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The Red rulers maintain that the people are now better off than before the war, and that every day in every way things are getting better & better. It may be true that a minority in the most backward areas of Montenegro and Macedonia are eating better than before, but the great majority of Yugoslavs have a slimmer and much less varied diet. This is partly because .the state distribution system is often inefficient, partly because the farmers do not want to grow or deliver certain foodstuffs at the low prices fixed by the government, and partly because Yugoslavia exports food in exchange for heavy machinery needed in her five-year industrialization program.
People eat according to the civic category in which they are fitted. Rewards do not come in the form of money, but as privileges from the state. A good ration card is one of the highest privileges. Best cards, of course, go to army officers, high party officials and "shock workers" (i.e., super-productive labor)—a privilege envied by lesser proletarians. Lower in the scale come heavy workers, office workers, and after them, housewives. Maximum monthly ration for a single male worker is 66 Ibs. of bread, 7 Ibs. corn meal, 3.3 Ibs. fats, 18.7 Ibs. meat, 4.4 Ibs. sugar, ½ lbs. coffee; minimum ration is 26 Ibs. of bread, no corn meal, 2.2 Ibs. fats, 4.4 Ibs. meat, 2.2 Ibs. sugar, 3 oz. coffee.
Despite the regime's claims, its own statistics show that the masses are worse fed than before the war. Prices of rationed basic foods are two, three or four times greater than prewar, whereas salaries have merely doubled. Outside the basic foods the price gap is even greater.
The central, revealing fact about the Yugoslav standard of living can be reduced to these everyday terms: one woolen dress for a seven-year-old girl, bought on ration, uses all the textile coupons in three months for an average family of three. One pair of bad shoes, bought off ration, costs an average worker his month's wage. The life of the masses has been reduced to a level of monotonous inadequacy, which never quite sinks to the starvation point.
If Democracy Were Possible—
The great mystery in a dictatorship is often the real attitude of the people toward their government. I asked 40 foreign observers what the Yugoslavs thought. They agreed that 95% or more of the nation prefer Tito and his regime to a Stalin stooge. But if there could be a free choice between Tito and a demo-catic regime, the great majority would choose democracy.
The dispossessed bourgeoisie and those who at all costs want their freedom back are supporting Tito vociferously against Stalin, hoping that a world war will ensue and that the victorious U.S. will then call free elections. These people tell a little joke about a Serb who wanted to commit suicide. He could not get a police permit for a gun. The druggist, his shelves bare, was out of poison. The Serb lacked textile coupons to buy a length of rope to hang himself. So he ran up to Tito's villa, shouting: