The Balkans 1804-1999: Nationalism, War and The Great Powers, by Misha Glenny, Granta Books; £25. Reviewed by GEOFF RYAN MISHA Glenny's latest work is a wide-ranging historical analysis of nearly two centuries of Balkan history. In no sense of the term is it light reading. The hardback edition weighs nearly three pounds: reading in bed is not recommended! But as Kosova once again returns to the headlines, as Kosovar increasingly protest the partition of Mitrovice it offers important insights that were lacking in much of the anti-war movement.
It is widely said in the west that the peoples of the Balkans have indulged in vicious ethnic hatred for centuries. Glenny totally destroys that belief. He also shows that when ethnic hatreds have erupted, it has usually been the result of imperialist intervention in the region.
However Glenny's analysis is a long way removed from the rather crude notions put forward by much of the left. He attempts to show the complexities of the relationship between imperialism and the Baikans.
For example, efforts during the Tanzimat period (mid-19th century) to reform the Ottoman empire led to conflicts in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The nature of those conflicts was com plex.
In Bosnia-Hercegovina many of the Muslim landlords organised opposition to the reformist Sultan in Istanbul, since their privileges were under threat. The Sultanate was supported by both Muslim and Serb peasants. Similar examples of unity among the different national and ethnic groups can be found throughout Glenny recognises that the people of the Balkans are not merely puppets of imperialism: they also have their own agendas and somcumcs, under nationalist leaderships, this can lead to conflicts between them.
Hence, having expelled Turkey from most of Europe, the victorious Balkan states immediately fought among themselves, with Greece and Serbia taking large chunks of Bulgarian territory.
Imperialism, despite its protestations of horror, has encouraged clanic cicasua The most brutal example is the massive exchanges of poptaton ocincei Greece and Turkey in the carly 1920s after attempts by Greece and Italy backed by the major powers, to seize huge tracts of the infant Turkish state culminated in military disaster. Perhaps the main strength of Glenny's book is his understanding of the conflict between rural and urban sociery. Far from being resolved by the various Stalinist regimes in the region after 1945, this problem was exacerbated by the heavy-handed manner in which the regimes attempted to subjugate the large peas. ant population. Causescu's Romania is the most brutal example but was by no means untypical, even if the lavish western support for Causescu was totally untypical Certainly the analysis given by Glenny of the nature of the conflicts in former Yugoslavia as the revenge of the countryside on the city is the best I have ever read.
This is an absolutely crucial point, developed. Because Glenny rejects a simplistic notion of imperialist intervention, he is able to distinguish berween different ways in which impe rialism has contributed to ethnic conHence he understands that, in contrast to most Balkan crises during the 20th century, the recent wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosova were not caused by direct imperialist intervention - though later imperialist policy may have made the situation worse.
He recognises that the central causes lay within the undemocratic nature of the Titoist state and the relationship between Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia in the break-up of the state during the 1980s. Again this is a vastly more accurate analysis than can be found on much of the British left.
Weaknesses Nevertheless, there are some weak.
nesses. In particular Glenny underestimates the importance of the role of Slovenia in the break-up, concentrating on Serbo-Croatian relations. He emphasises the cynical deal between Milosevic and Croatian leader • Tudjman to carve up Bosnia but underplays the cqually cynically deal between Milosevic and Slovene President Kucan to allow Slovenia to leave Yugoslavia.
Of course, the central issuc as to whether or not the Yugoslav federation would continue revolved around relations between Serbia and Croatia, the two strongest republics. However, once Slovenia was able to secede that immediately affected Serbo-Croat relations, ensuring that Croatia was more likely to follow Slovenia's lead. By emphasising Croatia's role, Glenny inadvertently gives much greater importance to the role of Franjo Tudiman - a particular béte noire for Glenny - than he deserves. Most Croatian opponents of Tudiman, by contrast, have rightly pointed out that despite Tudiman's claims to have led Croatia to independence he was largely dragged along behind the Slovenes.
Glenny is also completely silent on the worst case of ethnic cleansing from Yugoslavia before the recent wars: the expulsion of the Italian population between 1945 and 1953Although the figures are hotly debated, no means all were fascist sympathisers. Many Italians in Croatia and Slovenia fought alongside the Yugoslav Partisans and formed Italian brigades.
Certainly the left has also failed to mention this criminal act by the Tito regime, perhaps through a misguided belief that Tito represented a real alternative to Stalinism. Although the majority of Italian Communists in Croatia and Slovenia did side with Stalin during the 1948 split with Tite -that is by no means justification for the left to have remained silent for so long. Despite these criticisms, this is the first attempt to look at the Balkans as a whole since Barbara Jelavich's two solume History of the Balkans published in 1983. It is a serious historical study of immense value to those who want to understand the complex dynamics of the Balkans and the relationship to It is certainly a damning indictment of imperialist intervention and a defence of the Balkan peoples against current notions that they are all bloodthirsty monsters. But neither does it prettify the various Balkan regimes throughout history.
It also damns the nationalist politics have also contributed to ethnic vio.
lence.
And by insisting on the failure of the Stalinist regimes to sole gratal problems, thereby leaving the peasantry open to nationalist rhetoric with all its murderous consequences, Misha Glenny has made an extremely important contribution to our undersranding of the nature of tac wars former Yugoslavia. sake of argument, the claims put forward by Clinton and Blair that the and of the Cold War means that the West can now act solely on high moral principles. Hence Chomsky tries to keep his arguments to the last ten years. He demonstrates that far from having changed their policies during this period. the major impertaint power continue in the same old ways. He shows that the level of murder in Colombia in the year before NATO's Balkan war (2,000) was almost exactly the same as in Kosova in the same period. The numher of dispised persons was also eerily similar in both countries (2-300,000).
Chomsky also draws attention to the lack of western criticism of the Turkish military's brutal war against the Kurds. He does not, however. see the very different attitudes of the west towards repression by the Colombian and Turkish military and its offensive against Serbia as examples of double standards. On the contrary, he argues they reflect a single standard - what is in the interests of (primarily) US It is not that western leaders are unaware of political repression in Colombia or Kurdistan (or East Timor). Nor are they simply unable to intervene everywhere at once, as some liberal apologists for the Balkans war have tried to claim.
The reality is that in violence against the civilian population is sanctioned and orchestrated by US imperialism.
War against the Kurds is waged by a Turkish state which is a member of NATO with the full support of its partners. Perhaps the left needs to step up its campaign against the brutality in urdistan by denouncing it as NATO's war against the Kurds.
One of the strengths of Chomsky's book is that he does not shrink from denouncing the crimes of Milosevic. He is fully aware that the Serbian regime was guilty of 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosova and or brutal repe sion of the Albanian majority.
Although he uses the tert "Kosovo" throughout he is at least aware that there are
Outlook of the working class. The LSA ers" leadership. We are not.
perhaps as many as 350,000 Italians left Croatia and Slovenia in that period. By
pursued by most Balkan regimes (including the Stalinist regimes) which