Yugoslavia: Limits of Freedom

President Tito in a mellow mood once claimed that anybody seeking a fuller measure of democracy from him was "pushing on an open door." Then along came a young unemployed university teacher to try the door, daring to challenge Tito publicly. It slammed behind him, and last week Mihajlo Mihajlov, 32, was in jail in Zadar, an Adriatic seaside resort.

Mihajlov is the rebellious writer who barely escaped a nine-month jail sentence last year for a series of articles he wrote on Russia. This time his crime was to proclaim that he and half a dozen friends planned to publish a magazine with the frank intent of opposing the government. Its name would be Slobodni Glas (Free Voice) and it would seek to replace one-party rule with a brand of democratic socialism first bruited by Partisan Hero Milovan Djilas, once Yugoslavia's top Communist theoretician but currently a prisoner for his corrosive anti-Marxist critiques.

When the cops hauled Mihajlov away last week, his friends said that they would carry on without him. Their defiance would have earned a bullet 20 years ago in Tito's dictatorial heyday. Tito has mellowed since then, but he still must draw the line somewhere. His plight is that of all post-Stalin Communists: how to satisfy a people's craving for liberty and not be swept away by the rush toward freedom.