YUGOSLAVIA: The Indiscreet Comrade

Into a big exposition hall at Zagreb last week trooped 2,000 delegates of the Yugoslav Communist Party for their first party congress in four years. At first, everything moved according to plan.

Marshal Tito and the party high command wanted to replace the nine-man Politburo with a new 13-member executive committee; the delegates approved. The high command wanted to get rid of Blagoje Neskovic, a Politburocrat and a Vice Premier, because he had been displaying pro-Cominform sympathies; the delegates sacked Neskovic.

Then came a hitch. As Ljubodrag Djuric, secretary general of the federal government, rambled through a speech dealing with the morals of party members, some comrades began making rude comments from the floor. Comrade Djuric tried to keep cool, but he did not succeed. “Seeing that you do not want me to go on,” he shouted, “then I hereby accuse Comrade Petar Stambolic of stealing my wife.” The congress was stunned: Comrade Stambolic, sitting stone-faced on the platform behind Djuric, is no less a personage than the Premier of Serbia and one of Tito’s closest friends. Comrade Djuric began to sputter out his bill of particulars, until someone had the presence of mind to turn off the microphone.

Shortly, Comrade Djuric’s words were drowned in angry shouts. “Throw him out!” Quickly, Djuric was thrown out, and Comrade Tito himself took command of the situation. There would be, he promised, a thorough investigation of the charges—but he could already predict that an investigation would prove Comrade Djuric to be a Cominform agent. Unsurprisingly enough, that is just how it came out. Before adjourning, the congress formally accused Comrade Djuric of deviationism and declared him “unworthy to hold party functions.”