STUDIA CROATICA

Year XVII – January – June 1976 – Vol. 60-61

Historicism and the Liberal Conception

Two Hundred Years of the Realization of the American Dream

Yugoslav “Anti-Soviet” Policy and the Struggle Against Croats and Albanians

The Victory of the Inauthentic Over the Authentic

Some Observations on the Historical Position of Modern Communism

Cultural Problems

Nostalgia for Orpheus

The Writer Ivo Andrić—Nobel Prize in Literature—Is a Croat

Observations on the “Salvat Encyclopedia—Dictionary,” Salvat Ediciones S.A.

A Dialogue Between Two Chileans, “Sons of Croats,” at the Catholic University of Chile

Years of Isolation

News and Commentary

“Sins of Croatia”

Justice and Jurisprudence in Yugoslavia

Yugoslav Aid

The Visit of Stanko Vujica, President of the National Council Croatian

Obituaries

A friend from Croatia died in Buenos Aires

In Memoriam R. Jurčec

Documents

Croatian protests

The summer of Zagreb in 1965

Micro-news

Book reviews

Branko Franolić: The influence of the French language in Croatia according to the words used

N. Dinko Šuljak: Yugoslavia in Crisis — a background for understanding the instability of Yugoslavia

C. Michael McAdams: White Paper on Dr. Andrija Artuković

Marko Čović: Non-Jugoslav Yugoslavia and Croatia

Journals and books received 

Historicism and the liberal conception

On the Mutable and the Permanent in Human Life and History

Raúl Oscar Abdala*

Appealing to an impartial judgment, setting aside the rigid determinations of the various schools of thought, we must agree that historicism entails one of the most formidable conquests of modern culture, founded on the rejection of quietism and nourished by the idea of progress. But this doctrine, within its very virtue, carries defects. One of these defects—the most serious—is the elimination of the notion of the absolute, that is, of something that remains immutable through change, something that, in its constant presence, in its impermanence, provides a guarantee for the spirit, which cannot exist without values.

On one hand, historicism is relativistic, and hence the well-founded distrust that certain philosophies and all religions harbor toward it. Another vice connected to the previous one is that of considering restorations impossible, or, to put it better, of abruptly cutting off the difficult, vague notion of restoration, which must be handled with the utmost caution. To date, no fanatic of change, no unbridled devotee of Heraclitus's philosophy, has adequately clarified whether the impossibility of return is limited exclusively to material things that can be seen and touched, or whether it also extends to ideal objectives and pure ideas, and in the latter case, how they know that restorations are impossible.

There would even be material for a lengthy discussion about what proportion of essential change each moment contains in relation to the one that precedes it. A Marxist who is simultaneously a fanatic of absolute historical irreversibility (and there are plenty of them, especially outside communist countries) should refrain from fighting against the Pinochet regime, at least in the name of restoring the defenestrated Marxism. And yet he fights in a thousand ways—with defamation and lies, with ideological insemination, with conspiracy and machine gun fire—to turn things back to square one. He is like the man with fluctuating thoughts who said: "I don't believe in ghosts, but they exist."

Biological criterion

This flawed view of change and continuity, of what passes away and never returns, and of what remains static, is largely attributable to the biological approach applied to entities that have nothing to do with the spirit, which is meta-biological, immaterial, and therefore immortal. We have been told time and again, from the lofty heights of biological historiography and sociology, that civilizations are born, grow, and die just like living organisms, and what we did was swallow this theory wholeheartedly without critical examination. We were told that an organism constitutes an irreversible process, and from this undeniably vast truth, we have fallen prey to one of the many traps of intelligence, arriving at this highly questionable conclusion: that history, like a living organism, entails an irreversible march, that nothing in it can be repeated, either wholly or partially. We do not think, for example, that humanity has repeated its periods of romanticism more than once, that a country or an entire culture has passed on more than one occasion from fanaticism to tolerance, from freedom to despotism and vice versa, that certain uses and customs, certain fashions, have flourished again after having disappeared from the horizon, etc., etc.

Un serio peligro

I think that this incorrect perspective would not bring with it any other drawback than that of erroneous thinking itself, if it were not for the fact that it carries a serious danger on its back: that of paralyzing us to think and act in favor of a lifestyle that humanity has tried repeatedly, in the past, in different regions: the style of freedom. This paralysis is exploited by totalitarian ideologies—particularly by Marxism—as one of their many attempts to neutralize our defenses and nullify our combative capacity.

Shake prejudices

Immersed as we are in a world dominated by statist ideology, we must encourage ourselves to think about a restoration—or a reflowering, it doesn't matter—of the liberal conception, despite the fact that we are told that it is an absolute way of thinking. For this we must shake off certain prejudices sedimented in modern consciousness by the philosophy of history founded on the idea of the impossibility of any return or restoration. Whether pure historicists like it or not, both despotisms and regimes of freedom return, because they are positions of the spirit that escape the continuous flow of history.

It can be granted that some of the institutions that helped the liberal conception become reality could undergo substantial transformations and even die; But what by no means disappears definitively is the desire for freedom, which is what gives the liberal conception of life its philosophical and political reason for being.

I give an example: I can conceive - without giving an opinion for or against - a liberal regime in which a form of voluntary association of producers and users replaces the system based on profit, since in that case the liberal bases of the social order are not undermined, as long as it is not acted with prohibitionist ukases or with naked violence. Likewise, it is not difficult to imagine a liberal society in which important modifications have been introduced in the current regime of popular representation, or suffrage, or parliament.

In all these situations—and in many others that I leave to the reader's imagination—a regime has the right to be called liberal, if individual freedoms are respected, not only in it. political sphere, but also in the economic, moral, religious and aesthetic sphere. History sufficiently shows that institutions—which are historical formations—change with the passage of time, for the simple reason that each era, each generation has its own points of view, concerns that constitute its defining characteristic, in short, a peculiar style of approaching things.

But there is a right to maintain that the liberal conception does not change with the passage of time, because it is not, like the feudal regime or the mayorazgo, a pure ankylosis, a femur or a tibia that we can barely rescue from an old age. I can believe, like Heraclitus of Ephesus, that the river of my second plunge is no longer that of the first, but far from understanding that I am not the same as yesterday, in each circumstance I recognize myself in my sameness, despite the changes that time is operating in my clay with relentless burin. We could say that I am different in the adjective and the same in the substantive.

What happens with the liberal conception is that it periodically experiences postponements or recesses, as occurs in this terrible hour of the communist high tide; but postponement, recess, relegation or second place does not mean annihilation. The liberal conception can therefore be restored because, as Benedetto Croce very well points out, it never truly dies, present as it is in the world of the most endearing aspirations and tendencies of man, which is not in vain spirit, that is, a spark of the great divine fire.

Banfield, (Buenos Aires), March 1976.

Two hundred years of realizing the American dream

BOGDAN RADICA, New York

"All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain inherent and unalienable rights, among which are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

THOMAS JEFFERSON, "Declaration of Independence" (1776)

"The time will come when 150 million men will live in North America, all equal in status, all belonging to one family, having the same origin, and preserving the same civilization, the same language, the same religion, the same customs, the same idiosyncrasies, and imbued with the same opinions propagated in the same forms; and it will be a fact new to the world, a fact which the imagination vainly seeks to comprehend."

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, "Democracy in America" (1840)

The days in which we are writing these lines in the United States are marked by large demonstrations dedicated to the bicentennial celebrations of North American independence. It's not just about decorative and visible displays, but also, unfortunately, about commercial activities that fill every corner of the country with their publications and mass advertising, so that everyone is engaged in a competition to express with greater force and enthusiasm their joy at achieving independence, which materialized after the most significant and constructive revolutions in history.

All American writers, not only historians and political scientists, but also literary figures and artists, compete this year to focus their attention as much as possible on the periodic return of this momentous date that two hundred years ago changed the face not only of North America but also of most of the world.

Indeed, two hundred years have passed since thirteen American colonies in the east and south of this then almost unknown continent broke the last ties that bound them to Great Britain and proclaimed their independence. This was, at once, the first effort in human history in which a group of free and enlightened men also liberated themselves from the form of monarchical power that, until then, had been a universally acceptable phenomenon. This was the true beginning of a new historical era for humanity, because shortly thereafter the French people also embarked on the same path, rejecting the power of one over the majority. Finally, this same attitude would become a reality during our century when, in most of the world, monarchies disappeared completely, while where they still exist, they remain only as a shadow of what they were at the time of the proclamation of American Independence. It is, therefore, one of those human achievements that change not only history but also the people who live within it.

Realizaciones parciales

Thanks to this American revolution, inspired by the principles of self-determination and independence, of democracy and republicanism, the idea that man is the master of his life, his liberty, and his happiness penetrated the consciousness of a portion of humanity; and that power is not given by God to a single man and that a single man cannot dominate all others, but rather that each human being is equal before God and before men.

But, unfortunately, oligarchy still replaces the power of autocratic monarchies in most parts of the world. Even in states where republics were established, political, social, or economic democracies are far from their true realization, replacing classic absolutist regimes, the totalitarian regimes of two ideologies—fascism and communism. While the legitimacy of kings disappeared, the principle of legitimacy of majority democracy was only affirmed in a few countries, and without this, republics cannot exist. Tocqueville's prophetic vision that democracy would destroy the future is only partially accurate.

It is true that monarchical power was eliminated from the past, but the present and future are still marked only by a partial victory of true democracy. Tocqueville also saw in the American Revolution the victory of the principle of equality, but he was well aware that it faced many serious obstacles to its full realization. He clearly saw that the dictatorship of the few could be replaced by the dictatorship of the majority.

Society without class consciousness

It would be difficult to claim that the American Revolution, over these two centuries, has achieved a democracy of effective political and economic equality. Certainly, compared to other societies in the world today—not only the "capitalist" world, but also socialist societies and even more so communist-Soviet societies—American society is the freest of all forms of domination of one class over another. We could even say that class consciousness does not exist in American society, whether among workers or employers. Labor unions can, in certain cases, be considered politically stronger than capitalism, which we might say is ashamed to reveal its class character. What is worse and more difficult is to remain alone as an individual in a society where a "dictatorship" of the majority is imposed—albeit unnoticed. To resemble others, not to differentiate oneself from others, to be conformist: this was the characteristic of the American middle class. But a huge rebellion of the last decade against conformity, imposed especially by television, indicates that, also in America, the individual is resisting the "dictatorship" of the majorities, stronger than in the similar case of the old European societies that are globally imitating, in many aspects and worse, the path of American uniformity.

The White Revolution

The American Revolution is not the work of the indigenous Indian, nor of the Black man brought there from the African continent by the colonizing generation. It was the work of the white Anglo-Saxon émigré who left the British Isles not only for economic reasons, as Marxists exaggerate, but also and especially for religious and political reasons, to create on a new continent a new society, ordinem novam, freed from the chains of the official churches and monarchies of the old and antiquated European continent. "God designated this land," said Reverend Cotton Mather (1620-1698), "to become the refuge of many whom He Himself wishes to save from general disintegration." From these people, through all the multitudes and individuals who emigrated, to the displaced persons of today, it was never simply a matter of seeking happiness and well-being, but also the desire to survive and work in an atmosphere of freedom. The dissolution of the Middle Ages by Humanism and the Renaissance, and the subsequent emergence of the Enlightenment, were believed to have brought an end to the era of religious and political monolithism, offering humanity new and broader visions for the organization of its society and community. What could not be achieved quickly and more effectively on the saturated and old European continent, many enlightened English and French thinkers believed they could accomplish in a nearly virgin, primitive, and wild land. America appeared to imaginative Europeans, steeped in outdated prejudices, as a new utopia, a new Arcadia, even a new Jerusalem, where everything that could not be achieved on antiquated foundations and outdated conceptions could be accomplished.

Under the influence of the bold new treatises of Locke and Montesquieu, both young Englishmen and Frenchmen dreamed of achieving not only political independence and equality but also economic equality on American soil, believing that the victory of the republic and democracy would be realized above all in the distant land of America. Thus, figures like Jefferson, Adams, Paynes, Washington, Hamilton, and Franklin accomplished in the new and virgin territory of the British colonies what they could never achieve so completely and perfectly in their own homeland.

In the new and free territory of America, they felt liberated, destroying the last vestiges of British hegemony, and in this way opened for humanity a new revolutionary dimension that is still unfolding. It is developing in every corner of the world, and it is developing, unfortunately, not always with the help or even the understanding of current US foreign policy, leaving this process in the hands of enemies of true independence, who use it to inaugurate a new type of colonialism, while the United States seems to be halting this process, destroying its reputation among the peoples of whom it could make loyal allies, if its policy were to take the initiative to liberate all peoples, especially those who in recent decades have fallen victim to Soviet-communist colonialism, founded on the falsification of self-determination and independence, as is indeed the case of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

An American dream of universal carácter

The boundless spirit of American independence that inspires all men today, consciously or unconsciously, extends from Valley Forge through Old Man Tom's cabin to Fourteen Points and Four Freedoms. Although this spirit has not yet been fully realized everywhere, as we have already said, it stirs everyone, especially the American man. He feels as if he senses that if this dream is not realized in every corner of the world, he might be lost, die on the soil where he was born.

Unlike Europeans, the American man is free from the experience of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Except in books and museums, the American man does not know and does not carry within himself the experience of those centuries, and he does not live in their past. This is what makes him free and independent, because the former cannot exist without the latter. By imaginatively transporting ourselves to the era preceding July 4, 1776, and reading everything written in those years by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, or Payne—whom I personally admire most, along with Jefferson—and applying all of this to our present day, specifically the present-day Croatian situation, we can learn a great deal from this literature of lofty human ideas, classic in their simplicity, and apply it to our struggle for independence, a struggle so prolonged, martyred, and desperately postponed. Payne's philosophy of independence is the most suitable for applying to the Croatian struggle for their independence.

We need to reread Payne's "Common Sense".

“Everything that is just and reasonable,” he says in his Common Sense, “justifies separation. The blood of the murdered and the wailing voice of nature cry out: ‘This is the moment for us to separate.’” Therefore, when we Croats are reproached for being separatists—and even American diplomats, great-grandchildren of the separatists from the time of the Revolution and their separation from the British Empire, do so—we Croats, for what we too have fought for fifty years, declaring that we are ripe for separation and independence—we must warn them that they themselves should reread Payne’s Common Sense. Recent Croatian immigrants should also read it and, upon becoming familiar with it, should insistently show it to their American mentors, especially those at the State Department, who have evidently forgotten their revolutionary origins. After rereading Payne and Jefferson's works, it became very clear to me that the selfishness of the British king and his prime minister, as well as that of the entire colonial system—with the exception of the enlightened conservative Edward Burke—was not only the cause of America's liberation from the so-called "mother country," but also the reason that accelerated the rational development of the revolution. If hegemonic London had granted the most basic concessions to the colonies and had not adopted such rigorous measures to strangle a society ripe for its freedom and independence, perhaps some of the leaders of the Revolution would have accepted the continuation of the community's existence.

Payne was precisely afraid of this possibility. Like Franklin, shouting in unison, "Let us be neither Tories nor Whigs, but Americans!" — "Let us be neither Unitarians nor Federalists, but Americans!" This same polarity arises for us Croats. Let us be neither Federalists nor Unitarians, but Croats. For Payne, being a separatist was not a source of shame. On the contrary, it was the highest goal for which an American should sacrifice himself in the struggle for freedom and independence.

To those who doubted that America could have progressed, developed, and generally lived without British support and participation within the community, Payne categorically and decisively declared that all of this was an illusion, the reality being entirely different from that "held by the fainthearted and the servants of colonialism." "In fact, it is self-evident," Payne said, "that to be independent means to be stronger and more powerful." "Because there is no nation that, in a state of external dependence, would not be limited in its trade and shackled and trampled in its legislative powers in such a way that it is never in a position to rise to a noteworthy level of economic well-being. America does not yet know what abundance means; although the progress it has achieved is unparalleled in the history of other nations, it seems childish when compared to what it could have reached had it had the power to legislate in its own hands."

Finally, Payne gives the American people an example to illustrate that America, under British administration, will never progress economically, because without independence there is neither happiness nor progress. He points out to his compatriots the case of France and Spain, which progressed only because they were not dependent on anyone. With great conviction he concludes: "The independence of this land (that is, of the 13 American colonies) with respect to Britain or any other power, represents today the only main objective worthy of struggle and which, like all truth discovered by force, will present itself ever stronger and brighter."

Analogy of the Croatian case

All of this is reminiscent of 1971 in Croatia, when the leading and decisive forces of the Croatian people felt that only through complete independence from Great Serbian hegemony could Croatia flourish and progress economically to levels never before seen in its history. This is why Payne rejects all attempts at "reconciliation" and "compromise," calling only for the continuation of the struggle for independence, because "America's only interest is to be separated from Britain."

For all those who believe that conciliation, nevertheless, is better than struggle because it would provoke further carnage, Payne quotes Milton: "True reconciliation can never grow where mortal wounds have been so deeply inflicted." He then emphasizes how all "attempts at reconciliation to achieve peace proved ineffective." Thousands upon thousands of Americans suffered persecution, massacres, and humiliations at the hands of British barbarism, Payne concludes, and "since nothing can be achieved without force, for God's sake, let us make a definitive separation so as not to leave the future generation to destroy itself because of its almost anonymous father or son."

Regarding the international situation in which the colonial republics found themselves, which would soon be called the Free and Independent States of America, Payne, as did the other heroes and leaders of the Revolution, logically counted on the help of France and Russia, despite their monarchical and absolutist regimes, in which they were not mistaken. But the main element, as Payne sees it, is the mobilization of the American people in the name of Independence, without which, for him, as for most of the revolutionary leaders, there is no freedom, nor happiness or well-being.

The times in which Payne and the other leaders of the Revolution lived were described by Payne as "times that test the soul of man." These times are very similar to our own, not only because each generation in every era must decide on its extreme course, but also because we Croatians find ourselves at a crossroads regarding how to break the chains that bind us to Serbia and how to achieve our independence.

When, in a series of similar shocks, we have relived the humiliation of Karageorgevo in 1971, which continues since we were forced to become part of a community with and under Serbia, we recall the American experience of two hundred years ago. With the publication of Payne's Common Sense in the revolutionary city of Philadelphia in 1776, which sold 120,000 copies in three months, the idea of the American people's revolution found its meaning and purpose. But this was not reflected in the soul of the vast majority of the people, but only in that of the revolutionary minority that continues to live on in every generation of American society. Upon us, who belong to the nations that have not yet achieved their national independence, falls the inescapable and eternal duty of reviving Payne's idea of Independence, both in the occupied homeland and before the ruling class and American public opinion, which systematically tries to forget it and hide from the admonition of its own conscience.

The Constitution in the role of Bible

What were the paths taken in the development of American independence? Looking back at life during these two hundred years in America, we can say that the goal set in 1776 was achieved. Unlike the French Revolution, it did not devolve, starting from full liberty, into the Reign of Terror, nor into Thermidor or Bonapartism. Unlike the Russian Revolution, it did not deny civil liberties, nor class liberties, imposing on the people what Payne and the other founding fathers most feared when citing the example of Massanell, who, in eliminating Spanish violence in Naples, imposed his own.

There was no Danton, Marnas, Robespierre, or Napoleon there, nor any other oppressors of liberty in the name of liberty. Unlike the French and Russian Revolutions, the American Revolution knew how to begin and end its main objective: to secure liberty within the law, to guarantee the republic within democracy. This objective consisted of the permanent achievement of internal stability, founded on the application of constitutional provisions, which guaranteed citizens full freedom from the government and obligated it to consider the citizen more than itself.

The American, according to what some American intellectuals often tell me, struggles at every moment of his life against the government and against its tendency to overstep the constitutional limits that could expose him and subject him to the arbitrary interpretations of the law and authority, and of everything that constitutes the living force of the American Constitution. That is why there is a daily dialogue between the authorities and the citizens, which takes place in Congress in its two chambers, in the press, and in all the media that are called here "mass media," which are at the disposal of the multitude and the majority to prevent the authorities from attempting first to control and then to limit individual liberties. The American man is fully aware that those in power seek to restrict the power and freedom of the individual, which makes him very vocal in judging all the actions and conduct of the government whenever those actions might endanger his personal rights. In short, while the American may not like the government, he devoutly respects the Constitution as if it were his Bible.

Democratic system at all costs

Looking back on this process in American political life, one is surprised to see that the United States, over the course of these two hundred years, has suffered only one crisis, which escalated into a civil war of enormous and significant dimensions and proportions, a bloody struggle waged more between whites than between whites and blacks.

In this civil war (1861), not only whites exterminated blacks, but also blacks exterminated other blacks, and above all, whites exterminated whites. But even this civil war, which still leaves deep scars on the life of the community and which cost the life of a visionary—Abraham Lincoln—did not, however, replace the power of democracy with the power of the army or of one political party over another. In any other country, the year 1861 could have marked a turning point, establishing the power of one oligarchy over another or over the majority, and against democracy.

In the United States, the democratic system continued, indicating beyond any doubt that not only the American leaders but also the masses of the people remained faithful to their Constitution. After the Civil War, America began a rapid transformation of its social structure. In a somewhat outdated, agrarian republic, the process of the industrial revolution quickly began, finding its most successful development and most effective results precisely here. A new mass of people arrived on American soil from southeastern Europe, particularly Italians, Slavs, and Jews. In this way, as Luis Adamic said, America became the "nation of nations."

This mass of humanity entered this multifaceted "melting pot"—a crucible of dissolution—and we see today that it never truly dissolved because the indissoluble human personalities are clearly defined within their ethnic groups, groups that challenge the power of the dominant class called WASP—the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants—which was said to be a powerless minority until the end of this century. God forbid!—and which could find itself in the position of the Native Americans of old, marginalized on their reservations.

I say—God forbid!—because so many of us who came to the United States did not come to have "ethnic groups" impose their power upon us, even if they were those to which we belong, because in that case we could have stayed in our own homes or elsewhere in Europe, Africa, Asia, or Latin America.

Bearing in mind that during these two hundred years there were only three cases of violent presidential deaths, and that only one of them had to abdicate, and that during crises of this nature in most countries of the world fundamental changes in state life would have been engendered by military intervention or by various groups of dark forces, coups d'état, monarchical restorations, and everything else that was commonplace at that time on every continent, then we can attribute all of this to and be grateful for the constitutionalist spirit and the civic responsibility of both the political class and the popular masses, whose trust in the Constitution was stronger than their trust in the men responsible for implementing the will of the national majority while respecting constitutionality.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the first among the American delegates to the United Nations, remembered that Croatians, too, might have the right to appear before that body and present their own case, as do, I don't know, Papuans and others. He wrote that American democracy in this year of its bicentennial resembles monarchies, which, as is well known, have been dying out to such an extent that today their number is almost equal to that of constitutional democracies. Of the 150 members of the UN, there are only two dozen true democracies, while the rest are either the most blatant dictatorships or the most vulgar and dialectically disguised ones. Sooner or later, they will expel the legitimate democracies from that institution, conceived and implemented by the Americans Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, supported by the old European liberals.

La conciencia de la responsabilidad

Meanwhile, we can ask: What happened in Europe during the last two hundred years, from religious persecutions and torture to brainwashing? What happened in Latin America, in the immediate vicinity of the United States? What was happening in Africa and Asia? We must consider how many wars Europe waged, destroying its integrity, while America built its own. With the exception of Texas, America typically purchased lands like Louisiana and Alaska for negligible sums of money. I'm not saying that everything in America was gold and silver, or that Americans always treated each other with fair play. The case and treatment of Black people is certainly not an exemplary model of democracy.

The complete extermination of the Native Americans was far removed from Christianity and philanthropy. But Americans were aware of all this and condemned it under the auspices of Congress, the churches, and in the daily press. The American plutocrat, too, was able, until the beginning of this century, to become excessively wealthy by exploiting the labor force that came to him from southeastern Europe.

But, feeling like a responsible sinner, as Max Weber observed, he invested a large part of his wealth in humanitarian foundations, inaugurating libraries, museums, hospitals, and universities, many of which were even recognized by the State and the Federal Government. Nevertheless, even today, Protestant American capitalism continues with a similar tradition, more out of fear of the state authorities who impose very high and strict taxes than out of any sins committed before God.

Hesitation between a quantitative and a qualitative civilization

This financial operation, whether driven by fear of God or of state authorities, had a fortunate consequence: it gradually transformed an exclusively quantitative civilization into a qualitative one. As De Tocqueville pointed out some one hundred years ago in his book Democracy in America, which every European should read, in America any idea has only as much value as it has the possibility of being transformed into a material, concrete value, even into money.

An idea inapplicable in this sense loses its value for Americans. Herein lies both their strength and their weakness. From my own experience as a teacher, I know that when explaining the value and significance of a Michelangelo or a Picasso, my students immediately observed that the value of these two masters lay in the fact that their works sold for millions of dollars. When we, in our youth, looked at Michelangelo or Picasso or the works of other renowned masters, the idea of their value did not occur to us.

Not only Tocqueville, but also Guglielmo Ferrero, the latter in his brilliant work Between Two Worlds, upon returning from his travels in the United States, foresaw with apprehension that quantitative American civilization would hinder qualitative European civilization. He hoped, however, that quantitative American civilization would accept many qualitative elements from European civilization, because without a proper balance of quality and quantity there would be no consonance or harmony in society and in the world. Science and technology alone are not capable of providing humankind with that essential satisfaction and "magical" happiness inscribed in the American Declaration of Independence, which, along with "life and liberty," is the principal objective of the American Dream, which they themselves call the "American Dream."

New creative impulses

When, after the last great war, American civilization began its expansion throughout the world, the world, despite its criticisms of Americanism, accepted all its material inventions, from the automobile and refrigerators to televisions and a thousand and one other trivial and essentially useless marvels, which the average American uses with more moderation than the American and Euro-Asian-African masses. It also recognized that this American way of life is easier and more comfortable than the old European way or the primitive way of life of the world's backward and underdeveloped countries.

However, the same American, especially after frequent and intensive visits to Europe, began to feel how much he lacked qualitative culture: art, especially the visual arts, the various literary movements, a special style of communication and manners, and an aesthetic enjoyment of life in both his food and other aspects of life. Increasingly transforming barbarism into civilization, the American began to discover his creative originality. American abstract art, whether on linen or stone, signifies a unique creative rebellion against materialism and technology. This was also a rebellion against Hollywood, a rebellion that still thrills European, African, and Asian audiences today, while postwar European films capture Americans' attention more than the artificial giants of Hollywood. Americans also began to discover psychology, sociology, and sexology as sciences. Europeans and Latin Americans have studied these sciences in classical works and stopped there. The third—sexology—we haven't simply studied. We applied it instinctively.

Meanwhile, Americans are elaborating all of this into systems and are now drowning and struggling within them. But, if we glance at the windows of European bookstores, we then realize one of the greatest surprises: Europeans are translating all these sciences of American interpretation into their own languages, studying them, and pursuing them with the same American devotion. But at the same time, Europeans mock and laugh at Americans for all this, especially for their way of life. That is why European contradictions could often prove more fatal than American ones.

Where American expansion failed, that is precisely what gave America its place in the world. It is its democracy, its practice more than its theory of independence and freedom. When a European moves to American soil, within two years he manages to free himself from European historical saturation or what Hegel refers to as the "historical burden of old Europe." I am not saying that this was the case for each and every European, but only for those who managed to free themselves from Europeanism in their intellectual life and in the very core of their being.

Most Europeans, especially those who emigrated after the last war, still retain both their language and their political prejudices, as well as their desire to develop and exploit, using America, everything that could bring them back home and finally accomplish what they could not when they left. This "messianism," especially among political immigrants, does not disappear even when they die on American soil. Experience teaches us that one can succeed in America if one manages to overcome one's European identity and fully assimilate what makes an American effective, that is, to forget one's origins and background.

All this is of particular importance to intellectuals and political figures. As long as they dedicate themselves to their domestic affairs or to matters concerning their homeland, when they write in their own language and in their immigrant newspapers, they never fully enter into American life, either spiritual or material. They will continue to live in their national "ghetto," far removed from the vital current of American life.

This is most evident in the case of Jews. That group of Jews who live and work within the sphere of Jewish life, writing in their own language, Hebrew or Yiddish, fails to capture the American public. Only that part, mostly the intellectual and literary segment of Jewish immigration, writing exclusively in English, occupied the highest positions in American culture and are considered American writers and creators. Something similar happened in their time with Heinrich Heine in Germany, with Moravia in Italy, and with Saul Bellow in America today. American culture without the Jewish contribution would be empty, just as postwar German culture is empty and insignificant without Jewish intellectual and scientific participation, or, in a word, without their creative contribution.

In our particular case, Nikola Tesla did not need the English language as Louis Adamič did. Therefore, despite his contact with American scientific and business circles, Tesla spoke pure Croatian, while Adamič could barely manage a few words of Slovenian, but for that reason, he spoke and wrote in English. perfected and embellished by native speakers of the language. Adamič, however, never achieved in his writings the style or language of a John Des Pasos or Norman Mailer. We Croatians did not produce any writer of greater prominence in the English language. The only exception might be the young Hitrec, who dedicated himself to describing India, without ever touching on the lives of Croatians.

About the American failure

When, after the last war, American expansion, especially in Europe and to some extent in Asia, attempted to import its type of democracy, it experienced complete failure. Adamič's project in his once-popular book, *Two Way Passage*, which consisted, for example, of sending Italian Americans to Italy, German Americans to Germany, Croatian or Serbian Americans to Yugoslavia, carrying and transplanting the American type of democracy there, failed completely.

During the course of the Second World War and afterward, Italians could not tolerate being instructed by Sicilian Americans, or Calabrians and Neapolitans, regarding American democracy. On the contrary, they demanded to resolve their problems directly with Anglo-Americans, in the offices of the American government, such as Murphy, Admiral Stone, and anyone who was not an Italian American. I remember very well how Count Sforza, De Gasperi, Croce, Nenni, and all the others complained to the Anglo-Saxons, demanding that solutions to their problems be sought exclusively from the latter.

