THE COMMIES AREN’T SO sizzling, AT THAT

THE COMMIES AREN’T SO hot, AT THAT

Yugoslavia is the one location where a non-Communist can watch a Communist state at work. despite the delusion of ruthless, regimented crimson efficiency, Tito’s dictatorship is a bureaucratic mess. but its thirty-two divisions will fight Russia in the event that they must

BLAIR FRASER

MACLEAN’S OTTAWA EDITOR

BELGRADE

YUGOSLAVIA isn't a happy nation, but it does indicate one cheering reflection. If other Communist nations are in anything just like the mess that Communism has product of Yugoslavia, we needn’t be reasonably so alarmed by way of the Russians.

It wouldn’t do to elevate that complacency too a ways, of direction. Most Western observers in Belgrade cost Yugoslavia our strongest defense force ally in Europe, for the second as a minimumâ€"thirty-two divisions below palms, and a battle record that proves the Yugoslav will to battle. Russia turned into our strongest armed forces ally in opposition t Hitler, too. It became clever to support Communist Russia with Lend-lease and Mutual aid; it could be shrewd now to help Communist Yugoslavia, for a similar strictly armed forces factors.

We needn’t let that mar our pride as we consider Communism At Work. Yugoslavia is the most effective Communist nation yet to emerge from in the back of the Iron Curtain, the simplest Communist country Westerners are capable of check. It takes

very little examination to reveal that Communism doesn't, in fact, work very neatly.

Communism in Yugoslavia has created essentially the most appalling inefficiency. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can also be treated as a count of pursuits. everything, from getting a job to purchasing a loaf of bread, is an advanced bureaucratic operation.

The day earlier than I left Belgrade a pal of mine spent three solid hours on the financial institution and yet all he had to do turned into cash two cheques. It took two senior guysâ€"the hotel manager and his assistant â€"half an hour to calculate the quantity of my hotel invoice. Yugoslavia’s managed forex is of a number of varieties for a lot of uses and it takes an Einstein to figure out which is which.

Yugoslavia is trying to entice travelers and encouraging them to convey their cars. in one well-known and historic vacationer resort, split on the Dalmation coast, the handiest fuel pump in town these days stood empty for more than a week.

“I notified the authorities eight days ago I had

no gasoline,” the attendant defined, “but up to now I even have had no reply.”

A British engineering company has taken on the job of developing a latest lengthy-distance mobile system in Yugoslavia. one of the most enterprise’s properly men went to Belgrade remaining January to peer what the job required. He asked if constructions were available for the relay stations.

“sure, they're all equipped,” turned into the reply.

When his engineers arrived a month later they were told, “well, one constructing is in a position. The others should be completed in ten or fifteen days.”

I met one of the engineers in Belgrade the day he again from an inspection go back and forth. He fourd the buildings still missing flooring, home windows and in some instances ingredients of the roof, however he concept there was a chance they might be in a position by means of July.

Of course that isn't wholly Communismâ€"a few of it is simply simple Balkan. The Serbian be aware sutra (“tomorrow”) has at all times had the equal connotation as manana in Spanish. but there's numerous

evidence that Communism has grossly aggravated this country wide tendency, and would create impediments whether or not they existed or not.

“that you may’t get things done during this country since you can’t get a decision from any one,” my engineer chum defined. “Even the most trivial choices need to go the entire method to the appropriate, to the person we’d call the deputy minister.

“often I actually have cautioned a certain course of motion; the man I take care of could be afraid to claim yes or no. The question could be referred up and up and up unless it bought to the deputy. Then he’d relay it lower back down through all of the identical levels, back to me once moreâ€"for my tips! So in my legitimate skill as technical adviser i might propose in desire of it. Up the suggestion goes once more, through all of the identical steps and channels. Then the deputy makes his decision. He says ‘No.’ So we start in every single place again.”

just throughout the river from Belgrade (you circulate it on the way to the airport) is a perfect illustration of Communist refusal to settle for technical suggestions from the decadent capitalists. It’s the superb project of recent Belgrade, the model metropolis of executive places of work and luxury flats that changed into to be a monument of the Tito regime. it is, in a method.

“subsequent year, All may be improved”

every overseas engineer who regarded on the website warned them now not to construct thereâ€"it’s moist sand, very nearly a quicksand. Communist planners knew improved. they had the skeleton of the main building achieved earlier than the foundations began to settle, causing floors to crack and walls to buckle. for 2 years now the skeleton has been standing there empty and forlorn, a mute reminder that Marxism is not adequate. Even now, Communists will now not admit that the undertaking is deserted; certainly, if you're a stranger they still element it out with obvious pride as a constructing “under building.”

devoid of revealing I knew the history of the scheme I said to a Communist official, “I don’t see any workmen on the job.”

“maybe they're working internal the constructing,” he spoke of.

That became a fairly common illustration of Communist propaganda. He clearly didn’t recognize I knew no work had been done on the constructing since 1949.

We had been on our option to check up on a collective farm, the place the equal propaganda method became employed. This one is a big fantastic challenge on the village of Dobranovci, only fifteen miles from Belgrade. Villagers of Dobranovci might also neatly thank God for travelling firemen, for theirs is the “press farm,” the one to which all itinerant reporters are taken. It has more than 5 thousand acres, seven tractors, a number of combines and reapers, four hundred and eighty-two horses, sixty-5 milch cows, a modern hatchery which this year will produce eight thousand chickens, and a great irrigation device for its vegetable patch. It additionally has a membership of ninety-5 % of the village.

The Yugoslav suggestions officer publications you around this plushy establishment with elaborate deprecation. it's, he explains, very primitive: see, the wheelwright is cutting out spokes by hand, with a hatchet. Plowshares are still made by way of hand at the forge. next yr all this should be a great deal stronger, however unluckily, we can't have every thing. Yugoslavia suffered such damage in the conflict.

The tourist is anticipated to trust all this and to accept Dobranovci as a regular collective farm. next day I talked to a foreign observer who has traveled hundreds of miles by means of jeep in the course of the farms and villages of Yugoslavia, who is aware of the language and the country as few foreigners do. I requested him what a regular collective farm can be like.

“To start with, it wouldn’t have anything else comprehensive,” he referred to. “About all there is to the commonplace collective farm is the administration building and community centre. They all started 4 thousand of these right through the country. i would wager that they’ve accomplished about sixty, maybe 100.

“This usual farm would have someplace between forty and sixty p.c of the village enrolled as participants. The rest would nevertheless be making an attempt to

stick with it as private farmers. sadly the membership in any collective farm is continually the bottom half of the village, no longer the correct half.

“They’re all began by means of ‘promotion teams’ sert out from Belgrade to drum up the conception. Naturally the primary individuals to be a part of are the down-and-outs whose farms aren't any first rate. They’ve nothing to lose; why shouldn’t they be a part of

“When the promotion team gets twenty or thirty p.c of the village families signed up the collective farm is organized. Then the pressure goes on to bring in the relaxation of the farmersâ€"and it’s very tough power.”

A member of the Politburo had advised me it

was all "strictly voluntary." What type of power

turned into used?

“in this nation every farmer has to bring a undeniable quota of grain to the state. That offers the state a awful weapon. Say a man’s farm can produce seven-hundred kilograms of wheat. The state places him down for a quota of 9 hundred kilos. Come harvest time he has to exit and purchase the other 200 kilos on the black market, at a price ten instances what the government can pay him. otherwise he goes to detention center for failure to satisfy his quota. Orâ€"he joins the collective, and all is forgiven.

“under that variety

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of coercion n decent lots of the improved farmers do be part of, notwithstanding they’re no longer such first rate farmers on a collective farm as on their personal. but you’d be stunned, in pretty much every village you discover a tough core of cussed Serbs who will now not sign in. They’ll go to penal complex first. some of them are in penitentiary, actually.”

was this just pure Serbian obstinacy?

