'Socialist democracy is the alternative'

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Imsirovic spent two years in jail a decade ago for "setting He is associated with a group of intellectuals who are part of In a surprise announcement on Jan. 23, shortly after Imsirovic had announced his intention of going on hunger strike in protest of the conduct of the trial, all charges against the author and translator were dropped.

Of the five remaining defendants, two will be tried separately. Charges against the other three of "forming counterrevolutionary groups" and "attempting to overthrow the social system" were finally dropped. They were instead sentenced to one to two years in prison for the crime of "hostile propaganda. "

Milan Nikolic was convicted on the basis of what he had written in his doctoral thesis on "Social Structures and the Overcoming of Conflict in Yugoslav society. "

Nikolic's doctoral advisor was the well-known British Marxist sociologist Ralph Miliband. The thesis, already three years old, was seized by Yugoslay police from "Socialist democracy must be more developed than bourgeois democracy.

The persecution of critical intellectuals must stop. Blue-collar workers, farmers, and white-collar workers need freedom for political initiative, freedom to criticize the leadership, freedom to organize themselves and to defend their interests. Genuine self-management in the economy and the state favors the abolition of any sort of organizational or ideological monopoly. "

Miodrag Milic was sentenced on the basis of his manuscript "History In that work, Milic criticizes the Yugoslay Communist Party (LCY) as been Stalinist prior to 1948 and takes a critical approach to aspects of the Dragomir Olujic was put on trial and sentenced for having advocated the All 19 witnesses, except for one who the defendants believed was an agent of the Yugoslay police, absolved the six of any wrongdoing. The galleries in the courtThe following is an edited and condensed version of an interview with Pavlusko Imsirovic. The interview, which was taken from the winter issue of the Austrian newseekly Gegenstimmen, was conducted in late 1984 when the charges against him were still pending. It is published in full in International Viewpoint, no. 70.

SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 1985 15 post-Tito Yugoslavia.

ties" movement in Yugoslavia. Nikolic's desk drawer.

Yugoslav Revolution. "

Pavlusko Imsirovic, a Yugoslav Marxist accused of "counterrevolutionary activity"

against the people and the state. "

In his final statement in the trial, Nikolic declared: policies during its struggle against fascism.

tion of strong trade unions independent of the state.

room were packed with supporters of the defendants.

Question: What do you think of the way in which the media in Yugoslavia have portrayed your trial?

Imsirovic: For the most part, there has been a savage and hysterical campaign against us. We are presented as anti-communist, as puppets of foreign interests-although those forces abroad or the things we are supposed to have done are never defined.

In the press they talk of spies.

According to them we were only pawns in somebody else's game. But this is a false accusation. All the defendants in dissident, is one of the six defendants in the most significant political trial in "free universiof the having LCY's this trial are Marxists, socialists. Personally, I am a critical Marxist, a communist, a Trotskyist.

Question: I always get the impression, in disçussion with Yugoslavian friends, that there is an overriding rejection of the heritage of Marxism because Marxist ieas are associated with the dominant social relations.

Imsirovic: It's an old, old problem. It's the same in Yugoslavia as in the rest of the world's workers' movements. People identify these ideas 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.

Question: The 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 that we are still talking about a Stalinist regime?

Imsirovic: 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.

Question: Do you think that 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?

Imsirovic: 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 it controlled and dominated. But it 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 democratization, mostly between 1950 and 1958.

Question: Among many critical intellectuals the idea still exists that by strengthening the mechanisms of the market economy one can achieve a stabilization of the economy. What is your assessment of the possibility of reforming the economic situation?

Imsirovic: There are some people who favor a market economy of a classic type, that is, "laissez faire."

But in reality this does not exist anywhere. Others, with whom I agree, are more favorable to the policy of a planned economy with the mobilization and centralization of all the productive forces.

We have not yet mobilized all our resources. What about people who have no job and therefore play no role in the development of the country? I am therefore for a centralization of the economy-but for a political decentralization, that is, democratization.

Question: What do you think of the stabilization program of the Yugoslav government?

Imsirovic: In my view, these kinds 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 conflicts between nationalities for economic reasons. Such a leveling out, a unification of economic interests and economic policies, is not possible outside of a widespread process of democratization.

Question: Where do you place yourself as a critical socialist vis-a-vis the national question in Yugoslavia?

Imsirovic: The problem of the nationalities is also a difficult one for the Yugoslav democratic movement. My position is a classical Marxist one, that is, for the unconditional right to self-determination. This does not always mean a struggle for the separate existence of this or that nationality, but it can bring about a struggle for an association of nationalities on the basis of absolute freedom of choice.