2634
The Presidential Years
Creating the Non-Aligned Movement, the
Search for “Socialism with a Human Face,” and the
Struggle for Unity in Yugoslavia1953–1973
After Djilas’s fall, it was Kardelj who cultivated contacts with Western social
democrats. He was eager to dialogue with the most progressive politicians and
theoreticians, especially in Scandinavia. Aleš Bebler, the deputy minister of
foreign affairs, well understood Kardelj’s aspirations when he said to the West
German ambassador in October 1952: “Yugoslavia is a European country and
considers itself part of Western Europe, not just for geographic reasons, but
also because of the spiritual and cultural character of the population. This is
often forgotten abroad, since Yugoslav communism is considered akin to the
Soviet version.”^1
In the autumn of 1954 Kardelj and Vladimir Bakarić visited Germany,
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and France in place of Djilas and Dedijer, meeting
local social-democratic leaders. On 8 October, Kardelj gave a speech in Oslo
about socialist democracy in Yugoslavia in which he reaffirmed what he had
already said at the Sixth Congress, namely that elements of socialism could be
found in capitalist countries, just as capitalist elements may be found in social-
ist ones. According to him, the ideology preached by the Soviets that conserva-
tive and progressive worlds were concentrated within the Eastern and Western
blocs respectively was untenable. This rejection of a Manichean vision of con-
temporary reality, split between light and dark, and even more the affirmation
that without democracy there was no socialism, provoked an enormous outcry
in Moscow. This was largely because from the war years the Soviets suspected
Kardelj to be opposed to an intimate collaboration with them, instead believing
he favored an equidistant position of Yugoslavia between the great powers. The
principal ideologue in the Kremlin, Mikhail A. Suslov, commenting on the Oslo
speech, wrote that Kardelj “was not a communist, nor a Marxist-Leninist, but