‘‘not altogether. There’s intent at the back of it. One historic farmer explained the entire element to me: ‘If I sign that

paper and be a part of the collective it clouds my title to my own farm,’ he talked about. ‘That farm is mine, it turned into my father’s earlier than me. they can’t take it far from me no remember what they do - unless 1 provide it away. So I don’t signal. improved to head to detention center for 12 months, two years, even 5 years. once I come out this regime could be long past, but my farm will nevertheless be right here.’ ”

What concerning the effect of collective farming on meals creation?

“1 can’t provide you with actual figures, however 1 may give you a pertinent fact. at present of year a personal farmer is out on his fields by 3.30 a.m.â€"it’s daylight hours at four. On a collective farm they constantly have an orientation meeting at 8 o’clock that lasts an hour or extra. probably they get to work via 9.30.”

to date, collective farms include most effective about twenty p.c of either farmers or farm area in Yugoslavia (the counsel officer will tell you forty to forty-five %, but his personal government’s figures supply him the lie).

As eco-friendly as England

inspite of his grievances the farmer, private and collective alike, is probably than any other Yugoslav worker. At worst he has an awful lot to consume (except on one of the crucial worst collectives, which don’t even feed their own employees and should import meals). currently he has additionally had a whole lot of cash; it doesn’t purchase tons, however’s first-class to have. The government is frantically trying to fix farm production by way of letting the farmer promote more and more of his crops on the free market. while i was in Belgrade another lengthy checklist of foods became exempted from the compulsory purchase-up.

It appears like a bumper crop this 12 months too, after the calamitous drought of 1950. “We may well be in a position to wipe out rationing after this harvest,” stated a collective farmer at Dobranovci. maybe that’s overly confident, however the fields of Yugoslavia appear as eco-friendly as England; it could take very unhealthy administration indeed to make the 1951 crop an entire failure. All in all, the food difficulty in Yugoslavia appears smartly on the way to answer in the meanwhile, even below Communism.

No such respite is granted to Yugoslav business. Nature can't support within the production of shoes, or tractors, or laptop tools. Yugoslav handicrafts like hand weaving and embroidery are as alluring as ever, and also you find them on sale in . the “export stores” the place they earn tourist dollars. however Yugoslav manufacturing unit goods are as low in quality as they are excessive in rate. The “free market” cost of a pair of shoes is equal to the common pay for one month. With coupons a worker can get shoes for twenty p.c of that fee, but nobody earns very many coupons and half the inhabitants get none at all.

I met a disgruntled engineering scholar from Belgrade school. “Engineering in this country is ample to force you loopy,” he spoke of. “You spend all day at conferencesâ€"speak, talk, speak.

nobody ever has time to get any work completed.”

You see the effect of this within the goods produced. apart from the historic handicrafts, nothing appears to be smartly made. Nothing works very neatly, from telephones to bogs.

Nothing except one thingâ€"the key police. They work very efficaciously certainly. not reasonably as efficiently as in Russia, the place a citizen would likely be afraid to speak even to his spouse as some Yugoslavs discuss with relative strangers. however efficiently satisfactory to give these Yugoslavs a dark story to inform.

no person backyard of the Politburo knows what number of men are employed with the aid of UDBA, the secret police. nobody is aware of what number of political prisoners lie in Yugoslav jails, with or with out trial. About twelve thousand were released in a new year’s amnesty remaining January; that turned into probably a small fraction of the entire. The amnesty may had been an act of mercy, or it could possibly most effective have reflected a housing problem.

“They stored me in detention center two years after the warfare,” observed a former Chetnik (typical Mikhailovic’s anti-Communist resistance force). “If it hadn’t been for Tito’s destroy with Stalin I’d be there yet. They had to put all of the Cominform agents and sympathizers in prison then, and the jails were full. so that they let us go to make room for the others.”

UDBA agents are in all places. Two years in the past a group of junior secretaries from the Canadian Legation bought into main issue with the police (they had been jailed a couple of hours for taking snapshots of one a further in a public park) and they found they'd no usual language with the constables who arrested them. one of the vital policemen beckoned to a man in the crowd, a nondescript sick - dressed fellow who gave the look of everybody else. He came over and spoke to them in best English. surely a UDBA man, however one in every of how many in that Sunday afternoon crowd?

every harlot in Yugoslavia is a UDBA informer; that’s the rate she pays for being allowed to practice her profession. Waiters, taxi drivers, all the obvious listening posts are lined; apart from the commonplace personnel, three or 4 men within the blue serge matches and the heavy black shoes that are the UDBA “uniform” may well be seen at any mealtime, watching the bar of the Majestic inn from a corner table on the mezzanine flooring.

