Report On Yugoslavia: A Search for Laughter

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home, and to the Communists of other countries, Tito insists that Yugoslavia is more Communist than Russia. For the Western democracies he insidiously and discreetly spreads the impression that Yugo slavia me gradually being liberalized. This was the line given me "confidentially" or "off the record" by almost every Communist official with whom I talked.

More & more people fall for this line. While I was in Yugoslavia a score of British Labor M.P.s were being taken on a conducted tour of the country. Afterwards one of them told me: "We had complete freedom to go wherever we wanted, and we were all deeply impressed by what we saw ... I am convinced that Yugoslavia is moving in the direction of our Western democracies." And so forth. Such Titotalitarianism was uncomfortably remindful of those British Conservatives in the '305 who used to return full of enthusiasm from the Hitlerian Nürnberg rallies.

The plain truth is that Yugoslavia is a vicious, degrading Communist state. It has a new aristocracy—the party leaders with their Buicks in Dedinje; a new middle class of high officials, and a new proletariat which is poorer and bigger than the old. Certainly there has been much construction and some land has been reclaimed. But the price is a subhuman standard of truth living, an and infinite falsehood, a dreariness, social an system inability in to which the distinguish two worst between crimes are to worship God and to say no to the state.

Love & Laughter

The Western visitor finds relief in leaving Belgrade. The Ori ent Express, which had come from Stamboul and Sofia, crawled across the snowy Voivodina plain. In my first-class wagon-lit compartment, the washbasin was dirty. There was neither soap nor towel. The bed pillows were grubby. The Serbian Pullman attendant grabbed my passport and exit permit and as good as told me that was all he had to do — from there on it was a mat ter of indifference to him whether I starved, sang or jumped out of the window. In fact, I munched salami between gross layers of grey bread — bought in Belgrade for $15. No one answered the buzzer. There is no sense of service in a Communist state, because there exists no satisfaction in a job well done for the job's sake. There cannot be self-respect when only the state is respected.

Breakfast (after five police and customs visits) and the day light of a free country came in Venice. An Italian attendant cleaned up my compartment, clucked disapprovingly over its shortcomings. The dining-car tables were covered with gleaming napery. Opposite me, two fat Italians argued heatedly about the pleasures and the perils of love letters.

Outside, on the platform, a girl was actually laughing.