JUGOSLAVIA AND THE CRISIS
Commonwealth and Foreign
FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
ON August i4th Dr. Vladko Matchek, leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, came to Belgrade to confer with the chiefs of the Serbian United Democratic Opposition, and spoke to a crowd estimated between 8o,000 and 120,000. He spoke of an island in " Dalmatian Croatia " which is " under the occupation of the police. Any police sergeant may seize and imprison, beat and torture men, women and children. He is responsible to no one for his misdeeds. And if the need arises we must ask ourselves : ' Which of these people will defend this State ?' " This passage was greeted with loud shouts from the Serbian crowd of " None, nor would we." At the end of the meeting a resolution was passed, demanding that a Constituent Assembly be called to put an end to the " dictatorial violent regime of January 6th, 1929, and substitute a democratic constitution approved by the majority of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes."
This meeting is the last stage of a struggle that has been going on for more than nine years. From 1919 to 1929 Jugoslavia had a parliamentary government. The Croats, who had not helped to make the constitution of 1921, were always discontented. The proclamation of the dictatorship in 1929 hit the Serbs equally. After the first years of terror and demoralisation, the democratic forces began to recover. The advent of Stoyadinovitch in 1935 slightly relaxed the pressure. Since then the Croats have been able to organise. Now the vast majority are united behind Matchek, who controls most of the economic, professional and educational organisations in the country. The three main Serbian parties, Democrat, Agrarian and dissident Radicals, likewise united to make a common programme, and in October, 1937, reached an agreement with the Croats. For a year they have worked together. The meeting in August, described by all Jugoslav democrats as " historic," was to be the beginning of a campaign in which the Opposition would show the Government that it meant business.
The Government has little, and extremely heterogeneous, support. Dr. Stoyadinovitch represents a section of the bourgeoisie and certain military and ecclesiastical circles. He is the representative of the Pan-Serb idea, but he encourages the extreme Fascist separatist group among the Croats, allowing their newspaper, Nezavisnost, unexampled freedom from censorship. The Minister of the Interior, Dr. Koroshetz, represents the Slovenes. His political support of the Government is rewarded by the concession to Slovenes of State money and administrative posts. But it is doubtful whether he still commands a majority of the Slovenes. The Minister of Transport, Dr. Spaho, has an analogous position. His policy is to support the Government in return for material advantages for his people, the Bosnian Mahommedans. As reactionaries, Koroshetz and Spaho favour suppression, but as representatives of non-Serbian regions they are not for centralism, and do not wish to break all relations with the Croats. For this reason, when the Government discussed whether it should allow a demonstra- tion when Matchek came to Belgrade, Koroshetz opposed Stoyadinovitch, who wished to forbid the meeting, and Prince Paul took his advice.
The Belgrade meeting terrified Koroshetz and all Jugoslav reactionaries. The demands for democratic government and collaboration with Great Britain and France, and the open refusal to fight for the State as it is, seemed sheer " Bolshevism." Now the ranks of the government are closed. The understanding of Serbs and Croats, now at last realised, removes the raison d'être of the dictatorship. Prince Paul, as head of the State, may accept the verdict of the people and call the Opposition, representing an overwhelming majority, to power, or he may intensify the dictatorship. Himself obsessed by a terror of " Bolshevism," surrounded by the most reactionary advisers and accessible to German influence, he can resort only to repression.
The future depends on international events. Jugoslav foreign policy is described officially as " neutral." Some 4o per cent. of Jugoslav trade is with the Third Reich. Jugoslav wheat is bought by the State Export Office and sold to Germany, while the Jugoslav peasant eats mai7f bread. Little can be said in the Jugoslav Press against Germany. The German Consul-General in Belgrade uses his diplomatic immunity to organise propaganda and espionage among the German minority in Jugoslavia. The trade with Germany, based on the usual Nazi technique, is disastrous not only to the peasants but to town tradesmen. It profits only a few people connected with the Government who are financially interested. But the most violent attacks may be made on France and Czechoslovakia, and newspapers have been con- fiscated because they praised Great Britain. The present regime favours Germany and Italy because it sympathises with their forms of government. Stoyadinovitch has been prevented hitherto from suppressing the last vestiges of liberty because he has feared the might of Great Britain and France, and the existence of a free Czechoslovakia allied with Soviet Russia. He hates Czechoslovakia profoundly, not because he is " anti-Czech," but because it represents the idea of freedom in Central Europe, and because it is an object on which the democratic aspirations and the strong sense of Slav solidarity of the Jugoslav peoples can centre. The best proof of this are the thousands of Jugoslays who presented themselves as volunteers at the Czechoslovak Legation in Belgrade last week. The knowledge that Great Britain and France have given their support to German policy in Eastern Europe and that the Franco-Soviet pact has been destroyed, may now encourage Stoyadinovitch to take the decisive step in the near future and to establish a full Fascist regime. He knows that if there are revolts, he can always call in the German army " to save Jugoslavia from Bolshevism."
The reaction of Belgrade to the first " Anglo-French plan " was most striking. I had the definite impression that the friendship of the Serbian people for France, painfully constructed by common struggles and common sufferings, which even the most simple peasant felt, was destroyed in one day. " Western Democracy " is now considered as sheer hypocrisy. The choice lies between Germany and Russia. Some will choose Germany, particularly among the Croatian bourgeoisie. Exploitation of this feeling will enable Stoyadinovitch to find some support for his dictatorship. But the majority will choose Russia, the great Slav country, rich in untold resources, mighty in arms, the defender of the exploited and the enemy of monarchs and Germans. In the Balkans rule three monarchs, all hated by their peoples, Paul, George and Boris, whom British policy has supported as a conservative counterweight against German influence, but who have become instruments of this influence. Against them are arrayed popular movements of great potential strength. The heroism, sanity and patriotism of Jugoslav democrats, particularly of the young, are most inspiring to a foreign observer. Jugoslavia, the greatest and richest, is the key to the Balkans. A change of regime in Belgrade in a democratic direction would be followed within a few weeks by changes in Sofia and Athens. If Great Britain and France played an active part in this region, had good relations with Russia, and frankly supported demo- cracy in the Balkans, they could unite them, together with Rumania and Turkey, already afraid of German aims, • in a barrier of 6o,000,000 people against Hitler's ambitions. If they stand aside, the whole peninsula, its economic resources and man power, will be absorbed within the German Wehrwirth- schaft and used in the offensive against the West.
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