Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia | |
|---|---|
| 1943–1992 | |
| Anthem: "Hey, Slavs" | |
 | |
| Capital | Belgrade |
| Common languages | Serbo-Croatian (understood throughout the territory), Slovenian, Macedonian, Albanian, Hungarian (all official), and languages of other nationalities. |
| Government | Socialist republic |
| President | |
• 1945 - 1953 | Ivan Ribar |
• 1953 - 1980 | Josip Broz Tito |
• 1991 (last) | Stjepan Mesić |
| Prime Minister | |
• 1989 - 1991 (last) | Ante Marković |
| Historical era | Cold War |
• Proclamation | November 29 1943 |
| October 24, 1945 | |
• Constitution | February 21, 1974 |
| June 25, 1991 - April 27, 1992 1992 | |
| Area | |
| July 1989 | 255,804 km2 (98,766 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• July 1989 | 23,724,919 |
| Currency | Yugoslav dinar |
| Time zone | UTC+1 |
| Calling code | 38 |
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The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian: Socijalistička federativna republika Jugoslavija, Социјалистичка федеративна република Југославија; Slovenian: Socialistična federativna republika Jugoslavija) was the Yugoslav state that existed from the end of World War II (1945) until it was formally dissolved in 1992 (de facto dissolved in 1991 with no leaders representing it) amid the Yugoslav wars. It was a socialist state that comprised the area of the present-day independent states of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia and the self declared, partially recognised Kosovo. In 1992, the two remaining states still committed to a union, Serbia and Montenegro, formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which had not been recognized as the successor of the SFRY by international leaders.
Formed from the remains of the pre-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the country was proclaimed in 1943 and named Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. In 1946, it became the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia[1] and in 1963 the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia pursued a policy of neutrality during the Cold War and became one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Rising ethnic nationalism in the 1980s to the 1990s in the SFRY initiated dissidency among the multiple ethnicities, which led to the country collapsing on ethnic lines which were followed by wars fraught with ethnic discrimination, human rights violations, and genocide which have left tense relations and significant degrees of xenophobia particularly between ethnic groups which fought each other in the Yugoslav Wars.
Territory
Like the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that preceded it, the SFRY bordered Italy and Austria to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Romania and Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, Albania to the southwest, and the Adriatic Sea to the west.
The most significant change to the borders of the SFRY occurred in 1954, when the adjacent Free Territory of Trieste was dissolved by the Treaty of Osimo. The Yugoslav Zone B, which covered 515.5 km², became part of the SFRY. Zone B was already occupied by the Yugoslav National Army.
From 1991 to 1992, the SFRY's territory disintegrated as the independent states of Slovenia, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia and lastly Bosnia and Herzegovina separated from it, though the Yugoslav military controlled parts of Croatia and Bosnia prior to the state's dissolution. By 1992, only the republics of Serbia and Montenegro remained committed to union, and formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in 1992.
History
Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was constituted at the AVNOJ (Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia) conference of the Communist Yugoslav Partisans in Jajce, Bosnia-Herzegovina (November 29 - December 4 1943) while negotiations with the royal government in exile continued as Yugoslavia was occupied in World War II by the Axis Powers. The Yugoslav Partisans by this time had survived and continued to put heavy resistance to the fascist occupying forces through guerrilla warfare. After the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, the partisans gained control of the entire country. On November 29, 1945 the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia was established as a socialist state during the first meeting of democratically established and Communist-led Parliament in Belgrade. On January 31, 1946, the new constitution of FPR Yugoslavia selected the six constituent republics.[1]
The first prime minister was Josip Broz Tito and the president was Ivan Ribar. In 1953, Tito was elected as president and later, in 1974, named "President for life."
At the outset of its creation and the Cold War, Yugoslavia's Communist regime allied with the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin and early on in the Cold War shot down two American airplanes flying over Yugoslav airspace on August 9 and August 19 of 1946. These were the first aerial shootdowns of western aircraft during the Cold War and caused deep distrust of Tito in the United States and even calls for military intervention against Yugoslavia.[2][3] However, despite an early alliance of the Yugoslav communists with the Soviet Union, Stalin distrusted Tito and the two leaders did not agree with each others' methods.[4] Yugoslavia, unlike the other communist states, had been formed by internal revolution and its people saw Tito as its natural leader and hero, which frustrated Stalin, who had wanted the Soviet Union to dominate all of Eastern Europe.[5] Frustration between Tito and Stalin grew after Tito refused to link Yugoslavia's economy with that of the Soviet Union and the rest of Eastern Europe. The relations between Tito and Stalin came to an end after it was discovered that Soviet propaganda film makers were making a production about the resistance in Yugoslavia, and that the script claimed that Tito had a minimal role in the war.[6] But the situation over the film making was made worse when it was discovered that these film makers were actually Soviet spies; this infuriated Tito. In 1948, a crisis between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union erupted as a final warning was made by Stalin, demanding that Yugoslavia immediately join a federation with the Soviet satellite state of Bulgaria. Tito refused to abandon his country's independence, and Stalin followed the decision by throwing out Tito and the Yugoslav Communists from the Cominform. This ended all remaining ties between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.