What most offended the Italians was the way in which the Sicilians and other southern Italians in America addressed them in their dialects and in a depraved Italian that Italian intellectuals did not accept. They felt very humiliated at being forced to speak with Italian Americans. An even more difficult situation arose in Germany, where German-American Jews were generally charged with resolving German problems and relations, bringing with them virulence and a passion for revenge. As for us—southern Slavs—a few Serbs were luckier than the Croats, and so our people turned more to the "true Americans," aware that the Serbs would unscrupulously deceive them. "The true American," it is understood, was a WASP. That is why the transplantation of American democracy to European soil was a catastrophe on all fronts. Communism was far more successful in forming certain loyal minorities who seized power, supported by the Red Army, even though the Soviet occupation is incomparably more cruel than the gentle, naive, light, and magnanimous American control, which didn't seem like a true occupation. Europe will never accept that American way of life, intimately linked to the specific conception and practice of democracy of Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Truman. The definition of this democracy was expressed most significantly and accurately by the poet of American democracy, Walt Whitman, in the following verses:

"I give to you, whoever you may be, the sum of all known references.

The President is in the White House for you, not you for him.

The secretaries work at their desks for you, not you for them.

Congress is convened every twelve months for you; the laws, the courts,

the formation of states, city charters,

the comings and goings of commerce and mail, are all for you."

Concerns about the United States' World Role

Until America became a power and entered world politics, it remained the America of Jefferson, Payne, Lincoln, and Whitman. Since entering the maelstrom of world politics, all who respect it feel neither comfortable nor secure, and, more difficult, it itself does not feel comfortable or at ease. Tocqueville, too, foresaw in his imaginative vision that the most serious difficulties would befall America when it confronted the world's general problems.

That is why George Washington, in his farewell address, also recommended that Americans refrain from intervening in European conflicts. The American dream, as if no longer exclusively its own, becomes simultaneously the dream of all humanity. While some Americans dream and think, we ask ourselves: is this dream truly a dream of all humanity or only of a part, perhaps the smallest part, of humanity? Answering this question constitutes the most difficult task of any essay commemorating America's bicentennial.

The question then arises: When America emerged from its classical isolationism and began to engage with the world, did it not experience a decline in its traditional values? Both after the First and, especially, after the Second World War, America rapidly began to lose its internal and external essence. It was no longer a nation to which immigrants from all parts of the world came to live, a place unknown to war, tyranny, old-style European nationalism, communism, and socialism.

When socialists and Karl Marx's closest followers appeared in America in the mid-20th century, they paradoxically had no intention of imposing socialism on American soil. Even the communists who arrived in recent decades had no intention whatsoever of preaching communism on American soil. Meanwhile, the disappearance of the great powers in Europe forced America to immerse itself in the politics of that ideological, militaristic, and hegemonic disease from which old Europe suffered.

The Monroe Doctrine, which after the Napoleonic Wars threatened to oppose all attempts at the restoration of European dynasties in the Western Hemisphere and effectively secured the Latin American world against European invasions, after the two world wars, due to the decline of the European powers, compelled the United States to choose the side that defended the old continent first against German expansionism and then against National Socialism.

But while the Monroe Doctrine succeeded in defending the American Western Hemisphere against European monarchies, it failed to contain the expansion of Muscovite communist imperialism, even in its immediate vicinity. Isn't it a tremendous blow to American democracy and its way of life that in its southern neighbor, Cuba, the Moscow-style Marxist ideology—that is, the ideology of Lenin and Stalin—has triumphed, and that the army of that once-touristy island is now transporting Lenin-Stalinist ideology to Angola, completely turning its back on the democracy of Jefferson and Payne? Will Cuba become the breeding ground for Moscow-style communist imperialism in Latin America, while its army is already present in Africa? Will the not-too-distant future reveal this to us? American diplomacy acts as if it lacks sufficient skill and subtlety when it ignores the aggression and resistance to communist expansionism; as if it lacks the effective force to counter the penetration of Moscow imperialism.

Even Hegel, in his Philosophy of History, seeing America as the country of the future, said "that the weight of world history will possibly be revealed in the competition between the two Americas—North and South." It remains a mystery of history whether all those Americans who foresaw, at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one, that the Manifest Destiny, that is, the evident destiny of America, is also a work of Providence and a goal of the future, were right. Along with them, we must also consider those who, during the last world war, proclaimed this century as the "Century of America." They imagined, along with the author of this slogan, Henry Luce, that America would be "the center for the training of humanity's eternal servants, America, like a Good Samaritan, truly believing that it would be blessed again and would give more than it receives, America, a wealthy home for the idealists of Liberty and Justice, and, in this way and with these ideals, the vision of the 20th century would be forged."

This roughly coincides with what Tocqueville wrote at the end of the first volume of his Democracy in America: "There are currently—this was in 1835, when his book was published—two great peoples in the world who, starting from different points, seem to be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans. Both grew up in obscurity, and while the eyes of men were occupied with other places, they rose to the forefront of nations, and the world witnessed almost simultaneously their birth and their greatness. All other peoples seem to have reached more or less the limits set by nature, and have only to maintain them; but they are growing; all others are stagnating or advancing only with great effort; only they march swiftly and easily in a race whose limits escape our sight."

De Tocqueville's "Prophecy" and the boiling water

"The American is fighting against the obstacles posed by nature itself, the Russian is at war with other men; one combats savagery and the wild, the other civilization with all its weapons. Thus, the American's conquests are achieved with the plowshare of the farmer, and the Russian's with the military sword.

"To reach his goal, the former relies on self-interest, allowing the force and reason of individuals to act without guidance; the latter, in a way, concentrates all the power of society in a single man. One's principal means of action is freedom, the other's is servitude.

"Their point of view is different, their paths are diverse, and yet each feels called by a secret design of Providence to one day hold in his hands the destinies of half the world."

Meanwhile, even on this level, not everything has been said and done. America has not yet exhausted its inexhaustible resources, which it could use when the water boils over in the pot already simmering on the fire that represents the world situation. The policy it inaugurated during the last war, especially in the diplomatic arena in Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam, did not cease, nor did it resolve the fate of the world. This policy meant the loss of peace for most of the world—a peace that was imagined and hoped for—founded on liberation from imperialism and hegemony of any kind. While a large number of small African and Asian nations obtained their enviable place within the United Nations, an organization conceived and implemented through American efforts, these nations are not governed by democratic systems and are not aligned with American interests.

The best evidence of American international weakness in the world is the fact that the majority of the member nations of this organization almost always leave the United States in a minority position. Every American knows, and this troubles them, that their America is the most isolated superpower in the world, that each of its proposals at the UN fails to garner the approval of Western European states, nor of all UN members. Tocqueville's boundless confidence in the future of American democracy seems, precisely today, not entirely justified.

While communist ideologues emphasize that their form of power signifies the victory of democracy, even a democracy more perfect and superior to that of capitalist and bourgeois societies, Daniel Patrick Moynihan was right to declare that the last democracies are those two dozen countries that find themselves in the minority at the United Nations when votes are taken.

The United States—he added with his perspicacity—currently finds itself in the world like monarchies after the Second World War. That may seem a bit of an exaggeration, but it is undeniable that all peoples, invoking the American principles of self-determination and independence, do not adopt the methods of American democracy and the fundamental ideas that inspire it. Rather, in achieving their "independence," they are wandering within the mass, falsified democratism of a communist-fascist nature, governed by a party and a ruling minority, by an oligarchy, decisively supported by the political police and the institutionalized "Gulags."

No one is in a position to convince, for example, free European public opinion or the naive Senator Church, that the CIA is as perfect in its perverse methods of humiliation and annihilation of human beings as the KGB or the Yugoslav UDBA. That is why leftist propaganda has managed to portray the American intelligence service as even more dangerous than the infamous communist death camps. What communist and leftist propaganda in general could not achieve by distorting the image of America, she accomplishes by revealing the true face of that service.

Impact of leftist propaganda

That is why we live in the free world under the dominant influence of leftist propaganda, where everything that happens, for example, in Chile, seems far more terrible than what happens in the Soviet Union or any other communist country. When terrorists who kill police officers are condemned in Spain, all of Europe and the entire free world raise their voices in protest, but when, at Christmas, Belgrade announces that a young Croatian man—Hrkać—has been sentenced to death, nobody protests or is outraged. Nor do they protest the fact that Yugoslavia, which means mostly Croatia, holds the largest number of political prisoners after the Soviet Union—some eight thousand—and this fact neither bothers nor surprises anyone. The worst thing for a political prisoner in communist countries is the fact that there is no understanding or sympathy for them in the public opinion of the free world, nor in its journalistic outlets. Everything negative that happens in the United States, in turn, becomes the object of the widest publicity, while one of the clearest examples of how democratic constitutionality works perfectly in collaboration with the judiciary—the Watergate case or the impeachment of President R. Nixon—goes almost imperceptibly or is considered unnecessary to mention when Nixon abandoned his anti-communist stance and began collaborating with the Soviet Union, paving the way for collaboration with Beijing.

The same difficulties arise when it comes to American democracy, its corruption, the position of national minorities, etc., which are widely discussed in the American press and through other public opinion channels (mass media), something that never happens in most of the United Nations member states. Thus, postwar America, which generously distributed its money and know-how, its knowledge and technology throughout the world, finds no favorable response, while the communist experiment, starting in the Soviet Union, passing through southeastern Europe, and reaching China and Cuba, is sold with deafening propaganda as an example of a "new democracy" and a more just society and a new humanism.

And the worst part of all this is that the silent majority of Americans remains indifferent, while a large part of their intellectuals, especially those on the left, attack American actions in the world, criticizing the organs of its foreign policy, which they claim excessively aids dictatorships, fascism, and conservative-reactionary forces, forgetting those supposedly true democracies.

It's as if the United States no longer supports Tito, the Soviet Union, or Mao, and would resume its collaboration with Cuba if Castro gave his approval. Criticism of American policy from right-wing positions, if any, is barely heard and has no effect, while Senators Church and Pike, like Fulbright and others before them, objectively help spread the world revolution, while considering themselves conservatives and liberals.

When the American left, originating from universities, criticizes the foreign minister for his policies, say, in Spain or Chile, it avoids at all costs comparing the methods of government previously in place in the former country with those currently in force in the latter, or with the brutal methods prevalent in communist countries. In all the meetings of the various human rights organizations, the American liberal unhesitatingly condemns any violation of civil rights in any country within the free sphere, but abstains if it concerns a communist country, because he immediately observes that nothing can be done in these.

This double and suspicious morality of the Anglo-American left of old Protestant liberalism is no better than the antiquated Machiavellianism that always characterized the English establishment and, also, the American one, and which is now also used by crypto-communists and communists when they accuse all conservative and liberal leaders of Machiavellianism.

American, American-Russian or American-Russian-Chinese century?

But there is something more important in this judgment of America. The world is at the point where a revolutionary century is about to end, and where decisive events are to be expected. What face will the bright American dream then present itself in the world constellation? Whenever Americans think about their dream, what they call the American Dream, they are unaware that very significant changes are also taking place within this dream. The extinction of the American middle class, which has already disappeared in many European societies, and the achievement of a higher standard of living by the working masses, transforms the capitalism of the last century into something that American sociologists point out failed to foresee the importance of the United States' role in the world.

The sadly sentimental idea torments the American that the "American Century," heralded during the last war, will last no more than three decades, and that the United States, after this brief period, will be forced to share this century with the Russian-Soviet Century and will soon have to share it with China as well. Here, too, the American showed that he was more concerned with maintaining order in his country than with conquering the world through his nuclear weapons. He also understood that he could not buy the love of the world he saved from hunger after the war, whether with his bread, his milk, or his loans. He could not bring himself to try to obtain, by force, the world's respect and its adherence to his policy of cooperation and prosperity. That is why the American now often weeps, not knowing where to turn. Ninety miles from his last piece of land in the Atlantic, a regime is consolidating itself that represents the categorical negation of the democratic American dream. This regime, which exiled a million of its citizens who are now in the United States, sends its army, equipped with Soviet ideology and weapons, to Africa to spread imperial Soviet communism. The American knows this and feels it, but remains silent.

Why, then, are the peoples of the world, especially those of southeastern Europe, among whom we Croatians also count ourselves, as well as the peoples of Asia and Africa, surprised to find themselves completely ignored by American foreign policy, and even betrayed? Americans do not feel capable of acting in their own backyard, and their dialogues with their closest neighbors—those of Latin America—are nothing more than dialogues between the deaf and mute.

That America of yesteryear, the America of Monroe and Theodore Roosevelt, knew how to take clearer and firmer positions against the attempts of European monarchies and could afford to travel throughout the Western Hemisphere, even though at that time it was neither militarily nor materially as strong as it is now. Why is she not in a position to employ her forces with more imagination, more boldness, and a greater understanding of her own needs, those of her neighbors, and those of the forgotten peoples of every continent? Why has America not yet been able to formulate a global policy that would encompass the fundamental desires of humanity seeking freedom, equality, and happiness? Are those right who consider American policy not only weak but also misguided in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa, or are those, like most Americans themselves, who believe that it could not have been better despite its weakness, correct? Is the truth, perhaps, somewhere between these two positions? However, one thing is certain: no other people in history has spent as much energy, love, and material resources as the American people to make a better world, to free it from wars, and if a general conflict has not yet occurred, we owe it to the American policy of restraint and easing tensions.

A policy of this kind, which to veteran European diplomats seems not only weak but also naive, while favoring Soviet imperialism and the communist threat, has saved humanity, at least until now, from the most horrific massacre that would have resulted from a nuclear war. Such a policy could only have been implemented by a power whose nature is radically different from that of the old Western European powers which, after the two world wars, brought the world to its current state by losing their hegemonic position.

The best world, if it cannot be the one we desire

The unique nature of American democracy was decisive for the destiny of the world, introducing a new method of communication between nations, restricting and eliminating the use of force when the world faces adversity. This was not the case for the great European states during the last two hundred years. Throughout history, America has adhered to its Declaration of Independence, which compelled it to become a superpower, and to its principles, which conquered the world.

These principles were accepted by Lenin and other renowned communists, even though they never lived up to them. America also conquered the world through George Washington's wise pronouncement: "We must... make the best of mankind as they are, since we cannot have them as we wish!" In these words, I would say, the American dream, which was not realized, and all of American reality as it is, are summarized. The American future and the future of the world also depend on a combination of this dream and this American reality. Without the presence of America in the world, it could not subsist as a world of freedom and democracy as we have known them until now, at least in some parts of our globe.

Socialism without totalitarianism?

It is beyond doubt that the world will not be as the founders and leaders of the American Revolution imagined it two hundred years ago. Even now, we sense that America itself is changing; that the most recent generations have entered a profound crisis that is causing these changes; that it is being gnawed away by a lack of spiritual and material security; and that the failure of capitalism and the harbinger of socialism loom on the horizon. A deep-rooted and instinctive desire of the American people for freedom will prevent this socialism from becoming the negation of true socialism or, rather, from degenerating into a system of one-party totalitarianism.

But I know that the era of classical capitalism is coming to an end; even the most enlightened American capitalists feel this. If America fails to counteract communist-Soviet expansionism by the end of this century, it will become even more isolated from the rest of the world. To prevent all this, new visions are needed, stemming from the internal transformation of America itself, a transformation that has already begun to take shape. The military defeat in Vietnam, which occurred not on the battlefield where America could have prevailed, but in American university classrooms, engendered the feeling that America cannot engage in military adventures that represent the revolutionary attack of history.

Most of the failure of American foreign policy is due not to the failure of its ideals, but to a system that is, in many respects, worn out. Yet this system, in its fundamental principles, still represents the greatest guarantee for an American who does not depend on power, but rather on whom power depends. And until the world understands this, whether in its immediate vicinity or in more distant lands, a distance, if not an abyss, will always remain between America and the world. The idea that America could be useful to the world with its way of life is rightly gaining ground today on the material plane.

But it is far from dominating the world in the ideological and political sense. Herein lies the profound contradiction between America's current position and that of the world. The solution to this contradiction will be found in the course of these few decades remaining in our century. The world is, as Tocqueville foresaw, divided in two: one dominated by Soviet-style communism of the Russian type, and the other living in freedom and democracy, itself subdivided into different but essentially common forms of liberty and independence. In the process that is unfolding, communism has also split into the Soviet and the Chinese versions. While the former offers no room for any kind of illusions for free peoples, the latter still incorporates some hopes and possibilities, at least in the so-called Third World, that its establishment could bring them more promising prospects.

Through this conflict, the fate of America, currently one of the greatest conquests of the West, will unfold. But precisely because of this development, America will greatly change its current way of life. Right now, although it is the world's strongest power, it lags behind, ideologically and socially, in terms of humanity's most recent social trends. These trends are contradictory and conflicting. They all promise humanity earthly happiness, even though some have proven too weak to achieve it. It is America's duty, through a new historical endeavor, to convince humanity that the essence of happiness lies not in a new technological conquest but in the achievement of a new humanism, without which humankind cannot find contentment under any ideology whatsoever.

Yugoslav "anti-Soviet" policy and the struggle against Croats and Albanians

An inflated "anti-Cominform" campaign and a direct attack on Croatian and Albanian fighters for their national liberation. The emergence of China as a potential ally of Europe.

Jure Petričević

The founding of the Stalinist Party in Bar and the attempted coup against Tito and Enver Hodza in Albania in 1974 led to a reversal of Tito's pro-Soviet policy, which had been openly initiated with the Yugoslav-Soviet action against the Croats in 1971. Indeed, during 1974, a marked tendency toward caution and reserve could be observed in Tito's policy toward Moscow.

However, this did not signify a return to the period of 1945–1955, nor to 1971, times characterized by open controversies and the consequent breakdown of mutual cooperation. Despite the founding of the Stalinist party in the city of Bar and the failure of the pro-Soviet generals, supported by Moscow, in their attempt to remove Tito from power, he and his associates neither attacked the Soviet Union nor did anything to impede the ongoing cooperation that existed between the two communist parties and, more broadly, between the two nations. There is, therefore, a vast difference between the open conflict that arose between Tito and Stalin in 1948 and the attempted coup against Tito from Bar in 1974. In 1948, Tito managed to free himself from Stalin's control, whereas after the establishment of the Stalinist party in Bar, he remained dependent on Moscow and found himself surrounded and influenced by pro-Soviet elements.

With key positions within the Yugoslav Communist Party, the armed forces, and the police, as well as other posts in the government apparatus, held by pro-Soviet elements, it is impossible, under these circumstances, to displace the most prominent Cominformists from their bases of power and influence.

Tito is not attacking Moscow, Brezhnev, or the Soviet leadership today; on the contrary, he is collaborating closely with them. His attacks are actually directed against lower-ranking pro-Soviet Yugoslav agents. Therefore, this entire "noisy" campaign by Tito, Bakarić, and other collaborators is purely verbal, and consists only of blows struck at thin air. The "victims" are insignificant figures, such as the Serbian Dušan Brkić, whom the world press identifies as the former vice president of Croatia, but who is, in reality, one of the most ruthless executioners who operated in Croatia at the end of the war. None of the prominent pro-Soviet figures have been removed from their posts to date.

Tito, however, needs this massive and ostentatious campaign to create a united front with his most loyal followers and thus confront the generals who increasingly threaten his hold on power. But this uproar and the accusations against "Cominformists" also have another well-defined purpose: the need to impress the Western world.

Although the supposed Yugoslav anti-Soviet campaign is losing credibility in the West every day, there are still certain Western circles that interpret the recent campaign against the "Cominformists" as a genuine purge of pro-Soviet elements in that country. As a result of this campaign, the United States restarted its enormous economic aid to Yugoslavia, and powerless in the face of the increase in pro-Soviet influence, President Ford publicly promised in August 1975 his support to the Yugoslav authorities in their fight against the emigrants, which means, in other words, against the Croats, since it is they who have had to leave their homeland as a result of unemployment and political persecution.

A similar stance was adopted by the Canadian Foreign Minister, as confirmed by the Zagreb-based communist newspaper Vjesnik, acting as the official mouthpiece of the occupying power, even though the activities of Croatian emigrants in the two North American countries, in their efforts to achieve Croatian independence, remained strictly within the framework of respect for and observance of the laws in force there.

It is also worth mentioning the treaty of November 10, 1975, between the ministers M. Kunar and M. Milić of Italy and Yugoslavia, respectively, which provided a definitive solution to the problem of Trieste and its surroundings, thus reinforcing the international security of that critical point and, above all, benefiting the position of the West. It is evident that the most responsible Italian politicians felt, under pressure from the other NATO members, that with this act they were serving the cause of peace and the interests of that Western defense organization.

Furthermore, Tito needed Western support in his fight against the pro-Soviet generals. The interruption, at least temporary, of Yugoslav attacks against Austria also has the same motive and the same purpose. Tito, moreover, continues his program of close collaboration in the political and economic spheres with the German socialist-liberal government, in which the long-standing relations between the Yugoslav communists and the German socialists led by the Brandt-Wehner duo are of fundamental importance.

Relations with the other democratic nations of Western Europe have cooled, and in this area Yugoslavia is proceeding with caution. The pro-Soviet course and the increasingly evident influence of pro-Soviet generals in Yugoslavia led these countries to make a more realistic assessment of Yugoslav policy in its relations with the Western world.

Tito's policy of balancing between West and East has largely lost the significance and importance it once held. This policy is of vital importance to Tito in maintaining his grip on power and stifling the ambitions of his pro-Soviet rivals, who were increasingly entrenched in positions of power.

Despite all this, the skepticism of certain Western circles, and American economic aid, confidence in Tito's policy of non-alignment and internal stability has eroded. Alongside the attacks directed against the "Cominformists" and despite Yugoslavia's "pro-Western orientation," Tito collaborates with the Soviet Union without hindrance. Aside from the public clashes that followed the founding of the pro-Soviet Party in Bar in 1974, there were no noteworthy changes in the interstate and party relations between the two countries.

Brezhnev's illness and the consequent postponement of his trip to Yugoslavia benefited Tito, as it bought him time. The two leaders later met in Helsinki in an atmosphere more conducive to the aims of international communism. Since then, collaboration between Yugoslavia and the Soviets has not diminished, far from it.

Soviet Interior Minister Sholokov's visit to Yugoslavia in August 1975 was used to coordinate the police services of the two countries. In the second half of September of the same year, a Yugoslav military delegation, headed by the Chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army, General Stane Potočar, visited Russia, reciprocating the visit made by the Soviet armed forces, led by Soviet Deputy Defense Minister General Kulikov. During his visit, Potočar met with Marshal Andrey Grecko, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Minister of Defense.

On that occasion, the strengthening of cooperation and further development of relations between the Soviet and Yugoslav armed forces were discussed again. According to Tanjug, the talks took place in a "friendly" atmosphere. The exchange of visits between Soviet and Yugoslav military officials was particularly intense during 1975. Economic cooperation was also a subject of ongoing discussions. In early September 1975, V. Morozov, Chairman of the State Committee for Economic Affairs, arrived in Belgrade, and shortly thereafter, Yugoslav Vice President S. Sefer traveled to Moscow to inaugurate the exhibition "The Yugoslav Construction Industry, Its Materials and Equipment."

Specially appointed commissions worked on drafting a program of economic cooperation for the period 1976–1980, as well as plans for the more distant future.

That same month, Vladimir Novikov, Vice President of the Soviet government and Chairman of the Committee for Russian-Yugoslav Economic Cooperation, received I. Vukić, Chairman of the Yugoslav Chamber of Commerce.

Vukić stopped in Moscow on his way to Tashkent. Representatives of the Yugoslav company "Jugoturbina," based in Karlovac, signed a contract with their counterparts from the Soviet company "Atomenergoexport." The signing ceremony took place in the Croatian capital on October 16, 1975, at the Economic Chamber. The Yugoslav firm agreed to supply the Soviets with Diezel-Central turbines, valued at nearly $30 million, for use in the Soviet Union's nuclear power plants.

In addition to the main company, "Jugoturbina," "Rade Končar," "Djuro Djaković," "Energoinvest," and a number of other companies would also cooperate. This marked the beginning of extensive Soviet-Yugoslav integration in the field of nuclear power plant construction. In the near future, similar agreements covering other activities are expected to be finalized, thus fulfilling the plans made during Yugoslav Prime Minister Bijedić's visit to Moscow in July 1975 (Vjesnik, Zagreb, October 17, 1975).

Tito's Yugoslavia also cooperates with the members of the Warsaw Pact and other Moscow allies. Last October, General N. Ljubičić, Tito's Minister of Defense, led a Yugoslav military delegation to visit Czechoslovakia. The delegation was received by President Husak. Stane Dolanc, Secretary of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, visited Mongolia last October with his party delegation and reaffirmed friendly relations with his counterparts in that Soviet-occupied country. Tito's Yugoslavia was the first to recognize MAPLA in Angola as the sole legitimate ruler of that African country. This recognition was made on December 11, 1975.

Yugoslav communists are actively participating in preparations for the meeting of European communist parties. This cooperation is spontaneous and aims to achieve an understanding between Soviet representatives and the European "opposition," comprised of the Italian, Spanish, French, and Yugoslav communist parties.

A. Grlickov, Executive Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, is the delegate to discuss this matter. Grlickov expressed his satisfaction with the results obtained at the meeting held in Berlin on October 9 and 10, encouraging the hope that a basis for collaboration and mutual cooperation among all communist parties would be found (Vjesnik, September 30, 1975).

Yugoslavia is rendering a great service to the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union with the inauguration of the Belgrade-Bar railway on November 29, 1975. Starting in June of this year, there will be regular train service on this railway line, which has incalculable strategic value for both Soviet Russia and Belgrade, serving their plans in the Adriatic Sea.

A key objective of these plans is thus achieved with the connection of the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic by rail, passing through Hungary, Poland, and the German Democratic Republic. (Vjesnik, October 26, 1975).

It is clear that the new railway is not intended as a direct link to Western Europe and will serve exclusively the interests of the Warsaw Pact powers.

Improvement of relations with Bulgaria

Alongside the campaign against the "Cominformists" and the rapprochement with the West (including China) through its "anti-Soviet" policy, relations with Bulgaria are improving. This became evident in Helsinki when Tito met with Zivkov, and the positive development of this new rapprochement was confirmed by the official visit of Foreign Minister P. Mladenov to Belgrade in mid-November 1975. Mladenov was invited by his Yugoslav counterpart, M. Minić. Despite the media campaign surrounding the Macedonian question, this rapprochement between the governments and parties must be rooted in a broader international context regarding Soviet interests. Bulgaria has recently adopted a more conciliatory stance and demonstrated its willingness to cooperate with Yugoslavia, provided that Soviet interests demand it. This can be interpreted as a psychological countermeasure by Moscow, given Tito's success in the Trieste dispute and considering the renewed American aid to Belgrade.

In the joint statement issued at the conclusion of the meeting between the two ministers, it was stated that, "the two ministers noted with satisfaction that cooperation between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria can be counted as having progressed."

They expressed their hope for the development and expansion of their political, economic, and cultural relations in accordance with the principles of equality, independence, respect for sovereignty, and territorial integrity... The two ministers agreed that both sides should develop methods and approaches for considering and resolving the issue of further bilateral cooperation, including contentious issues. These approaches and methods would be reaffirmed at the meeting between President Tito and Todor Zhivkov, the date of which will be set later" (Tanjug and Vjesnik, November 14, 1975).

The current campaign against Croatia

Currently, Tito, his security service, and pro-Soviet generals are primarily persecuting Croats and their demand for a state separate from Yugoslavia. This renewed campaign largely began in September 1975 with the mass arrest of prominent figures, first in Zagreb and then in other Croatian cities and regions. Several hundred people were imprisoned. In reality, this type of action had been taking place for some time, but the authorities covered it up. Only when the persecution of second- and third-tier "Cominformists" became public did they acknowledge it, and incidentally, the persecution of Croatian nationalists as well.

On the one hand, the persecution of "Cominformists" is dramatized as if it were a supposed shift in the country's internal politics, while on the other hand, the mass arrests of Croats are not mentioned, only to be later presented as an insignificant phenomenon. For the outside world, the news was prepared in Belgrade as if it were solely and exclusively an action against the "Cominformists," or a group of enemies of the state.

A report from Tanjug, the official news agency of Tito's government, described the meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist League of Yugoslavia, held in October 1975, which "considered the political situation in the country and some aspects of enemy activity against the Communist League and the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia." This enemy activity was interpreted abroad, at Belgrade's suggestion, as "Cominformist (Stalinist)" activity, even though at that time there were already more than 100 imprisoned Croats who had nothing to do with the Cominformists. The communication from the Zagreb Interior Secretary of November 25, 1975, concerning an explosion on the 17th of that month in a street of that city during Tito's visit, suggested that the previously initiated imprisonment would continue.

The action against the "Cominformists" received considerable publicity from V. Bakarić's report of October 2, 1975, at the inaugural meeting of the "Council of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia for Theoretical and Ideological Activity." This report was published on October 22, 1975. Most of it was devoted to the Cominformists and those associated with the suppressed journal Praxis, only mentioning, at the end, the need to study Croatian nationalism. It could not be concluded from this report that the arrest and persecution of democratically oriented Croats had already been underway for a month. Nor did a series of speeches by Tito, delivered between September and October 1975, suggest that this was a concrete, large-scale action against the Croats.

Only at the meeting of the Presidency of the Conference of the Croatian Working People's League on October 29, 1975 (dedicated to issues of "self-protection of society," that is, to policing matters in the fight against political enemies) were the recent arrests in Zagreb mentioned toward the end. In his opening address, M. Bosković referred to the Cominformists and their connections with the emigration. In the ensuing discussion, I. Pervan spoke at length about Croatian emigration, emphasizing that the most dangerous enemy was Croatian nationalism and separatism, in collaboration with ecclesiastical circles. He also mentioned the group recently detained in Zagreb, while M. Gruić provided some details about it in the newspaper Vjesnik. All these elements fell far short of the total number of Croats detained.

Vjesnik, in its October 30, 1975 edition, reports, according to Pervan's explanation: "...I also speak about the collaboration of external enemies with enemy forces within the country and vice versa. The forces of the internal enemy are not enough to endanger the stability of order, but their activity deserves our utmost attention. The most significant part of the internal enemies is directed against the program and actions of the Communist League of Yugoslavia, as well as against the concept of the development of socialist forces and the relations of social self-management. The concrete forms of this action stem from the positions of nationalism, chauvinism, and separatism; then from those of the clergy and the abuse of religious communities, the dogmatic bureaucracy, the Cominformist forces, anarcho-liberalism and the extreme left, irredentism, and centralism."

