before American embassies, after which the movement expanded and strengthened to a maximum as domestic issues come to be the center of attention. That was the case in London, Paris, Berlin, Beograd, not to mention numerous other cities.
In December of 1966, on the occasion of demonstrations by Bel-grade students against American aggression in Vietnam, battles arosc between police and students, and at that time the police invaded the University. For our country, this was a meaningful event, and an im-portant indication because up to that time existing organizations re-gularly succeeded in directing the activites of all strata of the people, in the sense of either active or silent approval in support of whatever foreign policy issue was important at the time. To what extent it was recognised that alł ąuestions relating to foreign events lie exclusively in the domaine of State administration, can be seen by the instance, earlier in the year, when the Ljubljana periodical »Tribune« was verv severely attacked because it supported RusselFs anti-war court. The explanation of the attack maintained that the periodical had no right to interfere in political matters. From this it should not be con-strued that the political bodies were supporting the aggressor. They merely appraised that at the given moment an assault on the American Embassy in the center of Belgrade would be inopportune, by which they came into direct conflict with the attitude of a great member of students. With this they brought upon themselves a good deal of the revolt and criticism which was well expressed in the slogan: »We do not want American wheat«. In that way protest against foreign aggression grows into criticism of domestic politics. A careful analysis would perhaps show that the opportunism of political bodies as re-gards the question of external politics was closely related with intern-al insecurity and weakness. This is demonstrated by the direction in which student activism evolved after these demonstrations. The great-est importance is given to questions of social inequality and privilege. The newspapers »Student« and »Susreti« carried articles concerning the grave economic conditions of the Belgrade students. The criticism did not revolve solely around student conditions, but encompassed a much broader area. In that regard an important document is the open letter of »Student« sent to the City Assembly of Belgrade, which was in issue fourteen, dated June 16, 1968. In that letter it is very sharply and argumentatively diclosed regarding housing politics, as how the bureaucracy distributes appartments and how the workers are com-pletely neglectcd. Aside from this there are other writings of a similar theme in which rational argumentation is used rather than emotional appeal. The press and other means of communication reacted in a brutal and tactless way by trying to associate this criticism and the student movement with groups of »emotionally immature individuals« who question the results of our revolution, which in the resulting situ-ation could not help but inflame the situation. The need to immediate-ly quell resistance at any cost makes for not understanding the situation, so that the measures of pacification boomerang. Such was the case, as was quickly demonstrated, that the question did not revolve around »groups of emotionally immature individuals«, rather, it con-
427