After the breakaway from the Soviet sphere, Yugoslavia formed its own form of communism, informally called "Titoism". Under Titoist communism, some degree of free market enterprise was allowed internally in what was called Market Socialism. Also, Yugoslavia refused to take part in the communist Warsaw Pact and instead took a neutral stance in the Cold War and became a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement along with countries like India, Egypt and Indonesia, and pursued one of its central-left influences that promoted a non-confrontational policy towards the U.S.
By the early 1960s, Yugoslavia's economy was booming and observers noticed that the Yugoslav people had far greater liberties than the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact states.[2]
Under Tito, the motto and political concept of "Brotherhood and Unity", involved to prevent ethnic tensions as a key aspect of the state. The concept of Brotherhood and Unity was that the Yugoslav "South Slav" people were ethnically the same and had only been divided in the past by religious differences imposed by foreign occupiers. The Yugoslav people had been torn apart by the ethnic tensions during the era of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and in World War II. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia had been a Serb hegemonic state with the Serbian monarchy leading it. Some Croatian and Muslim politicians had claimed that the state was trying to assimilate them, others felt that the country was being run for the benefit of its Serbian majority - and as such, they opposed the state sometimes violently - which resulted in the assassination of Alexander I of Yugoslavia. In World War II, Yugoslavia was destroyed when Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and other Axis powers occupied the country. The Nazis and Italian Fascists endorsed the creation of the Ustashe regime of the Independent State of Croatia which killed thousands of Serbs. Also, ethnic Albanian fascist recruits from Kosovo aided Italian forces from Albania (then an Italian protectorate) in taking over the region from Yugoslavia and persecuting Serbs there.[citation needed] In response, Serb nationalists wanted revenge on Croats, Bosniaks and Albanians for the losses suffered by the Serb people during the war. With all these tensions, Tito's plan of Brotherhood and Unity was to ensure that no single ethnic group could ever be in the position to dominate Yugoslavia and that forcing the necessity of cooperation of the different peoples would reduce the ethnic tensions. The other side of "Brotherhood and Unity" was less idealistic, in that the communist regime refused to negotiate or accept the demands of the popular voices of any nationality who complained of their peoples' status. The usual response to such demands was arrest or execution.
In 1971, large numbers of Croatians took part in protests known as the Croatian Spring, against the Yugoslav government in which they condemned what they perceived as Serb hegemony in the SFRY's power structure.[3] Tito, whose home constituent republic was Croatia, responded with a dual action approach, Yugoslav authorities arrested large numbers of the Croatian protestors who were accused of evoking ethnic nationalism, while at the same time Tito began an agenda to initiate some of those reforms in order to avert a similar crisis from happening again.[4] Ustase-sympathizers outside Yugoslavia tried through terrorism and guerrilla actions create a separatist momentum[5], but they were largely unsuccessful, sometimes even getting the antipahy of fellow Roman Catholic Yugoslavs.[6]
In 1974, a new federal constitution was ratified that gave more autonomy to the individual republics, thereby basically fulfilling the main goals of the 1971 Croatian Spring movement. One of the provisions of the new constitution was that each republic officially had the option to declare independence from the federation, subject to certain constitutional regulations. The other more controversial measure was the internal division of Serbia, by awarding a similar status to two autonomous provinces within it, Kosovo, a largely ethnic Albanian populated region of Serbia, and Vojvodina, a region with large numbers of ethnic minorities behind the majority Serbs, such as Hungarians. These reforms satisfied most of the republics, especially Croatia as well as the Albanians of Kosovo and the minorities of Vojvodina. But the 1974 constitution deeply aggravated Serbian communist officials and Serbs themselves who distrusted the motives of the proponents of the reforms. Many Serbs saw the reforms as concessions to Croatian and Albanian nationalists, as no similar autonomous provinces were made to represent the large numbers of Serbs of Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina and had also been frustrated over Tito's support of the recognition of Montenegrins and Macedonians as an independent nationalities, as Serbian nationalists had claimed that there was no ethnic or cultural difference separating these two nations from the Serbs that could verify that such nationalities truly existed, and noted that at some time in the past, all Slavic people in the regions had identified themselves as Serbs.
Post-Tito Yugoslavia and the Dissolution of the State
After Tito's death in 1980, a new collective presidency of the communist leadership from each republic was adopted. The original Communist Party of Yugoslavia which had stood as one to create the country with its Pan-Slavic ideologies which had been suppressed in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, had now totally decentralised as its components (the party of each republic and autonomous province) began to develop independently.
Yugoslavia was the host nation of the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. The 1984 Olympics were remembered internationally as the first Olympic games to have disabled skiing as a demonstration sport. For Yugoslavia, the games demonstrated the continued Tito's vision of Brotherhood and unity as the multiple nationalities of Yugoslavia remained united in one team, and Yugoslavia became the second communist state to hold the Olympic Games (The Soviet Union held them in 1980). However Yugoslavia's games were participated in by western countries while the Soviet Union's Olympics were boycotted by the west.
