Once It Leaves, It Never Returns

These days, I could almost hear the voice of the President of Serbia in my ear, justifying his state decisions, uncertainly and unconvincingly: "I had to" and "there could be no more delays". His wife, Mira Markovic, reminds him of what she had told him, is triumphantly waving the results of the Russian elections and cannot bring herself to forgive him for allowing NATO and the Americans to interfere. However, I believe that this dispute shall be smoothed over and that no serious reason for quarrels exists in their marriage, which is something that nobody has a right to interfere with.

Yet, certain things about the Russian elections, communism, the Yugoslav United Left (JUL), Serbia and NATO could affect us all. Everything turned out to be somehow connected, tangled and paradoxical, which means that various imaginative theories can thrive, whose production never dropped anyway. Some will claim that Milosevic had lost patience and surrendered before the return of communism; some that he did all he had to, to give NATO a new reason to exist and that he pushed Europe into the arms of the Americans; some will prove that without all of that, the communists wouldn't have won in Russia, and without them, the ones in Serbia would lose as well...

But, let's look at what's what.

First, communism certainly isn't something established by a victory at democratic elections. Communism is easily recognized by the fact that it abolishes everything else. Those who wish to choose must immediately renounce communism, since that choice is only made once. However, the good side of communism is that once it leaves, it never returns.

I wish I could be able to console all those who believe that the main culprit is Mikhail Gorbachov whose reforms were a colosally stupid move and dissolved that huge empire, so that now all those wonderful institutions of a party state slowly have to be restored, and all that at the moment when the Party is not the only one. Gorbachov could have saved the USSR approximately in the same way in which Slobodan Milosevic could have saved the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Unlike Milosevic, Gorbachov simply refused to maintain the status quo by force. He might not have acted in such a way if he did not believe in the success of the reforms, but he definitely did not make a mistake.

The golden age of communism as a global alternative were long gone at the time. For that cause people died all over the world in the best and most pure belief worthy of all admiration. From Cetinje people headed for Spain; in France, the word intellectual was almost synonymous with communist; English aristocrats became Soviet agents... But, collectivization has created a wasteland, and the party-police terror remains as the main characteristic of that regime which has finally become clear to everybody, so that already in the seventies all serious debates on communism stopped. The only remaining problem was Soviet military force.

No old or new successes, disguised or concealed communist parties at the elections in Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland and Russia can again put on their agenda the idea of a party-police state, and all else is irrelevant. Those countries can adapt slowly or quickly, they can occasionally stop and have a tough time with chaos, unstableness and social unrest, but no one in their right mind would believe that those cramps represent the birth of a new, perfect order of general prosperity.

Even Serbia, though it is seriously trying, cannot be the exception. No matter how many books Mrs. Mira Markovic writes; no matter how many lectures she holds in China, Russia and Bulgaria; no matter how much money JUL spends on its promotion, there is no chance that the debate here could be re-opened on their concept of justice and equality. Mrs. Markovic claims that she is against ownership changes and privatization which will only make the majority worse off, and the minority better off, yet we all know that communism has collapsed exactly because the majority had reached the lowest poverty level. And nobody thinks that capitalism is maintained and is successful due to a rich minority, but precisely because it supplies stable prosperity to the middle class majority.

Western societies are in no way devoid of problems, but whatever occurs there, it is certain that solutions and answers as envisaged by Mrs. Markovic shall definitely never surface again. She probably realizes that she has certain difficulties with historical experience, therefore constantly repeating how JUL is a contemporary left-wing party. She seeks for such a contemporary approach in China, Russia and Bulgaria, where there still are some who want to hear opinions on "private ownership as the oldest ownership form, which still has its place in the life of our civilization" and on social ownership as the most contemporary form. Therefore, it is clear where civilization is headed. It is also clear that Serbia shall all of a sudden rise superior to and surmount all the difficulties of the most developed and richest.

No matter how much you like these JUL slogans on peace and national tolerance, there is more sense and reason to debate with the extreme right, then with such a left. The right might offer bad, dangerous and fatal solutions, but with a certain realistic basis; JUL would like to open up issues of doctrine which have already been answered. Besides, who knows whether anyone in that party truly believes in their own ideology. Until now they have not stood out as capable of rallying the masses, that majority which they would like to protect from exploitation, but they have proven themselves capable of filling their coffers.

Communism was serious and dangerous while there were communists who were prepared to kill and die for it. The JUL communists are only prepared to count money, which is what makes their communism is pure sport. Those Russian communists which just won the elections must be better than these, just because they are in a different position. Major reforms have commenced there, while communists are active as the opposition and shall not seize power even after this victory. Here, JUL doesn't need any election results to be able to hold on to its power. It is enough that a harmonious marriage is maintained.

In principle, the most that JUL can accomplish is to enable Serbia to lose some more time in hopeless quasi-discussions, to unsettle the already dubious relations with Montenegro and to extend the world's suspicions towards Belgrade. In comparison to all that we had lived through, it doesn't seem as that much. However, I am afraid that there are many people here who would pull out their hair in anger for being forced to continue paying a price just so the president's wife can shrug off her boredom by dabbling in politics and ideologies.

If elections are to be held in Serbia soon, as many expect, maybe the greatest puzzle will be whether JUL and Mira Markovic are capable of uniting the whole opposition, from the Civic Alliance to Seselj's Radicals. Milosevic on his own has not managed that so far. He always managed to find a certain partner in the opposition, but if he turns towards JUL, I don't see who would dare approach him. It is bad and unnatural for the whole colorful opposition to find itself on one side, even if that is the only road to victory. It would have been better if Milosevic had, after the peace agreement and the lifting of the sanctions, launched an urgent modernization of the country, even before the elections. The easiest way out would be through a transitional, mixed government.

However, he is making moves which are forcing the opposition out of Parliament, he is reducing maneuvering space and, it looks as if his wife has finally managed to convince him that communism is back. Which means that he could forget to call elections when the time comes. And maybe we're yet to see a great propaganda counter-offensive, when Serbia's state Television launches a program of ideological re-education in English, aimed at NATO soldiers.