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From International Socialism, No.45, November/December 1970, pp.8-11.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
IntroductionAs this issue of IS went to press The Times reported (October 24): As the strike of some 5,000 Belgrade philosophy students threatened to spread to other faculties, the authorities today appealed for party discipline in an attempt to localise the unrest. The strike began three days ago when Vlado Mijalovic, a student leader, was sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment for engaging in ‘hostile propaganda’. After a rally last night attended by students from other faculties as well as by the strikers, the authorities were informed of the students’ demand for the immediate release of Mr Mijalovic. In the past we have attempted to print as much as possible about the struggle in Eastern Europe (for instance, on Poland, see Jedlicki in IS 27 and a Polish correspondent in IS 40, as well as the booklet by Kuron and Modzelewski, still available from 6 Cottons Gardens, London E2, price 4s). The following document from revolutionary students recently came into our hands. As a result of an international seminar in August 1970 (entitled Hegel and Our Times) conducted by the Philosophy Faculties of Belgrade and Zagreb Universities, the Yugoslav student revolutionaries made their first effective contacts with counterparts from Western Europe. An unofficial meeting, convened to discuss the students’ struggle and the official repression, was physically prevented by the organisers of the seminar, assisted by a large body of special police. The following chronicle of the student struggle was however circulated clandestinely. We are reprinting it, not because we necessarily agree with all the analysis, but because we believe as many militants as possible in this country should know of the struggle of workers and students in the so-called Communist countries. The translation is by Ian Birchall. |
1966 December 23 Violent and spontaneous demonstrations against the Vietnam War were the first event which showed the Belgrade students the difference between the official policy of the Yugoslav Government and its real practice. The demonstrators were condemned by the League of Communists, which opened proceedings against the ‘leaders’ in the Philosophy Faculty. As a result Aleksander Kron, assistant professor of Philosophy, was expelled from the Party, and Jadran Ferlugai, professor of History, and Alia Hodjić, sociology student, were gravely censured.
1967 An open conflict breaks out between the authorities and an important group of intellectuals (mainly professors from the Philosophy Faculty), who are accused of having criticised the market economy and demanded genuine self-management, market economy and demanding genuine self-management.
As the authorities exert political pressure on the intellectuals involved, the students in the Philosophy Faculty become politicised in the course of the defence of the professors and students under attack.
1967-68 The students in the Philosophy Faculty organise various actions: against the fascist regime in Greece, in support of the German extra-parliamentary opposition, and on the occasion of the anniversary of the founding of the NLF. The authorities did not respond.
1968 March At the time of the events in Poland and Czechoslovakia, the students of the Philosophy Faculty carry out a solidarity action with the professors and students of Warsaw; they draw up petitions and hold meetings at which the situation in Poland is analysed and compared to the Yugoslav situation. Inspired by the Czech events, the students put forward demands for the democratisation of Yugoslav society. The sharpest reaction comes from the leaders of the official student organisation, with whom the students now enter into open conflict for the first time. The militants from the Philosophy Faculty are widely supported by young intellectuals as well as by the student press.
Growing unemployment (10 per cent), enormous social inequalities (a 40-to-one ratio between highest ana lowest incomes), economic emigration (one million), private appropriation of collective property, penetration by foreign capital, the policy of peaceful coexistence and trade with the whole world, limits imposed on self-management, and the repressive nature of measures taken against expressions of discontent, lead to the explosion of a wave of discontent, culminating in spontaneous and violent demonstrations by several thousand students.
June There follows the occupation of all the faculties in Belgrade, and a general strike of students and professors at the University of Belgrade. For a week, the strikers hold continuous meetings, calling for genuine self-management and the immediate democratisation of political life in Yugoslavia.
The main demands are as follows: an end to the growing unemployment, the economic emigration, social inequalities, privileges for state officials, corruption, etc; then, demands for democratisation of political life, especially in the Party, application of self-management (which is official policy) at all levels, etc.
The strike ends on June 8 after Marshal Tito has spoken to the nation.
