Why I am a Titoist

[Ismail]

He seemed to be very anti-nationalist and worker-friendly.

That depends on the definition of nationalism. He certainly emphasized "national roads to socialism." Obviously he was not nationalistic against the varieties of Slavs, but he did engage in national chauvinism against Albania, which Djilas notes. Djilas also noted that before the Soviet-Yugoslav break in 1948 Tito was afraid that "the Russians" would "get to Albania" before the Yugoslavs could annex it.

In his foreign policy he consistently supported bourgeois forces like Nasser and Indira Gandhi. The "communists" he was on friendly terms with included Kim Il Sung and Nicolae Ceaușescu, who also stressed "national roads." In domestic affairs he heavily indebted his country to the IMF and the West and promoted the movement of Yugoslav laborers abroad in West Germany and other countries. Not to mention that in the end "self-administration" remained a system praised by social-democrats, not communists. He was "worker-friendly" in the same sense Olof Palme and other "radical" social-democrats were.

He did not suppress religion

The Soviets didn't suppress religion either. In fact religion wasn't really suppressed anywhere outside of the DPRK, China and Albania, and in the former two the cults of Kim and Mao assumed semi-religious significance anyway. Of course you mean that religion basically had no restrictions on it, which definitely helped in it asserting a chauvinistic and nationalist role as Yugoslavia began to dissolve.

Everybody had free health care, and everybody had a chance to learn and work.

Free health care and education does not make a country socialist.

And most importantly: people were happy. I know many Yugoslavian immigrants who loved Tito's rule. Even people who did hate his rule during his administration are now claiming that they miss him.

That's mainly because his government basically ran like a social-democratic one after the 60's and because of the horrendous civil wars that emerged after Yugoslavia collapsed. During the 1950's-70's Western capital flew into the country and assured high living standards. Once the gigantic debt Tito accrued came to haunt Yugoslavia in the 80's, though, the government resorted to classic, capitalist-style austerity measures which increased worker discontent.

[Sendo]

Once the gigantic debt Tito accrued came to haunt Yugoslavia in the 80's, though, the government resorted to classic, capitalist-style austerity measures which increased worker discontent.

The debt Tito accrued is nothing compared to the loans that came in the 80s and the 90s and the destruction from war, the debt to feed the war machine, reparations, concessions, etc.

You can't compare any IMF or World Bank deal from the past two decades to those before. The scale of the loans alone is far different.

[Ismail]

The debt Tito accrued is nothing compared to the loans that came in the 80s and the 90s and the destruction from war, the debt to feed the war machine, reparations, concessions, etc.

You can't compare any IMF or World Bank deal from the past two decades to those before. The scale of the loans alone is far different.

"In just the first 5 months of this year the deficit was 2 billion dollars. At the 11th Congress of the League of 'Communists' of Yugoslavia, Tito declared, 'the deficit with the Western market has become almost intolerable'. Nearly three months after this congress, he declared again in Slovenia, 'We have especially great difficulties in trade exchanges with the European Common Market member countries. There the imbalance to our disadvantage is very great and constantly increasing. We must talk with them very seriously about this. Many of them promise us that these things will be put in order, that imports from Yugoslavia will increase, but up to now we have had very little benefit from all this. Each is putting the blame on the other'. And the deficit in foreign trade, which Tito does not mention in this speech of his, exceeded 4 billion dollars in 1977. This is a catastrophe for Yugoslavia."
(Enver Hoxha. Yugoslav "Self-Administration": A Capitalist Theory and Practice. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1978. pp. 39-40.)

"The loans it has received amount to over 11 billion dollars. From the United States of America alone Yugoslavia has received over 7 billion dollars in credits."
(Ibid. pp. 25-26.)

Compare with Albania: "the new 1976 Constitution was enacted which prohibited foreign debt and foreign aid" and subsequently "Albania had little, if any foreign debt. This fact is astounding for any country but it is especially so for an East European country which traditionally has very high foreign debt. The Central Intelligence Agency's publication, The World Factbook, showed that in 1983, Albania imported goods worth $280 million but exported goods worth $290 million, which produced a trade surplus of $10 million. The 1984 state budget showed expenditures of $1.28 billion and revenues of $1.29 billion."
(James S. O'Donnell. A Coming of Age: Albania under Enver Hoxha. New York: Columbia University Press. 1999. p. 65, 88.)

