From For a Lasting Peace, for a People’s Democracy!
No. 41 (153), October 12, 1951.

Tito Fascist Clique “Legalises” Capitalism in Yugoslavia

Miron Constantinescu
Member, Political Bureau,
Central Committee, Rumanian Workers’ Party

If earlier, the Tito gang of assassins and spies went out of their way to camouflage the restoration of capitalism in Yugoslavia, at present this is being done quite openly. At the end of August, the Tito-Rankovic fascist clique, which usurped power in the Party and in the State, announced “new economic law” which signified nothing more than a complete transition to open restoration of capitalism, open transfer of Yugoslavia’s national riches to the American and British imperialists, and the complete switching of the economy onto a war footing.

Publication of the “new economic laws” was accompanied by a fiercer criminal campaign of anti-Soviet falsehoods and by intensified provocations on the borders of Albania, Bulgaria, Rumania and Hungary. In addition, this act was preceded by visit to Yugoslavia of the arch warmongers – Harriman, General Collins, Admiral Edelsten, and other international pirates.

Taking the Hitler fascist regime as its model, the Tito clique borrowed – on orders from its American masters – not only the methods of Hitler and Goering in fascising the economy, but also their economic and political “theories”. The Hitler propaganda arsenal is the source of Titoite wisdom. They simply alter the terminology, substituting, for example, “national socialism”, the praises of which the Hitlerites had sung, with “Yugoslav national socialism”, etc.

Thus, the American-British imperialist fish the Hitlerite “theories” from the cess-pool of history and hand them over to their Titoite servants.

I

As early as 1949, the Information Bureau of Communist and Workers’ Parties pointed out in its Resolution the capitalist essence of State property in Yugoslavia. “The State sector in the economy of Yugoslavia has ceased to be people’s property, since State power is in the hands of enemies of the people”. However, State property in industrial enterprises, mines and banks, even though capitalist, was, to a certain extent, an obstacle to its “free” seizure by the foreign imperialists, to the complete restoration of the Yugoslav bourgeoisie. So in June 1950, the Tito clique began to abolish the State sector, transferring enterprises to “workers’ councils”, which, in fact, are administrative councils headed by the former capitalist employers. For example, the coal industry is headed by former owners of the Varsca Ciuka and Resava Bare mines. The directors of the enterprises enjoy fantastic incomes in the form of salaries alone, exceeding 30-40 and even 50 times the average wage received by workers – a feature characteristic only of capitalist enterprises. Thus, by means of its “economic” measures, the Tito clique is also creating a section of new Yugoslav bourgeoisie. This conversion of State property into private property was described by the Titoite as the introduction of “people’s property”.

The transfer of the enterprises to the capitalists was hailed by the imperialist press with obvious satisfaction. The American bourgeois journal, “United States News and World Report”, for example, stated that bankers had been invited to act as advisers to bring order into accounting in the enterprises, and to establish whether they were operating profitably or not.

After capitalist trading had been officially introduced in January 1951, and after the dissolution in April 1951 of the so-called State Planning Commission and all planning organs in the Republics, the Titoites produced a whole series of draft laws about the “new system in planning and finance” which signified the open restoration of capitalism in Yugoslavia, accompanied by organisational forms, “theoretical” terminology and argumentation taken from Hitler’s so-called Four-Year economic plan.

Capitalist exploitation of the working class in its most brutal form, that of compulsory slave labour disguised as “planned leadership of the national economy”, is now being legalised in Yugoslavia. Article 1 of the “new law” relates to two types of plans for Yugoslavia: “social plans” of the Yugoslav State, and “independent plans” of the economic organisations and federations. The social plans foresee only “basic proportions of minimum exploitation of the production capacity of the enterprises, capital investments for construction, and the average norm of the accumulation fund and social funds”. These fictitious plans will be submitted to the capitalists in the administrative councils of the enterprises and economic federations for their approval. As for the “independent plans” of the enterprises, they will be prepared by the capitalist owners themselves, regardless of general planning. In drafting these plans, conditions on the capitalist market and the demands of the U.S.-British imperialists alone, are taken into account. It is quite clear that the introduction of these “social plans” and “independent plans” is nothing but out-and-out demagogy and crude camouflage for the restoration of capitalism in Yugoslavia. Basically, these plans are but a new edition of the well-known “Deutsches Wirtschaftsrecht” (German Economic Law) which declared that the Hitler State allowed the “co-existence of State management and free enterprises in the most varied interlacing”.

Titoite legislation is not confined to “independent plans for the enterprises”, drawn up by the owners of enterprises. It also legalises combinations of owners according to industry and territory in the guise of economic federations. These “economic federations”, or “producers’ federations”, as they are also called by the Titoites, enjoy the right to approve “social plans”. Thus, the entire control of the enterprises passes to the capitalist federations. This also signifies that the so-called State social plan will actually be approved first by the foreign imperialists who play the leading part in the “economic federations” as owners of the mines and basic enterprises in Yugoslavia. As is known, the U.S. trusts, “Anaconda Copper and Mining”, “Continental Supply Corporations”, “Mackenzie Engineering Co.” and “Bethlehem Steel”, are now the masters of the basic natural resources and of industry in Yugoslavia.

