What is this Titoism?

[Susurrus]

On the one hand, I hear it's market socialism. On the other hand, I hear worker's councils and worker's self-management.

What is it and how was it implemented?

[mykittyhasaboner]

Yugoslav socialism has acquired specific features, not only in practice but in theory. In practice, it is a unique combination of workers’ self-management, extensive use of market mechanisms, and tight political monopoly of power by the Communist League of Yugoslavia, of which the positive side (greater workers’ initiative and larger span of ideological freedom) and the negative side (increasing social inequality, increasing abdication of central planning) can be easily recognized. In theory, it is harder to seize these peculiarities, because the Yugoslav leaders have a way of formulating their ideas in a vague and fleeting manner which makes crystallization of a definite ideological trend rather difficult to achieve (perhaps that is precisely the reason why they express themselves in this way).
http://www.ernestmandel.org/en/works/txt/1967/yugoslav_economic_theory.htm

You should obviously read the whole thing if your interested, but this introduction generally answers your question.

Also, keep in mind that this was written in 1967, so it does not cover the issues regarding the later Yugoslav economy.

[Rodrigo]

In 1948, Yugoslavia became the first socialist country to turn Bukharinist. Tito received the firm support of the United States. Since then, Titoist theories infiltrated in most countries of Eastern Europe.

The book by Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution , published by the English social-democrat Ken Coates, president of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, served as the basis for the international campaign to rehabilitate Bukharin during the ’70s. This campaign allied revisionists of Italian and French communist parties with the Social-Democrats – from the Pelikan Gilles Martinet – and, of course, the various Trotskyist sects. These same currents would support Gorbachev until the day of his fall. Each claimed that Bukharin represented an “alternative to Stalinism and Bolshevism.” Some even proclaim it a precursor to Eurocommunism. “(L’Affaire Bukharin, Blanc et Kaisergrüber, pp. 11 and 16)

Soon in 1973, the orientation of this whole campaign has been given by Cohen: “The ideas and policy style of Bukharinism again be raised. In Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia, communist reformers advocated “market socialism,” a planning and a balanced economic growth, an evolutionary development, civil peace, a mixed farming sector and acceptance of social and cultural pluralism within a one-party state. “(L’Affaire Bukharin, Blanc et Kaisergrüber, pp. 11 and 16) is a perfect definition of the velvet counterrevolution finally triumphed in the years 1988-1989 in Eastern Europe.
“If the reformers are able to create a more liberal communism, a “socialism with a human face,” the vision of Bukharin and NEP-type policy that he championed may finally appear as the true foreshadowing of the communist future – the alternative to Stalinism after Stalin. “(Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, Stephen F. Cohen, p. 386)

Gorbachev, drawing on the experiences of “vanguard” of the countries of Eastern Europe in the 60s and 70s, also adopted the old program of Bukharin. Needless to say, Cohen was welcomed and acclaimed in Gorbachev’s Soviet Union as a major precursor of the “new thinking” and “socialist renewal.” Let us add that the “school of Bukharin” gained influence in China under Deng Xiaoping.


Tito’s revisionism and the United States


The Central and Eastern European countries, which led bitter struggles during the years 1945–1948 to build socialism, had much less experience than did the Soviet Party. Ideologically, they were not solid: the fact that hundreds of thousands of new members joined, often coming from social-democratic circles, made them easily subject to opportunism and bourgeois nationalism.

As early as 1948, the anti-Soviet social-democratic model was adopted by the leadership of the Yugoslav Communist Party.

By provoking the struggle against Tito’s revisionism in 1948, Stalin showed himself to be clear-sighted and firm in his principles. Forty-five years later, history has completely confirmed his predictions.

At the time of the German invasion in 1941, the clandestine Yugoslav Party had 12,000 members; 8,000 of these were killed during the war. But it gained 140,000 members during the resistance and 360,000 more before mid-1948. Tens of thousands of kulaks, bourgeois and petit-bourgeois had joined the Party.

James Klugmann, From Trotsky to Tito (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1951), p. 13.
Tito relied more and more on these elements in his struggle against real Communists. The Party had no normal internal life, there was no political discussion, so no Marxist-Leninist criticism and self-criticism; the leaders were not elected but chosen.
Ibid. , p. 22.