After the report about the Croatian emigration that was divided into one part dedicated to subversive terrorism, and the other concerned with political orientation and that they would currently collaborate closely, and after mentioning the "Croatian government in exile", Pervan gave, according to journalistic reports, the following elements of judgment about the arrests in Zagreb: "he recalled the recent arrest of a group of this nature and said that its members had relations with the emigration, it financed it to, according to their instructions, collect information about military objectives, about our most prominent officials - such as, for example, their address, license plate number of their cars, way of getting around the city - in order to be able to carry out attacks against them.

The members of this group created organizations according to the principle of "troyka" and the observation of the objectives chosen for subversive action; They gathered weapons and in one of the procedures about 15 revolvers and nearly 4,000 bullets were seized; They prepared the action program of their organization, then the proclamations that they should launch to the public at a certain time, etc. "An investigation is being carried out against these groups and they will soon be prosecuted."

Referring to the "self-protection of society" in the work group of the newspaper Vjesnik, M. Gruič presented the following data about the people detained there: "the majority in this work group acts responsibly and conscientiously, adhering to the line of the Communist League and our socialist society. Meanwhile, small groups or individuals, working from enemy positions, appear from time to time." In this sense, he mentioned that among those recently detained in Zagreb, there are four members of the Vjesnik work group. Here they were not noticed either for their procedures or their behavior. But, it is evident that they work from enemy positions, collaborating with other groups and also preparing, as has been proven, terrorist actions."

The arrests of the Croats are being carried out by order of the party and military headquarters in Belgrade.

This is clearly indicated by a brief communication from Tanjug referring to the meeting of the commission of the Executive Committee of the Presidency of the Central Committee of the Communist League of Yugoslavia for general defense affairs on October 29, 1975, chaired by General Ivan Kukoč, with the participation of senior military officials, Milos Šumonja and Dzemal Šarac. The same meeting dealt with the problem of a more complete organization for the self-protection of society, that is, the problem of terrorist police measures. taken against the opposition.

Another brief news item states that at the meetings of the Presidency of the Communist League of Yugoslavia on the 13th and 14th in Brioni, the main topic was the "self-protection of society." Judging by the practical measures implemented, it is easy to conclude that the arrests in Croatia were their primary focus. Considering that the army's high command is pro-Soviet, it is logical to see that the main blow was dealt to the Croats and only secondarily to the pro-Soviet faction. But, at the same time, another campaign was launched against the Albanians in Kosovo, where, as seems quite clear, further arrests were carried out.

The main victims of this campaign against the so-called internal enemy and of Yugoslavia's new "anti-Soviet" policy are the Croatian democratic forces. When it comes to Croatian rights and demands for their release, Tito and the pro-Soviet generals are in complete agreement. Tito, in order to maintain his grip on power, and in keeping with his custom, is subservient to the pro-Soviet generals and to all the Great Serbian circles, these two currents being very strong not only in Serbia but also in Montenegro. These mass persecutions remain hidden from the West. Tito and his collaborators present the detained Croats alongside the Cominformists, describing them with the same Stalinist characteristics. But, despite this falsehood, the truth is gradually penetrating even the press of the free world. For example, the prestigious Swiss daily Veterland of Lucerne and Le Monde of Paris exposed the lies emanating from Belgrade.

"The 'armistice' between Yugoslavia and Albania, achieved under the threat of common danger after the failed pro-Soviet 'putsch' in 1974 against Tito and E. Hodza, is once again weakened. At the end of October 1975, vehement attacks were published by the Communist League of Kosovo against 'the enemy activity of Albanian irredentism in an organized and illegal manner.' This campaign was publicly reopened almost simultaneously with the start of the aforementioned campaign against 'separatism' and 'Croatian nationalism' in Zagreb. The fight against Croatian and Albanian nationalisms constitutes the fundamental element of a broader plan by the Yugoslav generals and Tito. These actions are synchronized and are being systematically prepared in the meetings of the Presidency of the Communist League of Yugoslavia: that is to say, in the highest military circles."

" These Serbian circles entrusted the odious role of prosecuting Albanian "irredentism" in the name of "society's self-defense" to Bajram Selmi, an Albanian on the Kosovo Regional Executive Committee.

To this end, a special meeting of this Committee was held, chaired by Mahmnd Bakali, who enjoys a good reputation among Albanians in that region for having successfully protected the interests of the Albanian population against the Serbs and Belgrade. Bakali visited China in August 1975, which was not viewed favorably in Belgrade. It is clear that this meeting in Pristina was held on Belgrade's orders.

There, the Albanian Bajram Selmi presented the struggle of Kosovo Albanians for national freedom, stating that: "The platform of Albanian irredentism stems from Greater Albanian positions, and its aims are the separation of Kosovo and other regions of Yugoslavia where Albanians live, and the destruction of the unity and integrity of Yugoslavia. According to what was said at the meeting, Albanian irredentism, by its ideology, objectives, and methods, is directed against the policies of the Communist League of Yugoslavia and against its integrity, and is in its essence reactionary, anti-socialist, and anti-communist. Therefore, it is also directed against the real and permanent interests of the Albanian people themselves.

"The activities of this enemy group benefit those forces that are trying to hinder the future development of good relations between Yugoslavia and the People's Republic of Albania, forces for whom the creation of a lasting peace in this part of the Balkans is not in their interest."

" "The Presidency considers it absolutely necessary to publicly and openly expose the reactionary ideological and political position of Albanian irredentism and to clarify all of this to the masses.

The struggle against Albanian irredentism is a constitutive part of the struggle against all nationalisms in the country and in Kosovo..." (Tanjug and Vjesnik, October 29, 1975).

This virulent attack against Albanian nationalism in Kosovo and against its plans for secession from Yugoslavia constitutes a sudden shift in Yugoslav-Albanian relations. This can be seen as a significant setback for Tito's policy of rapprochement with China and Albania, and as a counterattack by pro-Soviet forces in Yugoslavia after the failed 1974 coup attempt.

But this attack can be interpreted even more clearly if it is seen as a response by pro-Soviet forces in Yugoslavia and their protectors to China's active involvement in Yugoslavian politics. This involvement was "legitimized" by the official visit of the Yugoslav Prime Minister, Dr. Bijedić, to China in October 1975, thus highlighting a pendulum-like policy regarding Moscow and Beijing. The pro-Soviet Yugoslav generals, through their attack on Albanian "irredentism," wanted to express and condemn the fact that China was encouraging the forces that were promoting the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the separation of Kosovo and other regions to unite them with Albania.

This attitude hinders normal relations between the two neighbors: Albania and Yugoslavia. The truth is that the ruling circles of Yugoslavia oppose the strengthening of the Albanian position in Kosovo, Montenegro, and Macedonia, and wish to prevent the liberation of Albanians from Yugoslavia by force. At the same time, pro-Soviet generals in Yugoslavia are striving to worsen the recently improved relations between Tirana and Belgrade. This attitude is essentially a Soviet blow against China's active policy in the Balkans, which views Romania, Albania, and Yugoslavia as the strategic barrier against Soviet penetration toward the Adriatic Sea. It appears that the ruling circles of NATO share this view.

The pro-Soviet Yugoslav generals have also launched a counter-offensive against Romania. By smuggling V. Dapčević, a Montenegrin with Great Serbian and neo-Stalinist leanings, into Yugoslavia, they worsened the already strained relations between Tito and Ceauseau, thus also placing Romania in a provocative position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union.

This recent offensive by pro-Soviet generals in Yugoslavia against the Croats and Albanians is a fundamental part of the same plan by Great Serbian-Soviet circles to prevent their national liberation and that of the other non-Serbian peoples of Yugoslavia. This postponement of the peaceful solution to the national question, a fundamental issue in Yugoslavia, effectively amounts to handing it over to the Soviet arbiter. Clearly, these plans are not only against the Romanians, Croats, and Albanians but also against Chinese policy. These plans can only be realized through a struggle against these freedom-loving peoples and after their armed defeat. The pro-Soviet generals in Yugoslavia are mistaken about the success of such a struggle. Their plans affect the vital interests of free Europe as a whole.

The return to Yugoslavia of the Stalinist Party leader — Tensions with Romania — Collaboration with China

The leader of the Stalinist party, founded in Bar in 1974, returned to Yugoslavia. This party, a competitor of Tito's Communist League, elected Vlado Dapčević as its general secretary in absentia. Dapčević logically declined the position publicly and completely distanced himself from the new party and its protectors in Moscow, as Le Monde reported. This was a skillful maneuver by Dapčević to free the Soviet political leadership from any potential unpleasantness in its relations with Tito and, at the same time, to facilitate his position regarding the possibility of his eventual return to Yugoslavia.

In light of his recent clandestine return to Yugoslavia from Romania, this resignation increasingly appears to be a shrewd maneuver, both in terms of the prospects it opens for his election as leader of the new party and in relation to his return as someone supposedly "kidnapped" by Yugoslav secret agents in Bucharest. Tito reacted violently against the founding of a new party and against the election of V. Dapčević as its general secretary. These were Tito's rivals who tried to oust him at the very moment of the founding of his new party.

The partial success of the Cominformists thus far has been amplified by V. Dapčević's return to Yugoslavia, and the pro-Soviet faction has gained another victory in the competition with Tito: Tito's opponent, V. Dapčević, is in the country and waiting to seize power.

He could even be tried and sentenced to several years in prison, but both he and his allies—the pro-Soviet generals in the Yugoslav army and police—are convinced that Dapčević will overcome all obstacles and difficulties and take power after Tito's departure, either naturally or by force. The prognosis is undoubtedly extremely risky and, in its entirety, seems like a grand adventure. But it is impossible for Dapčević, a Stalinist and Great Serb of Montenegrin origin, to succeed at the outset. The chances of this success being sustained are slim, given that his adversaries and those of his Soviet protectors, both internal and external, are numerous and very powerful.

Judging by the many existing indications, it seems quite certain that pro-Soviet elements within the Yugoslav security service, according to a pre-arranged plan and in agreement with V. Dapčević himself, had faked his kidnapping during his brief stay in the Romanian capital at the beginning of August 1975. This kidnapping caused a crisis in Romanian-Yugoslav relations. Ceausescu, therefore, should have paid an official visit to Tito on October 14, 1975—everything was already prepared for his reception in Belgrade—but Ceausescu did not appear. It is most likely that Ceausescu backed down at the last minute due to the injury inflicted on Romanian sovereignty by the actions of Yugoslav police officers in the attempted kidnapping of V. Dapčević in Bucharest on August 8 of that year. This affair was seen as a Romanian provocation to Moscow for having allowed the "kidnapping" of one of its important allies, and it also placed Romania in a delicate position with Belgium, since V. Dapčević is a Belgian citizen.

It is widely believed that Dapčević will eventually be brought to trial and convicted for carrying out activities against Tito's regime.

Multiple targets with "a kidnapping"

This highly enigmatic affair has several objectives. Tito's rivals, both within and outside the country, primarily wish to weaken his regime and orchestrate a power grab in the presence of the head of the Stalinist party. Furthermore, pro-Soviet collaborators within the country seek to completely destroy the already strained relations between Ceausescu and Tito, which had been damaged by the recent Sovietization of Yugoslavia. A further, important objective pursued with Dapčević's arrival in Yugoslavia is a deliberate Romanian provocation of the Soviet Union and the creation of renewed tension between Moscow and Bucharest. Closely related to all of this is also the attempt to suppress Chinese influence, both in Romania and Yugoslavia.

Indeed, China is making considerable efforts to expand its influence in Yugoslavia following the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Along with its Chinese allies—Albania and Romania, and Yugoslavia due to its geopolitical position—the Yugoslavs occupy a very important strategic place, both in the Soviet Union's plans for its penetration of the Adriatic and in the plans of China and the West to oppose that penetration. Chinese attempts found little fertile ground after the restalization of Yugoslavia, which began in 1971. Only after the failed pro-Soviet coups against Tito in Montenegro and against Erich Hodza in Albania in 1974 was a closer Sino-Yugoslav rapprochement achieved. Tito's maneuvering in all of this was aimed at preserving his power and saving his life, while China sought to create the necessary buffer to prevent Soviet occupation of the Adriatic. Here, too, Chinese and Western interests converged.

Bijedić in China

Taking all these points into consideration, we can also understand the visit of the Yugoslav Premier to China in October 1975. As part of his tour of the Asian continent, Dz. Bijedić spent six days in China. He also visited North Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India, and Singapore. With this visit, approved by Tito, China was legally included in the political events of Yugoslavia. This offered the Asian country the opportunity to expand its influence in Albania and Romania, as well as in Yugoslavia.

China was activating its policy in southeastern Europe and, along with the Soviet Union and the West, becoming an important factor of influence in that region of the world. The country was preparing for a significant role in the events that were about to unfold in Yugoslavia and neighboring countries.

Bijedić and his delegation were received very cordially in China. The only concrete result of this visit was the formation of a Joint Committee for the Promotion of Trade, as mentioned in a brief statement, which also said: "Both sides are pleased with the outcome of the talks. They noted with satisfaction the development to date of their mutual relations and expressed their desire for further development and the intensification of various forms of cooperation between the two countries, respecting the principles of equality, independence, and mutual trust."

The statement concluded by saying that Deng Xiaoping had accepted the official invitation to visit Yugoslavia. The date would be set later.

China and the peoples of Yugoslavia

On that occasion, Chinese leaders and the press emphasized the relations and ties between the people of Yugoslavia and the Chinese people, followed by the struggle for freedom and independence. The Chinese did not attempt to judge Tito's regime, nor the organization of their country. This Chinese caution contrasted sharply with the declarations of US President Ford, who publicly pledged to maintain the unity and integrity of Yugoslavia.

In this regard, some of the remarks made during the toast offered by Chinese President Deng Xiaoping in honor of the Yugoslav delegation on October 6, 1975, are interesting. At the beginning of his speech, he said: "The Chinese people have always admired the spirit of the Yugoslav people, who fight heroically without fear of force and violence." Later he emphasized: "The Chinese people are extremely pleased with the success of the Yugoslav people and resolutely support their just struggle."

Regarding Yugoslavia's role in the Third World (non-aligned, according to Yugoslav terminology), Ten Hsio Ping stated that "the Third World is the main force against imperialism, colonialism, and hegemony." He was clearly referring to the US and the Soviet Union, but Bijedić, in his speech, alluded only to the US, speaking "about various aspects of the pressures and aggressions of imperialist forces against developing countries." The Chinese Vice President emphasized at the end of his speech that Bijedić's visit "is an important event in the relations between the two countries and will surely contribute to promoting friendship and cooperation between China and Yugoslavia."

Thus, without a doubt, China is actively interfering in the affairs of the Balkans and Yugoslavia. And this intervention is much more flexible than the American one. This stance by China makes no claims, either regarding Yugoslavia's borders or its regime. The Chinese, above all, emphasize their support for peoples struggling for their independence and freedom.

The fundamental reason for China's stance in Yugoslavia is to contain Soviet penetration toward the Adriatic. This is a further contribution to the creation of a Sino-European front against Soviet expansion. China is currently assessing the resilience and vitality of Titoism and Yugoslavia. If its expectations are not met, which is certain, China will have to adjust its approach. Its plans assign a decisive role to the unresolved national question in Yugoslavia, as well as to Albanian national interests. (Translation: fn)

The victory of the inauthentic over the authentic

Some Reflections on the Occasion of the American Bicentennial

Franjo Nevistić

"If, absit omen, North America fails in its current ordeal, it would represent as great a disaster for its friends and associates as for North America itself" (A. J. Toynbee, The United States and the World Revolution, EMECE, Buenos Aires, 1963, p. 17).

The bicentennial of the Independence of the United States coincides with a historical period that raises and re-raises extremely serious problems not only for that great country but also for all of humanity. These are extremely serious problems of the most varied nature, encompassing the political, social, economic, racial, and military spheres, as well as the philosophical and religious. From its isolationist position (J. Monroe) and its almost complete disinterest in what was happening in the rest of the world, American policy became the decisive factor in the politics of our entire planet.

Over the course of two hundred years, it has undergone a metamorphosis both internally and in terms of the external sphere of its interests. The current crisis, multifaceted in every aspect, encompassing the peoples and states of the entire world, also involves an expressly American factor that is essential without which any solution or way out of it is unimaginable. This applies equally to a solution that would lead us toward clearer horizons or to a general catastrophe. American presence and participation are absolutely indispensable.

What, then, can we say on the occasion of such an important bicentennial? —• Is it possible to say anything new, original?

After the "prophecies" of Donoso Cortés, Alexis de Tocqueville, Sainte-Beuve, etc., and considering the current situation that is confirming these "prophecies" with events, we do not feel in a position to do so. Furthermore, the author of these lines, much to his regret, has never been to the United States.

All our "knowledge and understanding" of that great country rests on opinions written by observers of almost universal renown, or on accounts from people with or without discernment who have had prolonged contact and rich experience with and within the American natural, socio-political environment. Nevertheless, our interest and desire to say "something," to offer at least a partially new perspective on American reality, persist and refuse to be silenced. It is under this pressure that we arrive at the title of this work. Our desire is not appeased by a mere superficial touch on the problem. The victory, then, of the inauthentic over the authentic—what is it?

Anyone familiar with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger will readily understand what we mean. While this article is not, or should not be, primarily philosophical in nature, we believe that such a stance could shed more light on and provide a deeper understanding of the reality that concerns us than any enumeration and panoramic description of the facts. Facts and nothing more! According to H. Keysering, this American penchant, this love of facts, would be the most serious "superstition" of the people of G. Washington. An exaggerated preoccupation with facts and an incomprehensible disregard for their interpretation, for their meaning.[1]

Without disregarding the importance of the facts themselves, we are more interested in their meaning. This places us within the realm of philosophy and religion. Just as the chain of events leads us almost infinitely from one to the next, so too does the meaning of one event lead us to the meaning of another, from one thing to another, until we arrive at the ultimate meaning of all events and all things in general.

THE ENIGMA OF “THE PHENOMENON OF MAN”

But man does not only seek the meaning of the facts and things that are before him as the objective world. Rather, he seeks the meaning of his own existence situated within that objective world. This is truly the enigma of “the phenomenon of man” (Teilhard de Chardin). This enigma torments man throughout his existence, from the dawn of civilization and the cosmic appearance of “Homo sapiens.” Many believed they had found the solution to the enigma—the origin, meaning, and destiny of man—and died with the peace of mind that this belief assured them. But none of these solutions was accepted by everyone as definitive, without doubts and reservations. Doubts and insecurity gnawed at each one from within. So much so that one after another they continued to experience their abandonment, partial or complete.[2] “Man has never been so problematic for himself as he is today,” wrote M. Scheler in the first decades of our century. But what would he say today? 1976, after the barbarities of the Second World War, or after those being committed today? Is it possible to accept reality in what seems to be the ultimate truth: homo homini lupus (man is a wolf to man)?

At the same time that Scheler was writing, two philosophers were attempting, in a unique way, to resolve the problematic enigma of humankind. Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit and naturalist, was making extraordinary efforts to reconcile the religious, specifically Christian, solution with the scientific-natural one, something impossible for Scheler. M. Heidegger, in turn, sought to bring together a philosophical-metaphysical solution with a religious one in general, leading us to the very threshold of religion. We humans must know that "in any undertaking, whatever it may be, one question is imposed upon us, and it is this: 'Why have we come into the world? What is the purpose of humankind?'" wrote Thierry-Maulnier in this regard.

To provide a solution to these questions, or at least to guide them properly, Heidegger, among other key terms and concepts in his philosophy, also coined the terms "authentic" and "inauthentic." Without his own will, man finds himself adrift in this world of things chained together. He himself enters this chain. By using things (besorgen), man creates around himself a whole network of relationships with both things and other people. Thus, human society, professions, organizations, science, technology, wealth, progress, comforts, etc., are formed. Everything serves man, and man makes use of everything.

But, while at the level of things and chained to them, he becomes immersed in them and disregards every other aspect of reality. This would be the inauthentic life of man. But a moment comes to everyone when he begins to ask himself: "Why is there something in general and not rather nothing?" From this moment, we feel specifically different from the inauthentic world of things, strangers to it. From this vantage point, all the comforts of an inauthentic life seem worthless, null. Anguish—the central existentialist sentiment, not fear—seizes hold of us, and we anxiously question the meaning of our existence. We are in the world of things, yet we know neither where we came from, nor how, nor where we will disappear. At the same time, we both belong and do not belong to the world of things. We are not content with it. We want to know where this non-belonging of ours leads. Here begins our authentic life as human beings. In the inauthentic world, the central figure is homo faber, homo mercator, the technician, the creator of material goods. Without dismissing all this, and even acknowledging it as the origin of our lives, for the German philosopher, a life that dwindles in its comforts is an inauthentic and decadent life.

Why are we invoking this issue precisely on the occasion of the American bicentennial? A. Huxley wrote that, when it comes to specifically human problems, it is not a question of metaphysics or anti-metaphysics, but of good metaphysics or bad metaphysics. A person without metaphysics does not live an authentic life, Heidegger would say. "The end of human life is spiritual, and this spiritual purpose is what distinguishes man from the non-human creatures that inhabit the surface of this planet."[3] This is further evidence of authentic life, specifically distinctive of man, and of inauthentic life when man lowers himself to the mode of existence of other creatures.

Now, the main motive of the English Puritans that drove them to leave England and found the North American colonies was religious freedom, that is, an authentic human life. Therefore, we revisit these questions of authenticity or lack thereof in the lives of contemporary Americans, precisely at the moment when they are celebrating the bicentennial of their independence. Bearing the weighty responsibility of defending the free world against the aggression of totalitarianism and communist militarism, have the American people and their policies remained faithful to the ideals and motives of the first Puritan immigrants?

TWO TRANSCENDENTAL CHANGES

Even at the time of the 1773 revolution, economic and financial motives were present, specifically Taxes, which inspired the revolution. While Toynbee tries to see the universal principles of human rights there, it is difficult to deny the presence of economic, material motives as well. A tendency toward inauthenticity! Throughout the subsequent history of North America, a materialistic idealism increasingly prevailed. A materialism almost of a religious nature.

Becoming rich became the supreme ideal of the American man. The rich, according to the Puritan conception, are God's chosen children. Material wealth is a sign of divine blessing. To achieve it, the American man, especially after the Industrial Revolution, transformed his society into the most technologically advanced civilization in the world. But this is the ideal of animal man, as Keyserling says. Man first became, calculating periods of history in geological categories, the master of the world. The American, wrote André Siegfried, becomes disoriented if he does not work, produce, or create material goods. "It is never enough for him to be; he constantly needs to achieve..." Hence an almost rule-bound association between religion and action where the former could Christianize the latter, but also runs the risk of being de-Christianized in turn" [4].

Massis, for his part, says: "An (American) religion of action, not of contemplation, a religion of work, of unbridled exploitation of life, not of asceticism: not man at the service of religion, but religion at the service of the man who produces." This would be a "messianism of production, of the 'technocracy of performance'" [5]. To avoid being suspected of "right-wing clericalism," we must pay attention, for example, to what H. Marcuse says regarding the position of the current American regime. This regime "reduces everything to the status of merchandise. It is a system in which buying and selling constitute the substance and the entire horizon of life" [6]. We all know well why Marcuse said this, but the truth is nonetheless undeniable. Baudelaire, referring to the same problem, adds: "Material activity, exaggerated to the proportions of a national madness, leaves very little room in people's minds for things that are not of this world" [7]. This would constitute the first and most decisive change in the American soul and politics. The inauthentic aspects of life prevailed over the authentic.

The second point concerns the transition from its isolationist policy to the position of an active world power, making its country an example and paradigm worthy of imitation. The American Journal of Sociology, according to Massis, wrote at the time: "...We (Americans, note:) are the ones chosen by God to purify and save the world through our example. If other nations would only adopt our religious and political principles, our general attitude toward life, they themselves would very soon, and undoubtedly, be as happy and prosperous as we are." According to J. Burnham, The New York Times, in turn, proposed reducing the study of history to that of the United States.

Here, then, are theoretical indications for the international political plan of the United States. The Second World War, whether it liked it or not, set its implementation in motion. Thus, for example, a general from that country, when he landed with his troops in Sicily during the last world war, circulated a pamphlet among his soldiers, which read: "Many of you have German and Italian blood in your veins, but remember that your ancestors loved freedom so much that in its pursuit they abandoned their homeland and homes and crossed the ocean. The ancestors of the soldiers you are about to kill did not have the courage to make that sacrifice and continued to live as slaves..."[8].

There is no doubt that the American general believed in the truth of his concepts and intentions: to liberate the slaves, to bring freedom, security, prosperity, and peace to the whole world!

But, once the war ended with the collapse of German National Socialism and Italian Fascism, the American mission of liberating the "slaves" also ended. Despotic Soviet Communism, which subjected half of Europe to its implacable power, was recognized as a philosophy, a policy, and a democratic-liberating power. That American "imperialist" idealism of which Irving Babbitt wrote was replaced by other criteria. American soldiers of "German or Italian blood," after having killed soldiers of their homelands, left others to shape the world. Their blood and the spilled blood of their brothers—French, German, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Croatian, etc.—served only to allow other forces to seize the reins of international politics.

"WESTERN ATHENS" VERSUS "EASTERN SPARTA"

Sainte-Beuve wrote: "There are no more than two nations... (Russia and the United States, our note). The future of the world lies between these two worlds. They will clash one day, and there will be struggles such as the past could never have seen, at least in terms of masses and physical confrontation, because times of great moral upheaval have already passed."

Will the clash that Sainte-Beuve foresaw occur, or the definitive division of the world into two halves, as Tocqueville predicted?

Is it audacious to say: neither one nor the other? The world, despite being divided in two, is marching toward unity, toward peace. But what peace—the American or the Soviet? Soviet propaganda, its military potential, and its agents within the free world itself have almost paralyzed its capacity for reaction. Without attempting to disarm its own bellicose spirit, the Soviets are increasingly succeeding in disarming the spirit of their adversary. War with the Soviet Union, Kissinger insists, would be madness, a massacre, and mutual suicide. In order not to destroy, in order not to hinder progress, it will continue with détente, with planning and complementing each other's economies, and with providing aid to the underdeveloped. A prosperous global economy will eliminate all barriers between peoples and ideologies. Ideologies will descend from the clouds to disappear in the sea of general well-being and justice.

This is the latest illusion being offered to us in the name of the free world by Messrs. Kissinger and Sonnenfeldt, the visible architects of Washington's international policy.

The fate of Eastern Europe, the American catastrophe in East Asia, its defeat in Africa, and, after Helsinki, the preparation for an assault on the rest of the free European world (the fostered Popular Front in Italy and France), the prediction that Europe will be Marxist in ten years (Kissinger), offer more than enough proof of how the division of the world into two halves—the American and the Soviet—is impossible. It also shows that the advantages of a provisional partition (thirty years) belong to Moscow. Therefore, Tocqueville's prophecy would not be fulfilled; the partition of the world, besides being unjust, is impossible because of the unwavering communist faith in its universal and revolutionary mission, which it took from the hands of American policy, as Toynbee said.

Nor will the Sainte-Beuve clash occur, because Washington—the "Athens of the West"—is surrendering and accepting a secondary role in the world to the "Sparta of the East," or Moscow. The prospects for a Soviet peace are more likely than those for an American peace. "A grave responsibility lies with him who, being stronger, has allowed himself to weaken" (...) "A policy of audacity was met with a policy of fear; decisive actions with mere words. The latest example of this leniency is Kissinger's short-sighted diplomacy, which moves, wingless, with the stalking of ants," wrote Dr. Pita Romero, former Spanish minister in pre-Franco Spain, recently in "La Prensa." Is this cause for despair?

TWO POSSIBLE WAYS OUT

There are still two paths forward so that the outlook for the future of the world is not so pessimistic. Eherry-Maulnier said "that the first thing to be restored is the notion of man whose greatness and possible salvation are absent and outside all calculations." We have already pointed out, relying on authoritative opinions, that this is the fundamental characteristic of American life and politics: the absence of a true notion of man in all its transcendental calculations. The inauthentic has prevailed over the authentic in the notion of man. In this sense, we can accept Toynbee's recommendation regarding the need for an American religious regeneration and the spirit of Saint Francis, "the greatest soul that has appeared in our Western world since our Western civilization began to emerge from the Dark Ages" [9]. And he does not consider it impossible. This would be the first way out.

The second would consist of the following: H. Keyserling stated that for the 20th century in the United States, John B. Watson should be considered the most representative type of man. According to his modernized behavioral psychological conception, man is an animal like other animals. He absolutely lacks a genuine, original spiritual initiative or free will. Everything in him is subject to external influence, to the "suggestion" or incitement of the natural and social environment. Struggling with nature for his well-being, achieved in a "damnedly comfortable" life, as an Eastern man observed, the American has supposedly forgotten his own metaphysical, religious, and other factors and has sunk into an animalistic existence, inauthentic as Heidegger would say, in the realm of scientific and technological facts and the comfort they provide. To break the current impasse with his Soviet challenger, an external shock, an overwhelming "suggestion," would have to occur to provoke the appropriate response. This response would have to be contrary to the "organic" obedience recommended by the Kissinger-Sonnenfeldt "doctrine."

The favorite of certain American circles, the bloodthirsty M. Djilas, recently said: "I believe that the United States is incapable of pursuing an aggressive foreign policy. For this, that country lacks a stimulus (submitted by us. SC's note). In order to conduct a dynamic policy, it is necessary to have a people, a movement, a grand objective. Nobody wants to go to war over United Fruit or ITT." There is, therefore, no impulse, no people, no movement, and no grand objective, says Djilas regarding the American people. Could these assertions not act, in conjunction with other external factors, such as the external impact on the American people? To soften, perhaps, his tremendous pronouncements, Djilas then refers to the crisis of the "political spearhead," which would allow us to suppose that perhaps he thinks differently about the people. But he himself destroys this supposition by saying: "The Americans have a large army, but it is an army without morale" [10]. But isn't a "large army" the people themselves? Does the people also lack morality?

A most sad observation, then, from a supposed American friend. But, nevertheless, not a hopeless one. Djilas only indirectly addresses the American people, placing the responsibility on the "political elite." For our part, we have a different opinion about the people—of G. Washington. Despite the authority of so many theorists, in politics we shouldn't take everything literally. We don't entirely believe in the inauthenticity of American life, nor in Keyserling's Watsonian behaviorism. If the "political elite" is paralyzed by a sense of capitulation, what about the "silent majority"? Doesn't it have enough energy to liberate its "political elite" and itself from the pernicious impact of "détente" and, in a vigorous reaction, overcome communist despotism in the world as it overcame "the desert and barbarism" in past centuries, about which Tocqueville wrote?

