Economic and National Questions in Tito’s Yugoslavia
Weaknesses of the Tito Project
A Federal Yugoslavia
The victorious Partisans established the Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (changed to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, SFRY, in 1963). This recognised five ’nations’: Croats, Serbs, Slovenes, Macedonians, Montenegrins. Each ’nation’ had a Republic which could serve as a reference point for those members of that ’nation’ left outside of its boundaries. The settlement left 25% of Croats outside Croatia, 28% of Serbs outside Serbia and many Muslims and Albanians outside Bosnia and Kosova, for example. Thus Serbs outside Serbia or Croats outside Croatia could accept that the existence of the Serbian or Croatian Republic would guarantee their national rights.
The main exceptions to this were the Slav Muslims [1] who had no ’national’ Republic. Part of the reason for Tito creating a separate Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina was to provide a reference point for the Muslims, who were a large minority there. The Muslims of the Sandzak found themselves divided between Serbia and Montenegro.
Whilst it is not true that the federal structure adopted was some sort of plot by Tito to weaken the Serbian nation (as Serb nationalists claim) it is undoubtedly the case that it made the rise of Great Croatian and particularly Great Serbian nationalism much more difficult.
The other major losers were the Albanians who, despite Tito’s previous support for Albanian national rights were, in practice denied any such rights. The Albanians were classed as one of the ’nationalities’ of Yugoslavia, not one of the ’nations’. (For an account of the difference between ’nations’, ’nationalities’ and ’national minorities’ in Yugoslavia see below). Although concessions were made to the Hungarian minority in Vojvodina the majority Albanian population of Kosova were only given limited autonomy within the Serbian Republic. This denial of national rights to the Albanians was partially because at the time the Yugoslav leaders were still committed to the idea of a Socialist Federation of the Balkans but also a capitulation to Serbian nationalists who endow Kosovo with a semi-mythical status in Serbian history. Djilas explains
"I considered, as did many others, that unification — with the truly voluntary agreement of the Albanian leaders — would not only be of direct value to Yugoslavia and Albania, but would also finally put an end to the traditional intolerance and conflict between the Serbs and the Albanians. Its particular importance, in my opinion, lay in the fact that it would make possible the amalgamation of our considerable and compact Albanian minority with Albania as a separate republic in the Yugoslav-Albanian federation. Any other solution to the problem of the Albanian national minority seemed impracticable to me, since the simple transfer of Yugoslav territory inhabited by Albanians would arouse violent opposition in the Yugoslav Communist Party itself." [2]
Whilst there is no reason to reject Djilas’s explanation as to why the CPY did not grant the Albanians the status of a ’nation’ this failure was, nevertheless, a clear violation of their national rights. There is certainly no excuse for the brutal suppression of the Albanian revolt that inevitably occurred.
It was by no means inevitably wrong to have ethnically mixed states, with some nationalities spread over one or more Republics. On the contrary, the idea of ’ethnically pure’ states is a reactionary abomination. Unfortunately the bureaucratic nature of the CPY and the lack of any real socialist democracy meant that the masses had little influence over the drawing of the borders between the Republics. And, precisely because there was (and is) no easy answer to the complex national problems posed in such an ethnically heterogeneous area as Yugoslavia (and the Balkans as a whole) then the only way a satisfactory solution could be found was through the greatest possible participation of the masses. Failure to do this stored up problems that could be exploited by nationalist forces.
Only A Partial Break From Stalinism
Because the federal structure did allow some real autonomy — albeit heavily bureaucratised — the only way to hold everything together was through the one force that existed at a federal level — the CPY itself. Thus, despite his partial breaks with Stalinism in order to carry out what was undoubtedly a real, popular revolution Tito remained committed to a key aspect of Stalinist ideology — the "leading role of the party" within a single party state.
This "leading role of the party" affected all areas of Yugoslav social and political life, including during the war of national liberation and the revolution. Thus whilst the Partisan army was a genuinely popular army it was under the control of the Central Committee of the CPY. Similar considerations apply to the AVNOJ where the vast majority of delegates were CPY members.
And although the Republican Communist parties also had some degree of autonomy — including the right to exist as separate parties with their own leadership — they too were subordinated to the control of the Federal CPY. Hence there was a constant tension between all those bodies which nominally (and, to some extent, in reality) had decision making powers and the CPY, which attempted to hold the whole structure together.
This absence of any real decision making power for the masses, the single party, the lack of the right to tendencies and factions inside the party — in other words the absence of socialist democracy — were to prove decisive in the future break-up of Yugoslavia. Denied the possibility of creating alternatives to the CPY on a federal level the masses turned to the only option open to them: nationalist parties.
The Consequences Of The Break With Stalin
From 1945 until 1948 Tito remained a loyal ally of the Soviet Union. He described himself as a Stalinist. The 1946 Constitution was modelled on that of Stalin’s 1936 Constitution for the Soviet Union. Economic policies too were based on the Stalinist model with heavily centralised planning, except in agriculture. [3] Tito was seen as second only to Stalin — both by the world Stalinist movement and by imperialist governments. Large numbers of volunteers, inspired by the Yugoslav revolution, came from around the world to help rebuild the shattered country. Thus the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the Cominform in 1948 caused enormous shock waves not only inside Yugoslavia but throughout the Communist Parties of the world.