In June 1948, the Information Bureau of the Communist Parties, including eight parties, published a resolution criticizing the Yugoslav Party. It underscored that Tito payed no attention to the increase in class differences in the countryside nor to the rise of capitalist elements in the country.
Ibid. , p. 9.

The resolution affirmed that, starting from a bourgeois nationalist position, the Yugoslav Party had broken the socialist united front against imperialism. It concluded:
`(S)uch a nationalist line can only lead to Yugoslavia’s degeneration into an ordinary bourgeois republic’.
Ibid. , p. 11.

Once this criticism was published, Tito set off a massive purge. All the Marxist-Leninist elements of the Party were wiped out. Two members of the Central Committee, Zhujovic and Hebrang, had already been arrested in April 1948. General Arso Jovanovic, Chief of Staff of the Partisan Army, was arrested and assassinated, as was General Slavko Rodic.
Ibid. , p. 43.

The London newspaper, The Times, referred to numerous arrests of Communists upholding the Kominterm resolution; it estimated the number of imprisoned persons at between 100,000 and 200,000.
Ibid. , p. 143.

In his report to the Party’s Eighth Congress, held in 1948, Karelj quoted Stalin on numerous occasions to insist that Yugoslavia was `pushing back kulak elements’ and would never take `anti-Soviet positions’.

Rapport: Le PCY dans la lutte pour la Yougoslavie nouvelle (Belgrade, 1948), pp. 94, 25.
But, a few months later, the Titoists publicly took up the old social-democratic theory of passing from capitalism to socialism without class struggle! Bebler, Vice-Minister of External Affairs, declared in May 1949:

`We have no kulaks such as there were in the U.S.S.R. Our rich peasants took part en masse in the people’s liberation war …. Would it be a mistake if we succeeded in getting the kulaks to pass over to socialism without class struggle?’
Klugmann, op. cit. , p. 129.

In 1951, Tito’s team declared that the Soviet `kolkhozy reflected state capitalism which, mixed together with feudal remnants, forms the social basis of the USSR’. Developing Bukharin’s ideas, the Titoists replaced planning by the free market:

`No one outside the co-operative sets production goals or categories’. The Titoists organized `the passage to a system with more freedom for objective economic laws to come into play. The socialist sector of our economy will triumph over capitalist tendencies through purely economic means.’

`Directives du CC’, in Questions actuelles du socialisme (Paris: Agence Yougoslave d’Information, Jan.-Feb. 1952), 10:160, 161, 145.

In 1953, Tito reintroduced the freedom to buy and sell land and to hire agricultural workers.

In 1951, Tito compared the Yugoslav Communists who remained loyal Marxist-Leninists to the Hitlerian Fifth Column, thereby justifying the arrest of more than 200,000 Communists, according to Colonel Vladimir Dapcevic’s testimony. Tito wrote:

`The attacks of the fascist aggressors have proved that much importance can be attributed to a new element: the Fifth Column. It is a political and military element that gets into gear in preparation for aggression. Today, something similar is being attempted in our country, under different forms, particularly by the Cominterm countries.’
Ibid. , p. 85.

In the beginning of the 1950s, Yugoslavia was still essentially a feudal country. But the Titoists attacked the principle according to which a Socialist State must maintain the dictatorship of the proletariat. In 1950, the Yugoslav revisionists began a forum on `the problem of the withering away of the State, in particular of the rôle of the State in the economy’. To justify the return to a bourgeois state, Djilas called the Soviet state a `monstrous edifice of state capitalism’ that `oppressed and exploited the proletariat’. Still according to Djilas, Stalin fought `to increase his state capitalist empire and, internally, to reinforce the bureaucracy’. `The Iron Curtain, hegemony over the countries of Eastern Europe and an aggressive political line have become indispensable to him.’ Djilas spoke of `the misery of the working class that works for the “superior” imperialist interests and the bureaucracy’s privileges.’ `Today, the USSR is objectively the most reactionary power.’ Stalin `practices state capitalism and is the head and spiritual and political leader of the bureaucratic dictatorship.’ Acting as agent for U.S. imperialism, Djilas continued:

`Some of the Hitlerian theories are identical to Stalin’s theories, both from the standpoint of their contents and of the resulting social practice.’
Ibid. , Oct.-Nov. 1952, 14:2, 5, 18, 35–36, 30, 37, 44, 47.

