NEW LIFE FOR JUGOSLAVS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26963, 12 February 1953, Page 12

NEW LIFE FOR JUGOSLAVS

SOVIET PATTERN ABANDONED

AUSTERITY, BUT MORE FREEDOM (By a Reuter Correspondent) BELGRADE. The Jugoslav man-in-the-street is this winter far from being Well off. Almost everywhere he looks he sees austerity, but he is certainly a happier man than he was in 1948, the year when Marshal Tito broke with Moscow. There are good material reasons for his feeling better. But more important, perhaps, than these is the more relaxed political climate in which he now lives. .Shop windows empty save for red framed portraits of Marshal Tito and Stalin side by side, every third man and many women wearing British battle dress issued by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration for clothing, all poorly shod, some even barefoot, and everywhere, on walls, pavements and vehicles, slogans glorifying the Communist Party and its leaders—these were the sights that met the eyes of foreign visitors who strolled down 1 the main street of Belgrade four years ago. Today, things are different. The shops are crammed with a large variety of consumer goods. Except for food and S ri u-L-P rices are hi^h ’ indeed almost prohibitive, and quality, though imP J’ OV J ng i £ still low by Western standards. But the are there for anyone to buy who has the money. Knowledge of that, together with the abolition of rationing, has had a cheering effect on people. w JX en two y^ars ago such ordinary wares as combs or razor blades were unobtainable except at fantastic prices at Government pawnshops or on the black market. Their production priority was low in the five-year economic plan. Scarcity at one time raised the price of a comb as high as 500 dinars (oyer £3 in 1950). People seen in the street today are well shod and adequately, if mostly rather drably, dressed. Textiles are not cheap. A man’s suit of poor quality, home-produced cloth costs 18,000 dinars (about £2l at present rates), one metre (just over one yard) of imported British cloth 10,000 dinars (about £l2).

comparison, the average working wage is about 7000 dinars (about £8) a month and the minimum wage 4000 dinars (about £5) a month.

Fortunately for many people a limited number of special "industrial coupons” giving the right to an 80 per cent, reduction on these prices is still included in the monthly pay packets of 'all civil servants, workers in the nationalised industries and commerce, and other persons "in labour relations with the State.”

“Voluntary Work” A feature of Sunday morning in Belgrade four years ago was the parading of youth and ordinary citizens for “voluntary work.” Columns of volunteers led by a man with a red banner would march through the town at six in the morning singing patriotic songs in the Soviet style to the music of an accordion. They would spend tne whole day on worksites and then march back again in the evening Except for voluntary work by students in their summer holidays all this has now been abolished and the average Jugoslav who dislikes regimentation is thankful for it. His daily routine Sundays and week-days is now much the same as that of any other average citizen on this side or th Gr l e r atiy C r U educed, if not yet entirely abandoned, is organised hero worship of Marshal Tito and the dlS P\ ay in public places of slogans and banners other paraphernalia of Communist indoctrination. Most public rooms in offices, restaurants and hotels are still adorned with a portrait or bust of Marshal Tito. Some go further and add either singly or together, the other members of the Marxist hierarchy. Lenin, Engels and Marx. Stalin is now strictly banned. However, the leaders of the Jugoslav Communist League, though still anxious to ensure Marshal Tito’s popularity among the masses, are now against anything akin to the extravagant hero worship which Stalin receives in Russia and which they denounce as "anti-socialist.”

Ordinary non-communist citizens today no longer fear to be seen talking to a foreigner, except perhaps to Russians and Soviet satellite nationals, who are now the No. 1 enemies of this country. They no. longer start up in the middle of the night when they hear a car stop outside their front door for fear it is the the Black Maria.

Criticism and grumbling about anything and everything is widespread and no-one is airaid that he, or she, will be arrested for it. There is no longer any attempt to shut off the ordinary citizen from the Western world. »

In the local press, which has . long since abandoned Soviet models of news reporting and commentary, the citizen can get a good idea of what is going on in the world. There is the inevitable Marxist bias in much of the commentary and sometimes ip the reporting, but rarely sufficient to obscure or distort the basic facts of the story.

For those who are bored by politics, there are the familiar comic strip cartoons featuring Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and other leading animal personalities. Listening to foreign broadcasts is allowed and widely indulged in. The cinemas show films from Britain, America, France arid many other Western countries. Russia and satellite films have not been seen here for a long time, chiefly because Jugoslavia has no commercial relations with these countries and is no longer buying their films.