“HUMANIST” MARXISM AND THE COMMUNIST REGIME WITH “SPARKLES” OF TOTALITARIANISM: THE YUGOSLAV COMMUNIST TOTALITARIAN EXPERIMENT (RESPONSE TO FLERE AND KLANJŠEK)

This paper is a response to the article “What Typological Appellation is Suitable for Tito’s Yugoslavia” published by Sergej Flere and Rudi Klanjšek in Istorija 20. veka, in which the two authors responded to our criticism of their previously published article. Unfortunately, the two authors saw our paper as an attack, either on them personally or on their academic merits and research, which was neither the aim nor desire of our response. In this article, we contest and dispute the arguments and claims made by Flere and Klanjšek, and especially their attempt to discredit us by actually fabricating our words. Instead of engaging in an open academic debate, Flere and Klanjšek attempt to derail this debate from its core by focusing solely on some minor mistakes, thus trying to show that we were superficial and counter-factual. Our decision to reflect on some of their statements served the purpose of demonstrating that Flere and Klanjšek’s response was far from an expected academic debate. In fact, in their response Flere and Klanjšek avoided addressing the crucial issues pertaining to the question of totalitarianism and the occurring dynamics of the Yugoslav communists’ idea on how to structure, rule, and supervise Yugoslav society. On the contrary, they decided to resolve this issue by introducing new views on the subject and new “solutions,” which deliver little substance to the key issues of this debate. However, our article reveals that the majority of their arguments is questionable or can be outright refuted by taking into consideration contemporary views on totalitarianism and the existing empirical data. This is evident with regard to the questions of historical dynamism, secret services, unified foreign policy, the role and position of the individual, Tito’s role and power, and Flere and Klanjšek’s distorted view of communist legitimacy. In our conclusion we point to the key aspects that need to be taken into consideration when discussing the nature of Tito’s Yugoslavia. Namely: (i) citizens were unable to cast their votes in free elections and were thus denied the opportunity to have any impact on the political, social, or economic politics that influenced their lives; (ii) the only “legitimate” way to exert individual influence in the political, social or economic area was to conform to and accept the prevalent idea of the communist interpretation of Marxism, the communist worldview, and the political power of the communist party; (iii) any attempt to openly oppose and/or criticize the regime was met with repercussions and punishment; (iv) any such activities were suppressed by the state apparatus on the republic and federal levels; (v) every individual or group active within the political structures was aware of Tito’s power to remove whomever he and his closest associates deemed “dangerous” or “destructive” elements; (vi) the communist leadership in the federal republics was faced with forceful removal and suppression when their policies were evaluated as non-compliant or dangerous; (vii) from an early age, individuals were immersed into the collective where they had to learn what it meant to be a “proper” and “respected” citizen. All these aspects were in force until the breakdown of Tito’s Yugoslavia. In conclusion, the occurring changes and dynamics never altered this totalitarian experiment’s core idea and its primary goal: to establish a socialist/communist society ruled by one party, the LCY, supervised by its police, secret service, army, and guided by a single ideological framework of the communist interpretation of Marxism.