PERCEPTIBLE CHANGES IN UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL POLICY

The insecurity of Kissinger's position, the sobering pre-election results regarding the presidential candidacy, should not end with the elections. It is necessary to awaken all the ethnic "ghettos" in North America: Russians, Ukrainians, Baltic peoples, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Croats, Slovenes, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Germans, Italians, French, etc., because they are that silent American majority.

If this is omitted and "détente" continues, then the current American ordeal, if it exists, will fail to the detriment of North America and all its friends, something we, along with Toynbee, do not wish for. The bicentennial should be the reason for a return to the universal initiative for liberation. North America must not become a conservative power of privileges and the privileged.

The great nation must awaken from the inauthenticity of its existence and embark upon an authentic life, whose essential prerequisite is Freedom. Universal freedom is also a universal appeal. In this way, it will emerge from its current and apparent isolation and find allies in every corner of the world, especially those under communist tyranny. If time is short for a regeneration of the spirit of Saint Francis, the impact of communist tyranny, mortally threatening Western civilization, should awaken us all from the inauthenticity of our lives and compel us to fearlessly seek the fraternity of all peoples in freedom. This, of course, does not consider war an inevitable means.

Some observations on the historical position of modern communism

Herman F. Ahminov

"Just as we cannot evaluate an individual by what he thinks of himself, neither is it possible to judge a revolutionary era by its consciousness. On the contrary, it is this consciousness that we can explain from the standpoint of the contradictions of material life, from the perspective of the conflict existing between the productive forces of society and the relations that they generate."

KARL MARX

If Karl Marx were granted a vacation and emerged from hell, he would have ample reason to be angry. He would find that the vast majority of today's sociologists could be his students, while, on the other hand, reality also demonstrates that it is in the nations where they govern in his name that his ideas are most contradicted. In any case, and despite the fact that his "students" repeatedly ignore him, it wouldn't be difficult for him to discover that in their analyses of the consequences of industrial development, on infrastructure, or in their "critiques of ideology," these theses coincide with his own ideas: the original, primary role played by the forces of production, or that it is the social being who truly determines consciousness.

Meanwhile, the situation in the countries where they govern in his name is quite different: he would observe that his name is frequently cited in the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, and that the leaders of all communist nations adhere most strictly to his formulations made in 1848: "The Communists may briefly summarize their theory in this way: abolition of private property" [11]. But the father of "scientific socialism" would also have to acknowledge that all communist nations are his illegitimate children.

Being a "fiery revolutionary," he wouldn't be at all bothered if his "leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom" manifested itself in practice as barbed wire, censorship, a new class society, and tyrannies: revolutionaries throughout history have always readily justified the "difficulties of growth" in the implementation of their doctrines. There's no doubt he would underestimate the enmity among communists, Stalin's elimination of old Leninists, or the current "ideological conflicts" between the Soviet Union and mainland China as a type of "dialectic of proletarian revolution." And in this, he wouldn't be far wrong, since this process on a global scale is always conflictive, even though there may be differing opinions about what is most dangerous: the incidents on the Ussuri River, the conflict in the Sinai Peninsula, Cyprus, or that in Northern Ireland.

What would most anger both Marx the scientist and Marx the revolutionary would be the realization that communism has taken hold where, according to his theory, it should not have, and that it is rejected by those forces that should actually serve as its "social base." Indeed, the global landscape shows us this: today there are 14 nations governed by communism, and only in five of them has it been imposed without the decisive intervention of another communist country. These are: Russia (1917), Albania and Yugoslavia (1945), mainland China (1949), and Cuba (1959). In the other seven nations—namely, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, and North Korea—there would be no governments of this persuasion today had other communist nations not intervened militarily. The communist systems established in North Vietnam and Mongolia are also the result of external influences, albeit not armed ones.

For the investigation of the forces promoting modern communism, or in other words, the "modern movement for the abolition of private property," the experiences of the five "true" communist revolutions mentioned are of decisive importance. As for the rest, it is fair to say that with the aid of a suitable military force, it is possible to impose a particular type of political system on any country. Here, we must first consider the Russian experience, because Ludendorff allowed Lenin to carry out the revolution, but he himself neither led nor supported it.

In an initial analysis of the "true" revolutions, we see that the communists did not come to power in the way Marx proposed: "because thanks to the development of large industries, the bourgeoisie was deprived of the base upon which it had been producing and appropriating the products." In reality, at the time of the communist takeover in these nations, there were almost no large industries, no true bourgeoisie, and the number of workers was very small. In contrast, highly developed nations have shown a surprising immunity to communism. So much so that in times of crisis, 75% to 80% of voters have not voted for the communist party. As is the rule, communist parties in these nations are minority parties.

To this must be added the experience that communist dictatorships seem to be more stable in less developed nations than in more developed ones: had it not been for strong Soviet interference, they would have already ended in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Poland, while in the Soviet Union itself, where communists seized power on their own, there are unequivocal signs of decline, unlike, for example, what is happening in Romania, mainland China, or North Korea.

So much so that one gets the impression that, contrary to what Marx expected, "the development of large-scale industry" in no way creates conditions for the "inevitable" triumph of communism, but rather dismantles its position. This phenomenon might anger Marx as a communist, but Marx as a scientist should receive it with composure: analyzing trends that existed in 1848, Marx stated: "Our epoch, the bourgeois epoch, is distinguished by its simplification of the class conflicts existing within it. Society as a whole is increasingly divided into only (only! — H. A.'s note) two directly adversarial classes" [12].

In reality, industrialization has given rise to pluralistic societies, so the scientist Marx should conclude that communism has no reason to exist today; for if social being determines human consciousness, then profiles of consciousness that should have appeared in some social structure cannot be generated in a society.

Marx, for the moment free from hell, should not consider the great immunity of developed nations to the demand for the abolition of private property as a defeat but as confirmation of his scientific accuracy and, as we said, should declare that communism has no reason to exist today.

Naturally, there is a movement today for the abolition of private property, precisely in the sense that Marx gave it. It celebrates its achievements where it should not exist at all, that is, in underdeveloped countries. And it is defeated where it should have triumphed, as for example in Great Britain, which provided Marx with the material for his studies.

Perhaps we could resolve this contradiction by freeing ourselves from the vision imposed on us by Marx, according to which communism would arise as an "inevitable consequence" of industrial development, by asking the following question: Isn't communism perhaps the means for the industrialization of some nations? For now, the Soviet experience speaks in favor of this assumption.

Stalin's "general line," quoted many times and unfortunately little known verbatim, states: "The essence, the basis of our general line is structured on the transformation of our agricultural country into an industrialized country, capable of creating with its own means the necessary production equipment." (Speech at the 14th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (B)[13].

In the name of this "general line," Stalin expropriated the peasantry's lands and introduced the collectivization of agriculture and livestock, that is, he effectively abolished private property. This was his main argument: that for the industrialization of the country, a maximum of 13% of the income of individual peasants could be deducted, while for the same reason, the limit in the case of collective farms rose to 47%.

Whether these figures are individually correct is a different matter. But the important point is to establish that the decisive and determining force for carrying out Marx's program—the abolition of private property in Russia—was not a pathos of social justice but a program for the industrialization of the country.

This certainly holds true for the most stable communist dictatorships, such as those in Romania, Bulgaria, Cuba, North Korea, Mongolia, and China during the period of Mao's absolute power. (another aspect of reality that he himself sometimes exaggerated) and, if we gather the experience of communism in general, we arrive at the following picture: if we disregard the emotionally nuanced and de facto irrelevant points in Marx's writings, he saw capitalism, especially in its positive aspects, more favorably than those who wish to distort it, the latter being influenced by their own emotions. The Marxist definition of capitalism states: "Capitalism is the highest stage of commodity production where labor power also becomes a commodity" [14]...

This definition, stated simply and plainly, is correct.

Capitalism is a market economy for the production of goods not only for one's own needs but also for sale to those who pay the most. Meanwhile, only in capitalism does the worker have the right to break their employment relationship, whereas in other social systems (slavery, feudalism, and communist socialism), this right is unknown.

Even incipient capitalism, whose analysis seems to be A particular merit of Marx's is his disregard for the right we just mentioned.

According to Marx, capitalism in its beginnings is not a category of time but rather the determination of a particular stage in the process of industrial development, that is, the period of initial capital accumulation. This is the period in which production, like fully developed capitalism, is already geared towards the market, but which differs from it in the following ways:

1. — The State actively participates (not only as a regulator) in the economic process;

2. — A massive process of "expropriation of small producers" takes place. Marx had in mind, first and foremost, the transformation of artisans into industrial workers and the consequent abandonment of villages, a phenomenon observed in all industrial development;

3. — Labor is not a commodity: the worker cannot, of his own volition, change his job or fight to improve his working conditions.

It is not difficult to see that these three characteristic elements of incipient capitalism are observed in their atrophied form in the Russian and Chinese systems, as well as in the rest of the nations that share their ideological leanings (with the exception of Yugoslavia, which is currently a capitalist nation under communist leadership, or, in the Russian case, during the NEP period). Thus, the idea that modern communism (which finds its greatest success in underdeveloped countries) can be described as a special form of initial capital accumulation—that is, capitalism in its infancy—becomes compelling. According to all that we have said, modern communism is not a post-capitalist system but a pre-capitalist phenomenon.

If we consider it more closely, this idea seems extremely useful because it allows us to provide a rational explanation for most of the phenomena related to modern communism. So much so that even the worst "reactionaries," at least to some extent, become victims of communist propaganda. It would seem that everyone accepts that the workers are the social base of communism.

Vladimir Ulkhanov—Lenin, the first "Marxist" to seize power, wrote at the beginning of his career, that is, in the times when he still considered it necessary to clarify his strategy and not exploit it for propaganda purposes: "In the struggle to improve their conditions... the socialists are not of primary importance to the communists..." [15]. This cold observation of his also deserves special attention: "The learning of socialism... in Russia... appeared as a natural and inevitable result (I) of the development of the revolutionary ideology of the revolutionary intelligentsia" [16].

It is completely understandable that Lenin, taking into account the form of expression of that time, when using the term "socialist" he was referring to the communists. But how can Lenin assert that workers don't need communism, while the representatives of the "socialist revolutionary intelligentsia"—that is, the academic proletariat—find the expression of their interests in this "natural and unavoidable" learning process? It's not difficult to affirm that Lenin was right.

"Communists can summarize their theory with one expression: the abolition of private capital." The behavior of each social stratum toward communism is determined, above all, by the attitude each adopts regarding the surrender of private property, or rather, its abolition. The denial of the right to private ownership of the means of production (and even more so of all other property) gives nothing to industrial workers: they think primarily in terms of wage increases for personal expenses, and not so much in terms of the decisions that govern the factories.

The situation of the intellectual proletariat is different. The abolition of the right to private ownership of existing means of production offers these people the possibility of occupying managerial positions in the economy without their own capital. The elimination of private property is favorable, according to their criteria, as long as industry is not yet developed, since initially it is of paramount importance to accumulate capital, that is, to reduce national expenditures in general (which does not affect future CEOs, since they already enjoy special privileges). The social base of modern communism is therefore not the workers but the academic proletariat, "the potential CEOs."

This clearly explains the shift in the focus of the communist movement's campaigns toward less developed nations, where there are almost no workers, but there is a relatively large, unemployed intellectual class.

We have already stated that present-day communism is more a phenomenon of early capitalism than of fully developed capitalism. Now we can take a further step and define those five communist systems that came to power primarily through their own efforts as a special social formation whose main content was the primary accumulation of capital—that is, the achievement of capitalism's goals in its infancy through extreme means: instead of the state playing an active role in the economic process, it establishes itself as the sole power; instead of abolishing trade unions, forced labor is adopted; instead of a natural change in social structures, forced liquidation, or rather, the elimination of entire social groups, is implemented.

However, the content of this process—the primary accumulation of capital—is the same in the five states mentioned (including Yugoslavia, where industrialization is "the great hope"). The same applies to the other communist nations with less industrial development.

This phenomenon also deserves a name. Its content can perhaps be characterized as "the replacement of primitive capitalism." Indeed, if one bears in mind that modern communism is not a characteristically post-capitalist phenomenon but a pre-capitalist one, and that its social base is not made up of workers but of the academic proletariat, then it is not difficult to observe its differences from the "norm." The primary accumulation of capital is "normally" carried out by the old ruling class—symbolized by the transformation of the English Lords into industrialists—; the intellectual proletariat, which truly constitutes the potential bourgeoisie, does not appear on its own, nor does industrialization create it "naturally," employing all forces and factors, but rather according to the corresponding needs and the accumulation of capital.

But if, on the contrary, the old ruling class cannot create the necessary degree of industrialization—either because it is a degenerate element, as it was in Tsarist Russia, or because it has been decimated by foreign governments, as in China, Korea, Albania, and Yugoslavia, or because it was not formed in the first place, as in Cuba and Vietnam—a situation may arise in which stronger means will be adopted as a substitute.

Knowing that modern communism is, in reality, the replacement of primitive capitalism allows us to understand its social dynamics. It is entirely understandable that objections to the fact that communism does not generate a class society can be dismissed as unrealistic: every social revolution leads to the overthrow of the old ruling class and its replacement by a new one that emerges from below, that is, to the formation of a new class society. It is important to state, therefore, that the theory of the replacement of primitive capitalism does not explain the specific class structure of the communist system and its dynamics.

Naturally, we must first consider the emergence of the technical intelligentsia in socialist society, a social stratum that, once industrialization is complete, fulfills the same function as the bourgeoisie in "normal" industrialized countries: directing production and economic distribution, organizing services, public education, and so on.

The members of this emerging social stratum generally approve of the abolition of private property at the beginning of communist development—that is, the development of the substitute for primitive capitalism—since the factories, enterprises, and organizations they are to manage will be newly built, and they are therefore forced to rely on state capital because they lack their own.

The situation changes qualitatively when the industrial process begins to yield its first successes. Former members of the intelligentsia without private property (and their children) begin to adopt bourgeois characteristics. In reality, sociologically speaking, they are, from the outset, "frustrated bourgeois," people capable of bourgeois functions, but who lacked the opportunity to create their own capital. Here we have the solution to the "enigma" of why, for example, the Russian communists were unable to form a nation of loyal communists, even though we are already witnessing the third or fourth generation of Soviet citizens educated exclusively in the "socialist" spirit.

The theory of the substitute for primitive capitalism clarifies a political phenomenon of even greater importance: the existence of a party hierarchy. This phenomenon is key to understanding not only long-term development but also the daily decisions within the sphere of communist power.

The total or near-total nationalization of the economy excludes the market as a decisive criterion in the management of goods, because within the nationalized economy, products are not sold, but—as in a large corporation—are merely redistributed in a different way. Since the economic or state leadership—which in socialism is the same thing—is in a position to set the objectives of the economy on its own, there must be another, supreme political leadership, which, adhering to political ideas, sets these objectives and, in general, according to its knowledge, makes the functioning of the economy possible.

In this respect, the party hierarchy, and above all its political apparatus, is an obedient instrument in the hands of its leader. Often, the communist party apparatus is considered only as an executive body. In reality, the party hierarchy is a social class in the sense that Lenin gave it: a group of men who are distinguished from the rest by their place in the historically determined system of social production, according to their relationship to the means of production, in accordance with the role they play in the organizations of work, and consequently, according to the degree of their participation in the creation of the wealth of society.[17]

Without the party apparatus, separate from the state acting as producer, the communist economy would not function.

Kosygin would not know how many tanks or toothpicks he should produce if Brezhnev did not give him the order, and the toothpick factory would not utilize even the smallest part of its capacity if there were not the corresponding "apparithief" who organizes "socialist competition" there and constantly incites the workers to work, to save, and to make the best use of their abilities. The party apparatus, as a class, is the substitute for those imperatives that, in a market economy, are called "competition."

But this phenomenon also has another facet. The party "apparatchik" is irreplaceable in the state-communist economy. However, it only has its function within the state-economic system; if it were to transition to a market economy, it would lose its function and become superfluous.

With the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, a social stratum is created whose importance is paramount both for professional communists and for those who are communists by nature, since these are people for whom a change of system would imply the loss of their position in society.

In this truth we find the reason why all attempts to achieve "a gradual transformation of the system" are thwarted and without prospects: the members of the party hierarchy constitute at least 60% of the decision-making bodies, and they, after Brezhnev, do not consider it essential to adorn themselves with formal state titles: Stalin officially presented himself as head of government, but Brezhnev traveled to visit Nixon in his capacity as general secretary of the Central Committee.

This understanding of the position of the party hierarchy explains the failure of all attempts to reform communism and the impossibility of solving the existing problems. But understanding the problems allows us to draw far-reaching conclusions.

"Bourgeoisification," the "specialist class," is not only the expression of a disguised mentality of a frustrated bourgeoisie, but is also the foundation of its new "role in the social organization of labor"—to use Lenin's definition of "class" again.

In the primary period of capital accumulation, the social stratum of "specialists" was in complete agreement not only with the abolition of private property but also with a planned and highly centralized economy. During the period of building factories and enterprises, the origin of capital became irrelevant, and since they could not accumulate their own capital, the future members of the technical intelligentsia readily agreed that a Stalin or a Ceausescu should decide on the distribution of resources obtained, in essence, from the agricultural economy.

The leader's self-determination was the opportunity to achieve something. The situation changed significantly when the new enterprises began to be profitable. This is the moment when orthodox communists begin to dream of a market economy, not for ideological reasons, but because of their own practical actions, since only a market economy can offer a leader reliable criteria for their decisions, and they can only explain their successes based on the profits obtained in the free market. (Warnings related to plan compliance are always accompanied by a suspicion of possible manipulation of the plan.)

Once industrialization is achieved, communist economists do not wish to produce just any kind of commodity to fulfill a specific plan, but rather the commodities they can trade at market prices, because they correctly conclude that they can better serve both themselves and the community if they work as "capitalists." It was none other than Vladimir Ilyich Lenin who wrote: "...commodity production gave rise to capitalism."

"As far as socialism (i.e., communism—Author's note) is concerned, it is known that it is generated by the abolition of commodity production" [18].

If, finally, we conclude that communism, or the substitute for primitive capitalism, creates a social stratum that, based on its position, tends to transition to a market economy, to commodity production, then we must say that communism "produces" its own gravediggers. The requirement to transition to a market economy cannot be met without the introduction of the right to private property, or, in other words, without eliminating the communist system; nor is it possible to eventually restrain the demand of all businessmen in modern industry to create the necessary and indispensable conditions for their functions — which is nothing other than the transition to a market economy.

Communism, therefore, generates the forces that will stifle it, the forces that yearn for a market economy or, in other words, for capitalism in the scientific sense. This thesis can be considered proven since, in 1970, a more complete document from the Russian Samizdat was clandestinely brought from the Soviet Union: "The Program of the Democratic Movement of the Soviet Union," prepared "by the democrats of Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltic." It states: "It is our opinion that capitalism contains and continually expands the positive social values, that capitalism ensures in the world today a) a higher standard of living; b) guarantees greater freedoms, therefore fighting against capitalism—in all its facets—is criminal and senseless" [19]. We begin our analysis with the assertion that communism—according to Marx's doctrine—is triumphant in many parts of the world, but that these triumphs are, in a certain sense, "non-Marxist," since they are not a consequence of capitalism's aging. In conclusion, we can say that we have obtained a coordinated world system based on the following scheme:

The notion that the most important current political movement—communism—is a post-feudal and not post-capitalist phenomenon allows us to determine the position of other currents, which is indispensable because at present there are four qualitatively different socialisms, that is, four political phenomena that call themselves "socialism" and are based on different social strata:

a) Soviet-Chinese communism, which we characterize as the substitute for primitive (organic) capitalism. As we have said, its social base It is constituted by the "frustrated bourgeoisie."

b) Swedish socialism (for example), which is the result of the limited work of social-democratic parties that do not aim to abolish the market economy but rather to incorporate social elements into it. This type of socialism has as little in common with Soviet-Chinese socialism as it does with feudalism or the system of slavery. Its social base is the working class, especially those who have not managed to accumulate their own capital.

c) "Arab," "African," or other socialisms, whatever they may be called, that is, socio-economic formations that aim for organic industrialization, supported by an authoritarian order (party or movement systems) to maintain healthy elements and eliminate degenerations from the previous system.

It would not be fair to equate this type of socialism with the Chinese or Soviet systems simply because socialism of this kind also involves state economic initiative and the nationalization of certain branches of industry (especially those in foreign hands).

The dividing line in this regard is the recognition or rejection of the right of man to private property, expressly recognized by these regimes, and not the right of man to engage in certain economic activities. Its social base is constituted by the emerging small, medium, and large bourgeoisie.

d) The radical leftist currents in industrialized countries, which generally operate under extravagant ideological banners. The members of these movements usually call themselves "socialists," but they generally fight for communist objectives. The social base of these currents is made up of the academic "lumpenproletariat," that is, those forces that, unlike other opposition forces, not only lack a position but also a function in modern society. Their only chance of seizing power would be if the troops of a foreign communist country occupied their country. This fact gives rise to the extravagance of their "theories": these theories serve not to clarify but rather to disguise the true motives of their movement. Most of our world is still in a state of transition from feudalism (agricultural production) to an industrial society: of the approximately 140 existing states, only about 20 can be considered highly developed.

The transition from an agricultural system to industrial production inherently involves a period of primary capital accumulation. This transition period can be organic, meaning industrialization can be achieved through the initiative of the state, private companies, and foreign capital, or it can be initiated exclusively by the state, thus becoming a substitute for primary capitalism. (The term "organically" should be given preference over the term "normal" used earlier because in sociological science, the exact definition of "normal" is unclear.) Judging by current trends, the future belongs to an industrialized society, in any case to a market economy, to capitalism, whose end is not foreseeable. This means that the future of "communism" is also "capitalism," the market economy.

(Note: The last sentence about "communism" appears to be unrelated and possibly a separate, incomplete thought.) The reader will have noticed that this article is written from a Marxist perspective, since its foundation is the thesis concerning the original and initiating role of the forces of production in social development, as well as the idea that social being determines consciousness. However, it has long since ceased to be Marx's "intellectual property," and it is no longer possible to reduce Marx solely to these theses.

Be that as it may, our analysis leads us to the conclusion that the scientist Marx is the worst enemy of the communist Marx. — (Translated by V. A. Nevistić)

— 0 — Regarding the supposed Yugoslav self-liberation, we can say: The repeated polemics between the Soviet and Yugoslav military and political leadership seriously call into question the assertion that the Yugoslav communists had risen to power through their own efforts. The Soviets had opened the gates of Belgrade to them. Once there, in the center of the "legal" power of that illegal and illegitimate country, they were able to proceed with the reoccupation of the rest of the country, which by decree of the dictator Alexander, was called "Yugoslavia." If Tito massacred some 200,000 Croatian soldiers, disarmed by the British, and this massacre is considered a "liberation" and the seizure of power by their own forces, it is difficult to reason with those who accept it as truth. Furthermore, Tito liquidated the Slovenian resistance movement, which was larger than the communist one. This liquidation was also carried out after the British disarmed and handed over 12,000 Slovenian soldiers, Catholics and opponents of Tito.

It is also important to remember that the British, Americans, and Soviets provided enormous support throughout the war in the form of food, money, and weapons to Tito's "self-liberating" forces. A British document, for example, states that the Slovenian communists received some fifty thousand tons of weapons from Western military forces in a brief period in 1945 alone, having practically no one to deliver them to. American planes bombed all Croatian towns in 1943, blocking Tito's "forces" from passing through, thus paving the way for their rise to power.

Regarding Albania, one must read Carlos Gustav Stroehm's book "Zwischen Mao und Chrushchtschow" to understand the origins, development, and victory of communism in Albania. Serbian communists played a crucial role there. "Without Tito, there would have been no Erich Hodza," the experienced German journalist states. Tito suggested and helped to liquidate the Albanian National Front, which had formed in the town of Mukaj, near the capital, Tirana.

Dusan Mogusa, Miladin Popović, and Blazo Jovanović contributed essentially to the victory of the Albanian communists. In other words, a whole chain of support, also in these two countries, facilitated the communist takeover.

Our observations are not intended to reproach Mr. H. F. Ahminov in any way. He himself is, in this respect, a victim of false communist propaganda, especially from Yugoslavia. — (S. C. Editorial Staff)

(Translated by V. A. NevistiĆ)

(This article was published in Croatian, No. 3/75 of the "Croatian Review" - Hrvatska Revija, Munich - Barcelona). 

Cultural Issues

Nostalgia for Orpheus

On the Meaning of Art and Ethics in the Opus Dei of Dr. Raimundo Kupareo

LUCAS Ev. FERTILIO

This is a schematic sketch of Raimundo Kupareo. He was a philosopher, poet, writer, playwright, musicologist, film scholar, treatise writer, critic, educator, Dominican priest, and pastor of souls. He served as Vice-Rector of the Catholic University of Santiago, Dean of its Pedagogical Institute, and Professor of Philosophy of Art, Art Theory, Ballet Aesthetics, and Music Aesthetics. With Enrique Gerias, he founded the Center for Aesthetic Research at the Catholic University and the journal Aisthesis, which he directed during his time in Chile.

He was also the editor of the Annals of the Catholic University. He published treatises on the aesthetics of the novel, drama, and poetry, as well as The Value of Art. For twenty years, he published essays, critiques, and polemics on the major issues of art in Chile and the world. His Passion of Christ was a great success in Spain. In his native Croatian, he has published books of profound and transparent lyricism, as well as novels, short stories, and treatises on aesthetics.

Thomas P. Mac Halle, writing in El Mercurio, characterizes Kupareo's work: "This eminent scholar has taken on the responsibility of disseminating foreign conceptions, without prejudice to making his own aesthetic thought known. A complex discipline like art history has not been more widely cultivated in Chile. Overcoming all difficulties, Dr. Kupareo, with his fruitful work in Chile, has demonstrated a great love for teaching and culture."

Fernando Durán V. (also in El Mercurio) opines: "Raimundo Kupareo confers upon ethics the highest category in the order of ultimate values, since it encompasses the totality of human action. As the ultimate value, within the Catholic-Thomistic perspective that inspires his study, God is placed."

Moving from Raimundo Kupareo's philosophical speculations to his pedagogical zeal, a seemingly simple and naive question arises: What did this philosopher and educator want? What was the ultimate goal of his tireless efforts, which ultimately broke his physical health?

Kupareo answers this question throughout his books, essays, lectures, talks, critiques, and debates. He sought to convince his friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike that art is not merely entertainment and a pastime, but much more: the energy that can decisively contribute to the victory of Good over Evil and, as such, to the salvation of Humanity. Art is not salvation itself, but through art, redeeming grace is communicated.

I have searched Kupareo's works for a text that clearly expresses this idea, and I believe I have found it in his essay on the essence of music. He tells us: “We all yearn for harmony within ourselves; the harmony of understanding and will, of the spiritual and the sensory, the abstract and the concrete.

We all feel the constant struggle between soul and body, between humankind and the environment, between nature and grace. This harmony, rarely achieved, is the fruit of immense individual efforts. Such harmony is the dream of Humanity, a dream embodied in the legend of Orpheus, poet and musician, who with the enchantment of his art conquered the Underworld and freed his beloved wife, Burydice.”

The horrors of the Underworld were not conquered by science or technology, but by art. At the sound of the voice and lyre of Orpheus—son of Apollo—the rivers cease their course and the wild beasts are tamed. The infernal powers cannot resist the charm of art and surrender to Orpheus.

With this faith in art, Kupareo addresses a generation—as he himself states—that very often possesses a good, but almost always weak, will. A generation that cannot resist the temptations of the flesh and the spirit and that universally wavers between a comfortable life, prison, the asylum, and the extermination camps. A generation headed for ultimate ruin.

No political regime, no social order, no police method could subdue these fatal human passions. What does Orpheus matter! Orpheus, the only savior? Kupareo categorically denies this. He points out that the legendary Orpheus conquered Hell but did not conquer himself, and for this reason, he failed tragically. He lacked divine grace. He could not accept the condition of the infernal deities and looked upon Burydice before leaving the infernal realm. For this, he lost it forever. Returning to earth, saddened by the loss of his beloved, he treated earthly women with contempt, who, in revenge, tore him to pieces and threw his head and lyre into the abyss.

Raimundo Kupareo defines it thus: Through art, to redeeming grace! Art without divine grace is a sun without warmth!

Were this not a schematic and simplified sketch, we could cite many arguments in favor of this statement. Among them are those of Professor Alfredo Auersperg (RIP), former professor at the University of Concepción ("Poetry and Research"), and Walter Heitler, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Zurich. They say the same thing: that scientific speculation is a spyglass and artistic intuition a telescope.

Raimundo Kupareo has been described as a scholastic, a Thomist, a neo-Thomist, and a Maritainist. In reality, Kupareo is all of these, with a grain of salt. It attempts to adapt a medieval philosophy to our "cosmic" age. It seeks to restore Christian metaphysics, to confront anthropocentric and pantheistic rationalism. It strives to overcome the irrationalism and philosophical, political, and social materialism that crudely simplifies everything, denies essential values and traditions rooted in life, and leads society toward chaos and anarchy.

The spirit of Neo-Thomism is different. It encompasses and harmonizes everything: life and death, time and eternity, God and humanity. It seeks and finds universal balances and solutions. If humanism is not universal, if it does not encompass the great and the small, the majestic and the wretched, light and darkness, it is not humanism. Society is one thing, the Herd another.

These ideas of sacrifice and love inspire all of Raimundo Kupareo's work. Thinking about how to synthesize Kupareo's ideas and intentions and formulate his message, I have chosen this simple, even simplified, formulation: Art is the sensitive expression of human spirituality. Science is its rational expression. When the warmth of art and the cold light of science meet, culture is born.

This is the spiritual energy that perfects the human being: softening their instincts, purifying their hearts, illuminating their minds. Healthy culture forms a kind, generous, and responsible human being. But if science and art form a violent, selfish, and irresponsible person, they are not culture, but anti-culture. This is why Father Kupareo exclaimed euphorically at the Pedagogical Institute of the Catholic University: "Attention, danger! Beware the anti-humanist, techno-scientific monster! It is Frankenstein, the annihilator of all values, even of all that exists!"