But the huge amount of debts Yugoslavia accrued from the West aren't that surprising when we see other revisionist regimes, such as Poland in 1981:

"The best evidence of the grave situation in the 'socialist community' and of the deep contradictions eroding it are the recent events in Poland, which have led that country to the brink of economic catastrophe and to major social and political upheavals. These are consequences of the line pursued by the Polish revisionist party for the re-establishment of capitalism, of the all-round subjugation of the country to the Soviet Union, of opening the doors to Western capital and the consequence of the large debts of Poland, which amount to the colossal sum of 27 billion dollars. Herein lies the source of the revolts of the working class and working people of Poland."
(Enver Hoxha. Selected Works Vol. VI. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1987. p. 392.)

Hoxha, writing in his diary in February 1982, noted that:
"Yugoslavia is up to its neck in debts and cannot repay them with more loans. In that country there is immense unemployment, inflation is galloping, prices are going up every day beyond the reach of ordinary working people."
(Ibid. p. 531.)

And from a bourgeois source: "Dr Spasoje Medenica, a Federal Minister, calculated that the internal debt (including the outstanding bills, the overruns of investment costs and the credit obligations to the National Bank arising from the devaluation of the dinar) amounted in 1983, to 2,000 billion dinars: a figure representing one half of Yugoslavia's national income. According to Branko Ćolanović, the Chairman of Jugobanka of Belgrade in 1983, 'Yugoslav enterprises are indebted to the banks and the banks to each other, and everyone is indebted to everyone else. We are excessively preoccupied with foreign currency and have neglected dinar insolvency.' In these circumstances the persistent IMF clamour for 'a positive rate of interest' i.e. one that is higher than the current rate of inflation, has predictably fallen on deaf ears.

To prevent a financial breakdown, massive rescue operations worth several billion dollars each had to be put together in 1983 and again in 1984, by international institutions, capitalist governments and commercial banks, under the sponsorship of the US administration, relieving the Yugoslavs of the immediate obligation to repay the capital."
(Nora Beloff. Tito's Flawed Legacy: Yugoslavia and the West since 1939. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. 1986. p. 235.)

[GallowsBird]

Firstly, Yugoslavia wasn't Socialist.

Secondly, fuck Serbia.

Thirdly, Kosovo is Albania.

Thankyou

And how is this a vlaid contribution to the discussion?

I am hardly pro-Titoism but that is just flame bating.

[Susurrus]

The Soviets didn't suppress religion either. In fact religion wasn't really suppressed anywhere outside of the DPRK, China and Albania, and in the former two the cults of Mao and Kim assumed semi-religious significance anyway.

Umm, care to provide an independent source for that? Because I'm nearly 100% certain that's untrue.

[Ismail]

Umm, care to provide an independent source for that? Because I'm nearly 100% certain that's untrue.

Albert Szymanski's Human Rights in the Soviet Union notes that religion was never suppressed. There were various religious schools for Muslims and Catholics, Jews could observe their religious practices, etc. In the Lithuanian SSR, for instance, the Catholic Church had its power remain strong amongst the people and was a source of nationalism. Szymanski only quotes Western or Soviet dissident sources in his book. It's generally recognized in just about any academic source that religious beliefs were not criminalized and that various churches and mosques existed.

Of course religious activity was limited and religion was just about totally depoliticized, but that's not the same as suppression.

Only Albania declared itself the world's first and only officially atheistic state. Hoxha criticized attempts by the Soviets, Poles, and other revisionist forces to "reach out" to the Papacy and other religious institutions.

[Sendo]

I understand that Hoxha had such and such a conclusion. I know that Yugoslavia was shackled with debt. What I'm saying is that the policies of the IMF, Reagan, Bush, NATO, and economic ministers of the breakaway republics did far more to screw over the Southern Slav people (or peoples depending on one's ethnic views) than Tito's debt.

Posterchildren of the damage that IMF wreaks upon countries came about in the last two decades. The seizures and grabs of resources and capital in South Korea, Bolivia, Philippines and elsewhere is a product of more recent times. Loans in Tito's time weren't the same thing. POSCO, for example, was funded by loans. The World Bank and IMF were not, at that time, masters of manipulating defaulted loan situations into coups d'etat. In fact, World Bank balked at the very idea when Park presented it to them in 1968.