In the late 1980s, the Yugoslav government began to make a course away from communism as it attempted to transform to a market economy under the leadership of Prime Minister Ante Marković who advocated "shock therapy" tactics to privatize sections of the Yugoslav economy. His successful efforts to stop inflation were popular in the country. Marković was popular as he was seen as the most capable politician to be able to transform the country to a liberalized democratic federation. However his work was left incomplete as Yugoslavia broke apart in the 1990s.
Despite changes in the post-Tito government, Yugoslavia increasingly became entangled in ethnic tensions, especially in Serbia. From 1981 onward, the majority ethnic Albanians of the Serbian autonomous province of Kosovo engaged in demonstrations demanding that Kosovo be granted the status of a constituent republic within Yugoslavia as well as demanding political liberalization in Yugoslavia.[7] As this was deemed a nationalist agenda, the Yugoslav government responded by suppressing the movement through the use of military and police forces while retaining official neutrality on the issue.[8] However the protests made Serbs grow increasingly frustrated, as they saw this as another attempt to territorially diminish Serbian influence in Yugoslavia and suspected that the goal of the Albanians was to separate from Yugoslavia. In 1987, a mob of angry Kosovo Serbs began a protest against the Albanian administration in Kosovo, Serbian Communist representative and future Serbian President Slobodan Milošević was sent to calm the situation but then broke the Communist tradition of neutrality in the ethnically-charged dispute, when he took the side of the Serbs who claimed they were being persecuted by the ethnic Albanian and that some had been beaten by the Albanian police. [9] Milošević's stance was seen by the Communist establishment as a violation of the policy of Brotherhood and Unity, but with no serious effort made to stop Milošević from endorsing the Kosovo Serbs, Milošević went on to garner the support of those communists who opposed the reforms of the 1974 Constitution which internally divided Serbia as well as gaining support of Serbian nationalists, who wanted to revoke Kosovo and Vojvodina's autonomy. With this support base, Milošević and his allies removed the moderate Serbian leader Ivan Stambolić and Milošević took over. Also, Milošević and his allies encouraged a series of coups known as the Anti-bureaucratic revolution which removed the communist leaders of the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina and the Socialist Republic of Montenegro and replaced them with Milošević loyalists. With these territories in his hands, Milošević controlled half of Yugoslavia's internal entities which gave him the power to overrule Slovenia, Croatia, and Macedonia in the political affairs of Yugoslavia. This set off a string of ethnic tensions which resulted in the dissolution of the SFRY with Slovenia and Croatia separating from Yugoslavia in 1991 (as allowed by the 1974 federal constitution, with the assent of the other republics), which was the end of the SFRY (as proclaimed by the Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the former Yugoslavia), which were followed by the republics of Macedonia in September of 1991, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in March of 1992.
In 1991, Serbia and Montenegro generally did not approve of Croatia leaving. However, when Slovenia left, Serbia and Montenegro did vote in support of that idea and Macedonia left without war. Some of the regions of Croatia (Kordun, Lika, Banija, parts of Dalmatia and Eastern Slavonia) and Bosnia had Serb inhabitants (in varying proportions to the majority) who did not wish to secede from Yugoslavia into the newly independent states. Serbian President Slobodan Milošević announced that the Serbs had the right to self-determination in those territories in which they had a majority population, or they had the right to remain within Yugoslavia if they so chose. The separating states in turn accused Milošević's support of self-determination of the Serbs as an attempt to carve out an "Greater Serbia".
To have retained the Serbs within Yugoslavia from Bosnia (on course to independence led by its Bosniak-dominated government during 1991) in particular, would have been impossible without annexing sections of territory with majority Bosniak populations which were often interspersed with Serbs and Croats throughout Bosnia. This led to a conflict of interests. Serbia supported Serb uprising in Serb-populated areas of Croatia against the newly elected nationalist Croatian government of Franjo Tudjman. The Serb-controlled Yugoslav army waged war on Croatia in 1991 which resulted in a number of atrocities by Serb paramilitary forces and the Yugoslav Army, such as the destruction of the Croatian town of Vukovar during the Battle of Vukovar and the murder of Croats there during the Vukovar massacre. In October 1991, Croat forces committed their own atrocity, the Gospić massacre, which occurred in Gospić in western Croatia in which a 50 to 100 Serb civilians were believed to be killed.[7] In the final months of the SFRY's existence, now dominated by Milošević's Serb faction, Yugoslav Army forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina were officially "transferred" into the Bosnian Serb Army which took over the assets of the federal Yugoslav Army in Bosnia, while it was agreed that the Bosnian Serb forces would be financed by Belgrade, as the Bosnian Serb government did not have the resources to sustain itself.[10] This was done out of anticipation of Bosnia's immediate likelihood of independence, in which the SFRY wished to avoid potential sanctions if its own forces appeared as aggressors against Bosnia.[11] (See more in the articles Ten-Day war, Croatian War of Independence and the Bosnian War)
Serbia and Montenegro formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in April 1992. The FRY was reformed and renamed Serbia and Montenegro in 2003. In June 2006 it was split into the two independent countries when Montenegro seceded after a referendum. In February 2008, the autonomous province of Kosovo, and its territory as first defined in the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution declared itself an independent state after the parliament in Kosovo agreed to secede from Serbia. Of the original territorial components of the SFRY, only the Serbian autonomous province of Vojvodina has not declared independence and has remained part of Serbia despite the fact of large numbers of Hungarians living there.
