The year 1989 was a turning point in the evolution of Yugoslav politics. Several factors entered into this. First, as already discussed, the party apparatus started crumbling at a fast pace, from the bottom up. Citizens stopped going to meetings, local committees stopped functioning and closed up, party members returned their party cards, and the party’s “reach” steadily shrank. Second, inflation was soaring at 800-900 percent most of the year, and topped 1,000 percent by the end of the year. This had a tremendous impact on people’s mood, attitudes, and behavior at all levels—including politics. Third, the national question, which had seemed to be under control in the late 1970s and roughly manageable in the early years of the 1980s, had clearly reemerged as a powerful force by 1989—that, to some extent, as a product of Milosevic’s program and strategy, as I argued in the preceding chapter. Fourth, in Kosovo in particular, after the Serbian annexation of the province in March 1989, extinguishing most of the province’s juridical prerogatives, the Kosovo question alone became vastly more serious, as Serb-Albanian tensions took a turn for the worse. Fifth, the continuing constitutional debate contributed to a sense that change was not only necessary, but inevitable. And sixth, the changes sweeping through other parts of Eastern Europe—in particular, Poland and Hungary, but eventually also East Germany and Czechoslovakia—helped redouble Yugoslavs’ growing impatience with their system, as they saw their neighbors make their first steps toward democratization.

As a result, by 1989, the system had lost its earlier resilience, had become, in fact, quite fragile. There was a growing sense that it was breathing its last breath.

Slovenia versus Serbia

As of 1989, the Serbian party was advocating that the federation be restructured in such a way as to incorporate the principle “one-person one-vote” while insisting that in Kosovo, the interests of 10 percent of the population took precedence over the other 90 percent. And after the Opačić affair in Croatia, Serbs advocated the rights of the Serbian minority in Croatia to enjoy an autonomous region, even though they already had a republic of their own, while denying that the Albanians had any right even to autonomy in Kosovo, let alone to their own republic.

Slovenia’s view of the situation was radically different from Serbia’s, and already in 1988, serious polemics divided the two leaderships. In early autumn 1988, the Serbian leadership approached the Slovenian leadership and asked for the latter’s support for the proposed amendments to the Serbian constitution. The Slovenian leadership, however, refused, saying that this would amount to interference in Serbia’s internal affairs.¹ But in the closing months of 1988, Slovenian-Serbian relations soured. Milosevic’s political style and strategy were, quite simply, unsettling to the Slovenes. “This Stalinist concept of ‘democratic centralism’ unavoidably leads to extolling the central figure into a living god,” Slovenia’s president, Janez Stanovnik, said of Serbia in a 1988 interview. “When you start worshipping a leader, you no longer have a population that is able to act democratically.”² Slovenia’s leaders accused Serbia’s of “Stalinism,” and Serbia’s leaders accused Slovenia’s of “betrayal.” Hostility bred distrust, and by mid-October 1988, the two leaderships were no longer on speaking terms. On November 16, the SRFJ presidency intervened in the dispute and urged the leaderships of Slovenia and Serbia to meet.³ But nothing came of this initiative. On the contrary, Serbs started boycotting Slovenian products. Belgrade citizens also started withdrawing their savings from the Bank of Ljubljana. And the director of the Jugoeksport work organization threatened to terminate joint ventures with some eighty-eight Slovenian partners.⁴

At this stage, the writers’ associations of Slovenia and Serbia played a key role. In late February 1989, when Albanian miners at the Trepča mine in Kosovo staged a major strike, the Slovenian Association of Writers held a public meeting at Cankar Hall (Cankarjev Dom) in Ljubljana, criticizing the stationing of some 15,0 army troops in Kosovo⁵ and the implementation of extraordinary measures, and expressing sympathy with the miners. On February 28, the Serbian Association of Writers broke off relations with the Slovenian Association. In the telegram sent to Ljubljana, the Serbian Association accused the Slovenian Association “of betraying the traditional, historic, and predestined friendship between our two nations.”⁶ The Slovenian Association refused to believe that the rupture was permanent, and when, in April 1989, a meeting of the Associations of Writers of Yugoslavia was held, Rudi Seligo, president of the Slovenian Association, attended. Seligo tried, at that meeting, to persuade the body to issue a criticism of Serbian policy in Kosovo—but this was blocked. So immediately after the meeting, the Slovenian Association decided that it had nothing further to expect from that body and ended all practical cooperation with the federation. The Slovenian Association continued to have good relations with its sister organizations in Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia, however.⁷

Developments in Kosovo were also prompting a politicization of the Catholic Church, and in early March 1989, immediately after the arrest of Azem Vllasi, the executive committee of the Episcopal Conference of Yugoslavia issued a statement calling for respect for human rights. The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace issued a similar statement.⁸

In Slovenia, people started to manufacture and distribute Star of David badges, with the legend, “Kosovo”—a gesture that infuriated Serbs. And the mass demonstrations by Milošević supporters that had shaken the regional governments in Novi Sad, Pristina, and Titograd were condemned by SAWP-Slovenia as injurious to democracy.⁹

During May and June 1989, various Slovenian organizations issued statements of solidarity with the Albanians of Kosovo, while a war of words raged between the leaderships of Slovenia and Serbia. Repeated Slovenian initiatives to open a dialogue were rebuffed by Milošević. After a speech at Novi Sad on May 23, in which the Serbian party boss called Slovenia a “lackey” of Western Europe and called into question its right to speak out on Kosovo,¹⁰ the presidency of Slovenia sent a letter to the Serbian presidency, declaring, among other things,

The Socialist Republic of Slovenia is a sovereign state of the Slovene people who, of their own free will and on the basis of their right to self-determination, have decided to live together with other peoples and nationalities of Yugoslavia in a democratic, federally organized socialist community. Therefore, it has the right and the responsibility to adopt positions and to make judgments freely and autonomously, even on the content of our joint life and our joint future, for these are parts of the joint fate of every people in a joint motherland, including the situation in Kosovo.¹¹

Subsequently, in early July, the central committee of LC Slovenia issued a major programmatic statement that codified the republic’s newly discovered claim to self-determination. Recalling that while still underground, Slovenian communists had, in 1923, underlined Slovenes’ right of self-determination, the central committee declared that

The right of a people to self-determination is comprehensive, lasting, and inalienable. With this right, the sovereign Slovene people, together with the two nationalities and all the other citizens of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia, ensure their independent political status and their comprehensive economic, social, and cultural development.¹²

Croatia’s leadership contacted Slovenia’s to express solidarity, while Montenegro’s leadership faithfully followed the Serbian lead. Bosnia’s leadership tried to find a middle ground but warned that the Slovenian-Serbian dispute was injurious to Yugoslavia.¹³

Then in September 1989, the Republic of Slovenia published a series of controversial draft amendments to its constitution. These included a clear assertion of the right of secession, the declaration that only the Slovenian Assembly can introduce a state of emergency in Slovenia, and the proscription of the deployment of military forces in Slovenia, except by the agreement of the Slovenian Assembly.¹⁴ The significance of these amendments was patently clear, and the Serbian press noisily attacked the amendments as “destabilizing.”¹⁵ The amendments were passed in October all the same.

About this time, a body of pro-Milošević Serbs and Montenegrins, which called itself the Kosovo Polje Committee, declared its intention of holding a protest rally in Ljubljana on December 1. The committee planned to mobilize some 30,000-40,000 Serbs and Montenegrins from Serbia and Kosovo, and, supposedly, inform Slovenes about the “real” situation in Kosovo. There were also implied threats to destabilize Slovenia. The Slovenian government asked the SFRJ presidency to ban the proposed meeting, but the Yugoslav presidency refused. Delo wrote,

In the Slovenian view, . . . the announced march would de facto be an act of civil war, because the people of one sovereign state would march against the legal and legitimate representatives of another state. The federal organs, from the state presidency and the Assembly to the government and the defense ministry, are obliged, in conformity with their constitutional and legal powers, to prevent such an intention in advance; if they do not prevent it, the question of the “purpose” of Yugoslavia arises at once.¹⁶

The Croatian Sabor expressed its solidarity with the Slovenian Assembly and demanded that federal organs prevent the meeting from taking place.¹⁷ The Slovenian government then issued its own ban. And when the Serbian committee tried to proceed anyway, the Slovenian and Croatian railway unions stopped the trains carrying the would-be protesters and turned them back.¹⁸

