The Postwar Period 247
Miha Marinko, and the Serb, Petar Stambolić, strengthening the orthodox
wing. During Djilas’s ordeal Montenegrin students, who were numerous in
Belgrade and who supported him, published and disseminated leaflets in de-
fense of his ideas. The authorities arrested a few dozen of them and, just to be
on the safe side, transferred some Montenegrin officers from the capital to
other garrisons.^486 Despite being completely innocent, Peko Dapčević, husband
of the young actress mentioned by Djilas in “Anatomy of a Moral,” lost his post
as chief of the General Staff and had to settle for an appointment in the federal
government. But the targets were not just Montenegrins: a major part of the
Belgrade intellectual élite, who saw Djilas as their idol, was spitting mad, feel-
ing that they had been up there with him in the dock. “The Communists have
taken the freedom from themselves first of all, then from all others. This is
the great tragedy of our existence. The revolution has become a religion....
The party’s bureaucracy fears everybody who thinks,” Dobrica Ćosić wrote.
His friend, the well-known writer Oskar Davičo, was so upset he even consid-
ered suicide.^487
Meanwhile, a modest “purge” was carried out, the most eminent victim of
which was Dušan Dimić, member of the CC of Croatia and director of the
magazine Napijed (Forward). The majority of those party members who had
only recently cheered Djilas hurried to proclaim that the Central Committee’s
decision was entirely justified and logical from a political point of view. Djilas
and Dedijer were informed, on 30 January, that they were not allowed to go
abroad, which is why they did not end up visiting Scandinavia.^488
It has to be said, however, that former comrades, including Tito and Ran-
ković, were still ready to dialogue with Djilas, but he refused their offer, having
decided to break not just with them, but also with the regime.^489 In making this
decision he was not hindered by the fact that he had lost his ministerial salary,
that he had a family, and that his only income—220,000 dinars—came from
his ill-fated articles. (The sum was not modest at all, considering that an aver-
age salary was about nine thousand dinars per month). At first he gave this
money to a library in Nikšić, a Montenegrin town where he went to school,
but it was returned since the “dirty money of a traitor” was not welcome. “My
mother, a wise Montenegrin peasant, commented: ‘God bless them, otherwise
we would be broke,’” Djilas later said.^490
Two months later and subject to strict police surveillance, he decided to
abandon the LCY. According to Dedijer, “A Slovene woman, his main sup-
porter in that Republic... spat in his face when he humbly came to a meeting
of the party’s cell in the exclusive neighborhood where he still lived.”^491 Djilas
reacted with all the ardor of his temper: some days later he went to the villa of
Marija Vilfan, wife of Tito’s chief secretary, who presided over the cell where