Politics
 | This section's factual accuracy is disputed. (March 2008) |
The defining document of the state was the Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was amended in 1963 and 1974.
The Communist Party of Yugoslavia won the first elections, and remained in power throughout the state's existence. It was also called the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, and it was composed of individual parties from each constituent republic. The party would reform its political positions through party congresses in which delegates from each republic were represented and voted on changes to party policy, the last of which was held in 1990.
Yugoslavia's parliament was known as the Federal Assembly which was housed in the building which currently houses Serbia's parliament. The Federal Assembly was completely composed of Communist members.
The primary political leader of the state was Josip Broz Tito, but there were several other important politicians, particularly after Tito's death: see the list of leaders of communist Yugoslavia.
Ethnic nationalism, which had deeply divided Yugoslavia as a kingdom, was repressed under Tito. Ethnic nationalism was not tolerated, and outspoken nationalists were either arrested or killed. However, one nationalist uprising, the Croatian Spring, managed to put pressure on the Yugoslav government to change the constitution in 1974. Among the changes were the right of any republic to unilaterally secede from Yugoslavia as well as the controversial internal division of Serbia, which created two autonomous provinces within it, Vojvodina and Kosovo. Each of these autonomous provinces had voting power equal to that of the republics.
At the time of Tito's death the Federal government was headed by Veselin Đuranović (who had held the post since 1977. He had come into conflict with the leaders of the Republics arguing that Yugoslavia needed to economize due the growing problem of foreign debt. Đuranović argued that a devaluation was needed which Tito refuse to contenance for reasons of national prestige.[8]
Dissolution of the SFRY
After Tito's death, ethnic nationalism began to rise again in Yugoslavia, especially in Kosovo between ethnic Albanians and Serbs. This, coupled with economic problems in Kosovo and Serbia as a whole, led to Serbian resentment of the 1974 constitutional reforms. In the 1980s, Kosovo Albanians demanded that their autonomous province be granted the status of a constituent republic, which would give Kosovo the right to secede from Yugoslavia. For Serbs, Kosovo being a constituent republic rather than being part of Serbia would be devastating to the cultural and historic links with Serbs held with Kosovo, especially if it chose to secede. In 1987, Serbian communist official Slobodan Milošević was sent to bring calm to an ethnically-driven protest by Serbs against the Albanian Kosovo administration. Milošević in the past was a hardline Communist official who had decried all forms of nationalism as treachery, such as condemning the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences which he called "nothing else but the darkest nationalism"[9] but Kosovo's autonomy had always been an unpopular policy in Serbia and Milošević took advantage of the situation and took a departure from traditional communist neutrality on the issue of Kosovo by assuring Serbs that alleged mistreatment by ethnic Albanians would be stopped, and then began a campaign against the communist elite of Serbia and of Yugoslavia demanding reductions in the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina. Milošević and his allies took on an aggressive nationalist agenda of reviving Serbia within Yugoslavia, promising reforms and protection of Serbia and all Serbs. In a rally in Belgrade in 1988, Milošević made clear his perceptions of the situation facing Serbia in Yugoslavia, saying:
"At home and abroad, Serbia's enemies are massing against us. We say to them 'We are not afraid'. 'We will not flinch from battle'." Slobodan Milošević, 1988[12]
On another occasion, Milosevic privately said:
“We Serbs will act in the interest of Serbia whether we do it in compliance with the constitution or not, whether we do it in compliance in the law or not, whether we do it in compliance with party statutes or not.” Slobodan Milošević [10]
Through a series of revolts in Serbia and Montenegro, called the "Anti-bureaucratic revolution" Milošević and his political allies in Vojvodina, Kosovo, and the Socialist Republic of Montenegro came to power.