August The Party Committee, by an administrative decision and without consulting the rank and file, dissolves the philosophy and sociology groups in the Philosophy Faculty.
The paper of the Belgrade students, Student, after being seized three times and suffering definitive prohibition, maintains the orientation of the June ‘Action Programme’. Violent and pernicious attacks, with no arguments to back them up, continue to be made in the evening newspapers as well as in the Party press (Komunist).
In the Philosophy Faculty, a group of militants propose to the Assembly of the student organisation (SSFF) a new action programme which affirms that students have no interests separate from the ‘whole of society’. They demand that the SSFF should stop being a sterile trade-union organisation and become a political movement. This proposal is rejected, after the Party representative, during the meeting of the Assembly, accuses the supporters of the proposal of trying to create a new opposition party.
1969 Spring In the elections in March and April, the students of the Philosophy Faculty propose candidates for the Parliament of the Republic as well as of the Federation. A strict and indirect selection procedure prevents them from being official candidates; the reasons given include the fact that they were not Party members (which is in contradiction with the Yugoslav Constitution) and that they had been involved in the events of June 1968.
After the dissolution of the student organisation of the’ Philosophy Faculty (SSFF), the students elect a new Committee of the SSFF in which the militants of June are to be found. The new SSFF Committee, supported by the students, prevents the establishment of pre-publication censorship of Student, and proposes to the Assembly of students of the University that it should organise meetings on June 3 to celebrate the anniversary of the Action Programme of June 1968. All the faculties approve this proposal, as well as the proposal to elect a group responsible for analysing how the demands of June 1968 have been carried out, an analysis which could serve as a basis for the meetings. Militants from the Philosophy Faculty are also elected to this group.
The Party Committee in the University does not approve this decision, and tries to prevent the organisation of meetings by every means in its power. As a result, by June 2 all the meetings called have been either cancelled or forbidden, including that in the Philosophy Faculty.
The elected group puts forward, as an analysis of how the Action Programme of June 1968 has been put into practice, a document (called the ‘three thousand words’); the University student committee rejects this text with the aid of Party and State bureaucrats who take part in the meeting of the committee on May 28.
June Attacks begin in the press and by all possible means against the authors of the ‘three thousand words’ and against the editors of Student and the SSFF Committee, who are presented as the most dangerous enemies of socialism.
The text of the ‘three thousand words’ contains the analysis of the Yugoslav situation and its main conclusion is that nothing has been done to fulfil the demands of June 1968. It is noted, for example, that social inequalities are increasing (from 40 to one to 50 to one); that the enormous privileges of the bureaucrats have remained untouched; that there is no uniform conception of self-management, and that it is still far from being realised in practice; that no measures have been taken against the private appropriation and dismantling of collective property, or against corruption; that unemployment and the economic emigration are increasing and that no serious effort is being made to solve this problem; that self-management on the level of the society as a whole doesn’t exist even in embryonic form; that the number of workers in Parliament is very low (about one per cent); that the process of democratisation of political life has been halted, especially in the Party; that the democratisation of the means of information has not even been started (on the contrary, there are numerous cases of the student press being banned); that culture is becoming more and more commercialised; that there has as yet been no attempt to reduce the number of illiterates (20 to 25 per cent); and finally that chauvinism is on the increase, and in fact being inspired by leaders who exploit the national feelings of the people in the struggle for power.
At the same time, some students from the Philosophy Faculty are brought to court, in an attempt at intimidation, under the false accusation that they shouted ‘enemy’ slogans (in fact they were singing revolutionary songs) during the festival of documentary films in Belgrade. Those charged are Bube Rakic, president of the SSFF Committee; Lilija Jovicic, sociology student, and Vlado Mijanovic, sociology student, both members of the same committee; and Boza Borjan, philosophy student, who at the time of the Zadar festival was participating in the symposium of Yugoslav philosophy students.