Let us add that Djilas, who later moved to the U.S., referred in this text to Trotsky’s `critique of the Stalinist system’!
Ibid. , p. 44.

In 1948, Kardelj was still claiming to be faithful to the anti-imperialist struggle. Two years later, Yugoslavia upheld the U.S. war against Korea! The London Times reported:

`Mr. Dedijer sees events in Korea as a manifestation of the Soviet will to dominate the world … if this is to be resisted successfully … the workers of the world must `realise that yet another pretender to world domination has appeared, and get rid of illusions about the Soviet Union representing some alleged force of democracy and peace’.’
The Times, 27 December 1950. In Klugmann, op. cit. , p. 111.

So Tito had become a simple pawn in U.S. anti-Communist strategy. Tito declared to the New York Herald Tribune that `in the event of a Soviet attack anywhere in Europe, even if the thrust should be miles away from Yugoslavia’s own borders’, he would `instantly do battle on the side of the West … Yugoslavia considers itself part of the collective security wall being built against Soviet imperialism.’
New York Herald Tribune, 26 June 1951. In Klugmann, op. cit. , p. 98.

In the economic field, the socialist measures that Yugoslavia had taken before 1948 were liquidated. Alexander Clifford, the Daily Mail correspondent, wrote about the economic reforms adopted in 1951:

`If it comes off, Yugoslavia looks like ending up a good deal less socialised than Britain’: `price of goods … determined by the market — that is, by supply and demand’; `wages and salaries …\ fixed on the basis of the income or profits of the enterprise’; economic enterprises that `decide independently what to produce and in what quantities’; `there isn’t much classical Marxism in all of that’.
Daily Mail, 31 August 1951. In Klugmann, op. cit. , p. 150.

The Anglo-American bourgeoisie soon recognized that Tito was to be a very effective weapon in its anti-Communist struggles. The April 12, 1950 issue of Business Week reads:

`For the United States in particular and the West in general this encouragement of Tito has proved to be one of the cheapest ways yet of containing Russian Communism.
`To date the West’s aid to Tito has come to $51.7 million. This is far less than the billion dollars or so that the United States has spent in Greece for the same purpose.’
Business Week, 12 April 1950. In Klugmann, op. cit. , p. 175.

This bourgeoisie intended to use Tito to encourage revisionism and to organize subversion in the socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. On December 12, 1949, Eden spoke to the Daily Telegraph:

`Tito’s example and influence can decisively change the course of events in Central and Eastern Europe.’
Daily Telegraph, 12 December 1949. In Klugmann, op. cit. , p. 191.

Understanding the Communist demagogy of Tito for what it really was, the London Times wrote:

`Titoism remains a force, however, only so long as Marshal Tito can claim to be a Communist.’
The Times, 13 September 1949. In Klugmann, op. cit. , p. 194.

Titoism took power in 1948 as a bourgeois nationalist current. It is with nationalism that Yugoslavia abandoned all principles of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Nationalism was the soil in which Trotskyist and Bukharinist theories flourished.

After the Second World War, this nationalist orientation had great influence in other Communist Parties in Central and Eastern Europe.

After Stalin’s death, Great-Russian nationalism developed in Moscow and, in backlash, nationalist chauvinism spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

[Rodrigo]

On the one hand, I hear it's market socialism. On the other hand, I hear worker's councils and worker's self-management.

What is it and how was it implemented?

All statements are partially true. It was more market capitalism than market socialism. And "self-management" is something not really Marxist, don't you think so? Read Enver Hoxha's "Yugoslav self-administration - a capitalist theory and practice":

http://ciml.250x.com/archive/hoxha/english/enver_hoxha_yugoslav_selfadministration_a_capitali st_theory_and_practice.pdf


In Kardelj’s book the individual is mainly considered as a chief element of society – the element which produces, the element which has the right to organise and to distribute production. According to him this element socialises work in an enterprise and exercises its leadership by the so-called workers’ council which are “elected” by the workers and which allegedly regulates – together with the instituted administrative functionaries – the whole fate of the enterprise, the work, the income etc., within the system of “self-administration”.
This is the typical form of capitalist enterprises where in fact it is the capitalist who rules, surrounded by a large number of officials and technicians who know the situation about the production and organise its distribution. Naturally, the bulk of the profits goes to the capitalist who owns the capitalist enterprise, that is, he appropriates the surplus value. Under the Yugoslav “self-administration” a large part of the surplus value is appropriated by the officials, the directors of the enterprises and the engineering technical staff. The “lion’s share” goes to the Federation or the republic, in order to pay the fat salaries of the horde of officials of the central apparatus of the Federation or the republic. Funds are needed also to maintain the Titoite dictatorship – the Army, the Ministry of the Interior and the State Security Service, the Foreign Ministry etc., which are in the hands of the Federation and which are constantly inflated and extended. In this federal state a huge bureaucracy of non-producing officials and leaders, who are paid very high salaries from the sweat and blood of the workers and peasants, has developed. Apart from this a considerable part of the income is set aside for the foreign capitalist who has made investments in these enterprises and has his own representative in the “administrative council” or in the “workers’ council”, that is, he participates in the leadership of the enterprise. In this system labelled “self-administration socialism” the workers find themselves continuously under total exploitation.
The machinery of the “workers’ councils” and “self-administration committees” with their commissions has been devised by the Belgrade revisionists simply to create the illusion among the workers that by being “elected” they take part and speak in these organs, it is allegedly them who decide the affairs of the enterprise, of “their” property. According to Kardelj, “… in the fundamental organisation of united labour… the workers run the activity of the organisation of united labour and the means of social reproduction… decide on all the forms of uniting and coordinating their own work and means as well as on all the income they make with their united labour… and divide the income for personal, joint, and general consumption in accord with the basis and criteria laid down on the basis of self-administration…” (p. 160) etc., etc.
All this is just nonsense because under the conditions that bourgeois democracy is ruling in Yugoslavia no genuine freedom of thought and action exists there for the workers. The freedom of action in the “self-administrated” enterprises is false. In Yugoslavia the worker does not run things, nor does he enjoy those rights which the “ideologist” Kardelj proclaims so pompously. In order to show that he is a realist and opposed to the injustices of his regime, Tito himself admitted recently in the speech he delivered at the meeting of leading activists of Slovenia that ”self-administration” does not stop those who work badly from increasing their incomes at the expense of those who work well, while the directors of the factories who are to blame for the losses incurred can sneak out of their responsibility by taking responsible positions in other factories without worrying that somebody may reprimand them for the mistakes they committed.
(...)
Kardelj tries in vain to present “the workers’ councils”, “the fundamental organizations of united labour”, etc. etc., as the most authentic expression of “democracy” and the “freedom” of man in all social fields. The “workers’ councils” are nothing but entirely formal organs, defenders and implementers not of workers’ interests but of the will of the directors of enterprises because, being materially, politically and ideologically corrupted, these councils have become part of the “worker aristocracy” and “worker bureaucracy”, agencies to mislead and to create false illusions among the working class.
Yugoslav reality shoes clearly that there is no genuine democracy for the masses there. And it cannot be otherwise. Lenin stressed that
“’industrial democracy’ is a term that lends itself to misinterpretations. It may be read as a repudiation of dictatorship and individual authority. It may be read as a suspension of ordinary democracy or as a means of evading it.” (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 80, Alb. ed.)
There cannot be a socialist democracy for the working class without its state of dictatorship of the proletariat. Marxism-Leninism teaches us that negation of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat is a negation of democracy for the masses of working people.
The negation of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist social property on which it is based, by the Yugoslav revisionists, has led them to a decentralised management of the economy without a unified state plan. The development of the national economy on the basis of a unified state plan and its management by the socialist state on the basis of the principle of democratic centralism is one of the universal laws and fundamental principles of the construction of socialism in every country. Otherwise capitalism is built, as in Yugoslavia.
Kardelj claims that the workers in their “self-administrative” organizations have the right “… to govern the work and the activity of the organisation of united labour…” (p. 160), i.e., of the enterprises, hence they can also allegedly plan production. But what is the truth? In these organisations the worker neither runs nor constructs so-called basic plan. The new bourgeoisie does these things, the leadership of the enterprise, while the workers are given the impression that the “workers’ councils” supposedly make the law in this “self-administrative” organisation. This happens in the capitalist countries, too, where the power of the private enterprise is in the hands of the capitalist who has his own technocracy, his technocrats who run the enterprise, while in some countries there are also the workers’ representatives with a negligible function, just enough to create the illusion among the workers that they, too, allegedly take part in running the affairs of the enterprises But this is a lie.
The so-called planning which is done in the Yugoslavian “self-administrative” enterprises cannot be called socialist but, on the contrary, is carried out according to the example of all capitalist enterprises – it leads to the same consequences which exist in every capitalist economy, such as anarchy of production, spontaneity and a series of other contradictions which manifest themselves in the most overt and savage manner in the Yugoslav economy and market.
Kardelj writes that
“… the free exchange of labour through the production of commodities and the free, self- governed market (emphasis ours) at the present level of the socio-economic development is a condition for self-government… This market… is free in the sense that the self-governing organisations of united labour freely and with the minimum of administrative intervention, enter into relations of the free exchange of labour. The suspension of such freedom is bound to lead to the regeneration of the state property monopoly of the state apparatus.” (p. 95).
There could be no more flagrant denial than this of the teachings of Lenin, who wrote:
We must foster ‘proper’ trade, which is one that does not evade state control, it is beneficial to support it …for the free market is a development of capitalism…” (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, pp. 426, 213, Alb. ed. – emphasis ours).
(...)
Many Yugoslavian workers are out of work, are being thrown into the street or emigrating abroad. Tito has not only acknowledged this economic emigration, this capitalist phenomenon, but has even recommended that is should be encouraged. Unemployment cannot exist in a socialist country, the best example for this is Albania. Meanwhile in the capitalist countries, among which Yugoslavia is of course included, unemployment exists and is developing everywhere. When Yugoslavia has over one million unemployed, and over 1.3 million economic emigrants are selling their labour power in West Germany, Belgium, France, etc., when the wealth of individuals occupying important posts either in the state administration or in enterprises and institutions is increasing rapidly, when the prices of consumer goods are mounting day by day, when the bankrupt enterprises and branches number thousands, the system of Yugoslav “self-administration” is proved to be a great fraud. And yet Kardelj, without being ashamed in the least, has the temerity to write: “In our conditions, socialist self-administration is the most direct form and expression of the struggle for the freedom of the working man, for the freedom of his labour and creativity, for his decisive economic and political influence in society.” (p. 158).

