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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 25, 19 June 1950, pp. 4–5.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The impact of the Tito split with the Comintern, sharp as it was when it first took place about two years ago, continues to grow and mount in significance.
In international politics, in labor affairs, in the internal development of the Stalinist movement, the birth and success of Titoism (for it has been surprisingly successful) is well known and requires no repetition. In a series of Countries, Titoism – to one or another degree – has split the Stalinist movement wide open. The latest example is India, where a new Communist Party with definite leanings away from Moscow Stalinism and in the direction of Mao Tze-tung and Peiping has been formed. There is no telling what will be the latest development in this expanding revolt within the Stalinist circle.
It goes without saying that all groups and branches of the labor and socialist movement, internationally, have had to take cognizance of Titoism and the Yugoslavian events. The response and the various positions taken have varied considerably, particularly after it became clear that Titoism was no temporary phenomenon but one of the most dramatic and important developments since the war’s end.
At first, the political and theoretical problems posed by the existence of the Tito regime and its bitter split with Stalinist imperialism were comparatively simple. The questions were essentially those of an internationalist character, revolving around the right of Yugoslavia to maintain its existence as a national entity against the threats of Stalinism. In the early days of the struggle, it appeared possible that Russia, in its desperate anxiety to crush Titoism before it could spread, would intervene directly and bluntly to destroy the Yugoslavian state. Revolutionary socialism, always conscious of its duty and obligation to defend the democratic rights of national existence, despite the character of the national state under threat, naturally came to the defense of Yugoslavia, proclaiming its views that if war came, socialism must be on the side of Yugoslavia and against Stalinist imperialism.
The history of Marxism is, of course, replete with many examples of a similar position – defense of Ethiopia against Italy; China against Japan; Viet-Minh against French imperialism and, in general, all national peoples against those seeking to destroy their national existence.
To be sure, another factor of vital importance was involved – namely, how to analyze ana what estimate to give to this split within the Stalinist world. Labor Action and the ISL recognized the deep significance of the event, particularly the favorable fact (from a socialist viewpoint) that it represented a heavy blow at the hitherto solidarity of the world Stalinist movement. Any event tending to weaken and splinter Stalinism is in our favor. It would have been absurd for us to speak “against” the Tito split; on the contrary, whatever possible was to be done to encourage and amplify such splits in the ranks of Stalinism, regardless of one’s political opinion and evaluation of the Titoist regime.
Other political groups and individuals reacted according to their own political perspective. Stalinists who were already uneasy and uncomfortable in the Moscow straitjacket were immediately attracted; political opportunists and adventurers of all shades (the type who talk about fighting Stalin with his own weapons) were cynically hailing the new marshal for his amazing success and skill in defying the Kremlin; still other socialist groups and tendencies, weakened and isolated after long battles and discouragements, began to view the Yugoslavian events with anything but an objective political eye.
The leaders of the Yugoslav one-party state, clever- and highly educated in the ways of the political world-, immediately began to build up throughout the world a modest but significant sector of supporters among toe “socialist and radical left.” This was the beginning of a pro-Titoist movement which has now become alarmingly large and demands its own analysis and answer. A veritable Titoist “jag,” particularly in the socialist and revolutionary left of Western Europe, is on and promises to spread.
It must be noted that the issues involved have spread beyond the original questions posed, and have now tended to be replaced by another question: What kind of regime exists in Yugoslavia? Is it a socialist or workers’ state? Has a new October Revolution occurred, which the workers must be mobilized to defend in the same sense that they defended the Russian Revolution? Any number of political groups in Western Europe and elsewhere, it appears, have arrived at such conclusions, to one or another degree. Nor does this concern only Yugoslavia, since it would also appear that various revolutionary groups in the Far East are rapidly developing similar opinions about the new Chinese regime! Sorely the Yugoslavian question is now posed in as entirely different light than hitherto.
If it were only a matter of that miserable set of bankrupts who call themselves the “Fourth International” the matter would not be too serious. That this group would rush to liquidate its “independent” political and ideological existence at the first promising opportunity has been long clear. In any case, hot only do the self-styled Trotskyists degrade themselves by the crassness and vulgarity of the way in which they now worship the Tito shrine, but they openly proclaim their desire and burning ambition to serve throughout the world in no other capacity than that of propagandists-in-chief for the marshal and his noble horde of one-party dictators. They may rest assured that Tito knows howito make proper use of them, provided no one asks him the question of what happened to the Yugoslavian Trotskyists, known now to have been liquidated (in Titoist, not Stalinist, fashion) in 1945. Unfortunately, however, genuine revolutionary socialist tendencies have been affected by the myth and illusion of a Titoist “socialist” regime.
A very specific and concrete question is at issue: Is this really a democratic regime, moving in the direction of socialism? In what ways does this express itself? Are the statements of the Titoist leaders, proclaiming their Leninism, their fidelity to socialism, their understanding of democracy, etc., to be accepted at their face value, as do the Trotskyists? In a word, what kind of a regime exists in Yugoslavia? In an article to follow we shall put into more concrete form our answers to these questions. Mosti important, we shall insist upon specific criteria by which one must measure this regime in order to pass a true and objective judgment upon it.
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