Decisive Year For Future Of Titoism

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28179, 18 January 1957, Page 16

Decisive Year For Future Of Titoism

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

BELGRADE. A decisive year for the future of Titoism faces the Jugoslav Communist Party between now and its congress next autumn, in the opinion of foreign observers. Coming months should show whether the idea of Titoism, which arose after Jugoslavia’s break with the Cominform. will prove to have been merely a temporary heresy in the creed of communism, or whether it will exercise a dominant influence in encouraging European Communist Parties to throw off Moscow’s control.

Events in Poland and, even more so, the Hungarian uprising have brought the role of Titoism into the open. They have also sown the seeds of what observers here have thought might possibly develop into as big a quarrel between Belgrade and Moscow as the Cominform dispute in 1948. Titoism probably means different things to people in different countries, even inside Eastern Europe. Politically, most agree that it implies a nationally independent form of communism, with every country choosing its own road to socialism —a formula to which even the Russians subscribed on paper when they signed the Moscow Declaration with President Tito this summer.

In Jugoslav eyes, it also has an economic side. It stands for decentralisation in a ■ country’s economy instead of rigid control from the centre, and considers that factories should be run by workers’ councils elected, nominally at least, by the workers themselves.

Jugoslavs thus see a special significance in the introduction of the system of workers’ councils in other East European countries.

Some Poles have even claimed that the system of workers’ councils which they are setting up goes further than the Titoist system. They argue that the Polish councils are elected “from below,” while the Jugoslav ones were imposed “from above.”

Until this summer, hopes were high here that Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself, though perhaps not following Jugoslavia, would profit from Jugoslavia’s experience and develop along parallel roads towards a more flexible and liberalised form of communism.

Then came the Poznan riots. And, as President Tito said in a speech in November, the Soviet leaders became cold towards Jugoslavia and started to argue that

Titoism was responsible for the disorders in Poland.

In September, President Tito exchanged visits with the First Secretary of the Soviet Communist. Party—Mr Nikita Krushchev—here and in the Crimea. But it seems that after their secret talks, disagreement still smouldered, though beneath the surface.

There followed the Hungarian uprising in October and the attitude of the Soviet Union towards Jugoslavia hardened still more. Days passed and the Jugoslav party leadership did not take up a comprehensive stand on Hungary. Instead, it announced its decision that the next Communist Party congress, which under the party statute should have been held now, would -be postponed until next autumn-; Questions began to be asked as to whether the Jugoslavs themselves were doubting the practical effects of Titoism. and were undecided whether to change the party line. But on November 11, President Tito, in a speech to party activists, made it clear that the Jugoslav party was convinced that its ideas were right and would push ahead with them.

Far from admitting Jugoslav responsibility for the disorders in Poland and Hungary, President Tito counter-attacked. In outspoken terms, he accused the Soviet leadership of being basically responsible for the turmoil in Eastern Europe. If the Russians had shown the same confidence in Hungary as they had in Jugoslavia, and had allowed her to develop along her own road toward socialism, he said, the Hungarian uprising would have been avoided.

He criticised the whole Soviet leadership for mistakenly conducting a campaign against the personality cult. He maintained that the Soviet leaders have failed to wage a campaign against the root of the evil, the Stalinist system of rigid control, which still persists. Poland, he said, had freed herself from just that. Judging from President Tito’s words, Jugoslavia regards Poland as her most reliable ally in the struggle now developing between Titoism and Stalinism. Other potential allies are Hungary—assuming that quiet is restored under a national Communist government—and the Italian Communist Party, regarded here as the most flexible among the Communist parties of Western Europe.