[Susurrus]

And "self-management" is something not really Marxist, don't you think so?


That depends what you mean. If you mean workers controlling the means of production, then yes it does rather seem rather Marxist. if you mean worker's collectives within a capitalist system, then yeah it's not really Marxist.

[Leftsolidarity]

And "self-management" is something not really Marxist, don't you think so?

:blink:..........no.........

[Rodrigo]

:blink:..........no.........

Read above posts and you'll know what I mean, and why I put quotation marks on "self-management". :thumbup1:

[Yugo45]

Well, what a load of shit.

Yugoslavia wasn't perfect. It had it's flaws. But for 40-50 years, Yugoslavia was as close to a socialist country as it gets. Maybe not from a strict Marxist textbook point of view, but from a point of view which matters the mot - the working class.


As early as 1948, the anti-Soviet social-democratic model was adopted by the leadership of the Yugoslav Communist Party.

And I take it you accidently forgot to mention why that is the case? Well, let me help you there :)

Before the Tito-Stalin split (also known as the time when Tito grew the biggest balls in the universe and told Stalin to go fuck himself, while at the same time toying around with Washington), Tito was thought of as one of the most important communist leaders, second only to Stalin. But, during WWII, unlike other Eastern European countries, Yugoslavia managed to free itself from the occupators without any help from allies, and Red Army for that matter. After the war Yugoslavia steered towards an indenpendent course, but for this it was constantly experiancing tensions with the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav government considered themselves allies of Moscow, while Moscow considered Yugoslavia a satellite and often treated it as such. In the end, Yugoslavia was expelled from the Cominform for standing up for itself and for refusing to kiss Stalin's ass.

