362 The Presidential Years
Nationalist Madness There Lies a Method.” Žanko’s anger was especially fired
by an essay in the magazine Kritika written by poet Vladimir Gotovac, who
described the situation in Croatia within the framework of the federation as
“dirty, crazy, furious, irrational, ridiculous, grotesque, tragic and stupid.”^535
In his answer Žanko settled scores with the “nationalist and reactionary ten-
dencies” establishing themselves in Zagreb under the auspices of the “Matica
Hrvatska” (Croat matrix) association, several newspapers, and the Catholic
Church. He reproached local political leaders for being unable to shut down
“vampire Croat nationalism,” and instead supporting it. According to Dabčević-
Kučar, it had never before happened that an entire legally elected republican
leadership would be attacked so openly.^536
The Serb nationalists saw in Žanko’s articles a light shining in the twilight of
the Yugoslav ideal.^537 The Croat leaders were of a different opinion, determined
to use the occasion to show their rejection of Belgrade’s centralism. Bakarić and
Savka Dabčević-Kučar convened the Tenth Plenum of the Croat League of
Communists on 15 January 1970, at which they condemned nationalism, but
even more the centralism that, in their opinion, concealed the hegemonic appe-
tites of the “more deserving nation” (as they ironically called Serbia).^538 This
“historic” plenum elicited an enthusiastic spark in Croatia that created an under-
standing between the communists and the masses for the first time since the
war. In Belgrade, it was interpreted differently, as a declaration of an ideological
war against Serbia, as a moment of truth when the “Yugoslav mask” fell away.^539
This was not just the opinion of the conservatives, but also of the liberals, who
were convinced that the Croat leadership was unilaterally handling problems
that should be solved as a group. As they did not want to rekindle the argu-
ment, they prudently decided to keep quiet for the time being.^540
The daring sortie of the Zagreb liberals, welcomed in Slovenia, resulted in a
series of meetings and discussions in the Croat League, where the line taken at
the Tenth Plenum was widely shared. This could not have been possible with-
out the approval of the highest leaders, including Tito. The polemic against
centralism acquired economic and social dimensions thanks to a series of pub-
lications that attacked the enormous accumulation of capital in Belgrade banks
and enterprises due, according to the critics, to an unjust financial system that
allegedly favored an “oligarchy” that was controlling the state economy to the
detriment of the “direct producers,” self-management, and the republics. The
economist Šime Djodan even proclaimed that socialist Croatia was worse off
than it had been under Emperor Franz Joseph.^541
According to a 1967 law, Yugoslav enterprises that exported abroad or earned
hard currency thanks to tourism could not freely dispose of their income. The
factories, for instance, could keep only 7 percent of their earnings, whereas the