• 1  The notion of the “main” ethnic groups refers to Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Although the Yugoslav (...)

2In the socialist Yugoslav federation (1945-1992) all ethnic groups were in a minority : yet the constitutive narrative upon which the social project was based did not recognise the concept of a minority. No ethnic group in the former Yugoslavia was larger than Serbs, but they were only 36,3 % of the Yugoslav population in 1981. The largest ethnic group, therefore, was still a minority in Yugoslavia with regard to the total population, just as any other ethnic group. Furthermore, just as other main ethnic groups in Yugoslavia (all except Bosnian Muslims, Albanians and Macedonians) their share in population was decreasing1. While in 1961 Serbs made 42,1 % of the population, in 1981 they were 36,3 %. The share of Croats also fell in this period from 23,2 % to 19,7 %. With a growing number of those who declared themselves Yugoslavs in the ethnic sense (increasing from 1,7 % to 5,4 % between 1971 and 1981, with an estimation for this number to reach up to 25 % until 2001), Yugoslavia was on its way of becoming even more complex and heterogeneous than ever before.

• 2  The construction of new reality (as socialism defined its objective) demanded the replacement of o (...)

4It is not only in the political history of Yugoslavia, but also in its constitutive ideology where one can find an explanation for why the notions of “minority” and “majority” were excluded from the political vocabulary. According to the self-managing concept upon which the Yugoslav political system was based, the division of society to its “majority” and “minority”, not only in ethnic but also in political and economic sense, was to be overcome as the process of transition to communism advanced. By decentralisation and “socialisation” of the state (podruštvljavanje države), the self-managing doctrine constructed a « new form of political and social self-managing community of working people and citizens » in which « self-managing agreements and harmonisation » (samoupravno sporazumijevanje i dogovaranje) should replace permanent divisions between “majorities” and “minorities”2. The self-managing process should include everyone or nearly everyone; in theory all “self-managers”, (samoupravljače), which were the “subjective force of socialism”, with a noticeable exception of the anti-socialist forces. The “subjective forces of socialism” were entitled to organise public affairs by gradually replacing the state, through a net of organisations such as “workers councils” in the sphere of production and “Socialist Alliance of Working People” in the sphere of politics. The Yugoslav communists aimed at replacing the state with an “association of free producers”. The working class – once the main subject of revolution – was withering away as the process of socialism was advancing towards its realisation. Terms such as “working people and citizens” (radni ljudi i gradjani) were introduced as a replacement for “class”. While a “class” could be a minority, the phrase “working people and citizens” was a category which covered neither a minority nor a majority. It was the whole the of population, and it included all except “anti-socialist enemies”.

• 3 The Programme of the League of Yugoslav Communists, Belgrade, 1958, p. 128.

5Although self-managing socialism recognised the importance of massive participation, and in fact claimed to be the first type of society to include majority of population into process of political decision-making, it was not based on the majority rule principle. As the Programme of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) stated in 1958, to be “in the interest” of the majority does not necessarily mean to be supported by the same majority. The majority might be unaware of its own best interests – it might be “blind” about them. This is why – especially in the “first phase of socialism”, in the immediate post-revolutionary period - a vanguard is needed to show the proper way and to educate the masses. « Communists, says the Programme of the LCY, must educate the working people to take a greater, more direct and more independent share in the managing of society, and to think and act in a socialist manner, until the very last citizen has learnt to manage the affairs of the community »3. Intellectual superiority (“far-sightedness” – dalekovidnost) and not the will of majority was what legitimised the Communist power. Or, as the leading ideologue of Yugoslav socialism, Edvard Kardelj concluded in 1967 :

• 5  In 1981, 13,4 % of the Yugoslav adult population were members of the LCY. Only in Slovenia the sha (...)
• 6  The main political conflicts within the Yugoslav political elite were in fact structured over the (...)

6It was not only possible, but somehow given by definition that the “vanguard” was not a majority of the population. Communist parties were, for example, clearly a minority in all countries of socialist hemisphere, though they aimed at gradually embracing the majority – and, ideally, the whole population5. Socialism was a process of ideological expansion of the vision formulated by the “classics of Marxism” and interpreted by the communist parties to the whole of society. Although coercion remained an important factor in preventing a “counter-revolution”, the real change could happen only when the intellectual mission of the Party “once and for all” prevailed over other interpretations of reality and other “directions of development”6.

• 7  It is worth noting that Yugoslavia began the last phase of its decentralisation in the mid-1960s, (...)

8The anti-state narrative and action that followed it were the key elements of Yugoslav identity under the Communists. The entire project of Yugoslav socialism was based on criticism of Soviet “statism” and of its “hegemonic role” within the world of socialist states. In its essence, therefore, the Yugoslav project was anti-statist. Treating Soviet socialism as “revisionism”, the Yugoslav Communists linked elements of the national tradition with strict implementation of the Marxist notion of the “withering away of the state”. The other antipode for the Yugoslav anti-statist narrative was the inter-war (bourgeois, centralised, “unitarist”) Yugoslavia. Socialist Yugoslavia was to be radically different from it (i.e. revolutionary). It was also meant to be different from both Western and Soviet models, both of which were treated as “statist”. Instead, the Yugoslav communists aimed at constructing a new type of social organisation, which would deny the existence of either the “majority” or “minorities” and would reduce the role of the state. The whole history of Yugoslav socialist federalism was based on this vision. Decentralisation of the state was not a result of ethnic pressures from within the country or external pressures from the international community (although both these elements played some role), but was a vision-driven process, initiated primarily by the political elite itself7.

• 8  For Kardelj’s views on this see his last book, Kardelj (Edvard), « Ways of Democracy in a Socialis (...)
• 9  Kardelj believed that vision is the key to the unity of a nation. As he said in 1977 : « The unity (...)

9In the Yugoslav case, even the word “Party” was in 1952 replaced by the “League” – not only a clear distinction from both the Soviet and West-European cases, but also a clear indication that Yugoslav Communists do not want to represent a part but the whole of society. Kardelj’s later opposition to any “party-system”, whether “one-” or “multi-party” went as far as saying that in Eastern Europe one party had taken over the role that was performed by many parties in the West, but that was all. Real democracy, however, is only direct, self-managing democracy, to which neither “one-” nor “multi-party” systems can contribute8. What one can conclude from Kardelj’s criticism of both types of then existing political systems is that neither the rule of a minority nor of the majority per se is not a guarantor of socialist transformation. Both of them could be (and in reality, as Kardelj believed, were) in certain circumstances potentially damaging for the socialist project. The only real guarantor is the LCY and its clear and coherent vision.9

• 10  This is why the key ideological issue was “reform of education system”. Croatian Communist ideolog (...)
• 11  The totalitarian potential of communism as well as its extreme sensitivity to all intellectual act (...)

10The main instrument of this expansion of what once was a party to the whole of society was education10. Socialism was a “large classroom” in which the party “taught” the majority (workers) about their own interests, and took care that these interests were realised despite of the will of various majorities and minorities11.

• 14 Had`ić (Miroslav), « The Army’s Use of Trauma » [1996], in Popov (Nebojša), ed., The Road to War in (...)

14In the case of differences or a conflict between the Yugoslav nations and republics, it was left to the Party, not to the majority to decide. In a state of emergency, the party presidents at all levels (including the Federation) acted as the real decision-makers. This position was sanctioned by legal provisions which made them ex ufficio heads of the Committees for General People Defence and Social Self-Protection (ONO i DSZ)14. Constitutional provisions also made party presidents ex-officio members of the presidencies of their respective “socio-political communities” : including the President of the LCY Central Committee who was the ninth member of the Federal State Presidency, without a right of becoming its President or Vice-President. The position of the ninth member could have been of crucial importance in cases such as a stalemate in the decision-making process: it would be up to the party representative to switch to this or that side.

• 15  It is often argued that self-management was no more than an “empty word” with little correspondenc (...)
• 16  The last Yugoslav Prime Minister, Ante Marković, begun the process of creating a Yugoslav party, a (...)

21This new discourse, however, contained in itself notions of both “majority” and “minority”. Representative democracy is rule by a majority, which is identified in free and fair elections. Minorities are recognised and protected: but – they could hardly count on being in practice in everything equal with the majority. Regardless of various instruments of minority protection, it is ultimately the majority that takes decisions. Both the doctrine of “self-managing agreement and harmonisation” and the practise of self-management, were now to be replaced by majority voting in which every citizen (not republics or ethnic groups) was treated as equal to every other15. Instead of ideological constructions of anti-state “socio-political communities” (as “a new form of social organisation” which was to replace the state), a proper (Yugoslav) state was to be created. Almost inevitably, representative democracy would create a Yugoslav demos instead of six “constitutive nations” and “nationalities”. Equally likely, the existence of a Yugoslav “civic nation” would become the main substance of a democratic Yugoslavia’s new identity, which would undermine already weak linguistic, religious, cultural and political boundaries between the existing “constitutive nations”. Ultimately, a Yugoslav nation would emerge as a product of representative democracy. In normal circumstances, political parties and votes, as well as post-electoral coalitions would cut across ethnic lines16. Creation of a Yugoslav democratic parliament, in which citizens would be treated as equal, would destroy equality between large and small nations, but also between “nations” and “nationalities”. Albanians would, for example, in this parliament have more representatives than Slovenes, while Montenegrins could not count on one eighth of the vote as they used to have in socialist Yugoslavia. What would, then, be left of Yugoslavia, either as a country of South Slavs (as originally imagined) or as a Kardeljist project of socialist alternative to statism ?

• 17  This line of division largely cut across ethnic lines within the Yugoslav political elite – for ex (...)

22In the final phase before the collapse of the Yugoslav state, the main line of political division ran between the supporters of the change (reformists of the constitution) and those who opposed it (defenders of the constitution). When it appeared, the conflict was by no means primarily ethnic. It was a political and ideological gap that divided the leaders : those who wanted to re-establish a state (statists, such as Milošević) from those who preferred the status quo and preservation of Kardeljist constitutive discourse (anti-statists, such as Milan Kučan)17.

• 18  For details of ethnic structure of the LCY see Burg (Burg (Stephan), « New Data on the League of C (...)
• 19 Nova Revija, (57), january 1987.
• 20  One of the Nova Revija authors, Tine Hribar, opposed both “Yugoslavism” and “Yugoslavianism” (jugo (...)
• 21  The term is coined by Macedonian member of the SFRY Presidency Vasil Tupurkovski – yet another ill (...)
• 22 Pavković (Aleksandar), « From Yugoslavism to Serbism : the Serb national idea 1986-1996 », Nations (...)

23If one believes, as it is suggested here, that narratives are not only empty words without any resonance among the population, then one can clearly see why so many people (and especially political leaders) remained committed to the old, Kardeljist narrative, rather than accepted a new one which would imply creation of a Yugoslav nation. The opposition to democratic changes by the anti-statists (defenders of the constitution) was perfectly rational as it followed the political interests of their ethnic groups and republics, as understood within the Kardeljist narrative. Being a “constitutive nation” in Yugoslavia, with one eighth of the vote in Federal Presidency, Slovenes (for example) had no reason to support a change which would make them only 8 % of the electorate and deprive them of “veto-mechanisms” reserved for each republic and even in many cases provinces. Even less they had a reason to support a one-member-one-vote principle within the LCY, where their share was rapidly decreasing, only to reach five percent of total membership by 198918. It made no sense for them to become a minority in a country in which they had been treated as a “constitutive nation”. Slovenia’s fear of becoming a minority in Yugoslavia was only secondarily linked with the proposed concepts of the new Yugoslavia, although it was clearly encouraged by repressive nature of political actions undertaken or supported by the reformers of the constitution, mostly in Serbia. But, as the Slovene authors clearly said in a series of articles published in the Nova Revija magazine19any Yugoslavia, even the most democratic one (and - one may conclude - especially the most democratic one) would be unacceptable to Slovenes (and in fact many others) if they had to become a minority in it20. Even to Serbs, who were the largest nation in Yugoslavia, a democratic Yugoslavia was acceptable only for as long as they were winning in political arena within it. As their refusal to accept a vote of confidence against their representative in the Federal Party Presidency Dušan Čkrebić demonstrated at the 17^th CC LCY Session (17 October 1988), the Serbs also feared becoming a minority in Yugoslavia, and therefore – as the previous narrative used to say in a pejorative way – “outvoted” (nadglasani) by an “anti-Serb coalition”21. The fear of becoming a minority in Yugoslavia encouraged separatist forces within Serbian nation, which has been for the whole 20^th century divided to “pro-Yugoslav” and “pro-Serbian” groups22. Although a majority of Serbs remained ultimately committed to a Yugoslav, not a Serbian orientation, tolerance towards free expression of Serbian separatist nationalism in other republics of the former Yugoslavia further encouraged fears on the side of the majorities in these republics. Serbian, Slovenian (and later certainly Croatian) nationalism indeed fed each other with excuses for their own existence.

• 23  Not even the present-day Serbia has abandoned this crucial idea of Kardeljist concept. The FRY doe (...)

25The replacement of one (communist) narrative by another (potentially liberal-democratic) produced a massive instability and disturbance in inter-ethnic relations in Yugoslavia. Everyone felt somehow endangered by the possibility of losing their status as a “constitutive nation” (or, indeed a “nationality”) and becoming once again a simple and powerless “minority”. Although many of the new leaders were in favour of citizens’ equality within their own republics (they in fact refused to recognise collective rights and identities within them), they stubbornly opposed implementation of the same principle at the Yugoslav level. In doing so, they often relied on Kardeljist argument that Yugoslav nations are ‘completed’ and that an idea of a “Yugoslav nation” represents not only an illusion but a dangerous demand on the sides of either pro-Soviet (“unitarist”) or pro-bourgeois (“anti-socialist”) forces23. In any attempt to constitute a united Yugoslav state (regardless of the level of autonomy offered to its constitutive parts) they saw either a renewal of the “Ranković era” or renewal of “pre-war Great-Serbian domination”.

• 24 Toš (Niko), ed., Slovensko Javno Mnenje 1988-1989, Ljubljana : Delavska Enotnost, 1989, p. 132.

28The fear of becoming a minority was real and strong in all parts of the former Yugoslavia in a situation of fundamental uncertainty about the future of the country. In Slovenia, those fears increased following the Janša trial in 1988. While in April 1988 (before the trial), 25,4 % of Slovenes said they felt « fear and hope at the same time for the future of the country and / or themselves », and 26,1 % felt « fear and worry only », these figures rose to 33,9 % and 36,2 % respectively by October 1988 (after the arrest). « Fear » was, therefore, the word which 70,1 % of Slovenes used to describe their feelings on the eve of 198924. These fears were not produced by some foreign power, as was often the case in previous years. In April 1988, only 1,5 % of Slovenes believed Yugoslavia was endangered from the West, and 5,9 % saw danger in the East, while an additional 25,8 % said the potential danger came « from them both ». If one takes all those who saw any danger from any of the sides together, it was still the case that two thirds (66,2 %) of Slovenes saw no danger at all from anywhere outside. The source of fear was inside the country, but outside Slovenia – in Belgrade.

• 25 Obradović (Marija), « Vladajuča stranka : ideologija i tehnologija dominacije », in Popov (Nebojša) (...)
• 26  About the role of fears in Serbian politics under Milošević, see Djilas (Aleksa), Razgovori za Jug (...)

29In Belgrade, however, a majority of the population felt the same sense of fear and uncertainty. In October 1990, only 3,1 % of Serbian population did not feel « worry » or « fear » for their personal future and that of their families, while 66,4 % had a « Messianic attitude » described in a sentence : « I am afraid, but I think we can find a way out, if we are united »25. The combination of fears and hopes, both in Slovenia and in Serbia (and later in Croatia too) was a perfect pretext for the emergence of authoritarian leaders and “revolutionary” actions they proposed for ending the crisis26.

• 27  This is why in 1990 they voted against Vuk Drašković’s Serbian Resistance Movement, in favour of a (...)

30Those fears were by no means faked : they were real and strong. They originated in a sense of losing something that had been achieved and guaranteed before. In the Slovenian case, it was a fear of losing a status of the constitutive nation and of “nation state”, as recognised in Kardelj’s concept of the self-managing Yugoslavia. In the Serbian case, it was fear of losing Yugoslavia, which for the largest number of Serbs was unacceptable27.

• 28 Ramet (Pedro), Yugoslavia in the 1980s’, Boulder / London : Westview Press, 1985.
• 29 Tudjman (Franjo), Horrors of War [1989], New York : M. Evans and Company, Inc, 1996, p. 3.
• 30 Bogdanović (Bogdan), op. cit., p. 23.

31Those fears were additionally constructed by the main representatives of the “culture of apocalypse” which was developed by the leading anti-regime intellectuals (especially in Serbia and Slovenia) during the 1980s28. Under a wide umbrella of “breaking with taboos”, the leading members of the intellectual elite offered alternative interpretations of recent history (mostly of the WW-II and immediate post-war tragic events) reminding their readership of evil on the side of this or that other nation in Yugoslavia. Those authors mostly shared an ultra-conservative understanding of history and basically believed that « in history there are no accidents and that, in essence, almost nothing is new »29. Thus everything tends to repeat itself almost inevitably, and the reminiscences of the past fears were now easily transformed into fears for the future. What happened in 1941-1945 might and will happen again, they argued. The genocide committed in the old times of the Ottoman Empire, or during the Independent State of Croatia (the Ustashe regime in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina) against the Serbs will happen again. As Bogdanović argued analysing the new rhetoric, offered as a replacement for the Kardeljist narrative, its main characteristic was that there was no clear line between myth and reality, between death and life, between past and future30.

• 31 Ramet (Pedro), op. cit.

32The rhetoric of apocalypse31 and the ultra-conservative interpretation of history developed within the tolerated groups of intellectual counter-elites fell onto fruitful ground of fears and uncertainties. One should not forget that this all happened within a context of a collapsing anti-statism which provided a loose understanding of political obligation and which never developed a proper rule of law. A socialist state, weakened to an almost anarchic situation by its own commitment to anti-statist doctrine and by challenges from the outside of it, was now far too weak to survive. Being unable to protect its citizens from the increasingly felt threat to their own existence, the state in fact opened its doors to a “war-of-all-against-all” situation. It should not be a great surprise then that various nationalist and statists presented themselves as “saviours of the nation” by offering an authoritarian style of governing in almost all post-Yugoslav independent states. The emergence of strong and authoritarian states may be understood only within a context of non-existent “state”, which was “withering away” in the end of the 1980s. They were not only a product of authoritarian features of the main leaders in those states, but also of a perception of needs on the part of large segments (newly created majorities) of their population.