The Specter of Separatism

YUGOSLAV Airlines' Flight 367 from Stockholm to Belgrade had just passed over the northern border of Czechoslovakia last week when an explosion shook the plane. The bomb-stricken DC-9 fell from the skies and crashed near the Bohemian town of Ceska Kamenice, killing all but one of the 28 people aboard. A few hours later, another bomb went off on the Ljubljana-to-Belgrade express outside Zagreb, injuring six passengers.

Both blasts, it appears certain, were the work of emigre Croatian terrorists, who want independence for their homeland from rule by Yugoslavia's central government. The well-timed incidents provided a grim counterpoint to an urgent meeting of Yugoslav political leaders in Belgrade. As a result of earlier separatist agitation in Croatia (TIME, Dec. 27), which had been a direct challenge to Yugoslavia's federal system, President Josip Broz Tito, nearly 80 but amazingly robust, had summoned 367 of the nation's political leaders to Belgrade for a three-day party conference. The basic issue in the talks: How much political and economic freedom can Yugoslavia give to its six republics and two autonomous provinces without coming apart at the seams?

Doing His Utmost. Yugoslavia's separatist problem has become worse at the very time when Tito is doing his utmost to solve it. His efforts have centered on an attempt to reduce tensions between the Serbs, Yugoslavia's dominant group (8.5 million), and the neighboring Croats, who are the country's second most numerous nationality (4.3 million) and politically its most troublesome. Relations between the two ethnic groups, never good, were tragically bloodied during World War II when pro-Nazi Croats slaughtered some 100,000 Serbs living in Croatia.

Last summer Tito persuaded the Federal Parliament to pass a number of sweeping constitutional amendments that gave to all the republics almost complete autonomy in economic, cultural and administrative matters. Later Croatia was allowed to keep a far larger share of the foreign currency that it earns from Western tourists. By then, however, a dangerous momentum had developed. To pressure the central government into making greater concessions, Croatia's Communist leaders--notably Miko Tripalo and Dr. Savka Dabcevic-Kucar, the woman Central Committee chief--allied themselves with groups making extremist demands for what would have amounted to secession. Pockets of Croatian exiles, who are active in Western Europe, Canada and the U.S., also began to agitate for independence.

In the wake of the student strike in Zagreb last November, which led to Tito's subsequent crackdown in Croatia, Yugoslav officials claim that the eleven accused ringleaders of the alleged conspiracy were plotting a full-scale general strike as a prelude to an uprising in support of Croatian independence. Meanwhile, some 400 Communist officials, including Tripalo and Dabcevic-Kucar, have been purged from their posts, and more firings may follow. The trials of the conspirators will probably begin in March.

The real themes of last week's Belgrade conference were frequently hidden behind vast clouds of rhetorical jargon, translatable only by the initiated. Clearly, though, many party leaders wanted a return to a tougher brand of Communism. Documents prepared for the meeting spoke of the need for "democratic centralism"--which means, in effect, greater authoritarian rule--at least as often as they mentioned "self-management socialism," the correct doctrinal description of Yugoslavia's present liberal brand of Marxism.

Big Cigar. Tito set the tone of the televised conference in his opening address, which called for stricter party discipline. Although the delegates obediently observed the no-smoking admonitions in the assembly hall of Belgrade's domed Parliament Building, Tito lit up a big cigar, settled back in an armchair and flicked ashes into a large gilded ashtray stand that an attendant had quickly carried to him. While he smoked away, in the solitary splendor befitting the father of his country, the delegates carried on a highly introspective, critical search for the party's proper role in a society plagued by dissident nationalism.

During the past two decades, the Yugoslav League of Communists has abandoned its former commanding role; instead, the party has been primarily a guiding, inspirational force. In light of the heightened threat of nationalism, the delegates agreed that the league must regain its old supremacy as the country's dominant influence. In the future, central headquarters in Belgrade will far more closely supervise the activities of its branches in the republics. Local leaders will be chosen, at least in part, for their allegiance to the federal headquarters.

Party cells will be smaller in number but more actively vigilant. They will be responsible for making certain that separatists and their sympathizers do not infiltrate workers councils and other organizations. Declared Veljko Vlahovic, a member of the party's presidium: "The Communist League of Yugoslavia must rid itself of ideological hesitation, opportunism, and political inertness and prepare for a further offensive by the socialist forces."

Party Power. Despite the apparent unanimity of the delegates, there is no guarantee that the party-power plan will work. For one thing, the League of Communists, like Yugoslavia itself, is riven by regional rivalries. Equally important, Yugoslavia's society has changed so much, in response to industrialization and close contact with the West, that it is doubtful that the country can still be ruled effectively by centralized party control. Young Yugoslavs, who seem indifferent to political ideology, are notably unreceptive to the old exhortations that Tito still uses to manipulate the country. Moreover, Yugoslavia's enduring regional differences are a living contradiction of the fundamental Marxist tenet that class identity can transcend other interests.

In their speeches, Tito and the other leaders were careful to stress that they had no intention of returning to the harsh old police-state technique that prevailed in Yugoslavia before the ouster of former Secret Police Chief Aleksandar Rankovic in 1966. "We have experienced state socialism [the Yugoslav euphemism for Stalinism]" said Montenegrin Party Leader Veselin Djuranovic, "and we never want to experience it again." Even so, tighter party rule will almost inevitably mean greater political controls, and perhaps even an increased role for the secret police, as has already happened in Croatia. In their efforts to combat nationalism, Tito and his colleagues may end up being tougher than they really intend to be.

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