Everything about The Socialist Federal Republic Of Yugoslavia totally explained
The
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (
Serbo-Croatian and
Macedonian:
Socijalistička federativna republika Jugoslavija, Социјалистичка федеративна република Југославија; ) 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 hadn't 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 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 and human rights violations. The collapse of Yugoslavia and the wars that followed have left tense relations between the succeeding states and significant degrees of
xenophobia exist 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
Foundation
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
federal 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.
Pro Soviet Phase
At the outset of its creation and the
Cold War, Yugoslavia's Communist regime allied with the
Soviet Union under
Joseph 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. However, despite an early alliance of the Yugoslav communists with the Soviet Union, Stalin distrusted Tito and the two leaders didn't agree with each others' methods. Yugoslavia, unlike its neighbouring 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. 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. 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.
Land Reform was introduced in which many gained land. Less popular was the compulsory purchase of 80% of the harvest at fixed prices. The interests of the peasants were defended in the assembly by
Dragoljub Jovanović - until he was arrested.
After the Break with Stalin
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.
The break didn't mean an immediate end to repression. Indeed it was the cause of a new wave of repression against those accused of sympathy for Stalin. Sent to the island
Goli Otok(Bare Island), they were subjected to sadistic treatment by the guards and to a program of reeducation.
Yugoslavia's economy became relatively self-sufficient under Market Socialism. The communist government allowed the private automobile company
Zastava to continue, it produced the internationally popular
Zastava Koral car, popularly known as the "Yugo". 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.
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. 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. 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. Ustase-sympathizers outside Yugoslavia tried through terrorism and guerrilla actions create a separatist momentum, but they were largely unsuccessful, sometimes even getting the antipahy of fellow Roman Catholic Yugoslavs.
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 Serb nationalists were 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.
Post-Tito Yugoslavia and the Dissolution of the State
On May 5, 1980, Tito died and his death was announced through state broadcasts across Yugoslavia. While it had been known for some time that Tito had been increasingly getting ill, his death came as a shock to the country. This was because Tito was looked upon as the country's hero in World War II and had been the country's dominant figure and identity for years, his loss marked a significant alteration, and it was reported that many Yugoslavs openly mourned his death. In the Split soccer stadium, where Serb and Croat teams playing against each other in a match both stopped upon hearing of Tito's passing and tearfully sung the hymn "Comrade Tito We Swear to You, from Your Path We Will not Depart"
Tito's funeral was a national spectacle in Yugoslavia as the coffin was taken across Yugoslavia by train before being laid down in Belgrade, thousands of people went to see the traveling of the coffin throughout Yugoslavia until it reached Belgrade." some of the attendence for the traveling of the coffin and funeral was state organized by the the League of Communists but much was true spontaneous outpouring of grief.
After Tito's death in 1980, a new collective
presidency of the communist leadership from each republic was adopted.
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.
Post-Tito Yugoslavia faced significant fiscal debt in the 1980s, but its good relations with the United States led to an American-led group of organizations called the "Friends of Yugoslavia" to endorse and achieve significant debt relief for Yugoslavia in 1983 and 1984, though economic problems would continue until the state's dissolution in the 1990s.
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. 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.
(External Link
) 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.
(External Link) 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.
(External Link) Milošević's stance was seen by the Communist establishment as a violation of the policy of Brotherhood and Unity
source needed, 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 didn't 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 didn't 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'd a majority population, or they'd 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. 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 didn't have the resources to sustain itself.
(External Link) 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.
(External Link) (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 hasn't declared independence and has remained part of Serbia despite the fact of large numbers of Hungarians living there.
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 Sciences and Arts which he called "nothing else but the darkest nationalism" 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 won't flinch from battle'." Slobodan Milošević, Belgrade, November 19, 1988.(External Link)
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
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. The
Socialist Republic of Slovenia under
Milan Kučan strongly opposed the anti-bureaucratic revolution and in 1988 began a media campaign deriding the revolution, state-run newspapers in
Slovenia published articles comparing Milošević to Italian Fascist dictator
Benito Mussolini. Milošević contended that such criticism was unfounded and amounted to “spreading fear of Serbia”. Milošević's state-run media in response claimed that Kučan was endorsing Kosovo and Slovene separatism.
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.
(External Link) 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.
(External Link) On
February 27th, Slovenian Communist leader of the collective presidency of Yugoslavia,
Milan Kučan, 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.
(External Link). In the 1995
BBC documentary
Death of Yugoslavia, Kučan 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.
(External Link) Serbian state-run television denounced Kučan as a separatist, a traitor, and an endorser of Kosovo separatism.
(External Link)
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.
(External Link) 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 won't go down the road to national conflict. We will take the path of Brotherhood and Unity." Raif Dizdarević, Belgrade, 1989.(External Link)
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 hear 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.
(External Link)
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 Kučan as a traitor to Yugoslavia and demand his ousting.
(External Link) 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.
(External Link)
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 if Croatia decided to secede. 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. Croatian Serbs in Knin under the guidance of their police inspector
Milan Martić began to attempt to gain access to weapons so that the Croatian Serbs could mount a successful revolt against Tudjman's government.
(External Link) Croatian Serb politicians including the Mayor of Knin met with
Borisav Jović, the head of the Yugoslav State Council in August 1990, and urged him to push the council to take action to prevent Croatia from separating from Yugoslavia, as they claimed that the Serb population would be in danger in Croatia led by Tuđman and his nationalist government.
(External Link) At the meeting, army official
Petar Gračanin told the Croatian Serb politicians how to organize their rebellion, telling them to put up barricades, as well as assemble weapons of any sort in which he said "If you can't get anything else, use hunting rifles".
(External Link). Initially the revolt became known as the "
Log Revolution" as Serbs blockaded roadways to Knin with cut-down trees 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'd be fired upon, in which the Croatian forces obliged and returned to their base in
Zagreb.
(External Link) To the Croatian government, this action by the Yugoslav Air Force revealed to them that the Yugoslav government was supporting the Serb rebels.
(External Link)
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 election of independence-leaning governments in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia; Slovenes demanding independence in the referendum on the issue; the discovery of Croatian arms smuggling; and the apparent course towards independence by Croatia, Yugoslavia faced the iminent threat of distintigration. Jović called an emergency meeting of the State Council in which Jović and Yugoslav army chief
Veljko Kadijević declared that there was a conspiracy of the west to destroy the country, saying:
"An insidious plan has been drawn up to destroy Yugoslavia. Stage one is civil war. Stage two is foreign intervention. Then puppet regimes will be set up throughout Yugoslavia." Veljko Kadijević, March 12, 1991 (External Link)
This statement was effectively saying that the new independence-advocating governments of the republics were tools of the west which needed to be removed. Croatian delegate
Stjepan Mesić responded angrily to the proposal, accusing Jović and Kadijević of attempting to use the army to create a
Greater Serbia and declared "That means war!"
(External Link)Jović and Kadijević then called upon the delegates of each republic to vote on whether to allow martial law, and warned them that Yugoslavia would likely fall apart if martial law wasn't introduced.
(External Link) In the meeting, a vote was taken on a proposal to enact
martial law to allow 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. After Jović's term as head of the collective presidency expired, he blocked his successor, Mesić, from taking the position, and giving the position instead to
Branko Kostić, a member of the pro-Milosevic government in Montenegro.
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 wasn't 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 wasn't in the interests of Serbs as it would divide the Serb people into four republics (Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Croatia).
(External Link) Carington responded by putting the issue to a vote in which all the other republics, including Montenegro under
Momir Bulatović, initially agreed to the plan that would dissolve Yugoslavia.
(External Link) However, after intense pressure from Serbia on Montenegro's President, Montenegro changed its position to oppose the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
(External Link)
The influence of
xenophobia and ethnic hatred in the collapse of Yugoslavia became clear during Croatia's war for secession from Yugoslavia. Propaganda by Croat and Serb sides spread fear of both sides, claiming that the other side would engage in oppression against them and would exaggerate death tolls to increase support from their populations.
(External Link) In the beginning months of the war, the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army and navy deliberately shelled civilian areas of
Dubrovnik, a United Nations world heritage site, as well as nearby Croat villages.
(External Link). In state propaganda, Yugoslav media claimed that the actions were done due to what they claimed was a presence of fascist Ustase forces and international terrorists in the city.
(External Link) UN investigations found that no such forces were in Dubrovnik at the time.
