Tito and His Comrades

312 The Presidential Years

ever more strained relations between the republics, affirming that “vampire
nationalism” should be overcome with their abolition. “Sorry, What Did You
Say?” was the title of the answer by one of the most brilliant Slovene intellectu-
als, Dušan Pirjevec, who attacked “the centralist leeches” with all the heat of his
impetuous character (and not without Kardelj’s approval), thus starting a
polemic that openly confronted the national problem in Yugoslavia.^248

Ranković’s Bullet

The failure of the “new economic order,” as the reform was called, provoked
consternation among the power elite, which, in harmony with its ideological
dogma, was sure that the socialist economy could not experience crisis and
breakdown. It also provided the opportunity to settle accounts with Kardelj.
His political life seemed to be hanging by a thread and his work was totally
discredited, so much so that a study group preparing new reforms under his
guidance was disbanded.^249 Kardelj had certainly lost his battle, and his life was
even in danger. In fact, he had been seriously wounded at the end of January
1961 during a hunt in Srem, in the woods between Croatia and Serbia. He was
“mistakenly”hit by Jovan Veselinov, a Serb politician close to Ranković, who
was known to be a bad shot. The details of the incident were not revealed to the
public, which was informed only that Kardelj had been hurt by the recoil from
his own rifle shot. In his circle a different version of the incident was spread:
that day they had hunted rabbits and pheasant using shotguns, whereas he was
wounded by a bullet suitable for boar-hunting. The bullet penetrated his cra-
nial wall at the top of the cerebellum, which convinced Kardelj that Ranković
had ordered his liquidation. His wife Pepca was sure that the instigator was
even higher, whispering to acquaintances: “Edo and I, we are living under an
iron heel. Sooner or later Tito will send us to jail.” She even said to Bakarić,
with whom she was in confidence: “He will kill us all.”^250
After a stay in the hospital, Kardelj decided to go with his family to London
for June and July 1961, ostensibly “to learn English.” It was a voluntary exile,
about which even Tito had not been informed. According to the Yugoslav secret
services he intended to emigrate or if not, then to retire to Ljubljana and teach
Marxism at the local university. Although the Observer and the Times wrote
that the Slovenian politician’s stay was not as innocent as it seemed, the Foreign
Office did not listen. The British diplomats limited themselves to wonder-
ing how it was possible that, at such a demanding moment, on the eve of the
Non-Aligned Conference, the Belgrade regime could do without one of its
more prominent men.^251 In the British capital Kardelj consulted the best local
specialists, who advised against an operation, noting that the bullet was just a
few millimeters from his brain and that surgery could result in facial paralysis.