The ostensible reasons given were "nationalism" and a "pro-capitalist orientation". In reality Stalin objected to the unwillingness of the CPY to give Moscow control over the Yugoslav economy and Tito’s continued espousal of a Balkan Federation. The proposal for a Federation was supported, to varying degrees, by the ruling CPs in Albania and Bulgaria as well as by the Greek CP until its final defeat in the civil war. Such a Federation would have posed as a rival pole of attraction to Moscow and therefore had to be prevented.
Tito, however, had had to assert his independence from Stalin in order to make the revolution. The Yugoslavs refused to back down and maintained their stance, whilst carrying out purges of ’Cominform agents’ in Yugoslavia. (Whilst there undoubtedly were real Cominform agents in Yugoslavia the purges were often indiscriminate).
Workers Self-Management And The Turn To The Market
The expulsion from the Cominform had important consequences for the future development of Yugoslavia. Firstly Tito developed an independent foreign policy, to be concretised at a later date in the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement. However, in 1950 this led to the Yugoslavs wrongly supporting the United Nations aggression against North Korea, thus confirming — for Stalin — his claim that "the Tito clique never had anything in common with socialism or democracy". Secondly, again confirming Stalin’s self-fulfilling prophecies, the CPY turned towards imperialism for economic aid. Thirdly, partly as a result of Djilas’ attempts to come to terms with the expulsion by analysing the bureaucratic degeneration of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [4] and partly, probably by accident, Djilas and Kardelj developed the policy of self-management. The way in which self-management was applied in a one party state increasingly orientated towards the market were also to have important consequences for the future of the Yugoslav Federation.
The period up to the 7th Congress in 1958 saw much debate about whether or not a multi-party system could exist in a workers’ state — even though the CPY leadership answered in the negative there was a real discussion, unheard of anywhere else in Eastern Europe. The decision to change the party’s name to the League of Communists of Yugoslavia at the 6th Congress in 1952 is a reflection of the much looser nature of the Yugoslav party. (For simplicity I have continued to use the initials CPY throughout).
Moreover, the 7th Congress adopted the position that the self-management system should be the norm for all workers’ states. Despite the limitations of the "self-management system" practised in Yugoslavia this position was a step forward in relation to the views of every other Communist Party.
However, whilst the concept of the role and nature of the party embodied in the change of name and the promotion of the policy of self-management were, in some ways, a step forward, they also contained potentially enormous dangers. In reality, because there was no real socialist democracy, self-management and the concept of a League of Communists meant that the only arenas open for political discussions — even within the party — were in the structures of the Republics. Thus, rather than reducing the growth of nationalism, they tended to encourage it.
Economic Crises
Although there had been a marked increase in the standard of living of the peoples of Yugoslavia from the revolution — despite the Cominform blockade — the economy went into recession in the early 1960s. Moreover, the effects of the previous economic policies had been to increase the wealth of the richer northern Republics at the expense of the south. This was despite massive investment in the poorer Republics and Kosova. Investment in these regions was primarily in heavy, basic industry. There was some rationale to this. Kosova is rich in minerals with the Trepca mines alone producing 25 percent of Europe’s lead and 13 percent of Europe’s zinc. It also has important coal deposits. Bosnia-Hercegovina too has large reserves of coal, iron ore, timber and potential sources of hydro-electric power. The effect, however, was to increase the wealth of the richer Republics and Vojvodina by supplying them with raw materials for their much more profitable light industries. Moreover, because investment decisions were sometimes made on political rather than economic bases — in order to satisfy local bureaucrats — this led to the duplication of industries and, often, inefficiency. Thus the shift of steel production from Slovenia to Bosnia made it cheaper to import steel rather than produce it in Yugoslavia. As a result neither the relatively rich Republics of Croatia and Slovenia (and to some extent Vojvodina — the major agricultural region of Yugoslavia — and the Belgrade region of Serbia), nor the poorer Republics were satisfied.
The solution was a further turn to the market and the key criterion became profitability. This was accompanied by the transfer of considerable responsibility for administration of the economy from the federal government to the Republics who were expected to be self-supporting. In addition the banks and economic enterprises also took on a more important role at Republican level. There were marked increases in the price of raw materials, agricultural goods and other commodities and services. The federally controlled General Investment Fund was abolished. Thus the 1965 reforms resulted in a greater role for the Republics and the Republican controlled enterprises at the expense of the Federal government and the Belgrade banking monopoly. [5]
The tensions between the different Republics were held in check — with brief exceptions such as the ’Croat Spring of 1971’ — so long as the CPY was able to hold everything together. In turn the CPY was able to retain its "leading role" as long as it was able to keep the economy relatively stable.
However, many of the measures taken to keep the economy stable also contained dangerous centrifugal tendencies, particularly within the framework of the increasing reliance on market forces pursued by the CPY from the mid-1960s.