Ismail, you hold Hoxha at this high level, superior to Mao, Castro, Tito, Ho, tc in every aspect it seems. You can have that opinion, fine then. But I don't understand how you can use that to bludgeon everyone else's heroes. In 2011, what is Hoxha's legacy in Albania? Materially or ideologically? How about abroad? I think that the reason we see Hoxhaist Parties is due to the splits: LeftComs and Bolsheviks, then Trotskyists and MLs, and anti-Mao/Hoxha MLs and anti-USSR MLs, then Maoists and Hoxhaists. Hoxha was always theorizing and explaining why he was better than all, or rather, the only real living Marxist, etc. but what does it matter today? Is your point to tally up the ways that X displeased Hoxha and prove that X, therefore, is a revisionist?

I just don't get your point. I don't see much positive about Hoxhaism; it's all negative. It seems so focused on proving that it's not revisionism than proving what it is. Whatever gains it made are not on the scale of what happened in the USSR and China with far greater populations. Whatever gains it made have not lasted as long as the gains made in Cuba. So why must Hoxha's diaries be used as a club with which to bash and discredit all non-Albanians?

[CommieTroll]

I understand that Hoxha had such and such a conclusion. I know that Yugoslavia was shackled with debt. What I'm saying is that the policies of the IMF, Reagan, Bush, NATO, and economic ministers of the breakaway republics did far more to screw over the Southern Slav people (or peoples depending on one's ethnic views) than Tito's debt.

Posterchildren of the damage that IMF wreaks upon countries came about in the last two decades. The seizures and grabs of resources and capital in South Korea, Bolivia, Philippines and elsewhere is a product of more recent times. Loans in Tito's time weren't the same thing. POSCO, for example, was funded by loans. The World Bank and IMF were not, at that time, masters of manipulating defaulted loan situations into coups d'etat. In fact, World Bank balked at the very idea when Park presented it to them in 1968.

Ismail, you hold Hoxha at this high level, superior to Mao, Castro, Tito, Ho, tc in every aspect it seems. You can have that opinion, fine then. But I don't understand how you can use that to bludgeon everyone else's heroes. In 2011, what is Hoxha's legacy in Albania? Materially or ideologically? How about abroad? I think that the reason we see Hoxhaist Parties is due to the splits: LeftComs and Bolsheviks, then Trotskyists and MLs, and anti-Mao/Hoxha MLs and anti-USSR MLs, then Maoists and Hoxhaists. Hoxha was always theorizing and explaining why he was better than all, or rather, the only real living Marxist, etc. but what does it matter today? Is your point to tally up the ways that X displeased Hoxha and prove that X, therefore, is a revisionist?

I just don't get your point. I don't see much positive about Hoxhaism; it's all negative. It seems so focused on proving that it's not revisionism than proving what it is. Whatever gains it made are not on the scale of what happened in the USSR and China with far greater populations. Whatever gains it made have not lasted as long as the gains made in Cuba. So why must Hoxha's diaries be used as a club with which to bash and discredit all non-Albanians?

The scale of the foreign debt that Yugoslavia accumulated under Tito compared to the scale of a national deficit in the post-Tito years is irrelevant, it doesn't change the fact that he was a Capitalist and in turn his choice to associate with Western Capitalist institutions played a major role in the demise of The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Under Hoxha, Albania underwent a process of industrialization, land reform and social reform. Because of Hoxha's policies the adult literacy rate was raised to 85% with free healthcare and education like in Tito's Yugoslavia. After the rule of the Ottoman's, Albania was the most underdeveloped country in Europe which had no formal infrastructure. Albania was then overtaken by Italian Imperialism as a source of cheap raw materials. Throughout fascist rule in Albania the country developed at a normal rate but post WWII the policies of The Albanian Party of Labour and Enver Hoxha successfully industrialized Albania with no foreign debt. The souring of relations which took place between Albania and Yugoslavia rests on the shoulders of Tito. Tito looked to annex Albania into Yugoslavia and even tried to oust Hoxha at one stage by trying to influence key Party members by offering loans and supports, in my eyes that's Capitalistic bribery. Tito sought to use Albania the same way Mussolini did, as a colony and as a source of cheap raw materials. ''Market Socialism'' is nothing but a contradiction to Marxist theory.

