Beyond Dictatorship

One man was missing as the Yugoslav Central Committee met last week in Belgrade's ornate, 19th century Parliament Hall. For the first time since World War II, President Josip Broz Tito was not present to call the tune. He was relaxing at his island hideaway of Brioni, fully content to let his lieutenants transact what business there was. Tito's absence--and his confidence--were symbolic of the country's new relaxation. Yugoslav Communism is evolving toward a less dictatorial--if still far from democratic--form of government.

Last year Yugoslavia underwent a series of events unprecedented under a Communist regime. Tito signed a protocol with the Vatican, purged--and then reprieved--his leading reactionary lieutenant, Aleksandar ("Marko") Ran-kovic, and released from 41 years in prison his archcritic, liberal Author Milovan Djilas. In the first such defiance in a Communist state, Slovenian party members bucked their boss, State President Janko Smole, over a planned austerity program, and forced his temporary resignation. The Yugoslav state security agency, UDBA, was cut back by 5,000 cops, and deprived of its power to interrogate suspects outside of court. Most important, Tito declared an end to party "commandism" and declared that Communists must henceforth chart Yugoslavia's course by the force of their arguments and ideology rather than by the pure display of power.

Refulgent Resorts. Tito has begun 1967 just as spectacularly. On Jan. 1, Yugoslavia opened its borders to all foreigners, becoming the first Communist country to abolish visas. At the same time, the 300,000 Yugoslavs (out of 20 million) who are employed outside the country, mostly in Western Europe, have no difficulty returning or departing. One good reason: they send home $70 million a year. To be sure, Tito still holds Author Mihajlo Mihajlov (Moscow Summer) in prison for attempting to establish an "opposition" political magazine, but many Western publications are now available in Yugoslavia. Much of Yugoslavia's "liberalization" is dictated by a desire to accumulate foreign exchange; last year some 2,700,000 Westerners visited the country, drawn by refulgent resorts on the sunny Dalmation coast, casinos, unspoiled countryside and other low-priced attractions, including the first "bunny" clubs in Communist Europe. Yugoslavia is prospering economical ly, thanks largely to Tito's imaginative agricultural and industrial reforms. Yugoslavia claims an extraordinary 1966 economic growth rate of 10%, helped out by a bumper harvest of wheat, corn and sugar beets, plus a surging production of ships, chemicals and petroleum derivatives. A boom has its price, of course: many Yugoslav cities are for the first time experiencing the agonies of rush-hour traffic jams, packed restaurants and overcrowded shops (workers recently shifted from a sixto a five-day week). Nowadays, Tito can even afford the capitalist luxury of strikes--some 700 of them in the last three years, mostly for higher wages.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.