Instead of an introduction
An international scientific conference dedicated to the life and work of the University of Montenegro was held in July, organized by the Institute of History. Milovan ĐilasThe conference was titled Milovan Djilas: 1911 - 1941 - 1995, and brought together, in addition to participants from Montenegro, participants from the so-called “region”. This is a respectable number of university professors, academics, publicists, and scientists who are engaged in the study of this important revolutionary and liberal-dissident figure.
The organizing committee very carefully and professionally conceived the topics for the conference, thus "covering" the multi-layered life of Milovan Đilas, or more precisely - the lives of Milovan Đilas.
It is surprising that such an important gathering was attended by such a small number of our media and journalists. This gives the impression - perhaps (wrong) - that such a great scientific momentum wanted to distance itself from the eyes of the wider public. Or perhaps - which is more likely - the invited media did not feel the importance of the Conference to present the word and spirit of the times from this gathering to the domestic and international public.
This is especially so since the gathering was (firstly) organized in an elite state institution, and (secondly) for the first time in Montenegro, the revolutionary-dissident work of Milovan Đilas began to be approached and studied without the a priori slander and anathemas to which this man was publicly exposed for almost 75 years. And at the same time, the slandered (Milovan Đilas) had no opportunity to publicly respond and explain. (Normally, he had nothing to defend himself against, because he spread the idea of freedom both as a communist and as a liberal thinker.)
However, at this Conference, there were also anachronistic papers that were (apparently) written in 1954, when MĐ fell from power, and have now been read. Nevertheless, one could clearly see the distance between one-party slander, on the one hand, and the normal (factual) interpretation of Milovan Đilas's work, on the other.
This dissonance of the political spirits of the time at this Conference is very important. Because it (the Conference) has, like a litmus test, scanned the political and cultural moment of the time in which Montenegro lives today. But it has also shown something else, much more significant. That is the broader Montenegrin problem of the “clash of different times” (Dr. Dubravka Stojanović) how this problem was presented, each in their own way, by academics Bishop Cvetković (SANU) Belgrade and Prof. Dr. Čedomir Čupić.
Montenegro is now living a life of collision between slander from the past, on the one hand, and facts about Milovan Đilas, on the other. Because scientific conferences serve to recognize, present and "see" the spirit of the present and future of a community in our case, Montenegro. Naturally, while using the temporal distance from its past.
So, the Conference expressed these spirits very explicitly, just as everyone does. Vivaldi The seasons are easily discernible in his music.
A whole century in one biography
I would like to thank the organizer of this Conference for inviting me and giving me the opportunity to speak about an unusual Montenegrin man and a rare, almost atypical political phenomenon when it comes to our political, cultural and generally spiritual spaces.
On the other hand, this Conference can carry a much deeper and more significant meaning. It is reflected in the beginning of the "dusting off" the splendor of one of the most significant anti-fascist, revolutionary and liberal political thinkers of the second half of the 20th century in our country. Whether it is Montenegro, Serbia, or other areas of the former Yugoslavia. Outside the borders of our former community, Milovan Đilas has always had and still has a high place in revolutionary-anti-fascist, on the one hand, and in liberal dissidence, on the other.
Great nations permanently cherish and do not forget their golden roots and bones on which - as a self-taught Montenegrin writer and great hero said - "the truth shines in the grave". Milovan Đilas was one such root in us. Throughout his turbulent life, he fought to bring, primarily the peoples of Montenegro and Serbia, and also the other Yugoslav peoples, into the ranks of the democratic and modern peoples of the world. He did this both as a communist and when he voluntarily ceased to be one. He did not succeed. However, an effort worthy of Vladica's verse "and whoever starts will be the best".
Milovan Đilas was born in Montenegro. But he spent almost his entire life in Belgrade, or to be more precise, in the vicinity of Belgrade, in numerous prisons both before and after World War II. As a famous liberal dissident, Milovan Đilas could live wherever he wanted and however he wanted. From Princeton to London, Paris, Rome, Beijing, and beyond. However, he chose his center, Belgrade. Any other place of residence for him would be an escape from himself and cowardice in its wake.
He was not a character who knew how to back down from a challenge and a moral that knew how to keep quiet. On the contrary. The greater the pressure on him, the more rebellious, resistant and stony he became. Simply, such was his genetics, family and national.
In his biography, one can easily recognize and decipher the entire 20th century.
Interpreted “ex officio”
Very little is known about Milovan Đilas in our country. And what is known is extremely superficial, abbreviated, narrowed, and above all malicious and defamatory. Especially in Montenegro. Serbia is not far behind. He has always been interpreted “ex officio”, but since he fell from power in January 1954. Until then, it was the other way around. Acceleration, frontal and bursty institutional and commissioned “single” public and discretionary attacks on Milovan Đilas began especially after 1957/8. and the publication abroad (USA) of his most famous book A new classAll these attacks on him would be fine, if only the rebellious "crown witness" had the right to a public response and explanation in Yugoslavia and thus in Montenegro.