Enraged, the Republic Conference of SAWP-Serbia cut its ties with SAWP-Slovenia, in a move the Croatian Socialist Alliance immediately condemned as “one of the most dangerous steps toward [the] disintegration of Yugoslavia,” lending its firm support to Slovenia.¹⁹ The Serbian Socialist Alliance did not stop there, however, but called on Serbian enterprises to take “revenge” by cutting all cooperative links with Slovenia. Within two weeks, Serbian enterprises cancelled business contracts with some 98 Slovenian enterprises, affecting deliveries and commerce in all branches of the economy.²⁰ A week later, some 329 Serbian enterprises had severed business relations with Slovenian firms.²¹ The rupture was, in economic terms, an act of war.

Two months later, the Slovenian Assembly replied. It cut off those payments to FADURK that would have been payable to the now-annexed Kosovo, reduced its contribution to the federal budget by 15 percent (the amount it estimated was being syphoned to assist the Serbian economy), and declared that Slovenia would immediately stop payments to Vojvodina and Serbia in connection with rehabilitation after damage caused to agriculture and settlements in Vojvodina (by hail, in 1987) and Serbia (by flooding, in 1988).²²

A Wildfire of Nationalism

Yugoslavia was now swept by a wildfire of nationalism. Everywhere one turned, there were intolerant actions, strangely impassioned rhetoric, discrimination, wanton violence, ethnic reprisals. The new mood was struck at an Extraordinary Assembly of the Serbian Association of Writers on March 4, 1989, to which gathering, association president Matija Beckovic declared that “There is so much Serbian blood and so many sacred relics that Kosovo will remain Serbian land, even if not a single Serb remains there.”²³ Pathos, it seems, should count for more than democracy; relics may outvote citizens.

Bosnia became a political battleground. The marketplace was full of confirmable rumors about incidents between local Serbs and Croats, or between Serbs and Muslims, and as 1989 wore on, Bosnian officials began to admit that interethnic troubles were becoming serious. Serbs and Croats alike began to revive arguments that Bosnia’s Muslim nation was only a political construct, and the Bosnian leadership confessed that it was worried that this could lead xnto ambitions to redraw the boundaries of Serbia and/or Croatia, at Bosnia’s expense.²⁴ Even in Montenegro, there were currents favoring the dismantlement of Bosnia.²⁵ The founding of a local branch of the new Serbian Democratic party, in Trebinje (Herzegovina) in July 1990,²⁶ could scarcely be reassuring to the Croats and Muslims of Bosnia. In March 1990, as Serbian and Croatian irredentism gathered steam, the three chambers of the Bosnian Republic Assembly met in joint session and denounced tendencies to redraw the map.²⁷ That did not prevent Serbian president Milosevic and Croatian president Tudjman from explicitly alluding to possible border revisions at Bosnia’s expense, however.²⁸ By mid-summer, there were skirmishes between Serbs and Muslims, and the former were said to be organizing armed militias.

In Macedonia, too, there were grave warnings that a revival of, in this case, Macedonian nationalism was destroying interethnic harmony in the republic and destabilizing it politically.²⁹ Those warnings notwithstanding, on May 17, 1989, the Macedonian Assembly adopted an amendment rewriting Article 1 of the Constitution of Macedonia. In the new version, the article proclaims Macedonia “the national state of the Macedonian people,” dropping any reference to the Albanian and Turkish national groups.³⁰ In Vojvodina, the chief issue has been the autonomist striving of local Serbs, who do not want to be dominated by Belgrade.³¹ But even here, the founding of a Democratic Union of Croats in Vojvodina in July 1990 was accompanied by complaints that Croats in the Republic of Serbia have lacked their own schools, cultural-artistic societies, television, and media and pledges to work for the creation of a Croatian autonomous region in Vojvodina or Serbia-proper.³² The move mirrored earlier demands by Croatian Serbs, and figured—at least symbolically—as a kind of reply to Serbian irredentism in Croatia.

In southern Serbia, Muslims of the Sandžak of Novi Pazar began demanding “cultural autonomy” and created the Sandžak Party of Democratic Action to promote their cause.

