Čanković, from Belgrade, Serbian; Djuro Ljuština, from Belgrade, Serbian; Stevo Skorić, from Belgrade, Serbian; Milan Zlatanović, from Belgrade, Serbian; Luka Ranjak, from Belgrade, Serbian; Dobrivoje Krstić, from Belgrade, Serbian; Živko Janković, from Belgrade, Serbian; Života Nešić, from, Belgrade, Serbian Dušan Alavanja, from Zagreb, Serbian; Bogdan Djekić, from Zagreb, Serbian; Jurica Zvonar, from Zagreb, Croatian; Rade Millar, from Zagreb, Serbian; Todor Stojković, from Novi Sad, Serbian; Ćedomir Ćurić, from Novi Sad, Serbian; Dmitar Zaklan, from Novi Sad, Serbian; Stojan Veselinović, from Novi Sad, Serbian; Nikola Zezmar, from Novi Sad, Serbian (?) Stevo Polovina, from Novi Sad, Serbian; Djuro Ovuka, Zemun, Serbian; Rajko Obradović, from Zemun; service; Slavko Tomlinović, from Zemun, Croatian (?) Pavle Miljas, from Zemun, Serbian; Ružica Dobrić, from Zemun, Croatian (?) Ljubomir Štrbac, from Zemun, Serbian; Savo Mlinar, from Karin, Serbian; Marko Dragaš, from Karin, Serbian (?); Dragica Šiško, from Karin, Serbian (?) Dušan Maljković, from Gospić, Serbian; Jovan Jaršić, from Gospić, Serbian; Živko Olujić, from Obrovac, Serbian; Djuro Jokić, from Obrovac, Serbian; Aćim Drača, from Obrovac, Serbian; Todor Perić, from Obrovac, Serbian; Jovan Prostran, from Obrovac, Serbian; Tomislav Katrulja, from Zadar, Croatian; Petar Zelić, from Zadar, Croatian (?) ; Dušanka Sobin, from Zadar, Serbian; Mirko Obrić, from Zadar, Serbian (?) ; Mira Korlat, from Vitez, Serbian (?); Mirko Kecman, from Sarajevo, Serbian; Stevo Narančić, from Sarajevo, Serbian; Lazar Gagić, from Zelengrad, Serbian; 'Nikola Gačeša, from "Gračac, Serbian; Milenko Lalić, from Livo, Serbian; Marta Purgar, from Koprivnica, Croatian; Blagoje Zelić, from Split, Serbian; Miroljub Mihajlović, from Sombor, Serbian; Branko Dragaš, from Pazova, Serbian...

The elements reproduced here are collected from "Hrvatski Tjednik" (The Croatian Weekly), Zagreb of November 12, 1971, suppressed by the Belgrade regime in the same year, for propagating "chauvinism", Croatian separatism and "rotten liberalism". Its director, poet and philosopher, V. Gotovac, was sentenced to 4 years in prison and the institution that sponsored the newspaper was intervened. Once the Board of Directors was dissolved, most of its members were prohibited from writing and the most prominent writers and leaders, collaborators of Gotovac, were sentenced to four to five years in prison.

Micro-news

Cardinal Dr. Franjo Šeper, successor to Cardinal A. Stepinac as Archbishop and Metropolitan of Croatia and currently Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, celebrated his 70th birthday on October 2nd of this year. Studia Croatica extends its best wishes to this illustrious son of Croatia for a life, both in the future and in the future, filled with divine blessing and fruitful for the cause of our shared homeland, Croatia, and the Church, in whose governance he participates during one of the most critical moments in the long history of Christianity.

Dr. Vladimir Prelog is the third Croatian to be awarded the Nobel Prize. After Dr. Lavoslav Ružička, who received the Nobel Prize in 1939 for his achievements in chemistry, Dr. Ivo Andrić received the same award for Literature, and now Dr. V. Prelog, born in Sarajevo, former professor at the Zagreb Technical University and Ružička's successor at the Zurich Technical University, has received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, shared with him. Enough for Croatia to at least achieve its independence, like the Papuans who still carry arrows! Perhaps soon Croatia, too, will shake off the tyranny imposed upon it by the locksmith Tito in the name of international hegemony and communism.

October 8th. The Croatian Episcopal Conference proclaimed the Marian Year in "all Croatian-speaking regions of Yugoslavia," which ended on October 8, 1976. This year coincided with the International Year of Women and the millennium of the Catholic Marian devotion in Croatia. Croatian Queen Elena was buried in the Church of Our Lady of the Island near Split. Destroyed by historical upheavals and hostilities, her tomb was rediscovered in 1896 by the renowned Croatian archaeologist F. Bulić. After a lengthy study, the archaeologist was able to decipher the Latin inscription on the tomb, which reads: "In this tomb lies Helena, celebrated wife of King Michael and mother of King Stephen, who brought peace to the kingdom. She was buried here on October 8, 975 AD. In life, she was a mother to the kingdom and to orphans, as well as a protector of widows. O mortal, as you cast your gaze here, may God have mercy on her soul." Is this yet another reason for Croatia to remain subjected to foreign and communist totalitarianism?