I remember Father Kupareo and his friends back in 1950. With their sleeves rolled up, brooms, shovels, hammers, and paintbrushes in hand, they transformed that old house at 102 Dieciocho Street into a university building, the Pedagogical Institute of the Catholic University. But that wasn't all. His relatives in the United States lent Kupareo a few thousand dollars, which he, in turn, lent to the Catholic University so they could get the Pedagogical Institute up and running.

Raimundo Kupareo was born in 1914 on those Adriatic shores that for millennia have been both a meeting place and a source of great historical passions between East and West. His native island is Hvar. Its name is of Greek origin: Pharos.

That is to say: The Lighthouse that the Periclean Greeks had erected for navigators. Hvar is a kaleidoscope of ancient paradoxes. It preserves remains of ancient Neolithic walls, Illyrian constructions, Roman columns, Venetian palaces, castles of Croatian poets, churches, squares, and Baroque fountains. In Kupareo's village, there is a fortified church, built to protect pirates, which safeguards ancient vows made by sailors.

It houses not only chalices and candelabras of gold and silver, but also a painting by Titian, another by Tintoretto, and works by other Venetian masters. The city of Hvar is dominated by Fort Napoleon, and in its shadow stands the hotel built for Elisabeth, Empress of Austria and Queen of Croatia. The Kupareo family obtained privileges in the 16th century for their distinguished service in the fights against pirates. The Croatian family name was then automatically Latinized: Kuparić — Kupareo. However, the family always remained steadfast and faithful to its Slavic-Croatian heritage.

To better understand the environment in which Father Kupareo was raised, it is helpful to know that the population is exclusively Croatian and Catholic. The Chilean writer Francisco Coloane, who encountered this group in southern Chile, masterfully describes it: "In the harsh Magallanes landscape, a menagerie of thieves, pirates, smugglers, escapees from the Ushuaia prison, and international criminals appeared at that time. But the 'Austrians' (as they call Dalmatians, Croats, and Yugoslavs) are not among them." In reality, this element is repulsed by illegality, dishonesty, violence, and disorder. All the tradition of these people belongs to the opposite spiritual pole. Their workers are sober and tireless. But the most characteristic trait of their character is joy, an indomitable spirit of joy that overcomes the most difficult situations. They like music, the accordion, song, dance, and humor, the joke that creates an atmosphere of joy and friendship. In the Dalmatian islands, they despise violence; They consider armed struggle a primitive aspect, unworthy of humankind.

In his last letter, Father Raiko told us, his friends in Chile, that he was retiring to his native island and that, physically ill but spiritually strong and joyful, he thanks God for all the good he has been able to do and asks for forgiveness if, being a sinner, he has not done more for His glory and honor: Parce mihi, Domine, quia dalmata sum... Forgive me, Lord, for I am a Dalmatian... This is the sigh of Saint Jerome, the protector of Dalmatia, and also the sentiment of Raimundo Kupareo.

The writer Ivo Andrić — Nobel Prize for Literature — is a Croatian

Some Reflections on the First Anniversary of His Death

Lucian Kordić

We can rightly say that there is a kind of miracle in the history of contemporary science and literature: the Croatian people, despite their small numbers and living in conditions bordering on political slavery without state independence, gave the world three men who were awarded the Nobel Prize in a short period: Lavoslav Ruzicka (1939 in Chemistry), Vladimir Prelog (1975, also in Chemistry), and Ivo Andrić (1961, in Literature).

THE ERA IN WHICH HIS PERSONALITY WAS FORMED

The time in which Ivo Andrić was born and in which his personality was formed was the so-called European "Belle Époque." The Belle Époque was losing its vigor and importance precisely in the face of the new times that were dawning; it was interrupted by the First World War, which ultimately brought it to an end. It was a period of bankruptcy and profound change, not only in the technical and industrial sense but also in terms of spirit and culture. Among other symptoms and signs of this process, we can point to the beginning of the collapse and disappearance of the idea of the unity and supremacy of European white civilization over other peoples of a lower level of cultural development.

In the Croatian province of Bosnia, where Andrić was born, a radical change occurred. After almost 500 years of Turkish rule—a rule that was sometimes very cruel and characterized by continuous fighting and the misery of the Christian masses known as the "rayeh"—the Austro-Hungarian Empire arrived with its Western and Europeanist ideas and values. There, at the crossroads of historical worlds and their influences, his new condominium organized its power. After a period, as we have said, that was often very crucial, this new development was a great relief for the people—at least the Christian people—and an enormous step forward. However, considering European development in general, and especially its political and economic conditions, in Bosnia, where backwardness was evident in every corner, oppression and exploitation by the new occupier were once again established. Therefore, national consciousness in general, especially among the peasant and working-class masses, began to awaken.

It was under these circumstances that Ivo Andrić was born and raised. At his birth and while receiving his early education, the atmosphere was still that of peacetime, but during the full formation and maturation of his youth, he was engulfed by the storm of war, which left indelible marks on his personality, both in his imagination and in his life. The Second World War reached him in his prime. The horrors of war were one of the reasons that transformed Andrić into a meditative, highly sensitive, and sensitive soul. A humanist who no longer finds his bearings in the turbulent times of the new era.

Coming from the poorest social strata, he felt the full weight of life and the injustices he suffered from the very beginning, despite living in the small towns of his native Bosnia. He had to endure very difficult times to climb the social ladder and secure a certain standard of living. This life of hardship and the struggle to overcome it provided him with invaluable experience, which was reflected in his later literary works.

These works are marked by a constant nostalgia and sadness, as well as a very visible pessimism. In his youth, Andrić passionately read Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, who contrasted abstract constructions with the objective reality of the individual; specifically, their existence in all its details, personal failures, and dramas. Indeed, these "existential details" played a crucial role both in Andrić's private life and in all his literary work. Extremely sentimental and sensitive, Andrić, like Kierkegaard, adopted a reserved or polemical stance toward his social environment and prevailing lifestyles. This is why he preferred a private and solitary life: he shunned the noise of the masses and public clamor, feeling threatened by them.

Nevertheless, it is possible to identify two very different and clearly characterized periods in his life. The first encompasses his youth and studies. Here we find him as a revolutionary. His letters, manuscripts, and works from this early period leave undeniable testimony to his revolutionary inclination and socio-political engagement. In his Diary entry of June 8, 1912, at the age of twenty, he writes: "Long live those who are dying in the streets, innocent victims of hatred and gunpowder, suffering and sick from our shared shame. Long live those who, withdrawn and silent in dark rooms, are preparing the revolution..." From Zagreb, Krakow, and Graz—cities where Andrić lived as a student—it is easy to observe in him a very clear trait of his participation in the current events of the time; he was a co-participant in the events of his era and his homeland, Croatia. This was confirmed by the consequences: at the beginning of the First World War, he was imprisoned as a suspected youth for being an adversary of the Austro-Hungarian regime and government in Croatian lands. In other words, Andrić lived, worked, and sacrificed himself for his ideals.

During the second period of his life, his mature years—a span of twenty years—Ivo Andrić served in the diplomatic corps in various European capitals. During this time, Andrić rose several rungs above his Bosnian-Croatian environment and seized the opportunity for personal development and cultural enrichment, as well as to refine his philosophical and humanistic perspective. He thus became a more harmonious, balanced, and tranquil man, observing all the bustling and dramatic aspects of life from his diplomatic position behind the scenes of his new career.

He no longer publicly declared himself a supporter of revolutions, but he felt such events personally and incorporated them into his works. His qualities as a philosopher, psychologist, and humanist are evident on every page of his writings. He now believed that the power of cultural influence was more valuable than revolutionary action. He gradually and partially became a pessimist regarding all human achievements and the realization of human ideals. The ending of his 1954 novel "Prokleta Avlija" — "The Cursed Alley" — is particularly characteristic of this, where he writes: "There are no more human evils, nor is there any hope or resistance that once accompanied us. There is nothing. Only the snow and the simple fact that one dies and disappears underground."

It is worth noting here that without Andrić's participation in revolutionary movements, we would not have his works "Ex Ponto" and "Inquietudes" today, while without his diplomatic career we would not have the opportunity to read his "Travnik Chronicle," a faithful reflection of his diplomatic activity and his most private dialectic.

THE ARTISTIC VALUE OF HIS LITERARY WORKS

Ivo Andrić began his literary career as a poet, then moved on to prose poetry; later he wrote short stories and essays, and finally novels of considerable scope and length. But it is clear from his entire oeuvre that Andrić was, first and foremost, a poet and essayist. He transplanted these characteristics of his literary talent and style to his short stories and novels to such an extent that we can affirm that his literary success owes precisely to this poetic transplant and his concise essayistic writing style. Andrić distinguished himself from the very first appearance of his literary creations. Thus, for example, Professor Antun Barac, historian and literary critic, wrote in 1925: "Andrić is the most representative of that generation at the height of its creative powers..."

Andrić devoted most of his literary work to his native Bosnia, describing the civil life of the ruling class first, and of Bosnians in general, during the Turkish occupation. This occupation began its decline after its gradual weakening in the preceding centuries. Here, the stratum of "Christian Rayen," upon whom the greatest burden of suffering fell, found exceptional descriptive expression. Andrić describes that era so vividly and intensely as if one, reading his works, held a genuine historical document in their hands. This is especially evident in his two best-known works, "The Chronicle of Travnik" and "The Bridge on the Drina" (set in Bosnia), works that were crucial to his Nobel Prize in 1961. However, we must be very careful and cautious about what we have just said: although Andrić's works appear historical at first glance, they are not. The supposed historical accuracy of his works is, in reality, primarily the product of his imagination, partially mixed with certain historical events to lend a greater sense of authenticity to his writing. It is more a matter of Bosnian mythology and the conditions in which Andrić projects his political and social leanings of the time.

Thus, we can quite rightly say that Andrić paints and modifies historical events in his works as he pleases. Paradoxically, and despite everything, Andrić realistically and precisely depicted Bosnia's past and its history. The aforementioned assertion about the writer's arbitrariness does not, in fact, diminish the artistic value of his works, since the artist is not strictly bound by historical objectivity, especially if stark reality is the authentic basis of events. This point must be considered paramount and essential. The atmosphere of Turkish domination and the life of the oppressed people, as well as the living conditions of that time, would hardly find a better or more typical exposition or description, even when compared to any work by historians.

Because Andrić is inseparable from the events recounted in his works, real or imagined, and because he is enamored with the details of life, all of this serves only as the foundation for his psychological-meditative analysis and reconstruction of the subject. He is an inextricable psychologist without, however, becoming too lost in philosophical-psychological investigations and analyses.

Meditation on the end of life and the human experience, as well as the vivisection of the latter through a wealth of events—always new and interesting—this is Andrić the artist; he not only doesn't bore, but on the contrary, compels the reader to follow him to the end. His literary prose leaves the impression of poetry, bestowing upon us an indelible joy and a memory of beauty. In these works, we also sense Kierkegaard's "Anguish"—Andrić's anguish, observing life through the microscope of his spirit and his notions, which incredibly penetrate the uncomfortable fate of humankind, of their recreated personalities. Emotions, blood, and sentimental life; a wealth of experiences and events are mixing and intertwining, while the artist gives them direction; he infuses inner meaning into all these contrasts and effervescence.

Andrić's realism and the psychological processes in his works are marked by the characteristics of the modern conception of the novel and of a literary work in general. Andrić doesn't dwell too much on secondary details, especially in the main events of his work, but with the classic assurance of a master, using the most modern tools, he reveals the essential, leaving the reader with a vivid sense of admiration. He often reaches the heights of Sienkiewicz and the dramatic intensity of Remarque's pen.

Andrić's style is so incisive and captivating—yet nonetheless so realistic—that one might well ask: what system did he adopt, and whom did he take as a model for writing his works?

There is no doubt that in most cases he described and transposed his own experiences into his imagination. Regarding the subject matter, especially in his novels and short stories about the Croatian—Bosnian—past, Andrić employed a technique of projecting current experiences onto the past, thus achieving a true "artistic transposition" of poetic events, transforming them into novels. The majority of the subject matter—the content of his works, particularly those that brought him fame and placed him among the most distinguished writers in European and world literature—was drawn from his Bosnia, which he felt deeply and personally.

He then turned his attention to what he saw and felt during his diplomatic service, again situating it in Bosnia. It is almost impossible not to notice that one of the main characters in "The Chronicle of Travnik," Jean Baptista-Étienne Daville, the French consul and diplomat in Travnik, is, to a large extent, a personification of Andrić himself. Right here, referring to Daville, who was also a writer, Andrić says: "Several times a day, Daville would retreat into his 'paper reality' and lean, within himself, on some idea like a cripple on his cane." He also did the opposite: listening to news about the events of the war, personally observing a scene or two, or personally carrying out a particular task, he would take these things and transport them into his poetic epic. By taking them back a few hundred years, all these things lose some of their heaviness and sharpness, appearing therefore a little lighter and more bearable" ("Travnik Chronicle," Zagreb 1967, p. 136). This was his way of working; he transposed the events of present time and life into the past. We can state this without further ado in relation to the "Travnik Chronicle," which unravels the material of diplomatic and consular life at the beginning of the 19th century.

The same applies to the content of "The Cursed Alley." Its complications and tragic absurdities give us a more vivid image when placed in the Turkish era; indeed, we could say more accurately: "The Cursed Alley," with its complications and tragic absurdities, gives us a more vivid image of communist prisons in present-day Yugoslavia.

In this way, and through this mode of literary interpretation, Andrić created the epic of Bosnia, which is a small Croatian province, but also a part of the globe in terms of general human drama. This epic, which we could call "Bosnia" in prose, mostly seems murky and heavy—it is a real image of Bosnia—dark and negative. There are several reasons for this: the first being that Bosnia is a border region. Bearing this aspect in mind, and considering the fate of a border region, Andrić observes: "These are the border people—spiritual and physical—of the black and bloody line that, amidst a grave and absurd misunderstanding, is placed between men... It is the margin between land and sea, condemned to perpetual movement and unrest" ("Chronicle of Travnik," Zagreb, 1967, p. 288).

His novels and short stories are normally constructed around dialogue as well as descriptions of events and the atmosphere. Andrić is a great master of dialogue, but he makes even greater use of describing the situation, its complications, and the people involved. In this respect, he is almost tireless and inexhaustible, describing the human drama in a myriad of varied psychological details. In his expositions, he does not repeat himself or become excessively drawn out; He understands the impulse of artistic creation well, developing the material of his novel almost in aphorisms and in a poetic-essayistic way that the reader is under the impression of walking through an artistic hall covered with a multitude of mosaics of infinite colors and variations.

Despite being swept along by the currents of his time and holding a wide range of ideas, captivated by the allure of revolutionary endeavors, Andrić remained, in essence, a consistent humanist and European, especially in his later years, expounding and defending humanist ideas and theses in his works. The standard of classical beauty endured through the turmoil of modern times as an indisputable and unshakeable rule. At times, he even becomes a classical moralizer. Here is a topic of this nature: "Man's life is lost (spent) in an eternal tension, in the search for a true path and in the eternal correction of the wrong path he is following. It is necessary, therefore, to continue searching for the true path."

The social atmosphere that Andrić experienced in his youth was that of Christian humanism with certain external additions from civilization. Of humble origins and orphaned, he was helped by the Franciscan friars of Bosnia, affectionately called "ujaci"—"uncles"—to whom his mother worked for a time as a domestic servant. During this time, Andrić had the opportunity to become intimately familiar with their work, way of life, and historical role in that province, where the Franciscans—during the Turkish occupation, as they still do today—played a vital religious and cultural role.

In his literary works, Andrić portrays these Franciscan figures without the slightest idealization or embellishment, seeing them in their true reality, and yet, despite everything, they emerge as the most endearing people in their entire dramatic performance. It is not without reason, then, that his contemporaries and literary colleagues often called him "Brother Ivo." The content of many of his stories was drawn from conversations with the Franciscan friars of Bosnia. They knew how to recount them very well themselves because they constituted part of their Bosnian experience, full of facts and a natural philosophy that flows like a rippling river. These are, without question, the most brilliant characteristics of the narrator Andrić.

ANDRIć'S DILEMMA

Moving from the power of an idea to real action has always been a serious human problem. In cases where this concrete action aligns with certain ideal principles, we have a personality of integral and irreproachable character. Ivo Andrić, in this area—it is our opinion—had neither luck nor success. Due to his meditative nature, his highly sensitive psyche, and his finely tuned spiritual nerves, he hesitated in concrete life and in his engagement; in the choice of paths and directions. He was pushed by the winds of existential circumstances, and therefore his life and his path were not straight and direct. His personality was a seat of duality, contrasts, and contradictions. We can see this clearly, among other things, in the events we will mention immediately.

In the magazine "Vihor" (Zagreb, 1914), I. Andrić, writing the obituary for the prominent Croatian writer and poet G. Matoš, adds: "All of Croatia is snoring, not pleasantly. Only the activists and poets are awake." Evidently, Andrić was at that time navigating a revolutionary current, but later he became "very cautious" and "diplomatic," avoiding extremes and all radical steps.

Moreover, Andrić was undoubtedly, by origin and sentiment, a Croat. During the first part of his life, he declared himself as such, only to later fall silent, without defining his national affiliation; truthfully, he doesn't deny it, but rather conceals and glosses over it. Similarly, his native language is Croatian, while in the second part of his life he writes in Serbian. But this Serbian language, for the most part, is a "Servized" Croatian language. This is one of the flaws and disadvantages of his literary work, something that escaped the notice of those who awarded him the Nobel Prize.

The work "Bridge over the Drina," which decisively secured him the prize, rests on a serious fabrication: it is a fictionalized history of Bosnia, of its life drama under Turkish occupation. But Andrić has gone so far in his fabrication that in this historically and ethnically Croatian province, he barely sees any Croats; for him, the main protagonists in this story are the Serbs.

Ivo Andrić was a Bosnian Croat who loved his "proud Bosnia" dearly, but he never liked living there; he didn't want to die or be buried there. In his works, despite having immortalized Bosnia, no one uttered as many and such strong accusations, even invectives, against Bosnia as he did.

In his youth, Andrić was an uncompromising fighter for justice and freedom in his homeland, while in his later years he became a routine diplomatic employee of that Yugoslavia which committed so many social and national injustices against his Croatian people.

The question naturally arises: what was the reason for such behavior, and why did the writer Andrić, in the second part of his life, distance himself from the grave, complicated, and tragic fate of his people, renouncing his nationality and his mother tongue? There are several reasons we can cite without understanding or even justifying it. First, under the weight of the various difficulties in his life, Andrić ceased to be a fighter under certain highly esteemed banners and preferred the life of a "diplomat"—retired in obscurity, living almost anonymously in its depths.

Then, the circumstances of his material and social existence made a very incisive contribution in this regard. Living almost permanently in Serbian society—in consulates and embassies where the Serbian spirit and language exclusively prevailed—and then his marriage to a Serbian actress from Belgrade, led Andrić to integrate into the Serbian cultural milieu. Contradictory in terms of his Croatian national origin and his Western culture, but it is the truth. In all this—an uncommon phenomenon of changes and leaps—the decisive factor was the unstable character of I. Andrić: his flexibility, or rather, his opportunism, which makes him adapt to the most varied and contradictory conditions, is his fundamental characteristic. Finally, Ivo Andrić was neither clear nor consistent in his dealings with the Yugoslav communist regime. But one thing is beyond question: Andrić never had any sympathy for communism or communists. Moreover, he was a believer, and his works are a genuine opposition to the communist conception, even if not directly and explicitly so. Nevertheless, in that communist environment, Andrić enjoyed the highest privileges, because he allowed himself to be registered as a member of the Communist League of Yugoslavia (Communist Party) and also accepted the position of deputy in the Federal Assembly in Belgrade.

All that we have just said—the contrasts and contradictions of his life—constitutes his personal dilemma, felt by himself; but he did not allow conversations or discussions about it. Taking into consideration all his difficulties, weaknesses, and hesitations; all the revolutionary enthusiasms of his youth and his subsequent opportunism; Despite all his contradictions and moral, political, and national enigmas, we can say that Andrić, a distinguished Croatian Nobel laureate, seems more like a brilliant meteor launched and propelled by the currents of outer space, passing between, above, and below all parallels, parabolas, and detours, which alters his appearance; changes his position, his light, and his color, yet he remains a comet; an incomparable phenomenon and a magnificent figure; he reached the pinnacle of both Croatian and world literature.

On the first anniversary of his death, we cannot refrain from saying that I. Andrić, artistically, is a beacon in Croatian letters, even though he was a true national renegade during the most difficult moments of the Croatian people's struggle not only for freedom and national self-determination but simply for their very survival. — (Translation: fn.).

Observations on the "Salvat Encyclopedia —Dictionary", Salvat Ediciones S. A.

Milan Blažeković

During 1974, the 12 volumes of the "Salvat Encyclopedia — Dictionary" and 262 fascicles (12 volumes) of the "Monitor — Salvat Encyclopedia for Everyone" were completed.

Aside from certain inaccuracies that are—for the sake of brevity—inherent in any encyclopedic work, there are sometimes pronounced inconsistencies in facts and concepts between the two works. These inconsistencies should not go unnoticed, in order to help correct the inaccurate statements in one of the future re-editions of the works, especially the "Salvat Encyclopedia — Dictionary," whose re-edition cannot be ruled out, given the enormous interest it had generated in Argentina and which, precisely, exhibits the defects and errors to which we refer. We will do so only with respect to some entries in the "Salvat Encyclopedia — Dictionary," namely: Bosnia and Herzegovina (Volume 2), Croatia (Volume 3), Dalmatia (Volume 4), and Pavelic Ante (Volume 9), comparing them with the respective entries in the "Monitor — Salvat Encyclopedia for Everyone."

Ad vocem: BOSNA - HERZEGOVINA or BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

The sentence in question reads: "The population speaks Serbo-Croatian and is of the Orthodox or Muslim religion."

Regarding the language, the Monitor (Yugoslavia No. 261, p. 6257) writes: "The greatest similarity exists between Croatian and Serbian, which is why the expression 'Serbo-Croatian' is sometimes used inaccurately, as if it were a single language."

The language spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina is actually the literary vernacular of Croatian. However, due to the multinational composition of the population (Croatian and Serbian), the name of the language spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina presents some difficulty. Therefore, it should not be surprising if the language of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina is referred to as Serbo-Croatian in foreign publications.

Regarding the religion of the population, on the other hand, there is no doubt that the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina is Muslim, Orthodox, and Catholic. Since 1948, statistics broken down by religious affiliation are lacking. However, taking into account the last official census of nationalities in that country, carried out in 1971, it is easy to gather almost perfect data in this regard. Croatian nationality and Catholicism coincide almost perfectly. The same is true for Serbian nationality and Greek Orthodox religion. As regards the Muslims (capitalized, officially—a "nationality invented by the Great Serbian regime to separate Muslims from their natural Croatian nationality)—we cannot consider them—self-declared Muslims—to be of any religion other than Islam. According to the data from the official census of 1971, in Bosnia-Herzegovina there were: 39.6% Muslims, 37.2% Serbs (Orthodox), and 20.6% Croats (Catholics). The remaining 2.6% belonged to various religions or no religion at all. (See: Jure Petričević, The Nationality of the Population of Yugoslavia, Munich - Barcelona, 1973, p. 24).

The reference to Bosnia's remote past is very vague and imprecise, stating: "Bosnia, occupied by the Goths in 476 and by the Slavs (Croats) in At the beginning of the 7th century, it became an independent principality. In the 12th century, Bulgarian influence disappeared, and Bosnia recognized Hungarian sovereignty.

Regarding this, the "Monitor - Salvat Encyclopedia for Everyone" (No. 29, p. 933) specifies the historical facts as follows:

"In ancient times, Bosnia and Herzegovina formed part of the Roman province of Dalmatia; later, they were occupied by the Croats (7th century). They were integrated into the Kingdom of Croatia until the 12th century, when they were annexed to the Hungarian-Croatian Kingdom. In 1370, Bosnia declared its independence under the rulers of the House of Kontromanich."

" Ad vocem: CROATIA

The imprecise phrase that upon "the extinction of the Croatian dynasty (1097), the country was incorporated into Hungary and later into the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but retaining a certain degree of autonomy," requires clarification, in the sense that one cannot speak of "incorporation" into Hungary, but of the formation of a personal union with the King of Hungary (1102), which in time became a royal union that, in turn, dissolved when the Croatian Diet and the Hungarian Diet, each on their own, elected the Habsburgs as kings of the kingdoms of Hungary and Croatia, in 1526/7. The Austro-Hungarian Empire can only be discussed from 1867 onwards. However, the "Monitor — Salvat Encyclopedia for Everyone" (No. 73, p. 1731) correctly states the following:

"Upon Zvonimir's death without a successor, the Croatian courts established a personal union with Hungary in 1102, offering the crown to King Zvonimir's brother-in-law to secure his support in his struggles against Venetian and Byzantine claims. From then on, Croatia was governed by a viceroy (ban), elected from among the nobles and the courts (Sabor). The 'regnum associatum' with Hungary implied respect for Croatian institutions and autonomy to such an extent that, twice during the history of the Sabor, the dynasty changed."

The following objectionable assertion from the "Dictionary" reads:

"When the Germans invaded Yugoslavia in World War II, many Croats enlisted in the partisans of General Draza Mijalovich (it should be "Mihajlovich") and Marshal Tito. In 1946, Dalmatia was finally incorporated into Croatia."

General Mihajlovich's forces were purely Serbian, called "Chetniks." The political program of the Yugoslav government-in-exile, whose Minister of War was General Mihajlovich, was the restoration of the State of Yugoslavia, or Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the annihilation of the Independent State of Croatia, established on April 10, 1941, with the support of almost all Croats. Therefore, there were no Croats in the ranks of General Mihajlovich's "Chetniks." The case of the participation of some Croats in Marshal Tito's guerrillas is different. This participation increased after the occupation of the Croatian coast by Italian troops, under the Treaty of Rome of May 18, 1941.

It is worth recalling that on September 9, 1943, the lost part of Dalmatia had been reintegrated into Croatia when the Croatian government rescinded the Treaties of Rome on that date. Therefore, it is completely inaccurate to say that Dalmatia was "finally" incorporated into Croatia in 1946. This period and the corresponding events are more accurately presented in the "Monitor — Salvat Encyclopedia for Everyone" (No. 261, p. 6256 — Yugoslavia), which summarizes them as follows:

"Germany and Italy imposed (on Yugoslavia) adherence to the Tripartite Pact, which brought an end to the policy of balance of power pursued by Prince Paul, regent since the death of King Alexander. As a result, a coup d'état, led by the Serbian General Simovich, deposed the regency and placed the young Peter II on the throne (March 27, 1941), while simultaneously rejecting the alliance with Italy and Germany. This new stance provoked the invasion of German and Italian troops (April 6)."

Four days later, while the Italians were fighting Yugoslav troops in Albanian territory, the Independent State of Croatia was proclaimed in Zagreb, governed for four years by the Ustaše leader, Ante Pavelić. Shortly after this proclamation, Serbian partisans, under the command of General Draža Mihajlovich, began fighting against the Italian-German presence in the country and against the new Croatian authorities. Subsequently, after Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union, the communists organized another partisan movement under the command of Josip Broz Tito. Mihajlovich then agreed to collaborate with the occupying forces, so that only Tito's partisans continued the fight against the invading Italian and German troops. After the war ended, the Croatian state, protected by Berlin, disappeared, and Josip Broz Tito rose to power throughout Yugoslavia.

Ad vocem: DALMATIA

The assertion that: "In the 19th century..." is very superficial and therefore inaccurate. In the 7th century, the interior regions were conquered by the Slavs, while the coast remained under Byzantine sovereignty until the 12th century, when it was divided between the Venetians and Hungarians.

Here, the mention of the Croatian state on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, from the 7th century onward, is omitted. This state was formed precisely in the territory considered Dalmatia and endured for four centuries. Only at the beginning of the 15th century did Croatia lose its Adriatic coast to Venice, due to events that cannot be described as a partition, with the political center of the state shifting northward. In short, Dalmatia (excluding the cities of Zadar, Trogir, and Split, which formed the "thema Dalmatiae" under Byzantine sovereignty) was the cradle of the Croatian state. Its natural adversaries have been Byzantium, Venice, and Turkey. The Hungarian-Croatian kings of the Árpád dynasty assumed the obligation to to defend Dalmatia against Venetian claims, and they tried to fulfill this obligation, mainly through the forces of the Croatian banes, until 1409, when King Ladislaus of Naples sold to Venice his rights over the few remaining Dalmatian cities still under his control.

To highlight the discrepancy between the two simultaneous editions from the same publisher, it is also worth quoting, in this case, the corresponding paragraph from the "Monitor" (No. 78, p. 1870), which aptly states:

"With the division of the Roman Empire, Dalmatia came to belong to Byzantium, although only nominally. In the 7th century, it was invaded by the Croats, who established their kingdom there (Biograd na More), retaining these territories ever since." At different times, some Dalmatian cities (Rab, Zadar, Split, and Kotor) recognized Venetian sovereignty, but most of Dalmatia followed the fate of the other Croatian lands. In the 16th century, it came under the dominion of the Habsburg Empire.

Ad vocem: PAVELIC, ANTE (1889-1959)

The questionable phrase reads: "After the invasion of Yugoslavia by Nazi troops and the creation of the independent states of Montenegro and Croatia, Dr. Pavelic took the helm of the latter." During his rule (1941-1945), he orchestrated terrible massacres of Serbs and Jews.

It is regrettable that the old communist formula from the war and postwar era still finds a place in a serious publication today. Certain Yugoslav official services continue to disseminate this propaganda in order to counter, in the eyes of world public opinion, the Croats' demand for national and state independence, implying that Croat independence would pose a danger to Serbs and Jews in Croatia.

This formulation tends to downplay, first and foremost, the creation of the Independent State of Croatia on April 10, 1941, by comparing it to the proclamation of Montenegro's restoration as an independent monarchy on July 12, 1941. While Croatia was de jure recognized by twelve European and non-European states, maintaining normal diplomatic relations with nine of them through the exercise of the active and passive right of legation, Montenegro, on the other hand, was not recognized by anyone as an independent state, and its international relations were nonexistent. The same can be said of Serbia, occupied by the Germans, which Yugoslav propagandists often compare to Croatia in terms of its international status.

