The theory and practice of Yugoslav "self-administration" is an outright denial of the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and the universal laws on the construction of socialism.
The essence of "self-administration socialism" in the economy is the idea that allegedly socialism cannot be built by concentrating the means of production in the hands of the socialist state by creating state ownership as the highest form of socialist ownership, but by fragmenting the socialist state property into property of individual groups of workers, who allegedly administer it directly themselves. Already in 1848 Marx and Engels stressed:
"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class" (K. Marx / F. Engels, Selected Works, vol. 1, p. 42 Tirana 1975, Alb. ed.)
Lenin stressed the same when he sternly combated the anarcho-syndicalist views of the group hostile to the party, the "Workers' Opposition", which demanded the handing of the factories to the workers and the management and organisation of production not by the socialist state but by a so-called "Congress of producers", as a representative of groups of individual workers. Lenin described these views as representing
"... a complete break with Marxism and communism" (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 32, p. 283, Alb. ed.)
He pointed out that
"any justification, whether direct or Indirect, of the ownership of the workers of a certain factory or a certain profession for their specific production, or any justification of their right to tone down or hinder the orders from general state power, is a gross distortion of the fundamental principles of Soviet power and complete renunciation of socialism" (V. I. Lenin, "On Democratisation and the Socialist Character of the Soviet Power")
In June 1950, when Tito presented the law on "self-administration" to the People's Assembly of the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, while developing his revisionist views on ownership under "socialism", he said, among other things: "From now on state property in the means of production, factories, mines, railroads will gradually go over to the highest form of social ownership. State ownership is the lowest form of social ownership, not the highest form..." Among "the most characteristic acts of a socialist country" is "the transfer of factories and other economic enterprises from the hands of the state into the hands of the workers, for them to manage... " because in this manner the "slogan of the action of the working class -- Factories to the Workers! -- will be realized." ("Factories to the Workers", Prishtina 1951, pp. 37, 19, 1)
These assertions of Tito and the reactionary anarcho-syndicalist views of the "Workers' Opposition", which Lenin exposed in his time, are as like as two peas in a pot but they are also similar to the views of Proudhon, who wrote in his work "The Theory of Property" that "the spontaneous product of a collective unit... can be considered as the triumph of freedom... and as the greatest revolutionary force which exists and which can be opposed to the state." Or let us see what one of the leaders of the Second International, Otto Bauer, said in his book "The Road to Socialism": "Who, then, will lead socialised industry in the future? The government? No! If the government was to run all the branches of industry without exception, it would become too powerful over the people and the national representative body. Such an increase of government power would be dangerous for democracy" (Otto Bauer, "The road to Socialism", Paris 1919, p. 18)
In unity with Tito's views, E. Kardelj also stresses in his book: "Our society is compelled to act in this manner as soon as it has decided for self-government and the self-governing socialisation of the social property and against the perpetuation of the state-owned form of the socialist relations of production." (p. 66) [All quotations from E. Kardelj's book are taken from the Albanian translation by the Prishtina Publishing Board in 1977 -- Publishing House "8 Nentori", Tirana]. This means that the system of private property has been established in Yugoslavia, and state socialist property, the property of the entire people, does not exist anymore.
Quite the opposite happens in our country, where this common socialist property is managed by the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat with the participation of the working class and the masses of working people in direct, centralised forms which are planned from below and orientated from above.
The course of the decentralisation of the means of production, according to the anarcho-syndicalist ideas of workers' "self-administration" is, in essence, nothing else but a clever way to preserve and consolidate capitalist private ownership over the means of production, although in a form disguised as "property administered by groups of workers". In fact, all the confusing and obscure terms invented by the "theoretician" Kardelj in his book, such as "fundamental organizations of united labour", "complex organisation of united labour", "workers' councils of the fundamental or complex organisations of united labour", "self-administrative communities of interests", etc. etc., which have even been written into the law of the Yugoslav capitalist state, are nothing but a glossy facade behind which the stripping of the working class of its right to ownership over the means of production, its savage exploitation by the bourgeoisie, is hidden.
This kind of private property exists in Yugoslavia not only in a disguised form but also in its open form, both in town and countryside. This, too, is admitted by E. Kardelj in his book when he says: "in our society such rights as... the right of personal property or, within given limits, also of private property... have special importance..." (p. 177). Kardelj tries in vain to play down the negative effect which the open acceptance of the right to private property might have even in the form of small-scale production, which, as Lenin says, gives birth to capitalism every day and every hour. The Yugoslav revisionists have issued special laws to encourage the private economy, laws which recognise the citizens' right to "found enterprises" and "to hire labour". The Yugoslav Constitution explicitly states: "Private owners have the same socio-economic position, the same rights and obligations as the working people in the socio-economic organisations."
