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The Stalin-Tito Conflict as Reflected in Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Ante Kadić
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The causes and effects of the Soviet-Yugoslav dispute of 1948 are too well known to need repeating here. Various historians, military strategists, economists, and specialists in Communist affairs have established the basic facts and correctly pointed out the importance of that first break in the Soviet-controlled bloc. Vladimir Dedijer even wrote (supposedly quoting Henry Wallace) that Tito could be compared, though in a different field, to Martin Luther. The independent brand of communism recently proclaimed by the Italian, French, and Spanish Communists (the so-called Euro-Communists) definitely has its precedent in the astounding and courageous example of the Yugoslavs.

I shall limit my analysis mostly to Yugoslav writers and describe how they reacted toward this discord in the “socialist” camp. They all basically defend the same point of view, but they differ in their approach and, above all, in literary quality. The older writers, for example, were intimately involved in the Soviet-Yugoslav dispute, and they display a passionate hostility toward Stalin. To varying degrees, they often combine an excessive reverence for Tito, the perennial Yugoslav leader, with boastful self-approval. Recent works, though duly emphasizing the tragedy for thousands of citizens, avoid cliches and journalistic reporting.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 91 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1978

References

1. V., Dedijer, The Battle Stalin Lost (New York, 1971), p. 1971 Google Scholar.

2. This reply was published in a weekly periodical, Književne novine, no. 46 (December 27, 1948), p. 1, and in the official organ of the Yugoslav Communist Party, Borba, no. 313 (December 28, 1948), p. 4, and was signed by sixty-seven writers. Among them are such prominent names as Ivo Andrić, Antun Barac, Milan Bogdanović, Branko Ćopić, Oskar Davičo, Velibor Gligoric, Slavko Janevski, Vjekoslav Kaleb, Edvard Kocbek, Slavko Kolar, Miroslav Krleža, Skender Kulenović, Mihailo Lalić, Desanka Maksimović, Ranko Marinković, Dimitar Mitrev, Vladimir Nazor, Isak Samokovlija, Ervin Šinko, Josip Vidmar, and Oton Župančič.

3. ” … pobede je izvojevao narod stihiskim putem, sam, bez voćstva. “

4. N., Tikhonov, Stikhi o Iugoslavii (Moscow, 1947)Google Scholar. >

5. I will quote here from the Serbian translation, Mal'tsev, Orest M., Jugoslovenska tragedija: Roman (Bucharest, 1953)Google Scholar.

6. Cf. Kratkaia literaturnaia entsiklopediia, vol. 4 (Moscow, 1967), p. SS6. 7. There is a total lack of objectivity and good taste concerning several matters. Thus, Mal'tsev has an American spy, already in 1944, foreseeing that Laszlo Rajk and Traiche Rostov will collaborate with the capitalist countries (Mal'tsev, Jugoslovenska tragedija, p. 508). One wonders what Mal'tsev's explanation would be now that these two revolutionaries have been rehabilitated.

8. Mal'tsev, perhaps knowing that no one would believe his outright lie, comments: “Ta stranica posete jugoslovenskog probisveta u Italiji ostala je privremeno prikrivena za istoriju” (ibid., p. 449).

9. It is ludicrous to qualify Prešeren, a scholar and a saintly figure, as the head of a Vatican espionage service ( “rukovodilac specijalne obaveštajne žbe,” ibid.).

10. Deakin, F. W. D., The Embattled Mountain (New York, 1971)Google Scholar; Fitzroy, Maclean, Eastern Approaches (London, 1949)Google Scholar ; and Fitzroy, Maclean, Disputed Barricade (London, i 1957)Google Scholar.

11. Mal'tsev frequently insists that the fighters were critical of the amateurish strategy of Marshal Tito and his egocentric cohorts, which resulted in many military defeats: “A šta bi drugo moglo da bude, kad skorojevići, hvalisavci i pesnicimilioneri uobraze da su vojskovode” ( Mal'tsev, Jugoslovenska tragedija, p. 494 Google Scholar).

12. Whether Mal'tsev gathered his information firsthand in Yugoslavia, or whether he obtained it from the Russian secret police, with whom he appeared to be intimately connected and whose views he expressed in his writings, is unclear. On the basis of his rather shaky knowledge of Yugoslav geography and history, I suspect that he never visited Yugoslavia.

13. For further information about Stajner, see Ivo Banac's review of 7000 dana u Sibiru in Russian Review, 33, no. 3 (July 1974): 327-29.

14. Karlo, Stajner, 7000 dana u Šibiru (Zagreb, 1971), p. 7 Google Scholar.

15. Ibid., p. 474.

16. Ibid., pp. 291-92.

17. Ibid., p. 296.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid., p. 298.

20. V., Nazor, S partizanima (Zagreb, 1945), p. 76 Google Scholar.

21. Žeželj, Mirko, Tragom pjesnika V. Nazora (Zagreb, 1973), pp. 546–47 Google Scholar.

22. Republika, 4, no. 4 (1948): 321.

23. Ibid., p. 322.

24. V., Nazor, Izabrane pjesme (Belgrade, 1949), pp. 286–87 Google Scholar. The battle against the former Cominformists was sometimes fought in a questionable manner: During the Partisan years, Nazor often met with two of the leading Communists, Andrija Hebrang, secretary of the Croatian Party, and Sreten 2ujovic, an influential member of the Supreme Command. In his diary he praised them as intelligent, devoted, and energetic comrades. In 1948 both Hebrang and Žujović sided with Stalin against Tito; Hebrang was executed and Žujović, after recanting, was forgiven. Sime Vučetić, who always seemed ready to follow the party line, prepared Nazor's diary for publication by Matica hrvatska and Zora (196S), two reputable Croatian publishing houses. In this new edition of Nazor's famous work the names of Hebrang and 2ujovic were totally omitted. Whether Vucetic carried out this vandalism on his own initiative or had received an instructive hint from above is not clear.

25. Ibid., pp. 288-89.

26. See Kadić, Ante, Contemporary Serbian Literature (The Hague, 1964), pp. 98–101 Google Scholar; ; and Kadić, Ante, From Croatian Renaissance to Yugoslav Socialism (The Hague, 1969), ; pp. 207–13. | 27Google Scholar. Nadrealizam danas i ovde (Belgrade), no. 3 (1932), pp. 50-51.

28. “S Aragonom i sa njegovom ženom Elsom Triolet bill smo moja žena i ja bliski prijatelji sve do početka 1948” ( Ristić, Marko, Politička književnost 1944-1958 [Zagreb, 1958], p. 70)Google Scholar.

29. Ristić, Marko, in his essay “Tri mrtva pesnika,” first published in Rod, vol. 301 ; (Zagreb, 1954)Google Scholar ; and then reprinted in his book Prisustva (Belgrade, 1966), p. 360. 30. Ristic, “Tri mrtva pesnika,” in Prisustva, p. 357.

31. Ristić, Marko, Prostor-vreme (Zagreb, 1952), pp. 28–46 Google Scholar.

32. “Iskorisćavajući njegov politički analfabetizam, Aragon ga drži u klještima” (ibid., p. 255).

33. Ristić, , Politička književnost, pp. 63–87, 104-26Google Scholar.

34. “Thorez se žalio kako ga Rusi ne puštaju da se prebaci u Francusku i stane na celo Rezistencije. Intervenisao je i kod Staljina lično, ali bez uspeha” (ibid., p. 68).

35. See Ristić's letter to Cachin, ibid., pp. 82-87.

36. Reprinted from Vjesnik, May 25, 1962, in the book Tito u sapisima suvremenika [Tito in the Reminiscences of his Contemporaries] (Zagreb, 1965), pp. 367-68.

37 Šinko is no exception to a longstanding Hungarian-Croatian literary relationship. In the past, Croats such as Janus Pannonius (Ivan Ďesmički, fifteenth century) and Nikola Zrinski (seventeenth century) were considered to be Hungarian writers as well, because of their literary activity among the Hungarians.

38. In his penetrating study of Yugoslav leftist authors, Stanko Lasić writes that Šinko has been “one of the most vociferous defenders and propagandists of socialist realism.” Explaining Šinko's willingness to hush up the truth in order to live in the society in which “a lie is a normal practice,” Lasić says that Šinko's verbosity, his erudition, and his quotations were there to hide the vacuum of his thoughts. In his book The Story of a Novel, Sinko affirms that already in the thirties he saw the alienation of socialism. Lasić correctly asks: “If he knew all this, why did he speak differently in 1945? Why did he not keep quiet? Why did he, together with other ideologists, celebrate the new Soviet man?” Lasic justly concludes that in the one person there were two contrasting personalities who did not want to know each other, but who could not ignore one another ( Stanko, Lasic, Sukob na knjiševnoj Ijevici, 1928-1952 [Zagreb, 1970], pp. 257–Google Scholar).

39. See, for example, Matković, Marijan, in Vjesnik, November 14, 1952, p. 5Google Scholar; and Matković, Marijan, “Introduction,” in Pet stoljeća hrvatske književnosti, vol. 103 (Zagreb, 1969), p. 23 Google Scholar.

40. Vjesnik, November 14, 1952, p. 5.

41. See Matković's judicious introduction to Šinko's works, in Pet stoljeća hrvatske književnosti.

42. Milovan, Djilas, Ďlanci, 1941-1947 (Zagreb, 1947)Google Scholar.

43. Ibid., pp. 31-33.

44. Ibid., p. 170

45. Ibid., p. 173.

46. Milovan, Djilas, Conversations ivith Stalin (New York, 1962), p. 1962 Google Scholar.

47. Ibid., p. 190.

48. Milovan, Djilas, Parts of a Lifetime, ed. Michael and Deborah Milenkovitch (New York, 197S), pp. 312–13 Google Scholar.

49. Dragoslav, Mihailovic, When Pumpkins Blossomed (New York, 1971)Google Scholar.

50. This novel was reviewed by Mateja Matejić in Books Abroad, 44 (1970): 154—55.

51. Pogačnik, Jože, Zgodovina slovcnskeg slovstva, VIII: Eksistencijalisem in strukturalizen (Maribor, 1972), p. 171 Google Scholar; cf. Nova Hrvatska, 18, no. 12 (1976): 16.

52. Pogačnik, , Zgodovina slovenskeg slovstva, p. 177 Google Scholar.