Milovan Djilas Research Articles

Intelligentsia Socialism and the “Workers' Revolution”: The Views of J. W. Machajski

The notion that the leadership of industrial society must eventually be ceded to an educated elite of technical and administrative experts is an important theme in the social thought of the last two centuries. It can be found as early as Saint-Simon's plans for the Système Industriel. As a criticism of the supposedly anti-proletarian aspects of Socialism it is commonly thought to have originated with James Burnham's idea of a “managerial revolution” and appeared later with Milovan Djilas's “new class”. Actually the criticism of “State Socialism” in general, and of Marxism in particular, for an alleged tropism toward managerialism was also a weapon in the arsenal of nineteenth century anarchism. An integral part of Bakunin's criticism of Marx, whom he called the “Bismarck of Socialism”, was the contention that Marxism in power would organize society “under the direct command of state engineers who will constitute a new privileged scientific-political class”. This thesis has had its most consistent and rigorous formulation in the work of Jan Waclaw Machajski, a Polish-Russian revolutionary who based his theory on the conviction that Socialism was not the ideology of the proletariat but of what he called the “intellectual workers”, the new middle class of white collar employees generated by industrial capitalism. The most important antagonism in modern society, thought Machajski, was that between the educated – to whom he gave the inclusive term “bourgeois society” – and the uneducated manual laborers. He argued that a portion of educated society, the Socialist intelligentsia with Marxists in the forefront, was attempting to gain for itself a privileged position in capitalist society by turning the labor movement away from direct action for higher wages and toward a struggle for parliamentary power which could only benefit the intellectual workers.

Freedom of Expression in Yugoslav Arts

(1969). Freedom of Expression in Yugoslav Arts. Canadian Slavonic Papers: Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 483-496.

Memories of Stalin - Milovan Djilas: Conversations with Stalin. Translated from the Serbo-Croat by Michael B. Petrovich. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World Co., 1962. Pp. 213, $3.95.)

Memories of Stalin - Milovan Djilas: Conversations with Stalin. Translated from the Serbo-Croat by Michael B. Petrovich. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World Co., 1962. Pp. 213, $3.95.)

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this articleCrusade, Commerce and Culture. By Aziz S. Atiya.The Crusade: Historiography and Bibliography. By Aziz S. Atiya.Irish Federalism in the 1870's: A Study in Conservative Nationalism. By Lawrence McCaffrey.A Short IZistory of Italy: From Classical Times to the Present Day. Edited by H. Hearder and D. P. Waley.Clerc, Garibaldien Prddicant des Deux Mandes ‐Alessandzo Gavazzi (1809‐1889). By Robert Sylvain.Paul de Lagarde, 1827‐1891: A Study of Radical Conservatism in Germany. By Robert W. Lougee.Austrian National Socialism before 1918. By Andrew G. WhitesideConversations with Stalin. By Milovan Djilas. Translated from the Serbo‐ Croat by Michael B. Petrovich.Puritans and Yankees: The Winthrop Dynasty of New England, 1630‐1717. By Richard S. Dunn.Saints and Sectaries: Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian Contrmrsy in the Mussachusetts Bay Colony. By Emery Battis.The South Carolina Regulators. By Richard Maxwell Brown.Joseph Warren, Physician, Politician, Patriot. By John Cary.Green Mount: A Virginia Plantation Family during the Civil War, Being The Journal of Benjamin Robert Fleet and Letters of Hb Family. Edited by Betsy Fleet and John D. P. FullerBiography of a Businessman: Henry W. Sage, 1814‐1897. By Anita Shafer Goodstein.Agrarian Movement in Illinois, 1880‐1896. By Roy V. Scott.Shelby M. Cullom: Prairie State Republican. By James W. Neilson.

Conversations with Stalin

This is a mesmerising, chilling close-up portrayal of Stalin from Milovan Djilas, a Communist insider - with an introduction from Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag and Iron Curtain. This extraordinarily vivid and unnerving book three meetings held with Stalin during and after the Second World War. Djilas brilliantly describes the dictator in his lair - cunning, cruel, enormously talented. Few books give as clear a sense of what made Stalin such a compelling figure and how he was able to hypnotise and terrify those around him. Djilas also describes the key members of Stalin's court: Beria, Malenkov, Zhukov, Molotov and Khruschchev. The result is a gripping account of the ruler at the height of his fame and power.

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:MORE ON RACE RELATIONS: An Essay on Racial Tension, by Philip Mason.Christianity and Race, by Philip MasonChurch and Race in South Africa, ed. by David M. PatonThe Kingdom Beyond Caste, by Liston PopeBigger than Little Rock, by Robert R. BrownCOMMUNISM: REFUTATION OR ENCOUNTER: A Guide to Communist Jargon, by R. N. Carew HuntHandbuch des Weltkommunismus, edited by Joseph M. Bochenski and Gerhart NiemeyerThe New Class. An Analysis of the Communist System, by Milovan Djilas.Marxismusstudien — Zweite Folge, edited by Iring FletcherMarx Meets Christ, by Frank Wilson PriceMarxisme et Christianisme, by Albert GaillardThe Christian Approach to the Communist, by Edward RogersThe Communist Rule in Kerala and Christian ResponsibilityCHRISTIAN WITNESS AMONG STUDENTS: Christian Obedience in the University, by J. Davis McCaugheyWHAT MAN CAN DO TO HIS FELLOW‐MEN: Heimführen werd ich euch von überall her. Aufzeichnungen am Rande des Zeitgeschehens, by G. MetzlerA PORTRAIT OF CALVIN: Portrait de Calvin, by Albert PicotA CATHOLIC WITH A LOWER‐CASE “C”: The Kingdom of Christ, by Frederick Denison MauriceTheological Essays, by Frederick Denison MauriceBEGINNINGS OF THE RED CROSS: L'Homme et la Guerre

The Meaning of the Djilas Affair

The fall of Milovan Djilas from the ranks of Yugoslavia's government leaders in January called forth extensive comment in the press of the United States and Western Europe. Of the reports and interpretations that have come to our attention, many have been tendentious and obviously unreliable. Others have been relatively unenlightening. An outstanding exception in both respects, in our judgment, is the following article by Gilles Martinet, one of the editors of the independent left-wing French magazine, L'Observateur, Martinet has followed developments in Yugoslavia closely since the 1948 break between the Tito regime and the Cominform and has made several visits to the country to gather first-hand material.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Yugoslav-Soviet Relations

Journal Article Yugoslav-Soviet Relations Get access H.E. Milovan Djilas H.E. Milovan Djilas Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 27, Issue 2, April 1951, Pages 167–175, https://doi.org/10.2307/2606140 Published: 01 April 1951