On November 29, a group of friends of Mr. Ivo Rojnica, vice president of the Croatian-Latin American Institute of Culture, organized a dinner in his honor on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Several speakers offered praise and words of recognition to this distinguished Croatian-Argentine industrialist, who did not hesitate to sacrifice himself for the cause of Croatia in a way and to a degree uncommon among political exiles, whether Croatian or from other nations oppressed by communism. "Studia Croatica" joins in the tributes to Mr. Rojnica and his family, considering him their special benefactor.

Eamon de Valera, a symbol of the struggle and victory of the Irish people for the independence of their homeland, Ireland, died at the age of 92 last August. A Catholic of deep convictions and unwavering practice, he was and remains an example for all peoples who fight for the freedom and independence of their homelands. We Croatians always looked to him as an inspiration in our struggle, and his example must remain before the eyes of present and future Croatian generations until Croatia achieves its right to independence and freedom.

Last August, the International Congress of the Catholic Student Movement was held under the auspices of PAX ROMANA. Miss Maria Kolaković and Mr. Jorge Gadže participated as delegates of the Croatian students in Argentina. According to the information gathered, this meeting, held in Lima, Peru, took place in a decidedly Marxist atmosphere.

Arnold Toynbee, historian and philosopher of history, one of the most brilliant minds in England in this century, also died in September 1975 at the age of 86. His scholarly work serves and will continue to serve as an inexhaustible resource for those who love knowledge and ideas concerning the destiny of humankind in history and society.

Book review

Ivo Omrčanin: The Pro-Allied Putsch in Croatia in 1944 and the Massacre of Croatians by Tito Communists in 1945

(The Pro-Allied Coup in Croatia in 1944 and the Massacre of the Croats by Tito's Communists in 1945), Dorrance & Company, Philadelphia, 1975, p. 151.

Rarely does a book appear at such an opportune moment as this book by Dr. Ivo Omrčanin, professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA. At a time when the communists of Yugoslavia are celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of their seizure of power, that is, the "liberation" of Yugoslavia, Professor Omrčanin reveals, once again, to the Western world the terrible crime perpetrated by the Yugoslav communists in May 1945 against Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, and Serbs when they were denied asylum and prisoner-of-war status by British forces, who handed them over unarmed to the mercy of Tito's henchmen. Thus, while murderers like Milan Basta, Kosta Nadj, and others filled the pages of magazines and newspapers throughout Yugoslavia with their heroic exploits, the author dedicated his latest historical-political work, "To the Victims of the Massacre of More Than Half a Million Croats by Tito's Communists on the Thirtieth Anniversary—A Humble Monument by the Author—In Exile, May 15, 1975."

As the compound title suggests, the work consists of two main parts. In the introduction to the first part, the author describes, among other things, the international status of the Croatian state and its creation, relying primarily on US diplomatic documents, which are reproduced in full in the documentary section of the work (Appendices I, II, and III).

In the first chapter of Part One—"Seeds of the Coup in 1944"—the author begins with the existence of contacts between the head of intelligence for the Ustasha movement, Vlado Singer, and the secret diplomacy of the United States, which was amicably inclined toward the Croats. He attributes to these relationships President Roosevelt's famous remark to Eden on March 15, 1943, that it was "ridiculous to try to force two such antagonistic peoples (i.e., Croats and Serbs) to live under one government." In the second chapter—"Recognition of Croatia by the United States"—the author interprets the continued presence of the American Consul General, John James Meily, in Zagreb as de facto recognition of the Independent State of Croatia and argues that diplomatic notes were exchanged between the U.S. Consulate and the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He deduces that these relations were the result of contacts between Singer and Dulles and that they came to an end on June 26, 1941, when Germany declared war on the USSR. At that time, the Croatian Foreign Minister, Dr. Mladen Lorković, requested the closure of the American consulate in Zagreb.

"The Preparation for the Coup in 1944"—the title of the third chapter—began, according to the author, immediately after the Axis powers declared war on the United States, a declaration to which Croatia also adhered in December 1941, at Germany's instigation. The final outcome of the war became highly uncertain, and the Croatians, whether Ustaše or not, began to explore ways to preserve their state independence. At the head of the respective plot, at the beginning of 1343, were the Ustaša ministers Dr. Mladen Lorković and Ante Vokić, and the members of the Croatian Peasant Party, Professor Tomašić and Ivanko Farolfi, with the tacit knowledge of the head of state himself, Dr. Ante Pavelić.