These are minutiae. The worst of it, the in reality horrible reality, is that anybody at all may additionally grow to be an informer, even a trusted friend. Two Yugoslav boys told me this story:

a while in the past they were jogging within the park with a third lad, chatting idly, and one talked about, “How’d you like to be a member of the Communist birthday celebration?” The other answered “God forbid.”

within a fortnight one of the vital boys changed into interrogated through the key police. They quoted that dialog to him verbatim and let him off with a stern warning in opposition t “subversive speak.” The boys are definite the simplest witness within earshot became their accomplice.

“i assumed he became our ally, the rat,” observed one of the most boys bitterly.

The different changed into greater charitable: “He just had a yellow streak, that’s all. They probably acquired something on him and used that to scare him into squealing on us. That’s how they get you, see. if you received’t speak, then they get some information from somebody else and also you’re in trouble because you failed to talk. It’s a crime to withhold suggestions.”

officially, of course, UDBA gets its suggestions from “volunteers” whose handiest cause is indignant patriotism. every once in a while the overseas

resident gets a quick insight into the Yugoslav “volunteer” device. One such flash of mild got here a year or two ago when with the aid of some oversight a hobbies letter from Yugoslav authorities become sent to a Western ambassador. It addressed him through identify, now not rank, and it mentioned: “you're advised that you

might also now sign up for voluntary labor service at Police Station X.”

correctly assuming his identify had got on the checklist through mistake the ambassador didn’t reply the letter. Ten days later he received another: “you are re-

quired to report to Police Station X and explain why you haven't volunteered for voluntary labor provider.”

The ambassador has a lively feel of humor. He took the letters over to the Yugoslav foreign workplace. The overseas workplace, which has no feel of humor, turned into livid. Foreigners don't seem to be presupposed to know the way Communist volunteers are recruited.

but, certainly, even the foreigner feels handle on each side in Communist Yugoslavia, and it's stifling. that you would be able to’t drive out into the nation with out running into “investigate points”â€" armed sentries to determine your identification, discover where you’re going and why. Belgrade’s one bridge throughout the Danube has 4 defend posts, one at each and every end and two within the core.

One night I went down to see a Yugoslav acquaintance off on the teach. As we parted he mentioned, “have you ever acquired your passport?”

“I believe I actually have; why?”

“You might also no longer need it,” he said, “however they may additionally ask you for it as you depart the station.”

certain sufficient. One little blue-coated policeman to ask who i used to be and where i was going; one soldier, a rifle slung over his shoulder, to aid the policeman. other than every little thing else the mere economic burden of this horde of officers and spies have to be astonishing.

it may possibly certainly be necessary to preserve the regime going. One Westerner of sober judgment spoke of, “I’m no longer sure you may function Yugoslavia as a free country. It’s riven by way of hatreds 5 hundred years historical, Serb in opposition t Croat, Orthodox in opposition t Catholic, and now Partisan against Collaborator and Communist against everything the old order stood for. every faction has a terrible list of violence and cruelty; each and every can prove that the other has behaved atrociously. provide them all free rein and i don’t understand what would occur.”

help wanted: at this time

but notwithstanding Yugoslavia can also at all times have lacked order and steadiness the Communist regime is hated as King Alexander’s under no circumstances become.

“i am no royalist,” the son of a as soon as-prosperous Yugoslav spoke of. “in the historical days i was a little bit of a radical; i believed the historical regime became corrupt, and it was. however 1 can bear in mind King Alexander walking the streets of Belgrade alone, unguarded. Tito under no circumstances stirs with no battalion of armed guards.”

but they murdered King Alexander in the conclusion, didn’t they?

