national, last July.
The problems in Yugoslav society today are very acute, and the trends away from socialism are developing rapidly, and on many levels. 1 shall try to outline some of them.
One question which has achieved prominence is the question of nationalism-this includes the problem of the growing inequalities hetween the six republics, the growth of nationalistic, chauvinistic feelings within the republics, and of the relation of federal to republican authority. That nationalism has become so important is not a matter of chance but a consequenco of political policies, and, despite the repeated pleas for unity, is actually oncouraged by the Party leadership. A small but indicative example is provided by the census which was carried out earlier this year. In this information was sought on the nationality of respondants who were asked to identify themselves as Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, etc., or even as Mus Lima (a capital M indicating nationality, a small in indicting religious affiliations), but not as Yugoslaws: the latter answer was not merely excluded in the census form, but was interpreted as making the entire census retarn invalid: Considerable prior publicity warned of this.
-Can you explain the significance of the present transfer of more power to the republics?
The current restructuring of relationships between federal and republican authorities which gives much greater autonomy to the republican govemments has been cloaked int Marxist phraseology about the withering away of the state. However the strengthening of the buresucracies in the six republics and of their power at the expense of the federal authorilies clearly represents no such withering away. The amendments to the Constitution which permit these changes enable the republican governments to draw ap independent agroements with foreign capital with regard to investment, and a guaranteed return on foreign investment is under discussion. The extent of the autonomy now permitted is not entirely clear, but it seems that if one of the republics wanted to withdraw from the federation and attach itself to another country fif Slovenia wanted to join Austria, for example) the Constitution does not explicitly exclude this. (The official argument is that as no republic would want to do this no explicit safeguards une necessary.)
-What is the immediate effect of these changes? The decentralisation has the effect of reinforcing nations listic sentiments in each republic, a trend which is directly counter to the aims of the revolution, and the slogans for unity and fraternity of the struggles of the war period. But nationalism has a long history in the area of modern Yugosavia, having been promoted in the past by imperialist powers in support of the classic method of divide and rule. Today the bureaucratic elite is protected from criticism, and fundamental problems are obscured by the growing national rivalries. So, for example, there is more widespread argument about how Serbia exploits Croatia than about how the buresucracy pursues policies which secure its interests at the expense of the workers and peasants of both Serbia and Croatia. And a discunsion about the role of the political police could be diverted into a discussion of the relation of federal to republican police, so that questions of real importance could be evaded. The dangers in these trends are illustrated by the fact that in pro-nationalist demonstrations in Croatia, the badges and emblems of the Ustuss ate ro-appearing.
Can you outline some of the present trends in social inequalities?
The growing inequalities between richer and poorer republies and hotween different social groups are reaching disastrous proportions: but these follow from the policies of economic de-centralisation and "market socialisms" which have enabled all these aspects of nacionalism to reassert themselues. TIl try to give some examples of these inequalities. The growing numbers of workers abroad are onc Kers is getting worse. Within the country about 60% of the employed population are at the level of minimum wages at bare subsistence is possible. Increasingly 1t3 necessary to work for more than 8 hours a day, to find a the economically active are peasants but levels of agricul. tural development remain so los that more than 1 million of them are only partiaily employed -in faer if there were factories in which these people could work they could do so without any harm being done to their agricultural work.
A Turjug Report in 1969 in South Serbia (not the poor est region) gives an idea of pay levels and differentials:
20% of suluries* were at the minimum lesel, 35,000 dinars per month (about (10)
20% af suluries were 45,000-50,000 dinars per month (under E15)
50% of salaries were 60.000- 70,000 dinars per month (around C20)
10% of salaries were 80,000-90,000 dinars per month (under L30)
*(la. salaries in industrial enterprises and work organisations)
In education things are detoriorating in many ways. The child of a manual worker has 9 times less chance of getting Higher Education than the child of an administrative wor kers and opportunities are decreasing. In many arcas peasants keep their children at home to help with sock it the tields and to avoid the necessary payments for books, and equipment. Not more than 10% of stodents at University are the children of peasants and workers. The school and University population comes to fook leas like a pyrumid and more like a square as so many children never get into school at all. A discussion has now opened about payment for education; one proposal is that only elententary education should be free, there should be fees for high school and University. Of course there's already a private medical service in one of the republics, —And who is doing well in this situation?
The people who are getting most out of the present situstion are the members of the burenneratic elite whose privi leges scem to become mora secure, more extensive and more obvious. The extent to which this group is becoming identical with the League of Communists can be seen if we look at the composition of the Party in 1970:
236 of members were peasants 13.4% wee workers 50.2% were high level administrators.