[Tovarisch]

My grandmother told me that during 1930's and 1940's, people were forbidden from reading many books, especially bibles. The best way to catch bible-readers during the time was by using little children as spies. A teacher at school would ask young children to tell them if parents were reading a bible at home. Little kids thought it was a game, and obediently told on their parents, as they were not aware that their parents could possibly be sent away to Siberia. And not all of the reports were even real, as a child may get pissed off at a parent for not buying a toy, and then as revenge, rattle out on the parent, even if the parent did not break any laws.

Also Ismail, you sound like a bit of a nationalist. I like Hoxha too, he made Albania a much more progressed country. However, you seem to hold a hatred of every single communist whose name does not rhyme with Mosha. Titoist Yugoslavia was just as socialist as Albania, and unlike their eastern neighbors, people were not starving or being killed for absolutely no reason at all (ahem Ceausescu).

Also, while Serbia is often seen as an oppressive bully, you have to look at things from Serbia's point of view. They were oppressed heavily during most of their existence by the Ottoman Empire and later Austria. While this does not justify Serbia's disgraceful actions, Serbia was not always an oppressor

[Ismail]

Ismail, you hold Hoxha at this high level, superior to Mao, Castro, Tito, Ho, tc in every aspect it seems. You can have that opinion, fine then. But I don't understand how you can use that to bludgeon everyone else's heroes.

Because I don't operate on "heroes," I operate on if a leader was a Marxist-Leninist or not. For what it's worth, though, Hoxha had a fairly high opinion of Ho Chi Minh even though Vietnam itself pursued a revisionist course.

In 2011, what is Hoxha's legacy in Albania? Materially or ideologically? How about abroad?

The government of Albania is highly anti-communist and because of policies under Hoxha a good deal of the country's population is comprised of young people. Albanian history books tend to whitewash the collaborators of fascism during the war (the Balli Kombëtar) and barely talk about the "communist regime" except to denounce it. I've seen more than a few Albanians actually argue that Hoxha "ruined" Albania and that he was an "agent" of Tito and the Slavs sent to isolate Albania from the West. Ridiculously, one of the most "important" issues of Hoxha's leadership in the Albanian public consciousness is if he was sexually attracted to men, with an anti-communist biography that recently came out repeating this allegation and said book being endorsed by both Albanian President Berisha and Kosovar President Thaçi.

Of course a non-distorted analysis of his legacy would show, as James S. O'Donnell and Peter R. Prifti notably do in their works on Albania under Hoxha, that the country attained great strides in industrialization, agriculture, education, health care, culture, and in maintaining its own independence.

Abroad there were various parties which upheld Albania and the work of Enver Hoxha. The largest of these included the PCdoB in Brazil, the PCMLE in Ecuador, and the KPD/ML in the two German states. Radio Tirana was (amongst the 'socialist states') third only to Chinese and Soviet radio in terms of the power of its transmitters and the variety of the languages it offered. Although there are few parties today that would explicitly consider themselves pro-Hoxha (besides generally upholding him and disagreeing with Maoists), there's nothing dated about him or his stands.

Hoxha was always theorizing and explaining why he was better than all, or rather, the only real living Marxist, etc. but what does it matter today? Is your point to tally up the ways that X displeased Hoxha and prove that X, therefore, is a revisionist?

Tito's revisionism (or, say, the Castros today) isn't based on Hoxha not liking them.

I just don't get your point. I don't see much positive about Hoxhaism; it's all negative. It seems so focused on proving that it's not revisionism than proving what it is. Whatever gains it made are not on the scale of what happened in the USSR and China with far greater populations. Whatever gains it made have not lasted as long as the gains made in Cuba. So why must Hoxha's diaries be used as a club with which to bash and discredit all non-Albanians?

What gains has Cuba made relative to Albania? Cuba made great strides in literacy and fairly good strides in health care, that's about it. But socialism isn't based on these things. Cuba was a neo-colony of the Soviets and obediently followed their foreign policies in just about everything. Today they're opening up to market capitalism.

Also Ismail, you sound like a bit of a nationalist.

I'm not an Albanian. Actual bourgeois nationalists in Albania today hold Hoxha in contempt and claim he "betrayed" Albania's "national interests."

and unlike their eastern neighbors, people were not starving or being killed for absolutely no reason at all (ahem Ceausescu).