1989
In February 1989, with the forced abdication of Kosovo's Albanian representative Azem Vllasi who was replaced by an ally of Milosevic, Albanian protestors demanded that Vllasi be returned to office, Vllasi endorsed their support of him which caused Milosevic and his supporters to respond that this was a counter-revolution against Serbia and Yugoslavia and demanded that the federal Yugoslav government put down the striking Albanians by force.[13] Milosevic's aim was aided when a huge protest was formed outside of the Yugoslav parliament in Belgrade by Serb supporters of Milosevic who demanded that the Yugoslav military forces enter Kosovo to protect the Serbs there and put down the strike.[14] On February 27th, Slovenian Communist leader of the collective presidency of Yugoslavia, Milan Kucan, opposed the demands of the Serbs and left Belgrade for Slovenia where he publicly endorsed the efforts of Albanian protestors who demanded that Vllasi be released.[15]. In the 1995 BBC documentary Death of Yugoslavia, Kucan claimed that in 1989, he was concerned that with the successes of Milosevic's anti-bureaucratic revolution in Serbia's provinces as well as Montenegro, that his small republic would be the next target for a political coup by Milosevic's supporters if the coup in Kosovo went unimpeded.[16] Serbian state-run television denounced Kucan as a separatist, a traitor, and an endorser of Kosovo separatism.[17]
Serb protests continued in Belgrade demanding action in Kosovo. Milosevic instructed communist representative Petar Gracanin to make sure the protest continued while he discussed matters at the Communist Party council, as a means to induce the other members to realize that enormous support was on his side in putting down the Albanian strike in Kosovo.[18] Serbian parliament speaker Borisav Jović, a strong ally of Milosevic met with the head of Yugoslavia's collective presidency, Bosnian representative Raif Dizdarević, and demanded that the federal government concede to Serbian demands. Dizdarević argued with Jović saying that "You (Serbian politicians) organized the demo, you control it", Jović refused to take responsibility for the actions of the protesters. Dizdarević then decided to attempt to bring calm to the situation himself by talking with the protesters, by making an impassioned speech for unity of Yugoslavia saying:
"Our fathers died to create Yugoslavia. We will not go down the road to national conflict. We will take the path of Brotherhood and Unity." Raif Dizdarević, Belgrade, 1989.[19]
To this statement, he gained polite applause, but the protest continued. Later Jović spoke to the crowds with enthusiasm and told them that Milošević was going to arrive to support their protest. When Milošević arrived, he spoke to the protesters and jubilantly told them that the people of Serbia were winning their fight against the old party bureaucrats. Then a shout to be from the crowd said "Arrest Vllasi". Milošević pretended not to here the demand correctly but declared to the crowd that anyone conspiring against the unity of Yugoslavia would be arrested and punished and the next day, with the party council pushed to submission to Serbia, Yugoslav army forces poured into Kosovo and Vllasi was arrested.[20]
Following the arrest of Vllasi, the group of Kosovo Serb supporters of Milošević who helped bring down Vllasi declared that they were going to Slovenia to hold "the Rally of Truth" which would decry Kucan as a traitor to Yugoslavia and demand his ousting.[21] The Serb protesters were to go by train to Slovenia, but this was stopped when Croatia blocked all transit through its territory and stopped the protesters from reaching Slovenia.[22]
1990
The prevention by Croatia of allowing Serb protestors from reaching Slovenia fomented a crisis in the League of Communists congress in 1990. Serbia under Milošević pushed harder for Serb rights and demanded a one-member-one-vote system in the Congress, which would give numerical majority of votes to the Serbs. Slovenia and Croatia explicitedly opposed the move, but Serbian and Montenegrin members of the congress in turn voted down every proposed reform by Slovenia, in an attempt to force the party to adopt the new voting system. The Slovenian and Croatian delegates refused and declared their abdication from the League of Communists. Afterwards the League of Communists collapsed and multi-party systems were adopted in all the republics.
When the individual republics organized their multi-party elections after 1990, the Communist Parties mostly failed to win re-election, and most of the elected governments took on nationalist platforms, promising to protect their people both within and outside of Yugoslavia. In Croatia, controversial nationalist Franjo Tuđman was elected to power, promising to protect Croatia from Milošević. Tuđman was controversial due to a number of books he wrote in which he claimed the number of Jews and Serbs killed in World War II was lower than others had claimed.
Croatian Serbs were weary of Tuđman's nationalist government and in 1990, Serb nationalists in Knin organized and formed a separatist regime in Krajina which wanted to remain in union with Serbia. The Serbian government endorsed the Croatian Serbs' rebellion, claiming that for Serbs, rule under Tuđman's government would be equivalent to the fascist Independent State of Croatia which committed genocide against Serbs during World War II. Milosevic used this to rally Serbs against the Croatian government. Initially the revolt became known as the "Log Revolution" as Serbs blockaded roadways to Knin and prevented Croats from entering Knin or the Croatian coastal region of Dalmatia. The BBC documentary "Death of Yugoslavia" revealed that at the time, Croatian TV dismissed the "Log Revolution" as the work of drunken Serbs, trying to diminish the serious dispute. However the blockade was damaging to Croatian tourism. The Croatian government refused to negotiate with the Serb separatists and decided to stop the rebellion by force, and sent in armed special forces by helicopters to put down the rebellion. The pilots claimed they were bringing "equipment" to Knin, but the Yugoslav Air Force intervened and sent fighter jets to intercept them and demanded that the helicopters return to their base or they would be fired upon, in which the Croatian forces obliged and returned to their base in Zagreb. [23]
In a December 1990 referendum in Slovenia, a vast majority of residents voted for independence and the beginning stage was set for the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
1991
By early 1991, with the crisis in Knin, the discovery of Croatian arms smuggling, and the apparent course towards independence by Croatia, the Yugoslav State Council led by Serbian representative Borisav Jović called an emergency meeting. In the meeting, a vote was taken on a proposal for military action to end the crisis in Croatia by providing protection for the Serbs. The proposal was rejected By one vote, as the Bosnian Serb delegate voted against it, believing that there was still the possibility of diplomacy being able to solve the crisis. The state council was abandoned shortly afterwards.
