Interview with Pavlusko Imsirovic
We publish below an interview with Pavlusko Imsirovic, one of the original six accused in the Belgrade trial.
In a surprise announcement on January 23, shortly after Imsirovic had announced his intention of going on hunger strike in protest at the conduct of the trial, all charges against the author and translator were dropped.
This interview was conducted in late 1984 when the charges against him were still pending. It is taken from the winter issue of Gegenstimmen, published in Vienna.
Question. You are one of the six in the trial of intellectuals in Belgrade who participated in the 'free universities' movement . At the beginning of the trial the defence was mainly raising issues of procedure. You challenged jury members for partiality. Can you explain your reasons for this?
Answer. It was important to know whether the jury members were going to be guided solely by the law or whether they felt bound by other considerations coming from the decisions and discipline of the party.
My question on this issue got no response with the judge announcing that such questions were not allowed. I demanded the exclusion of all judges and members of the jury who did not want to reply to this question. They did not follow up my demand and told me that we would have to give the names of all those who we were demanding be excluded for bias.
Q. You also raised a question concerning all those in the jury who could have been members of the political police?
A. Yes, I did. I asked whether there was in the jury anybody who had been or still was a member of the security section of the state apparatus. The reply was that the judge did not know of anyone.
Q. Have you or your defence council had any information on people serving on the jury?
A. No, there is no way you can get information of this kind. I do not know any of the jury members. When we asked for information, the judge refused to give it to us.
Q. In other words you just get to know their names and that is it?
A. Exactly, nothing more.
Q. You have already been before a tribunal, ten years ago?
Pavlusko Imsirovic (DR)
A. Yes, before the same tribunal and on the same charge in the penal code of *setting up an association against the people and the state'. This was also a trial for crimes of opinion and expression. I was active in the student movement, with my companion and other colleagues. Those accused alongside me were my future wife, Jelka and the sociologist Milan Nikolic, who is also with me at the tribunal today.
Q. Were you found guilty at that time?
A. Yes, of course. Yugoslav tribunals always find you guilty, at least in political trials. I was sentenced to two years in prison, which is what I served.
Q. How would you compare the way in which this trial is being conducted with the previous one. Are there any differences? There must have been some changes in the last ten years?
A. You can't see much fundamental difference from that point of view. In fact the judge at the time was also very
7
liberal, though the prosecutor was more aggressive than this one today. But that doesn't mean anything fundamentally. Of course, the political situation is different and our experience is different from what it was at the time.
Q. Does that mean that the apparently liberal approach of the judges which you can see in most political trials in Yugoslavia today is only a facade?
A. This liberal-mindedness is only employed in well-publicised trials. It has no significance when it comes to the actual judgement.
Q. How is the situation different as far as the climate of public opinion is concerned?
A. There the differences are more obvious, because in intellectual circles and among the critical intelligentsia there has been a lot of movement and development towards a higher level of consciousness.
Q. And ten years ago you did not have such support?
A. Exactly, I did not have so much support because people still had too many illusions in getting a compromise, an acquittal. It's not the same anymore.
Q. It is amazing to see the visitors gallery full to the brim with people all sympathetic to the accused. Has there ever been anything similar at a political trial before?
A. Yes at our first trial, 12 years ago, it was like this. But this tendency developed in a particular way at the trial of the poet, Goiko Djogo, two years ago in Belgrade. This was the occasion for a huge mobilisation of the critical and independent intelligentsia.
Q. What was Goiko Djogo charged with?
A. It was about a song. He wrote several songs in the form of animal fables. There was one about a huge wild bear in the forest. The prosecutor decided that the huge bear in the forest represented an attack on Josip Broz Tito. There was a scandal about it.
Q. But in the case of Goiko Djogo, did solidarity action do any good?
A. Yes, although he was, of course, sentenced to two years in prison but because of the support, he was released and his sentence was dropped.
Q. What do you think of the way in which the media in Yugoslavia have portrayed your trial?
A. For the most part, and unfortunately this is the most significant, there has been a savage and hysterical campaign against us. We are presented as anticommunist, as puppets of foreign interests, although the forces abroad or the things we are supposed to have done are never defined. In the written press they talk of spies. According to them we 8 were only pawns in somebody's else's game. But this is a false accusation. All the defendants in this trial are Marxists, socialists. We are fighting for socialist democracy. Me personally, I am a critical Marxist, a communist, a Trotskyist.
Q. What does that mean in relation to the concrete situation in Yugoslavia? According to your outlook how do you think the current crisis will be resolved?
A. An important precondition is the broad mobilisation of all those who create the wealth, of all the creative forces in society and a broad and radical democratisation of society. I think that should be different from the system of the plurality of parties. Or at any rate a different type of political pluralism. Since we still don't have an exact view of our real situation, there is no political force that has a precise programme to put forward. A thorough-going analysis of the situation is required in order to elaborate a programme which offers a solution, a resolution of the current crisis.
Q. You say that you are Marxist, revolutionary and Trotskyist. These sort of
He's in for for grie and Stant It can't bel No! - ideas came forward at the height of the student movement, in other parts of the world. Today, 15 years later, many people would see them as out of date. At any rate, people who put forward these ideas are isolated. Where do you stand? Do you not think that what is known in Yugoslavia as the 'new left' is rather isolated, or does it correspond to the aspirations of the masses?
A. These ideas have always been current in the workers movement. At least in part, they have always constituted an element within the movement and within student and intellectual circles. These ideas always carry some weight when the movement goes through a wave of mass mobilisations. But at the moment I am personally isolated within these circles.
Q. In discussion with Yugoslavian friends, I always get the impression that there is an overriding rejection of the heritage of Marxism because despite everything Marxist ideas are associated with the dominant social relations.
A. It's an old, old problem. It's the same in Yugoslavia as in the rest of the world workers movement, people identify murder, me rous bodily harm : for armed robbery.
What are you in for? I wrote a forty 1 dangerous
1 page man document. nucH
International Viewpoint 25 February 1985
these ideas and these tendencies with socialism as it exists and with the practice of the socialist and communist parties. That is why these ideas and these movements are discredited. But solidarity and the fight for socialism and democracy throughout the world are the only way to break with this false alternative, created by Stalinism, which has thwarted the world workers movement. Stalinism and capitalism are not the only alternatives. The real choice is between Stalinism and capitalism on the one side and democratic socialism on the other.
Q. The Yugoslavian Communist Party [League of Communists of Yugoslavia -LCY] is a product of the Stalinist tradition. But it broke with Stalinism in 1948. The political system is different in some important ways from that of the traditional Stalinist countries.
There is workers' self-management, there exist certain democratic openings, certainly more than you would find in Czechoslovakia or the Soviet Union. Would you say, despite everything, that we are still talking about a Stalinist regime?
A. No. I do not think that the Yugoslav Communist Party has remained a Stalinist party, heading a Stalinist regime after the break with Stalin and Moscow. It has shown itself to be bureaucratic and of a similar social character, but not of the same political character. The Yugoslav bureaucracy has a special place in world politics and even has special tactics in internal politics. Self-management is one of these, it is above all a form of economic policy.
Q. It was on the basis of the break with Moscow and Stalin that these differences with the traditional Stalinist model emerged. Do you think that the social relation of forces and the balance of forces between the working class and the bureaucracy are better in Yugoslavia than in other Stalinist states, because of workers self-management and the particular tradition of Yugoslav communism?
A. The origin of these changes has two roots. One is a product of external politics and the situation in Europe. The other is related to the relation of forces inside the country and the extent to which the LCY had behind it a large revolutionary movement which they controlled and dominated. But they also had to make constant concessions to this movement. Self-management was one of those concessions. On the social level also, there were numerous examples of democratisation, mostly between 1950 and 1958. This period began one or two years after the Fifth Congress of the LCY and reached its height in the Sixth Congress, known as the Djilas Congress. The period lasted until the Eighth Congress in April 1958 when the party adopted a new programme.
Q. Where do you place yourself as a critical socialist vis a vis the national estion in Yugoslavia? I have found a
National Viewpoint 25 February 1985 very strong national consciousness a mongst several intellectuals in Serbia.
A. The problem of the nationalities is also a difficult one for the Yugoslavian democratic movement. My position is a classical Marxist one, that is for the unconditional right to self-determination, which does not always mean a struggle for the separate existence of this or that nationality, but can bring about a struggle for an association of nationalities on the basis of absolute freedom of choice.
Dragomir Olujic (DR)
Q. But support for the right to self-determination and for a separate state which is contained within the traditional Marxist view, does not resolve the issue for very heterogenous regions, from a linguistic point of view, like Bosnia or Hercegovina for example, where there are several nationalities on one territory. Also what about the parties in Kosovo?
A. It is certainly true that one of the essential questions is to know whether it is even possible to form national states in Yugoslavia in order to resolve the national question following this model. But I believe that with a cultural policy which is flexible and democratic it is possible to achieve some balance between the different nationalities.
Q. What does this mean in relation to Kosovo?
A. In relation to Kosovo that means that in my view, Kosovo should have a strong dose of autonomy. But what form that autonomy should take, only the inhabitants of Kosovo can decide. It is their right and every one else has an obligation to help them.
Q. What are your proposals for resolving this problem? Through a referendum?
A. Freedom for political tendencies, freedom of propaganda of aims and programmes and the possibility, among others, if someone wants it, to fight a campaign for a referendum. But I cannot state categorically that this issue should be resolved in such and such a way. Only a truly democratic dialogue can bring about a satisfactory solution.
Q. So you are opposed to the trial which took place in Kosovo and against police repression of the so-called irredentists'. (1)
A. Yes, of course, I have met some of these people. I know them and I know that they are not "irredentists' , they are not, as some allege, supporters of Enver Hoxha [a leader in the Albanian regime]. On the contrary, Hoxha and his supporters are very much afraid of the Kosovo movement. Kosovo could swallow them up. In the Balkan region the Albanian question has a similar importance to the German question in Europe.
