As many times as I have read the opening lines of Karl Marx's "The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," I am struck again and again by how Marx could superbly sum up in a single sentence an entire historical epoch, both revolution and reaction."Hegel remarks somewhere," said Marx, "that all great, historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." Marx of course had reference to Napoleon I as a tragic figure and to Louis Bonaparte, or Napoleon the Third, as the farce.
The 20th century also has its Napoleons.
'Tito, the Incredible'
Josef Broz (Tito), may not be as popular and certainly not as well known as Napoleon the First, but he cuts a heroic figure in working class history, not only of the Balkans but of all of Europe. He is the first proletarian to become the head of a workers' state in the European arena.
Somewhere in the middle 1940s, a little pamphlet appeared entitled "Tito, the Incredible." The title is not an exaggeration. This worker not only organized the Communist Party of Yugoslavia but led the Partisans and the Council for National Liberation to a complete victory over the forces of Nazism as well as over domestic royalist reaction supported by Washington and London.
It should be remembered that when the Council for National Liberation finally liberated the country and proclaimed the Yugoslav Socialist Republic, it was the first victorious socialist revolution on the European continent since the October Revolution in Russia.
The singular significance of this victory must be measured against the fact that Allied imperialism was still armed, that the Chinese Revolution which was marching forward relentlessly to victory, had not yet fully vanquished the remnants of the pro-imperialist Chiang Kai-shek government, that the Cuban Revolution hadn't yet begun, and that the Vietnamese and Koreans were still in the throes of consummating their revolutions.
United the nationalities
Tito enjoyed genuine popularity in Yugoslavia. His greatest contribution lay in the fact that, on the basis of a formidable Communist Party and a working class and peasantry that were ripe for a revolutionary overturn, he united the nationalities of the Balkan peninsula.
That ushered in a new social and class structure based on the workers and peasants as against the bourgeoisie and their supporters in the camp of imperialism. The Yugoslav Revolution united the oppressed nationalities. This worker from Croatia, whose mother was a Slovene, won the confidence of the workers in Serbia and the other republics.
However, Tito's very popularity also endangered his and the Yugoslavs' revolution.
At that time, Eastern Europe was also in the throes of a revolutionary struggle against the Nazi fascist Axis powers. Although hundreds of thousands of brave Communists gave their lives in relentless struggle against fascist reaction even before the war began, and more continued the struggle against Nazi reaction, the revolution was not wholly from below. In all of Eastern Europe, it was supported by the military might of the Soviet Red Army, which both aided and restricted the momentous revolutionary upsurge.
Role of the Red Army
The policy of the USSR at that time was not to uproot the old ruling classes lock, stock and barrel but to retain them in some measure. This was to present at least an appearance of compromise to predatory Anglo-American imperialism, which was most fearful that the sweep of the communist forces would also engulf not only Eastern Europe but also France and Italy, where the working class movements had fought the fascists arms in hand.
The Eastern European communist parties looked to Tito as their inspiration and guide to an autonomous revolution. This created not only suspicion in the USSR leadership but led to friction with the Yugoslav government.
The high point was reached when Georgi Dimitrov, the Bulgarian Communist leader, on the eve of an East European conference, raised the possibility of an East European federation in which, of course, Yugoslavia would play a central role. Dimitrov was rebuked by the Soviet press. (As related in the book Tito, by Vladimir Dedijer.)
Break between Yugoslavia and USSR
The historic break between Yugoslavia and the USSR not only dimmed the revolutionary prospects of Yugoslavia for leadership in the European arena of the international communist movement but opened the road to compromise and dependence upon the imperialist West.
It will serve no useful purpose to go over the many concessions that the Yugoslav socialist government had to make in order to survive. But survive it did, believing itself to be a bridge in the struggle between East and West as a leader in the Non-Aligned Movement. However the seeds for the liquidation of the revolutionary achievements of the Yugoslav Revolution lay precisely in this connection to and dependence on foreign aid from the imperialist powers, principally the United States.
Just one small measure of this degree of dependence on the West can be seen in U.S. aid figures.The U.S. gave Yugoslavia foreign aid to totaling $1.8 billion between 1945 and 1964 (Readers Digest Almanac of 1966). The real turn of the Yugoslav economy towards Western imperialist dependence came when the International Monetary Fund itself became the principal figure dishing out aid and loans and then arrogantly demanded the introduction of market measures.
None of this is hidden information and has been widely publicized in both East and West.
Western economic pressure
The havoc caused by the attempt to reconstruct the planned economy into its opposite, a capitalist economy based upon individual ownership, is only too well known for us to go over the dreary statistics. But most important for our understanding of the present situation is that notwithstanding the erosion, the dislocation and the sabotage of socialist construction in Yugoslavia, it retained the two basic gains of the revolution.