The students have been arrested and ill-treated by the police in a way not permitted by the legal code. The SSFF now issues a leaflet headed The Charge is a Lie. About 50 students participate in the distribution of this leaflet and only Zoran Minderovic, a student at the Conservatory, is tried and sentenced to a month in prison (he refuses to accept this sentence and is at present living clandestinely).
Summer A large number of students from the Philosophy Faculty are brought in for questioning by the State security services with reference to the May events.
Autumn 1969-Winter 1970 Subsidies to Student are temporarily suspended, and after the appearance of three numbers, the Party Committee in the University attacks the editorial board, accusing its members of being ‘extremists’, spokesmen of a ‘philosophical platform’, ‘anarcho-liberal Stalinists’, etc. The Committee publicly demands the dissolving of the editorial board and the leaders of the official student organisation come to their assistance by publishing a declaration against Student.
At the meeting on December 2, Philosophy Faculty students put forward a resolution attacking the work of the Party Committee, accusing it of using bureaucratic and anti-communist methods and saying that since June 1968 repressive measures have been taken against youth papers and the students for their anti-bureaucratic activity (the publishers refuse to subsidise certain papers, the committees of two of them have been dissolved, and the four editors are being taken to court – when all they have done is to inform the public – six papers have been forbidden, five of them definitively, the 10 editorial boards have been dissolved).
December 1969-Spring 1970 The University students’ Assembly discusses for five consecutive sessions the proposal to dissolve the editorial board of Student. Three meetings are interrupted because there is no quorum. According to the press, it is the so-called ‘oppositional’ students of the editorial board of Student who are said to have caused incidents, so as to dissuade the students from going to the Assembly.
On December 26, the University student committee, by an illegal decision (contrary to both the Constitution and the penal code) forbids students who are not delegates to attend the session. Several hundred students try to force the door of the lecture hall open. There are violent clashes with the guards and police. After two hours of demonstrations and protests, the students enter the hall. There is a stormy discussion, but it appears that 23 delegates support the orientation of Student, while only seven delegates speak in favour of dissolving the editorial board.
The delegates from the Philosophy Faculty, greeted with an ovation, express the view that the campaign against Student is being planned by bureaucratic forces, and protest against the transformation of the student organisation into a mere transmission belt for the CP, which, according to them, has no right to claim to be the sole dispenser of truth.
Since in effect Student is accused of being critical of everything, the delegates explain that criticism, in this sense, is in fact well known to have been demanded by Marx himself and to be the principle of Marxist thought.
During these meetings, the bureaucracy makes every effort to turn away the students from the Philosophy Faculty. (A meeting is organised to dispute the legality of the SSFF Committee on the basis of false evidence.) The police resume the case against Vlado Mijanovic and his comrades, accused of having produced in May the leaflet with the title The Charge is a Lie. Dusan Kusmanovic, Curgus Velimir and Velia Mihajlvic, philosophy students, are brought to court for questioning.
At the last session of the student Assembly, on January 10, 1970, dozens of guards and policemen are present. In the interval between two meetings, most of the delegates are replaced by CP full-timers, who say they are obliged by the principles of ‘democratic centralism’ to approve the decisions of the CP. The delegates supporting Student denounce this meeting as being completely staged. Likewise they affirm that the bureaucratic intervention by the CP has prevented any democratic debate. The president of the Assembly favours the opponents of Student by putting a stop to the whole discussion at a time when about 40 delegates favourable to Student are asking for the right to speak. The presidency and the commission for resolutions are immediately dissolved, and no one else is allowed to speak, not even Alia Hozic, principal editor of Student, a sociology student, who had asked to reply to attacks and questions.
A hundred and fifty-nine delegates vote against Student, and 13 for, with 15 abstentions, while about 50 delegates refuse to vote under these conditions, thus protesting, in vain, against the methods used.
