The Presidential Years 323
The fact that he enrolled at the congress as a “Croat” for the first time was
significant.^302
Ranković, who had been informed in advance that “vampire nationalism”
would be condemned at the congress, tried to protest to Tito, stressing that
this move would ruin Yugoslavia. Such ill-will was created between them that
they stopped communicating for two months. Ranković also tried unsuccess-
fully to convince Kardelj to condemn not only federal centralism, but also the
“state-ism” of the republics, which in his opinion was equally damaging to the
Yugoslav idea.^303 In the discussion that followed Tito’s speech, the awareness
emerged that the different ethnic groups of the country were in different phases
of development, something that had never been formulated in such an explicit
way. Kardelj articulated one of the key pronouncements on this issue when he
stressed in his paper the right of every nation to live according to the results
of its work.^304 This assertion, which accepted the discrepancy between the
republics and was repeated in the final resolution, rejected the idea of a single
Yugoslav people as an expression of bureaucratic centralism. In a proposal by
Stane Kavčič, with which Dobrica Ćosić disagreed, the final resolution of the
Eighth Congress affirmed that “every nation had the right to dispose of the
surplus of its work. This right was not subject to the will of the state. The fed-
eral government was only a coordinator of the development and economic
policy of the individual republics.”^305
In order to stress the importance of autonomy in the internal life of the
LCY as well, it was decided that from then on the Congresses of the Republic
Leagues should be organized before and not after the federal one, as had been
usual. This meant that the local leaders would not be merely executors of a pre-
ordained political line but could influence its formulation. The only disagree-
ment came from Ranković, since in his speech at the congress he stressed the
importance of “democratic centralism,” both in the party and in the state. He
pointed out that factions were building up in the LCY that questioned its role
in society. Although he was not in tune with Tito and the comrades, his report
was approved “unanimously,” and with the obligatory “frenzied” applause.^306 It
was clear that the reform announced at the Eighth Congress could not be
implemented without a decline in his power and from that moment on his fate
appeared sealed.
One of the most important events of the Eighth Congress was the election
of a new Central Committee of 155 members, with the unanimous confirmation
of Tito as its secretary general. The same day, an enlarged Executive Com-
mittee was elected, composed of nineteen rather than thirteen members, as in
the past. The two deputy secretaries of the League, Aleksandar Ranković and
Edvard Kardelj, were joined by a third, Veljko Vlahović, who was more popular