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Rumania a democracy?

THE Resolution printed below was passed by the Executive of the Rumanian Social Democratic Party on September 30th, 1945. Its importance lies in the fact that it can help us to define our attitude towards the present régime in Rumania.

The British and American Governments have withheld recognition from the Groza[3] Government on the grounds that it is not representative enough and does not guarantee the democratic development of that country. There are certain undeniable facts to support that view - its coming into being in March, 1945, through direct Russian intervention, and the fact that the two historical big parties of Rumania (the Liberals and the National Peasants) are not represented in the present "National Front" Government, which consists of the Communists, Social Democrats, a right-wing Liberal group and the Agrarians, the two latter splinter parties. Furthermore, Tatarescu[4], the leader of this Liberal wing, has almost as bad a political record as some of the other leaders, e.g. Bratianu[5] and Maniu[6], who were excluded from the Government.

Nevertheless, there are other facts to consider: the record of the two big historical parties, who were in office during the inter-war years and completely dominated the political scene, is one of corruption, inefficiency and suppression. Since the Groza Government took office the socialist movement has made big strides forward. The Social Democratic Party has now a membership of 200,000 and a paper with a circulation of 70,000. According to reliable information, it is even on the point of overtaking the Communists.

The freedom of expression that the Socialists enjoy in their activities can be measured by documents such as the Resolution which was published in full and on which discussions are taking place in open meetings. The measure of freedom which the workers possess for the first time after fifty years of suppression and terror makes them feel they are reaping the fruits of their long and bitter struggle. The Social Democratic Party, although in favour of a United Front, is determined to fight the election as an independent party.

The Socialists are playing an important part in the trade unions, as was shown by the strong Socialist representation in the Rumanian Trade Union Delegation to the World Trade Union Conference in Paris.

It would certainly be futile and unfair to assume that conditions in all Russian zones of influence are exactly the same, or to apply the formal standards of the western parliamentary systems to the Balkan countries. These peoples have to find their own way of liquidating the past and evolving methods of social and political progress congenial to their own stage of development, and in keeping with the outer limitations under which they have to work.

The Rumanian Socialists, like their comrades in other Eastern and South-Eastern European countries, long for support from the Western democracies, and especially from Labour Britian. The Rumanian Social Democrats feel that non-recognition of the Groza Government is in no way helpful to them. In a letter we received from a Rumanian Socialist of long standing he pleads in the name of his comrades:

"It is incomprehensible to us why our comrades from the Labour Party and Comrade Bevin[7] have such scruples in recognising our present Government. Why should in their eyes people like Maniu and Bratianu offer greater guarantee for the democratisation of our country than we Social Democrats? Comrade Bevin may not have had time to reorganise the services of the Foreign Office and staff them with the right people. We hope that he will very soon send a Labour delegation to take up contact with the Socialists in Rumania."

There is certainly a strong case for fulfilling this demand, both to encourage the genuinely democratic forces in a country where they are struggling against almost overwhelming odds, and to obtain full information enabling us to judge the claims put forward by the Rumanian social Democrats.

Extracts from a Resolution adopted by the Social Democratic Party of Rumania on September 30th, 1945

The Executive of the Social Democratic Party puts on record the fact that the policy of the Party since August 23rd, 1944 - a policy carried out in accordance with the decisions of the National council of the Party - has succeeded in increasing the strength of the organisation and its influence on public opinion.

The Groza Government has been able to re-embody Northern Transylvania in the motherland, to maintain and develop friendly relations with the Soviet Union, to guarantee the loyal fulfilment of the armistice conditions and to achieve some considerable economic concessions, thanks to the support of the Soviet Union.

The Executive of the Social Democratic party states at the same time that there are many important questions in both home and foreign policy which are still awaiting a solution.

Foreign Policy

To enable Rumania - according to the Potsdam Agreement - to take up diplomatic relations with the three signatory powers of the armistice treaty of September 12th, 1944, to sign the peace treaty, and to join the ranks of the United Nations, it is necessary that the Government should also be recognised by Great Britain and the U.S.A.

We want to deepen our ties of friendship with the U.S.S.R. and establish diplomatic relations with Great Britain and U.S.A.

The policy of the Social Democratic Party of Rumania towards the U.S.S.R. is not prompted by considerations of expediency such as our vicinity to Russia, the decisive contribution of the Red Army to the liberation of Rumania and the part it plays in world politics, but is the result of the socialistic character of our Party.

For the same reasons we have welcomed with joy the great election victory of the British labour Party and the coming into power of the working class in Great Britain.

The Social Democratic Party is not only moved by a natural feeling of solidarity towards another social democratic party, but also by the hope that a Labour Britain will become a decisive force in organising a just and lasting peace and strengthening democracy and socialism in all lands.

The Social Democratic Party of Rumania hopes that the new world will be shaped by the close collaboration of the U.S.S.R. and Labour Britain; it wishes furthermore for a fruitful collaboration of the social democratic and the communist parties in all countries, and especially in our own country where the whole of the working class has, during the period of underground struggle, rallied behind the United Workers' Front.

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The Executive Committee warmly welcomes the recent socialist advance in France and in other countries.

From a long term point of view the Rumanian Social Democratic Party regards co-operation of the big Allies as the best guarantee of a just and lasting peace.

Internal Policy

The Social Democratic Party is fighting with all its strength for the genuine democratisation of the country.

But it adheres to the principle that democratic liberties cannot be granted to fascists who want to use them in order to destroy them and to introduce a totalitarian dictatorship. The Social Democratic Party demands, therefore, a law for the protection of the democratic régime. This law must guarantee the democratic rights of the citizen and must exclude the fascists from the enjoyment of democratic liberties.

The Social Democratic Party of Rumania asks above all for the immediate fulfilment of the following demands, which have already been approved by the Government: -

To abolish the concentration camps, to try and sentence the guilty;

To stop the practice of administrative internments;

To prevent any arrests, persecutions or search of premises being carried out without warrants; such warrants must be issued after 24 hours at the latest, and only for cases laid down by the law; the practice of arrests and search of premises during the night must be stopped;

To punish those who order or carry out arbitrary acts.

Rumanian Democracy is strong enough to do without these emergency measures which the first Governments after 23rd August, 1944, failed to abolish.

It is an urgent task of the Government to draw up and carry out an economic and financial plan, and to correct the mistakes made in the course of the agrarian reform.

The Social Democratic Party of Rumania states that the Liberal and the National Peasant Party have no title to pose as protagonists of democracy.

When these parties were in office, they pursued a policy of terrorism directed against the workers to whom they denied the most elementary rights, and trod underfoot those liberties for which to-day, being in opposition, they clamour.

The Social Democratic Party of Rumania does not pursue a policy of vengeance, but strives for the real democratisation of the country which can be brought about only by the efforts of a united working class, and especially by those of the Social Democratic Party, whose tradition and programme guarantee its democratic convictions, and whose strength offers a safeguard for its realisation.

The Tito[8] Régime

By a Correspondent

YUGOSLAVIA is the European country where the Communists of the school of Stalin have succeeded in establishing a stable régime of their own.

What is the nature of this régime? Does it stand for social revolution? Is it a democracy?

That Tito is actually carrying through a social revolution there can be no doubt. He has expropriated the estates of the large land-owners (in Serbia proper, it must be pointed out, large land-owners were an extreme rarity); he has reduced peasant indebtedness; he has nationalised certain key industries; he has separated Church from State, and has confiscated the better part of the Church lands; he has introduced feminine suffrage; and he has sponsored a number of important social security measures.

All this is to the good, and all this socialists in particular will applaud.

That Yugoslavia to-day is a land without personal freedom or political democracy should be equally obvious to all who are not taken in by the myth that "Soviet democracy is the highest form of democracy."

A political democracy need not adhere to any rigid constitutional pattern. But if the word has any meaning at all, surely it means: (a) freedom of expression and freedom of the press, and (b) the right of the people freely to elect their representatives. Even the best of democracies have their undemocratic features, and at their worst they taper off into dictatorship. This, however, in no way invalidates the basic criteria.