In May 1991, a referendum for independence was held in Croatia, in which a majority of Croatians supported independence from Yugoslavia, though Serbs largely boycotted the vote. Both Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence on June 25th 1991. A short period of violence occurred in Slovenia, which ended with Yugoslavia accepting Slovenia's independence. In Croatia, however, its independence was not accepted, as Serbs had boycotted the referendum and wished to stay within Yugoslavia, and war broke out between Croatia and Yugoslavia. Also, negotiations to restore the Yugoslav federation were all but ended during discussions with diplomat Lord Peter Carington and members of the European Community. Carington's plan realized that Yugoslavia was in a state of dissolution and decided that each republic must accept the inevitable independence of the others, along with a promise to Serbian President Milošević that the E.U. would insure that Serbs outside of Serbia would be protected. Milošević refused to agree to the plan, as he claimed that the European Community had no right to dissolve Yugoslavia and that the plan was not in the interests of Serbs as it would divide the Serb people into four republics (Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Croatia).[24] Carington responded by putting the issue to a vote in which all the other republics, including Montenegro under Bulatovic, initially agreed to the plan that would dissolve Yugoslavia.[25] However, after intense pressure from Serbia on Montenegro's President, Montenegro changed its position to oppose the dissolution of Yugoslavia.[26]
From 1991 to 1992 the situation in the multiethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina grew tense. Its parliament was fragmented on ethnic lines into a majority Bosniak faction and minority Serb and Croat factions. In 1991, the controversial nationalist leader Radovan Karadžić of the largest Serb faction in the parliament, the Serb Democratic Party gave a grave and direct warning to Bosnia's Bosniak president on the fate of Bosnia and its Bosniaks should it decide to separate, saying:
"This, what you are doing, is not good. This is the path that you want to take Bosnia and Herzegovina on, the same highway of hell and death that Slovenia and Croatia went on. Don't think that you won't take Bosnia and Herzegovina into hell, and the Muslim people maybe into extinction. Because the Muslim people cannot defend themselves if there is war here." -Radovan Karadžić, speaking at the Bosnian parliament[27], October 14, 1991. (The term "Muslim people" refers to the people now known as Bosniaks.)
Later this was seen as a deliberate attempt to make the Serbs attack the Bosniaks.
1992
The final blow to the SFRY came in 1992, with the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina unilaterally separated from Yugoslavia after a referendum on independence, again in spite of Serb boycotts of the vote. After the separation of Bosnia & Herzegovina, the SFRY was abolished after Serbia and Montenegro agreed to create a new Yugoslav state, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, consisting of only Serbia and Montenegro, and upon multiparty democratic government, thereby ending the former communist Yugoslav state completely.
Aftermath
The collapse of the SFRY brought about a decade of ethnic violence and atrocities in which the ethnic makeup of Croatia and Bosnia would drastically change as nationalist Serb forces persecuted and committed genocide against Bosniaks and Croats and destroying Bosniak populated regions of Sarajevo and other towns while Croat nationalists also committed atrocities against Bosniaks and Serbs. The most damaging act by Croatian forces was when the Croatian government forcibly expelled almost all Serbs from Croatia in 1995, ending centuries of a significant Serb presence in Croatia. Kosovo would continue to be in crisis in the rump Yugoslavia that remained and major Serb atrocities against Albanians followed by Albanian counterattacks and atrocities by Albanian nationalists in the province increased and resulted in the Kosovo War. In the 2000s, the final vestige of Yugoslavia came to an end with the separation of Montenegro from state union with Serbia, and the Kosovo dispute reignited with Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 increasing ethnic tensions between Albanians and Serbs. This legacy of violence and unrest of the former Yugoslav people has led many western analysists to see the collapse of the SFRY in a different light than that of other eastern European communist states, as most see the collapse as catastrophe and a dark period of Balkan history.
Foreign relations
Under Tito, Yugoslavia adopted a policy of neutrality in the Cold War. It developed close relations with developing countries (see Non-Aligned Movement) as well as maintaining cordial relations with the United States and Western European countries. Stalin considered Tito a traitor and openly offered condemnation towards him. In 1968, following the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union, Tito added an additional defense line to Yugoslavia's borders with the Warsaw Pact countries.[11]
Yugoslavia had mixed relations with the communist regime of Enver Hoxha of Albania. Initially Yugoslav-Albanian relations were forthcoming, as Albania adopted a common market with Yugoslavia and required the teaching of Serbo-Croatian to students in high schools. At this time, the concept of creating a Balkan Federation was being discussed between Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria. Albania at this time was heavily dependent on economic support of Yugoslavia to fund its initially weak infrastructure. Trouble between Yugoslavia and Albania began when Albanians began to complain that Yugoslavia was paying too little for Albania's natural resources. Afterwards relations between Yugoslavia and Albania worsened. From 1948 onward, the Soviet Union backed Albania in opposition to Yugoslavia. On the issue of Albanian-dominated Kosovo, Yugoslavia and Albania both attempted to neutralize the threat of nationalist conflict, Hoxha opposed nationalist sentiment in Albania as he officially believed in the communist ideal of international brotherhood of all people, though on a few occasions in the 1980s, Hoxha did make inflammatory speeches in support of Albanians in Kosovo against the Yugoslav government, when public sentiment in Albania was firmly in support of Kosovo Albanians.
