INTRODUCTION

Yugoslavia is a new country of old peoples. Slavic tribes settled in what is now Yugoslavia during the sixth century and ruled themselves until the Ottoman Turks began their Balkan expansion in the twelfth century. After the collapse of the medieval kingdoms of Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia, the South Slavs (južni sloveni or jugoslaveni) were ruled variously by Austrians, Hungarians, Italians, and Turks. The division between the jurisdictions of the Christian powers and the empire of the Muslim Turks marked a major cultural divide that reinforced the earlier cleavage between Catholic and Orthodox South Slavs. By the time the South Slavs were brought into a common state in 1918, they had become accustomed to thinking of themselves as Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and Montenegrins—that is, as distinct peoples. The additional presence of certain nonSlavic peoples (Hungarians, Albanians, Germans, and Italians), together with Slavic Bulgarians and Macedonians, further complicated the picture and helped to make the so-called national question a burning issue for the interwar Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It has remained a central issue for postwar Yugoslavia.

Because Yugoslavia is a new country, ties of ethnicity have continued to exert greater hold on its people than do ties of political loyalty to the state. The interwar kingdom foundered on its misconceived denial of these differences among its Slavic peoples (treating them as members of a single “Yugoslav nation”); Yugoslavia’s postwar communist regime succeeded in assuaging ethnic sensitivities not by eroding their bases but by creating ethnic republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, and Montenegro within the political body of Yugoslavia and conceding vast jurisdiction to these republics. Yugoslav politics in the years prior to 1989 was correspondingly shaped by a delicate balance of power among the federal units, a balance in which issues have been heavily colored by the ethnic factor.

In two cases—Bosnia and Vojvodina—the local populations were so heterogeneous that the Communist party hesitated to establish them as separate republics. Vojvodina was therefore established as an autonomous province, a unit that, at least initially, had less self-governing power than the republics. Bosnia was, after some hesitation, established as a republic, but its Croats, Serbs, and “ethnic Muslims” were declared to have equal title to the republic. Finally, in the southern part of Yugoslavia, in a region that Hitler had granted to Albania and Tito’s partisans had wrenched back by force, the Yugoslav communists established the autonomous region of Kosovo-Metohija, juridically a notch below Vojvodina. Kosovo’s population, then as now, was predominantly Albanian.

If the sundry federal units were themselves ethnically homogeneous—for example, if Serbia were 100 percent Serbian and Croatia 100 percent Croatian— the political landscape would already be complex. But it is further complicated by the dispersion of nationalities throughout the country. Thus, for example, 14 percent of the population of Croatia is ethnically Serbian and 17 percent of the population of Macedonia is ethnically Albanian—two diasporas that have played volatile roles during the past fifteen years, inflaming relations among ethnic groups and among the federal units. Some of the dispersed ethnic groups, moreover, have played a role out of proportion to their numbers. The Croatian Serbs, for instance, were long overrepresented in the Croatian party, police, and militia. Serbs have also long played a disproportionate role in the governing apparatus of Albanian-populated Kosovo.

Despite its federal form, the Yugoslav political system was initially tightly centralized on the Stalin model. The Sixth Party Congress in 1952, at which the Communist party of Yugoslavia (CPY) assumed its new name, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY), began a process of decentralization that would prove distinctive among communist systems. Since decentralization, the republics and autonomous provinces increasingly became spokespersons of their titular nationalities (except, obviously, in the cases of Bosnia, Vojvodina, and, perhaps, Kosovo). The interrepublican policy struggles that have become the lodestone of Yugoslav politics were played out on four levels: among the republics themselves in those areas where republics have exclusive jurisdiction; within the arena of the federal center (government and party) on issues in which the jurisdiction of the center is pivotal; between groups of republics, with the federal center taking one side in the struggle; and among various factions within the sundry republics, with a faction from one republic allying with a kindred group in another republic to defeat legislation proposed by its antagonists. Major policy departures, such as the legitimation of a separate Muslim nationality in 1968, have always required the sanction of the center and, often, the initiative of factions at the center.