SRBIJA I POLITIČKI ODNOSI U JUGOSLAVIJI U VREME SAHRANE ALEKSANDRA RANKOVIĆA 1983: TAČKE SUKOBA

Serbia’s political status after the death of Josip Broz was determined by two kinds of efforts by the state. Firstly, the Serbian leaders aimed to change its unequal status in federal Yugoslavia. Secondly, they aimed to stop fragmentation within Serbia, which grew steadily after the 1974 Constitution. Political relations between Serbian leaders on the one hand, and some political circles and leaders of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and the autonomous provinces on the other, were strained. They worsened even more after several clashes in 1983. Despite the opposition of politicians in Bosnia, Croatia, and Vojvodina to Dragoslav Marković (who was described as a strong advocate of Serbian political unity), he was elected as chairman of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (CK SKJ) in 1983. Serbo-Croatian relationships were further damaged after the publication of the book Enigma Kopinič in Belgrade. The Croatian leaders were against this publication because it revealed – as far as the Party was concerned – undesirable information about the interwar years and the period during World War II. The major confrontation came over the interpretation of events that occurred at the funeral of Aleksandar Ranković (mainly over who was responsible for the mass gathering and the respectful attitude toward the deceased). Federal party units, as well as those from the Yugoslav republics and from Belgrade, jointly condemned those events as a political rally against the government. However, they disagreed over who was responsible for the incident and what had caused the public outcry. The CK SKJ chairmanship members from the autonomous provinces, Croatia, and Bosnia accused Serbia and the Serbian Communist Party for the display of nationalism. They also held the Belgrade City Party Committee responsible for letting the rally happen. Contrary to this, the Belgrade City Committee led by Ivan Stambolić, whom the Serbian leadership supported, felt that the uproar was caused by the overall political, economic, and social crisis, for which the Federal government was to blame.

PROBLEMI U NASELJAVANJU I PRILAGOĐAVANJU KOLONISTA NA ŽIVOT U VOJVODINI U PRVIM GODINAMA POSLE DRUGOG SVETSKOG RATA

The Decision to Confiscate German-Owned Property (1944), the Law on Agrarian Reform and Colonization (August 1945) and the Decree on the Implementation of Veterans’ Settlement (1945) provided a legal framework for the colonization of Vojvodina. People from the outback regions applied for colonization in large numbers since it was believed that migration guaranteed deliverance from decades of dearth and poverty. The journey of the colonists was fraught with numerous difficulties, primarily due to poor organization and frequent changes of plans. The distribution of houses, cattle, and inventory was done by local commissions. The bias of these commissions was obvious. Thus, the division of houses and inventory was accompanied by great social injustices. Some families were housed in buildings with electrical installations, while others had to settle into houses without floors. Such actions caused indignation and revolt among the colonists. Dissatisfied with their new life, as many as 4,000 families decided to return. Those who remained needed time to adapt to the new way of life. With time, big families disintegrated, the position of women improved, new work habits were developed, and neighborly relations became better.

THE MIDDLE EAST IN YUGOSLAVIA’S FOREIGN POLICY STRATEGY IN THE 1970s

The main purpose of this article is to present the most important conditions and variables characterizing the role of the Middle East in Yugoslavia’s foreign policy strategy in the 1970s, based on available literature and documentation. I also intend to analyze the conditions that contributed to intensifying Yugoslavia’s position in the region and led to a decrease in Yugoslavia’s importance in the Middle East in the second half of the decade. Firstly, I will describe Yugoslavia’s relations with the countries of the Middle East in 1970–1973, especially with Egypt, where Gamal Abdel Nasser, after his death, was succeeded by the country’s Vice President, Anwar Al-Sadat. It will also be important to shed light on the Yugoslav Government’s stance regarding the Middle East conflict from the point of view of the situation in Europe. Next, I will present the significance of the Yom Kippur War for Yugoslavia’s foreign policy and its implications for Belgrade’s relations with Cairo and Tel-Aviv. Moreover, it will be extremely important to explain why Yugoslavia’s importance in the Middle East gradually diminished as of the middle of the decade. In addition, I will address the issue of Yugoslav President Josip Broz-Tito’s position toward the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the fading of Yugoslavia’s interest in the region following Tito’s death and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In the summary, I want to note that the period under analysis in Yugoslav-Middle Eastern relations was decisive for the country’s foreign policy and its internal situation, as Yugoslavia never again played a significant role in the Arab world.

DELATNOST CENTRALNOG JUGOSLOVENSKOG BIROA PRI CK RKP(b) U MOSKVI 1920–1921.