And then there is Croatia—the vortex of nationalism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and ostensibly dormant through much of the late 1970s and early 1980s.³³ Croatian nationalism rebounded suddenly, in the course of 1989, and seems to have been triggered to a considerable extent by aggressive Serbian behavior. There were, altogether, three chief sparks that contributed to the rekindling of Croatian nationalism.

First, after a few years during which attacks on the Croats had died down, the Serbian press renewed the attack in late 1988/early 1989, once again talking about the Ustaše, the concentration camp at Jasenovac, everlasting Croatian guilt for what fascism had done to Croats and Serbs alike, and the alleged support of the Catholic Church for genocide.³⁴ Disgusted by the continued misrepresentation, the Catholic Church replied, finally, by publishing the transcript of the Vatican’s directives to clergy in the Independent State of Croatia, dated July 24, 1941: the letter had explicitly ordered the Franciscans to desist from taking part in any forced conversions of Orthodox Serbs, from any persecution of Serbs, and from participation or membership in the Ustaše movement.³⁵

Second, on July 27, 1989, the Italian magazine, Il Tempo, published the text of an interview with Serbian writer Dobrica Ćosić, which seemed to Croats to open up the question of reassigning Istria, Zadar, and the Adriatic islands to another republic, that is, of taking them away from Croatia.³⁶ The political fallout from this interview was enormous. For a few weeks, Croats could talk of little else, and the issue was discussed and rediscussed in the Croatian and Serbian press throughout the late summer. Local municipalities throughout Croatia met and issued condemnations of Ćosić, day after day.³⁷ The Association of Historical Societies of Croatia sent letters of protest to the Serbian Academy of Sciences and to the Serbian Association of Writers.³⁸ And the Croatian authorities claimed to see an emerging pattern, aimed at the destabilization of Croatia.³⁹

And third, the mobilization of Croatia’s Serbian minority, briefly described in the preceding chapter, frightened and enraged Croats at the same time. The Split weekly newspaper, Nedjeljna Dalmacija, echoed widespread Croatian sentiment in seeing in developments in Knin a first step in the direction of breaking up Croatia and annexing large portions of it to a “Greater Serbia.”⁴⁰ Meanwhile, clergy of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia complained of growing intolerance toward the Orthodox faith,⁴¹ while the Serbian Orthodox news organ, Pravoslavlje, complained of discrimination, published statistics showing a decline in the number of Orthodox facilities in Croatia between 1932 and 1988, and registered a number of demands designed to change the situation to their satisfaction.⁴²

The new mood in Croatia was well symbolized by the decision, in September 1989, to restore the statue of nineteenth-century governor, Josip Jelaćić, to Zagreb’s main square, thus finally satisfying one of the demands of 1971.⁴³ About the same time, the Croatian town of Zirje unveiled a bust of Jerko Sizgorić, one of the organizers of the sailors’ revolt against the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918.⁴⁴

There were repeated warnings that interethnic relations in Croatia were rapidly deteriorating. One sign of this was the renewed eruption of interethnic violence at sporting events.⁴⁵ As of summer 1990, there were reports that Serbs were boarding trains in Croatia in order to beat up Croatian passengers.

The Army Debates

For years, Western observers speculated about a possible military intervention in Yugoslav politics. But, with perhaps the sole exception of the 1988 conspiracy against Slovenian liberalism—which was, in any case, scotched— the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) did little except talk—until 1991. Generally speaking, its primary concern has been to assure itself of the lion’s share of the federal budget. In 1989, for example, the Yugoslav Armed Forces were allocated some 57 percent of the federal budget.⁴⁶ Understandably, with such a favorable distribution of resources, the military tended to be enthusiastic about maintaining the status quo. After all, if a multiparty system were introduced, who knows, there might be a more far-reaching debate about military expenditures. The ruling party might not be as sympathetic to military spending as the communists were.