(External Link) Croatian military presence increased later on. Montenegrin Prime Minister
Milo Dukanovic, at the time an ally of Milošević, appealed to Montenegrin nationalism, promising that the capture of Dubrovnik would allow the expansion of Montenegro into the city which he claimed was historically part of Montenegro, and denounced the present borders of Montenegro as being "drawn by the old and poorly educated
Bolshevik cartographers".
(External Link) At the same time, the Serbian government contradicted its Montenegrin allies by claims by the Serbian Prime Minister
Dragutin Zelenovic declared that Dubrovnik was historically Serbian, not Montenegrin.
(External Link) The international media gave immense attention to bombardment of Dubrovnik and claimed this was evidence of Milosevic pursuing the creation of a
Greater Serbia as Yugoslavia collapsed, presumably with the aide of the subordinate Montenegrin leadership of Bulatovic and Serb nationalists in Montenegro to foster Montenegrin support for the retaking of Dubrovnik.
(External Link)
In Vukovar, ethnic tensions between Croats and Serbs exploded into violence when the Yugoslav army entered the town. The Yugoslav army and Serbian paramilitaries devastated the town which with
urban warfare and the destruction of Croatian property. Serb paramilitaries committed atrocities against Croats, killing over 200 Croats, and displacing others who fled the town in what became known as the
Vukovar massacre.
(External Link) In response to the atrocities in Vukovar, Croats committed a revenge attack on Serbs during
Gospić massacre. The atrocities by both sides would continue for many years.
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're doing, isn't 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 can't defend themselves if there's war here." -Radovan Karadžić, speaking at the Bosnian parliament(External Link), October 14, 1991. (The term "Muslim people" refers to the people now known as Bosniaks.)
In 1991, behind the scenes negotiations began between Milosevic and Tudjman to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina into Serb and Croat administered territories to attempt to avert war between Croats and Serbs. Tudjman was criticized by Bosnian Croats and Croatian nationalists for negotiating with Milosevic.
1992
In January 1992, Croatia and Yugoslavia signed an armistice under UN supervision. Negotiations continued between Serb and Croat leaderships over the partitioning of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In public, pro-state media in Serbia claimed to Bosnians that Bosnia and Herzegovina could be included a new voluntary union within a new Yugoslavia based on democratic government, but this wasn't taken seriously by Bosnia and Herzegovina's government. 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. Many in the west saw the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under the influence of Milosevic as not being the legitimate successor of the SFRY, but rather as being a
Greater Serbia, as indicated by Milosevic's dominance in affairs of the FRY when he was Serbian President until 1997, and by the FRY's hypocritical call for Serb self-determination in
Croatia and
Bosnia & Herzegovina and their right to remain in Yugoslavia, while at the same time Milosevic denied the right to self-determination for Albanians in Kosovo which was claimed by Serbia as its own province.
Constitution
The defining document of the state was the
Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was amended in 1963 and 1974.
The
League of Communists of Yugoslavia won the first elections, and remained in power throughout the state's existence. It was composed of individual communist 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. In 1974, Tito was proclaimed President-for-life of Yugoslavia. After Tito's death in 1980, the single position of president was divided into a collective presidency, where representatives of each republic would essentially form a committee where the concerns of each republic would be addressed and from it, collective federal policy goals and objectives would be implemented. The head of the collective presidency was rotated between representatives of the different republics. The head of the collective presidency was considered the head of state of Yugoslavia. The collective presidency was ended in 1991, as Yugoslavia fell apart.
In 1974, major reforms to Yugoslavia's constitution occured. 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, but unlike the republics, the autonomous provinces couldn't unilaterally separate from Yugoslavia.
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.
On
January 1,
1967, Yugoslavia was the first communist country to open its borders to all foreign visitors and abolish visa requirements.
In the same year Tito became active in promoting a peaceful resolution of the
Arab-Israeli conflict. His plan called for Arab countries to recognize the
State of Israel in exchange for Israel returning territories it had gained. The Arab countries rejected his land for peace concept.
In 1967, Tito offered Czechoslovak leader
Alexander Dubček to fly to
Prague on three hours notice if Dubček needed help in facing down the Soviet Union which was occupying Czechoslovakia at the time.
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.