U članku se razmatra delatnost Centralnog jugoslovenskog biroa pri Centralnom komitetu Ruske komunističke partije (boljševika) u završnoj fazi Građanskog rata u Rusiji. Prema tvrđenjima sovjetske i jugoslovenske istoriografije socijalističkog perioda, jugoslovenske komunističke organizacije su se 1920–1921. godine uglavnom bavile omogućavanjem povratka u domovinu Jugoslovena koji su učestvovali u Građanskom ratu na strani kako crvenih, tako i belih. Dokumenti korišćeni u članku omogućavaju da se tvrdi da ove organizacije nisu toliko doprinele repatrijaciji sunarodnika, koliko su pokušavale da po svom nahođenju odlučuju ko je od Jugoslovena „proleterski element“ i kao takav može računati na povratak, a ko, poput „svih bivših srpskih i crnogorskih podanika bez izuzetka“, podleže zatvaranju u koncentracioni logor, kako bi kasnije mogli da posluže i kao taoci. U zaključku, autor nudi svoje viđenje razloga za ukidanje ovih organizacija jugoslovenskih komunista.

U POTRAZI ZA NOVIM SMISLOM: JUGOSLAVIJA I KRIZA GLOBALNE NESVRSTANOSTI 1965–1970.

This article is dedicated to the first crisis period in the history of global non-alignment, when in the latter half of the 1960s, a time when a number of leading non-aligned leaders had finally left the historical scene, mostly under the pressure of army coups or war defeats, there were no summits or other multilateral non-aligned meetings being held, with the first significant gatherings taking place only at the very end of this period, thus opening a historical stage marked by a paralysis of action on behalf of many countries adhering to this foreign policy course. These were also years when global non-alignment was facing a mounting challenge of becoming increasingly irrelevant in world affairs, since none of the great powers seriously took into consideration their opinion, while the number of crisis situations all around the non-aligned world had been steadily on the rise. This evident lack of capability of leading non-aligned countries to act in a coordinated and timely fashion proved to many worldwide observers that global non-alignment had finally reached its limit and could not be resuscitated again to exercise a proactive and dynamic role in international politics as had been the case in the early 1960s. Facing such a complex situation, often bordering on desperate, while being especially well aware that without this global non-aligned framework Yugoslavia was facing isolation and serious political constraints in Europe, Tito and other Yugoslav officials decided to undertake a number of diplomatic initiatives to re-galvanize the non-aligned group, tighten the ranks between some of the leading non-aligned countries, with the aim of reinventing the meaning and role of non-alignment in world politics, while setting up a more permanent mechanism for cooperation that could transform all non-bloc factors into a more relevant and widespread international movement ready to set off a constructive dialogue with the great powers over the major international issues of security and development. In spite of many ups and downs in these endeavors, as this article scrupulously analyzed them, eventually Yugoslavia did manage to reignite the spirit of cooperation and collective action among the various non-aligned countries, which finally led to the formal establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement at the Third Summit in Lusaka in September 1970.

KULTURNO I EKONOMSKO POVEZIVANJE ALBANIJE I KOSOVA I METOHIJE 1967–1971.

Major changes in the position of Kosovo and Metohija’s autonomy in the late 1960s affected the province’s relations with Albania. In 1967, the Yugoslav State Secretariat of Foreign Affairs and the Yugoslav Federal Executive Council began to encourage cultural and economic ties between Kosovo and Metohija and Albania, justifying this as a strategy for the normalization of relations between Yugoslavia and Albania. Following the joint commemorations of the anniversary of Skanderbeg’s death in Priština and Tirana, an agreement was reached on the use of textbooks from Albania in the Kosovo and Metohija school system. The two sides organized mutual visits of folklore and art groups, as well as friendly matches of soccer teams. Kosovo companies were allowed small border traffic with Albania without any prior interstate agreements between Belgrade and Tirana. Constitutional changes in Serbia in 1969 enabled the expansion of economic and cultural cooperation between Kosovo and Albania. The University of Priština and the University of Tirana signed an agreement to hire professors from Tirana as lecturers at Priština faculties. In 1971, scientists from Tirana participated in the work of the Kosovo Archives, the Provincial Library, and the Priština Museum, while 41 Albanian professors gave lectures at the University of Priština. Reports by Albanian lecturers from Kosovo enabled the Albanian state leadership to be acquainted in detail with the political situation in Yugoslavia.