There are other reasons for the military’s general conservatism, though. The fact that 60-70 percent of the general staff consists of Serbs and Montenegrins has something to do with it.⁴⁷ Then again, the army was obliged, by the Constitution of 1974, to defend the constitutional system, and that tended to reinforce its tendency to oppose political change and to stress the importance of fidelity to the principles of AVNOJ.⁴⁸

As the state formula started to break down in 1989 and nationalism reared its head, the military and the JNA party organization expressed concern. The military took the stance that while reform was necessary, multiparty democracy was out of the question, and the LCY would remain the pivot of any process of democratization.⁴⁹ The dangers of “bureaucratic nationalism” became a constant theme of military spokespersons, who thought in terms of restoring “the unity of the LCY and its leadership, as well as the full affirmation of Yugoslavia as an equal, socialist community of all nations and nationalities.”⁵⁰ In the military’s view—as expressed in September 1989—”the League of Communists must continue to be the leading ideopolitical force in society.”⁵¹

When Slovenia adopted its controversial constitutional amendments in October 1989, there were rumors that the military would somehow intervene. There is no evidence that the military contemplated such a move at that point, although Assistant Defense Secretary Lt. Gen. Simeon Bunčić let it be known that the military was opposed to the amendments since the exercise of the right of secession “would prevent the army from doing its duty as guardian of the country’s territorial integrity.”⁵² That literal-minded answer concealed the military’s real reasons for opposition to Slovenian self-determination, which had more to do with conservatism, communist dogmatism, and Serbian interests than any fixation on carrying out specific guidelines to the end of time.

Time after time, the military reiterated its opposition to a multiparty system. In late October 1989, for example, Bunčić told a television audience,

We favor political pluralism, but not of the multiparty type. The introduction of a multiparty system would imply the depoliticization of the JNA, which would then lose its popular character, and have to become a professional, mercenary, apolitical army in the service of whichever party was in power . . . [And consequently,] the LCY organization in the JNA, which numbers almost 80,000 [members], would also have to cease to exist.⁵³

Despite its opposition to Slovenia’s amendments, the military also criticized Serbia’s economic blockade of Slovenia as “inappropriate” in the view of the political and economic consequences it was having. But by December 1989, as the pressure for repluralization gathered momentum, the military was sounding more flexible. For instance, Major Gen. Ivo Tominc, assistant commander of the Fifth Military District for Political and Legal Activities, told a press conference that month that the JNA would not interfere in developments, would not slow down democratic change, and would adjust to all changes in the political system.⁵⁴

Meanwhile, voices were raised calling for a constitutional redefinition of the JNA’s role in society. In July 1990, for example, the (noncommunist) presidency of the Republic of Croatia pledged to push for the complete depoliticization of the army (including the dismantlement of its party organizations and the constitutional provision tying the military to the defense of socialism).⁵⁵ Earlier, in January 1990, the new Democratic party (in Montenegro) demanded that party organizations in the army and police be abolished immediately. The party added that the generals “should particularly not be allowed to threaten us with the use of arms, which are not their property, in order to defend socialism, which is also not their property, from us democrats—as if we care about it at all”⁵⁶ This was an augur 0f things to come.

The Collapse of the Party

In December 1989, on the eve of the Fourteenth (Extraordinary) Congress, Slovenian party leader Milan Kučan warned that the country was on the brink of civil war.⁵⁷ Some people pinned hopes for a solution on the congress, and the draft program published in advance of the congress seemed serious about finding a way out: it promised free multiparty elections, freedom of speech, guarantees for other human rights, and efforts to obtain entry into the European Economic Community. But when the congress was convened, the Slovenian party pushed for reforms more extensive than at least some of the other regional organizations were willing to embrace. The congress appeared deadlocked, and in frustration and protest, the Slovenian delegation walked out on January 23, causing the entire congress to fall apart. The “Congress of Salvation” ended in complete fiasco. Twelve days later, the Slovenian party pulled out of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, shattering the remaining superficial semblance of unity. The Slovenian communists renamed their party the Party of Democratic Renewal.

The Slovenian party did not stop there but proposed that the entire LCY be disbanded, that all its officers resign, and that new organizations be created with new political programs, new organizational structures, new methods of decision making, and a new recruitment and promotion policy.⁵⁸ In Slovenia and Croatia, the Socialist Alliance reorganized itself as an independent Socialist party, while in Serbia, it merged with the LC Serbia to form a new Socialist Party of Serbia. Unlike the LC organizations, these new parties were not united in any way at an all-Yugoslav level.