The official interpretations of Milovan Đilas have always been ridiculously ridiculous, and the court rulings a legal twilight, a farce and a shame. It was said somewhere (De Gaulle) that freedom must not be arrested. Perhaps this is one of the first conclusions about today's topic at this Conference and the anathematization of Đilas' political and cultural ideas. And these are primarily the democratic ideas that he tried to impose on Yugoslav society. This is about the then modern political alternative which has proven to be successful in the development of society. Primarily Western societies. Đilas as a dissident was not a man of social experiment, but a man of applying positive experiences of others that have proven to be useful.
Here we can conclude that Đilas had vast experience in politics, and that (experience) is indispensable, and even the most important, in every politician and for every statesman.
Unfortunately, Đilas paid a very high price for his attempt to implement a modern democratic alternative and its political realization in Yugoslavia.
Tito and his “new class” imposed on Yugoslav society a second path, a second alternative, a second vision of society. The utopian one from the beginning of his rule. Later, Tito himself distanced himself from utopia, but it was too late. The consequences of this path and subsequent wisdom are clearly visible today. And who knows whether they our civilizational failures and lagging behind the times and its acceleration, generally more compensable. I am afraid that our "protractor" of social development, legal and economic growth of either Montenegro, Serbia or other ex-YU areas is heading against the historical clock (perhaps Slovenia is partly an exception).
Those who know even a little about old Montenegro, that is, Montenegro until the beginning of the 20th century, know that Bishop Petar I Petrovic - Njegos frightened Montenegrins with curses and thus tried to manage, calm and rule the rebellious Montenegro. Almost 200 years later, Milovan Đilas frightened Tito and his “new class” with the same methodology and idea of the need for freedom and democracy in Yugoslavia. And nothing else and nothing more did Milovan Đilas do. If that is not all.
Tito was not easy to intimidate and scare. He was the first in the Yugoslav revolution, and even far before it in Moscow, to understand what power was and how it was conquered and completely preserved. Simply put, in the destruction of politics, Tito was a genius. It is not easy, to defeat the people and create silence around you and "no disturbances".
The first one who dared to “write” to Tito was Milovan Đilas. All other “communist comrades” remained conspiratorially silent and sought official security and ambassadorial positions. Almost all wartime “comrades” and post-war, already gentlemen, Đilas easily renounced him. Especially the Montenegrins. They fled from him as from an infection, but only when he “fell” from power (among the few political exceptions (high-ranking politicians), let’s mention Veljko Milatović who at one point gave discretionary and even public support to Milovan Đilas. And that, let me repeat, from the top of the Yugoslav government). Many others played a prominent role as active servants in the anti-Đilas and anti-liberal campaign.
He didn't want to be part of Tito's theater.
Perhaps, after these few introductory words, some of you at this Conference will publicly say or think to yourself about me, "well, you've gone too far, Montenegrin." I am not. The measure of passion and self in it is not total power - as Tito understood and practiced the organization of Yugoslav society - but freedom, the rule of law, democracy, national and various other human rights, as the non-fictional and non-utopian organization of society was understood and spread by the dissident Đilas as much as he could and knew how.
Milovan Đilas was a rare measure of revolutionary-anti-fascist and liberal-dissident passion. And nothing great and important for a person, for society and beyond, can be done without passion, as he claims and Hegel. And not only him. (Dogmatic and religious consciousness are opposite.)
Along with his passion, Milovan Đilas was a material and moral model of an incorruptible and irredeemable man. He despised professional revolutionaries and their petty-proprietary enthusiasm. He was like that when it came to office. He was the measure of things for himself. A few days before Milovan Đilas fell from power in 1954, Tito tried to morally corrupt him in December 1953 by giving him the position of President of the National Assembly of the FNRY. Tito failed to morally corrupt him. Đilas simply did not want to be part of Tito's puppet theater, which was euphemistically called power.
Whatever one reads today by Milovan Đilas, one can easily see the intellectual novelty, and far above all the social responsibility in his thinking. And it is precisely this newness that traditional, exclusive, single-minded, one-directional, narrow, spiritually shortened societies like our Montenegrin one - and even ideologically-communist and grand-nationalist ones - reflexively fear.
In fact, everything that is different or more modern is considered a priori evil by such societies. It is not a miracle or a work of a higher power, but - in one and more important part - the result of our historical course or misfortune when we were bypassed or not touched by the great civilizational waves of progress of the type: Renaissance, Reformation, Baroque, Enlightenment, existentialism, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, or Hegel and Kanta... Therefore, it is no wonder that today we remain prisoners of the past. In other words, stunted in modern spiritual development.
