Introduction
Yugoslavia,
the land of the South Slavs was formed after World War I. Although they spoke a common language (Servo-Croatian),
the country comprised of six ethnic groups, with different histories, different
beliefs, and distinct identities. During the last century, this nation achieved an incredible
rise to power and had a devastating collapse in the span of nine decades. Yugoslavia
experienced a variety of governmental structures1. The Kingdom of
Yugoslavia was established in 1918, only to be substituted in 1943 by the
Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. Just three years later, the Federal People’s
Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed under the influential leadership of Josip
Broz Tito (1892-1980)2. The country which existed for 85 years and flourished
under Tito’s leadership, is now non-existent. It is argued that the continuous
adoption of various ideology caused instability and eventually led to the
collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The objective of this article is to
describe the rise and fall of Tito’s Yugoslavia relating to the four different
ideologies elaborated below.
1. Tito’s Communist ideologies (1943-1987)
After
the Allied victory in World War II, Yugoslavia was formed and
forcibly held together by Tito under communist rule. It was a federation of six
republics with borders drawn along ethnic and historical lines: Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Croatia,
Macedonia,
Montenegro,
Serbia, and Slovenia.
which was In addition, two autonomous
provinces were established within Serbia: Vojvodina
and Kosovo. Each of the
republics had its own branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
party and ruling elite, and any tensions were solved on the federal level3.
The Yugoslav model of state organization-as a "middle way" between planned
and liberal economy had been a relative success, and the country experienced a
period of strong economic growth and relative political stability up to the 1980s, under the rule of president-for-life Josip Broz Tito4.
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Tito entered politics at a unique time
in the nation’s history; as Yugoslavia shifted from a monarchy to a federation,
he became one of the country’s biggest advocates for a communist-style of
government. A visionary leader, Tito believed in empowering a plurality of
independent centres of political authority. Consequently, the Yugoslavs
defected from the communist bloc in
1948. This pluralistic worldview
carried over into Tito’s leadership of Yugoslavia itself. Consisting of six
national republics and two autonomous regions, Tito was able to unify these
disparate people into one communist entity. In his thirty-seven years as leader
of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito instituted a policy of “polycentrism” which
unified the culturally diverse people. However, the policy collapsed upon his
death, due to the ineffective leadership of the collective presidency, economic
troubles, and ethnoreligious unrest; resulting in the country’s disintegration5.
In order to protect Yugoslavia from the
influence of major world powers, Tito introduced a policy in which the nation
opted to remain neutral amidst worldwide conflict. Known as the Non-Alignment
Movement, the policy was largely brought into effect in response to the United
States conflict with the Soviet Union in the Cold War. As the nuclear arms race
between the two world powers intensified, Tito expressed concern about becoming
involved. Upon initiating the policy of neutrality, Tito decided to host the
first “Conference of Non-Aligned Heads of State.” The conference took place in
Belgrade in 1961 and had twenty-five countries represented6.
Tito’s unique leadership made it
possible for the Non-Alignment Movement to strengthen, posing threats to major
world powers.
Within the eight constituencies, the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was formally comprised three religions
predominantly Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Islam. Through a policy of “polycentrism,” Tito successfully unified these notably distinct republics
into one federation7.
For many years, Yugoslavia aligned
itself with the Soviet Union. However, after Tito came into power, he sought to
distance the nation from the center of Communist rule. Yugoslavia disassociated
itself from the Communist bloc in 1948. To Stalin’s dismay, the Yugoslav
Communist Party stayed in power and continued on as before; not falling to
capitalism as the Soviets predicted. The federation’s success in this regard
caused other Communist rulers to question the merits of obedience to the Soviet
Union8.
Tito built a relationship amongst the
Yugoslavs “in which people believe in one another and had confidence in one
another.” Through polycentrism, he decentralized economic and cultural life,
allowing the power to rest with the people. To Tito, this policy was a means of
“uniting the citizens of a country in one front”. Along with the right kind of
leadership, Tito demonstrated to the world that there was more than one path to
socialism—that a republic as diverse as Yugoslavia could stay united9.
As the Tito era came to an end, the
world was in a period of great conflict. These conflicts foreshadowed the
disintegration of Yugoslavia, for the federation’s success was founded in
Tito’s cult of personality. Without Tito’s leadership, the fragmentation of
Yugoslavia would prove to be unavoidable. On May 4, 1980, Josip Broz
Tito died at the age of eighty-eight. He left an impressive legacy having ruled
over Yugoslavia for nearly four decades. After his death, the nation had a
literacy rate of 85%, a population of 21.3 million, and a GDP of $26 billion. But
most significantly, he left behind “Titoism,” an ideology his successors would
fail to grasp10.