Of all those who have spent any considerable time in Yugoslavia (I except the outright Communists only) I have met not one who would have been prepared to underwrite the democratic character of the régime or of the recent elections. All of them report the same thing: the country is being run by the OZNA (the Communist political police) and the power of the OZNA is waxing rather than waning with the lapse of time. Many of those who went to Yugoslavia with an initial sympathy for the Partisan movement have been completely disillusioned by what they saw there. Some of them nevertheless still support Tito. They base their attitude on several arguments: (a) they see no practical alternative to Tito; (b) any attempt to overthrow Tito would probably result in a far greater evil; (c) democracy cannot be expected in a Balkan country, anyway; (d) what Yugoslavia requires far more than anything else is the establishment of some kind of social order.

This latter position is at least intellectually honest; it does not maintain the purposeless pretence that a near-totalitarian régime is a democracy. And there is sufficient to its logic to warrant serious consideration. But in view of the fact that the myth of Yugoslav democracy has been given such wide currency by the Press (the attitude of the Press fluctuates in remarkable harmony with the fluctuations in British foreign policy) it will be necessary to go into this question in some detail.

One-Party Rule

When Tito first took over the reins of power, it was explicitly stated that political parties other than the National Liberation Front and the Communist Party would not be tolerated - or, to phrase it somewhat more delicately, that the old parties had "ceased to exist". This despite the inclusion in his cabinet of a number of elements who were nominally representatives of the "old parties" - Sava Kosanovich[9] of the Independent Democratic Party, Milan Grol[10] of the Democratic Party, and Subasich[11] and Sutej[12] of the Croat Peasant Party.

Such a situation had certainly not been envisaged by Britain and America at the time they have their blessing to the Tito-Subasich agreement. The State Department and the Foreign Office repeatedly made it clear that they were dissatisfied, but Tito remained adamant to all pressure. Finally, about six weeks before the elections, certain concessions were made to the form if not to the substance of democracy. It was announced that the old Yugoslav parties would be given permission to reorganise themselves and that paper would be allocated to the opposition Press.

Overnight a committee of the Croat Peasant party came into existance. The committee's first act was to inform the Press that it stood foursquare behind the national Liberation Front and that it was categorically opposed to a return to party politics. Other reconstituted parties, though not all of them, behaved in a distressingly similar manner.

It was at this juncture that Milan Grol, leader of the Democratic Party, resigned from the Government of Tito-Subasich. He was followed a short while later by Subasich and Sutej. All three stated that it was impossible for them to function as colleagues in a Government which was the passive tool of the Communist party, and which was maintaining itself in power by terrorising the opposition. The State

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Department intimated bluntly that in view of the termination of the Tito-Subasich coalition and in view further of the fact that the elections would be uncontested, they would not be able to recognise a Government produced by such an election. For the first time the British and American Press began to speak of Tito as a dictator.

Familiar Plebiscite Elections

Against this background, is it over-cynical to suggest that the few concessions made to democracy during the immediate pre-election period were granted for the purpose of impressing visiting newspaper men and the delegation of selected British M.P.'s? Grol may have been permitted to print his paper and criticise the Government. But what good was this, so long as the people as a whole lived in mortal fear of nocturnal visits from the OZNA? And then again, how long will such limited and innocuous vestiges of democracy be tolerated now that Tito has won the election and, what is more, recovered his prestige abroad?

The British Press generally has reported that the elections were fairly conducted, and can be taken as indicative of the true sentiments of the people. It is difficult to understand how the British Press arrived at this interpretation. In the first place, electors were not able to cast their vote for alternative candidates - and merely to vote against the régime served little purpose. In the second place, there are the stupendous percent-ages. According to The Times[13], "in Sibenik 98 per cent. of their votes were for the Front. The percentages ... for the Susak area were 99 and 99.7; for Stip, in Macedonia, 100 and 99.9; for Strumica, 87 and 98; for Zlatovo, 100 and 100 ... etc." When 75 per cent. of the people come to the polls in a highly politicised country like England, with its unsurpassed transport facilities, it is considered a bit of an event. If, in a difficult, transportless country like Yugoslavia, 95 per cent. of the electorate came to the polls, then this can only be because to abstain was tantamount to inviting a visit from the OZNA. Once the populace had been terrorised into coming to the polls, it required no visible coercion at the ballot box to convince them of the futility of voting against.

Of all those who have returned from Yugoslavia in recent months, not even the most sympathetic, speaking in confidence, would have claimed more than 50 per cent. backing for Tito. Staunch Partisan supporters to whom I have spoken have admitted that some 60 per cent. of the people - certainly more than half - were against Tito. Neutral observers generally place the figure at nearer 65 per cent. And there are opposition sources which claim that 80 to 85 per cent, of the people are hostile to the régime.

The Opposition

The opposition to Tito is complex and disunited, so that it is difficult to make an integral estimate of it. In the first place, there are the capitalists and the clergy, whose opposition to Tito stems far more from a dislike of social revolution than from a dislike of dictatorship. On the other hand, there are the peasant masses. To them Tito's agrarian programme is unquestionably welcome. But they are antagonised by the régime of the commissars and the OZNA, by the terror directed against the mildly well-to-do peasants who are generally the leaders of the community, and by the relentless persecution of all those peasants who have shown themselves in any way to be inimical to the Partisans. The turbulent, individualistic Serbian peasant has never made peace with any dictatorship, and he is showing little inclination to make peace with the dictatorship of Tito to-day. The Croat peasant, for his part, is too much attached to his religion and to the memory of Matchek[14] to respond sympathetically to the blandishments of the régime.

There is a legal opposition and an illegal opposition. The legal opposition at the moment consists of Milan Grol, Subasich and Sutej. The three of them are carrying on with considerable courage. Grol's paper, Democratija[15], is snatched up within a few minutes of reaching the streets, while Subasich and Sutej are reported to have been touring Croatia in an effort to revive the old Peasant Party. But they carry on in the shadow. They are distinctly not recommended as safe investments for British insurance companies.[16]

The illegal opposition consists of an underground in the cities and of armed bands in the forests and mountains. Tito very recently had occasion to complain that there were still armed bands of deluded men holding out in the mountains and in remote villages. Specifically he named "the committee of Draja Mihailovich[17]". Reports from various sources put Mihailovich's present effectives at some 50,000 - this apart from the several hundred thousand who have returned to their villages or have been called up into Tito's Army. In Croatia, too, thousands of Matchek's peasants, fleeing from the terror, have organised themselves into armed bands in the forests. The fact that Tito has not been able to suppress this opposition, despite the most strenuous efforts, would indicate that it enjoyed a substantial measure of popular support.

Modern Totalitarianism

This, then, is the situation in Yugoslavia. It may be that there is no immediate alternative to Tito's régime. But this is no reason to condone it. Even more dangerous is the thesis that social revolution must inevitably culminate in totalitarian dictatorship. If we accept this thesis we are well on the way to condoning the spreading of similar régimes to other European countries. Let us in conclusion briefly consider what is involved here. It is perhaps inevitable that a civil war should be followed by a degree of dictatorship exercised against those who happen to be on the losing side. It was this that the Bolsheviks had in mind with the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie. Certainly Lenin never contemplated the establishment of a totalitarian régime. But lack of theoretical clarity, combined with the force of historical circumstances, carried the Bolsheviks, step by step, in a direction which all the responsible leaders would have repudiated in their better days.

First, there came the suppression of the Constituent Assembly in February, 1918. Thereafter the Bolsheviks found it logical to resolve their differences with the Anarchists and Left Social Revolutionaries, their indispensable partners in the revolution, by illegalizing them. Instead of a dictatorship of the proletariat, which, according to their theory, would result in an expansion of democracy for the workers, there now existed a dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party. To the degree that the Party tolerated differences of opinion and criticisms of the leadership, it was still able to function as a working-class parliament of sorts. It was only after factions had been outlawed, and after the expulsion of the Left Opposition and the Right Opposition, that the era of Soviet totalitarianism set in.

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"Totalitarianism" means a political system in which there is one party, one leader, one set of text-books for children, one official ideology permitting of no deviations other than those dictated from above. Economically, totalitarianism inevitably tends to an exaggeration of social inequalities, even though they may take place on the basis of a new and non-capitalist economy. But infinitely more fatal are the human and political implications of modern totalitarianism. Once 5 or 6 generations have grown up within the prescribed totalitarian mould, who can say whether it will ever be possible to re-educate the masses to democracy or to revive the human critical faculty? Who can predict the foreign policy of a government that is subject to none of the stabilising checks of an active public opinion?

In attempting to assess the neo-communist régime that has established itself in Yugoslavia, we must understand that a régime exported from Moscow to-day is not patterned after the semi-democratic revolutionary dictatorship of Lenin; it is a replica rather of the totalitarian régime of Stalin. When a modern state goes totalitarian, it stays totalitarian. History has yet to provide us with a single example of a totalitarian state which has succeeded in liberalising itself.

* * *

Belgrade Background

The author of this report returned from Yugoslavia shortly before the election after [a] nine months' stay in that country. He went as a sympathiser of the Tito régime. His official duties brought him into contact with all sections of the population.

THE first days of Autumn are still pleasantly warm in Belgrade but the nights chilly, and the single blanket provided on the hotel bed scant enough covering. There is little wood or coal for fuel, and neither heating nor hot water in hotels or houses. Hot baths are occasional luxuries enjoyed by a few who have immersion heaters or some wood for the stove. For the former the electricity bill may run up as high as 3,000 or 4,000 dinars a month. That would be £15 or £20 according to the Government-fixed rate of exchange of 50 dinars to the dollar.

Currency

This exchange has no relation to real values. It could not be maintained if the country had any foreign trade. If dollars were negotiable the exchange rate would be nearer two hundred than fifty. But neither dollars nor sterling are negotiable. Dealings in them are so severely punished that their black market value when it exists at all has shrunk from the equivalent of 250 per dollar six months ago, to about 120 now.

Food

Governmental decrees from time to time fix prices. These have had grave results on the city's food supply. Twice in six months following price-fixing decrees, meat, eggs, butter, milk, fruits and vegetables have disappeared from the market. On the first occasion, food began to trickle back after four or five weeks when price regulations were relaxed. Then, in August, a new decree set the prices so low that the normal long line of peasants' food-carts disappeared again. On one day the fruit shops were laden with peaches, melons and grapes. On the next, the shutters were up. No fruit was to be seen. In the restaurants no meat could be obtained, nor eggs, nor butter, nor cheese, nor vegetables. Since then, Belgrade citizens have lived mainly on soup and bread and potatoes. Little improvement seems in prospect. A vigorous pavement-chalking and newspaper campaign against "speculations" and the "black market" seems to indicate the Government's determination to keep prices at this sub-economic level, even at the risk of semi-starvation of the people.

Half-a-kilo of sugar per head was recently distributed from supplies said to have been brought in by U.N.R.R.A. Until then, practically no sugar had been obtainable by the citizens since the Germans were driven out last December. It is freely said that the victorious Russians at that time bore off the whole of the city's store of sugar, except a little which could be bought at fantastic prices.

Amidst this semi-starvation of the ordinary citizen the Government adherents do not fare so badly. The soldiers' messes and the Government hotels for delegates and members of foreign organisations provide food in reasonable quantity and quality, free or at less than market prices. Even banquets on special occasions are not rare.

Clothing.

New clothes and stout boots and shoes are practically unobtainable. Some rolls of cloth at very high prices have recently appeared in the shops, but these, like many other articles in the shop windows are not for general sale. One must apply to the local partisan committee for coupons. There is no general issue of coupons. They are granted only to active supporters of the régime. This may appear to British minds so utterly unfair as to be incredible. But the partisan theory is that they alone have won back the country from the Germans and that, consequently, the country belongs to them. "Privileges" are only for partisans and their adherents.

Houses

In the houses all rooms unused for sleeping are usually requisitioned. Partisan soldiers appear at the door and demand accommodation without payment of rent or compensation. Consequently, house-holders are keen to let their rooms to foreign visitors. Such lodgers must be registered, and a portion of the rent paid to the Government. The Government's percentage appears to be arbitrarily fixed, and varies greatly from case to case. I know the owner of a certain block of flats who has to pay 97½ per cent. of the rent which he receives from his tenants and lodgers. That is presumably the penalty for being formerly a rich man.

Frequently nocturnal "check-ups" on the use of apartments are made by armed soldiers. I have known several female as well as male friends thus awakened at 2 a.m. to give an account of themselves.

Employment

So much for food and homes. What now of "work"? Here the ordinary citizen is indeed in evil case. In all public bodies the key positions are held by active supporters of the régime. These are usually young ex-partisan soldiers. They are shamelessly placed in authority over experienced persons of twice their age. The latter are either tolerated in subordinate positions for the sake of their technical knowledge or dismissed outright. No experienced body of civil servants now exists. Almost the entire Government staffs are beginners. All law courts, except the "People's Courts", have been abolished, and almost all lawyers are out of employment. I know a former high official of the Court of Appeal who has been pensioned off - but does not receive his pension. Doctors may be relegated to any area of the country, and to work in any hospital part-time for nothing; charges for private practice have been fixed at unremunerative levels. University professors must be very discreet or they will be sent to join their numerous colleagues in the mines.

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Their teaching is openly criticised by their young ex-partisan students, and if they retaliate it is at their peril. Teachers must condition the minds of the young to the new régime. History in the new school books begins in 1941. Children's songs are exclusively of war, Partisans, Tito, Stalin, and the Red Army. Children's toys in the Government shops are almost exclusively wooden tommy guns and tanks.

Business men have little or no business. There is no foreign trade. All the services are run by the Government. There is, as yet, little internal trade. Certain small ship-keepers have a limited trade, but the big new Government stores (NA-MA) are opening up and expanding. They seem to have a monopoly of new goods. The new factories that are working are under strict Government control. The factory of a large international soap concern has been nationalised and one of the electricians appointed director.

Foreign organisations employ a fair number of local personnel. These appointments must all be approved by the Government. Approval of persons who seem quite suitable for the work is frequently refused, presumably because they are not considered "sound" by the régime. Thus, in one recent instance, no less than twelve out of a batch of fifteen were rejected, although they had actually been doing the job for some weeks or months. Such unfortunates have little hope of further employment. They are denied the right to work, which is the right to live. How then do they live? They seem to eke out existence by selling their household goods to commission shops, or by various devious devices. But suicides are common even among youths.

The great source of employment, of course, for the young is the army. The Yugoslav Army is said to be still 920,000 strong, and there is no sign of demobilisation on any scale. Belgrade streets are full of armed male and female soldiers. Every public building, office or mess has an armed guard posted day and night. The police is entirely military. The inference is inescapable that the régime depends for its authority on the maintenance of overwhelming force.

Political Prisoners

Another kind of employment is to be a political prisoner. The prisons round the city are full to bursting. Intermittently prisoners are released apparently to allow of new entrants. Those on short-term sentences are set to clean the streets, those on long-term are drafted to heavy labour in the mines. I have frequently seen batches of a hundred or so on their way to the railway station under heavy armed guard. They are mostly middle-aged men of professional or business type, but they include peasants and, indeed, young and old of all sorts and conditions. Arrests are made in the middle of the night by armed soldiers. The persons arrested have often no idea of the charge against them. They are often victims of some informers. (Official "procurators" are appointed by the Government to receive evidence from informers. One of them, a young ex-partisan soldier, admitted this to me in an unguarded moment. Accused persons are not allowed to know who has informed against them). The victims are marched away to an unknown destination, without any charge being made or any information given. Their property is confiscated if they are found guilty by the People's Court. Their relatives are not informed of their whereabouts for about a week. Not infrequently the charge turns out to be that of associating with British or Americans. It is not a valid defence to claim this as a privilege of one's private life. The answer is that citizens have no private life.

Travel and Exit Restrictions

Freedom of movement within the country is now allowed to Yugoslav nationals. Foreigners must, however, have a pass for any and every journey. These passes are only issued after considerable delay and provided that the journey is approved by the General Staff of the Army, and the Ministry for Internal Affairs. The roads are guarded by partisan soldiers every few miles. It is rather amusing to see these young lads painfully spelling out the words on the passes, for many of them are almost illiterate through loss of schooling since 1941. It is practically impossible for Yugoslav nationals to obtain permission to leave the country. Even Subasich, the ex-Premier of the Royalist Government, and until recently a member of this Government is said to be under detention (on the pretext of "illness") because he wished to take his wife and children out of the country. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs would give all they possessed to be allowed to leave the country. All exit routes are closely guarded. A few weeks ago, a number escaped by the Trieste route, but this has now been closed by a tight cordon.

