Basic HTML Version
LAND OF "CONSUMER COMMUNISM":
Striking new buildings (left) characterize Novi Beograd, or New Be/grade. "Car
remover" (right) clears the narrow streets of the older part of the Yugos/av capital of illegal/y parked cars. Surging auto–
mobile ownership presents a major problem.
Las! spring /wo
Plain Truth
edi–
tors visited !he nations of Eastern
Europe on a tour sponsored by !he
National Press Club of Washing–
ton,
D. C.
Here is Par!
ll
of their
story.
S
ee ing Belgrade again afte r 13
yea rs was a striking experience.
When
1
first visited the Yugo–
slav capital in 1962. automobiles
were o ld and relatively few, clothing
was expensive and of poo r quality,
and the city itse lf looked provincial
and o ld-worldly.
But all th is has changed now.
Long lines of Mercedes trucks and
Yugos lav-made Fiat au tomobiles
clog overburdencd streets and high–
ways. The citizens of Belg rade ap–
pear as we ll dresse d as their
co unt erparts in Western Europe.
Mos t remarkab1e of all,
No vi Beo–
grad
-
'·New Belgrade" - a g ia nt
cluster of modern a partment com–
plexes. bare ly begun in 1962, has
mushroomed on the plains across
the Sava River from the old eity.
The buildings are no t like the ugly
bandbox prefabs so common to the
Soviet Uni on and the rest of"social–
ist" Europe. These have sty1e, taste,
even a cena in amount of na ir.
All this is evidence that Yugo-
10
s lav ia's unique brand of highly
unorthodox "consumer commu–
nism" has produced some rathe r re–
markab le resu lls.
Worker Self-Management
Two years after he declared Yugo–
slavia 's indepcndence from Stalin in
1948, Presiden! Josip Broz Tito -
now in hi s 85 th yea r - installed the
conccpt of "worker se lf-manage–
ment." Industry is a lmost cxclu–
sively state owned, but only loose
cen tral p la nning emanates from
Be1grade. The different pub1ic en–
terprises compe te with each other
and with imponed goods from the
capitalist West.
ln-plant workers' councils direct
production every step of the way.
T hey debate and agree on produc–
tion targets, a nd they e lect (and
o ften adverlise in the newspapers
for) s upe rvisory personn el.
Wcstern economic experts. com–
paring the Yugoslav mode l to the
traditiona l state monopo ly econo–
mie~
elsewhere in Easlern Europe.
general ly come up with praise.
Th eir maj o r criticism of the system
is the amount of time consumed by
th e endless council meetings. Some–
one added itup to being the eq uiva–
Len! of ro ughly one wo rking month
per man per yea r.
Yugoslavia has two major eco–
nomie problems common to much
of the West
inftat ion and
unemp loyment, the latter at
10%
being a n anat hema to o rdina ry
Communist economies where the
right to work is usually guaranteed
in s tate cons ti t u tions . And , like
neighboring Italy, Yugoslavia has a
"southe rn" prob1em. The republics
of Montenegro and Macedonia are
lim ping way behind p rosperous r e–
publics o f Slovenia a nd Croatia in
the north.
As far as agriculture is concerned,
he re again the Yugoslav model is
unique for a Commun ist state. To–
day peasants ho ld eighty-five per–
cent o f Yugos1av farmland, owni ng
eight ou t of ten tractors, one in
every thrcc combines. The príva te
farmers are responsible for at least
seventy percent of all farm pro–
duction.
All this shows how much Yugo–
slavs of all ranks have a t stake in
preserving their unique polít ica ! and
economic system.
Most observei'S feel that the system
will face its greatest challengc in the
pe ri otl which must inevitab1y come
to pa% some day with the "retire–
ment' ' of mode rn Yugoslavia's chief
architecL Tito himsdf. (No one da res
to speak
or
his "dcath.")
The
PLAIN TRUTH June 1976