MIA > Archive > Draper > Titoism
From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 4, 23 January 1950, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
We have thus far discussed the character of the Tito regime and the attitude of Independent Socialists toward it: no political support of it, no political alliance with it, no whitewashing of it.
The importance of being clear on this much is underlined by the way in which a pre-world war III state of mind is being created in this country around the Tito-Stalin fight, as we have mentioned. Poor, little, brave Yugoslavia beset by the Russian bear – “we” (that is, American imperialism) must come to its defense against Moscow!
It is certainly true that Yugoslavia is poor, little, and brave; but the Belgium attacked by Germany in 1914 was also little and brave, as was the Finland attacked by Russia in 1939. Two imperialist world wars have broken out in our century presumably around the pretext of defending one little country or another against an aggressor. In all of these cases there was an aggression, militarily speaking, but anti-war fighters knew that these incidents merely triggered off the inter-imperialist rivalry that was building up toward the outbreak of hostilities. The just fight of the small country was swallowed up in the world holocaust.
But with this out of the way, at least as far as this series of articles is concerned, it is next important to reject an equally erroneous and opposite view, much less common but still to be met. This is the view that, since Moscow is Stalinist and Tito is Stalinist, and there is no social difference between them, one must take a plague-on-both-your-houses approach – an attitude of neutrality in the struggle of Yugoslavia as against Russian domination.
This view will not bear a moment’s Marxist examination. Let us approach it in three ways.
(1) First of all, the elementary Marxist idea has to be kept clear that our political attitude toward a given government or regime does not automatically determine our attitude toward a given war in which this regime is involved. The social identity of Stalinism in Belgrade and in Moscow determines many things about our politics, but it does not by itself determine the socialist attitude in case of national conflict.
For example, the Spanish loyalist government and the Franco insurrection (would-be government) were both bourgeois as far as their social nature went, even though one represented bourgeois democracy and the other fascism. Still, the Marxists ’ gave military and material support (not political support) to the former and fought the latter.
But since the important political difference did exist in the situation, it is more instructive to remember that the Marxists also gave similar support to the war waged by Chiang Kai-shek against Japan in the pre-World War II conflict which raged over control of China. In this case, if there was any social difference in the regime, both essentially bourgeois, it was not to the advantage of the Chinese warlord, whose social basis had an even greater admixture of backward feudalistic elements than the Japanese.
Chiang was a dictator, a “bloody butcher” in the eyes of every revolutionary socialist in the world, the hangman of the Chinese proletariat, no democrat in any sense, etc. But, as against the attempt of Japanese imperialism to impose its own foreign yoke upon the Chinese people, we supported even his military struggle.
Marxists support all legitimate struggles of peoples for national independence from all imperialism, including those peoples who are unfortunate enough to be themselves ruled by native tyrants and dictators. This doubling of their burden does not exclude them from the right to their national freedom. Rather it has been true often enough that, through such a just fight for independence, even though under a tyrant, the people have been able to mobilize their strength not only to defeat the would-be foreign oppressor but also to sharpen the fight for social freedom at home.
In the pre-war case of Chiang Kai-shek China versus Japan, there was always a real danger of possible compromise between the contestants over the backs of the Chinese people. To be sure, this element is not absent in the case of Tito (or rather, more broadly, of the Titoist bureaucracy), but – since Russia is not Japan and can afford far less to admit a compromise on its own part – Tito knows very well that today any weakening on his part toward compromise may mean his own head.
There was another element in the Sino-Japanese case which concerns us: the danger of the subordination of the Chinese struggle against Japan to another imperialism, like that of the U.S. (This, of course, is what actually took place once the Second World War engulfed the East.) This possibility is likewise far from absent in the Tito struggle today.
But today the Titoists are fighting for their country's independence against Russian conquest. For their own national-Stalinist interest, they resist in action and in deed, on all levels. Of this there can be no doubt. And this fight, which they head for their own reasons, is also the fight of the entire Yugoslav people for national liberation.