Ceaușescu starved people because he decided to pay off his debt to the IMF in such a way that even the IMF itself was criticizing him. He implemented super-austerity measures, whereas the Yugoslavs in the 80's implemented more minor measures.

A 1984 article:

"In actual reality, of course, self-management – after a long period of increasing suffocation by the bureaucratic cancer – has already effectively been terminated. Reflecting on the circumstances of its demise, it is instructive to note that it was the West rather than the East which dealt the final blow...

In a recent survey of Yugoslavia by the Financial Times, it was noted that 'Yugoslavia's protracted economic crisis, now in its fourth or fifth year, is beginning to change the political system.' ... as the commentaries in both The Times and the Financial Times noted last June, the country's acceptance of capitalist economic principles – exclusive reliance on monetary mechanisms – is seen as implying that 'the West is ahead ideologically' of the Soviet Union. This year, furthermore, Yugoslavia has agreed to move away from the barter trade with Comecon towards greater exchange with the West. Current agreements with the IMF and the World Bank show Yugoslavia's commitment to liberalize controls, which still cover over 80 per cent of all imports, to relax the terms under which foreign capital can invest, and to open (for the first time) the service sector to it as well. In return, the banks are promising patience and tolerance.

However, it is obvious that this addiction to foreign loans, which the LCY leadership has acquired over the past decade or two, will have to be paid for by the Yugoslav working class."
(Branka Magaš. The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracking the Break-up 1980-92. London: Verso. 1993. p. 97.)

"The papers give – in all the Yugoslav languages – advance notice of new wage cuts and price increases. I read with interest that shipyard workers in Split will have their wages lowered by 40 per cent. Average wage cuts: 20-40 per cent. Average price increases: 30-100+ per cent. The prices of black bread, milk and cooking oil will be protected. The IMF has demanded a drastic cut in domestic consumption and the closure of loss-making enterprises. Hundreds of telexes arrive daily at the door of the Federal government in Belgrade protesting against wage cuts."
(Ibid. p. 131.)

Compare with Albania in 1982 as reported by the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist): "On June 5, the day before the opening of the 9th Congress of the Albanian Trade Unions, the Council of Ministers of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania announced reductions in the price of various mass commodity goods and of many public services. The prices of certain items, including meat, clothing, shoes, televisions, radios, washing machines, bicycles, prams, kitchen utensils, watches, etc., were reduced by amounts ranging from 7-35%, whilst the price of various public services fell by 8-15½%. There is no inflation in Socialist Albania. The only changes in prices which have taken place since liberation in 1944 are reductions in prices. This is in stark contrast to the serious and ever-growing burden on the people caused by the continually soaring prices in the capitalist and revisionist countries."
(Red Patriot. Vol. 6, No. 3/4. Aug. 1st 1982. p. 11.)

[Paul Cockshott]

The soviet government was never overcome with national chauvinists like in yugoslavia. A lot of the ethnic conflict in the former USSR came after the collapse, after the ending of autonomous oblasts and generous state investment. Instead countries like georgia and russia want to rule those minorities.

I'm not familiar with the problem in moldova though, so I can't comment.




Market socialism is self-defeating and dangerous, especially when it's limited to one country like Yugoslavia and vulnerable to external market forces. Communists don't wish to retain a system of exchange, why should we buy and sell not only resources, but labor power, between ourselves, with the goal of making profit?

Only a planned economy can properly run things. No market will provide according to need and produce with the goal of abundance. No market will guarantee full employment, honest insurance, and incentivizing subsidies.




So, titoism merely amounts to tito's personal achievements? The ideology implements partisan victories?

The wars did, but there was friction before that in places like Croatia (croatian spring) and kosovo. Not to mention, not long after tito the government was led by nationalists like Milosevic.



A planned economy is not capitalist. There is no capital, and the means of production are owned in common and run according to raw need, not monetary 'demand'.

Some needs can be allocated politically, but for consumer goods some sort of market feedback, with a public retai agency is needed.

[red1936]

1) Lol, Tito an anti-imperialist?, Tito was a US comprador, he tried to join the marshal plan repeatidly each time he was rejected. He even met on friendly terms with reactionary figures such as emperor Hirohito XD I would recomend reading the page the Espresso stalinist has on Tito, the website even compiled a photo montage of Tito with reactionaries.