By this point, it was not entirely clear whether Yugoslavia even existed in any meaningful sense. “This is a strange state,” Kosta Čavoški, of the Serbian Democratic party, conceded. “We have to conduct our internal relations like other countries conduct international relations.”⁵⁹

Chaos or Fragmentation

The restructuring (or rebirth) of a society is preceded by the death of its preceding incarnation. That death is accompanied by uncertainty, depression, groping, and fear—in a word, by trauma. It is also the catalyst of creative energy, which sparks the search for a new social order, which in turn makes restructuring possible. In multiethnic Yugoslavia, restructuring inevitably means change in the way the nationality groups structure their relations.

The signs of the approaching death of the self-managing socialist system could be read several years in advance of its final arrival. Writing in 1985, I observed that there had been a subtle but significant change in Yugoslav consciousness and behavior over the preceding years. The earlier confidence and self-congratulation had given way to “pessimism, gloom, resignation, escapism of various kinds,” and an inward-looking quest for meanings which I call “apocalypse culture.”⁶⁰ This syndrome is associated with normlessness and anomie, deriving from social decay and the deep collective insecurity to which it gives rise. “Apocalypse culture” is characterized by an “openness to radically new formulas [which] springs from the sense—whether a belief or (as more usually) merely a mood—that the system in question has arrived at a historical turning point, that it is, so to speak, the ‘end of time.’ “⁶¹ Yugoslavia began to shift into an apocalyptic stage as a result of the various developments noted at the beginning of chapter 10. Doubts about the workability of the system came to the surface within a matter of weeks after Tito’s death,⁶² and gathered intensity over time. Dire predictions and catastrophic visions, symptomatic of the psychology of the transitional phase associated with apocalypse culture, could be heard from time to time. Particularly striking are the comments made by Slovene Franc Šetinc on the occasion of his resignation from the LCY presidium in 1988: “In my [letter of] resignation,” he told the presidium,

I drew attention to the madness which is pushing us toward the abyss in front of our very eyes. There is a great danger that our constitutional system may be carried away with the tide, and call me to account. I have warned of the dramatic situation, the destructive lava which has spread over a large part of the country. It concerns the future of the SFRJ and in this respect, the last hour is striking when we must sober up.⁶³

But if social pressure produces creativity and the anxiety that undermines dogmatism and stimulates receptivity to new ideas, the weakening of the party under pressure created conditions in which political debate became steadily more and more open, involving ever larger numbers of people in political activity, whether legal, semilegal, or technically illegal. In these conditions, independent organizations sprouted, developed, and grew into political parties. By early 1990, there were eighty-six of them: thirty-one in Croatia, nineteen in Slovenia, thirteen in Montenegro, six in Serbia, six in Kosovo, six in Vojvodina, three in Bosnia, and two in Macedonia. I have already recounted elsewhere the process of the repluralization of Yugoslavia,⁶⁴ and will not repeat the story here. It suffices to note that with the electoral victories of noncommunist parties in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia in the course of 1990 (by the liberal coalition “Demos” in Slovenia, by Franjo Tudjman’s nationalist Croatian Democratic Community in Croatia, and by a coalition of nationalist parties in Bosnia) and the election of a coalition government in Macedonia, an important element constitutive of the political context of the Yugoslav balance-of-power system was fundamentally changed.

Concomitant with that, the proclamation of “full sovereignty” by Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia,⁶⁵ together with Slovenian-Croatian negotiations about possible secession from Yugoslavia and the creation of a Slovenian-Croatian confederation,⁶⁶ rewrote the rules of the game at the structural level as well. In 1988 and 1989, Serbs continued to denounce confederalization as impractical, unwieldy, and unrealizable.⁶⁷ By mid-1990, complete confederalization appeared inevitable and was, in large part, already accomplished. Given Serbian consent, it is possible that a confederal solution could have been stabilized. Given Serbian opposition, confederalization could only figure as a prelude to complete disintegration.

