THE TROUBLES OF TITO DISAFFECTION IN JUGOSLAV ARMED FORCES RUMOURED

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32252, 21 March 1970, Page 10

THE TROUBLES OF TITO DISAFFECTION IN JUGOSLAV ARMED FORCES RUMOURED

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VICTOR ZORZA)

An article by. a retired general, banned by the Jugoslav censorship but smuggled to the West, warns Marshal Tito of grave disaffection in the armed forces. In Belgrade, rumours that Moscow-inspired generals are plotting a coup are firmly denied. At the same time, the Jugoslav press hints darkly at Soviet attempts to fish in troubled waters.

These are the ingredients, of a mixture which could prove explosive at a time when the debate over the succession to Marshall Tito, now 78, enters a crucial stage. The liberals fear that the conservatives might try, with Soviet support, to capture the leadership at a moment of crisis. They claim to discern the hand of Moscow behind a sudden revival of activity by long - suppressed extreme conservative forces.

Newspapers associated with the liberal elements in the leadership publish lurid accounts of conspiratorial activity by “Cominformists.” These are the survivors and political heirs of Jugoslavs who supported Stalin’s “Communist Information Bureau” in its attempt to unseat Tito. They are now said to be sending hundreds) of leaflets through the post calling for the “killing” of party leaders they dislike. The contents of the leaflets, as given in the Jugoslav press, sound a little strange—almost as if somebody was trying to give the conservatives a bad name by making them out to be killers rather than political malcontents.

Stumping The Country

They are said to be supported by party and army officials, quite prominent in the past but retired on account of their conservative leanings, who “have friends everywhere and use them for their own purposes.” They stump the country with speeches deploring the “horrible” reforms of recent years. They call for a “strong-arm regime” and are “making contacts with their friends abroad.” They claim that “socialism is threatened in Jugoslavia,” and after the invasion of Czechoslovakia they went so far as to argue that “our country too should have been visited by protecting tanks” to avert this threat. The “Cominformist” threat is currently receiving the greatest publicity in Croatia, whose party leaders are involved in a tough struggle with the central authorities in Belgrade. Of the six republics which make up Jugoslavia, Croatia is politically most restless and independently minded. Together with Slovenia, it comprises the economically more advanced part of Jugoslavia. They both believe that their progress is held back by the economically-backward republics led by Serbia which has traditionally ruled all the others. From Belgrade, the Serbs emphasise the need for a strong central government if the country is not to fall apart, while the Croats and Slovenes argue that the country might break up if they are not granted more independence. They strongly support the economic and political reforms that would lead to a much greater degree of decentralisation This makes them, by and large, more liberal, while the Serbs believing in the need for a strong central power, are inclined to fear the

reforms and are therefore generally on the more conservative side.

Conflicting Pulls

These divisions do not run along purely national lines, but they often coincide with them. Thus, the conflict between liberals and conservatives in Belgrade, who try to secure strong positions against the day of Marshal I Tito’s retirement, is made worse by the pull of national interests and loyalties. Last vear, the Government of Slovenia threatened to resign in protest against Belgrade’s decision to withhold development capital from it, and a major political crisis was averted only by a compromise patched up at the last moment. Now the Croat Communist party has demanded the dismissal of the deputy chairman of the Federal Parliament, Dr Milos Zanko, on the grounds that he had maligned the party’s leaders by accusing them of nationalism. Dr Zanko, himself a Croat, has refused to budge in the face of a campaign of personal and political vilification which makes him out to be a traitor to his nation. The Croat leaders claim that his allegations were made in concert with conservatives in Belgrade. In the Zanko affair, some of the bitterness, which has long been accumulating between the party’s nationalists, and centralists, liberals and conservatives, has reached the surface of public life. A Croat paper says that Dr Zanko has the support of Cominformists, who are collecting signatures on his behalf. A Croat broadcast says that foreign rumours of an army coup are designed to “incite” the Cominformists, and to cause the Jugoslav people to doubt the ability of their army to stand up to unnamed “big Powers.” In the press, it is recalled that at the time of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Cominformists were talking about the “senselessness of resistance” if a foreign army should enter Jugoslavia. On the radio, a Croat commentator points out that Jugoslavia stands between the Russians and the “strategic positions” they would like to acquire in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

Behind The Rumours This, the commentator believes, is what lies behind the rumours of the generals’ plot. The generals are supposed to have demanded the restoration of army authority over the territorial forces, created after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, to fight a guerrilla war if Jugoslavia, too, was invaded. The idea of territorial forces, under the authority of the individual republics, has long been pressed

by the more nationalistically minded party leaders, but it was strongly resisted by the centralists who saw it as the road to ruin.

A Croat or Slovenian Government with an army of its own might be even more difficult to control than it is now. The army leadership, as conservative in Jugoslavia as in most other countries, did not like the idea much, and acquiesced in the scheme under political pressure, evidently hoping to be able to water it down later.

The Russians attempt to intervene in the debate on behalf of the conservatives was firmly rebuked by the party’s spokesman in the army. The purpose of the reorganisation was to allow noone into Jugoslavia whose presence was not desired, he said. The only people who would resent this were those who had plans “to attack this country.” Issue Unresolved But the issue remains unresolved, because the nationalists’ demands are still far from accepted. General Jaka Avsic, who was the deputy commander of Tito’s partisans in Slovenia during the war, has tried to warn Belgrade that failure to set up national contingents could, in the event of war, mean as rapid a collapse of the Jugoslav Army as overtook it in World War 11. The whole issue of the “Croat Literary Gazette” which published his analysis was banned by the censorship, but it has now been reproduced by the emigre magazine “New Croatia.” Yet, it is obvious from the recent proceedings of the Croat Communist Party’s central committee that its top leaders share many of his ideas. But the top officials of the Croat party are also, automatically, top officials of the Jugoslav Communist Party. In Croatia, they try to restrain the most impatient of the nationalists. In Belgrade, they press the nationalist demands on their colleagues in the leadership, and ally themselves with the nationalist and liberal elements from other republics to press for more progressive policies. They could be stopped by the centralist - conservative alliance only if it manages to capture the leadership when Tito relinquishes it. Four years ago the conservatives almost succeeded when Alexander Rankovic, the chief of police, had managed to acquire a virtually unassailable position as Tito’s heir - apparent. Tito himself intervened to purge Rankovic—but the social and political forces which Rankovic represented remained largely unharmed, and are now once again raising their heads. The struggle for the succession is on again.—Copyright reserved.