Boris Ziherl
Communism and Fatherland
VIII.
After this consideration of the essence of
bourgeois cosmopolitanism and of the need for
principled Marxist-Leninist struggle against it,
let us return to the question from which we
departed in the hope that such a departure
would make the reply to it easier and more
comprehensible.
On the one hand, today we see in the Soviet
Union an ever more intensive struggle against
cosmopolitanism, against a tendency whose aim
is to lull both the national consciousness and
the national pride of a definite people with the
view to enslaving it the easier, a straggle against
a bourgeois ideology which can be preached
only by men without respect for their people
and homeland. No one can deny the justifiability
of such a struggle if it is being conducted from
principled, Marxist-Leninist positions.
On the other hand, we see, in relation to
the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and to the
peoples of Yugoslavia, acts with which only men,
in Yugoslavia and outside, who have no respect
for their people and their homeland can agree.
No one can admit the justifiability of such acts
because they are not based on principle.
To accept Cominform procedure and the
consequences which it foresaw and which logically derive from it would have meant, actually,
to stifle the national pride of the Yugoslav peoples, to degrade that which every progressive
Yugoslav rightly prides himself on, that gives
him strength for new great feats in the struggle
for socialist construction, for the consolidation
of the socialist front in the world.
After all that we have said, we can now
once again in concise form ask and answer
the question: What is it that every progressive
Yugoslav prides himself upon, what is it that the
entire working people pride themselves upon?
It is the fact that they, too, led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, knew how to apply
successfully the powerful teachings of Marxism-
Leninism in the specific conditions of Yugoslav
reality, to achieve huge revolutionary transformations which opened the way to socialism, it is
the fact that today in the specific conditions of
their country they are finding and creatively
applying all that can facilitate their struggle
in socialism construction, that enables them to
achieve even greater successes which simultaneously mean the consolidation of the international socialist front as a whole. In short, the
Yugoslav working people are proud of the fact
that in the struggle for socialism they are not
an immature burden for others and superficial
imitators of what is foreign, but creators who
do not deny the significance of the example of
others, but likewise do not underrate their own
strength and abilities.
Such national pride is nothing specifically
Yugoslav but a trait distinguishing all peoples
striving to invest their national qualities and
abilities as comprehensibly and fruitfully as
possible into the universal task of attaining proletarian victory and building socialism and communism. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia
does not have a nationalist, much less a narrowly national character owing to this stand; it
reflects the striving towards a correct solution
of a problem of decisive international significance imposed by the situation created after the
Second World War, with the existence of a
number of new socialist countries.
Since the leadership of the Communist Party
of Yugoslavia refuted a series of monstrous
charges and untruthful allegations regarding our
National Liberation Struggle, our present foreign
and domestic policies, socialist construction in
Yugoslavia, in which that leadership was guided
by Stalin's view that "slander should be branded
and not taken up as a subject of discussion",1
the whole of Yugoslav contemporary reality and
the whole of the recent past of the Yugoslav
peoples were turned upside down with one single
resolution.
The National Liberation War of 1941-1945
and the revolutionary transformations which
were inseparably linked with it in Yugoslavia,
are the greatest, most conscious and most progressive efforts of the Yugoslav masses in their
history, testimony that the Yugoslav peoples are
fully mature and equal to the peoples of the
most progressive countries.
Having overthrown the yoke of the traitorous
bourgeoisie, the Yugoslav working people began
the building up of their free, socialist homeland
as a component part of the united socialist front
headed by the USSR and achieved significant
success in the realisation of their next great
goal — socialism.
All these irrefutable facts are now supposed
to be wiped out for the sake of an objective fully
incomprehensible to the working people of our
country, in respect of which events during the
past ten months have clearly shown them that
this objective has nothing in common with the
consolidation of the united socialist front, with
the equality of revolutionary peoples who overthrew the yoke of capitalism and who are
building socialism.
All the precious achievements of the truly
internationalist policy which the New Yugoslavia
pursued towards other countries, and especially
towards her neighbours, have been artificially
struck out and what is more, struck out in the
name of some struggle or other "against nationalism", and for "internationalism". Official relations among the Balkan and Danubian countries
have again slipped back to the form they had
when the foreign policies of these countries were
actually run by foreign imperialists through
their agents in the ranks of the domestic bourgeois, these imperialists being guided by the
ancient rule "divide and rule". That which their
peoples were already considering the dark past
has returned to the relations among the Balkan
and Danubian countries.
Methods obviously calculated at causing the
deepest humiliation to the Yugoslav peoples are
being applied in the relations towards the New
Yugoslav state, created by the revolutionary
struggle of the working masses in which these
same working masses are today building socialism, hence, in the relations towards Yugoslavia's working people. It is obvious that these
people must be "convinced" by different political
and economic measures, of their helplessness
and incompetence for independent creative work,
their national pride must be broken and they
must be compelled to surrender pursuant to the
Cominform resolution, to negate themselves and
their deeds, their past and their present revolutionary reality.
In implementing anti-Yugoslav measures,
individuals are very often being employed in the
countries of people's democracy, and especially
persons from Yugoslavia, who could at best be
termed cosmopolites because they have shown
by their acts that they are not only alien to
their country and their people but, when offering their services, even incapable of differentiation between the imperialist and the socialist
world, namely, people who for the most part are
simply agents of the big capitalist powers.
The reality in which the Yugoslav people
were working and fighting is by no means developing according to Cominform speculations
for the simple reason that the latter do not issue
from reality, but are intended to serve exclusively to justify a gross political error. All the
undertakings against Yugoslavia, insofar as they
were calculated at moving the Yugoslav working
people, had perforce to meet with ruin for the
simple reason that the politically literate Yugoslav working masses did not understand and
could not understand why they should answer
the calls of the Cominform to revolt, in the name
of what class and against what class. From the
Yugoslav Communists, they learned the Marxist-Leninist postulate that the measure of truth is
revolutionary practice, and not the opinion of
"infallible" authorities.
The bulwark upon which the calculations
made along arbitrary Cominform lines are being
shattered, and will continue to be, with respect
to Yugoslavia is precisely the revolutionary
patriotism of the Yugoslav working people, who
are conscious that they are fighting for something
that not only tallies with the vital interests of
their country but also consolidates the front of
socialism and progress in the entire world. This
patriotism is neither an aspiration, nor an ideal,
nor a programme, nor a remote goal; it has a
tangible realistic basis: the rule of the bourgeoisie has been overthrown and the rule of the
working people has been established with the
Communist Party as the leading political force;
the basic means of production are in the hands
of the socialist state, namely, in the hands of
the working people; the working peasantry are
being organised in the struggle against the
exploiting elements in the village, with the view
to bringing about the socialist reconstruction of
Yugoslav agriculture; the political equality of
the Yugoslav peoples has been realised with a
consistency worthy of envy; a principled anti-
imperialist foreign policy is being pursued which
fully corresponds to the socio-economic essence
of the New Yugoslavia and which serves to consolidate the socialist world and all democratic,
anti-imperialist forces. That is the reality in
which the working people of Yugoslavia are
living, the progressive development of which
they are witnessing every day with their own
eyes, that is their socialist fatherland.
Notes
1. Stalin, Problems of Leninism, Belgrade, 1946.
p. 357.