YUGOSLAVIA is inexorably to war. Probably sooner than later, the drive by Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic for a 'Greater Serbia' will lead to a renewed attack on Slovenia and, especially, Croatia. What are the historical roots of this crisis? Socialist Outlook talked to MICHELE LEE about what lies behind the Serbian drive for domination. SO: When Tito's Communists came to power in 1945, how was the national question dealt with?
ML: The Communist approach to the national question was determined before and during the war-already by 1943 it was clear that the new Yugoslavia would by a federation based on national equality. words, on this issue the Communists followed Lenin. The old Yugos lavia had come into existence in 1918 through the joint efforts of ›olitical representatives of three ugoslav nation only Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs. The idea was that Yugoslavia would ensure their common freedom from foreign domination, while allowing their individual national unification. The Communists went further and talked ofnational self-determination as a universal right, which should thus be granted also to the Macedonian, Moslem and Montenegrin populations.
Hence the partisan war was a triple war - • for liberation from foreign invasion and fascism; for the overthrow of capitalism; and for the establishment of national states of the six South Slav nations, within the framework of the Yugoslav federation.
This in practice meant limiting the power of Serbia, which had dominated pre-war Yugoslavia. In the war, the Communists appealed directly to the Serb population, arguing that they had everything to gain by Yugoslavia becoming a state c equal nationalities. This polic was translated into the federal system. The borders of the partisan command-areas followed July 20, 1991 No. 6 heading In other the borders of present-day republics and provinces. should by said that the Albanian population wished from the start to be joined with Albania. After war there were plans to create a broader Balkan federation, within which there would be an Albanian federal unit. Once this plan had fallen through, the Yugoslav government had to solve the Albanian national question within Yugos lavia.
Despite this federal structure, for the first fifteen years or so political power remainer entralised. However, during the 1960s and 1970s, there was a shift of power to the republics and provinces, resulting in the adoption of a new constitution in 1974. This constitution was revolutionary in the sense that it elevated the two provinces Kosovo and Vojvodina to the status of full federal members. It is this arrangement of 1974 that Milosevic and co. destroyed, starting with its forced incorporation of Kosovo and Voj vodina into Serbia. SO: What is your assessment of Yugoslavia under Tito -was it Stalinist?
ML: Yes and no. The revoluRaising the Slovenian flag on the Austrian border tion which brought the Communists to was a genuine, popular revolution -communist rule in Yugoslavia (or Albania) was not imposed from outside, as in other countries of eastern Europe. But at the time of the revolution the working class was weak, amountinetto less that ten Pers cent of the total population. meant that, in a sense, the Communist Party made the revolution on its behalf. Moreover, the party's need to build a base among the peasantry influence also its political and cultural On the other hand, Tito himStalinised remained convinced that the revolutionary gains of 1941-5 could be preserved only by the party controlling all political and economic life. More generally, the authoritarian features of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (later League of Communists) were enhanced by the fact that the revolution took place in war-time conditions. SO: What lay behind the split between Moscow and Belgrade during the late ML: Simply that Stalin wanted to control the Yugoslav party. He wanted the same relationship with Yugoslavia, one of total subordination, which existed with other East European countries. This was a matter of life and death for the Yugoslav party, and also. for Yugoslavia. Domination by Moscow would have meant not only direct placement of Stalin's chosen people in power, but also an end to national equality within Yugoslavia, i.e. the return of Serbia to its pre-war dominant position.
It is worth mentioning in this context Tito's special relationship with the army. The army always had a strong party organisation: over 95 per cent of he officers were party mem bers. The army came to political prominence in the early 1970s, when it backed Tito's decision to institute a mass purge of party leaders in Croatia and Ser•a ano ro asser exrent it Slovenia and Macedonia. In the re-organisation of the see cane that for the party the army gained a place on the party presidency. After Tito's death, no Yugoslav politician had quite the same influence. SO: How do you assess the Yugoslav experience with self-management?
ML: Yugoslavia's attempt to escape the problems of excessive economic centralisation through the introduction of self-management was also a very important social experiment in that it involved tens of thousands of blue and white collar workers in the running of their enterprises. 'the expemment failed for essentially two reasons. The first reason is that one cannot have socialism, even self-managing socialism, in one country. In the 1960s, it became clear that Yugoslavia had to integrate itself more into the world economy, and this meant also accepting many of its rules. This strengthened the hand of management at the expense of the workers' councils. The second reason is that the intro duction of self-management did not run in parallel with the exstalinised Ponduter! the tonsione de mocacy: the party continued to take all the impor tant economic decisions. SO: If the form of the current crisis is the drive by the Milosevic leadership for domination, and the building of a 'Greater Serbla', what really lies behind It all? Why did Yugoslavia go into crisis?
ML: There are several reasons for this, of which perhaps the most important was the growing economic crisis. first phase of industrialisation had been completed (by the late 1950s), the next stage involved modernising the economy and creating new nobstra branches. In the 1970s, much of the necessary investment came from heavy borrowing from abroad, which led to a huge national debt by the early 1980s. As the economy worsened, there was growing unemployment and general lowering of living standards. Also, the gap between the more and less developed parts of the country grew, intensifying the struggle over distribution of resources.
The economic problems were joined to political ones. When Tito died, in 1980, there was a political vacuum, leading to a ower struggle among the ederal units. is a part of thi struggle, a coup took place within the Serbian Communist Party, organised by a group of generals. and party STaTe functionaries, bringing Milosevic to power.
The Yugoslav army (i.e. its high command) decided to back Milosevic, without surrenderingany of its independence. The army did not like the introduc tion of the multi-party system, so was nostile both to the reformer in the Slovene and Croatian Communist Parties and to the governments that emerged out of the multi-party elections of April 1990. In these and subsequent elections, the Communists' loss of power everywhere except Serbia and Montenegro led to a political pact between Milosevic and the army. The generals were ready to back Milosevic partly because they favoured a recentralised Yugoslavia, partly because he was/is a Communist conservative, partly because they wanted to safeguard their material and political privileges and partly ›ecause most of them were Serb. We thus witnessed a complete turn around. The original Communist project was to safeguard the unity of Yugoslavia by limiting the power of Serbia; now, as far as the generals and Milosevic were concerned, the unity of Yugoslavia could be guaranteed only by Serbia's dominance.
Today, the process of 'Serbianisation' of the army is proceeding apace. Non-Serb ofbeing replacea, any non-Serb is regarded with suspicion. SO: What is Milosevic's programme for a Greater Serbia? Is he prepared to drive Slovenia out of the federation? Surely this would be irrational, given the concentration of wealth in the western part of the federation?
ML: There is an impression that Serbia wants to drive Slovenia out in order to be better
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