The Later Years 401
south and promised to increase this sum in the period to follow, the gap be-
tween the two geographic areas of the country seemed impossible to bridge.^44
Kardelj was aware just how precarious the Yugoslav situation was. From 1974
onward he criticized current economic and political trends at every party ses-
sion. In February 1977, when he already knew that he was terminally ill, he said
during a meeting of high officials: “Do not count on me anymore.... When
I read the newspapers and listen to speeches I am frightened.... In a year or
two, we will have galloping inflation, a situation similar to Chile [where, in
1973, there was a coup against the left-wing president, Salvador Allende].”^45
Even more bitter was his observation, confided to Bogdan Maglić, a Yugoslav
researcher who worked in the US, that “our system is terrible and wrong. Prac-
tically nothing can be done. And no improvement is possible.”^46 In the end,
he recognized his defeat with one of his most sincere and pregnant sentences:
“A human being cannot find happiness from a state, or a regime, or a party: he
can create happiness only by himself.”^47
Kardelj’s DeathDuring his twilight years, Tito took part ever more rarely in sessions, confer-
ences, and meetings, preferring to summon the representatives of various ad-
ministrative branches to his residences to give him reports and to be given
instructions. The Executive Bureau of the LCY worked through Stane Dolanc,
who transmitted Tito’s and Kardelj’s directives to its members, who were sim-
ply obliged to accept them. “This trinity,” said Jure Bilić, the secretary of the
Croat CC, “wishes to maintain power. It is not interested in anything else.”^48
In the atmosphere of late “Titoism,” which was celebrated in Yugoslavia with
much propagandistic zeal, its protagonist was divinized as a tool for those on
top to safeguard their positions. Kardelj was aware of it to the point that he
said, without denying the marshal’s historical importance, that “Yugoslavia
could not afford another Tito.”^49 At the sixth session of the LCY presidency,
convened at Brdo Castle on 9 October 1978, he envisaged the problem of the
party’s structure after Tito’s passing. He mentioned the candidates for succes-
sion, who toured Yugoslavia presenting themselves as “small Titos,” poised to
step into his shoes but without his charisma and capabilities. “Surely, in the
future,” he said, “we will not seek another Tito, since there is no one like him
nor will there be for a long time.” For this reason, he proposed the creation of
a new collective body to govern the LCY in a truly democratic way, although
he had no illusions that it would be easy, considering the backwardness of
Yugoslav society. “This would need to destroy the force of hierarchy and of a
hierarchical principle that is still pretty strong,” he noted.^50