In this fight, national resistance against satellization by Moscow, the fact that Tito is a totalitarian dictator has the same significance as the other fact that Chiang was a butcher. The social identity of the Moscow and Belgrade regimes no more excludes support of a national war for freedom than does the social identity between (say) a colonial country’s bourgeois leadership and its imperialist oppressor.
(2) The example of Chiang and China is close enough to the issue to illuminate the main point we would make; but lest it be urged that it is no guide in dealing with the brand-new phenomena presented by Stalinism (a view we do not share), let us confine ourselves to the Russian empire today for a second approach to the question.
Consider the task of an independent socialist – anti-Stalinist and anti-capitalist – in the Russian satellites today, in Bulgaria, Rumania, et al. In whatever way that may be possible, he would desire to bring his denunciations of the regime to his fellow workmen, he would denounce it as anti-working class, totalitarian, exploitive, etc., of course, but not the least part of his condemnation would be to hammer away at the most obvious line of attack of all: These Kolarovs, these Rakosis, etc., they are nothing but Stalin’s puppets, they have sold our country to Moscow, they have made us a colony of the Kremlin; even if you support Stalinism, even if you don't agree with the rest of my indictment, must not we demand that our country break with its Russian masters, achieve real national independence?
And this would be among the most popular of the issues that could drive a wedge between even pro-Stalinist sections of the workers and the puppet regime.
But what if – for good or bad reasons, because of our motives or their own – the satellite bureaucracy does break with Moscow, as we have been demanding? And what if, decisively because of this break and no other reason, Russia sets in motion its machine of intimidation and terror against the country that has taken this step?
In such a case – which is the case in Yugoslavia today – it would be simply politically impossible for our hypothetical socialist to turn around and say, to the very workmen whom he had agitated before: Yes, our rulers made a break for national independence, as we demanded, but now that our national independence is menaced precisely because of this action, we are neutral in this struggle ...!
(3) What the above merely concretizes is, in fact, the basic theoretical reason why the plague-on-both-their-houses view is incorrect from a Marxist standpoint – incorrect with reference to the Yugoslav struggle as against Russian conquest, a struggle which would reach its sharpest expression in case this struggle flares into war, a war for national independence.
We have seen that the Marxist criterion for policy in war is not automatically given by the social nature of the regime. War is simply another means of achieving political ends (or, as the more time-honored formula goes: war is a continuation of politics by other, that is, forcible means). The Marxist’s attitude toward a given war is determined by his analysis of the politics from which that war flows, the politics of which that war is a continuation.
If Russia invaded Yugoslavia tomorrow, and Yugoslavia had to defend its national independence, the war on its side would not flow from Tito's totalitarianism (a democratic socialist regime in Yugoslavia would be invaded by Russia with twice as much enthusiasm) – it would flow decisively from the politics of the struggle for national independence.
This is why our hypothetical socialist above would find it impossible to make political sense (both to others and to himself: the problem is at bottom the same) out of a rejection of support. The war flowed from the realization of his own demand. If the demand was a correct one, the consequences must be accepted.
Support of the Yugoslav regime and its deeds as against Russian imperialism by no means affects the necessity of fighting the Titoist dictatorship at home; it by no means implies political reconciliation with Tito-Stalinism. Socialist support the fight for Yugoslav national independence in their own way, without any political reconciliation with the enemy at home.
Naturally, there have always been those self-styled socialists, in all the cases we have mentioned, including Spain and China, who saw only two alternatives: (a) either support the struggle for national independence and therefore give up any political struggle at home; or else (b) maintain “revolutionary intransigence” by supporting neither the home regime nor the real national fight. In no case has the Marxist movement adopted either of these deadly alternatives – and we do not do so in the case of Yugoslavia.
Full concrete support to the struggle against the reactionary foreign imperialism; no political support to the domestic tyrant – a fight on two fronts, toward the democratic socialist revolution which will mean the end of both Tito and Stalin. The latter is also the only sure road toward grounding Yugoslav independence in that which alone can maintain it: the victory of working-class democracy in all of the Balkans, in all of Europe and the world.
Last updated on 24 February 2023