crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
Rožman, who in 1945 moved abroad. He was sentenced together with a very heterogeneous group who
had nothing in common. Among them was SS General Erwin Rösener. The shadow of his guilt fell upon
the less guilty or innocent.
At the same time, at the end of the forties and the beginning of fifties, the Yugoslav leadership tried
to establish some kind of Catholic National Church on the model of the Orthodox Church. This Church
would be cut off from Vatican and far more dependent upon the Communist regime. Therefore, at the
beginning of fifties, diplomatic relations with the Vatican terminated.
The height of the persecution of the Church was in January 1952, when in Novo mesto the Bishop
of Ljubljana, Anton Vovk, was covered in petrol and burned alive. And before this he had suffered
numerous painful interrogations. That year, Christmas became Labour Day and no longer National Day.
Religion in schools was forbidden and the Theological Institute was expelled from the University.
At the beginning of the sixties there was a gradual warming of relations between the Catholic
Church and the Yugoslav or Slovene political leadership. The consequence was the reestablishment of
regular diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Yugoslavia. And with this, the former Yugoslavia
became the exception among the Communist countries. The Church here acted more freely, unlike
the position in other East European countries, but it could declare on social and political questions in
public. Believers were considered second-class citizens until 1990.
4.2.7. The specific features of the Yugoslav Communist model
Typical of Yugoslavia was the so-called Inform bureau dispute between the Yugoslav and Soviet
leaderships, as a matter of fact, between Tito and Stalin. This dispute at first aggravated Communist
violence: on the one hand, Yugoslavia sought to prove its correctness or orthodoxy and the devotion of
Party to SZ, with stronger collectivization, and on the other hand they started to settle with those who in
the dispute between Tito and Stalin took the latter’s side. But then Yugoslavia or Slovenia began to open
towards the West, because it had to get help from there, on account of the very bad economic situation.
At the same time, so-called National Communism appeared – Tito’s self-management, because, after the
dispute with Stalin, the Communist ideologues had to find some “philosophical” excuse for their policies.
Although this meant deviation from Stalinism, on the other hand, it retained all the characteristics of
Communist totalitarianism until its end, and even after it, with some definite consequences. After the
first wave of violence, when exemplary cases of judicial punishment and dismissals from employment
appeared only from time to time, the society or rather, the people grew accustomed to lives in new
circumstances. The pressure decreased at times, for example at the end of sixties, and in the seventies
increased again – the Leaden years, although at the beginning of the seventies, Yugoslav socialism
perhaps had a last chance to became more reliable. But then came the so-called “Tito letter”, and the
Party began to persecute liberals and technocrats. And soon occurred the old vocabulary about internal,
external enemies, hostile emigration and clericalism. Precisely in the seventies there appeared a general
social amnesia and with it, opportunism. This was the time of easy loans, higher living standards, open
borders and membership of the Party for peace and quiet. At the same time, individuals could seize the
opportunity to avoid demagogic campaigns in the press and imprisonment, to which were sentenced
some political dissidents. This period also saw the ascent of small-time careerists who took up important
positions after the destruction of the Liberal Party, together with the older and more severe Communist
forces.
On the other hand, in the seventies, the general denunciation of “socially harmful elements” was
considered a national virtue, as well as those articles which referred to criminal offences against the
social regime according to the penal code. Most notorious was article 133, on “hostile propaganda”,
which stated that a citizen could insult the country orally, in writing or with signs. Until the end of the
seventies, the country could announce some of its declarative principles as the truth. Precisely in this
decade it gave the impression that its economic model had begun to live and give people the opportunity
for greater prosperity. But the economic “success”, which was based on loans (in 1947 Yugoslav debt
amounted to $2.7bn, in 1975, $5 bn, and in 1980 $18bn), started to disappear after Tito’s death in 1980,
when foreign aid declined. The economy began to languish; there were shortages of goods, everyday
necessities and petrol. Strikes started and unemployment increased.
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