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By JACK BENNETT

UGOSLAVIA, cheated of
socialism by Tito and his
henchmen, is rapidly showing
the symptoms of a capitalist
Country with a bankrupt eco-
neomy — and particularly the
insatiable appetite for dollars.

Within the past year, the Tito
tegime has received three loans
from the United States Export-
Import Bank totalling $55 mil-
lion, another loan from the U.S-
Controlled International Monetary
Fund and a credit from Britain

of £8 million (approximately $40

Million,

Dollar
yet saved a corrupt regime from
€conomic chaos, but last month
& Yugoslav mission was back in
Washington begging for more.
The mission was promised an-
Other $100 million, with an as-
Surance that Britain would also
Sive $20 million, ‘

injections have never

The press throughout the wes-

tern countries is frankly horri-.

fled at the prospect of Tito’s
Tegime collapsing. Newspaper
Columns are filled with reports
°f Yugoslavia’s economic plight,
accentuated by failure of the
harvest. “Tito appeals to the
West”, “Tito needs our help”,
declare the headlines.

How is it that a predominantly
4gricultural country, which “at
the worst could be made virtu-
ally self-supporting,” according
to the London Daily Telegraph,

8nd which formerly exported

large surpluses of food, finds it-~

Self in the position of having to
beg from Wall Street for dol-
‘lars to save itself from econo-
Mie collapse?

Ts it because of the “serious
drought”?
have had bad harvests and still
not surrendered to the bondage
°f Wall Street, Czechoslovakia,
Which is less of an agricultural
Country than’ Yugoslavia, had a
bad drought in 1947—the year
that it refused to submit to the
“Conomic and political yoke of
the Marshall Plan, Is it the
“Cominform blockade”? But this
“Blockade” which the Tito re-
Sime itself imposed on Yugo-
Slavia, is now being blamed for
€verything, including things with
Which it could not have the re-
Motest connection. :

Neither drought nor blockade

*xplain Yugoslavia’s position to-

day as the most destitute and
“risis-ridden country in Europe.
The explanation must be sought
in the fact that the Tito regime

Sold the country to foreign.

Monopolies, American and Brit-
‘sh, The Tito regime has hand-
®d Yugoslavia over to Wall Street
88 one huge concession, It has
reintroduced capitalism, capita-
‘ist economic relations and capi-
talist exploitation, and is fashion-

But other countries”

ing the country’s economy to the
war plans of the imperialists.

Only this month, after his re-
gime had received the promise
of a new loan from the United
States, Tito, in an interview with
C. L. Sulzberger of the New York
Times, declared that Yugoslavia
would abide by any UN decision
to brand the Chinese People’s Re-
public as “an “aggressor” and
might contribute armed forces
to the war against the Korean
Democratic People’s Republic.

Tito, trying to anticipate obvi-
Sus conclusions that would be
drawn from his statement, an-
nounced that Yugoslavia did not
care what others say if-it 1s of-
opportunity” to

fered a good

purchase American arms.

Tito even had a good word
for the Marshall Plan, arguing
that it was “not so catastrophic
as it is presented by some be-
cause we see it has helped France

and Italy.” ~

But like the French and Itali-
an people, the people of Yugo-
slavia will soon appreciate that
Marshall Plan loans are not in-
tended to help them.

Before the Second World War
Yugoslavia was virtually a colony

celled out among foreign. mo-
see British,

nopolies. American, E s
French, Swiss and Swedish in-
terests controlled all the coun-
try’s mines and half of its total
industry. Interest on foreign
loans cut heavily into the coun-
try’s budget, and the total of
interest and profits taken out
of the country amounted to sev-
eral times the amount originally
loaned or invested.

Now the men who sponsored
Tito’s treachery to the Yugoslav
people and the camp of sqrialism
in order to retrieve their invest-
ments are making it abundantly
clear that they expect both fin-
ancial and political yeturns from
the Tito regime.

eene R. Black, president of

ae eaational Monetary Bank,

stated that Yugoslavia is

expected to pay $88 million in

interest alone on. BE Wa debts.

The Foreign Bondholders’ Pro-
i .

has

tective Council has also issued
a statement in New York indi-
cating that its clients are impa-
tient for a cash settlement,

Tito is obliging them by recog-
nizing pre-war debts and agree-
ing to pay compensation to for-
eign monopolies for ‘nationalized’
properties. Thus, $17 million will
be paid in compensation to the
U.S., $18 million to Britain, $1.6
million to France and smaller

sums to Switzerland,
and Sweden.

Belgium

Terms of the dollar loans and
trade agreements so far negoti-
ated mean that, in effect, Yugo-
siav industry will be de-national-
ized and handed over to Anglo-
American capital.

For instance, Britain has ac-
quired the right to share in the
profits of those industries in
which British’ capital was invest-
ed. For this purpose, mixed
companies, such as the Eastern
Merchants Company, with half
British capital, are being form-
ed.