Military
Army
Much like the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that preceded it, the socialist Yugoslavia maintained a strong military force.
The Yugoslav People's Army or JNA/JLA was the main organization of the military forces. It was composed of the ground army, navy and aviation. Most of its military equipment and pieces were domestically produced.
The regular army mostly originated from the Yugoslav Partisans and the People's Liberation Army of the Yugoslav People's Liberation War in the Second World War. Yugoslavia also had a thriving arms industry and sold to such nations as Kuwait, Iraq, and Myanmar, amongst many others. Yugoslavian companies like Zastava Arms produced Soviet-designed weaponry under licence as well as creating weaponry from scratch. SOKO was an example of a successful design by Yugoslavia before the Yugoslav wars. Template:Yugoslavia Labelled Map
As Yugoslavia splintered, the army factionalized along cultural lines, by 1991 and 1992, Serbs and Montenegrins made up almost the entire army as the separating states formed their own.
Territorial Defense
Beside the federal army, each of the six Republics had their own respective Territorial Defense Forces (Serbo-Croat: Teritorijalna odbrana; Croato-Serbian: Teritorijalna obrana; Slovenian: Teritorialna obramba; Macedonian: Територијална одбрана; abbreviation: TO) a national guard of sorts, which were established in the frame of a new military doctrine called "Total National Defense" (Serbo-Croat: Opštenarodna odbrana; Croato-Serbian: Općenarodna obrana; Slovenian: Splošna ljudska obramba; Macedonian: Општонародна одбрана; abbreviation: latin: ONO, cyrilic: ОНО) as an answer to the brutal end of the Prague Spring by the Warsaw Pact in Czechoslovakia.
Culture
Prior to the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Yugoslavia had a multicultural society based on the concept of brotherhood and unity and the memory of the communist Yugoslav Partisans' victory against fascists and nationalists as the rebirth of the Yugoslav people. In the SFRY the history of Yugoslavia during World War II was portrayed as a struggle not only between Yugoslavia and the Axis Powers, but as a struggle between good and evil within Yugoslavia with the multiethnic Yugoslav Partisans were represented as the “good” Yugoslavs fighting against manipulated “evil” Yugoslavs – the Croatian Ustaše and Serbian Chetniks.[12] The SFRY was presented to its people as the leader of the non-aligned movement and that the SFRY was dedicated to creating a just, harmonious, Marxist world.[13]
The SFRY enjoyed a strong altheltic sports community, such as in soccer and basketball and there was great enthusiasm in Yugoslavia when the 1984 Winter Olympic Games were selected to be in Sarajevo.[14] Artists from different ethnicities in the country were popular amongst other ethnicities such as Bosniak folk rock singer Lepa Brena, who was popular in Serbia, and the film industry in Yugoslavia avoided nationalist overtones until the 1990s.[15]
Administrative divisions
Internally, the state was divided into six Socialist Republics, and two Socialist Autonomous Provinces that were part of SR Serbia. The federal capital was Belgrade. Republics and provinces were (in alphabetical order):
- Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with capital in Sarajevo;
- Socialist Republic of Croatia, with capital in Zagreb;
- Socialist Republic of Macedonia, with capital in Skopje;
- Socialist Republic of Montenegro, with capital in Titograd (now Podgorica);
- Socialist Republic of Serbia, with capital in Belgrade, which also contained:
- 5a. Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, with capital in Priština;
- 5b. Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, with capital in Novi Sad;
- Socialist Republic of Slovenia, with capital in Ljubljana.
Demographics
SFRY recognised "nations" (narodi) and "nationalities" (narodnosti) separately; the former including the constituent Slavic peoples, and the latter other Slavic and non-Slavic ethnic groups, including the Hungarians and Albanians.
The majority of the Yugoslav population were constituted by Serbs and Croats, with self-declared Yugoslavs constituting a tiny minority; and most of the Yugoslav population inhabited the republics of Serbia and Croatia.
Religiously the majority of Yugoslav population were of Christian faith (Catholic and Orthodox), with a sizable minorities of Muslims and Atheists. Linguistically, most of people of Yugoslavia spoke the then-called Serbo-Croatian language (later split into Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin languages) and used the Latin alphabet.
