Tito in Academe
Aleksa Djilas The University of London has appealed for money to establish a Fellowship for Post-graduate students from Yugoslavia at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies. The Fellowship would be open to scholars specialising in, among other sub- jects, history, languages and literature. The need for and usefulness of the Fellowship is not disputed. What is questionable is its name. The endowment has been designated as a 'Yugoslav Studies Fellowship in Memory of Marshal Tito', and so, in the Words of the appeal, one of its aims is to commemorate `one of the outstanding World leaders of the 20th century'. This raises issues of some importance.' To begin with, the text of the appeal con- tains some inaccuracies. It is stated that because of British war-time support for ,,Tito, Britain 'has acquired a special place in Yugoslav esteem'. The authors of the ap- peal seem to have forgotten that during the War the British government did not set out to support Tito himself but the Yugoslav Partisan struggle against the enemy occupier. In the course of the same war Britain also aided the Soviet Union. Has any historian or politician suggested that .such British help should now be regarded as Britain's support for Stalin? It is not accurate to imply that the close connection between Britain and Yugoslavia, dating back to 1918, has been Maintained by the Yugoslav Communist leaders. Immediately upon the end of the War the Yugoslav regime promptly disregarded the war-time alliance with Bri- tain and in loyal accord with the Soviet Union, insisted that Britain was an im- perialist power and a bitter opponent of
,!,oinmunism and 'progress'. .
ugoslav state relations did indeed improve during the Yugoslav conflict with Stalin (1948) but not because of any renewal of Pre-war closeness or sentimental nostalgia for the war-time comradeship-in-arms but because British and American support was vital for Yugoslavia in the struggle to main- tain her independence. Since the war, the Yugoslays have had a fundamentally dif- ferent approach from the British to the ma- i°. niY of international issues. Most of the tune the British have put up with this, Preferring, in common with other Western states, to abstain from open criticismof Yugoslav foreign policy for fear of nudging Yugoslavia back into the Soviet bloc. The chairman of the Committee of Honour launching the appeal, Sir Fitzroy Maclean, is described in it as a 'close war- time associate of President Tito'. He was head of the British mission with the Par- tisan general staff and much admired there for his personal courage, but the position
did not in effect amount to closeness to the commander-in-chief. On the contrary, suspicion of the British liaison officers was a marked characteristic of Partisan com- munist leaders. On his side, Sir Fitzroy had reported at the time that Tito was to be regarded as a guerrilla commander whose first and abiding loyalty to the communist cause could not be doubted. Apart from such considerations, there are fundamental questions of political morality posed by the association of Tito's name with the Fellowship. The name of the Fellowship emphasises Tito's military title of Marshal. What are we to make of the connection between military rank and the academic objectives of this Fellowship? Are there university scholarships elsewhere named after marshals or generals? Have the signatories forgotten that Tito relied on his army command and Marshal's rank to preserve his power on the occasions when opposition erupted?
The appeal has appeared at the very time when a number of writers in Yugoslavia are serving long prison sentences for the of- fence of criticising Tito (Selie, Djogo and others). Do the movers of the appeal con- done the imprisonment of Tito's critics? Or do they perhaps think that, when in Balkan Yugoslavia writers and artists are sent to jail for exercising freedom of expression, it is a matter of so little import to culture and education that they can blithely overlook it?
A number of former British ambassadors to Yugoslavia grace the list of signatories.
'I keep getting wind.' Retirement has presumably given them freedom to express their views. During the several decades that their aggregate service in Yugoslavia has covered, the ambassadors have, between them, been witness to several notorious persecutions — among others, of Croat students at Zaghreb University, of Serb students at Belgrade University, of philosophy professors in Belgrade and of the scholars around 'Praxis'. The am- bassadors could not but know that the per- son they wish to honour at the University of London played the leading role in suppress- ing freedom at Yugoslav universities. He also, of course, disregarded even the minimal requirements of the Great Powers at Yalta by failing to submit himself or his regime to the free will of the electorate.
Furthermore, even the most cursory reading of the Yugoslav press today shows that adulation of the dead dictator is on the wane. Were this process of de-Titoisation to follow its course, the Fellowship might well turn out to be, an obstacle to better British-Yugoslav relations. What effect would there be on Soviet-British or Sino- British relations if a Fellowship in memory of Marshal Stalin or of Mao were now in- stituted at a British university?
The cult of Tito, moreover, is tied to a certain specific group in Yugoslavia and not to the present system itself, and, less still, to Yugoslavia's independence or unity. This point needs elucidation even for those well versed in Yugoslav affairs.
There is plenty of evidence available to- day df conflicts for power among different groups in the ruling party. The cult of Tito is one of the contentious issues in this strife: should it be preserved without change, or examined critically or discarded complete- ly? The more liberal streams, of course, are putting the case for a sterner critique. The authoritarian tendency (for whom `bureaucrats' has become the accepted euphemism) are in favour of preserving the cult. They regard the cult as a powerful means of propaganda and see any criticism of Tito and his 'inheritance' as an attack on their own privileges and monopoly of power. The very same men, at the same time, constitute the pro-Soviet drift inside the party. They do not, of course, directly advocate any immediate return of Yugoslavia to the Soviet fold but they open- ly favour closer economic and political ties with the Russians and more than hint at their own readiness to call for the help of armies from the 'socialist' countries in the event of a serious internal crisis in Yugoslavia.
In its need to preserve the cult of Tito these `bureaucrats' eagerly search for favourable references to the dead Marshal in the Western press and from the mouths of Western notables. The establishment and success of the Fellowship in memory of Marshal Tito would be a triumph for these authoritarian forces. Instead of con- tributing to closer and better relations bet- ween Britain and Yugoslavia, the Fellowship might well help to strengthen pro-Soviet elements in the country.
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