| BorisVM |
Tito's Epochal Funeral
A moving event, and then the question: Who, or what, could replace him
Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill, De Gaulle and now, in his own time, Tito. For Europeans, if not the entire globe, the final link with the old and reassuring postwar era has gone. The burly Yugoslav Communist was, indeed, the last of the giants, forged in the fire of World War II, who went on to share in the creation of a new world order. It was fitting, at a time when that order seemed threatened as never before, that President Josip Broz Tito's funeral last week was the most poignant that Europe had experienced in a decade, the most stirring, in fact, since the Memorial Mass for Charles de Gaulle in Notre Dame Cathedral in 1970. In attendance was a vast assemblage of statesmen and royalty. Official mourners came from 123 countries: four Kings, 32 Presidents and other heads of state, 22 Prime Ministers, more than 100 representatives or secretaries of Communist and workers parties. Cabinet officials were so numerous they went virtually unnoticed. Tanjug, the official Yugoslav news agency, summed it up simply: " The summit of mankind."
Conspicuously absent from this summit was Jimmy Carter.* In a decision that appalled several Western allies and annoyed many Yugoslavs, the President stayed home and instead sent a delegation headed by Vice President Walter Mondale. The official mourning party of 25 included Treasury Secretary G. William Miller and the President's mother Lillian, as well as some low-level politicians from Mondale's home state of Minnesota. "I don't~think we have anything to apologize for," said a ranking U.S. diplomat defensively, adding that "Mondale is a major figure." Yet there were probably many who agreed with the sharp judgment of the London Times that by sending a surrogate, Carter showed himself "blind to the importance of Yugoslavia, to the mood of the Yugoslav people, to the interests of the United States and, once again, to the sound views of his own Department of State."
The outpouring of grief and respect in Belgrade was more than a tribute to the unique role that Tito had created for his small nation. He had endured as a powerful symbol. He had withstood both the Nazis and the Soviets. He had positioned his people proudly between the contending modern superpowers. He had challenged the enormous pressures of cold war tensions and, disdaining the blandishments of rival power blocs, sought a balancing force in the nonaligned movement. As Yugoslavia's new party leader Stevan Doronjski said at the funeral, Tito was 'a symbol, not only for us but also for the rest of the world."
The symbolism was almost palpable as hundreds of thousands of Yugoslavs lined the streets and hillsides of the capital for a glimpse of the long cortege bearing the man who had so forcefully led their country for 3 1/2 decades. Wizened veterans of his World War II Partisan campaign, wearing rows of medals in his honor, could scarcely contain their tears. Middle-aged housewives who had never known any other national leader sobbed into handkerchiefs. Schoolchildren reared on his all-embracing national legend waved small Yugoslav flags with awe in their eyes. One elderly woman wailed mournfully and had to lean on two others in front of her for support. A youth knelt on an open newspaper, hands and moved his lips in silent prayer. "He was somebody very close, like someone in my own family," remarked Nikola Margis, 68, a craftsman with a white mustache who had waited for ten hours to pay his respects at the lying-in-state. "For 35 years we lived together, and we had only good things from him." Radmilo Sposojevic, 53, a teacher: "We are proud that he was ours and we are his."
The lowly and the mighty watched solemnly as eight military officers in braided dress uniforms appeared at the door of the Federal Assembly Building adjoining Marx and Engels Square carrying Tito's pale oak coffin. As distant cannon boomed out 21-salvo salutes, the casket was placed on an open gun carriage and covered with the blue-white-and-red Yugoslav flag. As a military band struck up a funeral dirge, Yugoslav air force jets screeched overhead, and a Jeep drew the carriage slowly along Kneza Milosa. At the head of procession was an array of 365 colored flags, each honoring one of Tito's wartime Partisan units. Behind the casket, dressed in black and sobbing was, Tito's third wife, Jovanka, who had dropped from public view three years ago amid rumors of a fallin out with the President. Next to her were Tito's two sons by two previous marriages, Zarko, 56, and Mirjo, 39.