In order not to be completely unfair to Tito and the communists, let us praise them for trying to “catch up and overtake” Western societies. But ideological and other shackles did not allow them to run faster. On the contrary, the fiction fell apart on its own. Obviously, without new “juices of life” (G.Gezeman) every system quickly ages and withers.
As an example of Đilas's spiritual and intellectual innovation are his attempts to "graft" something new and progressive onto our tradition. We will take as an example the political ideas of his 17 "Borba's Articles", not counting earlier articles of similar tone from the magazine A new thought or the political gesture “Anatomy of a Morality” or the essay “Contemporary Themes” and “Nordic Dream”.
In all of them, and especially in "Borba's Articles", Đilas develops non-dogmatic ideas in the early 50s. "Borba's Articles" were published for a short time. Only 57 days, from November 1, 1953 to January 7, 1954. A short time but enough for dogma in our country and in the world to be strongly shaken and shaken.
This was simultaneously the end of Milovan Đilas' revolutionary-political career, on the one hand. But, on the other hand, it was the beginning of Đilas' gradual transformation over many years into liberal dissidentism in resistance to the fiction that Tito's government had imposed on the people.
More precisely, the mid-50s was the crescendo of Đilas's primarily moral and then political rebellion. This rebellion began immediately after the war (1946/7), but the conflict with Stalin briefly stopped his intentions. Let us also mention that suspicion of ideology - Marxist-Leninist, of course - began at the end of World War II (1943, at Sutjeska).
The legacy of “Borba's Articles”
In “Borba's Articles” and not only them - and this is important for today's Conference - Đilas was the first to see “living people” beneath the ideology and peer into their everyday suffering and problems. Under communist ideology - as with every ideology and utopia - people were small, invisible, forgotten, neglected. They were impersonal statistics that were called “the masses” in party propaganda. The masses were constantly mixing, i.e. supposedly reforming themselves, with the condition that the government in society should not change.
(The party-wise interference was most often called as follows: Česlav Miloš Ketmanism and the creation of a "new social-property reform in the further construction of the foundations of socialism". Enthusiastic about Marxism and Bolshevism, Đilas also partly built this mask by believing in a better, freer and more progressive society than the one before.)
Probably the first thing that Milovan Đilas expressed in “Borba's Articles” was that Lenin-Stalin's concept of socialism did not destroy people and their hope. By luck or by chance of some higher Power, people remained alive. This is an important observation of Đilas. But it is not enough for the future of society. Therefore, in “Borba's Articles” the anathematized Milovan Đilas opposed red dot Tito and his "new class" aimed at slowing down time and space, his lack of influence and the official conquest of seats, i.e. power.
The legacy of political ideas in Milovan Đilas's "Borba's Articles" is the first major testimony from a man at the very top of power about where power leads when freedom is amputated. But "Borba's Articles" are derived from Đilas's practical activity when he created the magazine A new thought (1952). With this magazine, MĐ is trying to create a cultural opposition in the country. That is, an opposition outside the party (KPJ/SKJ).
It was clear to Đilas that in the political power that Tito ruled sovereignly, he could do nothing to Tito. But culture was Tito's weak point, and Đilas tried to create an opposition in the country through culture. He failed. The ruling "elite" did not support him. On the contrary.
Everyone read Đilas during the time of “Borba's articles”. But no one dared to understand Đilas or, God forbid, justify him. (The exception is Đilas's readers in Zagreb. (In today's internet era, these readers would be called followers).
Circulation Fights with 30.000 copies sold daily, how many Borba until the appearance of Đilas's articles, it had jumped to over 300.000 copies. So, ten times more. It was similar with "his" magazine A new thought.
This statistic is important and very significant because it hides deeper reasons for the surge in readership. Fights throughout Yugoslavia. Simply put, behind the statistics was the people's "hunger" for freedom.
In “Borba's Articles” the importance lies in the beginning, the morals, but also in the “crown witness”. Because Milovan Đilas had party booklet number 4 (four). In the hierarchy of power, this meant fourth place in the disposal of property in material and every other respect. The number of the party booklet was the same as the cadastral title deed today. Đilas renounced the “title deed”.
In "Borba's Articles", Đilas argues, criticizes, admonishes, suggests, and opposes the "comrades" of yesterday in power, i.e. the "new class". In doing so, he created his enemies en masse. But also enemies of social freedom. To stand in front of the "red wheel of history" and oppose it, as he later wrote Alexander Solzhenitsyn, it wasn't simple and easy. Đilas stopped. The wheel was grinding him, but he was also breaking the wheel.
(End in next issue)
Bonus video:
