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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 111-3-83
TITLE:             Bulgrade "Komunist" Accuses Russians and Poles of Setraying Socialism
BY:                Slobodan Stankovic
DATE:              1968-9-16
COUNTRY:           (n/a)
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  Information media

--- Begin ---

RADIO FREE EUROPE Research

COMMUNIST AREA

YUGO/31

Yugoslavia:
Information media

YUGO/31

16 September 1958

BELGRADE "KOMUNIST" ACCUSES RUSSIANS AND POLES
OF BETRAYING SOCIALISM

Summary: The latest issue of the Yugoslav
Central Committee weekly Komunist carried
several articles attacking the Soviet Union
and its satellites, especially Poland, for
having occupied Czechoslovakia. The Soviet
leaders, rather than the Soviet people,
were attacked for mistakes they have
committed, while an article in Trybuna Ludu
is said to have falsified the real facts
about the situation in Czechoslovakia and
in Yugoslavia. Socialism does not mean that
people must live like prisoners. Proletarian
internationalism is detrimental to the cause
of socialism when it becomes the monopoly of
a sole state and Party.

Yugoslav Communists have nothing against the Soviet Union
and Soviet people in general, but rather against "the Soviet leaders,
who have committed a mistake" by occupying Czechoslovakia, a top
Yugoslav Party theoretician recently said. Writing in the latest
issue of the Yugoslav Central Committee weekly Komunist, Vlajko
Begovic emphasized that the Russians and their four satellites
had invented "West German invasion plans" and "counterrevolutionary
danger" in Czechoslovakia in order to impose their conservative
and regressive views on the progressive Czechoslovak leaders headed
by Dubcek. How could one otherwise explain the strange fact that

[page 2]

"after the occupiers entered Czechoslovakia they did not hurry
to reach [Czechoslovakia's] Western borders, they did not search
for counterrevolutionaries, but the first thing they did was to
suppress the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak CP, the 
government, the National Assembly, the Presidency, radio television and
the editorial boards of the newspapers."[1]

Why are the Russians so frightened by the democratization
which had started to take place in Czechoslovakia? The Slovenian
writer Misko Kranjec[*] answered this question in the same issue
of Komunist with the suggestion that there are too many unsolved
problems in the Soviet Union itself. One of the most important
among these problems is the nationalities question. Said Kranjec:

Not even now has the Soviet Union succeeded in
solving the nationalities problem; even today the
Eastern socialist countries are divided among 
themselves with highly guarded frontiers, while people's
freedom of movement, is -- at least in some cases and
not to a small extent -- extremely restricted. Of
course, this is the problem of these countries 
themselves. But where does the freedom of socialist man
actually lie if he is hampered in expressing his
free will? What does he have from so-called 
"proletarian internationalism" if his national ambitions
and rights are not permitted?

In the same issue of Komunist an editorial was published
sharply attacking an August 31 article in the Polish Party organ
Trybuna Ludu, The fact that this article was reproduced in the
press of the other countries taking part in the invasion of
Czechoslovakia is yet. another piece of evidence for the editorial
board of Komunist that all five countries share Trybuna Ludu's
opinion. It is a fact, the Yugoslav CC organ said, that the
authors of the article in Trybuna Ludu "have falsified basic facts
concerning the essence and character of the events in Czechoslovakia."
Even more shocking is the fact that the Polish leaders have invented
a completely new formula for a country's independence and sovereignty
"In socialism sovereignty means freedom in selecting one's own road,"
the Yugoslav Party weekly said. "In all documents ratified by the
Communist movement, including the Polish, the thesis of various
roads to socialism has been confirmed; this means that socialist
countries and their Parties have the right to choose the road which
best suits their historical situation." In other words, by occupying
Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, East Germany and
Bulgaria "have violated the principle of sovereignty." In this way

--------------

(1) Komunist, Belgrade, 12 September 1968. (The "present Soviet
leaders" were also criticized by General Bosko Siljegovic at
the September 12 Plenum of the Bosnian Central Committee in
Sarajevo. According to the Belgrade evening paper Vecernje
novosti of 13 September 1968, Siljegovic said "the bureaucrats"
dominated Soviet society.)

+ [mish-ko kra-nyets].

[page 3]

it has been demonstrated that "no solemn declarations, statements
and obligations, still less the principles of independence and
equality of peoples and states, as well as the norms of
international law, give any sufficient guarantee" to small nations,
Komunist said.

Trybuna Ludu is accused of claiming that "in socialist
countries and their parties, nationalism has been implanted
(certainly by the imperialists!) along with 'national Communism'
and 'sovereignty conceived in an abstract manner.'" here, the
Yugoslav CC weekly added, "actually appears the fear of national
freedom and independence of the people as taught by Lenin." The
Poles do not understand the difficulty of the position into which
they have put Western Communists, especially the Italians, Said
Komunist:

They [the Italians] have come to the conclusion
that the invasion of Czechoslovakia compelled them to
face two extreme alternatives: either to accept in
advance any crude American intervention if they [the
Italians] were to assume power by democratic means --
which means abandoning such a struggle in advance --
or passively to wait to play the role allotted to them
by the Soviet bloc were the latter to succeed in
extending territorially toward the West.

Komunist especially attacked Trybuna Ludu for recognizing the
existence of the "spheres of influence'1 of the two supreme powers.
But this is exactly the reason, the Yugoslav paper said, why 
Yugoslavia has decided to accept the policy of non-alignment. On the
other hand, the Yugoslavs have remained loyal to socialism because
they know that "it cannot be restricted to any national boundaries,
including those of the Bloc." The Yugoslavs will fight for their
freedom and independence because they do not allow anyone to "darken
their horizons."

This idea is even better articulated by Kranjec, who said
The world cannot accept the idea that socialism
means a prison. For socialism is not only a question
of daily bread but also the problem of man's freedom,
his liberation from chains of any sort.

Proletarian internationalism has meaning, Kranjec added, only
in the case when people do not exploit each other. "If, however,
it turns into the monopoly of a sole state, which is sufficiently
strong to rush arbitrarily with its bayonets to help the suppressed
proletariat, then more harmful than beneficial consequences must
appear." Kranjec is of the opinion that the East Germans, Hungarians,
Bulgarians, Czechoslovaks, Rumanians and Poles have constructed
socialism in their countries according to their national possibilities.

[page 4]

The Soviet Union, which they "have supported for the past 20
years," had approved this construction as being in accordance
with Moscow's views. However, it now appears that "the Soviet
Union cannot recognize any other road to socialism except its
own; that it cannot accept an independent way of thinking; and
that democratic socialism has been absolutely alien to the
Soviet Union."

Slobodan Stankovic

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