The Later Years 393
had a religious connotation—a Marxist religion—whose principal origin was
not Lenin and the October Revolution but the Paris Commune and the visions
of Marx and Engels. Especially in the last years of his life, he believed that his-
tory had tasked him with laying the theoretical and practical foundation for the
realization of the ideas of classical Marxism.”^3
While he was seeking an ideal society he used the real one as a laboratory for
his experiments, regardless of the scandal, intrigue, and corruption into which
it was drawn. In doing so, he failed to consider the economic backwardness
of Yugoslavia, the intellectual modesty of its cadres, and the mood of the popu-
lar masses, who found themselves in the unpleasant role of guinea pigs. He
certainly did not have the sort of doubts that are to be found in the diary of
historian Dušan Bilandžić from early 1973: “I wonder if it is possible to realize
a new social system, different from the rest of the world, in a small and back-
ward country, considering that enormous economic communities, with several
million consumers, are being developed. The world’s history cannot develop in
a small state, unless it is an embryo of a global process.”^4
Kardelj’s projects were even more unpalatable to Serb nationalists than they
were to intellectuals of Bilandžić’s caliber. In Belgrade, many observed with
intolerance the “mighty troika” at the top, composed of Kardelj, Bakarić, and
the Bosnian pasha, Branko Mikulić, who were able to influence the aging Tito
and to appoint people of their liking into key positions in the state and party.
Kardelj, in particular, was reproached for having imposed Mitja Ribičič as fed-
eral vice-premier. This was seen by the Serbs as a clear sign of the Slovenes
attempting to tip the scales at the moment of impending succession. As Niko
Kavčič, one of the keenest observers of the contemporary Yugoslav scene said,
the Serb nationalists bore the ideological muzzle Kardelj tried to impose on
them with increased intolerance.^5
The 1974 ConstitutionAccording to Djilas, in the seventies Tito repressed all the currents of renewal
that appeared on the political scene, seeking support among the old social
forces and in the simple, unchanging formulas of his youth. Party, class, and
monolithic ideology were again the watchwords. Partially because of his old
age, and partially because of automatic Stalinist reflexes, the marshal was not
brave enough to ally with the liberal generation, choosing what he knew best
and what he considered safer: bureaucracy.^6
Kardelj, by contrast, still believed in the possibility of creating conditions in
Yugoslavia that could guarantee the survival of the regime and its development
to the full implementation of the revolution begun during the Partisan years. To
this end, he created an enormous theoretical structure, aware that the Soviet