"struggle against Tito’s revisionism" :laugh:

As Tito lacked support from other communist countries, it had to take a new course towards socialism. And that was Titoism. And it also had to stay alive which meant trying to make America not classify Yugoslavia as another Soviet sattelite state (which it did even long after the Tito-Stalin split), and also trying to get Soviets after Stalin's death not to hate Yugoslavia anymore. This clearly happened under Khrushchev, who even criticised Stalin for what he did to Yugoslavia.

and lol "broken the socialist united front against imperialism." :rolleyes:

Alright, let me tell you another short story. This time it will be a story about a union known as the "Non-Alligned Movement", which happens to be founded by Tito.

NAM policy (direct Titoist ideology first hand):
The movement continues to see a role for itself, as in its view, the world’s poorest nations remain exploited and marginalised, no longer by opposing superpowers, but rather in a uni-polar world, and it is Western hegemony and neo-colonialism that that the movement has really re-aligned itself against. It opposes foreign occupation, interference in internal affairs, and aggressive unilateral measures, but it has also shifted to focus on the socio-economic challenges facing member states, especially the inequalities manifested by globalisation and the implications of neo-liberal policies. The non-aligned movement has identified economic underdevelopment, poverty, and social injustices as growing threats to peace and security.

Tito was one of the most influential people of the last century, but ever since the break up of Yugoslavia his name is pissed on from both political camps.


Once this criticism was published, Tito set off a massive purge. All the Marxist-Leninist elements of the Party were wiped out. Two members of the Central Committee, Zhujovic and Hebrang, had already been arrested in April 1948. General Arso Jovanovic, Chief of Staff of the Partisan Army, was arrested and assassinated, as was General Slavko Rodic.

Marxist-Leninist purge? That's the most silliest thing I heard. First because Tito was a Marxist-Leninist himself, and second because Titoism is a variant of Marxist-Leninism. It was a purge of those who still insisted to be slaves of the almighty Soviet Union. And the number 200.000 is bullshit. There was only one prison that dealed with political crimes and that was the Goli Otok. And (as the documents which were leaked to public when Yugoslavia collapsed prove) almost all of them were released after a few years spent in the prison. The ones that weren't released were the ones that went to the prison for fascism and still didn't want to give up on it.

The social inequality story is yet another set of bullshit.

You see, wages were tapped. This means that no matter how high of a rank you are in a company, or whereever, you could only earn x6 as the lowest paying worker.

Sure, not perfect, but some of the better systems all around.


In 1948, Kardelj was still claiming to be faithful to the anti-imperialist struggle. Two years later, Yugoslavia upheld the U.S. war against Korea! The London Times reported:

`Mr. Dedijer sees events in Korea as a manifestation of the Soviet will to dominate the world … if this is to be resisted successfully … the workers of the world must `realise that yet another pretender to world domination has appeared, and get rid of illusions about the Soviet Union representing some alleged force of democracy and peace’.’
The Times, 27 December 1950. In Klugmann, op. cit. , p. 111.

How is that supporting US? The man speaks the truth though ;)


So Tito had become a simple pawn in U.S. anti-Communist strategy. Tito declared to the New York Herald Tribune that `in the event of a Soviet attack anywhere in Europe, even if the thrust should be miles away from Yugoslavia’s own borders’, he would `instantly do battle on the side of the West … Yugoslavia considers itself part of the collective security wall being built against Soviet imperialism.’
New York Herald Tribune, 26 June 1951. In Klugmann, op. cit. , p. 98.

Sure he did mate, sure he did.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Titoism is perfect and that it's the best form of Marxism, and that Yugoslav way is the best way to go to Communism. What I'm saying is that Tito was one of the most important Communist revolutionaries, no matter what the Stalinist propaganda you read told you. And that he was, when you consider all the facts, a good socialist leader. He was a true hero of the working class, and one of the few communist leaders that actually were from the working class themselves (he was a locksmith).

I could share you more details about his life if you want, but I don't think that matters right now :)