Child of the Revolution

With all the strength, intelligence and zeal he possesses--and he is well supplied with all--Vladimir ("Vlado") Dedijer, a strapping (6 ft. 3 in.) Serb, has devoted most of his life to Yugoslavia's particular brand of Communism and to its rugged messiah, Marshal Tito.

In the struggling prewar days, Tito frequently found sanctuary from the King's police in Dedijer's house. In the terrible wartime days as a partisan fighter against the Nazis, Dedijer watched his first wife die in combat at his side, and was so shot up himself that a large part of his skull is surgical silver. After the war he edited the official party newspaper, Borba, sat in the Yugoslav delegation in the U.N., and generally proved himself one of the most promising of the brash and brave young revolutionaries. He eloquently supported Tito's break with Stalin in 1948. His official biography of Tito so closely reflects Tito's thoughts that it reads more like the dictator's autobiography. "I love my country," said Dedijer, "and I love Tito." Vacant Home. Last week, still an eager Communist, Vladimir Dedijer found himself suddenly a pariah. His old friends cut him. His official car was taken away. His house--one of the hard-to-get good ones in Branka Djonovica Street--was without heat, and word went around Belgrade that it soon would be vacant. Summoned back from a sanitarium where he goes frequently for treatment of his old war wounds, Dedijer learned that he was being purged from government and party for the sin of "diversionism." In Communist eyes, Dedijer's waywardness began a year ago. When the regime's No. 3 Communist, Milovan Djilas, was put on trial for publishing articles which publicly criticized both the loose morals and the political rigidity of the party's top leaders, only two Yugoslavs spoke up in his defense. One was Djilas' exwife, Mitra Mitrovic. The other was Vlado Dedijer, who dared to take issue with Edvard Kardelj, next to Tito the most powerful figure in the government. "To speak quite frankly," said Dedijer to Kardelj, "I am not a robot and cannot automatically accept a view simply because of the authority of the man expounding it." Dedijer taunted the Communist Party for fearing new ideas: "Let us be conscious of the fact that our revolution has become immortal because she has not eaten her own children, and because the children of this revolution are honest."

The words were audacious, even courageous, but they were unwise. In his eagerness to democratize the regime, Vladimir

Dedijer failed to appreciate what his hero, Marshal Tito, and the harder Communist heads understood instinctively, that a totalitarian regime can relax only in limited and selective ways, or invite its own downfall.

Case Reopened. Djilas paid quickly for being a heretic: he was purged from all jobs. Last fortnight Dedijer and Djilas' ex-wife were summoned before the Central Committee's powerful three-man control commission and told to prepare to defend themselves. Impetuous Vlado Dedijer listened for only two minutes, challenged the commission's charges and then stormed out of the room. He dashed off an indignant cablegram to his friend Marshal Tito, who had just left for India (see below}. The government telegraph refused to send it. Dedijer could hardly believe, it seemed, that Tito knew all about the Central Committee's action, and had probably told them only to wait until he got out of town.

The new developments brought the Djilas affair back to full--and unexpected --life. From his enforced retirement in Belgrade (on a $165-a-month pension), Milovan Djilas last week took the extraordinary step of speaking out against the Tito regime. He called for the formation of a new "democratic-socialist" party to contest Tito's one-party rule.

The move against Dedijer, Djilas told New York Times Correspondent Jack Raymond, "is an attempt to frighten the democratic elements in the party. Such elements exist, but they are unorganized, whereas the party itself is in the hands of undemocratic forces." With another party and free discussion permitted, Djilas thought that "in ten years perhaps, possibilities for political democracy will develop." He was taking a risk, he admitted, in being so outspoken. "However, I think that nothing bad will happen." Djilas' proposals were not reported to the Yugoslav people, which made it a little difficult for his second-party movement to get off the ground.

But since his heretical remarks would be read by the Communist leaders, they posed a dramatic question: Would Yugoslav Communism now have to begin eating its own children?

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