Q. What is your assessment of the possibility of reforming the economic situation? Amongst many critical intellectuals the idea still exists that by strengthening the mechanisms of the market economy one can achieve a stabilisation of the economy.
A. No one is opposed to the simple recognition of economic laws. But it is entirely a matter of interpretation. There are some people who favour a market economy of a classic type, that is "laisser faire'. But in reality this does not exist anywhere. Others with whom I agree are more favourable to the poliey of a planned economy with the mobilisation and centralisation of all the productive forces. We have not yet mobilised all our resources. What about, first of all, people who have no job and therefore play no role in the development of the country. I am therefore for a centralisation of the economy but for political decentralisation, that is democratisation.
Q. What do you think of the stabilisation programme of the Yugoslau government?
A. I do not understand what this programme corresponds to. These are only stop gap measures. In my view, these kind of measures are not adequate to resolve the current problems. It is necessary to attack the fundamental issues which are always left hanging in the air. There are many issues involved like, for example, that of foreign trade. The state needs a unified policy in relation to the world market. It is impossible and absurd that each economic unit can adopt its own policy with regard to the world market and that you can have confliets between nationalities for economic reasons. Such a levelling out, a unification of economic interests and economic policies is not possible, and I repeat, outside 1. Albanian so-called irredentists are accused of favouring the separation of Kosovo from Yugoslavia in order to make it part of Albania.
Vladimir Müanovic (DR) of a widespread process of democratisation.
Q. Where do you see the base for the self-organisation of the working class to start from in Yugoslavia? Could this come about within the unions, the workers councils involved in self-management or through a democratisation of the party?
A. Some such tendencies have already emerged through wild cat strikes in several factories. But such tendencies are also appearing within the LCY, within the youth organisation and within the student organisation. In a one party system all the social contradictions are constantly coming to the surface within the monolithic organisations. These tendencies come out inside the political system at all levels. This was the case for example with Rade Koncar's proposal to the last party congress, that the party should essentially be organised in the workplaces on the principle of the centres of production and not on a geographical principle. This proposal is based on an old Marxist conception, with its roots in the workers movement. It was a very significant question which Branko Mikulic and the leadership of the Bosnia Party attacked violently.
Q. Are there forces within the party who are in favour of such a turn towards the working class?
A. Such a potential does exist and Rade Koncar's proposal did get an echo and met with a lot of sympathy.
Q. How do you see the dynamic of the Yugoslav situation? What is the dominating factor? A tendency towards repression, a strengthening of the weight of the state apparatus, or a tendency to resist?
A. In my position it is very difficult to give an accurate assessment. But the results of this trial could perhaps provide an answer to your question.
Q. How do you view the different situations in the different republics? In the 10 last few months we have seen many polemics between the leaderships of the Croation and Serbian parties. In the international press there is always the question of a liberal wing within the leadership who is often identified with the leadership of the Serbian party and of a hard line group identified with the Bosnia party. And many intellectuals put their hopes on the liberal wing.
A. I don't think you can make a clear division within the party between the hard liners and the liberals. But it is true that the leaderships of the Bosnian and Serbian parties show visible signs of a tendency to take a hard line. This is mainly to do with Mikulic and Hamdja Pozderac in Bosnia. I don't know of any other names, because we don't have public political debates. I can only draw my conclusions from the most obvious indications. In Croatia there is Josip Vrhovec. Stane Dolanc from Slovenia is another one, who, as a member of the national leadership carries a certain political weight in the Croation party but none where there is a more liberal policy.
Q. Who do you see as representing a more liberal position?
A. In my view, you can include in this Franc Poppit, Mija Ribicic, Franc Setnic and Anton Vratusa who all originate from Slovenia.
Q. And in Serbia?
A. In Serbia, there have been no particularly clear statements for any ten-
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deney. But it is possible to guess that there is a group with or around Ivan Stambolic, who is more or less a liberal. What basically gave him his liberal reputation was that he simply failed to come out clearly for political repression. The representatives of this tendency which you could call liberal, are trying to work out a workers' economic programme. In Serbia you have to take account of a special peculiarity. The Serbian leadership has always favoured a high degree of centralisation and the problem is that all the others [national party leaderships] are opposed to the notion of centralisation because they are afraid of the idea of the unification of the Yugoslav state. But a united democratic state would not threaten national freedoms or the rights of nationalities.
Q. How are things presented in Serbia, in relation to the nationalist formations? Is the development of a nationalist consciousness amongst Albanians seen as a threat? Stage plays featuring the nationalist Serbian groups were performed in Belgrade in recent years. Do you think there is a real danger?
A. Yes, there are some real prejudices against the Albanian people. It is important to fight against these prejudices. But aggressive Serbian nationalism is not very widespread, it doesn't often come out in a sharp way. But I do think that errors and prejudices come out in many areas. However, in the framework of a democratic discussion you could oppose such tendencies.
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International Viewpoint 25 February 1985
INDIA
- This is why he focused attention on the