2) Tito managed to bring them together?, by that you mean Serbian chauvanism that helped destroy the Yugoslav union?

3) According to a friend of mine who has had encounters with former citizens of the Yugoslav republics (Serbia) the reading of Lenin was actually discouraged, what do you mean my Stalin distorted Leninism?

“We Jugoslavs have discarded classic deviations between revolutionary and evolutionary socialism. History has erased such a distinction. Life now pushes toward the evolutionary progress… I think that even in the United States there is a tendency toward socialism. A big change began with your New Deal and your economy retains many of its features. For example, state intervention in the economy is much larger.”
(Tito, quoted in Cyrus Leo Sulzberger. The Last of the Giants. New York: Macmillan. 1970. p. 270.)

Tito made a career off of distorting Marxism-Leninism and the legacy of Lenin, Leninism does opress, it opresses the Bourgeoisie! you even contradicted yourself by saying Tito rejected distortions of Leninism AND did not censor art, Marx and Lenin wrote about the concept of Social-realism, not allowing degenerate arts to act as if they are art, art should be about the struggle of the workers and things that affect the workers.

The only valid point you made was number 5.

[Ismail]

1) Lol, Tito an anti-imperialist?, Tito was a US comprador, he tried to join the marshal plan repeatidly each time he was rejected. He even met on friendly terms with reactionary figures such as emperor Hirohito XD I would recomend reading the page the Espresso stalinist has on Tito, the website even compiled a photo montage of Tito with reactionaries.

A better argument is the fact that tons of reactionaries actually went to Yugoslavia to mourn Tito's death.

Although the various photos of Tito with Haile Selassie does remind me of this:



Also after the fall of Ranković in the 60's (who was Tito's right-hand man, probable successor, called a "dubious Marxist" by Stalin, and treated Kosovar Albanians as perennially "treasonous" elements) Serbian chauvinism lost a lot of leverage in federal politics.

But yeah, as one anti-communist source puts it:

"One hears Yugoslav Communists say things that would warm the heart of any 'free enterprise' advocate. State intervention? Must be cut to an absolute minimum. Price controls? Very undesirable—imposed temporarily for some vital goods, but to be removed as soon as possible. Taxes? Accepted with great reluctance and should not stifle efforts to maximize profits. Yet, one also catches, in addition to Adam Smith, echoes of every conceivable socialist idea—not just Marx, let alone Lenin, but the early socialists and syndicalists, Owen, even more Proudhon, plus a strong dose of anarchism or anarchosyndicalism."
(Paul Lendvai. Eagles and Cobwebs: Nationalism and Communism in the Balkans. New York: Doubleday & Company, INC. 1969. p. 92.)

And of course the namedropping of Owen, Proudhon, and whatever other idealistic and petty-bourgeois utopians were just "ideological" excuses for constructing a "socialist market system" like so:

"The real changover actually started in 1954, when state financing was abolished and investment funds were separated from the state budget. Starting with the meager concession of being able to elect or dismiss the workers' councils, by the end of the fifties the enterprises planned their production independently, marketed their products, bought raw materials, decided on employment, made their own arrangements with foreign firms, and enjoyed increasing freedom in investing their capital and distributing their profits. Though projected bold reforms in 1961 were temporarily frustrated by bureaucracy, the enterprises could henceforth divide their net earnings independently once they had paid their federal and local taxes.

Parallel reforms in 1953 to 1964 gradually introduced a working market mechanism with government control maintained through price and investment, fiscal and monetary policies. State administration was drastically reduced; the six republics and the communes (there are at present 517 such local administrative districts) were given increased powers in political and economic decisions. Ministries were abolished and only a few administrative state secretariats remain. Enterprises are no longer in any way subordinate to the central institutions; they form their own branch associations and set up business chambers to represent their interests.

The constitutional reform of 1953 established a bicameral basis in local self-government and also at republican and federal levels, and the new Constitution of 1963 made the entire system even more complicated, with a corporate structure resembling in some ways Mussolini's Italy.... [with] a so-called Council of Producers elected on a vocational basis in enterprises, thus excluding self-employed peasants and artisans..."
(Ibid. pp. 98-99.)

One thing that I hear a lot and indicative of the emphasis placed on "heroism" (as it were) rather than actual Marxism is this from the first post:

-The Yugoslav partisans defeated the Nazis with little help from the Red Army.

