House Cleaning

A new story was making the rounds last week in Belgrade's taverns. It concerned a legendary gypsy named Branko, who was trying to get into the Communist Party. "Well," he was told, "if you join, you will have to put aside all thoughts of wine, women and song." Branko nodded gloomily. "Beyond that," the party man went on, "you might even be called upon to give your life if the party demands it." "Well, why not?" sighed Branko, signing the pledge. "Who in hell would want to keep a life like that anyway?"

Since the Titoist party conference in Zagreb in 1952, many another Yugoslav

Communist has found, like Branko, that life as a party member is not all slivovitz and skittles. The Zagreb congress officially decreed that henceforth, the prime mission of Yugoslavia's Communists was not to command but to persuade. In one swoop it sent down the drain the hopes of all those who had joined the party in search of prestige, power and patronage. Today a good Tito Communist is expected not only to tread the delicate ideological line between Russian Stalinism and Western capitalism, but to spend a good part of his time attending ward meetings, canvassing his neighbors like a Tammany heeler, doing his homework in Marxism and paying party dues that range up to 3% of his wages.

Because many Yugoslavs are either unable or unwilling to live up to the new austerity, the Tito party during the last 16 months has dropped some 70,000 comrades from its rolls as "no longer able to meet obligations relevant to party organization." The wholesale firings, described by party officials not as a "purge" but merely a "house cleaning," have reduced party membership by almost 10%.

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