Similarly, the Government insists on those nationals who were displaced to other countries during the war being returned to them even against their will. Officers of the Royal Army who were made war-prisoners in 1941 have returned after four years to find themselves prisoners in their own country.

Russian Infiltration

There are few British or American soldiers in the city. The U.S. and U.K. Military Missions, which kept the Yugoslav Army so well supplied during the war, were abruptly asked to leave within one week of the close of the European war. The Russian, on the other hand, remained and have steadily increased in number. Apart from the large contingent of Russian troops in the capital and on the northern borders of the country, two or three divisions are said to have recently moved into the Vojvodina - that is the rich agricultural belt north of the Danube. Many Serbs are gravely concerned about this Russian infiltration. In Subotica, on the north frontier, it is said that most of the child-bearing women are now pregnant by Russians. This is commonly the result of force. The Serbs do not contemplate this intermixture with equanimity. They admit that for a time there was some fascination in the idea of a great pan-Slav bloc. But now the "Trieste to Moscow" slogan arouses no enthusiasm. Most of the Yugoslaves are cured of this "malady". A common origin in the remote past does not make up for the immense difference of outlook that now exists between Russian and Yugoslav.

The Government, however, launches incessant propaganda in favour of Russia, and correspondingly belittles any Anglo-American achievement. The newspapers attributed the victory over Japan far more to the Russian invasion of Manchuria than to the atomic bomb. Tito-Stalin pictures and slogans are displayed everywhere. The corresponding ones of Roosevelt, Churchill, Truman[18], and Attlee[19] have disappeared. Numerous scholarships to Russian Universities are offered to young Yugoslavs with a good high school record. Many such would far rather attend a British University, but have no means of doing so.

The Russian soldiers in Belgrade are on the whole well-behaved; in the provinces less so. When they are drunk they are dangerous, and may break into houses and rape women, or may assault and rob civilians in the streets. Tito's son, a partisan soldier, was recently shot by a Russian in a drunken cafe brawl. There is no redress for such assaults. Everyone in Belgrade knows that it is useless to lay any complaint or charge against a Russian soldier.

There are also a large number of Russians in civilian clothing, whose duties are rarely discoverable. There is fairly definite information that some 200 - 300 Russian mining specialists have recently arrived in the country, probably for the purpose of replacing the managerial and technical personnel who have either been imprisoned or liquidated.

On September 1st, the Yugoslav Navy was turned over to Tito. Despite repeated overtures and many alluring promises, some 70 per cent. of the personnel refused to go back to Yugoslavia. In consequence of their refusal, the larger craft had to be towed across the Adriatic by the British Navy.

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The officer Commanding the Yugoslav Navy, Commander Josip Sakseda[20], together with 24 other officers, opted in favour of returning after specific guarantees given to Admiral Cunningham[21] by Marshal Tito and Major-General Velebit[22]. News has just been received that Sakseda and the majority of the officers who returned have been arrested. Sakseda himself is reported to have been executed, but this news as yet lacks confirmation.

According to information from several sources, the harbour of Split was virtually taken over by the Red Navy about the time the Yugoslav Navy returned to the Fatherland. Split's largest hotel, the Hotel Bellevue, with a total accommodation of some 400, has been taken over for the exclusive use of Red Navy personnel.

The forthcoming elections are viewed with foreboding and despair. There is as yet no sign of free opposition candidates. Since virtually all the candidates will be nominees of the united front, and as every enfranchised person must vote or be victimised, there can be no other result than a practically unanimous vote for the Government. Unless the elections are made "free" in the Anglo-American sense, the result will be in every way comparable to the 98 per cent. vote which Hitler's nominees used to enjoy.

Let it not be imagined that opposition to the régime is a faction of decadent die-hards. Some estimates place it at 95 per cent. I have personally never met a Serbian outside Government staffs who was not secretly of the opposition. Even among those staffs, and in the partisan army itself there is much veiled opposition to "Titler[23]". Some put it as high as 60 per cent. in the army. Even the youths are divided, and the civilian youths whom I knew were all in the opposition camp. At any rate it is certain that a vast majority of a virile, hard-working, honest, clean, independent people is being held down by a ruthless small minority, by overwhelming force of arms. This is plain as daylight to anyone who has lived in Belgrade for some months, and it is tacitly admitted even by those who were once, on theoretical grounds, ardent apologists for the régime. They are disillusioned, and now refrain from discussion of the situation. The evidence of the crushing tyranny around them has forced them to silence. To-day, Belgrade, Serbia, most of Croatia and Slovenia, and even a goodly part of Montenegro, look for a deliverer. They have not yet found one for themselves and they look wistfully to the authors of the Atlantic Charter for leadership and support.

* * *

Chauvinism in Education

A NEW Primer has been issued for the education of children in Tito's Yugoslavia. The book is entitled Primer and Reader for People's Schools and Illiterate Adults. The flyleaf carries this note: "Illustrations and letters drawn by artists of the Propaganda Department of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army." Fully two pages out of every three are devoted to the glorification of fighting, of Tito, of the Partisan Army, of the Soviet Union.

The military motif is everywhere. Sometimes the motif takes a passive form. On page 6, the letter A is illustrated by two drawings - one of a fighter aeroplane with Red Star, the other of a Partisan girl, Red Star on cap, shaping her mouth as if to pronounce the letter.

Sometimes the motif takes a highly active form. The letter B is illustrated by a drawing of a girl Partisan throwing hand-grenades after retreating German soldiers. The text underneath this drawing reads:[24] "Bisa is fighting. Bisa is in the battle. She is attacking the Huns with hand-grenades. The Huns are afraid of our hand-grenades." The letter T is illustrated by a drawing of a tank formation in battle. The appended text reads: "Theodor, Tara, Takovov, Timok. Tanks are necessary for fighting. Comrade Tito has been fighting for three and a half years."

Even where the drawings themselves appear entirely innocent, the theme of battle and Tito is somehow dragged into the text. The letter Sh (page 20) is illustrated by a drawing of a forest (shuma). The text reads: "Forest. Misha went into the forest. In the forest it rustles -sh - sh - sh. Tito and father are in the forest."

The letter B is illustrated by a drawing of a boy pouring water into a barrel. The text reads: "Barrel (burre). Bora sat down on the barrel. The barrel is empty. Bora brought water. The water is pouring into the barrel, and in the barrel there is a splashing sound. Bora's brother is fighting against the Huns."

Love of poetry, hatred of "foreigners", the greatness of the Slav people, the glory of battle, are repeated and repeated. We list a few quotations. Page 66: "It is a good thing to fight for my people. Lola Ribar is a people's hero." Page 67: "If you fight for your people, you will not be the slave of a foreigner. The plane is carrying off the wounded Andre ... It is bitter to be a slave to a foreigner ... The bridge was repaired by Marko and his comrades." Page 73: "Yesterday daddy went to the front. Yugoslavia is our motherland ... Kika is our bravest girl Partisan." Page 77: "Saint Sava, Sonia, Slovenia, Serbia. The Slavs are a great people. Glory to those who fell for freedom." Page 79: "Radko, Rudnik, Rasha, Rashka. Radko Mitrovich is a people's hero. Our youth goes to battle gladly."

Tito suffers from no visible lack of attention. The front plate is a photograph of Marshal Tito. Page 35 (letter d) relates "Dushan went into the woods to Marshal Tito. Dushan likes Tito. Tito and Dushan are fighting together." On page 61, there is an innocent drawing of a boy standing in front of a blackboard. There is one word on the blackboard - TITO. Page 85 carries an ode to comrade Tito, which starts off with these words: "Comrade Tito, our white violet, all our Youth greet you."

Russia, the Red Army, our brother Slavs, are the subjects of many flamboyant encomiums. England and the United States are not mentioned once in the primer. Nor is any other country.

Published by the International Publishing Co., 7. Carteret St., London, S.W.1, and printed by The Walthamstow Press[25] (T.U.), Forest Rd., London, E.17.