“yes -in Marseilles. not at domestic.” A boy whose folks live on a collective farm noted: “In our village the

Communists don’t go out alone after darkish. They go in corporations of three or 4. They’re afraid a few of us may catch them alone in a dim corner.” here is the regime which is now asking the Western allies for economic and armed forces support. Tito needs loads of support and he wants it appropriate away.

A joint provider committee in Washington is still wondering the list of militia necessities Tito sent them in January. No dollar complete seems

in that listing: it’s a request for certain numbers of planes, tanks, weapons, etcetera. meanwhile Tito has put in a separate bid for financial advice operating over three hundred million greenbacks all instructed.

ultimate year he acquired about 2 hundred million greenbacks from the United Stetes and Britain, however that was a little bit distinctâ€"final yr Yugoslavia had a drought and almost starved. The support was emergency reduction to stave off famine and anarchy.

This 12 months Tito has no such meals problem, yet he desires even rr re cash. He has asked for extra buan two hundred hundreds of thousands from the overseas financial institution, to be invested in the construction of business. To get it he ought to meet the financial institution’s stipulation: find somebody to underwrite Yugoslavia’s alternate deficit, now estimated at a hundred and fifty million bucks a yr. Tito has requested the us and Britain to place up this

amount (in promises, not loans) and that they have been researching the request for the previous two or three months.

in the event that they take the information of their envoys instant they’ll give Tito what he asks. Western diplomats in Belgrade are via no capability blind to the faults of the Communist regime. They comprehend perfectly well they're dealing with an unpopular and inefficient tyranny. Their explanation for backing it is primary: There’s no choice. everybody seems agreed on that.

perhaps Tito can be voted out of workplace in a free Yugoslav election, however there is no one for the Yugoslavs to vote into office. get rid of Tito and Yugoslavia would fall apart. allow his regime to crumple from inner weakness and the outcomes is an identical: you

create a power vacuum which only Russia and her satellites can fill.

PI ven with assist, Tito’s Yugoslavia is still terribly susceptible. Stalin might also neatly trust this the most important of all fronts, for Tito is a deadly hazard to Russian pretensions, a residing denial of the Russian Gospel. Stalin ought to most likely have determined that, at some point, Tito should go.

within the three years for the reason that Tito’s ruin with Stalin, threats along the borders have been continual. Tito, in a speech final December 28, announced a complete of one thousand three hundred and ninety-seven “frontier incidents” with satellites Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary. These incidents are nevertheless occurring small taking pictures affrays between border guards, many inflicting fatal casualties. anyone can be grew to become into a pretext for invasion.

If Tito’s Yugoslavia is overrun by Russia the West falls into grave hazard. actual, it’s no more than the danger we had been in anyway, before June 1948, however

that become danger ample. Russian catch of the Dalmatian coast may neatly close the entire Mediterranean. Italy would become very nearly indefensible, Turkey and Greece can be hopelessly outflanked.

And one thing you should say for Tito’s Yugoslavia: Any support that’s

given will at least be used.

“These are critical individuals,” an American reporter stated. “they are definitely trying to make a go of their system and put their nation again on the rails. efficaciously or now not, they are working.”

They don't seem to be thieves and they're not grafters. funds given to aid the nation will no longer discover its approach into the pockets of individuals nor reward goods demonstrate up on the black market.

CARE (the Co-operative for American Remittances to Europe) has a big skilled body of workers checking the appearance of meals and its beginning to the supposed spots. American executive groups roam the country with the identical mission. Neither company has uncovered a single case of diversion in all the thousands and thousands of a whole lot meals which have poured into Yugoslavia during the past ten months.

but the greater critical, truly the decisive argument for aid to Yugoslavia, will also be put into three words: Yugoslavia will fight. this is greater than we are able to say with the equal assurance of some much more good allies. As one American resident put it:

“These Yugoslavs have certainly not at any time said, ‘if you provide us lots of greenbacks, and if you ship us some American troopers as well as tanks and planes, then possibly we are able to trust making an attempt to defend ourselves.’