Civil order continued to disintegrate in the Serbian-populated areas in Croatia, as local Serbs armed themselves, forming underground militias. Some of these were said to call themselves “Chetniks,” after the Serbian nationalist formations of World War II. The army, 70 percent of whose officers were Serbian and which was expressing an ever more explicitly pro-Serbian line, began shipping arms (under a ruse) to Serbian rebels in Croatia in October 1990. Cargo trains bearing arms were unexpectedly routed through Knin and made lengthy unscheduled stops there, while local Serbs relieved the trains of their cargo.⁶⁸ Croatian Serbs also established their own “police force.”⁶⁹ Both in Belgrade and in Knin, Serbs talked of detaching the Serb-populated regions in Croatia and attaching them to Serbia. The Croatian government in turn placed republic military formations under its own authority⁷⁰—a move taken earlier by Slovenia—and set up a special “Croatian Guard, “ consisting of about 4,000 troops. As these developments undermined stability in Croatia, there were serious clashes between Serbs and Muslims in Bosnia and in the Sandžak of Novi Pazar (in southern Serbia).⁷¹

Slovenia and Croatia warned repeatedly that confederalization was the only formula under which a peaceful Yugoslavia could be preserved. These two republics prepared and published a joint proposal for confederalization in October 1990.⁷² At that time, the lameduck communist governments of Bosnia and Macedonia rejected the Slovenian-Croatian proposal (although they did not side with the Serbs or the Montenegrins).⁷³ Later, the new noncommunist government of Bosnia-Herzegovina, led by President Alija Izetbegović (whom the communists had imprisoned in 1983 for Islamic fundamentalism), expressed some support for the Slovenian-Croatian concept. But Bosnia’s multiethnic mix made it impossible for the Bosnian government to adopt a clear position.

In Slovenia, privately printed “lipa” banknotes came to be accepted as negotiable currency in a number of Slovenian shops and restaurants, and in October 1990, the Slovenian government set an important precedent by opening its first diplomatic mission abroad (in Brussels). By January 1991, sentiment in Slovenia for secession from the Yugoslav federation was overwhelming.⁷⁴

Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Vojvodina, and Kosovo began withholding tax payments from the federal government.⁷⁵ As a result, by late November, income into the federal treasury was only about one-third of what had been budgeted, and federal officials described the situation as “extremely serious”.⁷⁶ In addition, the Serbian government stole some $1.6 billion from the federal treasury, according to a report in the British periodical The Economist.⁷⁷ In a word, no government can continue to function when its funds are choked off.

Despite its earlier avowals of political neutrality, the army’s largely Serbian officer corps found it increasingly difficult to remain on the sidelines. By November 1990, the army was actively involved in reconstructing the Communist party (which had been more generous with budgetary allocations than had noncommunist governments).⁷⁸ Yugoslav defense minister General Veljko Kadijevic, a Serb, closing his eyes to everything going on around him, declared, “The ideas of socialism . . . belong to the future. The experience of developed countries confirms that [socialism] is one of the greatest achievements of contemporary civilization.”⁷⁹ Purloined materials prepared by the Yugoslav Ministry of Defense and published in a Yugoslav newspaper on January 31, 1991, documented the army’s determination to hold Yugoslavia together and its desire to bring the communists back to power.⁸⁰

The lines of confrontation were clearly drawn. On the one side, Slovenia and Croatia, failing to bring the other republics around to a consensus on a new confederal structure modeled on the EEC, were preparing for secession and possible association in a separate confederation linking their two states. Serbia and the Serbian-controlled federal army rejected any confederal principle and insisted on the necessity of reintegrating the country firmly under Serbian hegemony, which Milosevic and his followers called a “modern federation.” The army, additionally, wanted to restore communism throughout the country.

On December 3, 1990, came a demand from General Kadijević that Slovenia and Croatia disarm their local defense units. If the two republics refused to comply, Kadijević warned, the army would use force to effect the desired result. The Slovenes and Croats held fast, calling up reservists, placing their units on high alert, and bracing for invasion.⁸¹ The ministers of defense and interior from Slovenia and Croatia convened an urgent meeting in the border town of Mokrice and agreed to coordinate defense and security.⁸²

There were reports that both Slovenia and Croatia had been purchasing weapons abroad and that Croatia, in particular, had imported thousands of AK-47 assault rifles and shoulder-fired antitank rockets from Hungary, as well as Singaporan SAR-80 automatic rifles.⁸³