The first was nationalized property--property which had been expropriated from the bourgeoisie and the landlords or had been built up and modernized by the collective efforts of the peasants and workers in all the republics of Yugoslavia.
Second, it retained that singular achievement which all bourgeois nationalists abhor, but which all proletarian internationalists strive for: a socialist federation of all the different nationalities, which stood as a bulwark against imperialist interference, intervention and subversion.
However, the collapse of the USSR and Eastern Europe in particular shook the foundations of the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia and dealt a blow to the communist and class-conscious workers. Nevertheless, the socialist federations held on, notwithstanding internal erosion and the growth of centrifugal tendencies in the republics.
If Yugoslavia had been able to retain its socialist independence after the revolution, no one could have foretold to what great heights socialist construction would have reached. But this is to demand too much from a proletarian dictatorship surrounded by imperialist vultures that for years have been preparing assiduously, clandestinely and openly, to move in at the appropriate time.
The present war
The imperialist bourgeoisie will show us for the umpteenth time the terror that the Serbs are committing upon the poor and the oppressed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are terror and atrocities, all right. But are they only committed by the Serbs and not by the other nationalities? What is this war about? Should we not look to see who among the imperialist powers support whom? Are we to dismiss that the imperialists, and most particularly the U.S., are supporting Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia?
Let us grant that this is a civil war in which the toll on the civilian population is mounting. The imperialists say they are moving in out of humanitarian considerations, which their entire history belies. But let us assume that it is like the Civil War in the United States. Were not atrocities committed on both sides? What was Sherman's march through Georgia? Should the progressives throughout the whole world therefore have supported the South as against the North?
The British were only too anxious for a pretext to move in and help the South. The Abraham Lincoln government characterized this as rank interference.
Let us suppose for the moment that the British, as the leading power in Europe, had summoned the French, the Germans, the Austrians, the Italians, the Spanish, and the Russians, for a conference in London to settle the American Civil War, to impose the reestablishment of order in the New World.
London conference
Is this not what we are witnessing today in London? The U.S. has engineered an international conferences there on Yugoslavia. Will we not see France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc., impose on Yugoslavia what they might have imposed upon the United States had they the power to do so?
Progressive and class-conscious workers throughout the world should ask themselves the most elementary question: What right have these European and American ruling classes to convoke a conference to settle an internal problem of Yugoslavia? What right have they to carry out armed intervention in a country which has not provoked or threatened them in any way? Is this not a violation of the most elementary tenet of international law?
Who among the Yugoslavs has called upon them to convene this conference? As always, the imperialists have picked up the smallest, the weakest, the ones that are most prone to intimidation. Is this not the case with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia? The imperialists first and foremost always aim their first blows at the weakest, either through bribery, corruption or intimidation and win the allegiance of the top bourgeois.
Enter the farcical prime minister
Now we have as prime minister of Yugoslavia the farce to which Marx referred. It is a profanity to call Milan Panic the prime minister. He is a shady, crooked millionaire entrepreneur exported by the U.S. to Yugoslavia. He can't even boast of any experience in either the foreign or domestic affairs of Yugoslavia.
His business in the United States is in the sale of pharmaceuticals, medicines to help fight AIDS, which have been shown to be of dubious value. It may be on the verge of bankruptcy. He is the type of person who comes in at the right time to serve as a handy tool.
In an extraordinary article in the New York Times of Aug. 24, which gives a laudatory account of his exploits, the writer in common with many of the imperialist scribblers, describes Yugoslavia as "one of the biggest snake pits in the world" and a "daunting challenge" to our poor entrepreneur.
Should any authentic representatives of the nationalities attend this conference of exploiters and oppressors? How many times before in this century have they tried to impose their will in this region of the world? The earlier Balkan wars had their roots in the avaricious and predatory nature of the imperialist powers?
This present conference is no different. It has one unique feature. Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who is considered an expert on Yugoslavia because of his business dealings there, held a news conference yesterday that foreshadows his role in the London conference. In referring to the Serbians, he said "They've got to get this into their heads..." Would he ever talk to the Rockefellers that way, or the German or French imperialists?
Napoleon and Tito
Napoleon freed the serfs in part of Europe. He carried the bourgeois revolution on his bayonets and that was progressive. But he also carved out an empire that subjugated nations and proclaimed himself emperor.
Tito represented not just the peasants but workers. He did not proclaim himself as either the supreme leader or the supreme theoretician with a new message in the interpretation of Marxism. His tragedy lies in the circumstances of his time.
Tito carried the revolution as far as he could. The truth of the matter is that in his time he could only encourage the Western proletariat by example. Had they been in a position to overthrow their own imperialist oppressors, the entire history of Europe would have taken on an entirely different, a really thoroughly revolutionary course.