For example, whilst the ’workers’ self-management` allowed from the early days of the Tito regime was very limited and subject, ultimately, to party control it was, nevertheless jealously guarded by the Yugoslav working class who fought every attempt to abolish or restrict it.
However, once the logic of the market came to exert its influence then "workers’ self-management" developed into competition between different factories, different groups of workers and — in the 1980s — helped fuel the national antagonisms that were to result in the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Self-management within the framework of the market and without socialist democracy will always be impossible. In Yugoslavia, the deformed workers’ state most integrated into the market, it rapidly turned into a disaster.
The turn to the market in the 1960’s — which accompanied the purge of the hard-line Stalinist faction around Rankovic — nevertheless opened up the possibility of political challenge to the Tito regime. In 1968 a wave of protests by students, soon joined by workers, swept the country. Because of the historical legitimacy of the Tito regime — and particularly its independence from Moscow — Marxism retained an appeal to broad layers of Yugoslav society. Students and workers raised slogans such as "Down with the Red Bourgeoisie" and demanded real workers’ control. The Marxist journal Praxis had a wide circulation; Marxists from all over the world — including leading members of the Fourth International — participated in annual discussions on the island of Korcula. The French Trotskyist paper Rouge was widely available.
Tito dealt with this crisis in his usual fashion: a mixture of repression and concessions. A long campaign was carried out to remove the central figures involved with Praxis from their posts in the Philosophy department at Belgrade University — eventually achieved by using the self-management structures! Purges of the Republican parties were carried out. On the other hand Tito adopted some of the students’ and workers’ demands as his own, blaming local bureaucrats for all the problems! The final attempt by Tito to resolve the acute political, economic and national problems of Yugoslavia was the 1974 Constitution.
The 1974 Constitution
The 1974 Constitution marked a further step in the devolution of decision making to both the Republics and the enterprises through a broadening of "workers’ self-management". Republics and the two Autonomous Provinces had the right to enter into negotiations and make agreements with foreign enterprises. Wages were also raised to head off the increasing working class discontent. Above all the 1974 Constitution granted Kosovo the status of an Autonomous Province within Serbia (on a par with Vojvodina). Whilst this fell short of full Republican status the Albanians were clearly the biggest beneficiaries from the new constitution. Albanian became an official language (in practice the main language in civil affairs); an Albanian university was opened; Kosovo was entitled to its own flag (the flag of Albania), police force etc; the civil apparatus became rapidly Albanianised. These were real gains for the Albanian population, not merely sops. Most importantly Kosovo was able to participate — along with Vojvodina — on an equal basis with the 6 Republics in the 8-person Presidency set up to replace Tito on his death. [This collective presidency was also a way to resolve the difficulties of replacing the ageing Tito, around whom there was an undoubted "cult of the personality" and the lack of any "successor" with the same credibility on an all-Yugoslav scale].
However, the 1974 Constitution was itself fraught with dangers. Firstly it gave the Army a much greater role in both state and party activities. This was to prove decisive for the centralising project of Slobodan Milosevic. At an economic and political level the proposed solutions stoked up further problems — in particular massive discrepancies in wealth between Slovenia and Croatia (with living standards nearing those of, say, Austria) and the wide-scale poverty of Kosova and Macedonia. Unemployment was high in many regions (over 1 million throughout Yugoslavia) and a further million Yugoslavs found work abroad.
The whole Titoist project for dealing with the still unresolved problems was to engage in delicate balancing acts in order to attempt to defuse nationalist tensions. Thus the 1974 Constitution made significant concessions to Croat, Slovene and Albanian nationalist sentiments by granting even greater devolved powers to the republics. Indeed, it tended towards the creation of a confederation. On the other hand, for example, Serbs in Croatia were given a much greater proportion of leading positions in the Party and Republican institutions than their numbers in the population of Croatia would warrant. This was, at least partly, a way of keeping Croat nationalism in check.
Moreover, the economy was kept going by more and more loans from the IMF. It is no accident that the break-up of Yugoslavia began in the early 1980s. Capitalism was heading for slump and the international bankers were becoming concerned about their ability to get back the money they had loaned — Mexico, Brazil and a whole host of countries were on the verge of bankruptcy. Once the IMF began to demand repayments then the Yugoslav economy was heading for catastrophe.
Notes
[1] The Slav Muslims were finally recognised as one of the constituent ’nations’ of Yugoslavia in the 1960s.
[2] Quoted in B. Magas, Destruction of Yugoslavia, Note 28, p44. Similar considerations informed the compromise on the division of Macedonia, Tito believing that a Socialist Federation would allow the creation of a Macedonian state uniting Macedonians in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Greece.
[3] The maintenance of private agriculture was one of the reasons cited by Stalin for the "pro-capitalist" nature of the Tito regime in 1948. Tito’s response, to collectivise agriculture, did not prevent the expulsion of the Yugoslavs from the Cominform.
[4] It was perfectly acceptable for Djilas to criticise the bureaucratic degeneration of the CPSU. However, when in 1954 he began to apply similar criteria to the CPY itself he was expelled and subsequently jailed.
[5] For a much more detailed account of the economic debates during the 1960s see S. Ramet, op cit.