The “new economic laws” end the State foreign trade monopoly in Yugoslavia. Enterprises have the right freely to export and import, to possess foreign currency and to perform financial operations with abroad, particularly through the “Export and Import Bank” established by the Americans. The rate of the Yugoslav dinars was fixed in accordance with the present foreign currency agreement, and this rate, of course, is extremely unstable. Income derived from the turnover with foreign countries is subjected to taxation only if not taxed abroad. Hence, the essence of these “economic laws” is that the imperialists are given a free in plundering Yugoslavia and are insured by most extensive conditions for colonial exploitation.

II

Simultaneously with the “new planning”, there were introduces also the “new system of piece-work payment” and a “new wage system”, both of which mean nothing more than the introduction of most unbridled methods of exploitation of the working people, and abolition of the minimum labour protection measures. According to the “new wage system”, two types of wages are introduced: “variable” – depending on the “profitability” of the enterprises, - and “permanent”. The nature of the so-called permanent wage is evident from the respective law: “If an enterprise does not ensure the fixed permanent wage fund and does not possess reserve funds, workers and employees will get their permanent wage in proportion to the available wage fund”. In other words, the workers permanent wage, and more so, his “variable” wage, is fixed at the will of the capitalist “councils” running the enterprises. To ensure the interests of capitalist bosses fully, the Titoite law says that prior to distribution of the variable wage fund, they must set aside from these means an obligatory capital investments fund. And the obligatory capital investments fund is fixed by the capitalist “independently”.

Thus, the predatory capitalist “regulations” of the Yugoslav enterprises are legalised. Under the cynical slogan: “Every one works as much as he wants”, the eight-hour day was abolished, a 12-14-16 – hours working day introduced, and, simultaneously, norms were raised and wages reduced. For example, at the Bevare construction site, the working day ranges from 11 to 13 hours; in the Place port, 14 hours; Rijeka dockers had their payment for handling a ton of coal cut from 43.5 to 38.5 dinars. In the lumber industry in Herzegovina, norms were increased by 70 per cent, in Jirinitsa lumber enterprise, 50 per cent.

Parallel with the open restoration capitalism in the towns, the Tito clique is hastily implanting kulaks in agriculture with a view to strengthening its class positions in the countryside. Even Titoite statistics show that each year 10 per cent of the working peasant household fall into the hands of kulaks; that the kulaks (6.25 per cent of rural population) own 50 per cent of the land.

The “new laws” place the trade network in the countryside wholly at the disposal of the kulaks. These laws envisage supplies of credits only for “profitable co-operatives”, i.e., for kulak ones. The taxes paid by poor peasants are mounting.

Under the pretext that it is impossible to ensure food for the urban workers, the Tito clique forces the latter to return to the countryside. For this purpose a special law – a replica of the Hitler “Erbhof” 1933 law – was issued. Over 500 enterprises were closed in Yugoslavia following the introduction of the “unprofitability” laws. According to the bourgeois journal, “Internationale Wirtschaft”, as a result of these laws, a “flow of the population to the agricultural regions” is anticipated. Thus, the object of all these “laws” of the Tito-Rankovic gang is also to lower wages, to expand the army of unemployed and ensure cheap manpower for the exploiters.

III

In an attempt to give a “theoretical” grounding to these laws, the Tito clique strongly combines its own petty “theoretical efforts” with the Hitlerite economic ravings. For example, the anarchic laws of capitalist economy are declared by Kidric, “Oberfuhrer of the planned economy”, to be immutable and unalterable.

Using Hitlerite terminology, this paltry slave of the monopolists places the ruthless capitalist exploitation among the “immutable economic laws”; he declares production and distribution to be “the life-stream of the law of value”, asserting that a “larger part of the surplus labour” should be assimilated by enterprises and economic federations themselves; in other words, appropriated by the capitalists.

Kidric, the new fascist “theoretician” also resorts to the theories of Right-wing Socialists, describing imperialism as “developed capitalism”, and asserting that the last phase of capitalism constitutes the first phase of Socialism. The Titoites deny the existence of classes in fascist Yugoslavia. Using the terminology of Hitler and Mussolini they seek to prove that in Yugoslavia there is no working class and no capitalists, no working peasants and kulaks, no exploited and exploiters, only “direct producers”.

The introduction of the capitalist economic “system” in Yugoslavia was enthusiastically welcomed by American and British capitalists. Wall Street and City magnates acknowledge with satisfaction that Tito Yugoslavia is a place for “profitable and safe capital investments”. Not without reason did the “Economist”, organ of the leading financial circles in Britain, comment after publication of the new Tito “laws” that the theory on which the proposals were based could be accepted with satisfaction in the West, that the new system was a genuine achievement, that its author deserved the attention and full respect of the Western democracies, etc.

The establishment of the Hitler “order” in Yugoslavia’s economy is bound up with the continued militarisation of the country. As was the case at one time in Hitler Germany, so now in Yugoslavia, the “new, planned economy” provides, above all, for building strategic roads and military airfields for rearmaments, conversion of industry to war production, and transforming the State budget into a war budget.

IV

The open restoration of capitalism, militarisation of the economy and its subordination to the foreign imperialists, resulted in a catastrophic fall in the standard of living of the working people in Yugoslavia. The Titoites restored not only capitalist exploitation in Yugoslavia; following the example of the Hitlerites, they resurrected feudal and even slave forms of exploitation. Four hundred and fifty thousand people were sent for compulsory labour to the mines in Bosnia, Slovenia and Croatia. About two million peasants were mobilised for forced labour. The Titoite gangsters stop at nothing. In Stip, youth found in the street were press-ganged by the Titoites for work on the Banja-Luca-Doboi Railway. In the village of Riejana, dozens of peasant houses were surrounded and the young men and women rounded-up and sent to compulsory labour.

Yugoslav workers get a scanty wage, inadequate for minimum requirements. The monthly wage averages 2,500-3,000 dinars. In Montenegro, for instance, building workers get 1,400 dinars a month, at a time when a kilogram of fat costs 800 dinars; rent, which was increased 30 per cent in 1950, recently soared another 30 per cent; the price of salt, matches, tobacco and kerosene rose 200 per cent. A system of fining and deducting wages has been legalised in the enterprises. For example, at the Bogovina Mine, failure to fulfil the norm is punished by deducting 50 per cent of the worker’s wages; at the Banovic mines, three days wages are deducted for a day’s absence from work; in Sibenic port, only 6 of the 8 working hours are paid. By these methods a sum of 3.3 million dinars was deducted during first six months of 1951 at the Kreka mines, and 2.9 million dinars at the “Breza” enterprises.

The “new economic laws” are a heavy burden on the shoulders of the Yugoslav working people. The price of meat jumped threefold recently. The price of bread, sugar, maize and potatoes is rising rapidly, it soared in 1950 from 200 to 900 per cent. Although there is a scarcity of food, the Titoites are exporting nearly a million tons of wheat and maize to Western Germany; foodstuffs to the total of 50 million francs were exported to France. Yugoslav sugar is exported to Franco Spain at a price almost ten times lower than that charged on the home market.

The treacherous policy of the Belgrade fascist gang evokes the wrath and hatred of the Yugoslav people. The Yugoslav proletariat is acting ever more resolutely against the Tito regime. This is evident from numerous facts. For example, at the Jelsingrad steel plant engaged on war production, output dropped by 40 per cent, and at the Army footwear factory in Banja Luca, thousands of pairs of boots were defective. The plan for ore mining at the Bor mines has not been fulfilled for a number of years; in the Kreka coal basin, the workers brought work at 30 big mines to a standstill. Output of bauxites at the Dinas mines is 40 per cent short of plan. Strikes and absenteeism are widespread forms of struggle used by the working class. Every day tens of thousands of workers fail to report for work; ten thousand of the eleven thousand workers sent to forced labour in the Trepca mines absconded. Sabotage in transport is on the increase: in July, a shipment of iron-ore for Austria failed to reach its destination because 260 of the 300 cars were damaged. At the Ljubljana goods station, workers set fire to a warehouse stocked with railway materials; at Doboi Station, a depot containing military equipment was set on fire.

Together with the working class, Yugoslav peasants are more and more vigorously opposing the Tito regime. In the Banja Luca region, the Titoites collected a mere one per cent of the planned State quotas. Peasants react to the terror with armed struggle, as was the case in Cordun, Bania, Cazin, and recently in Topliza and Doboi. The other day new peasant disturbances were reported from Croatia.

The Tito gang uses force in its attempts to suppress the growing discontent of the working people. Nearly 250,000 workers, peasants and intellectuals – Yugoslav patriots – have been incarcerated in prisons and concentration camps. More and more often the Titoites send troops to suppress the working people’s resistance. But the workers and peasants in uniform hate the fascist Tito clique.

*

The “new economic laws” reveal the internal rottenness of the Tito fascist regime; they usher in the reign of complete anarchy in the economy and head it towards bankruptcy. The “new laws” will inevitably bring Yugoslavia to economic and political crisis from which there is only one outlet: overthrow of the fascist dictatorship of the Tito gang and the liberation of Yugoslavia from bondage to the U.S.-British enslavers.

From the flames of the heroic struggle waged by the Yugoslav working people against the Titoites, new cadres of tempered fighters and leaders are rising, cadres enriched with the experience of underground struggle and imbued with the spirit of proletarian internationalism.

Under the leadership of the re-created Communist Party of Yugoslavia, and under the banner of proletarian internationalism, under the banner of Leninism, the working people of Yugoslavia will rout the Tito clique and return the country to the family of the peoples building Socialism.

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