The state presidency handed down a deadline of midnight, January 19, 1991, for Slovenian and Croatian compliance. The deadline was subsequently extended by forty-eight hours. Meanwhile, Yugoslav military police arrested various persons on the territory of Croatia, including members of the ruling Croatian Democratic Community.⁸⁴ On January 25, Croatia’s president Tudjman met with members of the federal collective presidency, Prime Minister Ante Marković, and high officers of the Yugoslav Army in an effort to avert civil war. At the end of the meeting, which lasted deep into the night, the storm clouds seemed to have cleared. Jović, president of the collective presidency, recognized the legitimacy of the Croatian government. General Kadijević agreed to call off the military alert at army bases in Croatia and not to interfere in Croatian internal affairs. And Tudjman, in exchange, agreed to call off the mobilization of reserve units (some 20,000 strong) in Croatia.⁸⁵ Tudjman declined to disband any of the units, however, or to turn over any of their weaponry to the army. The crisis had hardly passed, however. For Yugoslav troop movements continued in the Zagreb environs.⁸⁶ And on January 30, Kadijević ordered the arrest of Martin Spegelj, minister of defense of the Republic of Croatia, on allegations that Spegelj had made preparations for armed insurrection in Croatia. But Croatian authorities refused to arrest Spegelj. Jović threatened to use armed force to assure the apprehension of the Croatian defense minister. Tudjman, in turn, promised to employ force to prevent the arrest. By the end of January 1991, political talks between Croatian and federal leaders had broken down, with Croatia’s Tudjman refusing to take part in any further meetings as long as the army was represented there. Finally, on February 8, the Republic of Slovenia declared that it had given up on Yugoslavia and would formally secede from the federation before the end of the month. The Slovenian prime minister added that Slovenia would annul all federal laws on February 20.⁸⁷

What was evident as of early 1991—though it had surely been obvious by summer 1989, if not before—was that the old Titoist program to defuse the nationalities problem had completely failed. The question is why.

The Titoist solution consisted of four parts. First, it tried to build a sense of community around an empty core. Ultimately it was clear what the content of “Slovenianness,” “Croatianness,” and “Serbianness” was, in each case, but “Yugoslavness” had no content except the sum of its parts. Self-management and the myth of partisan struggle were supposed to provide some content, but these failed likewise.

Second, Titoism tried to assuage people’s need for pluralization by offering regional pluralization (decentralization to regional communist elites) in place of political pluralization (the institution of multiparty democracy). This solution prevented the development of any popular-based parties that transcended ethnic lines. Under Titoism, power devolved to the republics, Yugoslavia became quasi-confederal, and when independent political parties finally developed at the end of the 1980s, they were, almost without exception, the parties of specific nationality groups. Regional pluralization, in effect, laid the groundwork for today’s ethnic mobilization and political fragmentation.

Third, Tito believed that to ease interethnic tensions, an equalization of levels of economic development was necessary. What Tito did not anticipate was that self-managing socialism, far from equalizing economic levels, would cause the economic gap to widen steadily. Investment funds raised for the underdeveloped regions were often used to further political goals (e.g., investments designed to affect the interethnic mix) rather than to boost economic profit. It is possible to conclude that self-managing socialism was less well suited than free enterprise would have been to raising the economic levels in the south. Be that as it may, socialism raised expectations and failed to deliver—a dangerous combination.

And fourth, Titoism’s policy vis-à-vis the army proved to be a blueprint for trouble. Tito’s heavy reliance on Serbian officers to staff the upper ranks meant that the army’s neutrality would be hard to achieve. At the same time, Titoism’s enshrinement of the military as the “guardian of socialism” habituated the high command to think of itself as enjoying a veto right over political developments of which it did not approve.

Yet ultimately, despite these weaknesses, it took the rise of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia to bring the country from a state of confused paralysis to the brink of civil war. Milošević combined charismatic techniques with internal censorship of press and politics and the mobilization of Serbian publics in other federal units to advance his program. To mobilize Serbs, he entered into a partnership with the Serbian Orthodox Church and stirred up a mood of destiny and historicity, which sometimes took on characteristics of frenzy and which was founded on a combination of ethnic chauvinism, religious chauvinism,⁸⁸ and male chauvinism.⁸⁹ Armed with this triad of chauvinisms, Milošević converted shadings of grey into polarities of black and white and rallied Serbs to the banner of Serbian solidarity.