The implementation of the plan to change the front had to coincide with the expected Allied landing on the Dalmatian coast. However, American opposition to the British-backed Allied landing plan in the Balkans prevailed. The author provides a considerable amount of evidence of British pressure to induce the Americans to agree to an invasion along the Adriatic coast between Zadar and Istria and through the Ljubljana breach, whose name General Eisenhower could not even pronounce, much less grasp its significance for the future of 7 million Austrians, 10 million Hungarians, and another 10 million Croats, Czechs, and Slovaks.

"The Coup"—the title of the fourth and final chapter of Part One—planned for September 1, 1944, never materialized. An Allied landing, in a manner befitting the need to justify the instructions given to the commanders of various Croatian armed forces units not to interfere with the landings, never actually took place. There simply weren't any.

However, one of the conspirators revealed the plan to the German secret service. We cannot agree with the author's assertion, which is based on the work of DJ. Kladarin (“Croatia in the Struggle for Federal Socialist Yugoslavia”, Belgrade 1972, pages 20-22) states that “the organizers of the coup (Vokić, Lorkavić, Tomašić, and Farolfi) were executed by the Germans, Pavelić and Maček.” Certainly, the Germans and Dr. Maček had no part in the tragic fate of the four main protagonists of the so-called “Croatian putsch,” which can be attributed to the unfathomable motives of the psychosis of an environment engulfed in a cataclysm devoid of hope and mercy. Nor can we accept the author’s opinion that the 50/50 division of influence in Yugoslavia, agreed upon by Churchill and Stalin at the Moscow Conference on October 9, 1944, meant that Croatia and western Yugoslavia fell into the British sphere of influence, while Serbia and southern Yugoslavia remained in the Soviet sphere. Unfortunately, the division did not The instrumentalization of Anglo-Soviet influence in the Balkans and Yugoslavia was not conceived in a territorial sense. Such a "territorial" interpretation is not supported by subsequent documents or events. If it were, we would not have to concern ourselves with the human tragedy addressed in the second part of the book under review.

In the introduction to the second part of the work, entitled "The Massacre of Croats by Tito's Communists in 1945," Professor Omrčanin notes that some 300,000 Croatian soldiers and 250,000 civilians presented themselves to the British commander in Bleiburg, Austria, with the intention of surrendering, invoking international law, that is, the 1929 Geneva Conventions on the treatment of wounded on the battlefield and prisoners of war, to which the Independent State of Croatia had acceded on January 20, 1943. The British commander, Patrick Scott, refused to accept the surrender, forcing the Croatians were forced to surrender to Tito's communists, specifically the 51st Division of the 3rd Yugoslav Army, who held a different understanding of the Geneva Conventions than the Croatians.

In the first chapter of this second part, the author presents a concise history of the Geneva Conventions and the rules applicable to the case at hand, drawing the reader's attention particularly to the fundamental provision of this international law that prisoners of war must be treated humanely. In the second chapter—"The Philosophy of International Law"—he concludes that at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Soviets, Americans, and British invalidated the Geneva Conventions by forcing the German and Croatian armies to surrender to the Soviets and Yugoslav communists, respectively, and, moreover, by returning to the latter those soldiers who managed to reach the respective western zones in Germany and Austria. "The extradition of these armies to the communists is a clear violation of the spirit of Geneva," he writes. Author—

That this violation did not occur inadvertently but knowingly is demonstrated by Professor Omrčanin in Chapter Three, entitled "The Conspiracy Against the Independent State of Croatia," distinguishing two conspiracies that led Croatia to communist subjugation. The American conspiracy was led by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself and his advisors, largely communists or crypto-communists, and it was to their influence and participation in the Yalta Conference that the pact concerning the forced surrender of all Soviet citizens to the Soviet Union was owed.

When the Yalta agreements were made public in 1946, Cardinal Eugenio Tisserant raised his voice in protest, but he never did so when the massacres of the Croatians became known, even accepting an invitation to Yugoslavia, where he was received triumphantly, without having met the Archbishop of Zagreb. The author attributes the Croatian conspiracy against Croatia to Dr. Ivan Šubašič, Ban of the Croatian Banovina and Prime Minister Yugoslav in exile, refusing to accept a different treatment of Croatia than that of Serbia, planned by Churchill to save some of Yugoslavia from communism —according to the testimony of Dr. J. Krnjević.

In chapters IV, V, and VI, Dr. Omrčanin refers to the measures adopted at Yalta insofar as they were known to the Croatian government in 1945, the extradition of half a million soldiers and civilians, the death marches, and the massacres; he criticizes the profound silence of the international press and the hypocrisy of the Allied official circles, despite their full knowledge of the events that occurred in Katyn in 1940 and in Yugoslavia after May 8, 1945.

Finally, with the seventh chapter—"The Documents"—and the subsequent chapters, VIII and IX, the author arrives at the crux of the problem: how did the Allied diplomatic plans change from maintaining the Croatian state until the failed coup attempt in Croatia on September 1, 1944, to abandoning the Croats at Yalta to the mercy of Tito's communists? The answer to this question emerges in Chapter VIII—"Diplomacy and the Repatriation of Prisoners of War"—in which the author analyzes the shift in the spirit of Geneva and the interpretation of international law regarding the treatment of prisoners of war. He brings up the prisoner's right to express their wish to return to their country of origin, as established in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Germany and Russia in March 1918, and the situation created by the Anglo-Soviet Convention of September 16, 1944, concerning the compulsory and forced repatriation of Soviet citizens interned as prisoners of war.

The situation in the last war was further complicated by the fact that many Soviet citizens had been captured serving in enemy forces. To justify these violations of international law and conventions, the Foreign Office developed its own philosophy on the matter. On October 7, 1944, Alexander C. Kirk, U.S. advisor to the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean, in Caserta, sent the following report to Washington, interpreting the Foreign Office's statement as provided by Macmillan: "...notwithstanding the terms of the Geneva Convention, there is no possibility for a soldier captured by his own forces while serving (voluntarily or involuntarily) with enemy forces to claim the protection of the Convention against his own government. The Foreign Office added: if such a man is captured by Allied forces, the Allied government has the right to hand him over unconditionally to its own government, without being liable for the violation of the Convention. The Foreign Office states that, in any case, the government in Moscow had requested the return of these men to the Soviet Union for the continuation of the war effort or to continue serving with the Red Army, and since these men will no longer be treated as prisoners, the Geneva Conventions will no longer apply."

Thus, 10,000 were forcibly repatriated from the United Kingdom, over 7,000 from the Mediterranean, and 1,100 from the United States to the Soviet Union, before the obligations undertaken at Yalta were met. General Eisenhower adopted the principle of the forced repatriation of all prisoners of war as early as April 1945, but he had been practicing it for much longer.

While the previous chapter analyzed the creation of this disastrous principle regarding the case of Soviet citizens, the ninth chapter reproduces several documents from the British Foreign Office, many of them published for the first time, which reveal that the extradition and the subsequent "massacre of the Croats" was "a diplomatic and military blunder."

Indeed, on April 27, 1945, Ralph C. Stevenson, British ambassador in Belgrade, sent a telegram to H. Macmillan in Caserta, Italy, regarding the treatment of anti-Tito forces, proposing their disarmament and placement in refugee camps (Doc. F. O. 371-48812, R. 7601 — Appendix IV). W. Churchill approved the proposal in Stevenson's telegram (F. O. 371-48812, P. M./05/45/40 — Appendix V). Accordingly, that is, that the anti-Tito forces must disarm and be interned as prisoners of war if they offer to join the Allied forces, instructions have been sent to the commanders of Canadian, Australian, and South African troops. On May 3, 1945, Marshal Alexander instructed the 15th Army in Venezia Julia to consider Croatian troops as "unarmed hostile troops" whose fate would be decided at the governmental level. However, Alexander's telegram to Eisenhower, dated May 17, 1945, reveals that the most horrific massacre of those surrendered to Tito's forces had taken place. On May 19, 1945, Macmillan reported to the Foreign Office that 200,000 Croatian soldiers near Bleiburg and 35,000 in Wildenstein had "surrendered" to Tito, representing virtually "the entire Croatian army" (F. O. 371-48817, R.8773).

It appears that neither Marshal Alexander nor the Joint Staff Mission in Washington knew that General W. D. Morgan, Marshal Alexander's chief of staff, had ordered British General Patrick Scott, on May 15, 1945, to extradite 300,000 soldiers and some 250,000 civilians to Tito's communists. According to documents cited and listed by the author, it seems that the British authorities were unaware that these Croatians had been massacred until May 25, 1945, when Sir Alan Brook, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, mentioned that some 900 Croatians had been transferred to Tito (F. O. 371-48918, R. 8700/ 6/G). The author wonders if it is possible that this gentleman did not know that "all" the Croatians had been "transferred" to Tito.

Is it possible that this gentleman did not know that "all" the Croatians had been "transferred" to Tito? It was only on June 4, 1945, that Alexander issued orders that "no Yugoslav shall be returned to Yugoslavia against his will."

Finally, in August 1945, British authorities were prepared to admit that in May 1945, unarmed Slovenes and Croats had been handed over to Tito. J. M. Addis, a Foreign Office official, wrote on August 14, 1945, that the extradition had been "a dreadful mistake" and that there had been "extensive and indiscriminate slaughter" (F. O. 371-4893, R.13674/1728/92).

With the arrival of J. R. Colville at the Southern Department of the Foreign Office, replacing J. M. Addis, the atmosphere at the Foreign Office seems to have changed regarding the sense of guilt. However, reports continue to circulate about some 900 Croats being returned to Tito, even though Macmillan had already informed the F.O. on May 10, 1945, of the handover of "the entire Croatian army." The only explanation for this "error" is that the commanders misinterpreted the non-extradition order for Croats and Slovenes in Venezia Julia, which also applied to anti-communist forces in Austria.

On May 14, 1945, Alexander C. Kirk reported by telegram that General Sir Brian H. Robertson of AFHG had requested his consent for the British Eighth Army to hand over a large number of dissident troops to the Yugoslav partisans, troops whose presence was hindering Allied military operations, and that he had refused such consent. According to a telegram from Ambassador Kirk of Caserta dated August 4, 1945, despite this refusal, British General Horatius Murray, commander of the British Armoured Division, carried out General Roberts' order. Thus, the following were handed over to Tito: 12,196 Croats, 5,480 Serbs, 8,263 Slovenes, and 400 Montenegrins. (NA 740.00119 Control / Italy / 8-445. FRUS, vol. 5. 1945, pp. 1246-7). The author maintains that the number indicated in this telegram must be a fabrication by someone in the British command, at least as far as the Croatians are concerned.

In the final chapter, the author poses the question: Why were more than half a million Croats massacred? Recapitulating the unfolding of this tragedy, he notes that Croatian sources do not record the extradition of 900 Croats on May 24, 1945, as British documents made public from January 1, 1972, onward maintain, and that, despite having examined and studied all relevant documents, he cannot provide an answer. Those massacred represent 10% of the Croatian nation. "This is genocide. Why?" Professor Omrčanin concludes with this question.

Milan Blažeković

José Filipovich: The Sources of Energy

Edic. Prensa Española y Magisterio Español, S. A., Madrid, 1975, pp. 155.

This author's work, divided into three parts, is organized according to a criterion rarely seen in works of this type, allowing for a thorough yet accessible analysis of the world's energy and economic landscape for the average reader.

As I mentioned, it is an interesting book, since current authors generally focus on a specific topic and do not attempt to show the reader the complexities of obtaining raw materials for energy generation. This includes the distribution of deposit areas, exploration, exploitation, and transportation to consumption centers, as well as the resulting capital investment strategies.

Another interesting piece of information obtained in this first part of the book is an outline of the evolution of different raw materials over time. And as we currently see that nuclear and hydroelectric power, along with other sophisticated methods, are slowly but steadily gaining importance, they themselves will surely become primary energy sources in the not-too-distant future.

In the second part, the author conducts an in-depth analysis of energy generation in relation to global economic development. He then goes on to determine the origins and evolution of the current global crisis, both in terms of raw materials and its impact on economic equilibrium and the international monetary market.

Finally, the last part is devoted to the study of the sources of pollution in the biosphere, their impact on human health, and the economic consequences of the measures taken to combat air pollution and the pollution of the human habitat on the land.

In summary, this is an important, clear, and up-to-date book that allows the reader to refine their own conclusions regarding their view of the global economy and the inevitable effects observed in the socio-political relations of our time.

J. Filipovich is a Croatian immigrant who became a Spanish citizen in 1964. He holds a doctorate in Economics from the University of Madrid.

V. A. Nevistič, a graduate in Geology.

Eudocio Ravines: The Rescue of Chile

Publishing and Printing Company Ltd., Santiago, Chile, 1974, pp. 283.

The author of the book mentioned above is world-renowned. He is a Peruvian intellectual, a former communist activist of international standing and activity, and currently one of the most qualified and accomplished adversaries of communism. This book, which we present to our readers, is a very eloquent testament to this.

To silence all those inexperienced in the subject and neophytes in Marxist doctrine, the author, in his Preface to the book, quotes Arthur Koestler: "They hate our Cassandra-like cries and inspire resentment in us as allies. But, in the end, we ex-communists are the only men who know everything there is to know about it..." From an ideological position marked by marvelous theoretical preparation and active, personal practice, Ravines reveals the Chilean case in the fullness of its truth. Already in the Preface he says: "In Chile it has been demonstrated that socialism and democracy are two incompatible realities..."

Is there anyone more qualified to say this than E. Ravines? He was present in Chile as early as 1936, when "the political fate of Chile was thus decided, arbitrarily, by a group of foreigners, strangers to Chile's destiny, who were going to work in the country in the service of the Communist International" (p. 22). This occurred during the Popular Front period. in vogue, inaugurated by Georgi Dimitrov. At that time in the 1930s, world interest was focused on the confrontation between democracy and fascism. To the inexperienced, communism seemed a socio-political phenomenon of extraordinary and monolithic force. But this was not the case, says Ravines. The internal squabbles between Stalin and "the old Bolsheviks" were destroying that apparent monolithism.

Dimitrov changed the tactics and the course of communist international policy directed from Moscow. It was necessary to form a vast coalition of all forces opposed to fascism and interested in defending "the survival of the democratic regime." To this end, it was necessary to simulate and silence the communist indictment "against private property" and eliminate "the Marxist criterion of class struggle," imposing the policy of "reaching out to Catholics." And, against the conviction of these Catholics who considered communism "intrinsically perverse," the coalition championed the slogan "extending both hands to Catholics." The same tactic had to be applied in relations with democratic socialism and other forces interested in opposing the fascist phenomenon. "It was then that the most ominous corruption of the political lexicon ever seen began, a corruption that the Christian Democrats of Latin America had to complete with distilled skill," the author states verbatim.

Eugen Varga, the official economist of the Soviet government, became the master of the united front doctrine. "...communism can be achieved not only through armed insurrection and the coup d'état of our comrade Lenin, but also through a successive series of 'New Deals,' that is, through the progressive nationalization of private companies," taught this economist with the vocation of an international communist conspirator. Regarding the Chilean case, Ravines says: "While the Chileans slept peacefully, the sleep guaranteed by an efficient democratic creation, a handful of audacious intruders, thousands of kilometers away, were plotting the conspiracy that was going to change the "destiny of the most steadfast and advanced democracy in all of Latin America" (p. 23). Now Ravines describes and narrates the specific events of international communist subversion in this "steadfastest democracy," Chile, beginning in 1934 and continuing until 1970. He himself, from 1936, participated in the ranks of the "foreign foreigners" under the orders of Moscow.

"Under the protection of substantial financial backing, abundant soft loans, and commercial favors, the publishing company 'El Siglo' was founded, and a morning newspaper was launched, a product of the fertile incubator of the Popular Front" (pp. 26-27).

The attempt at collaboration between the Popular Front and the socialists was unsuccessful. The group of "foreign outsiders" then turned to the Radical Civic Union. It was the Radical president, Pedro Aguirre Cerda, who brought the Popular Front to power in 1938. His successor, Antonio Ríos, had been cooling relations between the Radical Civic Union and the Communists since 1941, so that in 1946 the Front could achieve a more resounding victory than in 1938, led by the Radical candidate González Videla.

But this president recognized the "communist treachery" and removed the communist ministers from his government. Then came the Law for the Defense of Democracy, the proscription of the Communist Party, and the demise of the Broad Front policy. But, despite everything, this period of "softening" of the Broad Front policy in Chile, Ravines points out, "took root... the idea that communism did not represent such a great risk, nor did it constitute the mortal danger described by Cold War propaganda. The belief that 'the lion wasn't as fierce as it was painted' easily took hold."

Alluding to the current attempt to revive the Socialist-Communist Broad Front policy in France (F. Mitterrand) and in Italy by the Christian Democrats, the Fanfani wing, Ravines moves on to another chapter of his book, Neo-Imperialist Strategy.

Before presenting the author's fundamental ideas in this chapter, we find it appropriate to recall an idea of the German economist W. Roepke. The celebrated scholar, who passed away not many years ago, said that human problems have not changed much from Homer to the present day. Trusting in renowned authority, one begins to feel secure within the currents of political and social conflict.

Adhering to the knowledge of the principles of liberalism, communism, democratic socialism, etc., one trusts that one has valid criteria for any emergency. But, reading Ravines, the idea emerges that, nevertheless, not everything has been the same "since Homer." Human society presents an endless field of investigation, similar to that of the natural sciences of physics, chemistry, microbiology, atoms, etc. The most surprising thing in this chapter is that Ravines reveals to us the transcendental conflict between the capital "of the large Native American conglomerates" and the capital of transnational corporations. No intellectual of our time should neglect to study the phenomenon that Ravines so eloquently describes, saying of his book:

"It is based on facts; it strings together, like a rosary, the beads forged by reality. Its argumentation is eminently objective, since each argument is nourished by verified events, by concrete occurrences..." We must trust in this "rosary of beads forged by reality" of Ravines and study the phenomenon that enables the political application of Stalin, the "generalissimo of defeats," fully exploiting the contradictions of capitalism in all its facets.

In the third chapter, Ravines focuses on a problem that is particularly painful for Christians: their collaboration in paving the way for a communist rise to power. In the Chilean case, the tactic of two sides—Christian and communist—is very evident. Christians play a semantic role in the campaign to further soften the psychological stance of anti-communists. "By changing the words, they find that nothing is more like communism than Christian Democratic doctrine," Ravines summarizes the opinion of this progressive sector within the Church. This is a major issue that deserves in-depth and thorough study.