The country consisted of six republics, with their appropriate constitutional nations:
- Slovenia - Slovenes
- Croatia - Croats, Serbs, Hungarians
- Bosnia and Herzegovina - Bosniaks or Muslims, Serbs, Croats; Yugoslavs since 1990)
- Serbia
- Montenegro - Montenegrins, Serbs, Albanians
- Macedonia - Macedonians, Albanians,
There was also a Yugoslav ethnic designation, for the people who wanted to identify with the entire country, including people who were born to parents in mixed marriages.
Cultural diversity was a major factor in the dissolution of the federation. Nationalism during Tito's rule was suppressed wherever it sprang up (e.g. the "Croatian Spring" of the mid 1970s, or the Memorandum of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in mid 1980s).
Tito's successors chose a different approach to the nationalists, promoting their ideas and taking their side on some issues, claiming they would defend them and fight, even war, for their cause. Nationalists from other ethnic groups responded with arguments such as, "During your Tito's rule, our culture was cracked down upon, our people oppressed ... but now you won't anymore" and so forth, initiating hatred towards the different nationalities. ↓
Economy
Despite their common origins, the economy of socialist Yugoslavia was much different from the economies of the Soviet Union and other Eastern European socialist countries, especially after the Yugoslav-Soviet break-up of 1948. Rather than being owned by the state, Yugoslav companies were socially owned and managed with workers' self-management much like the Israeli kibbutz and the anarchist communes of Spanish Catalonia. The occupation and liberation struggle in World War II left Yugoslavia's infrastructure devastated. Even the most developed parts of the country were largely rural, and the little industry the country had was largely damaged or destroyed.
With the exception of a recession in the mid-1960s, the country's economy prospered formidably. Unemployment was low and the education level of the work force steadily increased. Due to Yugoslavia's neutrality and its leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement, Yugoslav companies exported to both Western and Eastern markets. Yugoslav companies carried out construction of numerous major infrastructural and industrial projects in Africa, Europe and Asia.
The fact that Yugoslavs were allowed to emigrate freely from the 1960s on prompted many to find work in Western Europe, notably West Germany. This contributed to keeping unemployment in check, and also acted as a source of capital and foreign currency.
In the 1970s, the economy was reorganized according to Edvard Kardelj's theory of associated labour, in which the right to decision-making and a share in profits of socially owned companies is based on the investment of labour. All companies were transformed into organizations of associated labour. The smallest, basic organizations of associated labour, roughly corresponded to a small company or a department in a large company. These were organized into enterprises which in turn associated into composite organizations of associated labour, which could be large companies or even whole industry branches in a certain area. Most executive decision-making was based in enterprises, so that these continued to compete to an extent, even when they were part of a same composite organization. In practice, the appointment of managers and the strategic policies of composite organizations were, depending on their size and importance, often subject to political and personal influence-peddling.
In order to give all employees the same access to decision-making, the basic organisations of associated labour were also applied to public services, including health and education. The basic organizations were usually made up of no more than a few dozen people and had their own workers' councils, whose assent was needed for strategic decisions and appointment of managers in enterprises or public institutions.
The Yugoslav wars and consequent loss of market, as well as mismanagement and/or non-transparent privatization, brought further economic trouble for all the former republics of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Only Slovenia's economy grew steadily after the initial shock and slump. Croatia reached its 1990 GDP in 2003, a feat yet to be accomplished by other former Yugoslav republics.
The currency of the SFRY was the Yugoslav dinar.
References
- ^ a b [1] Proclamation of Constitution of the Feredative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, 31. 1. 1946.
- ^ Barnett, Neil. 2006 Tito. Hause Publishing. P. 14
- ^ The Specter of Separatism, TIME Magazine,
- ^ Yugoslavia: Tito's Daring Experiment, TIME Magazine, August 09, 1971
- ^ Conspiratorial Croats, TIME Magazine, June 05, 1972
- ^ Battle in Bosnia, TIME Magazine, July 24, 1972
- ^ CE Review article on Norac trial
- ^ Jugoslavija država koja odumrla, Dejan Jokić
- ^ Lampe, John R. 2000. Yugoslavia as History: Twice There Was a Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p347
- ^ Ramet, Sabrina P. 2006. The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation. Indiana University Press. p598.
- ^ Krupnick, Charles. 2003. Almost NATO: Partners and Players in Central and Eastern European Security. Rowman & Littlefield. P. 86
- ^ Flere, Sergej. “The Broken Covenant of Tito's People: The Problem of Civil Religion in Communist Yugoslavia”. East European Politics & Societies, vol. 21, no. 4, November 2007. Sage, CA: SAGE Publications. P. 685
- ^ Flere, Sergej. P. 685
- ^ Lampe, John R. Yugoslavia as History: There Twice was a Country. P. 342
- ^ Lampe, John R. P. 342
See also
- Yugoslavia
- History of the Balkans
- Music of Yugoslavia
- SFR Yugoslav Pop and Rock scene
- History of computer hardware in the SFRY
- Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
- Unique Master Citizen Number
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Former Yugoslavia
External links
- Orders and Decorations of the SFRY
- List of leaders of SFRY
- "Yugoslavia: the outworn structure" (CIA) Report from November 1970
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