Regarding the alleged "organization" of the massacre of "Serbs and Jews," any kind of organized killing in Croatia can be ruled out from the outset. War itself, by its very nature, is a great organizer of massacres, especially in the case of Croatia, where the German Wehrmacht and SS-Division "Prinz Eugen," the Italian army and the "Camice Nere" units, the Croatian Domobrani and Ustaše, the Serbian Chetniks, and the communist partisans fought. The latter three groups fought fiercely among themselves, drawing the civilian population into the conflict. Hence the many casualties among the Serbian Orthodox population in Croatian territory, who rose up against the Croatian state instigated by the Chetniks or the communist partisans.

The fate of the Jews of Croatia was entirely different. Anti-Semitism was not, and is not, a virulent sentiment among the Croatian people. The main figures of the Croatian state (Dr. A. Pavelić, Marshal Slavko Kvaternik, Ivan Oršanić, and Dr. Milovan Zanić, for example) were married to Jewish or mixed-race women. This explains the relative leniency of "Jewish" laws in Croatia during the Nazi occupation of Europe.

The following brief reference to Ante Pavelić, taken from "Monitor" — "Salvat Encyclopedia for Everyone" (No. 261, p. 6256 — Yugoslavia), will help clarify the above regarding his main objectives and policies in general:

"In 1938, shortly before the start of the Second World War, the Belgrade government recognized Croatian national identity and established the "Banovina Hrvatska," an autonomous Croatian state within the state of Yugoslavia." Meanwhile, a group of Croatian emigrants, led by Ante Pavelich, created a semi-military organization (Ustashe) in Mussolini's Italy, whose purpose was to break all ties with the Serbs and create an independent state. These objectives were compounded by Yugoslavia's unstable foreign policy, which initially sought support from France and England and then, at the most critical moment, from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

Regarding the illustrative material of the "Monitor — Salvat Encyclopedia for Everyone," the editors should be reminded of the lack of uniformity in the nomenclature of the geographical map showing the administrative divisions of Yugoslavia, reproduced in fascicle No. 261. Indeed, the vast majority of geographical names are given in Croatian (or Serbian, depending on the region); however, some names appear in Italian without any apparent reason, such as: "Traú" instead of Trogir; "Brazza" instead of Brač; "Lissa" instead of Vis; "Chreso" instead of Cres; "Antivari" instead of Bar (p. 6253).

On page 6257 of the same fascicle, beneath the image of a medieval Bosnian necropolis, the legend It attributes the origin of these tombs and the Bogumil sect without reservation, limiting them, along with the Bogumils themselves, to Serbia and Bosnia. In reality, the extent of these necropolises is much wider, encompassing not only Bosnia but also Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Lika, and even Slavonia in the north, as well as the Drina River basin in Serbia.

The origin of "Stechak"—as the local people call them—remains an enigma, about which several theories exist. One of them—until recently predominant—is that these monuments belonged exclusively to adherents of the Bogumil or Patarena heresy. It is true that the Bogumil religious sect, originating in Bulgaria, entered Bosnia through Serbia, and yet it does not constitute any cultural or demographic link between Bosnia and Serbia, as the observed legend seems to suggest.

Regarding the illustrative material in the corresponding explanatory captions, it appears that the author, or authors, of the text in the "Monitor" did not have the necessary input in either its selection or its drafting. Therefore, it is possible that the caption under the image of the St. Nicholas Fortress in Dubrovnik reads: "...city (referring to Dubrovnik) famous for a remarkable literary movement, which contributed greatly to Serbian literature," thus contradicting historical fact and the text on page 6258 concerning Croatian and Serbian literature. The literature of Dubrovnik, which forms part of Croatian literature along with that of Split, Hvar, and Senj, could not have contributed to Serbian literature of the period, since in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, Serbia was devoid of any literature of any kind, having been occupied by the Turks for 400 years. Regarding this, the text on the aforementioned page states verbatim concerning Serbian literature:

"But this culture (i.e., hagiographic works), like Serbian independence, was suppressed as early as the 14th century by Turkish rule. Thus, until the 18th century, there was practically no Serbian manifestation of artistic literature." Therefore, this objectionable claim serves the purpose of some Serbian writers and historians to proclaim the literature of Dubrovnik as part of Serbian literature, without any valid basis.

We must also point out some typographical errors, especially those on page [page number missing in original text]. Page 6256 of issue No. 261, third column, where line 18 mentions "a modern liberalization" of the communist regime, instead of "a moderate liberalization," and line 3, where it says: "...creation (June 1971) of a collegiate residence intended to ensure Tito's succession," instead of "a collegiate Presidency..." Also, note the following errors: Marin Crzić, instead of: Marin Drzić; Smrt Smail-age Cengikica, instead of: Smrt Smail-age Cengića; Augist Senoa, instead of: August Šenoa; Borislav Syanković, instead of: Borislav Stanković; Ivan Zajó, instead of Ivan Zajc, etc.

Comparing both publications, one concludes that the contributors and editors of the Dictionary ("Salvat Encyclopedia — Dictionary") succumbed—with regard to Croatia—partly to wartime propaganda and partly to the influence of outdated encyclopedic precedents. In contrast, the contributors and editors of the Monitor ("Monitor — Salvat Encyclopedia for Everyone"), free from any bias, presented the Spanish-speaking public with a valuable contribution to the knowledge of the history, politics, culture, and literature of the peoples of multinational Yugoslavia, prepared according to rigorous modern scientific standards.

A dialogue between two Chileans, "sons of Croatians" at the Catholic University of Chile

The dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Santiago, Chile, Professor Ernesto Livačić * gave a speech, traditionally called "Laudatio" to Professor Esteban Roque Šcarpa ** on the occasion of being awarded by said University the distinction of Professor Emeritus after 40 years of outstanding teaching work at that Institution. These two "sons of Croats", the first in his laudatory speech and the second in his response, honor both their Chilean homeland and also the homeland of their parents: Croatia. The content and style of the two speeches shine for their cultural height, for their deep philosophical, religious and educational meaning.

Dr. Livačić said among other concepts: "...Teaching, in its ordinary and, certainly not derogatory, sense, is the activity of someone who, equipped with knowledge and appropriate techniques, imparts the teaching of knowledge, habits or skills, which are part of a heritage or tradition that is beyond himself... To teach, a basic generosity is required, that of opening oneself to others in spiritual communication... And it is definitely notable when for this Other paths in which the smile of success appeared are left aside.

Professor Šcarpa came to teaching after completing a university career of very diverse order and, without a doubt, of greater material perspectives... He arrived, overcoming temptation and flattery, to the generosity to which others arrive more directly and fluidly. He honored—prolonging it—the self-sacrificing dedication of himself that always characterized his father, a man of extremely rich spiritual qualities who lived unrepentantly in a dignified simplicity to create, to sustain and to animate hundreds of institutions of public good in this nation that was not of his origin, but to which he arrived young and with which he fell in love with works, a faithful seal of love"... Roque Esteban Šcarpa discovered that "no It is the chair but the life where the teacher inspires, shows the way, threads effects and projects light..."

Referring to Šcarpa's tenacious activity, Dr. Livačić said: "four books, with a total of more than 600 pages, coming out of his pen have seen the light in these first three months of 1976, and in them he announces that he has another six in preparation. Time, for some only a fiction, for others a heritage without boundaries and that can be burned irresponsibly, for him it has been and is a challenge. permanent, opportunity for creation, channel for the magnanimous investment of your inner capital..."

Regarding the distinction that was awarded to him on that occasion, Dr. Livačić expressed: "It may seem to some to be an excessively modest distinction. When one is a member of so many academies and entities of eminent cultural level in the Motherland, and in sister countries of America and in one's own land; when one has the honor of high decorations from great nations; when many of one's literary works have earned awards, translations into multiple languages, reissues abroad, inclusion in anthologies, perhaps someone might think that we added a tiny drop to a great ocean.

The honoree, Professor R. E. Šcarpa, responded with a speech that deserves to be recorded as a masterpiece among his literary, philosophical, and aesthetic creations. We regret that space does not allow us to reproduce it in its entirety. Professor R. E. Šcarpa is a spirit of broad horizons and internationally recognized erudition and culture. "El Mercurio," in its May 2nd edition of this year, reviewing his latest book, "Una Mujer Nada de Tonta" (A Woman Who Is Anything But Foolish), dedicated to the poet Gabriela Mistral, notes: "If this is one of R. E. Šcarpa's best books, it is also one of the best examples of criticism written about Latin America. After reading 'Una mujer nada de tonta,' the reader will feel that Mistral is no longer a stranger."

Years of isolation

"La Nación, Buenos Aires, February 1, 1976, on Z. Dučmelić

Rocky, sandy, and desert landscapes, or almost petrified figures amidst desolate places, where silence is a prominent presence, are a constant in the paintings of Zdravko Dučmelić.

"What I paint is the fruit of long years of isolation," he emphasizes. "The themes reflect another dimension of reality. It's a 'soft surrealist' style, resigned, without protest, where sometimes I delve into the distant past and other times into landscapes of the future, with objects linked to science fiction. The present, on the other hand, is a risk I prefer to avoid, and that's why I admire those who don't evade it in their works.

"The desert," he continues, "means for me the absence of all current problems. An area of uncoveted land that, despite not belonging to anyone in particular, makes those who live there feel like they own it. One becomes..." There, he feels as if he's discovering small truths that, all together, form a wisdom shared by isolated people. Even the workshop where I work in Mendoza seems to possess that particular, benign energy. A curious thing is that people often attribute a vibrant color palette to desert areas, when in reality, that apparent chromatism is merely an optical illusion produced by the variety of contrasts.

Zdravko Dučmelić was born in Croatia in 1923, has been an Argentine citizen since 1958, and has resided in Mendoza for over two decades.

Humor frequently accompanies his conversation, as he satirizes his own vanity and makes many other little jokes about himself. Initially, his oil paintings reflected a notable preoccupation with postwar themes.

"That period, fortunately, was replaced by another with a more universal theme. Later, I ventured into abstract art (I also did sculpture), perhaps so as not to be out of step with the current of that era. Finally, I returned to my true painting, a stable style—which I will never abandon—with..." The palette and spirit of my youth. Maintaining a style is a limitation, a self-imposed punishment that nevertheless compels me to delve deeper into that limitation. Color in my oils and tempera paintings serves to describe things, and I never think about it too much while I paint.

In some themes, literature has a great influence: Borges, Lovecraft, Branbury... Almost mythological figures have also emerged in my work. I have often painted what I call "young women of the past"; beautiful, intelligent, dignified, a kind of ideal predecessor.

News and Commentary

"Sins of Croatia"

The major Buenos Aires newspaper La Nación published the following news item on February 9th:

CROATIA

BELGRADE, 8 (RL). — Four Yugoslavs, including a former deputy prime minister of the Republic of Croatia, will appear in court tomorrow, accused of conspiring to turn this country into a satellite of the Soviet Union after the death of Marshal Tito.

They face charges of being Stalinists who planned a coup d'état with the aim of placing Yugoslavia under foreign hegemony. If found guilty, they could each receive up to 15 years in prison.

The accused are Dusan Brkic, 63, who was deputy prime minister of the Republic of Croatia until 1950; Milivoje Stevanovic, 64, who worked as an editor at the official news agency TANJUG during the same period; Radovan Zigic, 55, and Ljubomar Radulovic, 58. All four are retired.

*** The same distinguished newspaper published the following on the same subject in its March 24 edition:

ON CROATIAN IDEAS

"The president and secretary of the Croatian-Latin American Institute of Culture, Messrs. F. Nevistić and M. Rakovac, recall that the February 9 edition of La Nación published a dispatch from the Reuters Latin news agency alluding to the situation of the Croats in Yugoslavia, and that—the readers assert—it serves to misinform world opinion and denigrate Croatia.

"According to the news report," Messrs. Nevistić and Rakovac state, "the Croats are currently the pro-Soviet protagonists in Tito's multinational Yugoslavia." Dusan Brkic, former vice president of Croatia, along with other associates, conspired to turn Croatia and Yugoslavia into a Soviet satellite state.

"Indeed," they add, "Brkic and his accomplices are members of the Serbian minority residing in Croatia. Until 1950, they were the most ruthless persecutors of the Croatian people on behalf of Belgrade. They were also the ones who applauded when Tito dismissed the communist leadership of the Republic of Croatia for having allowed a massive pro-Western movement there. Now, this same Serbian group is trying to regain the ground it lost in the internal power struggle. To kill two birds with one stone, 'Titoist' Belgrade, by accusing its pro-Soviet rivals—all Serbs residing in Croatia—is portraying them as Croatian representatives in order to preemptively condemn any attempt by Croatians to recover their human and national freedoms by labeling them pro-Soviet.

"Does it make sense, then," they ask, "to attribute the sins of the perpetrator to the victim?" If Belgrade, which opposes Croatia's legitimate right to national self-determination, is doing this, why are free and anti-communist men and media outlets doing it? Such a procedure is regrettable.

We deeply thank the Editor of La Nación for publishing the letter from the Croatian Latin American Institute, as it once again demonstrated his traditional democratic spirit and his love for truth and accurate reporting. — (B.C. Editorial Staff)

ABOUT THE MURDER OF THE YUGOSLAV CONSUL IN GERMANY

During the month of March, the communist Yugoslav consul Edvin Zdovc was murdered in Frankfurt, West Germany. The Belgrade authorities, as usual, attribute the act to "extremist" Croatian emigrants.

This was also reported by the NBC news agency. Dr. Ivo Omrčanin, a professor at Indiana University in the United States, reacted to this slander in the following terms: "According to the NBC news agency, Zdovc was murdered by Croats fighting for Croatian independence (separation from Serbia).

This will be good and correct for NBC." But the truth is quite different: Recently, the Yugoslav secret police kidnapped a Yugoslav named Vladimir Dapčević (brother of the famous Titoist Peko Dapčević) in Bucharest. He had long ago escaped from communist Yugoslavia, sought asylum in the Soviet Union, and, under its protection, is leading a pro-Soviet conspiracy against Tito's Yugoslavia.

"Vlado Dapčević is currently imprisoned in communist Yugoslavia. Naturally, he is providing information. Among his confiscated belongings is his notebook, from which the Yugoslav secret police (UDBA) found the names of several Yugoslavs involved in the conspiracy against Tito's Yugoslavia. Among them is the name of Edvin Zdovc, a Slovenian. Pro-Soviet sentiment is very strong in Slovenia.

The Yugoslav secret police ordered Zdovc to return to Belgrade, but he refused. He was murdered, and all evidence points to the Yugoslav secret police as the perpetrators."

This letter from Dr. Omrčanin was sent, on behalf of the American Commission on Human Rights in Croatia, to institutions and political figures of the free world. The efforts of the author and the institution he heads deserve praise, but it remains to be seen whether they will find the necessary support. If only one's will were not praised.

Justice and jurisprudence in Yugoslavia

A young Croatian man sentenced to death for the fourth time

The renowned German journalist H. P. Rullmann—who also served as a correspondent for German newspapers in Belgrade—published the following commentary in the first 1976 issue of the bulletin "Ost-Dienst": "Miljenko Hrkać was sentenced to death three times, but this tremendous sentence, carried out in Yugoslavia at dawn by firing squad, was subsequently overturned three times. Now, a Yugoslav court has again sentenced the young Croatian man Miljenko Hrkać (for the fourth time) to death, seven and a half years after a crime for which no one knows who actually committed it. The political climate in Tito's Yugoslavia is conducive to this execution.

"Thus, Yugoslav jurisprudence overshadowed everything that came from Spain in the final days before Franco's death, thanks not only to its inhumane prolongation of the investigations but also to the Three previous death sentences. This sentence is an unprecedented scandal, even for the most prominent Yugoslav jurists.

On May 23, 1968, two bombs exploded at the Belgrade railway station. A week later, the Belgrade Interior Ministry publicly announced the arrest of the perpetrator: a certain Ivan Jelić, who was allegedly "bought" by Croatian nationalists in Austria to engage in terrorism. Shortly thereafter, reports about the case exceeded all normal and permissible limits: not only was the Republic of Austria accused, but also the Federal Republic of Germany, of allegedly being behind the crime. A communist newspaper went so far as to declare that they knew precisely that the means to "blow up the station" came from a fund in Bonn, designated for "cultural aid."

"Once in custody, Jelić, a man who could barely read and write, mentioned many names, but no one could later confirm what he said in eyewitness confrontations." In the rush, the "suspect" was executed at the end of July (of the same year). But then, another explosion occurred at the "October 20th" cinema in downtown Belgrade during a screening of the film "Rififi in Panama."

The explosion killed a worker and severed a young woman's legs. The outrage of the citizens of the Yugoslav capital was quite understandable, and it was directed at the arrested Miljenko Hrkać, who, born in Herzegovina, worked in a brick factory in Slovenia. Hrkać also "confessed" to everything, giving numerous names, including that of his accomplice, Ante Penavić, who immediately fled to West Germany after committing the crime. Penavić's extradition became a key test of Yugoslav-German relations.

"The German authorities, relying on information provided by their Yugoslav counterparts, provisionally arrested Penavić, but rejected the request for his definitive arrest because this alleged accomplice of M. Hrkać had a classic alibi at the time the crime was committed. Therefore, the then Yugoslav Foreign Minister—Mirko Tepavac—threatened to cancel his official visit to the city on the Rhine River.

"The Yugoslav government newspaper 'Politika' noted the lack of 'goodwill' on the part of Germany, while the German judges were ridiculed and caricatured as fascists incarnate."

" "This affair had political consequences, also in Yugoslavia: Under the impact of M. Hrkać's recognition, the discussion about abolishing the death penalty was silenced. The police began a persecution of Croatian peasants in Herzegovina, and finally, the party center in Belgrade also accused its comrades, the leadership of the Croatian Communist League, of having collaborated with those behind Miljenko Hrkać..."

"This Jelić-Hrkać criminal case, meanwhile, became shrouded in mystery. It was soon established that all the names mentioned by Jelić and Hrkać were fabricated. Penavić, who lived in Germany, was completely innocent since he didn't know either of them. A certain Buljan, also arrested based on these indications, was released and even authorized, with Yugoslav police permission, to transport explosives along the road known as the 'Master Adriatic Highway.' Later, he was also given a Yugoslav passport with which he emigrated to the United States. M. Hrkać's brother, whom Miljenko had denounced as his accomplice, obtained permission to leave Yugoslavia and work as a seasonal laborer in Sweden.

But even more sensational than the release of all the people Jelić and Hrkać had listed was M. Hrkać's statement that officers of the Yugoslav secret service had induced him to take the blame, along with a..." A greater number of innocent people. He detailed where and with what promises they had obtained his fatal confession: in the State Security building in Mostar, the capital of mountainous Herzegovina, instilling in him the conviction that he should not worry about any eventual (formal) conviction.

Afterward, he would be released and, as a reward for his service, guaranteed a job. These statements by the young, almost illiterate man were verified and found to be accurate; because, at the time of the explosion in the Belgrade cinema, M. Hrkać was undoubtedly at his job in Slovenia. Furthermore, the Yugoslav explosives expert, Popović, declared that Hrkać gave a completely inaccurate description of the bomb. "Under the influence of this state of affairs, the death sentence, pronounced three times by a Belgrade court of first instance, was overturned each time.

"Yugoslav journalism acknowledged that in this case, Yugoslav jurisprudence had committed a grave error. Newspaper headlines referred to it as 'an unpleasant case' and 'a complete failure.' The widely circulated newspaper, 'Evening News,' added at the end of an article: 'No one is in any hurry to clear up this mystery.'

"The responsible minister, Radovan Stijačić, Minister of the Interior, an avowed supporter of Moscow who had a keen interest in obstructing relations between Yugoslavia and the West and confusing the Yugoslav communist leadership, was dismissed. But, despite this, Hrkać was not released.

"After six hearings, a court handed down the death penalty to him for the fourth time. He was arrested at the age of 20; "He will not be able to live more than 27 years: because the secret police, who use all methods, do not wish to be unmasked, while the world, unlike what happens in Spain or Chile, this time remains silent." (Published in "Nova Hrvatska" January 2, 1976 (139), London, p. 12).

Yugoslav aid

(News from the Oslobodjenje newspaper, Sarajevo, February 14, 1976)

"The Yugoslav ship 'Brezice,' belonging to the 'Splosna Plovba' company of Piran, entered the port of Luanda yesterday.

This ship, the 'Brezice,' brought the aid sent by the Yugoslav people and their government to the Angolan people, thus expressing their solidarity with the just struggle for the definitive liberation and strengthening of the People's Republic of Angola."

Isn't this yet another reason for the American people and their government to continue sending arms and money to strengthen the Yugoslav Republic? 

The visit of Stanko Vujica, President of the Croatian National Council

Croatian Independence Day Celebrated

"La Prensa" published the following news item on April 4th:

The Croatian National Council announced that, to commemorate Croatian Independence Day on the 11th of this month, various events will be held in this city. These events will be attended by the President of the Croatian National Council in Exile, Dr. Stanko Vujica, who will arrive tomorrow at 9:45 a.m. at Ezeiza International Airport.

Professor Vujica is also traveling with the purpose of "gathering information on the local situation," the Council stated, "in order to agree upon and adopt measures in light of the imminent disappearance of dictator Tito from the political scene and the serious crisis that will erupt at that time between the antagonistic and rival forces vying for succession and power." The members of the Croatian Council clarified that "Croats oppose the total and definitive incorporation of the country into the Soviet sphere of influence, whose center is in Serbia." They further stated that "all possible measures must be taken to save Croatia and its Adriatic coast, thereby saving the Mediterranean, an essential condition for Croatia's independence and the security of the free world."

On Sunday the 11th of this month, at 10:00 AM, the celebration of Croatian Independence Day will begin with a mass at St. Francis Church, located at Defensa and Alsina streets in Buenos Aires. From there, those present will proceed to Plaza de Mayo, where representatives of the Croatian Youth will lay flowers at the foot of the May Pyramid.

At 11:00 AM, an academic event will be held at the Croatian Center, located at 1241 Salta Street in Buenos Aires.

"La Razón," another major Buenos Aires newspaper, published the following text on April 8:

THE PRESIDENT OF THE CROATIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL IN EXILE ARRIVES

The president of the Croatian National Council in Exile, Dr. Stanko Vujica, arrived in the country by air. In Argentina, Dr. Vujica will meet with his compatriots in order to gather information and agree on measures in light of what they believe will be the imminent demise of Marshal Tito. The visitor was chosen last year by a Croatian Parliament of 33 delegates meeting in Toronto, Canada, and will be the main speaker at the central event with which the Croatian community in our country will commemorate the 35th anniversary of the restoration of Croatian independence, which occurred on April 10, 1941.

"La Prensa" reprinted the following information on April 12:

CROATIAN INDEPENDENCE CELEBRATED

The Croatian community celebrated the 359th anniversary of the restoration of independence of this Eastern European nation yesterday.

In the morning, a mass was held at the Basilica of San Francisco, located at Alsina and Defensa streets, attended by young members of the community dressed in traditional costumes and carrying flags with the red, white, and blue colors of Croatia and with the colors of our country.

Later, an event was held at the Croatian Home, located at Salta 1241, during which the president of the Croatian National Council in exile, Dr. Stanko Vujica, who arrived on the 8th of this month from the United States, the country where he resides, spoke.

During the meeting, which included a meal, the Croatian choir "Jadran" performed, and traditional folk dances from that nation were presented.

The opening remarks were delivered by engineer Ante Stilinović, president of Croatian Associations in Argentina; and Mr. Juan Makar, head of the Croatian Youth Union, also spoke about the celebration.

DR. VUJICA

The president of the World Croatian Council, Dr. Vujica, addressed the political situation of that nation, which is currently part of Yugoslavia, and the crisis that will erupt after Tito's death, considered imminent.

He pointed out that Tito's promise to provide a definitive solution to the Croatian-Serbian conflict, which he said is the fundamental problem of that multinational country, was not fulfilled. He stated that the prediction of his ideologues—that the conflict could be reduced to the antagonism of their respective bourgeoisies—proved false.

"In reality," continued Dr. Vujica, "once the war there ended and those forces were eliminated, Serbian hegemony was reinstated, this time with a communist slant, primarily to the detriment of Croatia.

"The discontent was so widespread and profound that Tito himself, to justify his ruthless repression of the 'Croatian Spring' in 1971, said he had to act in this way to avoid a civil war."

The head of the Croatian National Council concluded by stating that public opinion in the free world must understand that the Croatian struggle for self-determination aligns with its vital and strategic interests in that part of the world.

"An independent and free Croatia," he said, "will contribute to the security of the West and to the freedom of the world."

"Argentinische Tageblat," published in German on April 13, 1976, dedicated the following article to the celebrations:

"Last Sunday, the Croatian community in Argentina celebrated the 35th anniversary of the restoration of its national independence." A floral offering was placed at the Pyramid of May, a solemn Mass was celebrated at the Church of San Francisco, and the main celebration took place at the Croatian Center, located at 1241 Salta Street in the capital city. The Jadran Choir performed Croatian folk songs, and young people performed national dances.

"Dr. Stanko Vujica, president of the Croatian National Council in exile, based in the United States, who was visiting Buenos Aires for the first time on this occasion, began his address by expressing gratitude to the Argentine national authorities for having generously opened their doors to Croatian refugees in 1945 who had to flee their homeland, which was occupied by communism. Once Croatia is liberated," Dr. Vujica emphasized, "one of the main streets of the Croatian capital will be named after the Republic of Argentina."

The speaker then referred to the Croatian-Serbian conflict, which, according to the opinion of communist ideologues, was merely a conflict between the respective bourgeoisies of the two nations—a notion that has proven false. The conflict remains unresolved, and its resolution has been postponed due to the oppression that the dictator Tito inflicts upon the Croats. The evil persists, and so Tito in 1971 had to forcefully suppress the Croatian Spring. Even after Tito's death, the conflict will continue. Its solution depends intimately on international politics and, depending on the circumstances, on whether freedom or communist tyranny will prevail. A free and independent Croatia would offer the West security and bring more freedom to the world, the speaker declared in closing. His words were met with enthusiastic applause from the large audience.

Obituaries

A friend from Croatia died in Buenos AiresIn Memoriam al Dr. E. A. García

On March 4th of this year (1976), at the age of 78, Dr. Eduardo Augusto García, an illustrious figure in Argentine public life and a great friend of the Croatian people, passed away. The Croatian emigrants who had to abandon their homeland in the face of the advance and subjugation by Tito's communists, supported from all over the world in a highly complex and cunning rivalry among the great powers for world domination, found in him a particularly important understanding.

The Preface to our edition of "The Tragedy of Bleiburg," written by him, is the most visible and enduring testament to his understanding and sympathy for the Croatian cause and its struggle for human and national freedom under extremely unfavorable conditions.

And, almost, it could not have been otherwise. If a brilliant intellectual, in the prime of his physical and mental life, a university professor, academic, and president of the OAS, kneels and ascends the "Holy Stairs" in the Lateran Cathedral on his knees, praying for God to deliver his homeland, Argentina, from the evil that "shadowed" it, we can be certain that he was a person with a firm belief in spiritual values, whose deepest, most original, and authentic source is religion.

So as not to reveal any bias or narrow-mindedness, we refer not only to the Catholicism of Dr. García—kneeling at the heart of Catholicism—but to all authentic religion, where humankind most fully dedicates itself to exploring, scrutinizing, seeking, and finding the meaning of its existence and the world in which it lives. While the success of this noble tension does not always lead us to the same result —the existence of several religions—, this exploration, this searching, this total commitment to discovering its final destiny and feeling safe within it, constitute the most sacred and most worthy work of man.

There is no more fitting means to prevent the harm of man by man to his freedom and dignity, for: my sacred pursuit prevents obstructing the sacredness of the same kind in my neighbor and vice versa. If it is not so, it is no longer authentic; it is a Pharisaical distortion, deadly to the spiritual life. Here we can glimpse the fundamental basis and indispensable foundation for effective democratic conviction and behavior, as was the way of life of Dr. Garcia.

It is also for this reason that Dr. Garcia soon understood the struggle of the Croatian people. Founded on the fundamental values and principles of law and ethics, and despite all the slander spread by the international propaganda outlets of our enemy, Dr. García was able to write as early as 1963: "Whoever reads the following pages will have a pale image of the tragic reality experienced by the Croatians as the communist forces of the Soviet regime advanced upon a noble nation, notwithstanding the contribution they made to achieving freedom..."

Furthermore, Dr. García, although accustomed to moving in diplomatic circles and among illustrious and learned men, always made time to address the problems of emigrants and also accepted invitations to meetings where he listened to our arguments and complaints with the sole aim of establishing contact with the most authentic element within them, the element that resonates in the soul of all good people; he sought the elements that constitute the foundation of what unites all humankind and what we can call by its proper name—human society. At every opportunity, he encouraged us with his masterful words, his wisdom, and the wisdom of a man of faith and hope for a better future. A future when evil would no longer overshadow the Argentine Republic, nor our native Croatia, nor the entire world. This world will either live in freedom or it will no longer live the true life of civilized humanity. Thus, his words in the Preface mentioned above are absolutely sincere: "Human beings want to be free, to remain free, they want to practice freedom, they want to enjoy it, and they want other beings to enjoy it in the just measure that corresponds, so that each one can fulfill their own destiny. They rise up against oppressors as well as against exploiters. And one day they will triumph, as justice always triumphs."

In these words and concepts, we have condensed, we might say, the spiritual profile of Dr. Eduardo Augusto García: an exemplary Christian faith, Kantian ethics, and democratic conviction.

Our recognition, our gratitude, and our remembrance of Dr. E. A. Garcia will remain indelible in the hearts of all who knew him; may we perpetuate them if possible, because only what is authentic and universal is worthy of enduring, being praised, and emulated.

With sincere condolences to his wife Marta, his children, and other family and friends, we pray: May he rest in peace! — (Red. de S. C.)

In Memoriam R. Jurčec

On November 4, 1975, R. Jurčec, a prominent Slovenian journalist, publicist, writer, and politician, died in Buenos Aires. He was seventy years old. With his passing, the Slovenian diaspora lost one of its most dynamic and enterprising figures, a genuine creator of spiritual values, a zealous guardian and promoter of the historical heritage of the small Slovenian people, and a staunch champion of their state independence.

Deeply Catholic and identified with Western, humanist, and Christian culture, Jurčec initiated numerous cultural activities both in Slovenia and in exile after 1945. He graduated from the École Supérieure des Sciences Po (School of Political Science) in Paris, was the editor of the widely circulated Slovenian Catholic daily "Slovenec," and a correspondent for several news agencies (Avala, Havas, Reuters), while simultaneously dedicating himself to literature and essay writing.

In exile, he organized and co-founded the Slovenian Cultural Action (Buenos Aires, 1954), a prestigious Slovenian cultural institution, and served as its president for 15 years, making it an unbreakable spiritual link between all Slovenians scattered throughout the world. Bahia also founded the magazine VREDNOTE (Values) and contributed essays and literary pieces to the cultural and literary magazine MEDDOBJE (Between Centuries). He published a book of short stories, "The Ljubljana Triptych," and later three volumes of memoirs, LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.

In recent years, in his fortnightly publication "The Dawn of Slovenian Freedom," he has undertaken a vigorous campaign with the vision of a true statesman, advocating for the idea of Slovenian state independence. He is aware that within the multinational Yugoslav conglomerate, the Slovenian people, like the Croatian people, will never be able to fulfill their historical destiny, achieve the full realization of their national rights, or attain the human rights and economic and social well-being that this industrious and creative people, situated between Croatia, Austria, and Italy, so richly deserves. His idea, which is gaining increasing traction among Slovenians, is that the Slovenian state should be an integral part of the future European confederation, to which it belongs by virtue of its culture and tradition, and its economic and geographical importance.

With this orientation and political program, coinciding with the position of all Croatian exiles who strive for the state independence of Croatia, oppressed and exploited like Slovenia, first by the monarchical regime and currently by the communist dictatorship of Belgrade, R. Jurčec won the sympathies and affection of the Croatians and collaborated with them whenever circumstances demanded it.

He regularly recorded in his newspaper the political, cultural, and economic news pertaining to events in Croatia and the activities of Croatian emigrants. He wholeheartedly supported the liberation movement in Croatia, known as the "Croatian Spring," which was violently suppressed by Marshal Tito with repressive police and military measures at the end of 1971.

We will always cherish fond memories of this friend of ours and of the Croatian people. — (S.C. Editorial Staff)

Documents

Croatian protests

On May 2nd, the Croatian National Council in exile sent a letter of protest to the U.S. Senate Committee on Defense, the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, and all members of Congress, warning them of the danger that would result from the eventual shipment of state-of-the-art American weapons to Tito.

The letter included an elaborate report from Croatian Colonel Ivan Babic, in which he explained the concept of communist Yugoslav national defense and the Great Serb-like nature of the Yugoslav army, which would lead to the failure of both sides at the decisive moment. The aforementioned CNC letter, after warning that "these American weapons would quickly fall into Soviet hands," adds, "...We believe that the United States should prepare diplomatically for the event of the disintegration of Yugoslavia with the disappearance of dictator Tito from the scene, because such a disintegration is considered highly probable. The Soviet Union will try in every way to inherit Yugoslavia, but vital American interests demand that the Soviets never seize the Adriatic, that is, that Croatia never fall into their hands, because otherwise the Balkans and the Mediterranean would be lost forever."

The letter is signed by Dr. Stanko Vujica, Chairman of the Council, and by Prof. Bogdan Radica, Secretary of the Council for International Relations.

In May, the Presidency of the Croatian Peasant Party in exile sent the following telegram to US President Gerald Ford and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger:

"We have learned from a reliable source, first, that the United States has delivered TOW-wire-guided missiles to Yugoslavia, and second, that Yugoslavia is about to deliver them to the Soviet Union. We feel it our duty to inform you that the Croatian people, as those who sincerely desire the establishment of peace in our part of Europe and, consequently, as a sincere friend of the United States and its policy in that eastern part of the Mediterranean, were truly shocked by this terrible (American) mistake."

Telegram signed by Dr. J. Krnjević, President of the Croatian Peasant Party in exile, London, and by Dr. M. G. Zorkin, President of the same party in Canada.

The summer of Zagreb in 1965

Kidnappings and mistreatment of Croatian students in hidden prisons. — Ranković's torturers now hold high positions in Croatia

BRUNO BUŠIĆ

In the summer of August 1965, Zagreb seemed like a desert. The Institute for the History of the Croatian Workers' Movement was completely empty. All the members of the research department had gone on their annual leave. I was left alone to write a few points regarding the economic reform that had just been proclaimed. The occasional footstep of the few administrative staff who remained echoed through the empty offices. In the impressive silence of the upper part of the city, the clatter of typewriters could be clearly heard in the Croatian Parliament (Sabor), located near the Institute. The door to my office opened unexpectedly. Three men entered. The first one said to me: "We are from UDBA (Yugoslav secret police). We've come to take you away!" I wasn't very surprised.

NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING

During the months of June, July, and August of that same year, many of my friends had disappeared. Vice Vukojević, Ivan Gabelica, Rodolfo Arapović, Mate Nevistić, Tomislav Naletilić, Vinko Vučić, Ružica Čuvalo, Ljubo Vlašić, Branimir Peternel, Josip Lukač, and others were no longer with us. Vinko Grubišić had escaped across the border, and Mate Čuvar, with two bullets in his body, was hospitalized in the prison. The UDBA raided rooms in student residences. Peasant women from Dalmatia, Herzegovina, Istria, and Slavonia gathered around the prison on Petrinjska Street. The guards kept them away from the prison gates, but they kept coming and going. No one wanted to tell them anything about their children.

I silently watched as the police searched my papers. They confiscated the books "Fear of Freedom" by E. Fromm and "The Digestible Work" by G. Friedman. Then they proceeded to search the room I rent and drove me around Zagreb in a frantic chase.

The driver was singing "Lijepa Naša" (the Croatian National Anthem) and "Još Hrvatska" (a Croatian Renaissance song from the last century) while the other two beat me. They didn't ask me anything at all and they kept hitting me.

I asked why they were doing it and what I had done. They replied that they didn't know and that they weren't interested, and that they were just doing their duty. Then they took me to the prison in Petrinjska. I was introduced to the investigator, Milan Kajganić, a Serb from Bania (a Croatian region with a large Serbian minority). He didn't know anything about it either. His duty was to record my "defense"; he wasn't going to touch me, but there are all kinds of people in prison, and he couldn't stay with me and take care of me. He also had his own family and he had to take care of them and give them some family joy. I wasn't supposed to present any defense because, logically, he knew everything, and his duty was to help me, according to his own statements.

This procedure continued for seven and a half months, sleeping on wooden planks, one blanket above and one below, with a light shining over my head.

During the day, M. Kajganić interrogated me; at night, others did. They forced me to give them the names of my accomplices. They had learned that I lent others copies of "Hrvatska Revija — The Croatian Review" (a Croatian publication in exile) and "Uspomene na politićke ljude y dogadjaje — Memories of Men and Political Events" by Ivan Meštrović, as well as some other publications from the émigré community. They wanted to know from whom I had received these publications.

I was given a choice: either help send more people to prison or feign "sincerity" to the detriment of friends already imprisoned. I chose the latter. UDBA was never able to find out from whom I had received the émigré publications, and my friends were not sentenced to a single day in prison for my "sincerity." The officials realized later that I was lying to them.

Too late to do anything about it.

UDBA FLEEES FROM THE MILITIA

After my release, I learned that my high school friends—Ivan Gabelica and Vice Vukojević—had fared incomparably worse than I had. They had been kidnapped by the secret police right in the street and taken to secret prisons. There, for two months, they underwent "specialized" training in which "scientists" from the Institute for Criminological Research and Expertise, headed by Tomislav Marković, participated. They were destined to be beheaded. They were forced to sign letters from Italy, sending greetings to their families before traveling to the lands across the ocean. In these letters, they also declared that they would not write again because very important tasks awaited them, for which they needed to change their names and appearance. The police had announced their capture, and militiamen were searching for their homes in their native villages. District Attorney Milan Ćacić laughed openly at Ferdo Vukojević, who had come to see him and report his brother's disappearance. Investigating Judge Zlatan Marković, a Master of Laws, shrugged and claimed to know nothing. Vice President Vukojević and Ivan Gabelica, hanging between the floor and ceiling, bound. They spent hours and days in agony at their hands. The main torturer was Stjepan Katić, a man with a scar over one eye. Vice Vukojević confessed to setting fire to the paper mill near Zagreb. After he finished describing the act, the investigators became convinced that he didn't know where the mill was located. They then beat him with sticks because he had deceived them, and they only wanted to know the truth. He also admitted that he had received incendiary bombs from abroad and that he had buried them in the garden of the house where he lived, on Zamenhof Street.

For many nights, the police came to unearth these nonexistent bombs, and on one occasion, when the neighbors thought they were dealing with thieves, they called the militia, which caused a chase and a stampede through the streets of Zagreb. A sight never before seen: UDBA fleeing from the militia. Then they were taken to Šestina (a village near Zagreb) to see "their Ante" Starčević" (the ideologue and father of the Croatian homeland, who died in 1896 and was buried, according to his express wish, in that village).

Vice had enough nerve to hurl insults at Vuk Karadzić (a self-taught Serbian writer who had collected folk songs in Croatia and published them all as "Serbian Folk Songs") and at Draža Mihajlović (leader of the Serbian resistance movement during the last war, a bloodthirsty figure who slaughtered thousands upon thousands of Croats, collaborating with the Italian fascists and the German Nazis, despite his formal alliance with the Western democracies under the Yugoslav monarchy).

AN UNJUSTIFIED PANIC BY RANKOVIĆ'S TERRORISTS

Vice Vukojević was not brought to trial. Ivan Gabelica was convicted of conducting propaganda against the regime, not of the subversion he had admitted to.

The investigating judges—Z. Marković and M. Gajski—the latter a member of the panel that convicted him—warned him through his defense attorney not to speak nonsense in court, promising that if he behaved that way, they would take it into consideration and credit the two months he had spent in jail toward his sentence. None of this is recorded in the minutes, but the two months were indeed credited to his sentence.

After the fall of Ranković (the fearsome Serbian head of the UDBA, ousted in 1966 due to a power struggle with Tito), I. Gabelica filed a lawsuit against the authorities, as did Vinko Vučić and Vice Vukojević. District Attorney Milan Čacić was furious. He shouted at them that they had fabricated the whole thing. Two months of time that had barely existed in his life. Zlatan Marković was desperate. He went from office to office trying to convince everyone that he himself was a victim of the UDBA (but he had left the UDBA and joined as an "investigating judge"). Detectives Albert Kralj and Josip Drpić knew nothing, but nevertheless, they were terrified and behaved servilely toward their former prisoners. Viktor Posarić, head of the SUP, knew nothing either, nor did Marijau Ofak, head of the UDBA in Zagreb, even though both "visited" Vukojević while he was hanging by his hands in a room under the prison roof. Petar Trkulja, who for two months came at night to Stara Gradiška (the infamous Yugoslavian prison) to beat Andjelko Mijatović in a dark cell, also knew nothing.

However, everything calmed down again. Milan Čacić dismissed the demands for lack of evidence. It was a mysterious solution. The minutes list May 1967 as the date of the resolution, at the meeting held in July of that year and delivered to the interested parties in May. A true phantasmagoria. The flight to the future and the return to the present. An eternal loop.

The same was confirmed after Karadjordjevo's coup in 1971. Zlatan Marković was the chief investigating judge for all the Croatian student leaders from the Matica Hrvatska (Croatian Cultural Center) and the weekly "Hrvatski Tjednik" (suppressed by Tito). Milan Čačić was appointed public prosecutor of Zagreb, and Milko Gajski was president of the Zagreb district court. He personally tried Marko Veselica, José Ivičević, and Z. Komarica. Vice Vukojević was imprisoned again. There in prison, he received the settlement recognizing his right to one million old dinars in accordance with his claim against the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

One day before the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, Viktor Posarić, head of the SUP, and Marijan Ofak, head of the UDBA in Zagreb, died in a very enigmatic street accident.

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the State Security Service, Josip Drpić, head of State Security in Zagreb, explained to a journalist from "Studij," Dobroslav Silobrcić, how he rested and unwinded from his humanitarian work: "Sometimes I go hunting, about six or seven times a year, and I exercise by swimming during my vacations. I also read, and I go to the theater. I'm interested in music, concerts. I love classical music, although I like all kinds."

"Like men, I also meditate." "Udbas" (Udba agent) is a derogatory, slang term for him, and he says, "There are class enemies who call us that." J. Drpić has two sons—Mladen and Ivan—whom he adores, and naturally, they adore him. He has faced many difficult situations in life, but the worst occurred during the Ranković era, when "The State Service was above society," and when the Zagreb UDBA "had nothing to do with it." Josip Drpić states, "I am not being modest if I say that this, the Zagreb State Security Center, also belonged to that circle of opposition against that system." Officials in Zagreb understood that "the task of our service, according to the law, was not the investigation of men, but the verification of testimonies." In his lawsuit of July 22, 1967, against the State, Viktor Vučić says: "Soon the abuse, in which Joza Drpić and Albert Kralj stood out in particular. "Because of Joza's blows, my jaw was fractured, and for a long time I couldn't eat." It is evident that the evidence could be fabricated in various ways and in accordance with the justice of a self-governing system and its directives. Therefore, all the members of Ranković's secret terrorist group in 1965, after Karadjordjevo, occupied the highest positions in the police, the courts, and the public prosecutor's office of the Socialist Republic of Croatia.

In 1965, the Zagreb UDBA (Department of Intelligence and Security) was completely taken aback by events. Political and police leaders in Zagreb and Belgrade increasingly voiced their discontent. The highest-ranking officers pressured their subordinates, who in turn pressured their secret agents. Everyone was required to provide information, and almost all of it was false, fabricated more out of fear than based on facts. All suspected individuals were arrested or placed under strict surveillance, and the "cases" kept recurring.

First, on May 8th Leaflets were dropped in Jelačić Square. The twentieth anniversary of the "liberation" of Zagreb was being celebrated that day. While speakers, adorned with the generals' medals and stars, took turns addressing the solemn platform, leaflets detailing the two-decade occupation began to fly over the platform, the flags, and the silent crowd gathered there.

UDBA (the Croatian Defense Unit) blocked a skyscraper from which the leaflets had been scattered, but was unable to arrest anyone. Consequently, some members of the "liberation" unit were imprisoned after copies of the leaflets were found in their possession. The illegals had calculated everything meticulously: the speed of the elevator in the skyscraper, security measures, intelligence gathering, and meeting points, which allowed them to disappear. The leaflets were later distributed throughout the city and surrounding areas; "Hrvatski Tjednik — The Croatian Weekly," mimeographed in a secret hiding place, was also distributed. the city. At the end of May and the beginning of June, leaflets were distributed throughout all the student residences. UDBA sent a militia unit there. They raided and searched room by room, paper by paper.

"Like men, I also meditate." "Udbas" (Udba agent) is a derogatory, slang term for him, and he says, "There are class enemies who call us that." J. Drpić has two sons—Mladen and Ivan—whom he adores, and naturally, they adore him. He has faced many difficult situations in life, but the worst occurred during the Ranković era, when "The State Service was above society," and when the Zagreb UDBA "had nothing to do with it." Josip Drpić states, "I am not being modest if I say that this, the Zagreb State Security Center, also belonged to that circle of opposition against that system." Officials in Zagreb understood that "the task of our service, according to the law, was not the investigation of men, but the verification of testimonies." In his lawsuit of July 22, 1967, against the State, Viktor Vučić says: "Soon the abuse, in which Joza Drpić and Albert Kralj stood out in particular. "Because of Joza's blows, my jaw was fractured, and for a long time I couldn't eat." It is evident that the evidence could be fabricated in various ways and in accordance with the justice of a self-governing system and its directives. Therefore, all the members of Ranković's secret terrorist group in 1965, after Karadjordjevo, occupied the highest positions in the police, the courts, and the public prosecutor's office of the Socialist Republic of Croatia.

In 1965, the Zagreb UDBA (Department of Intelligence and Security) was completely taken aback by events. Political and police leaders in Zagreb and Belgrade increasingly voiced their discontent. The highest-ranking officers pressured their subordinates, who in turn pressured their secret agents. Everyone was required to provide information, and almost all of it was false, fabricated more out of fear than based on facts. All suspected individuals were arrested or placed under strict surveillance, and the "cases" kept recurring.

First, on May 8th Leaflets were dropped in Jelačić Square. The twentieth anniversary of the "liberation" of Zagreb was being celebrated that day. While speakers, adorned with the generals' medals and stars, took turns addressing the solemn platform, leaflets detailing the two-decade occupation began to fly over the platform, the flags, and the silent crowd gathered there.

UDBA (the Croatian Defense Unit) blocked a skyscraper from which the leaflets had been scattered, but was unable to arrest anyone. Consequently, some members of the "liberation" unit were imprisoned after copies of the leaflets were found in their possession. The illegals had calculated everything meticulously: the speed of the elevator in the skyscraper, security measures, intelligence gathering, and meeting points, which allowed them to disappear. The leaflets were later distributed throughout the city and surrounding areas; "Hrvatski Tjednik — The Croatian Weekly," mimeographed in a secret hiding place, was also distributed. the city. At the end of May and the beginning of June, leaflets were distributed throughout all the student residences. UDBA sent a militia unit there. They raided and searched room by room, paper by paper.

"Like men, I also meditate." "Udbas" (Udba agent) is a derogatory, slang term for him, and he says, "There are class enemies who call us that." J. Drpić has two sons—Mladen and Ivan—whom he adores, and naturally, they adore him. He has faced many difficult situations in life, but the worst occurred during the Ranković era, when "The State Service was above society," and when the Zagreb UDBA "had nothing to do with it." Josip Drpić states, "I am not being modest if I say that this, the Zagreb State Security Center, also belonged to that circle of opposition against that system." Officials in Zagreb understood that "the task of our service, according to the law, was not the investigation of men, but the verification of testimonies." In his lawsuit of July 22, 1967, against the State, Viktor Vučić says: "Soon the abuse, in which Joza Drpić and Albert Kralj stood out in particular. "Because of Joza's blows, my jaw was fractured, and for a long time I couldn't eat." It is evident that the evidence could be fabricated in various ways and in accordance with the justice of a self-governing system and its directives. Therefore, all the members of Ranković's secret terrorist group in 1965, after Karadjordjevo, occupied the highest positions in the police, the courts, and the public prosecutor's office of the Socialist Republic of Croatia.

In 1965, the Zagreb UDBA (Department of Intelligence and Security) was completely taken aback by events. Political and police leaders in Zagreb and Belgrade increasingly voiced their discontent. The highest-ranking officers pressured their subordinates, who in turn pressured their secret agents. Everyone was required to provide information, and almost all of it was false, fabricated more out of fear than based on facts. All suspected individuals were arrested or placed under strict surveillance, and the "cases" kept recurring.

First, on May 8th Leaflets were dropped in Jelačić Square. The twentieth anniversary of the "liberation" of Zagreb was being celebrated that day. While speakers, adorned with the generals' medals and stars, took turns addressing the solemn platform, leaflets detailing the two-decade occupation began to fly over the platform, the flags, and the silent crowd gathered there.

UDBA (the Croatian Defense Unit) blocked a skyscraper from which the leaflets had been scattered, but was unable to arrest anyone. Consequently, some members of the "liberation" unit were imprisoned after copies of the leaflets were found in their possession. The illegals had calculated everything meticulously: the speed of the elevator in the skyscraper, security measures, intelligence gathering, and meeting points, which allowed them to disappear. The leaflets were later distributed throughout the city and surrounding areas; "Hrvatski Tjednik — The Croatian Weekly," mimeographed in a secret hiding place, was also distributed. the city. At the end of May and the beginning of June, leaflets were distributed throughout all the student residences. UDBA sent a militia unit there. They raided and searched room by room, paper by paper.

THE LAWSUIT OF ONE OF THE TORTURED

Vice Vukojević, a law student at the Faculty of Law of the University of Zagreb, filed the following lawsuit against the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - Republic of Croatia with the Zagreb District Court on January 13, 1967. Claiming compensation of 67,000 new dinars: I.

On June 5, 1965, at approximately 11:00 PM, on my way from the "Kozara" cinema to my home at 1 Zamenkova Street, I was kidnapped by three unknown women and brutally forced into a car on Nazor Street in Zagreb. They tied my hands behind my back, blindfolded me, and threw me onto the floor of the car, covering me with a blanket. After a long drive, I was taken to my place of captivity, where they untied my hands and removed my blindfold. There I saw two men, about 40 years old. One of them took all my belongings, and then they both left, locking the room.

Shortly afterward, a man of about the same age appeared, and I tried to protest and ask why I had been arrested. His reply was as follows: "Bandit, you're in UDBA's hands." I insisted on protesting the way I was being treated, and besides, I was completely innocent. He replied that I hadn't been arrested but kidnapped. Then he unleashed a barrage of insults and threats. He tied my hands behind my back and started beating me; he and others took turns, demanding information about some illegal organization and its leaflets. Considering that I knew nothing about it, I couldn't say anything.

But, nevertheless, they subjected me to this procedure for three consecutive days. After three days, with my hands tied and my eyes blindfolded, I was taken to a room under the roof of the same building. There they continued the torture, hanging me from the ceiling with my hands tied behind my back. In this position, they asked me various questions regarding the accusation and my responsibility for all the crimes against the people and the State. I was hung there for hours and days, while they suffocated me with a wet towel, beat me all over my body, and pulled at me. the hair, etc.

They often repeated that they would "LEGALIZE" me immediately if I signed the document or even just made a statement of interest to them; otherwise, I would be "LIQUIDATED." This torture continued for about thirty days after the kidnapping, and during all this time I barely slept or ate. I was very weak and several times I fell into agony, so I can't remember everything that happened to me, and I can't recount everything in detail. Right at the beginning of the torture, they told me they were going to take me to the state, with their tried-and-tested methods, where one is no longer in control of oneself because this way they can more easily manipulate their "patients."

One day I was transported to another prison and to the same conditions I had been subjected to at the time of the kidnapping. My hands were completely paralyzed; I was almost unconscious, unable to move on the prison floor. Occasionally a guard would come to give me something to eat, feeding me himself. After a few days... My hands became infected, so I was given medical attention, and the bandages were changed so I could be transferred on August 3, 1965, to another, unknown prison.

During all this time, I wasn't allowed to wash, change my clothes, shave, or cut my hair. It wasn't until August 10 that I was permitted to do so. On that date, the man in charge of me told me that I would be "LEGALIZED" that night, meaning that from that moment on, I would be recognized as legally arrested. In reality, that night I was transported to Zagreb in the same conditions I've already described—66 days after my abduction. I was placed in Petrinjska (Zagreb Central Prison) No. 18. Until August 11, I was never given any official notification regarding my pretrial detention or investigative imprisonment.

Testimony: Statement of the accused and, if negative, statement of Alberto Kralj, a SUP agent from Zagreb.

I was held in pretrial detention there until August 31, 1965, when Investigating Judge Z. Marković opened an investigation against me for the alleged acts pursuant to Articles 117, paragraph 1 and 117, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code.

In the rulings I received concerning my arrest, the opening of the investigation, and its extension, statements from witnesses I did not know were mentioned as testimony and as the basis for all of this. On several occasions, when my statements were taken, I requested to confront these witnesses, but this was never possible. I requested it because I was detained in jail without any justification, and the statements of the alleged witnesses were completely false.

In one ruling that extended my pretrial detention, it was stated that I belonged to an illegal HOP (Croatian Liberation Movement) organization. I didn't know any of them, nor was I aware of their existence. Furthermore, during the investigation, no one questioned me about it. On January 13, 1966, the Zagreb District Public Prosecutor's Office issued a written order suspending my pretrial detention.

In accordance with the provisions, Investigating Judge Z. Markovié, with his Resolution No. 712/65, did so. Even after my release, I was not free, because I had to appear before the investigating judge whenever he requested, despite my innocence. On June 22, 1966, the aforementioned judge suspended further investigations, justifying his decision by stating that "this court finds no grounds for further investigation, which serves as grounds for its suspension." Based on the foregoing, it is clear that I spent 222 days in jail illegally, unjustifiably, and without any basis, with the obligation to appear before the judge until June 22, 1966. In other words, from June 5, 1965, until June 22, 1966, I was not free, despite my innocence. Furthermore, it is true that no one, for three months, despite numerous requests and attempts before the Prosecutor's Office, the court, and UDBA, Zagreb, Zrinjevac No. 7, wanted to tell my brother Ferdinando (Veljaci, Vitina post office), my nephew Stanko Majić (VII Vrbik No. 37), and the owner of the house where I lived, Danica Blažević (Zamenhofova No. 1, Zagreb). They were told that I had escaped, even though I was in UDBA custody the entire time.

Testimony: See Resolution of the District Court in Zagreb, No. 712 65-16, and the statements of Ferdinando Vukojević, Stanko Majić, and Danica Blažeković.

II. In accordance with the enumeration of facts under Section I of this complaint, namely, the ill-treatment and torture inflicted upon me caused me psychological trauma and permanent physical injury. Furthermore, my unjustified imprisonment also caused me material losses, which are specified as follows:

1) Fear and pain suffered, amounting to 35,000 new dinars.

2) Permanent bodily injury and a reduction in my earning capacity, amounting to 20,000 new dinars.

3) Loss of a year of study, amounting to 12,000 new dinars. — (To be continued in the next volume).

Micro-news

In the latest volume, Nos. 58-59, of S. C., p. 184, and in this same column, we published a news item regarding the Pax Romana Congress, held last August in Lima, Peru.

Croatian-Argentine students also participated in the congress through their delegation. As we mentioned in our previous note, regarding the prevailing Marxist atmosphere at the Congress, the Croatian student delegates—Miss Maria Kolaković and Mr. Jorge Gadže—sent us a note along the following lines (among other things): "...while the information is correct, it does not specify our particular position... and could lead to misinterpretations of our participation. Our position on this matter was one of open opposition to the prevailing materialist-Marxist approach, emphasizing (...) that any change that is intended must begin with humanity itself, relocating it within the context of the Natural Order created by God and making it understand that the only true liberation is liberation from sin, the source of all evil and all injustice." At the request of our young friends, we are especially pleased to complete our previous information, which could "lead—as they say—to misinterpretations," harming their integrity as young Catholics, something that was far from our intention.

"Phytopathology," vol. In issue 65, No. 4/75, published by The American Phytopathological Society, St. Paul, Minnesota, a paper by E. W. Kitajima, Marcelo Bakarčić, and M. V. Fernández-Valiela was published concerning a particular plum disease, apparently caused by a new type of microorganism.

Without going into detail about the problem, we note this success of our compatriot Bakarčić, a phytopathologist at INTA, Campana, who, with this and other works, is among such prominent authorities in Phytopathology as E. W. Kitajima, director and professor of the Department of Cell Biology, University of Brasilia, and Mr. Fernández-Valiela, director of INTA, Campana, Argentina.

Pope Paul VI beatified the Croatian Capuchin friar Bogdan Mandić on May 2, 1976. Born in Herceg-Novi, Croatia, now part of Montenegro due to the occupation by the Serbian-communist regime, Father Mandić lived most of his life in Padua, Italy, always identifying as Croatian. A large Croatian delegation attended the solemn ceremony along with their bishops. Contradictory and unclear reports reached us regarding intrigues, both from Yugoslavia and certain Italian circles, aimed at concealing the Croatian origin of the new Blessed of Catholicism.

Salvador de Madariaga and Claudio Sánchez Albornóz returned to their native Spain after 40 years of exile. They are two outstanding figures in both Spanish and international public life. Diplomacy, literature, and historical scholarship are the fields of their remarkable achievements. Upon returning to his homeland, S. Madariaga declared that democracy is important, but freedom is far more so. Albornóz had two watches while in exile. One clock showed the time in Argentina, the other in Spain. All emigrants around the world congratulate them on their happy return, hoping—we Croatians too—that their exile will not last from the current thirty years to the forty of the illustrious Spanish returnees. Freedom, democracy, and justice should soon spread throughout the world.

-

At the end of May, Martin Heidegger, one of the greatest German philosophers of the 20th century and of the history of philosophy in general, died. The existentialist philosophical current, often corrupted by vulgarity, found its true and deepest meaning in Heidegger. Heidegger is considered the philosopher of Being, marking philosophical thought with a radical return to the sources and foundations of realist philosophy. 

Book review

Branko Franolić: L'influence de la langue française en Croatie d'après les mots empruntés

(pp. 160, Ed. Nouvelles Editiones Latines, Paris 1975.) Branko Franolić, a young Croatian scholar, philologist, and linguist, in the work mentioned above, reviews the influence of the French language in Croatia from the early Middle Ages to the present day. In fact, the book's title does not accurately reflect its content, as Franolić dedicates entire pages and chapters to Croatian writers and scientists who were inspired by French authors or who settled in France and contributed to French culture through their teachings and works. As early as the 8th century, there were direct relations and contacts between the Croats and the Franks, who dominated much of Croatia. From those early years, the influence of the Franks can be observed in the Croatian language, church architecture, and medieval writers. Most of the Crusaders crossed Croatian territory or their ships reached Croatian ports, leaving behind numerous traces. Later, the Angevin dynasty... He reigned for 80 years in Croatia (1301-1383).

Medical and religious books and medieval French novels were read in Croatia and are still preserved in several libraries today. Trade contacts were established. Several goldsmiths from Paris settled in Croatian cities, while French liturgical books have been used in the Diocese of Zagreb since its founding in 1094. In Dubrovnik stands the statue of Roland, a symbol of liberty, and boys from the Croatian coast often receive French names at baptism, such as Oliver, Tristan, Merlin, Renand, and Vivien. Ecclesiastical and religious relations between France and Croatia deepened during the 13th and 14th centuries with the arrival of Benedictines and Cistercians in Croatia. Furthermore, during this same period, the geographical circumstances and the commercial and cultural relations of Dalmatia with Venice and the Mediterranean world facilitated the spread of French literature throughout the region. Croatia.

This is reflected in the many words and terms borrowed from French.

In the chapter "Croatian Students in French Universities during the 14th, 15th, and 16th Centuries," B. Franolić mentions, among others, Hermanus Dalmata Slavus, who lived in Toledo and Toulouse in the 12th century and translated the Quran into Latin, as well as numerous Arabic treatises on philosophical and astronomical topics. In 1143, he published the philosophical work "De Essentiis" in Latin, in which he critically analyzed Aristotelian doctrine.

In the 13th century, the Dominican Augustine Kazotić, a native of Trogir who studied in France, was appointed Bishop of Zagreb in 1303. In 1318, the Hungarian-Croatian bishops entrusted him with a delicate diplomatic mission to Pope John XXII in Avignon to present their complaints against the abuses of the courtesans of the young King Charles Robert. D'Anjou. The most celebrated of the Croatian scholars in France was Georgius of Slavonia who studied at the Sorbonne and became a canon of the Tours cathedral, leaving behind numerous manuscripts and the work "Le Chateau de la virginité".

During the 15th and 17th centuries, there was considerable contact between Croatian scholars and humanists in France. The renowned printer Boninus de Boninis (Dobrić, 1454–1528) settled in Lyon and published several liturgical books. The works of celebrated Croatian Latinists are held in the National Library of France in Paris. Several Croatian humanists resided in France and published their works there. Two visual artists from Croatia also distinguished themselves: the sculptor Francisco Laurana and the celebrated miniaturist Giulio Clovio (KloviĆ). King Louis XII showered him with distinctions and honors. At the same time, several French artists—architects, sculptors, carvers, and cabinetmakers—worked in Dalmatia and contributed elements of Gothic and Renaissance art.

In the diplomatic field, Serafín Gucetić distinguished himself in the 16th century. Francis I, King of France, entrusted him with an important diplomatic mission to the Sultan's court. Meanwhile, the young Antun Vrančić, in the service of Juan Zapolia, was sent to the court of the French King Francis I, as was Tranquillus Andronicus (Andrijević), a native of Trogir, an ardent humanist who held significant diplomatic posts in Istanbul and at the royal courts of France, England, and Poland.

The work of the illustrious Croatian humanist Marko Marulić, *De Institutione bene beateque vivendi* (1561), published in Paris in 1583, was translated into several languages, including French in 1604. Racine also read this book in Port-Royal, and it was a favorite of Saint Francis Xavier. Faustus Vranćić, author of the first Croatian dictionary (1595), also wrote works of general interest in Latin. In 1617, his work *Homo volans* was translated into French. Likewise, Beno Kotruljević's book on maritime trade and double-entry bookkeeping was translated into French in 1613. The most prominent humanist from Ragus, Lampro Crijević (1463-1520), sent two verse epistles to Charles VII, conqueror of the Kingdom of Naples in 1493, glorifying the exploits of France and exhorting the king to release... The peoples oppressed by the Turks. Two great Croatian mathematicians, Marin Getaldić (1565-1627) and later Roger Bošković (1711-1787), the father of dynamic atomism, established close ties with French science. Bošković lived in Paris from 1773 to 1783 and was director of the Optics Department of the French Royal Navy.

During the Protestant Reformation, several Croatians, adherents of this movement, established contacts with their coreligionists in France, first and foremost Mathias Flaccius Illyricus, a great theologian, whose numerous works were published in France. Marc Antonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Split, upon renouncing the Catholic faith, was well received in England. He wrote treatises on physics that earned him great renown among scholars. He is considered a precursor of Newton and Descartes, and Newton cites him with praise in his Opticks.

A Following this, B. Franolić outlines Croatia's political and military relations with France from the 16th to the 18th centuries, referring to the ties between the French kings and the families of the Croatian nobles Frankopan and Zrinski, and their planned actions against the Ottomans and the Habsburgs. In the 17th and 18th centuries, several prominent Croatians fought in the French army. In 1643, a cavalry regiment composed of Croatian soldiers was formed under the name Royal Cravate, as at that time the Croatian name was pronounced "cravate" in France.

The first Masonic lodges, founded in Croatia, were of French origin and inspiration.

Cultural exchange was frequent. A. Banduri, a Byzantologist, was appointed to the French Academy in 1715, and the astronomer Luigi Nikolić was promoted to associate member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1746. Conversely, French poets and physicians settled in Croatia, such as Marc Bruere-Descriveaux and J. B. Lalangue.

Works by French writers were translated into Croatian, and theatrical contacts intensified, beginning with medieval liturgical plays. Molière enjoyed enormous success in Croatia, and some twenty of his plays were translated in Dubrovnik during the 18th century. The bourgeoisie, intellectuals, and nobles studied French. Consequently, many terms and words were borrowed from this language, either directly or indirectly, through Italian.

The French Revolution, with its Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and its commitment to fighting for the liberation of oppressed peoples, had a profound impact on Croatia.

The Napoleonic occupation encompassed much of Croatia and Slovenia (1805-1813), and a state was established under the name of the "Illyrian Provinces." This brief Napoleonic rule in Croatia contributed to the spread of the ideas of the French Revolution, a national awakening, the promotion of the vernacular language, and the construction of the road network.

It is worth noting that the modern organization of the administration and public services in Croatia dates back to the Napoleonic era. French was taught in secondary schools for the first time. From then on, Croatian writers and intellectuals became increasingly interested in French literature and the works of French genius. Political, cultural, and spiritual ties deepened. In 1848, Croatian Viceroy Josip Jelačić sent an emissary to Paris requesting French aid, and the Croatian revolutionary Eugène Kvaternik succeeded in interesting Emperor Napoleon III in Croatian independence. Prominent figures such as Bishop J. J. Strossmayer and the historian Rački corresponded in French with French politicians, writers, and scholars. Ante Starčević, the father of the nation and ideologue of Croatian state independence, was an ardent admirer of the ideas of the French Revolution, drawing inspiration from that nation's vast culture and always defending individual and national liberties. From the mid-19th century onward, Croatian writers drew heavily on French sources. The direct influence of French literature and civilization became increasingly evident, especially during the Modern era. Numerous words borrowed from French date from this period, and the direct influence of French on Croatian stylistics is noticeable.

Likewise, Croatian visual artists followed the innovations of the Parisian school with growing interest, and many studied in Paris.

After the First World War, numerous circles and associations of friends of France were founded, and the French Institute was established in Zagreb, playing a crucial role in disseminating the French language and culture in Croatia. In 1937, the Institute began publishing its annals, addressing and exploring various issues of common Croatian-French interest.

In this valuable historical-linguistic work, its author, Branko Franulić, a former professor at the Lycée Charlemagne in Paris, provides a comprehensive account of the profound linguistic, cultural, political, and historical ties between France and Croatia, as well as a certain spiritual affinity between these two Mediterranean peoples. Croatia, as this book demonstrates, despite its historical vicissitudes, has always been aligned with and identified with the Western world, and therefore its current struggle to achieve national independence, establish a democratic regime, and integrate into Western Europe must be understood.

Branko Kadić

N. Dinko Šuljak: Yugoslavia in Crisis — a background for understanding the instability of Yugoslavia

(Yugoslavia in Crisis — Background to Understanding the Instability of Yugoslavia), San Jose, California 1973, p. 52. (Offprint from "American Croat," a journal published by the Croatian American Congress of California, P.O. Box 3025, Arcadia, California).

The reason for this study by Dinko Šuljak, senior librarian at the Institute of Governmental Affairs at the University of California, is the sudden annihilation, in 1971, by Marshal Tito and his henchmen, of the liberalization process initiated during the preparation of the constitutional reform. The author's purpose is to demonstrate that the grievances of the past are the same ones now voiced by the same Croatian communists and members of the Communist Party in Croatia. These grievances of the Croats revolve around:

1) the privileged position of the Serbs, and

2) the economic exploitation of Croatia by Serbia.

After a very brief overview of Croatia's constitutional history, in its three main stages—four centuries under the Croatian kings, four centuries in personal union with Hungary, and almost four centuries under the Habsburg monarchy—the author addresses the "Yugoslav idea" as the primary source of discord due to the differing interpretations attributed to it by Croatian and Slovenian politicians of the 19th and 20th centuries on the one hand, and by Serbian politicians, especially Serbian Prime Minister Nikolai Pašić, on the other. Indeed, according to the testimony of Henry Wickham Steed, Pašić denied the representativeness of the Yugoslav Committee of the Slavs of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy because it was "his creation", as was also the Corfu Declaration of July 20, 1917, which is considered the cornerstone of the union between Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, signed - according to Pašić's own words - "for the purpose of impressing European public opinion". For these reasons, "Yugoslavia became, from the first day of its existence, a state of oppressed nations"—the author quotes Josip Broz Tito himself (Politički Izještaj CK, KPJ na V Kongresu K.P.J., vol. III, Belgrade, Kultura, 1950, pp. 146-7—"The Political Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia at the Fifth Congress of the C.P.Y.").

These same concepts found their full expression in the St. Vitus Constitution (so named because it was promulgated on June 28, 1921), voted on June 20, 1921, with an electoral law that greatly favored Serbia and violated previous agreements. The Croatian Peasant Party abstained from voting for these reasons, a fact the author fails to mention.

The centralism introduced by the aforementioned Constitution ensured the inevitable failure of the union. State power was held in the hands of the monarch, and executive power in the hands of the Serbs. "Yugoslavia has never been a democratic state. Free elections in the sense of Western democracies are unknown. Of the 35 governments, none fell in parliament," the author quotes from "The Times" of October 23, 1931, before presenting the murky panorama of Serbian-Croatian coexistence up to the Second World War, through the chapters: Elections - Economic Exploitation - Federalism versus Centralism - Assassination of Stjepan Radić and The Dictatorship of King Alexander.

In this final chapter, the author focuses particularly on the trial of Dr. Vladko Maček, president of the Croatian Peasant Party, on January 31, 1933, and again quotes "The Times" (London) of April 26, 1933, regarding Dr. Maček's statement that "the Croatian people wanted an independent Croatia, but he was doing everything in his power to resolve the situation within the state borders of Yugoslavia. If this is a crime," Dr. Maček concluded, "I am prepared to bear the consequences."

However, despite this, Croatian independence was not achieved until the global crisis that culminated in the Second World War. This was made possible by the Belgrade coup of March 27, 1941, directed not only against the foreign policy of the pro-German Serbian-Croatian coalition government (the Cvetković-Maćek government), but also against its domestic policy, specifically against the Serbian-Croatian Compromise of August 26, 1939, which resulted in the "Banate of Croatia"—an autonomous Croatian state within Yugoslavia.

The author rightly points out that Hitler "was not eager to destroy Yugoslavia" and that only after the Belgrade coup and the offenses committed on that occasion did he change his mind. Thus, the Croats found themselves in a favorable situation, similar to that of the Slovaks in March 1939, during the crisis and collapse of Czechoslovakia after the Munich "capitulation" of 1938. With a very brief reference to the struggle for the survival of the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945), the author concludes this chapter, entitled "Epilogue," by stating that the Croats lost the battles at the conferences in Tehran (December 2-7, 1943) and Yalta (February 7-12, 1944), when the Western Allies and the Soviet Union declared their support for Tito and the reunification of Yugoslavia.

The chapter "Croatia in the New Captivity" begins with the author noting that the Yugoslav Communist Party considered Yugoslavia in 1925 to be "the prison of the peoples," and therefore believed it should be divided into six or more Danubian or Balkan Soviet republics. In 1934, however, under Serbian influence, the YCP adopted a policy of destroying Yugoslavia as a bourgeois state, forming Yugoslavia as a federal community of peoples, since the monarchy had been the exponent of Greater Serbian hegemony and the oppression of the people.

"He (King Alexander) introduced the regime of terror and oppression in Croatia..." —the author quotes Tito himself on the occasion of the second session of the Anti-Fascist Council for the Liberation of the People in Jajce, on November 29, 1943. However, a new form of Serbian hegemony was generated, under the guise of Marxist socialism, carrying out a campaign against the Croats, under the triple accusation: "traitors", those who supported the Independent State of Croatia; "counter-revolutionaries", those who opposed the centralized Serbian-communist domination in Belgrade; and "reactionaries", those who advocated for the right of self-determination for Croatia.

After briefly outlining the political, economic, and cultural aspects, and their gradual transformation toward a degree of liberalization, the author severely criticizes Tito's reversal of this process in December 1971, which culminated in the removal of the Croatian-Communist leadership, and concludes:

"Croatia once again became an occupied province of Tito's Yugoslavia. Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Yugoslavia, is the symbol of bureaucratic arbitrariness and state hegemony in a federalist form. The world pays attention only to what is said about Belgrade, while the rest of the country remains silent and suffers. But for how long?" And, quoting Alexis de Tocqueville, he concludes: "A political system that sustains itself solely by alienating its people and undermining its legitimacy is a political system without a future."

"A political system that sustains itself only by alienating its people and undermining its legitimacy is a political system without a future." The extent to which this conceptual study by Dr. D. Šuljak is documented is demonstrated by the 134 references to reliable sources in the political-historical field, such as, for example, the works of Henry Wickham Steed ("Through Thirty Years — 1892-1922, a personal narrative", 1924), Vladko Maček ("In the Struggle for Freedom", 1957), Vladimir Radić ("Zloćin od 20 Lipnja i Medjunarodna štarnpa" — The Crime of June 20 and the International Press", Paris 1931), Branko Pešelj ("Serbo-Croatian Agreement of 1939 and American Foreign Policy" in Journal of Croatian Studies, 1970/71, New York), Rudolf Bićanić ("Ekonomska Podloga Hrvatskog Pitanja — The Economic Basis of the Question" Croatian,” Split 1938) and “The Times” (London) from July 20, 1921, to April 26, 1933, among other books and newspapers.

In short, this work makes a genuine contribution to understanding an unstable situation in a politically sensitive part of Europe.

Milan Blažeković

C. Michael McAdams: White Paper on Dr. Andrija Artuković

— Report on Dr. Andrija Artuković — Croatian Information Series 4/71 — Croatian Information Service, P.O. Box 3025, Arcadia, CA 91006.

Following the decision by a female member of the United States Congress on May 20, 1974, to request the deportation of the "accused war criminal" A. Artuković, his case has been revisited on numerous occasions in the American print and electronic media, as well as in pamphlets published by the Yugoslav Information Center in New York.

The author of the "White Paper," or report, on A. Artuković poses the key questions surrounding this entire process, which has unfolded since Dr. Artuković's arrival in the United States in 1948 to the present day. He provides documented answers from a wide variety of sources that prove Artuković's innocence regarding the charges brought against him by Tito's communist government and its henchmen disguised as diplomats, journalists, and so on, in the United States.

From his birth in 1899, the independence of Croatia from any form of external domination was the guiding principle of the life of Dr. A. Artuković, a lawyer. He preached his patriotic ideals in school, at university, and in the Royal Yugoslav Army, which, like the Yugoslav monarchy, was created at the end of World War I to place the Croatian people under Serbian rule.

After a Croatian peasant rebellion against King Alexander's dictatorship, Dr. Artuković was forced to flee his homeland to avoid falling into the hands of the Serbian dictator, who had ordered the mass arrest of all Croatian leaders.

When King Alexander was assassinated in Marseille in 1934, Artuković was in London. His visa expired, and he was taken to France, from where he was deported to Serbia, even though the French authorities found no connection between Artuković and the assassination. His arrest became a topic of international press coverage, and Croatian organizations of all political persuasions called for his release. After being imprisoned for 19 months without any charges being filed against him, he was released after a three-day "trial" conducted by the "Court for the Protection of the State." Informed that his release was a prelude to his assassination, he fled abroad once again.

In 1936, Artuković and other Croatian leaders were imprisoned in Berlin for being considered detrimental to friendly relations between Germany and Yugoslavia. In 1938, when he was placed under house arrest, he fled to Belgium to escape the Gestapo.

In 1941, when Croatia declared its independence, he returned to his homeland and was appointed Minister of the Interior (April 16, 1941, to October 10, 1942), Minister of Justice until mid-1943, and from then until the end of the war, he was in charge of the state legal archives.

When Tito occupied Croatia in 1945 and made it part of the "Federal Republic of the Peoples of Yugoslavia," Artuković and thousands of other patriots were declared "war criminals." Artuković escaped again. In Switzerland, he obtained a visa under the name "Alois Anich"; then he went to Ireland and finally... In 1948, he entered the United States. After staying there for six months, he applied for a visa extension as "Dr. A. Artuković alias Alois Anich."

Three years later, in 1952, the McCarren-Walter Immigration Act prohibited the deportation of anyone solely for having entered the country under a false name to avoid persecution.

In 1951, Artuković was arrested by American authorities at the request of Tito's government for extradition. The legal process lasted from 1951 to 1958. American courts, including the Supreme Court, refused to grant the extradition request.

What crimes was Dr. Artuković accused of? On September 29, 1951, the Yugoslav Consul General accused him under oath of "participation in the murder" of 22 people, stating that a court in Yugoslavia had issued a warrant for his arrest. On October 15, 1951, the Yugoslav government amended its accusation, now charging him with "participation in 1,293 murders."

The author clearly distinguishes the various aspects that constitute the essence not only of the Artuković case but of all cases of innocent people who, throughout the decades, have been victims of persecution by communist dictatorships that, for this purpose, exploit freedom of opinion, legal processes, and institutions characteristic of Western democratic constitutional systems.

The American Immigration Service, undoubtedly influenced by Tito's henchmen who represent him in the United States, decided to request Artuković's extradition based on a technicality that he himself had previously rejected. Thus, for example, Artuković's extradition was requested in May 1951 for having entered the United States under the name Alois Anich, when more than two years earlier, in March 1949, the same department had been aware of this fact and, moreover, had granted him a visa extension under his real name. In requesting extradition, the Yugoslav consul lied and perjured himself before the American justice system, as it was immediately proven that, at the time of the accusation, no arrest warrant existed from any Yugoslav court, as he asserted. The Yugoslav request was fabricated after Artukovié's arrest at the consul's behest, as confirmed by the documented dates in the case files. The Yugoslav consul invoked his diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecution.

The prosecution presented three witnesses whose testimony was so irrelevant, and completely undocumented, that it doesn't even appear in the record submitted by the Immigration Department to the court.

For several years, the most diverse sources were searched to substantiate the accusation of "war criminal" made by the dictator Tito. The Nuremberg trials, the books of historians from various countries, and even Yugoslav communist documentation itself offered absolutely no evidence that could tarnish Dr. Artuković's spotless record throughout his life. The conclusion was, and always remains, the same: his dream and fight for the independence of his homeland, Croatia. This was, and is, the only "crime" of Dr. Artuković and of so many others who fight for the freedom of humankind and nations enslaved by communist dictatorship.

Weighing the evidence presented in the Artuković case, all observers will arrive at the same conclusion as the American courts: "There is absolutely no cause to believe that Dr. Artuković is guilty of the crimes of which he is accused."

The author asks: why are so many people calling for his extradition?

First of all, those making the request are few: a member of Congress, a radical left-wing organization, and some journalists. They are few, but vocal. The campaigns of these same individuals are diverse and have included Watergate, Vietnam, and so on. We might venture to say that they do it for self-promotion, out of ignorance, for a price, or perhaps with conscious bad faith. But ultimately, Dr. Artuković, like thousands of other Croats, has only one accuser, judge, and executioner: Josip Broz Tito. After having executed thousands of Croats (the book provides detailed information on this subject), Tito continues to arrest and persecute, both within and outside Yugoslavia, anyone who raises their voice against his communist dictatorship. The oppressed must be "protected" against anti-state elements like Artuković, Solzhenitsyn, and so many others.

In the United States, specifically, Tito needed to keep alive the myth that proclaimed him a "freedom fighter" and his regime as "enlightened communism."

His success in this regard cannot be denied. Thus, in 1974, the American Congress voted two million dollars specifically to maintain his yacht; while receiving American aid, Tito provided bases to Russia during the Yom Kippur War, regularly voted against the United States at the United Nations, and freely and openly spread his communist and anti-American lies and falsehoods in Mexico and Panama.

How can we explain that at the very moment Tito was supplying weapons and ammunition to the Palestinian Liberation Front and receiving Yasser Arafat in Belgrade, an American Jewish organization was requesting the extradition of the "criminal" Artuković? The constant cries of attention from the victims and the persecuted, including Stepinac, Artuković, Mihajlov, Solzhenitsyn, and thousands of others, regarding the conditions prevailing in the "red paradise" and the communist determination to destroy every vestige of freedom wherever it may be found, seem to echo in the empty spaces of the buildings representing constitutional democratic institutions. Their occupants, those who guide Western policy, are not there; they have gone in search of détente, or perhaps they are pursuing "war criminals." "Certainly, they are not seeking to confront... Tito, the USSR, or even the truth."

As expected, the author, a young American historian, has included 49 bibliographical notes in his work, along with five documentary appendices. Of particular note are the list of Croatian ministers executed by the Yugoslav communists and the minutes of July 29, 1955, submitted by U.S. Congressman James B. Utt to the congressional archives regarding the persecution of Dr. Andrija Artuković.

It is understood that Mr. C. Michael McAdams's report, being brief, clear, and meticulously documented, had already had a positive effect on the very people involved in the final persecution of Dr. Andrija Artuković in the U.S. Congress, who had also motivated its author to write it. Undoubtedly, this is a well-written book at an opportune moment!

Mladen Rojnica

Čović Marko: Nejugoslavenska Jugoslavija i Hrvati

(Non-Yugoslav Yugoslavia and the Croats). Ed. Knjižnica Hrvatske Revije (Library of the Croatian Review), München - Barcelona, 1975, pp. 445.

"Foreigners often ask me: Why are you against Yugoslavia? The opposition to and struggle against communist regimes in many states behind the Iron Curtain is well known and understandable. But why are you against the state of Yugoslavia itself? Why are you against any constitutional form of Yugoslavia? How can a 'Yugoslav' take a position contrary to his state, to his country?" With these words, the author introduces us to the central theme of his book: The great lie of the state that bears the name "Yugoslavia," that is, the State of the South Slavs. In more than four hundred pages, the author vehemently denounces this lie and the resulting injustices, trying to awaken consciences and correct these centuries-old errors. That is why he titles his book: "The Non-Yugoslav Yugoslavia," that is, the non-existent Yugoslavia as a multinational, confederated, and democratic state. With numerous insightful historical analyses and original observations, Čović presents the evolution of the idea of the State of Yugoslavia, the realization of the first Yugoslavia, monarchical, and the second, communist, demonstrates in both cases such divergences between its principal founders, the Croats and the Serbs, that the existence of this artificial state is impossible. This is because the idealistic and unrealistic concept of a confederate state of all South Slavs, conceived by the Croatian bishop Strossmayer, a famous orator at the Vatican Council of 1869-70, and later put into practice by the prominent Croatian politician Ante Trumbić during the First World War, has never been accepted by the Serbs. They have shown from the outset that they are genuinely opposed to any state in which they would have to share power with other confederated nations. However, thanks to their more favorable position, especially in 1918 (alongside the victors!), they grasped from the very inception of the Yugoslav idea, devised by some Croatian politicians, that this concept would lend itself to easy implementation, without risk. And without any sacrifice for them, the dream of a "Greater Serbia."

Thus, based on deception, taking advantage of and abusing its privileged position as an ally of the victors in the First World War, realist Serbia soon usurped totalitarian power within the new state, proceeding with a systematic persecution aimed at total annihilation—political, economic, cultural, and ethnic—of the other constituent nations of the new state: the Macedonians, the Albanians, to some extent the Slovenes, and particularly the Croats.

When Yugoslavia collapsed in 1941, as a consequence of its artificial structure and the struggle of the Croats and other peoples to obtain their freedom, the ancient state of Croatia was reborn. Unfortunately, since the Allies did not accept Yugoslavia's defeat, it was resurrected at the end of the Second World War, this time under the leadership of the Yugoslav Communist Party. To the great lie of Yugoslavia is now added the great lie of communism. international. And so the Yugoslavia of the Serbian kings transformed into a republic, the Union of the "People's Republics" of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, etc. At last, the Yugoslav idea seemed to have been realized, affirmed, and justified. But none of this was true.

The Serbs, with their dominant position in the Communist Party, continued the same totalitarian policy, with even greater fervor and refinement. A policy of ethnic and economic extermination of the Croats was now being planned, a policy already initiated in the first Yugoslavia and solidified in 1945 with the massacre of three hundred thousand Croatian soldiers and two hundred thousand Croatian civilians at the end of World War II.

This policy reached such proportions that even the main Croatian communist leaders joined the Croatian national movement for state independence, culminating in the events of 1972, known as the "Croatian Spring." Although this movement did not yield concrete political results, its significance is enormous, as it marks the date of the total collapse of the Yugoslav utopia. From that date forward, every Croat was convinced that the survival, development, and political, cultural, and economic affirmation of Croatia were only possible in its independent state.

This, in short, is the content of Marko Čović's book. Its particular value and originality lie in the way this broad and complex material is presented. Čović is not writing a history, nor a political study, nor his memoirs. His book consists of a series of reflections, analyses, and comparisons that emerge in light of personal memories, expressed in his rich and eloquent style. Čović is a talented Croatian writer who, in this book, has poured the full force of his personality into the political ideas of our generation, ideas that resonate with the Croatian people, determined and united today on the path to their liberation and independence.

It is hoped that a summary of this book, given its timely themes and the issues it raises—issues that are not always correctly interpreted and understood abroad, as the author himself points out in the introduction—will be translated into other languages.

Radovan Latković

Magazines and books received

The S.C. Editorial Staff has received the following:

JOURNALS:

Revue des Études Sud-Europeennes, from the Romanian Academy of Bucharest, Volume XIII — 1975, Nos. 2, 3, and 4.

Revista de Ciencias Sociales, Nos. 3-4 of 1975, from the University of Puerto Rico;

Zeitschrift für Kulturaustausch, Stuttgart, No. 1 of 1976;

Vita e pensiero, Year LVIII, No. 6 of 1975, Milan;

Wissenschaftlieher Dienst Südoseuropa, No. 4 of 1976, Munich, Germany;

Meddobje (Entresiglo) No. 4 of 1975, Buenos Aires, in Slovenian.

BOOKS:

Historia 11 (1972-73) from the Institute of History, Catholic University of Chile;

M. Ivelić-Gaspar Galaz, "Painting in Chile," Santiago, 1975, p. 233;

Cecil Parrott, "The Tightrope," London, 1975, p. 223;

Ivo Omrčanin, Zagreb, Croatian Spring, p. 251, Philadelphia, 1976.

________________________________________

* Mr. R. O. Abdala is one of Argentina's most highly regarded contemporary commentators and a frequent contributor to "La Prensa," an internationally renowned Argentine newspaper, as well as to "El Observador" and others.

While this text is not intended as an introduction to the ideas that other contributors dedicate to the American bicentennial in this volume of S C., we give it this prominent place, hoping that neither genuinely liberal ideas nor the United States, their principal driving force, will disappoint humanity.

[1] Count Hermann Keyserling: The Emergence of a New World, Stuttgart, 1930. See especially the title: The Ideal Animal, pp. 153-187.

[2] "If you ask a cultured European what he thinks of when he hears the word 'man,' three completely irreconcilable circles of ideas will begin to compete in his mind." The author refers to the Judeo-Christian faith, the rationalism of classical antiquity, and the ideas forged "by modern natural science. (...) "If one considers... that the three circles of ideas are today severely fractured, it can be said that at no time in history has man been as problematic as he is today." See Max Scheler: Man's Place in the Cosmos, Buenos Aires, 1943, pp. 25, 26).

[3] A. J. Toynbee: Op. cit., p. 114.

[4] A. Siegfried: The United States of Today, cited by: H. Massis: "The West and Its Destiny," Paris, 1956, p. 20.

[5] H. Massis, Op. cit., pp. 20, 21.

[6] H. Marcuse: The End of Utopia, Neuchâtel, 1968, p. 45.

[7] Quoted according to H. Massis, op. cit., p. 19.

[8] Luis Diez del Corral: The Partition of Europe, Madrid, 1954, pp. 271, 272.

[9] A. J. Toynbee, op. cit., p. 110.

[10] In the "Kleine Zeitung" (Austria), March 27, 1976. This refers to the conversation between Djilas and the German journalist Carl Gustav Strohm.

[11] K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works, in two volumes, Moscow, 1851, Book I, p. 338.

[12] Ibid., p. 3.

[13] What is mentioned in several editions.

[14] "Political Economy," textbook. An original edition of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, XX Institute of Economics, German translation, Düsseldorf edition, 1955, p. 125.

[15] "Works of Lenin, Russian edition, p. 265, Book 4.

[16] Ibid., Book 5, p. 386.

[17] Ibid., Book 2, p. 338.

[18] Ibid., Book 15, pp. 129-30.

[19] The document is in the author's possession.

* Professor Ernesto Livačić, a distinguished educator of first-generation Croatian descent, Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Education, is currently Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Aesthetics, History, and Letters at the Pontifical Catholic University in Santiago, Chile.

** Dr. R. E. Šcarpa is a descendant of an old and numerous Croatian family from the island of Hvar, many of whose members distinguished themselves as dedicated Croatian public servants. For example, the Monsignor Vicente Šcarpa, canon of the Šibenik Cathedral Church, was a distinguished theologian and philologist. In addition to the social works and organizations of the Benevolent Society he presided over, he also edited a book of proverbs, a veritable vademecum of popular wisdom, and contributed to the great Dictionary of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Zagreb.

Don Pedro Škarpa, another great-uncle of Dr. Roque, was an eminent educator and director of a model school in the impoverished Dolac neighborhood of Šibenik, achieving brilliant results among the peasants, fishermen, and laborers of that Croatian city. Many of his students have distinguished themselves in Croatian public life: Father Dr. Ivan Guberina, a historian murdered by Tito; Dr. P. Guberina, an internationally renowned linguist; Dr. A. Nikolić, a jurist and writer hanged by Tito; Professor V. Nikolić, currently in exile and editor of the Croatian Journal (Hrvatska Revija), which recently published its 100th issue; and also the Franciscan friar Gaspar Bujas, a poet and a true apostle of the poor.

A cousin of Dr. Roque Esteban, Dr. Cvite Škarpa, a poet, essayist, and sculptor, held the chair at the College of Humanities of the Archdiocese of Zagreb until Tito's communists seized Croatia and orchestrated the "most tragic trial" against Archbishop and Cardinal Luigi Stepinac, "a living image of the Good Shepherd," as Pope John XXIII noted. Currently, a young Škarpa, Father Jorge, is the parish priest on his native island of Hvar—the "Madeira of the Adriatic"—and cradle of ancient Western civilization. Dr. R. Esteban Škarpa brought it from there in his parents' blood and transplanted it to the Republic of Chile, the geographical extreme of the Western world. — (P. W.)