NEUSPEH ŽENEVSKIH PREGOVORA O PREKIDU RATA U BOSNI I HERCEGOVINI JANUARA 1993.

The International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia was created in London in August of 1992 as an instrument for the negotiations conducted by the United Nations and the European Community, represented by Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen. Until the end of the year, they developed a detailed proposal to settle the Bosnian conflict, known as the Vance-Owen Peace Plan (VOPP). The VOPP was presented to the leaders of the warring factions in Geneva during the first session of talks in January of 1993. On the basis of archive material, judicial records, published documents, and memoirs of the participants, this article aims to reconstruct the dramatic negotiation process, which consisted of several rounds. An analysis of the declared Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian positions during the negotiations, as well as the interactions among the delegations and relations within them, reveals that all the parties were had been deeply engaged in double dealing. The Croatian side was seemingly ready to sign the VOPP but was undermining it by launching a conflict in the field at the same time. The Serbian side was escalating as well, the Bosnian Serb leaders were not ready to accept the plan, despite the suggestions they had received from Belgrade. Sarajevo was procrastinating, hoping for a direct US involvement in the crisis following the inauguration of the new Clinton Administration. That administration did undermine the plan, which damaged the credibility of the international negotiators. In such circumstances, the plan had slim chances of succeeding. Although a ceasefire would have shortened the Bosnian war by almost three years and cut human losses by at least half, the main negotiators found a compromise solution to be unacceptable. As they defined and propagated maximalist goals, acceptance of a compromise was both damaging their grip on power and defying their worldview.

CONNECTING TRADE AND POLITICS: NEGOTIATIONS ON THE RELEASE OF THE GERMAN PRISONERS OF WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA AND THE FIRST WEST GERMAN-YUGOSLAV TRADE AGREEMENT OF 1949/1950

After repatriations were officially over in January of 1949, around 1,400 German prisoners remained in Yugoslavia on charges of war crimes. Yugoslavia’s foreign political shift westward following the Cominform Resolution of 1948, paved the way for establishing productive economic, as well as political and cultural cooperation with West Germany. The first trade agreement between the two states was signed in December of 1949. In the next four months, the West German Government attempted to pressure the Yugoslav side to release the remaining German prisoners by not ratifying the agreement. Eventually, in April of 1950, the two sides reached an unofficial agreement, according to which the Yugoslav side would release its prisoners gradually and improve their living conditions, while the West Germans would ratify the trade agreement and agree to negotiate long-term economic cooperation. The last transport of German prisoners arrived from Yugoslavia in March of 1953.

UDRUŽENJE UNIVERZITETSKI OBRAZOVANIH ŽENA 1927–1941.

Throughout history women have been disenfranchised and denied almost every right. Everything concerning political and social life was reserved only for men, while the position of women was almost negligible. Women were condemned to spend their whole lives subordinated to men, only because of their gender, which the patriarchy considered to be on a much lower social level and therefore simply should not have any rights. However, in the period between the two world wars, things started to change for the better for women and the Association of University Educated Women (1927–1941) greatly contributed to that. Initially only a few, surrounded by a society with deep-rooted patriarchal views, they managed to attract a growing number of women intellectuals with a university degree to their organization, but they also prepared students for future activities. Women began increasingly to enroll into colleges, even those that were not socially acceptable for women. The Association set itself the tall task of enabling women to work in science, which was the highest goal of their aspirations, believing that women as intellectuals should not remain confined in their profession, but be able to participate freely in all issues of national and international importance. They believed that the success of women would be achieved.