Well the Albanians defeated Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and quisling administrations with no help from the Red Army. But that's not the point. Kim Il Sung led the resistance against Japanese fascism in Korea, does that mean he is eternally glorious? De Gaulle led the French resistance, does that matter five, ten or twenty years down the line?

In fact I never did address the first post, so I might as well:

-Tito was the leader of the non-aligned movement, never becoming a pawn of the imperialist or Soviet spheres.

I've already mentioned that Yugoslavia was indebted to the West thanks to Tito and that it wanted to join the Marshall Plan, but Tito had a rapprochement with the Soviets in 1955. After 1961 Soviet and Yugoslav ministers both stated that their respective views on foreign policy basically coincided with one another. In addition to this the "Non-Aligned Movement" was a collection of bourgeois states each claiming their own generally inoffensive "African" or "Arab" socialism, which often resulted in the suppression of actual socialists in said countries.

-People could travel freely. The Yugoslav passport was one of the best in the world.

All that accomplished was to promote the hastening of economic "reforms" in the 60's, 70's and 80's so that Yugoslavia could be "more like Europe." Compare this to Hoxha who said that, "No, comrades, we cannot and should not follow 'the European road'; on the contrary, it is Europe which should follow our road, because, from the political standpoint, it is far behind us, it is very far from that for which Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin fought, and for which our Party fights today." (On the Further Revolutionization of the Party and the Whole Life of the Country, p. 261.)

-Tito managed to bring together all of the different nationalities of Yugoslavia under the banner of brotherhood and unity immediately following a bloody ethnic war.

This is true, although as noted there was chauvinism against Kosovar Albanians, who were denied their ability to unite with Albania proper because, by Tito's own admission, he didn't want to alienate Serbs.

-Unlike Stalin, Tito was the true successor of Marx and Lenin, attempting to create a socialist state that was actually led by the proletariat through his system of self-management.

Let's see how Marx and Lenin were treated:

"If a traveler chooses to spend the end of April and the beginning of May in the Balkans and happens to cross from Bulgaria into Yugoslavia, he is invariably struck by an amazing contrast. In Sofia, or in the smaller towns and villages near the Yugoslav border, he sees red banners everywhere, slogans hailing the Soviet Union and Bulgaria marching shoulder to shoulder proudly toward communism. On the 1st of May he is confronted with columns of people bearing the traditional flags and pictures.

There is quite a difference in the Yugoslav towns, particularly in the capital. To be sure, May Day is a public holiday, yet there is hardly any red or decoration of any color. At the most one sees here and there a solitary weather-beaten picture of the Holy Trinity of Communism displayed on the façades of party or union headquarters. When one reaches Belgrade, the picture changes even more dramatically. Instead of the apostles of revolution, with or without beards, the main boulevards are lined with huge billboards displaying such symbols of capitalism as General Motors or Ford, sprinkled with advertisements for Mercedes or Citroen and other leading motor companies. For the past few years, May Day has coincided with the Belgrade motor show and the 'masses' march to the fairground to admire and in some cases even to buy cars, rather than to imitate their fellow Communists in neighboring countries."
(Lendvai, p. 75.)

It's also rather strange that the "true successor of Lenin" would disavow vanguardism:

"For, from its 7th congress of April 1958, the Yugoslav party held that Communists 'should no longer be concerned primarily with questions relating to the overthrow of capitalism', that it was possible to achieve socialism without a revolution and that Communist parties need not enjoy a power monopoly in pursuit of socialism."
(Geoffrey Stern. The Rise and Decline of International Communism. Aldershot: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. 1990. p. 177.)

-Unlike in the Soviet Union, there was little censorship of art, allowing Yugoslav cultural production to flourish.

In neighboring Albania, which had just about the strictest adherence to socialist realism, culture actually did flourish as Peter R. Prifti notes in his work Socialist Albania since 1944, with a great variety of folkloric, theatrical, artistic and written entertainment thanks to state-sponsored efforts. Yugoslav "cultural production" just tended to mimic the West.

-Tito rejected Stalin's perversion of Marxism-Leninism. Marx advocated the liberation of man, while Stalinist policies were aimed at man's repression.

