Unlike democratic (!) states, totalitarian states "demand" total obedience and silence from their people. No one is allowed to listen to such a government. Any wave of rebellion is severely punished.
Protective "circles around total power" (H. Arendt) are numerous. Their goal is that not a single part of the rebel's personality may remain on the public stage, but not a single part of the rebel's personality that may be shown in any other way - except in black.
Therefore, the government tries to erase the rebel from memory in various ways. And even using legends, because they can be politically very useful for a totalitarian government.
Let's take for example one such legend that is related to Milovan Đilas and it was created way back in 1947. (And even today it is very instructive for Montenegro.)
Targets of anathema
Legend has it that the rebel is against Tito's government was not only anti-communist, anti-Serbian, anti-Montenegro, anti-Yugoslav... but he was also anti-Semitic (hater of Jews).
It is dangerous to "paste" this anti-Jewish narrative on anyone, starting from the second half of the 20th century. All the more so since the Jews are a globally powerful people. In front of them stands or behind them stands a power called the USA. (The USA and Israel function in a kind of political and various other - symbiosis.)
So, the legend that says that Milovan Đilas was an antisemite is one of the heaviest party (read: Tito's) anathemas thrown at the character of MĐ.
Anathema had multiple goals. Collectively, the goals were to make the global prestige and influence of Milovan Đilas meaningless or to seriously doubt it.
On the other hand, the aim of the thrown anathema was to blame the "anti-Semite" (MĐ) on the Jews as a globally powerful force that dominantly, even agonally (Jewish agon) controls the most important world: media, stock markets, banks, finance and all the way to film or sports , for example. Therefore, Đilas had to mark himself as a dangerous hater of Jews and their ideological, religious and every other opponent.
But let's scratch a little at Đilas's "anti-Semitism" and the root of the origin of this legend. And on the other, more important side, let's point out how (every) political anti-narrative has a disastrous effect on the spirit and consciousness of people and, therefore, on politics. Especially in Montenegro.
Everything started from Moscow
Milovan Đilas was born in 1947. was on a state visit to the USSR. As the leader of the delegation, he was received at JV Stalin. At a dinner hosted by Stalin for the Yugoslav delegation, the Georgian Khazarian "raised" the question of the participation of Jews in the top of the Yugoslav government. On that occasion, he labeled Đilas with the tip of his tongue as an "anti-Semite", "and you Đilas, and you are anti-Semitic".
It is not excluded that the cunning Stalin tried to create a gap in the Yugoslav political elite with this leap before his conflict with Tito. But also - secondly, more importantly - to doubt or humiliate the spirit of Jewish cosmopolitanism as an ideology that is superior to (Stalin's) socialist cosmopolitanism/globalism.
Be that as it may, the anathema about Djilas as anti-Semites has been cast.
And when the anathema is launched from such a high and powerful place as Stalin's, a legend is immediately born that cannot be doubted. And it, like the energy of every legend, is not easily forgotten and hovers over someone's head for years and decades as a latent danger. In this sense, Đilas was not too important as an anti-Semitic subject. But it was important as an object over whose back international political lances broke or tried to break.
What the facts say
Several years later, the skillful and lucid political mind of Josip Broz remembered the legend and put it to good use after the Đilas rebellion in 1954. He skilfully redirected her (the legend's) orbit towards the Western media and the Western political public right after the publication of Đilas's book "New Class" in the USA. And in that environment, Jews hold a significant part of the leading media and political power.
The global fame of the "New Class" had to collapse or at least collapse. This is how it has always been and will be in politics. Tito did not make an exception.
But let's look at the facts, whether Milovan Đilas was really anti-Semitic.
Let's list some facts.
First. Moša Pijade as the politically most prominent Jew at the top of the Yugoslav government and a man who by no means "smelled" of MĐ, nowhere in his writings and speeches does he mention Milonan Đilas as anti-Semitic.
