YUGOSLAV REPORT
607
army
of lantern-jawed scarecrows recruited and trained in a now
all-but-forgotten age.
Or so it seems. Are they meant to serve as a constant reminder–
memento maTi?
If
so, they would seem quite superfluous. The underground strains
and fissures, the subterranean rumbles and tensions may elude foreign
tourists in Dubrovnik or Bled, but to the natives they are inescapable.
The eloquent silence evoked almost everywhere in Yugoslavia by any
reference to Djilas is a tribute both to him and to his enemies - to his
spirit and to the commonsensical cunning of those who ordered him
jailed or pardoned in accordance with the exigencies of foreign or
domestic politics.
For with a pragmatic adaptability born of perennial crises the Yugo–
slav communists improvised some of the techniques of democratic
government, just as earlier they had improvised communism. They were
among the first totalitarians to realize that letting barroom critics shoot
their mouths off is a cheap way to provide a safety valve, check on the
level of hostility and keep jail space available for cases of hard-core
opposition. Still, the earlier methods have left their mark, and one
knows instinctively where to draw the line. The wise man draws it
around Djilas; the one who doesn't is likely to be a stoolpigeon. (Mihaj–
lov last year broke with the tradition and spoke out publicly for Djilas;
he is still in jail as ,of this writing.)
The limits of this practical tolerance were until recently set by the
man who, in the contemporary reenactment of the ancient Balkan
charade, symbolized Djilas' shadow. Alexander Rankovich was a natural
for the role and played it to perfection - the conspirator as top cop, out:–
conspiring even the Soviet MVD. But times change, and Rankovich did
not, although he tried. Instead of sniffing out Tito's enemies, he began
to concentrate on Tito's friends, assembling dossiers for use as blackmail,
exploiting a revival of Serb nationalism and resumption of all the old
regional feuds along with some new ones in order to build his own
party machine. Through a campaign of intrigue and innuendo he
succeeded in sidetracking his one serious rival, the somewhat pedestrian
and lacklustre but far more capable Kardelj.
What ultimately wrecked his plot was not premature ambition so
much as primitive ignorance. The totalitarian state leads, among other
things, to economic disaster; salvaging what was left and trying to catch
up with the twentieth century is a task which transcends the ability and
scope of a Balkan-league
J.
Edgar Hoover. Younger men, technicians
trained in the complexities of at least the industrial, if not the computer