In Chapter VI—"The Politburo's Gross Error"—Ravines demonstrates that the communist leaders in the Kremlin—the Politburo and the Academy of Sciences—had made mistakes regarding the maturity of the objective and subjective conditions for revolutionary action in South America in general, and in Chile in particular. After reproducing a lengthy text prepared by these central Soviet agencies and published in the magazine "América Latina," edited by Mikoyan's son, Ravines states: "And it is in this analysis that we find the source of the error Moscow committed in launching its largest, most submissive, and best-organized fifth column in Latin America into the adventure of seizing power and creating socialism in Chile" (p. 122).

Despite the widely distributed information channels and immediate observation of political events worldwide, it seems that this time the Center had made hasty judgments, giving undue weight to what favored communist policy and underestimating opposing factors. Among these, the middle class was the most important and decisive. Without considering Lenin's experience and teachings, Allende embarked on an adventure that first became a crime and then a failed experiment. "Of three adult Chileans, politically aware and capable of discerning and deciding on the country's general course, two opposed the program, the plans, and the tactics it sought to impose. Sometimes cynically, sometimes surreptitiously, it was a policy that had already been repudiated by two-thirds of the citizenry" (p. 138). The adventurous "Blanquism" could not have ended any other way than it did.

The chapter "The Golden Bureaucracy" is also extremely instructive. There, Ravines provides detailed information on the nature and function of the "apparatecllik," or the apparatus for transmitting orders from Moscow, and the information it sends to its headquarters in Moscow. There, the "apparatecllik" embodies a centralism and an absolute vertical structure. The merits are attributed to the central command, and the failures to the "apparikh" who, once dismissed to "confess" errors and failures, atones for his misdeeds in the concentration camps denounced by Zakharov and described by Solzhenitsyn.

This "apparikh" in Chile had magnified the shadow of Hélder Câmara, falsely extending it throughout Latin America, along with that of the Belgian Jesuit Veckemann and the Belarmino Center. He committed the same or a similar error regarding the leftist leanings of the armed forces. These factors were decisive in the central command issuing false and misguided orders, leading the hasty, Blanquist "revolution" to failure, which ended in a bloody counter-revolution.

Special attention must be paid to the assertions concerning the activity of the "golden bureaucrats," as he calls them, in various UN organizations. According to him, the advisors, counselors, and ministers came from and were recruited from there. Ravines says: "There is a right to accuse them before the free world, before honest people, as the worst foreign agents, charged with doing to the Latin American peoples a greater evil than that done by all the communist parties" (p. 151).

Lacking the knowledge and information that could serve as a point of reference, comparison, and assessment, we cannot pass judgment on the matter. Be that as it may, we are inexorably compelled to ask Mr. Ravines a question: Where is the free world before which we could accuse these agents? What is the forum of "honest people" who are not reduced to silence and impotence?

If his answer is that we should learn from the Chilean case of 1973, we could understand. We must oppose international communism and all its acolytes, whether conscious or not, with a vigorous policy, but one based on freedom and justice. Ravines had already stated, according to R. O. Abdala, in "La Prensa": "Reality has convinced me that if communism were to repent of its crimes... it would be obligatory to continue fighting it fiercely for its ineptitude."

To conclude, we can ask honest people: Where and when has communism repented for its crimes? In Soviet Russia, which currently exiles and denigrates its brightest talents for not sharing the opinions of its totalitarian regime, or in communist Yugoslavia, which recently revived the persecution, arrest, and torture of hundreds of Croatians, led by the Catholic-oriented lawyer, Dr. Lav - Leo Znidaršić?

Where are the honest people who raised such a hue and cry against Generalissimo Franco on his deathbed? Is it true that Franco's regime was extremely harsh on its political, social, and national adversaries, but why the double standard? If a "leftist" regime commits crimes, silence; but if a right-wing regime does so, outcry and condemnation? Are honest people in the world a majority or a minority? Ravines fights, it is our pure and unwavering conviction, for the voice of honest people. We must believe him, because only former communists truly understand what we need to understand about this phenomenon called 20th-century "socialism." According to him, Chile set an example and will become a "South American leader and a general stronghold of hemispheric freedom..." This is the only thing we who understand anything about freedom and the dignity of the human person, the core values of Western civilization, can truly desire.

F.N.

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[1] See: Pierre Ducassé, Techniques and the Philosopher, Spanish translation. Buenos Aires 1962. In the Preface, Max Serruys speaks of technicians, industrialists, scholars, economists, etc. as "sorcerer's apprentices"—taking into consideration many of the negative aspects of science and technology—abandonment of the countryside by man, destruction of the natural environment, pollution of water and air, etc. P. Ducassé, in turn, says: "...philosophers will certainly, and rightly, renounce practicing against inventions, but this does not mean that techniques will remain neutral in the debate of human values... what now makes their proselytism more striking, more effective, and more fearsome is the fact that they can "preach action," where other discourses have already proven vain." They will act upon man through all kinds of pseudo-philosophical artifices: from propaganda preaching to imitations of psychoanalysis, but never in any style other than the stark style of pure efficacy. Powerless, on their own, to promote religion, morality, or philosophy, they strive for their own perfection. to "technically" eclipse what its simple nature strongly calls out but does not reveal-" (p. 38).

[2] A. Fontaine, Yalta ou Triomphe des Illusions, "Le Monde", Paris, 4/2/65.

[3] R. E. Sherwood, La Seconda Guerra Mondiale nel documenti segreti della Casa Bianca, Garzanti, Italy 1949, pp. 470-71.

[4] Ibid. p. 491.

[5] Idem, Op. cit., p. 491.

[6] Cited according to Ernst Deuerlein: Potsdam 1945 — Ende und Anfang, Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Koeln 1970, p. 153.

[7] Ernst Deuerlein, Op. cit., p. 100.

[8] Ibid., p. 120 and in accordance with F. Williams.

[9] R. E. Sherwood, Op. cit., p. 504.

[10] "Salzburger Volkszeitung" of September 18, 1975, p. 2.

[11] S. de Madariaga: On the pronouncement in Portugal, "La Nación", Buenos Aires, September 13, 1975.

[12] R. I. K. is Chilean of Croatian origin; he holds a doctorate from the Central University of Madrid and is a professor at the Catholic University and the State University of Chile.

[13] The importance of analogy appears above all in the problem of God. By signifying coincidence, it overcomes the absolute separation between God and the world, making possible, against all agnosticism, the knowledge of the infinite Being. But, by simultaneously signifying diversity, it excludes identification. pantheistic view of the world and God, and does not allow for a comprehensive concept of the latter. LOTZ, Johannes. In "Dictionary of Philosophy," by W. Brügger, Barcelona, Ed. Herder, 1958, p. 56, art. "Analogy."

[14] The oldest Slavic alphabet, known as Glagolitic, dates back to the ninth century, but its exact origin remains obscure. The idea that it was invented by Saint Cyril (827-869) and originally used for ecclesiastical texts has been rejected. It was used interchangeably by the Bulgarians with the Cyrillic alphabet and by the Croats, both on the Dalmatian coast and in Istria. There are two variations of this writing system: one round, called Bulgarian, and the other square, called Croatian. This alphabet was used in Greater Moravia, but also in Bohemia and Croatia, Macedonia, and partially in Bulgaria.

From the 12th century onwards, the Glagolitic alphabet remained in use in Croatia, with the exception of a few isolated monasteries adopting this Croatian script in the 14th and 15th centuries. By the 16th century, it began to disappear from secular literature in Croatia, and its ecclesiastical use became increasingly restricted. However, after World War II, a small effort was made among the Slavic Benedictines to revive the Slavic liturgy. With this exception, all other Catholic Slavs use the Latin alphabet." (R. Jakobson, Slavic Languages: A Condensed Study, Columbia Slavic Studies, New York and London, 1966, p. 11.)

[15] Croatia has three main dialects, named according to different forms of the interrogative pronoun "what," namely "što," deriving the "štokavian" dialect; "kaj," giving the name of the "Kajkavian" dialect; and "ča," the name of the "čakavian" dialect. The latter is used in southern and western Croatia (in Istria, on the Dalmatian coast, on the islands, as well as in the province of Lika and Gorski Kotar). The "Kajkavian" dialect is spoken in northern Croatia, in the regions around Zagreb (Hrvatsko Zagorje, Medjimurje, Podravina, Pokuplje, Prigorje, and Gorski Kotar). "štokavian," the most widespread, is spoken in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Slavonia, Bačka, Kordun, Banija, and Lika. The "štokavian" dialect is the basis of literary Croatian. (See: B. Franolić, Historical Study on the Croatian Literary Language — Aperçu historique sur la langue litteraire croate in "Lingua," No. 25/1970, pp. 115–127. Id. La Langue litteraire croate, Nouvelles Editions Latines, Paris, 1972).

[16] Bogomilism was a dualist sect that flourished in the late Middle Ages, especially in Bulgaria and Bosnia. It derives its name from Bogumil, a 10th-century Bulgarian priest who founded it.

[17] M. A., a Spanish diplomat and journalist, died last November. The Generalissimo also died. Franco. The succession process in Spain is progressing favorably for the Western world and in accordance with Franco's wishes. The Yugoslav enigma remains unresolved. Will it be resolved according to Tito's plans? What are those plans?