(The following article has been translated from the February 12 issue of Rouge, weekly newspaper of the Ligue Communiste, French section of the Fourth International.]
Borba [newspaper of the Savez Komunista Jugoslavije - League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY)]:
"Belgrade security agents yesterday arrested M. Nikolic and P. Imsirovic, students in Belgrade, for having organized against the people and the state, and for enemy propaganda (Art. 118). This arrest came as a consequence of the distribution of leaflets and various materials whose contents were hostile to the state. ... The group was linked to certain groups and organizations abroad" (January 8, 1972).
One looks in vain for evidence of the alleged leaflets. The charges smell like those of the "bad" Stalinist trials of the past. But the wheels are not as well oiled as they were when Big Brother was in charge. Again it is Branko Pridicevic* who, in a meeting of the LCY at the University of Belgrade, is the embarrassed spokesman for the bureaucracy.
But why go after the far left? Does the danger really come from the left? The speaker replies "that the Communists in the LCY at the university never thought so and that the real danger comes from the right." But then why is the LCY undertaking this action? "Because this left-wing extremism was often better organized and more aggressive; because it used slogans that were very close to the official slogans, and because the far left pretended to be in favor of a more strict application of the decisions of the LCY....
Aside from one very subjective opinion ("pretended"), there is nothing in
*Secretary of the League of Yugoslav Communists at the university. In the January 22 issue of Rouge, we reported Pridicevic's demand that measures be taken to repress a "very well organized and skillful" far-left group.
all this but compliments for the actions of honest Communist militants!
Could the essence of the matter lie somewhere else? "Through its adventurism and its irresponsible actions, extremism on the left has often opened up a path for extremism on the right and for different kinds of conservative restoration....
You could say that this sounds like the French CP! Several persons in the hall were stunned. No definite collusion, whether direct or indirect, has been revealed that would link the arrested students or their alleged group to the reactionary forces recently denounced in Croatia.
Well? Someone voices surprise that the members of the Trotskyist movement should be called to order [sic!] for organizing in underground cells, when not long ago the Student Cultural Center quite legally invited Exnest Mandel, one of the leaders of the Fourth International, to speak."
And the response: "All persons have
Send Ultimatum to Makarios secuted for theoretical differences, but must be prosecuted for any illegal activities or for organizing an underground party." And the enlightening conclusion: "Our goal is ideological clarification, the settling of accounts with foreign ideologies and not with individuals."
Thus the formal arguments do not even conceal the objectives that are being pursued — it is definitely a matter of settling accounts with an "ideology." But then why arrest individuals and not let us know about their "ideology"? What has brought about this change in Pridicevic? Could it not be the fact that these "ideologies" are becoming less and less "foreign"? And at a time when capital-very foreign, too, although you do not seem to be afraid of it—is exploiting 1,000,000 émigré Yugoslav workers or is trying to challenge the self-management that you defend? Could it not be that what has changed is a social situation that is in danger of giving the strength of slogans to the "theoretical" differences that you tolerated yesterday?