Power in the economic sector is becoming more closely interwoven with political power as successful directors. managers and administrators seek high positions in the Party, and no one eise is there to stop them. The power of this group is growing, their control over the allocation of surplus value is almost total. Their interests are in direct conflict with those of workers. Even token worker representation, in Parliamentary commissions for example, is almost nil. The trade union leadership is just an extension of the bureaucracy; they justity the growing inequalities in lerms of inequalities in the marker.
The other group who are growing and prospering are the small capitalists-the owners of small workshops, restaurants, bars, ete. It is the common ambition of workers returning from abroad to belong to this group. While abroad -in West Germany or Sweden for example-they work hard and long hours to make enough money to return to Yugoslavia and to set up a car repair business. or a restaurant: most of their social contact is probably with other Yuguslavs. they are unlikely zen to come into contaet with trade unions. When they return to Yugoslavia it is probable that large numbers of these workers have no sort of commitment to socialism What this group wants above all is strong governmentthe stabilisation of the economic and political situation so that their interests can prosper: the pressure which this group can exert is growing stronger.
Did anything important come out of the Self-Management Congress which was finally held after so many postpone ments-this spring?
During the period before the Congress there was some Iberalisation in the political atmosphere, and there was quite a ferment of political debate about the Congress bout the proposed Constitutional Amendments.ctc. How ever this ended abruptly with the Congress itself and since Tito's speech calling for unity there has been a sort of vacuum in political discission The Selt-Management Conpress was a very formul becasion with no real discussion taking place; all the speeches and resolutions bad to be prepared mere than a month beforehand, Many people expected that there would he a decisten to make strikes legal: Tito made a speech in which he recognised the right of workers to strike in certain circumstances, but no clear lecision has been made yet. We expect that strikes will be made legal ander certain conditions, but it must be understood that this would he no more than an attempt to conIral strikes. At present Party members are not supposed to take part in strikes: if strikes were legal Party members in Yugoslavia -And this discussion about strikes has been opened because of the increase in strikes in the recent period? Yes, they're one indication of the growing dissatisfaction and alarm which is felt in Yugoslavia today. (Some peopie are even looking to the USSR and expecting an intervention to save Yugoslay socialism from therel) But the growth in strikes is a more constructive, it less clear response. In the last two years more that 1,000 have been officially recorded no one knows how many have actually taken place. These strikes have involved manual workers, students and some otler groups such as teachers. Mostly the strikers have put forward connomic demands and these are the ones which have been reported in the Press, but in addition many demands have reflected geaeral criticisms of the present political situation, and of the failure to make self-management mean anything real.
Studant solidarity in Beigrade Probably the clearest criticism of the trends in Yugoslavia from a truly socialist point of view comes from some intellectuals who have had to take jobs below the level of their qualifications, and from some in jobs which carry few privileges. But the task of spreading these ideas is very difficult for the very language of Marxism and Socialism has been devalued. For instance, the actual development and operation of self-management in Yugoslavia has made the idea of self-management a joke to large numbers of workers. -Can you explain how these distortions in self-management have developed"
To understand the distortions in our self-management system it's necessary to go back to its introduction. At the time of the break with the USSR in 48 the Party leadership had to reinforce its working class support (it had alroady lost much peasant support as a result of agricultural policies, and the left had already been eliminated by Stalin before the war). Self-management was set up to secure this. Thus it was imposed from abovo, and its form from the beginning was distorted for all institutions were given a legal equality -an equal right to self-management structure. Institutions of production were equal to those of distribution, to exportimport organisations, banks, ere. Lacking other controls the basis for growing inequalities was built into this system:In the name of self munagement decisions, banks were in a position to manipulate, via investment policy, productive enterprises: large department stores, through investment and sules policy, could make large profits and hold considerable power over a small factory with which they placed orders, etc. Power and profit in such u system go to the largest and most favourably placed enterprises. The policy of "marker socialism" has merely strengthened these trends. So we have a system of self-management ar a horizontal level in the factory, etc. Vertically we hase only the political hierarchy, with power concentrated in the hands of the burcaucracy; before we can begin to make self-management real we have to break that.
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indication of the problems within the country (between 1 and 1% million). The situation for most peasants and wor-
second job if possible. So that not only with regard to pay but also with regard to spare time many workers are worse off than they were, there's leas time or energy for any cdu- cational activicy or for participation in political meetings. and voluntary collective work is out of the question. Half of