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 (;
Croato-Serbian:
Teritorijalna obrana; ; ;
abbreviation: TO) a national guard of sorts, which were established in the frame of a new
military doctrine called "General Popular Defense" (Serbo-Croat: Opštenarodna odbrana; Croato-Serbian: Općenarodna obrana; Slovene: 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
Some of the most prominent Yugoslav writers were the
Nobel Prize for Literature laureate
Ivo Andrić,
Miroslav Krleža,
Meša Selimović,
Branko Ćopić,
Mak Dizdar and others. Notable painters included:
Đorđe Andrejević Kun,
Petar Lubarda,
Mersad Berber,
Milić od Mačve and others. Prominent
sculptor was
Antun Augustinčić who made a monument standing in front of the
United Nations Headquarters in
New York City. The
pianist Ivo Pogorelić and the
violinist Stefan Milenković were internationaly acclaimed
classical music performers, while
Jakov Gotovac was a prominent composer and a conductor. The
Yugoslav cinema featured the notable theatre and film actors
Danilo Bata Stojković,
Ljuba Tadić,
Fabijan Šovagović,
Mustafa Nadarević,
Bata Živojinović,
Boris Dvornik,
Ljubiša Samardžić,
Dragan Nikolić,
Milena Dravić,
Neda Arnerić,
Rade Šerbedžija,
Mira Furlan,
Ena Begović and others. Film directors included:
Emir Kusturica,
Dušan Makavejev,
Goran Marković,
Lordan Zafranović,
Goran Paskaljević,
Živojin Pavlović and Hajrudin Krvavac. Many Yugoslav films featured eminent foreign actors such as
Orson Welles and
Yul Brynner in the
Academy Award nominated
The Battle of Neretva, and
Richard Burton in
Sutjeska. Also, many foreign films were shot on locations in Yugoslavia including domestic crews, such as
Force 10 from Navarone starring
Harrison Ford,
Robert Shaw and
Franco Nero,
Armour of God starring
Jackie Chan, as well as
Escape from Sobibor starring
Alan Arkin,
Joanna Pacula and
Rutger Hauer.
Cultural events across the former Yugoslavia included Dubrovačke ljetne igre,
Pula Film Festival, the
Struga Poetry Evenings and many others. The
Yugoslav pop and rock music was also a very important part of the culture. The
Yugoslav New Wave was an esspecialy productive musical scene, as well as the authentic subcultural movement called
New Primitives. The former SFR Yugoslavia was the only
communist state that was taking part in the
Eurovision Song Contest and it was one of its oldest participants starting in
1961 even before some
Western nations. Notable domestic
popular music festival was the
Split Festival. Prominent
traditional music artists were the award winning
Tanec ensemble, the
Romani music performer
Esma Redžepova and others.
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. 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.
Artists from different ethnicities in the country were popular amongst other ethnicities such as Muslim
Yugoslav pop-folk singer
Lepa Brena from
Bosnia and Herzegovina, who was popular in Serbia, and the film industry in Yugoslavia avoided nationalist overtones until the 1990s.
Sport
The SFRY enjoyed a strong athletic 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.
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 country consisted of six republics, with their appropriate constitutional nations:
Slovenia - Slovenes
Croatia - Croats, Serbs
Bosnia and Herzegovina - Bosnian 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 (for example 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'd 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.
Miscellaneous
Yugoslavia used to be described as a small country with seven neighboring countries, six republics, five nationalities, four languages, three religions, two alphabets and one political party.
Yugoslavia was also said to be surrounded with "worries" ("brigama" in Serbo-Croatian). That word could be constructed using the first letters of the names of the surrounding countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Greece, Albania, Hungary (Mađarska in Serbo-Croatian) and Austria).
Yugoslavia shared the melody of its national anthem with Poland. Its first lyrics were written in 1834 under the title Hey, Slovaks (Hej, Slováci) and it has since served as the anthem of the Pan-Slavic movement, the anthem of the Sokol physical education and political movement, and the anthem of the WWII Slovak Republic, Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro. The song is also considered to be the second, unofficial anthem of the Slovaks. Its melody is based on Mazurek Dąbrowskiego, which has been also the anthem of Poland since 1926, but it's much slower and more accentuated. http://www.marxists.org/subject/yugoslavia/music/servie-serbian.mp3Further Information
Get more info on 'Socialist Federal Republic Of Yugoslavia'.
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