296 The Presidential Years
journey” with a load of arms and munitions hidden in the hold of the Galeb and
its escort boat. This arsenal was not intended for Indonesia, the first stopover of
the journey, but for the Algerian Liberation Front, to which Indonesian leader
Sukarno would pass it on with the help of the Egyptians. In fact, the French
regularly inspected Yugoslav ships bound for Algeria after having discovered
their smuggling activities on behalf of the rebel movement in 1957. At one point
they intercepted a Yugoslav freighter off Oran carrying 150 tons of arms.^169
The Economic ReformAfter having visited several cities and villages, a French Communist Party del-
egation that came to Yugoslavia in 1957 stated that the population’s standard
of living was very low, even lower than in other socialist countries.^170 The situa-
tion improved in subsequent years, mostly thanks to an increase of industrial
production where the conditions were favorable, especially in the northern
republics of Slovenia and Croatia. Compared to prewar industrial output, it
increased sixfold, while the GNP grew threefold compared to 1952. This stimu-
lated a lively per capita consumption compared to the misery of the first postwar
decade. Meanwhile, however, the gap grew between the developed republics,
Slovenia and Croatia, and those that produced raw materials and energy using
mines and hydrological sources. As a result, there was a constant migration
from the south to the northwest. Remarkable differences in the standard of liv-
ing also appeared between the industrialized areas and the agrarian ones, where
the land was divided into numerous private plots, each one too small to feed the
peasants who worked it (only 16 percent of the cultivable land was controlled by
the state). Because of this, and also because of the authorities’ persistent atti-
tude of suspicion toward their own peasantry, conditioned by ideological preju-
dices, Yugoslavia was compelled for a long time to import food, especially grain
(about a million tons yearly). This rapidly increased its foreign debt, given that
the trade gap grew constantly, reaching nearly a billion US dollars by the end
of the fifties.^171 Nineteen fifty-nine was the first year that they did not need to
import wheat, thanks to a good harvest. (Tito also decided not to import wheat
that year for political reasons, in order to answer Khrushchev’s accusations that
he was begging for grain from the imperialists.)^172 Under these conditions, it
would be difficult to say that the population achieved an awareness of social-
ist soli darity: on the contrary, the “developed” were not at all pleased that they
were obliged to assist their “underdeveloped” countrymen. They did not refuse
to aid the less developed areas (Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, some parts
of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but also Serbia and even parts of Croatia), but asked
that investments should be applied carefully, to augment the productivity of the
country so that their money would not end up in a bottomless pit.^173