Fellow travellers
Sir: I have read Robert Moss's review (January 27) of David Caute's book: The Fellow Travellers. And, of course, as I have not read the work I cannot comment on it. On the other hand I have to comment on Mr Moss's review. However much his exposition has been illuminating he has omitted the most understanding point in the postwar history of Fellow Travelling. It was not the communist regimes of China, Cuba, North Vietnam or Chile that have occupied so much time of the circle of distinguished literati and of the Mass Media — but Tito's dictatorship — with the honourable exception of The Spectator.
In the whole history of myth making there is no comparable example — at any rate in this country — to the myth making of Tito and his communist regime. The output of the written and spoken word (in the English language on both sides of the Atlantic) to foster the Titoite legend has been prodigious indeed. The extasis and adulation for Tito's tyranny has exceeded those of the Webbs, G. D. H. Cole, Harold Laski and others for Stalin's dictatorship. Titoism in this country between 1945-1970, has reached an equal parity of esteem with the pop subculture. And what was adulated? A dictatorial and bloody tyranny whose only truth consists of slogans and morality and ethics of sheer naked power. The regime which under the auspices of the western Fellow Travellers has committed crimes equal to those of Stalin and Hitler, the knowledge about them being deliberately suppressed by conspiracy of silence.
As the South Sea Bubble of Titoism has burst two or three years ago, and we have learnt that Tito's regime has reached the verge of disintegration, is, not, sir, this fact, the proof that the expedient of politicians and Fellow Travellers have been engaged in a brainwashing of the public. Would it not be a right thing for them to start deflating the Titoite myth as President Tito has turned towards Moscow during last year.
S. R. Vlahovic
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