Two hours and 2 1/2 miles later the cortege reached the grounds of Tito's principal residence, in the hilltop suburb of Dedinje overlooking the capital. He had asked to be buried there. To the strains of the Internationale, the coffin was placed above ground in a white marble vault bearing a stark inscription in raised gold Iett~ JOSIP BROZ TITO, 1892-1980. He had died just three days before his 88th birthday
The two little-known men who automatically succeeded Tito in his two national postsCommunist Party Chairman Doronjski, 60, and State President Lazar Kolisevski, 66eulogized him profusely. "You have left in your wake one of the deepest traces that a man can imprint upon history. Our people thank you for their most precious possessionthat of being sovereign masters of their fate. Before the procession, Doronjski explicitly praised Tito's dramatic break with the Soviet Union in 1948 as "one of the turning points in the history of our movement," which ever since, he said, has resisted "tying itself to any power bloc."
Listening impassively nearby was Leonid Brezhnev, who commanded the most attention among the visiting dignitaries,. In a surprise move, Brezhnev decdied to attend the funeral at the head of a solid phalanx of East European delegations. For the Soviets, Tito suddenly appeared to have attained a saintliness he had never enjoyed when he was alive. The Kremlin's eulogy, inscribed in the official Book of Condolences in Belgrade, expressed "grievous loss" at the death of "friend of our country."
Moscow had wasted no time in trying to get on the good side of the post-Tito government. On the eve of the funeral, Brezhnev and his Kremlin party sat down th Doronjski and Kolisevski for a "warm, comradely" meeting, after which Brezhnev spoke of the USSR as the "true and reliable friend of Yugoslavia's peoples." China, which had long condemned Tito's "revisionism," similarly acted almost as though it had never differed with him. The first major head of governnment to arrive in Belgrade was Chairman Hua Guofeng, who grandly praised Tito for "great contributions to the proletarian revolution." At the grave site, Hua and Brezhnev glanced fleetingly at each other but never spoke.
For other leaders, the great gathering presented an unusual opportunity for private conversations without the buildup of expectations that often precedes more formal summits. "It was a working funeral," said a West German official. One of the busiest figures was India's Indira Gandhi, who deftly managed to schedule talks with both Hua and Brezhnev, Helmut Schmidt, Margaret Thatcher, Zambia's President Kenneth Kaunda and Pakistan's Mohammed Zia ul-Haq.
Schmidt conferred with Poland's Communist Party Chief Edward Gierek and East Germany's Erich Honecker, Japarts Prime Minister Masayoski Ohira met with Chairman Hua. Mondale had discussions with Schmidt, Spanish Premier Adolfo Surez, Portuguese President Antnio Ramalho Eanes, Kaunda, Barre, Rumania's Nicolae Ceaucescu and Yugoslavia's President Kolisevski.
When the rites were over and the informal discussions finished, the leaders packed their bags and scattered to the capitals of the world. They had buried Tito, but the inevitable question lingered: After Tito, what? For months, Western leaders had barely disguised their apprehension that Tito's death could inspire the Soviets to try to regain control over its onetime satellite. The tension persisted last week, but on the surface, at least, calm and order prevailed. Tito's prolonged illness had helped prepare the country for his passing.
Even as he lay dying, the cumbersome machinery of succession he had devised to provide an orderly transition had already gone into effect. Kolisevski, a Macedonian and longtime Tito loyalist, chaired Cabinet and other government meetings. He was acting as one of the first beneficiaries of the "collective leadership" plan incorporated into Yugoslavia's 1974 constitution. This plan established a state presidency of eight regional and presumably equal members, who are supposed to rotate as chairman each year.
Kolisevski is due to leave the presidency on May 16. He should be succeeded by another little-known figure, Bosnian Representative Cvijetin Mijatovic, 67, a conservative party functionary who earned Tito's trust as Ambassador to Moscow from 1961 to 1965. In Belgrade, however, there was speculation that either Kolisevski's term might be extended to provide additional continuity or that the order of rotation might be changed to allow the election of the collective presidency's best-known public figure: Vladimir Bakaric, 68. He is the last of Tito's close wartime comrades still in power and currently heads the Federal Council for the Defense of the Constitution, the important watchdog agency that oversees the internal security apparatus. Promoting Bakaric out of turn might provide the country with a respected "transitional leader." It would also imply that the Yugoslavs lack full confidence in the main principle of the collective leadershipnamely, that no one man can succeed Tito.