President Josip Broz Tito ruled Yugoslavia for more than thirty-five years. His death in May 1980 was perceived by most Yugoslavs as the end of an era. Some observers believed further that his death would catalyze revolt throughout the country and mark the end of Yugoslavia as such. Instead, the transition to post-Tito Yugoslavia was smooth, and change was initially imperceptible. One symptom of the gradual transition was that long after Tito’s death (itself following a four-month coma), Yugoslav newspapers continued to adorn their pages with large and prominent pictures of the deceased leader, sustaining the illusion that Tito was somehow still active. Only some four months after his death did the papers begin to run fewer pictures of the former president.

On the political level, the collective leadership fashioned by Tito loudly insisted on its determination to follow “Tito’s path,” but it proved unable to prevent a loosening of the system for at least four reasons. First, without Tito, the LCY lacked an ultimate arbiter and was therefore tangibly weaker than before. The divided party leadership could not assert itself because, in many cases, “the will of the party” could not even be determined. Second, important power centers within the party wanted change (albeit change disguised as continuity) and pressed for a measure of relaxation. Such relaxation as did take place probably exceeded the limits of what these party “liberals” had in mind, since a retrenchment that was set in motion in the summer of 1982 met no serious overt resistance within the party. Third, the tangible economic deterioration that began in 1979 threw the entire system into disarray, and numerous officials blamed the federal balance, that is, the distribution of powers between the federation and the federal units, for the country’s economic problems. Although some suggested that the country suffered from too much decentralization, others took a divergent position and argued that only extensive decentralization enabled Yugoslavia to function as well as it did. And, fourth, the explosion of violence in Kosovo in April 1981, when discontented Albanians burned cars and attacked Serbs, produced a nationalist backlash throughout Yugoslavia. Kosovo was placed under military occupation, and the episode reopened the question of the utility of federalism as a solution for interethnic tensions and distrust.

These sundry problems gradually eroded the legitimacy and political capacity of the system, and by 1989 Slovenia was talking of secession, Serbia was trying to eliminate its autonomous provinces, and the Serbian minority in Croatia was becoming restive. After free elections in Slovenia and Croatia in spring 1990, Yugoslavia was in the unique situation of being “two-thirds communist”—with noncommunist governments in the two aforementioned republics and lameduck communist governments in the other four republics. Slovenia and Croatia were actively pushing for the country’s transformation into a full-fledged confederation—an eventuality that, as of September 1990, seemed likely.

This book seeks to demonstrate that, with the multifaceted reform set in motion between 1963 and 1965, the Yugoslav political system acquired, domestically, the basic features of an international balance-of-power system. It will show that these features account for the basic pattern and dynamics of Yugoslav politics to the present day. In this spirit, I will outline, in the pages that follow, a theory that synthesizes the insights of several balance-of-power theorists, including Morton A. Kaplan and Dina A. Zinnes.

Part I explores the dynamics of nationalism and the nature of the problems posed by ethnic nationalism; empirical hypotheses are set forth regarding the behavior of ethnically constituted political units in a multipolar system. Chapter 2 highlights the main problems associated with ethnic nationalism in Yugoslavia. Chapter 3 explores the putative linkage between ethnic problems and federalism as a tentative solution in light of the evolution of Yugoslav thinking on the subject. It also traces the origins of Yugoslav policy from the influence of Marx and the Austro-Marxists to the positions of Edvard Kardelj and the LCY.

The hypotheses set forth in Part I presume wide autonomy on the part of the federal units. Evidence for this assumption is provided in Part II, which also outlines the basic structure of the federal system.

In Part III, the hypotheses are tested by application to case studies of interethnic and interrepublican conflict. Some cases are macrocases that placed the entire system under strain: the reform crisis of 1962-71, the Croatian crisis of 1967-72, and the violent eruptions of Albanian nationalism in 1968 and in the spring of 1981 must be viewed as crises of the first magnitude. Other cases— such as the controversy over the identity of the Muslims and the struggle over the level and method of assistance to the economically underdeveloped south— are salient medium-level controversies. Still other case studies examined—such as the controversy over the Belgrade-Bar railway and the debate about the proliferation of airlines (both covered in chapter 9)—are microcases, albeit with system-wide importance. It is hoped that the mix of macro-, micro-, and medium-level cases will give the reader a balanced perspective on Yugoslav political reality and provide a sensible proportion of evidence for hypotheses intended to be applicable at different levels of conflict. Chapters 10-12 trace the rise of nationalism and the disintegration of the system in the course of the 1980s. Chapter 13 examines the course of the civil war, as far as October 1991.