Living with Communism in Yugoslavia:  Times of Control

 As Rade races to get in line for the rollercoaster at Six Flags, you can’t help but wonder how old this man really is.  At 54 years old, soon to be 55, he rides all the roller coasters at Six Flags; he goes golfing, snowboarding, wakeboarding, and is always up to try new things.  He is a devoted father, uncle, and caring friend to many in his life.  His voice is warm and comforting – though it’s hard to understand at times due to his accent.  Born in Yugoslavia, though Rade is only 54, he has led a life of hard work and determination to succeed both in his home country – where rights are limited – and in the United States – where he came to find a better life.  .”Oh boy, did I struggle kiddo; You don’t know how lucky you have it.  I remember it like yesterday …”

I was born in Yugoslavia in 1951 which is spilt in many different countries, you call it Serbia now.  The town is called Pribojska Banja which is in the south part of Serbia.  It’s a very mountainous area, its cold – a lotta snow.  It’s a farm land, it’s a very poor neighbor hood.  As a child, you know, you worked with parents.  You worked on a farm, help out with the animals – ‘cause everybody have a small animals and stuff – and after that you would go to school. 

Education, it was so good.   Everybody was striving, everybody wanted to learn.   We was craving to go to school.  We did not have too much opportunity on the farm and land so we get a good education to go outside, you know to go to the city.

Yugoslavia at that time was communist.  Communism in a sense has many good things.  Like during communism, the religion was taken out so the people felt that they were all equal.  After communism died, the religion came in and we started having big wars and big fights, a lotta killing.  So in one way with communism, and everybody believing in communism, it was peaceful – or it looks peaceful.

If you are raised in a strict country and you are taught about communism, you don’t know anything else.  You don’t know nothing different.  You think that it’s the greatest thing, you think that’s the right way to do it, but when you travel and when you see different things then you see a lotta wrong things happening.  People who travel and see different things will say “No, no that’s not true” or something and people will get aggravated and say “Oh you’re getting too much westernized”.  That’s what it was for me when I was raised and stuff, I thought it was the greatest thing because the way it was, everybody had opportunities, everybody had a chance to do whatever they can to succeed in life.  In reality, it was just like a façade, you know, it wasn’t really true.

In the country, you can travel anytime you wanted, anywhere, anyplace.  But when you go from town to town or city to city, you have to have your driver’s license and something like a passport.  You have to fill out papers at the hotel and when you fill up the papers, that goes straight to the police and they know exactly where you are moving.  It was like a must, you have to fill it out every place you went.  If you go internationally, you could go to another communist country and get a visa but Western countries, it was only special people, special things.  It was not easy.

Tito was a dictator, but even as dictator in Yugoslavia, he prospered pretty good.  He was able to get close to Russia and other Eastern countries, and he was able to have Western friends like the United States and stuff.  So we was like in between, and in that part I think he did okay.  Otherwise, all these problems we are having right now with the Balkons, I think he made a lotta bad calls during his times.  Problems were never solved, he messed the borders up and that is the reason we have a war right now.

 They used to say you were free but in reality, you were not.  Many people who used to express their opinions to the government would go to jail and disappear.  A lotta people, my friends, they used to complain and they used to go to jail.  You could not say nothing bad aginst the government.  You cannot say nothing bad against communism or Tito or anybody.  If you spoke something about the government or something then sooner or later, you or your family will get in trouble.  They will not be able to get the right jobs; you will not be able to get opportunities or an education.  They will be out of favor.

 There was a lotta comtrol of the media, there was control of the press.  When the newspapers were controlled, I mean even if you knew something is wrong, if you did something about it, that’s it, you lose the job.  You might go to jail, so people even though they knew it was wrong, they just followed what they were told to print.  The printers lie.  I never heard of any secret newspapers, but there was probably was.  I was never involved.  What I heard was that there was a “Voice of America”, it was a night program.  We heard a lotta different points of views than we heard from our government here.  So people at night, like eight or ten o’ clock, they would have their radios turned to that station and they would listen and learn about different views.

Freedom was controlled like control of the mind, the government would let them know what to know.  They would manipulate the programs to make them look good to the people, like they are the greatest leaders and stuff.  If something happened that was wrong or bad, they will not show it.  They will just show the positive things.  You know it’s like brainwashing.

 As for the police system, I don’t know that that kind of thing was honest.  It was like if I know you, if you do something wrong, I would try to protect you.  I’ve never been to court, but I’m sure there was a lotta favoritism if you have a family or somebody you know or somebody who is very powerful could influence the decision of the court.

At the time, everybody was required to vote.  So it’s almost like if you don’t vote, you will get in trouble.  Even if it was only one spot, you have to vote for one person, even if you disagree with the person.  You will get in trouble if you did not vote because when you vote you give your address and everything so they will come back and question you, “Why didn’t you vote” or “Why did you vote this way”.  So people used to vote for the system and that’s the reason they can say 98% of the people believe in communism which in reality is not true, it only looks true because people do not want to get in trouble.

People were allowed to have their own businesses but you could only have three or four people working for you, that’s it, you couldn’t have anymore because they didn’t want big businesses or big operations.  They used to give small businesses to people just to you know, keep them quiet and happy. 

When I was there, they would need ten people to make something but they will hire one hundred people.  They do not want people to be unemployed, so unemployment looks good at the time, but it was uh very false.  Production was bad and it was like if you wanted to work, you work, if you don’t wanna work, it was very hard for them to fire you.  It was like “Bah, they cannot do nothing to me”.  It was really bad.  But if you were unemployed, you did get help from the government.  That’s what communism did; it took care of unemployed people, and gave them a chance.

As for the Cold War, I think Yugoslavia benefited from the Cold War.  There was a lotta influence from Russia because they was trying to keep us in the Eastern block and there was a lotta help from the Western countries because they tried to keep us on their side.  Yugoslavia really prospered that way.  There was a joke in Yugoslavia saying “The brain is in Russia, but the stomach is in the Unites States”.

I guess comparing to other communist countries, we wasn’t that bad.  But if you look at the Western countries, we were very behind.  I remember a lotta people would come from Russia, Poland, or Slovakia and vacation in our country and try to escape from our country to go to Austria, you know runaway.  So we was like an escape gate because we was more liberal than other countries. 

Interviewed By: Mindy Robins