Second. Neither did other Jews around the top of the government (Aleš Bebler, Vladimir Bakarić, Josip Vidmar, Isidor Baruh, Pavle Goranin Ilija, Robert Domani, Pavle Pap Šilja, Adolf Drago, Vojo Todorović Lerer, Slaviša Vajner, Nisam Albahari and numerous others) nowhere mention MĐ as anti-Semitic.
Third. The academic and top discretionary (scientific) and cultural public in Yugoslavia nowhere mentions MĐ as anti-Semitic.
Fourth. Milovan Đilas published it in 1952 and had a high opinion of the book Oskar Davič "Song". (By the way, Oskar Davičo was Jewish.) Let's state that this book was received "with a knife" by the party bureaucracy ("new class"). Đilas defended Davič, comparing him even (unpleasantly) with I don't care, in order to give him "breath" to survive politically and continue his literary work. It is clear from all this that this is not how an antisemite behaves.
Fifth. On the occasion of the trial in December 1952. in Prague Rudolf Slanski and a few more of his friends (all Jews), Milovan Đilas published in the newspaper "Borba" an article in which he took this group of people under his protection as innocent persons.
Sixth. In January 1953, he was in Moscow. a group of Jewish doctors was arrested. In defense of these people, Đilas wrote and published a long essay "Anti-Semitism and his "anti-Semitism" in which he protects Jewish doctors.
Seventh. Globally famous Jewish intellectuals would not be friends with an anti-Semite. Let's name a few: Hannah Arendt, Henry Kissinger, Karl Popper, SL Sulsberger, Agnes Heller, Slavko i Ivo Goldstein, Fink Humbert, Louis Filcher and numerous others.
Eighth. Obsessed for decades by the shocking and even tragic fate of Jews in the Second World. war - and earlier, MĐ wrote the short story "The Jew" which was published in "Politica" in 1992. The story is the resistance and response of M. Đilas to the emergence of anti-Semitism in Belgrade.
Ninth. Gilas would not have been invited by the Israeli government in the second half of the 80s if he was anti-Semitic. (If he had been, the Israeli government would have put him, like all anti-Semites, on the eternal pillar of shame.) Etc.
But in politics, facts usually don't matter. They are misused. Especially in the Balkans. It is therefore no wonder that he is a famous German philosopher Hegel jokingly commented on the integration of the political struggle, i.e. political theories with facts "the worse for the facts".
Anti-narrative time
Let's conclude about Đilas' alleged anti-Semitism from the point of view of today's Montenegro.
Looking at anti-Semitism from that angle, it is important to point out the perniciousness of any "anti" narrative - including Đilas' alleged "anti-Semitism" - as a mental illness in Montenegrin and any other pre-political society. (In this connection - closely related is the question - whether we live in a multi-party system, whether we essentially have multi-party system.)
Because in troubled times, anti-narratives are believed more than facts. Even more, the more nonsensical the anti-narrative, the more it is believed.
Today's Montenegro is full of vicious anti-narratives that give birth to legends and collective belief in them. And madness. Such anti-narratives are most often created by people from various top positions in the Montenegrin government, eager for glory and a leading place in their tribal and fraternal history. But, very eager for money.
The spirit of the street gives birth to anti-politics
Similar to Stalin's legend about Đilas's "anti-Semitism", let us conclude that in many people in Montenegro today there is a Stalin crouching, waiting to launch his anti-narrative, his legend and wait for his "five minutes" of fame to organize society according to his taste and benchmark. By personal boss.
Anyone who has dealt with the dissidence of Milovan Đilas easily knows that he was not "anti" in anything. He knew that to forbid someone something or to be anti, that method of ruling leads society into spiritual camps and trenches, stiffness, conflicts, sharpening of knives and finally into general ruin.
Unfortunately, Montenegro today is full of various anti-narratives that are born from the spirit of the street as the crowning place for the promotion of various social legends and myths.
As a rule, the political spirit of the street breeds anti-politics.
Bonus video:
