Milosevic by Adam LeBor Read Free Book Online Page B

executive officer. As party secretary Popov was responsible for implementing the instructions issued by the Communist hierarchy, and keeping things on the right political track. Milosevic’s job was to sort out the day–to–day business of organising the administration. Although Popov was theoretically his superior, Milosevic controlled the minutiae of organisation. He kept records of who attended party meetings, processed applications for membership and controlled the flow of endless paperwork that Communist bureaucracy generates. Used correctly, the job of organisational secretary could be turned into an immensely powerful position. Encouraged by Mira, Milosevic set about doing just that.
    By the early 1960s, the repression had eased off. Tito’s country was still a one–party state, to be sure, complete with secret police and a stultified bureaucracy, but compared to East Germany or Czechoslovakia there was considerable room for manoeuvre for those who wished to push the boundaries of freedom. Popov did. Milosevic did not. Popov and his colleagues organised controversial debates and theatre performances that tested the limits of Titoist tolerance. Amphitheatre number five of the Belgrade law faculty was soon a centre of Belgrade agit–prop. ‘Like many party activists at that time, I thought the party could be somewhere to do something about bringing culture to the wider public,’ said Popov. We were naïve, but we believed the party could help promote culture and intellectual values. We thought our basic job was to widen the education of both party members and ordinary students. We organised debates and theatre performances, and they were packed. Students came from all over Belgrade, not just from our university.’
    These were exciting times, with something of the air of post–1917 revolutionary Moscow, when Vladimir Mayakovsky had draped Moscow in red banners and brought theatre to the workers. ‘We staged performances in amphitheatre five, and then we asked the actors to stay. Then the audience, the actors and the directors all discussed the play andthe performance. We concentrated on ethical and political problems. For some of us, this was the most important thing we could do as party activists.’
    Not for Milosevic. The last thing the dutiful, pedantic junior apparatchik was interested in was radical theatre that inspired creativity and innovation. Instead of challenging evenings at amphitheatre five, he attended seminars on party organisation and the structure of the hierarchy. He soon became known as a ‘cyclist’, a term then current for a typical party functionary who bowed his head under authority, but pushed down hard on the pedals – those underneath them in the party hierarchy.
    Zivan Berisavljevic was another university friend of Borislav Milosevic. Berisavljevic, from the northern city of Novi Sad, later became Yugoslav ambassador to London. ‘When Slobodan was mentioned it was as Bora’s little brother. I knew him superficially then and hardly remember him from those days, he was too pale and marginal. But there is an African proverb, the higher the monkey climbs, the redder his arse gets. It means the more you climb up, the more you are observed and analysed.’ 7
    In later years Milosevic would be more observed and analysed than any other figure in Yugoslav history, apart perhaps from Tito. In some ways the young Milosevic resembled Stalin, a man initially – and how wrongly – categorised by his rivals as so unremarkable, he was dubbed the ‘grey blur’. Like Stalin, Milosevic initially preferred to operate behind the scenes. Both men spent much time studying and mastering the mechanism of the apparat – as the party structure was known – its cell structure, the party hierarchy, and the way the party ‘line’ was developed, as a prelude to eventually taking power.
    On a personal level, Milosevic and