"Left Errors" and the Sinner on Duty

Dear Sir Miljenko Jergović,

I follow your literary work with great attention. I consider it a significant refreshment on the post-Yugoslav literary and cultural scene. That interest deepened and widened the trail of my following your public social engagement. That's how I came to your text "Milovan Đilas and why there are no worse nationalists than those who came from the communist party" (September 16, 09, Eiffel Bridge).

Considering his many decades of analyzing life and work Milovan Đilas and published several books about M. Đilas, it is easy to see from this text of yours that you know the political, literary, dissident life of this man. But also numerous other "lives" that this man built in himself and left behind. I see that in Đilas' diary entries (1989-1995) you recognized his high political, cultural, ethical and other values ​​and contents (responsibility, above all).

One of the secrets Diary Milovan Đilas is a huge political and life experience that this man had. Nothing less, courage and ethics as well as a thorough education. In a deeper and less visible sense, you explain the spirit of Milovan Đilas in the text in a very measured and refined way. All the best.

So, in a way - I hope you won't blame me - I would point out that Đilas was the first to light the candle of freedom in us after the Second World War. That "candle" divides time in communism: until Milovan Đilas' rebellion in 1954 and after that rebellion. However, in order not to be misunderstood, it is important to emphasize that he, like other communists, fought for the freedom of the proletariat in both of these times. And then when he was a communist, but also later when he voluntarily stopped being one (formally) in 1954.

In this connection, one precision. (It is important for understanding your text.)

It is true that Milovan Đilas formally ceased to be a member of the SKJ in April 1954, as you state. But he gradually, in stages, stopped being a communist over a long period of time: from 1946 until 1957. He wrote somewhere that it was much more difficult for him to separate himself from his comrades from the war and the revolution than he did from the ideas and ideology of communism/Leninism/Marxism. First of all, he easily separated himself from Bolshevism/Stalinism within himself.

With enormous political and life experience and without any ambitions for power, after the final exit from Tito's prison in 1966, he watched Yugoslav society and the upcoming "drama behind the hill" (D. Tošić) from both "this" and "that" side of the government. With such a two-way political view, Milovan Đilas was able to write a testament, a cult book near the end of his life, which the organizers (unfortunately) profanely named "Disintegration and War: Diary 1989-1995".

Milovan Đilas wrote Diary from the height of a man who is "abbessed" (Njegos) moved away from society and even stepped out of history. This personal and temporal distance is always necessary for a thorough, courageous, responsible and accurate assessment of social reality and the direction of society. This is what Njegošev warns, and not only his literature.

I have no intention - nor is it the goal of this letter - that your presentation and understanding of Đilas's Diary analyze in any way, except to send words of congratulations. And silent applause. But not for the whole text.

Namely, you said in the text that "Despite all that, Đilas was followed by a very dark voice from the first months of the uprising in Montenegro - of which he was the main initiator. Horrible partisan crimes in Montenegro and eastern Herzegovina during the so-called left turn and the Red Terror at the end of 1941 are associated with his name. and the beginning of 1942. when, for example, on Christmas Eve according to the Julian calendar in 1942. in the Kolašin area, 240 people were killed, over whose massacred bodies, according to legend, dog carcasses were crucified. From that, the concept will be translated into words dog cemeteries, which will mark the execution grounds and mass graves of victims of the Red Terror. For the rest of his life, Đilas will try to remove his responsibility for left-wing deviations and partisan crimes, but it will be difficult for him."

Mr. Jergović, if I understood correctly that you are just following that (someone else's) narrative about "leftist mistakes" or do you believe in the correctness of that narrative? I apologize in advance if I misunderstood you and was wrong. However, it is important to factually clarify the dilemma about the "leftist sinner". Normally, saving newspaper space, and in a few words.

While he was almost at the top of the government until 1954, Milovan Đilas is nowhere mentioned as a "left-wing sinner". After his rebellion against Tito's rule and the appearance of his most famous book "New Class" in 1957 in the USA, Milovan Đilas suddenly became a first-class "leftist sinner". And a newly discovered war criminal.

The truth ie. the facts are different. Serious and great historians: Slavko i Ivo Goldstein, Latinka Perović, Veljko Stanić, Tomaž Ivežič, Danijel Ivin, Adnan Prekić... they write about it. So, we are talking about historians who draw conclusions about a historical phenomenon and "measure" it historically based on facts, but also on the time of that time. This is not about state, party and politically committed historians whose eyes were opened only when the Party informed them in 1957 that Đilas was a "left-wing sinner".

Also, you state that there was the most "left turn and red terror from the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942". It's true. But then Milovan Đilas was not in Montenegro. At that time, he was the head of the partisan government in Montenegro Ivan Milutinovic. Although it is very difficult to blame Milutinović for the "left side mistakes", considering that they were met and defensive, i.e. both from one (partisan) and from the other (Chetnik) side.

Regarding your "for example, that on Christmas Eve, according to the Julian calendar of 1942, 240 people were killed in the Kolašin area", the facts show that the number is greatly exaggerated. In everything, we like to exaggerate and believe in grandomania and personal agonism. Especially in Montenegro, where precision, modesty and statistics are not strong points. Especially when records of shootings are kept by memory or by winning or losing "factography" or personal role in what kind of shooting, etc.

Escalation of "left mistakes" happened with the scope of the civil war in Montenegro during the rule of Ivan Milutinović. Then a few hundred people were shot. Therefore, in mid-March 1942, Tito returns Milovan Đilas to Montenegro to suppress "left mistakes" and try to save the uprising. (It is logical to ask, why is Tito sending MĐ to Montenegro for the second time when this one has already lit up and burned in Montenegro once?)

After these few lines that I extracted from your text, it is easy for you to conclude whether Milovan Đilas was "sinful" or not.

And beyond the end.

Among the many "qualities", left turns and mistakes contain numerous ideological, national, religious and other forms of manifestation. Milovan Đilas notes somewhere in Dnevnik - and you mention it - that the war in our country at the beginning of the 90s is the same as the war in 1941 "only this time without partisans". Therefore, war and thus its left or right criminal background is a fate that is difficult, almost impossible to avoid in war. Especially in Montenegro. (Thus, "mistakes" do not have an exclusively ideological-communist background. They are much broader and deeper. Almost no one deals with them seriously and factually in our country. In particular, there is no necessary multidisciplinary research.)

But something behind these "mistakes" is much more important today.

Conclusion.

If (today) the "left mistakes", respected Mr. Jergović, were projected as the Montenegrin reality and future, etc. their importance for the survival or demise of Montenegrin society is far, far greater and more dangerous. The current (in)destruction of Montenegro and Montenegrin-Serbian (modern) political gibberish and general socio-political, legal, economic and numerous other chaos, do not have only an identity or national background. The Serbian-Montenegrin intertwining is intrafamilial. (One son Serbian, the other Montenegrin.)

A potential future "left" or "right" conflict in Montenegro would be intrafamilial. In case of that conflict, Ukraine would be forgotten.

(Budva, 26. IX 2022)