“Concessions for working depo-
sits of strategic raw materials
—copper, lead, zinc and bauxite
—have been granted to big Am-
erican monopolies like the Ana-
conda Copper Company, which is
now working zinc and lead ore
at the Kaminka mines, The huge
Mellon Trust has a firm grip on
nearly all bauxite deposits
through a subsidiary company.
The copper mines at Bor are be-
ing run by American capital.

e

Thrust back into the clutches
of Anglo-American capital, the
Yugoslav economy is being suck-
ed dry. ,To repay interest on
loans, and under various trade
agreements, Tito’s regime has un+
dertaken export obligations for
the current year to the value of
more than $240 million. At the
very time Yugoslavia is facing
dire economic crisis and starva-
tion, tbe country is exporting
twice as much as it did in a
normal pre-war year.

By far the largest proportion
of these exports consist of tim-
ber and grain, and of non-fer-
rous metals, mineral ores and
strategic raw materials (which

Tito once boasted would never

‘again be exported but processed

by home industry).

Practically all copper mined in
Yugoslavia goes to the Us. Yu-
goslav exports to the U.S. in
1949 amounted to $18 million as
compared with $4 million in
1938, and it is reported that the
Americans have now demanded
that they be stepped up this

year to a total of $30 to $35
million.

Although Yugoslav food prices
in July this year were double
those of. last year, the Titoites

had undertaken to send over 500,-.

000 tons of grain to West Ger-
many alone. Grain exports have
now had to be suspended in face
cf the threatened famine.

Yugoslav forests are being
ruthlessly stripped to supply the
demands of the foreign credi-
tors, with utter disregard for
the future, and by the end of
this year, it is estimated that
the amount of timber felled will
be several years ahead of plan.

And Tito still boasts that he is
building “socialism”!

e

The Tito clique, having done
its job of delivering the Yugo-
slav people into colonial bondage
and turning the country into a
mere source of raw materials
for the imperialists, are now
themselves caught in the vicious

circle of imperialist contradic-
tions.
The greed of the American

and British monopolies, intent
on extracting the highest pos-
sible profits from their new co-
lony for the lowest possible out-
lay, demands the intensified ex-
ploitation of the Yugoslay work-
ers and peasants and of the
country’s resources, the utter ne-
glect of all industry which does
not serve the interests of the
colonial overlords, a deepening

‘crisis requiring more and more

dollar injections which only go
to rivet the chains tighter and
reproduce the same process in
an aggravated degree.

With working hours in Yugo-
slav industry now averaging from
10 to 12 or more a day, with a
daily absenteeism of 400,000 out
of a total of 1,300,000 workers
officially admitted,, the Titoites

have set up special “Labor Mobi-
lisation Departments” under ‘the
direction of local committees of
the so-called People’s Front.

This forced labor mobilisation
is directed to work mainly in the
mines and iumber camps.. But
slave labor, as generally, is prov-
ing unproductive,

Thousands of peasants, impov-
erished ‘and exploited by the ku-
lak enterprises given the name
of “production cooperatives”, are
being driven to work in the
British and American concessi-
ons. The Titoite policy in the
countryside has been the direct
cause of the harvest failure.

Of 600,000 poor peasants driven
off the land and mobilised for
forced labor in 1949, over 430,000
escaped from the lumber camps
and mines to which they were
sent, “Borba” also admitted. And
where do they go when they quit —
the slave gangs? They have no
land to which to return,

The answer is that thousands
are going to the forests, organ-
ising partisan detachments, fight-
ing Titoite police detachments
sent to requisition the people’s
food. Mass battles between peas-
ants and police, strikes of workers
in industry and the mines, execu-
tion of both peasants and workers
are taking place.

The New York Herald Tribune
was forced to admit on May 30
this year, “Marshal Tito cannot
afford to jail the whole peasant

population.” Nor can he jail
the whole people, although he
has already made the entire
country into one vast . prison.

There is only one answer to slav_
ery and starvation and that ans-
wer will be heard in the’ near
future, d

young students, aged 20 to 24.
On the wall in this room was
the text of the Stockholm Ap-
peal. One painting was entitled,
“Peace, Pe&ce, Peace.”

The most frequent comment,
repeatedly made by all members
of our party, is, “How can a
government supposedly planning
war, carry on=such a campaign
for peace? It’s impossible.” Or,
“How can you encourage young
antists to paint pictures of peace,
if you are intending to send
them off to war?’ It's impos-~
sible.”

We spent a delightful evening
at the Polish People’s Theater.
The play was Supposed Miracle,
by Wojciech Boguslawski, who
lived during the turning point
of the 18th and 19th centuries
and apparently is known as the

father of the Polish national
theater. It was a simple, folk
tale and easily understandable

to all of us, especially as we were
provided with a synopsis printed

in English—again a hurry-up ~

job for the benefit of peace dele-
gates. The costumes were, maig-
nificent, the. whole thing gay and
charming,

And the evenin concluded
with a remarkable demonstra-
tion. The audience, composed
mainly of peace delegates from

abroad, applauded the actors—

and then the actors applauded
the audience, and cried, “Peace,
Peace, Peace.”

And that is what we hear on
every side: Peace.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 24, 1950 — PAGE 9