Small private property reigns supreme in the Yugoslav agriculture and occupies nearly 90 per cent of the arable land. Nine million hectare of land belong to the private sector whereas over 10 per cent, or 1.15 million hectare belong to the monopoly, the so-called "social sector". Over 5 million peasants in Yugoslavia are engaged in cultivating privately-owned land. The Yugoslav countryside has never embarked on the road of genuine socialist transformations. Kardelj has not one word regarding this situation in his book and he avoids dealing with the problem how his system of "self-administration" is extended to agriculture. However, if he pretends that socialism is being built through this system, then how is it possible that he should have forgotten about "building socialism" in agriculture, too, which accounts for nearly half the economy? The Marxist-Leninist theory teaches us that socialism is built both in the city and in the countryside, not on the basis of state capitalist ownership, the ownership allegedly administered by workers' groups, or of private ownership in its open form, but only on the basis of socialist social ownership over the means of production.
In Yugoslavia private property of 10 to 25 hectare is allowed (V. Vasic, "The Economic Policy of Yugoslavia", Prishtina University Press, 1970) But the Yugoslav law which permits the buying and selling, renting and mortgaging of land, the buying and selling of agricultural machinery and hired labour in agriculture has also created the possibilities for the new bourgeois class of the countryside, the kulaks, to add to the area of their land, means of work and implements, tractors and trucks at the expense of the poor peasants and consequently, to step up and intensify their capitalist exploitation.
Capitalist relations of production are so deeply rooted in the Yugoslav economy that even the capitalists from foreign companies have now a free field of action in making investments and, together with the local bourgeoisie, exploiting the local working class and the other masses of working people in Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav system of "self-administration" can rightly be described as a state of the co-operation of Yugoslav capitalism with US capitalism and other capitalists. They are partners sharing Yugoslavia's resources in all respects -- in factories, means of communication, hotels, housing, up to the souls of people.
If the Yugoslav economy has made some steps forward in its development this is in no way due to the system of "self-administration", as the Titoite revisionists try to claim for themselves. Large amounts of capital from the capitalist world in the form of investments, credits and "aid" have been poured into Yugoslavia and this constitutes a considerable part of the material base of the Yugoslav capitalist-revisionist system. The debts alone amount over 11 billion dollars. Alone from the United States of America, Yugoslavia has received over 7 billion dollars in credits.
The international bourgeoisie did not support the Yugoslav system of "socialist seIf-administration" with such a material and financial base without a good reason. The crutches supplied by Western capital have kept this system on its feet as a model of the preservation of the capitalist order under pseudo-socialist labels.
With their investments, foreign capitalists have built numerous industrial projects in Yugoslavia which turn out products ranging from the highest to the lowest quality. Most of the best products are, of course, sold abroad and only a fraction of them are marketed within the country. Although there is great capitalist overproduction abroad and all the markets there are monopolised by the same capitalists who have invested in Yugoslavia they nevertheless sell the best Yugoslavian goods precisely on these markets for fabulous profits because labour power in Yugoslavia is cheap, products are turned out at a lower cost in comparison with the capitalist countries where the trade unions, more or less, make demands on capital in the workers' name. The best products the factories in Yugoslavia produce also go to he multinational companies which operate in Yugoslavia. However, on top of the profit they extract in this way, the foreign capitalist investors also squeeze out other profits -- by the interest on the capital they have invested in Yugoslavia. These profits are often taken in the form of resources or raw material.
In his book, the demagogue Kardelj has a great deal to say about the system of "self-administration" but he maintains total silence about the presence and very major role of foreign capital in keeping the "self-administrative" system on its feet.
In the bourgeois countries, says Kardelj, the real power is based and "... manifested first of all in the relationships of the state executive power with the political cartels outside the parliament... parallel to the growth of the power of the extra-parliamentary internal force", Kardelj continues, "there is a new phenomenon, characteristic of contemporary social relations in the highly developed capitalist countries -- the creation of the international or world-wide extra-parliamentary force." (p. 54). This way Kardelj seeks to prove that the Yugoslav "self-administration" has allegedly escaped such a situation. But as we explained in the foregoing the reality presents quite a different picture: the Yugoslav "self-administration" is a Yugoslav and foreign capitalist joint administration. The foreign capitalists, that is, the companies, concerns and those who have made investments in Yugoslavia determine the policy and the all-round development of Yugoslavia just as much as the Yugoslav state power itself.
The so-called self-administrated enterprises, whether big or small, are in fact compelled to take account of the foreign investor. This investor has his own laws, which he has imposed on the Yugoslav State, has his own direct representatives in these joint companies and has his own representatives or his influence in the Federation. In fact, directly or indirectly, the investor imposes his will on the Federation, the joint enterprise or company. This is precisely what the "self-administration" is seeking to conceal. Kardelj needs this camouflage, this tour de passe-passe (conjuror's trick), as the French say, in order to "prove" the absurdity that Yugoslav "self-administration" is genuine socialism.
But what he endeavours to deny in his book is confirmed every day by many facts revealed by the Western press, indeed even by the Yugoslav news agency TANJUG itself which on the 16th of August that year reported about a new regulative issue of the "Federal Executive Veche" concerning the foreign investments in Yugoslavia. Under these regulations the rights of foreign capitalist investors in Yugoslavia are extended even further. "Under this law", reports TANJUG, "the foreign partners, on the basis of the agreements concluded between them and the organisations of socialised labour of this country, can make investments in currency, equipment, semi-finished and finished products and technology. Foreign investors have the same rights as the local organisations of socialised labour which invest their means in some other organisation of united labour."
Further on TANJUG stresses: "Under this set of regulations greater interest (on the part of foreigners) is anticipated, because it guarantees the security of the joint economic activity on a long-term basis. Besides this, there is now practically no field in which foreigners cannot invest their means, with the exception of social insurance, internal trade and social activities".
The country could not be sold to foreign capital more completely than this. And in face of this purely capitalist reality, the "communist" Kardelj still has the nerve to claim that "... our society has gained much strength in its socio-economic content and structure by the socialist and self-administrative relations of production..." which, he writes on, "... make possible and ensure that our society will develop more and more in a free, independent and self-governing manner..."! (pp. 7-8).
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.
Although E. Kardelj liquidated the bureaucracy and technocracy, eliminated the role of a dominant technocratic class "in theory", in reality, in practice this class was rapidly created and discovered a broad field of activity in this allegedly democratic system in which the role of the working man is supposedly "decisive". In fact, the role of that stratum of officials and the new bourgeoisie who dominate the "self-administrated" enterprise is decisive. It is them who draft the plan, who fix the amount of investments and everybody's income, the workers' and their own and, of course, they take good care of themselves first. Laws and rules were established in order to keep the profits of the leadership as high as possible and the wages of the workers low.
In Yugoslavia this narrow stratum of people, fattened on the workers' sweat and toil, who take decisions in their own interests, turned into a capitalist class. This is how the political monopoly in decision-making and division of income by the elite in the enterprises of socialist "self-administration" was created, while Kardelj continues to harp on the same old tune: that this political system, invented by the Titoites, contributes to the creation of conditions for the genuine realisation of the workers' "self-administration" and the "democratic" rights which the system recognises in principle.
The formation of the new capitalist class was encouraged precisely by the system of "self-administration". Tito himself has admitted this bitter fact as he allegedly made a "severe criticism" of the exploiters of workers, all those who run this system of "socialist self-administration" for their own profit. In many speeches, no matter how much he tried to hide the evils of his pseudo-socialist system, he had to admit the existence of the great crisis of this system and the polarisation of Yugoslav society into rich and poor. "I do not consider the gains someone makes enrichment, even when he has been able to build a holiday cottage with his profits", says Tito. "But when it comes to a matter of hundreds of millions or even billions then this is theft... this is not wealth gained by one's own sweat... this wealth is being created through speculations of different kinds inside and outside the country... now we must look take a close look at those who are building houses -- one in Zagreb, one in Belgrade and another at the seaside or some other place. And these are not simple holiday cottages but villas which can be rented out very well. Besides this, they have not just one but two or even three cars per family..." (Tito's interview with an editor of the newspaper "Vjesnik", October 1972). On another occasion, in order to show that he is against the stratification of society into rich and poor, Tito has also mentioned that some rich private persons have deposited about 4.5 billion dollars in the Yugoslav banks alone without taking account of how much they have deposited in foreign banks and how much they carry in their pockets.
In writing about the system fabricated by the Titoite revisionists, Kardelj is compelled to shortly mention the need for the fight "... against the various forms of distortions and attempts to usurp the rights of self-government of the workers and citizens." (p. 174). But again he seeks the way out of these "misuses" within the system of "self-administration" by "... extending the respective mechanism of democratic social control..." (p. 178).
Here the question arises: to what class is Kardelj referring when he speaks about the "usurpation of the workers' right to self-government"? Of course, though he does not say so, here he is referring to the old and new bourgeois class which has usurped the power of the working class and is riding on its back and exploiting it to the bone.
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).
From the political economy of socialism it is known that, under socialism, trade, like all other processes of social reproduction, is a process which is planned and directed in a centralised manner, which is based on the socialist social ownership of the means of production and itself is a constituent part of the socialist relations of production. However, these teachings are totally alien to the revisionist Kardelj and this results in his denial of the economic role of the socialist state and socialist property. The Yugoslav home market is a typical decentralised capitalist market where the means of production are freely sold and purchased by anyone, which is contrary to the laws of socialism. For these reasons TANJUG is forced to admit that entrepreneurs, middlemen and speculators dominate all Yugoslav trade. Chaos, spontaneity, catastrophic fluctuations of prices, etc. prevail in the market. According to data from the Yugoslav Federal Institute of Statistics, prices for 45 main products and social services increased 149.7 per cent in the period from 1972 to 1977 in Yugoslavia.
In regard to sales of commodities inside the country purchasing power is very weak in Yugoslavia because of the low wages of the workers and also because, in the final balance of enterprises, there is not much left to be distributed among the workers. The enterprise wants to sell its products anywhere it can and in an independent manner, because the principal leaders, that is, the bosses, the new bourgeoisie, want to create profits. But where can they create the profits they want when the purchaser is poor? Therefore they have contrived new forms, one of which is the sale of goods on time payment. The selling of goods turned out in these "self-administrated" enterprises on time payment is another chain around the necks of the Yugoslav workers, just as the workers of the capitalist countries are chained by the same capitalist system which, is called "socialist self-administration" in Yugoslavia.
Similar features also characterise Yugoslav foreign trade in which no state monopoly exists. Depending on the wishes of its owners every enterprise can conclude contracts and agreements with any firm, multinational company or foreign state to buy or sell raw materials and machinery, finished products, technological means, etc. This anti-Marxist policy also has had its influence on the Yugoslav State becoming a vassal of world capital and on its deep involvement in the economic and financial crisis which holds the entire capitalist-revisionist world in its grip, a crisis which is also manifested in other fields.
As a die-hard revisionist, E. Kardelj also denies the role of the socialist state in other fields, such as financial relations and other activities of various character. He writes that " the relations in the fields on which the self-governing communities of interest are founded, are realised according to regulations without the intervention of the state, that is, ...without the intermediary of the budget and other administrative-fiscal measures... (p.167).
In Yugoslavia, just as in the other capitalist countries, the system of the provision of credits by the banks instead of the budgetary financing of investments for the development of the productive forces and other activities, has become very popular. The banks have become centres of financial capital and it is precisely them that play a very important role in the Yugoslav economy -- in the interests of the new revisionist bourgeoisie.
Thus an anarcho-syndicalist system has been established in Yugoslavia and this has been named "socialist self-administration". What has this "socialist self-administration" brought to Yugoslavia? All kinds of evil. Anarchy in production in the first place. Nothing is stable there. Each enterprise throws its products on the market and capitalist competition takes place because there is no coordination, since it is not the socialist economy which guides production. Each enterprise goes it alone, competing against the other, in order to ensure raw materials, markets and everything else. Many enterprises are closing down because of lack of raw materials, the huge deficits created by this chaotic capitalist development, the build-up of stocks of unsold goods due to the lack of purchasing power and the saturation of the market with outdated goods. Yugoslavia's handicrafts services are in a very serious state, too. Referring to this problem at the meeting of Slovenia's leading activists, Tito could not hide the fact that "Today you have to sweat a good deal to find, for example, a carpenter or some other craftsman to repair something for you and even when you find him you are fleeced so blatantly that it makes your hair stand on end."
Regardless of the previously mentioned fact that some of the modern combines turn out good quality products, a difficult situation is created for Yugoslavia because it has to find a market for the sale of these commodities. Because of these difficulties Yugoslavia's balance of foreign trade is passive. Just in 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 that "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 constantly 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. The entire country is in the grip of an unending crisis, and the broad working masses live in poverty.
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).
Deepening his bourgeois type of demagogy by stale phrases, Kardelj reaches a new level of deception, saying: "With the constitutional and legal guarantee of the workers' rights on the basis of their socialised labour in the past, our society further extends the dimensions of real freedom for the workers and working people in the material relations of society." (p. 162). And what does this apologist of the bourgeoisie have in mind when he talks of the extension of the "dimensions of true freedom for the workers"? Is it the "freedom" to be unemployed, the "freedom" to leave their families and homeland in order to sell the power of own muscles and minds to the capitalists of the Western world or is it the "freedom" to pay taxes, to be discriminated against and savagely exploited by the old and the new Yugoslav bourgeoisie as well as by the foreign bourgeoisie?