“These Yugoslavs say ‘We intend to look after ourselves no rely what you do or say or need in case you supply us some assist we could be capable of do it better.”

by the way here's one element on which the complete of Yugoslavia looks unanimous. nobody, Yugoslav or foreigner, buddy or foe of the regime, ever suggests that Soviet Russia should still not or would no longer be resisted to the last man and the remaining bullet.

“I bear in mind how the Russians behaved when they were speculated to be our friends,” spoke of an anti-Communist Yugoslav. “i will be able to imagine what they’d do right here as enemies.”

In Western international locations you hear tips from time to time that any help to Yugoslavia have to be conditional, that we should still make it a weapon to force adjustments in Yugoslav policy. Roman Catholics, in particular, would like to stipulate the liberate and restoration of Mgr. Stepinac, Archbishop of Zagreb. he is now in jail as a struggle crook.

Diplomats in Belgrade, Catholic as well as Protestant, argue against this line. Nothing would so harm the regime, they are saying, nothing so toughen the Russian propaganda line in different center European nations, as for Tito to give the appearance of submitting to power from the capitalist democracies. And nothing would so smack of power because the unexpected unexplained unlock of Stepinac.

One drawback is that the Stepinac case includes more than Communism. It’s a part of the ancient feud between Serb and Croat. The war crime of which Stepinac become accused, and convicted at a public trial, became connivance in the “compelled conversions” from Orthodox to Catholic faith which easily have been perpetrated all through the struggle. They had been carried out by means of the Ustashi, a Fascist Croat force exotic even in Yugoslavia for its ferocious cruelty. The hatred the Ustashi created remains very a lot alive.

Mgr. Stepinac may be thoroughly innocentof any association with these crimes notwithstanding he turned into in ecclesiastical office after they have been committed. That is not the element. The element is that almost all Serbs, Communist and nonCommunist alike, accept as true with he become responsible. A Yugoslav court docket discovered him guilty. A Yugoslav executive, even a dictatorship like Tito’s, would endure grave loss of face and dignity if it without difficulty overruled its own court docket in return for a cash hand-out.

subsequent challenge: BLACK’S HARBOR, N.B. Ian Sclanders writes a few thriving city developed on sardines. it is owned via two guys, that you may appoint a apartment for $14 a month, and you'll get your Sunday dinner for nothing at the wharf when the fleet comes in. IN MACLEAN S AUGUST 1 ON SALE JULY 27

Tito himself would like to settle the Stepinac controversy. “in the event that they will rJsly let me on my own,” he advised a amazing traveler currently, “if they will only hold quiet even for two or three months i will be able to settle this question. however I can not and that i will not yield to drive.”

overseas observers are inclined to trust the Yugoslav argument that independence, for Tito, has benefits for us as well as for him. Yugoslavia has political have an impact on with the satellite tv for pc countries and with the Communist parties in countries like Italy and France, just as a result of she is no one’s stooge.

It seems to me all this argument is beside the aspect, anyway. Yugoslavia can be a military ally, for reasons of mutual abilities. Yugoslavia isn't and will now not turn into a friend.

“The Communists tell us Yugoslavs that they’re simply playing the Western

powers for suckers,” a Belgrade man instructed me.

reasonably likely they consider that themselves. Western nations would be dupes certainly if they gave Tito support for some other rationale than their own protection.

You hear a fine deal at the moment concerning the “improvements” in Tito’s regimeâ€"the abolition of special privileges for Communist birthday party men; the reduction of the paperwork, touted as the “withering away of the State” that Marx and Lenin prophesied; some faint return of liberty. It’s genuine that these improvements have taken region, however they're meaningless from our aspect of view. Tito has needed to make some concessions to placate his personal americans and to muster usual support for a regime standing alone in a hostile world. he will make no greater than he have to.

No amount of “improvement” will make Yugoslavia a free nation, or Tito the rest however a Communist dictator.

If we are going to support him, as it seems we're, let’s not be sentimental about it. Tito can be a helpful ally in opposition t Stalin, as Stalin became a positive ally towards Hitler. undoubtedly we caa respect that without being impelled to form Canada-Yugoslav friendship councils. if