Return of the Baker

Through all the years of Marshal Tito's Communist rule, a special niche has been provided for the small private businessman who was somehow able to supply products and services the state-controlled organization could not match. But a year or so ago, the profits of the barbers, blacksmiths, pastrymakers, cobblers and tailors began to get out of hand; they bought cars and rented summer homes on fashionable lakesides. Last May Tito's regime decided to wipe them out. Taxes on private business were raised sevenfold. A private tailor with one helper paid the same amount of tax as a Belgrade tailors' Communist cooperative with seven employees. It was too much for any artisan. By the end of 1962, nearly 10,000 private craftsmen closed up shop, 3,000 in Croatia alone.

The theoreticians were happy at the turn of events, but many other Yugoslavs were not. They found it virtually impossible in some areas to obtain the services of a plumber or electrician. To get a pair of shoes repaired today takes a month. Belgrade's famed candy and pastry shops are nearly all closed, and the state-baked pita--a Serbian pastry filled with fruit--is no edible substitute.

The grumbling got so loud that even President Tito admitted in a speech that "a real witch hunt was started against the alleged enrichment of artisans, and excessively high taxes were levied against them." He suggested the matter be attended to. Last week the Yugoslav Parliament was preparing to pass a new tax law that "will not discourage the development of crafts." The party's official mouthpiece, Belgrade's Daily Borba, offered a distinctly non-Marxian rationale for the retreat: "The law treats private craftsmen as an additional but significant economic branch which fits well in the system of socialist economy."

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