In a recent speech, presidium Secretary Dugan Dragosavac warned against any machinations by aspiring Titici (Serbian for Little Titos). Nevertheless, a power struggle is developing among an inner circle of top party leaders. Besides Bakaric, other names have been singled out by political handicappers:
General Nikola Ljubicic, 64, a short, powerfully built Serb, was also a wartime comrade of Tito's; the senior member of the Cabinet, he has served as Defense Minister since 1967.
Stane Dolanc, 54, a tough, widely traveled Central Committee member from Slovenia, is considered by some to be the party's ablest and most ambitious behind-the-scenes politician.
Milos Minic, 65, a Serb, was Foreign Minister from 1972 to 1979. He was responsible for policy toward the Soviet Union, and became the party's chief foreign policy strategist.
Whatever their personal rivalries, the country's new leaders are all Tito loyalists, committed to his basic principles: a federal system for maintaining national unity, the unique system of worker self-management of factories that characterizes the country's maverick brand of Marxism, and strict nonalignment between East and West in global bloc poiitics. Says one French diplomat: "No matter what squabbles may arise, the country's leadership and people will unite at the slightest hint of Soviet menace."
Most experts dismiss the possibility that the Soviets, especially since Afghanistan, would be so imprudent as to undertake any direct invasion of Yugoslavia. An invading force from the Soviet Union which would require at least 35 divisions, totaling more than 300,000 men, would have to take on a large-scale fight not only against the well-equipped 259,000 man Yugoslav army but also against the 3 millionmember Partisan militia. In addition, there would be the risk of causing a direct confrontation with the Western allies.
The serious threat to Yugoslavia is likely to be more internal than external. The country is a patchwork of six nationalistic republicsplus two so-called autonomous provincesthat have their own languages, religions and cultures. The Soviets might try to exploit the additional hostility between the Serbs and Croats; together they constitute more than 60% ofYugoslavia's 22 million people. Another potential trouble spot is the southern province of Kosovo, the country's poorest tregion, where friction is developing between Serbs and the rapidly exploding ethnic Albanian population. Two months ago, 50 Albanians in Kosovo were charged with fomenting "political unrest." This could conceivably serve as a Soviet pretext for stirring up trouble in Yugoslavia, as could the thinly disguised Bulgarian aims on Macedonia, the country's southernmost republic.
The nation's uneven economy could work either for or against stability. On the one hand, the industrial and urban transformations wrought by Tito have had a cohesive influence. "People have to concentrating on a better standard of living instead of hating their neighbours," says a Western diplomat in Belgrade. But a severe economic downturn could aggravate the glaring inequitiesand consequent animositiesbetween the developed northern republics like Slovenia and hinterlands like Kosovo. Lately the economy has been ailing. Unemployment, estimated at more than 13%, is growing. The current annual inflation rate is estimated to be 35%. Productivity has slowed, and workers, under the self-management system, have voted themselves recklessly inflationary wage increases. Worst of all, the country's trade deficit has ballooned in a year by more than 40%, to $6.4 billion.
Whatever the problems, every anxious Westerner knows that in the end it will be up to the Yugoslav leaders to secure the country's future. They have all the effective levers of power in their hands including the apparent loyalty of the army. They appear to have taken every conceivable precaution against subversion. One haunting question remains; Who, or what, could replace Tito's towering personality? Apart from their sense of loss, many Yugoslavs were almost relieved that the time had come to find out.
"Tito actually may have lived too long," a Slovene intellectual said, and he meant no disrespect. Added a Belgrade journalist: "I hope we don't have another strong personality. We want to see if our system can really work." The answer to that question will determine not only the future of Yugoslavia, but possibly the shape of Europe for years to come.
*Also criticized for missing the funeral was French President Valry Giscard d'Estaing, who sent a delegation headed by Premier Raymond Barre.
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