I'm doubly grateful for Mr. Roeser's letter: first, because he sheds light on a little-known piece of history; second, because he caught me in an over-simplification which might cause confusion.

Still, he amplifies those confusions -- and introduces a few of his own. Let's see what we can clear up.

During World War #2--in response to invasion by fascist troops from Bulgaria, Italy, Hungary, and Germany--Yugoslavians rose and created a mass Resistance movement (referred to as the Partisans). The central feature of the Partisans were their composition: almost entirely a bottom-up movement of workers and peasants, they encompassed fighters of all ethnic groups on the basis of equality and mutual dignity. (By contrast, the top-down imperialist army of the United States strictly segregated Black soldiers.)

This is a fact of immense importance today, not just historically, because the axis of U.S./NATO war propaganda is the "centuries-old hatreds" of "tribally-minded" Balkan barbarians.

But in underlining this fact, I glided over a serious complication: the leadership of the Partisan movement was in the hands of the Moscow-trained Stalinists of the Yugoslavian Communist Party especially those of Marshall Tito (who, by the way Mr. Roeser, was a war hero but is not "my" war hero.)

I slide over this partly because making the Stalinist character of Partisan leadership a central focus was a big mistake at the time -- and still is today. (Imagine how the Nazis must have tried to keep attention on it.) There were some Trotskyists, for instance, who dismissed the entire Yugoslavian revolution because [they oh-so-wisely knew] nothing led by Stalinists could ever be revolutionary.)

Theory be damned, the facts were that Yugoslavian workers and peasants rose against fascist invaders (there were over three-quarter of a million armed Partisan fighters) and then overthrew their landlords and capitalists, compelling Tito to nationalize industry and the banks, and to conduct a thorough-going land reform.

So what if the leaders were Stalinists? They were forced to ride the revolutionary wave, even though Stalin himself explicitly forbade socialist measures in Yugoslavia.

Taken all together, what common Yugoslavs achieved in the face of merciless Nazi occupation, saddled by a pro-capitalist Stalinist leadership--and despite (yes) centuries of inter-ethnic division--stands as one of the great revolutionary accomplishments of the 20th century.

Whether the revolution took a magnanimous view toward the Swabians I'm afraid I'm not well-informed enough to know. But I'm quite willing to believe Mr. Roeser's description of wholesale ethnic cleansing and gross violations of human rights.

On the other hand, I'm not aware of Swabian participation in the Partisan movement, that is, of significant Swabian opposition to the Nazis. (They were a Germanic people.) I hope Mr. Roeser will correct me if I'm wrong.

For now, he casts the Swabians as "apolitical peasants"-- but I wonder whether "apolitical" cuts it in the face of Nazism. If your neighbors do nothing while someone burned down your house with your children in it, would you be inclined to call them simple neutrals? It's hard sitting in a warm house in Chicago to harshly judge the reactions of those who endured the horrors of Nazism.

But even if 99% of Swabians either cheered the Nazis or kept silent, there's still is no excuse for brutalizing 100% of them.

Justice would demand separating the active criminals from the passive ones--and embracing those who stood up.

But "ethnic cleansing" of the Swabians (assuming without prejudice that Mr. Roeser's description is accurate) smacks of Stalinism, not the (gag) "glorious socialism" of Yugoslavian workers and peasants. The Stalinists were infamous practitioners of national oppression and even "ethnic cleansing" all through the thirties and forties ... and of course up through today, from Chechnya to Bosnia and Croatia.

Ethnic discrimination (you can call it "nationalist chauvinism" or even "racism" if you like) is a hallmark of Stalinism. It's --as in every other matter--the opposite of Bolshevism [the Communist party led by Lenin], which embraced affirmative action and national self-determination. There ain't no such thing as the "terror of socialism" -- but there sure is the terror of Stalinism. As Fidel put it "socialism without democracy leads to something worse than capitalism."

That's Mr. Roeser's biggest mistake: he uses the category "socialism" to include both revolutionaries and [Stalinist] counter-revolutionaries, to include both workers and vicious capitalist wannabes.

It is true that, however great their accomplishments, Yugoslavian workers and peasants weren"t able--thanks to enormous domestic and international obstacles-- to do what the Cubans did: build an independent revolutionary movement powerful enough to bypass the Stalinists and even compel some of them into aiding the revolution.

And so the Stalinist Tito opened the door to the Western "investors," a move which--along with undemocratic practices--led to the financial destabilization and the fomenting of ethnic divisions detailed in my article. Today our brothers and sisters in Yugoslavia--and we--are paying the price for that.

But now we've all got one advantage: it's easier to see that U.S. imperialism and the Stalinists are in partnership. Both Clinton and Milosevic oppose independence for Kosovo, both wage unspeakable war against the workers and peasants of Yugoslavia.

Yes, we need to learn our history.

We also badly need to seize today's events and write a new future.

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