At almost the same time – early December – the Serbian society of philosophers holds a session on the theme Socialism and Culture. The event is noteworthy because of a bureaucratic attack against freedom of creation. In 1969 in Serbia, no less than 40 works were banned; this figure is higher than the total for. the whole preceding period since the war. This discussion takes place in the presence of several hundred intellectual workers, and it has important repercussions, provoking a wave of violent attacks from the CP. Towards the end of January 1970, at the end of a press campaign directed against students and left-wing intellectuals, a session of the Parliament of the Republic has to devote almost 12 hours to an examination of the situation in the Philosophy and Philology Faculties. The students and professors are accused of being ‘oppositionists’, ‘extremists’, and ‘anti-socialist’ forces. The complete minutes of this meeting have never been published.
Spring 1970 A new SSFF Committee is elected, and undertakes a considerable number of actions. A petition is signed by students and professors protesting at the brutal torture to which L. Packman (the Czech chess master) has been subjected. Meetings and demonstrations are organised against the American aggression in Cambodia. (The official press completely ignored these events in the Far East.) Thousands of leaflets are distributed on this subject; a satirical paper, Frontisterion, aimed at students from the Philosophy Faculty, should have been published and is forbidden by preventive censorship at the printing press. A statement addressed to all Yugoslavs is published, dealing with the problem of the growing repression against the student press, and against youth; and a hunger strike is organised to support the strike by miners at Kakany (Bosnia) against poverty.
During this strike the police enter the Philosophy Faculty twice, searching the building from top to bottom, thus violating the autonomy of the University. Following this the Dean of the Philosophy Faculty is arrested in his office. The strikers distribute more than 10,000 leaflets to inform the public and explain the motives for the hunger strike. Once again the press remains silent.
Summer 1970 Once again from the very beginning of the holidays the progressive students in the Philosophy Faculty are victims of repression. A number of students are convicted for ‘publication of untrue information likely to cause confusion among the population, with the aim of undermining confidence in official institutions’. As a result, the following students are charged: Perunovic Slobodan, archaeology student, member of the SSFF Committee; Zivojinovic Moma, philosophy student, member of the SSFF Committee; Boskovic Dusan, philosophy student, member of the SSFF Committee; Vojvodic Vlada, medical student; Jovicic Ljilja, sociology student, former member of the SSFF Committee; Pavicevic Radmila, student of education; Maljkovic Ilija, holder of a degree in literature, publicist, student at the Philosophy Faculty; Nicolic Milan, sociology student, former member of the SSFF Committee; Liht Sonja, sociology student, former member of the University students committee and of the Central Committee of Serbian Youth; N. Nedeljkovic (sociology student) and Ecvijevic Slobodan (history student) were arrested during leafletting and sentenced to a month’s imprisonment; Dapic Goranko, philosophy student and secretary of the SSFF Committee, was arrested on July 17 and imprisoned in inhuman conditions. He is accused of propaganda hostile to the State.
For two months, Bozidar Borjan, philosophy student, has been in prison. He was sentenced for having published a purely philosophical review, Le Rondo. Because of ill-health he was transferred to t he hospital of the Zrenjanin prison (Serbia), where he still is. Dapic Goranko was freed provisionally after six days in prison, while the president of the SSFF Committee, the sociology student Vlado Mijanovic, was arrested.
The main charges levelled against Dapic and Mijanovic could lead to up to 12 years’ imprisonment. They include: criticism of the Yugoslav electoral system in April 1969; distribution of the leaflet headed The Charge is a Lie in June 1969; affirmation that none of the demands of June 1968 had been achieved; distribution of the document ‘three thousand words’ in June 1969; assistance with the publication of the paper Frontisterion in April 1970; having accused the bureaucracy of the measures taken against Student; organisation of meetings against American aggression in Cambodia and distribution of leaflets inviting to this meeting on June 7, 1970; and organisation of the hunger strike on June 22, 1970, and distribution of the strikers’ leaflets. For Dapic they include: insults to the leaders at the Belgrade student Assembly on June 10, 1970; distribution of leaflets against the repression of the student press; and a ‘hostile’ speech at a meeting during the hunger strike, on June 24, 1970.
About 40 students have already been taken in for questioning by the State security service or called as witnesses in court. According to semi-official information it seems probable that charges are being prepared against these militants.
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