"While other Communist governments let out only a trickle of tourists and for the time being at least would not even dream of allowing hundreds of thousands of their proud socialist citizens to be 'exploited' by foreign capitalists, the Yugoslavs are becoming more and more business-minded, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of migrants. The press and the officials freely admit that, given the existing domestic situation, they can see only blessings, such as fat remittances, acquisition of new skills, and a reduction in the amount of unconcealed unemployment. In fact, any slackening of demand in the West for foreign workers would be a severe loss. It is amusing, but also typical, that Yugoslav newspapers followed the 1966-67 recession in Germany with anxiety instead, as one might have expected, of being light-hearted about this confirmation of the 'inevitable doom of capitalism.'"
(Lendvai, p. 107.)

[Die Neue Zeit]

Some needs can be allocated politically, but for consumer goods some sort of market feedback, with a public retail agency is needed.

I'm not sure a lot of posters here are aware of the difference you make between basic clearing prices and full-blown price fluctuations all over the place between the high-end clearing price and the low-end clearing price. I'm definitely against the latter.

[Paul Cockshott]

Is not even absolutely necessary to allow any price fluctuations, you could sell all consumer goods at labour content provided the state wholesale agency adjusts the plan rapidly in the face of goods being sold out or being unsold.

[Babeufist]

[FONT=Times New Roman]I am Titoist too! Titoism is not only Yugoslavian ideology but broader phenomenon. For example Polish Titoist was Wladyslaw Gomulka, Hungarian Titoist was Laszlo Rajk, Bulgarian Titoist was Traicho Kostov, I suppose American Titoist was Earl Browder. There was also German Titoist party http://www.bpb.de/themen/PQ3CU9,3,0,Die_SED_und_der_Titoismus.html [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]Titoism is realistic Communism - Communism adopted to specific national conditions. [/FONT]

[Ismail]

Browder was basically a social-democrat who openly called for dissolving the Communist Party of America in favor of a "mass party" and was a believer in "American exceptionalism," you know that right? Gomułka by contrast was just a nationalist who was boosted up after Stalin's death as a man subjected to "Stalinist repression."

It was none other than Enver Hoxha who wrote a nice introduction to Browderism in his book Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism. See: http://enver-hoxha.net/librat_pdf/en...ommunism/I.pdf (book pages 24-37)

[Rafiq]

All that accomplished was to promote the hastening of economic "reforms" in the 60's, 70's and 80's so that Yugoslavia could be "more like Europe." Compare this to Hoxha who said that, "No, comrades, we cannot and should not follow 'the European road'; on the contrary, it is Europe which should follow our road, because, from the political standpoint, it is far behind us, it is very far from that for which Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin fought, and for which our Party fights today." (On the Further Revolutionization of the Party and the Whole Life of the Country, p. 261.)

So why is it you think Albanians were forbidden from leaving the country, just like most of the Socialist countries at the time? Or does leaving Albania automatically signify that you are adopting "Revisionist reforms"

[Ismail]

So why is it you think Albanians were forbidden from leaving the country, just like most of the Socialist countries at the time? Or does leaving Albania automatically signify that you are adopting "Revisionist reforms"

People were forbidden from leaving Albania? Really? Is that why Albanian professors and researchers were able to go to London to look at the British war archives circa 1971? Is that why various Albanian professors were allowed to teach in Kosovo after 1968 (after the Yugoslav Government began to concede to some Kosovar Albanian demands), were able to give lectures in France, etc.?

But of course as noted Yugoslavia allowed all sorts of workers to leave... to become migrant laborers in West Germany, and to thus base a significant amount of the Yugoslav economy on foreign capitalist exploitation.

But of course I'm sure you'll argue that Yugoslavia correctly understood the "material conditions" through "workers' self-management" much like the DPRK, apparently firmly grasping these as well, did the same via Juche. Anyone who opposed Tito and Kim Il Sung is thus evil because some idiot teenager from Detroit defines "orthodox Marxism" on the internet. Some would say that both are just symbols of nationalist deviations from Marxism-Leninism, but you'll just go along to argue that they were totally necessary and become apologists for both and all other forms of revisionism in general.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

[FONT=Times New Roman] I suppose American Titoist was Earl Browder. [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]

I just lost the little respect I had for the ultimate revisionists of revisionists in Eastern Europe: Josip Broz Tito.


And I think that (if Ismail has not already quoted it) people should this:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/ar...avia/index.htm
by Comrade Enver Hoxha.