By: Dr Stane Granda
The definition of being conservative or liberal is likely to be largely personal. It is also a response to the challenges of time and environment. The development of capitalism after the industrial revolution triggered the emergence of a mass working class, whose position was more difficult than that of the peasants, and led to the emergence of socialism, which took the commitment to social justice from the Christian conservatives, and the political mentality from the liberals. Following them, it adopted anti-religious views.
We are not ashamed of the history of Slovenian socialism. Not even in terms of judgment from the standpoint of self-Slovenian or Yugoslavian scepticism. All the more so because it was called the Yugoslav Social Democratic Party. Neither liberals nor clerics have so many reservations about Yugoslavia. It is not just about I. Cankar and Eng. A. Štebij, it is also about some others who, like the concept of self-Slovenian, were pushed out of Sloveneness.
The October Revolution shattered the Slovenian socialists. Many intellectuals turned into communists because of political fashion, pan-Slavism, and something else, including social idealism. Typical is Angela Vode, who ended her public life as a communist prisoner precisely because of her sincere commitment to a social issue. She did not take the path like a number of her intellectual comrades, who became salon communists or ideological bloodthirsty men like Kidrič, Bebler, Pirjevec… There is even a former theologian (Brilej) among them. Despite a number of excellent individuals, perhaps precisely because of them, the Slovenian social democrats did not recover politically after the split. Despite their commitment to workers’ rights, they remained loyal to parliamentary democracy. The communists only abused the labour issue to gain followers whose affiliation resembled membership in some religious sects. They demanded complete physical and intellectual submission. “It is better to be in the party and be wrong with it than to be out of it and be smart,” was the underlying norm. They were joined by many members of the intellectual and working-class lumpenproletariat and half-educated people of the Kardelj type. Since the centre of communism in Moscow “watered” their state leaders with gold, an inexorable fight for leading positions broke out within the communists. With accusations of revisionism, they blackmailed Stalin’s rivals and sent them to the killing fields. Tito is a classic example.
The Yugoslav communists successfully took over power with Soviet help. There was no political idea that they did not use to their advantage. In particular, resistance against the occupier and the desire for a better life were exploited. The foundations of the government were strengthened with mass killings, which required an inappropriately higher number of lives than the “national liberation” struggle. They ignored the rule of law and basic human rights. In the name of the workers who were their biggest victim. They ruled despotically and calculatingly. With a centralised party, they hindered “workers’ self-management” the most. The standard of workers, compared to that under capitalism, was relatively more and more lagging behind. At the end of European Communism, not a single worker raised their hands in its defence. However, many members of the former secret police and party apparatus, or people dependent on them, never came to terms with this.
The attempt by some communist “believers” in Slovenia to establish a new party after Kučan’s abuse of the communist idea for any kind of power, just because it is power, did not bear fruit. Some young educated and cultured people are trying to replace them, who, under the ideological leadership of the descendants of the highest Udba circles, are establishing a new Slovenian left. This is the only one that could bring down the “Kučan supporters”. Blue-eyed saw this and netted them. By joining Golob’s coalition, he brought them to an ideological, if not a physical, end.
Ministerialism, the entry into “bourgeois” governments, was the original disease of labour leaders. Communism accepted this as normal when it took power. By merging with the salon communists, their “mass” form is the left wing of the hawks, part of the “culturalists” and especially the opportunists, who are never missing anywhere, they “bourgeoisized”. Their distinguishing mark is always effective phrases of social demagoguery. That they only know this is proven by the Slovenian left, which not only joined the oligarch’s government, but enjoys the support and protection of the biggest predators of former social property. Therefore, it does not advocate cost or production prices of basic goods, but stock market prices. The fact is that the world does not lack either food or energy, but we are victims of politics and capital speculation.