Tito’s utmost goal was for Yugoslavia to
remain a Communist state, in spite of Western influence. In 1974, Yugoslavia
amended its Constitution with the intent of preparing for a transition between
leaders. Under Tito’s direction, the Constitution dictated the formation of a
nine-member collective presidency; six people would represent each of the six
republics, whereas two would represent each of the two autonomous regions, and
one individual would rule the party. In 1978, Tito suggested an amendment to
the Constitution in which one member of the collective presidency would serve
as the overarching president of Yugoslavia, serving a single one-year term. Upon
Tito’s death, the collective presidency went into effect, with the amendment
that established one predominant leader. Thus, a continuous line of men and
women succeeded Tito. This disrupted the nation each year as a new person took
office, adding more instability to the federation. Though the intent of the proposed Constitutional changes was pure,
the collective presidency made Yugoslavia unpredictable. Tito had amended the
Constitution in an attempt to prevent a dictator from succeeding him; instead, he
paved the way for economic collapse and the ascension of an ideological rival11.
However, a combination of factors led
to debilitating economic collapse in the years following Tito’s death. In 1982,
Milka Planinc was elected head of the collective presidency. Meanwhile, with
Tito dead, both the USSR and the United States felt confident that Yugoslavia was
no longer a major threat considering Tito’s death. In 1984, the Reagan
administration introduced a policy in a National Security Decision Directive to
target Yugoslavia’s economy; the United States sought to topple Communist
Nations, forcing Eastern Europe to participate in a market-oriented
economy. Western trade barriers halted economic growth in Yugoslavia, forcing
the government to take out the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans. In 1982,
the federation’s foreign debt reached 16.9 billion in US dollars. By 1988, the
foreign debt topped twenty-one billion in US dollars with 217% inflation
increase12.
While ineffective leadership and
economic collapse were highly detrimental to post-Tito Yugoslavia, ethnic
conflicts became the federation’s ultimate downfall13.
2. Nationalism- adopted by Slobodan Milosevic (1987-1989)
Slobodan Milosevic, an ideological
rival of Tito’s, proved to be the primary instigator of the ethnic clashes. In
the late 1980s, Milosevic was garnering support for himself in Serbia14.
Without Tito, Communism was failing in
Eastern Europe; Milosevic proposed a different style of rule, advocating for
“incendiary Nationalism.” In the 1980s, Shambolic was elected President of the
Republic of Serbia. In a thirty-hour meeting that spanned from September 23 to
September 24, 1987, Milosevic engineered President Stambolic’s ouster,
effectively taking over Serbia. From that moment onwards, he declared Serbia to
be “Communist by name and Nationalist by choice”15.
3.The period driven by Slobodan Milosevic’s Racism ideologies (1987-1992)
After becoming President of Serbia in
1987, Milosevic began to exert authority over Yugoslavia, encouraging
nationalistic tendencies. In 1981 a year after Tito’s death, ethnic Albanians
held riots in Kosovo, rebelling against Yugoslav rule. In Tito’s time, these
conflicts were quashed; however, the Serbian president deliberately resurrected
these nationalistic grudges. When Milosevic took power, the two largest ethnic
groups of Yugoslavia were Roman Catholic Croats and Orthodox Christian Serbs.
Conscious of this fact, Milosevic used nationalism to set the stage for a
brutal civil war that spread across the federation. He orchestrated wars that
pitted the Serbs against Slovenes, Croats, Albanians, Kosovars, and Bosnians,
with the intention of realizing his dream of a “Greater Serbia.”As a result of
a practice called “ethnic cleansing,”millions of people were killed or
displaced during the conflicts with the Serbs. The war in Bosnia and
Herzegovina alone resulted in two hundred thousand deaths and left millions of
people without homes. Both in 1991 and 1996, opposition forces attempted to
oust Milosevic16 which became a reality in 2000.
In 2001, Milosevic was sent to The
Hague to be charged with war crimes; he was discovered dead in his cell in
2006. Slobodan Milosevic left a dark legacy: Serbian Nationalism served as a
key part of inciting ethnic conflicts in Yugoslavia17.
4. Separatist movements flourish (After 1991)
By 1992, the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia was in ruins. Slobodan Milosevic’s goal of replacing Communism
with Nationalism succeeded. Slovenia and Croatia were the first to secede in
1991, with Macedonia following shortly thereafter. In the following year,
Bosnia Herzegovina also declared its independence. In order to resolve
longstanding ethnic conflicts in Bosnia, the Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995
created two self-governing entities within the nation, dividing the Serbs and
Muslim-Croats. After the secession of Bosnia Herzegovina, only Serbia and
Montenegro remained in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which
later transformed to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Due to the years of
turmoil in the federation, the international community refused to recognize the
new republic. Thus, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia divided into successor
states in 200318.
Encyclopedia Britannica
Conclusion
For thirty-seven years, the Socialist
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia thrived under the leadership of Josip Broz
Tito’s. He unified the diverse nation, growing both an educated population as
well as a healthy and robust economy. Significant for his cult of personality,
Tito introduced policies of ‘nonalignment’ and ‘polycentrism,’ which
revolutionized the nature of Communist government. Upon Tito’s death in 1980,
marred by the unproductive leadership of a nine-member collective presidency
and riddled with foreign debt, Yugoslavia started to dissolve19.
When Slobodan Milosevic was elected as President
of Serbia in 1987, all hopes for Yugoslavia maintaining a Communist-style of
government was lost. Through widespread ‘ethnic cleansing,’ he coordinated the
deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. During Milosevic’s rule,
Yugoslavia’s various republics began to declare their independence. All that
Tito had worked for, all that he had strived to create, was lost20.
In the span of eighty-five years,
Yugoslavia managed to rise to the status of world power in control of the
majority of Eastern Europe and to completely fall out of power, ultimately
disappearing off the map21.
Nevertheless, Tito’s legacy as a
benevolent dictator will not be forgotten. He demonstrated the importance of
respecting different cultures and the inherent power of neutrality to the world.
He developed a new archetype for a leader, one who above all values the input of
the masses, as opposed to the input of the elite. On the idolatry of leaders,
Tito once said, “If a man separates himself from the people, if he tends to be
set on a pedestal, then he will only inspire fear or hatred…the people are
those who are the motive power, they are the ones who inspire their leaders and
the leader is but the organizer and the formulator of the people’s thoughts”22.
Although Yugoslavia no longer exists,
Tito, the leader of the republic for nearly half of its existence, will serve
as a role model for centuries to come.
References
1.
Borowiec,
Andrew. Yugoslavia after Tito. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1979.
2.
Kennan,
George F. “Polycentrism and Western Policy.” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 42,
No. 2 (Jan., 1964): 171-183.
3.
Borowiec
1979.
4.
Kennan
1964.
5.
The
Non-Aligned Movement. “The Non-Aligned Movement: Description and History.” Last
modified Sep. 21, 2001. http://www.nam.gov.za/background/history.html.
6.
Graff,
Donald F. “A Quiet Transition in Yugoslavia.” The Telegraph (United
Kingdom), May 28, 1982.
7.
The
Non-Aligned Movement. “The Non-Aligned Movement: Description and History.” Last
modified Sep. 21, 2001. http://www.nam.gov.za/background/history.html.
8.
The
Non-Aligned Movement. “The Non-Aligned Movement: Description and History.” Last
modified Sep. 21, 2001. http://www.nam.gov.za/background/history.html.
9.
Ibid.
10.
Ibid.
11.
Stankovic,
Slobodan. The End of the Tito Era: Yugoslavia’s Dilemmas. California:
Hoover Institution Press, 1981.
12.
ibid
13.
ibid
14.
Kamm,
Henry. “Yugoslavia’s President Says Crisis Harms the Country’s Reputation.”New
York Times, Oct. 19, 1988.
15.
ibid
16.
Simons,
Marlise and Alison Smale. “Slobodan Milosevic, 64, Former Yugoslav Leader
Accused of War Crimes, Dies.” New York Times, Mar. 12, 2006.
17.
Ibid
18.
Rees‐Mogg, William. “The Strains of Yugoslavia without Tito.” The Times (London, England), Apr. 17, 1988.
19.
Binder,
David. “Fare Well, Illyria!” Unpublished Manuscript, 2002.
20.
Ibid.
21.
Simons,
Marlise and Alison Smale. “Slobodan Milosevic, 64, Former Yugoslav Leader
Accused of War Crimes, Dies.” New York Times, Mar. 12, 2006.
22.
Olivia
Hinerfeld. “The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia”, St Mary's Academy of
Portland State University, Young Historians Conference, 2013.
Dr. K.Y.D Perera MBBS(Col), PGDCH(Col), PGDHQPS(Col), MSc (Medical Administration) is a Medical Officer and Medical Administrator. He was a former Medical Director at District General Hospital, Hambanthota and a former Deputy District Director of Health Services at Puttalam district. He is currently reading for his Doctorate in Medical Administration at Post Graduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo and is a student of the BIDTI.The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and not the institutional views of the BIDTI, nor do they necessarily reflect the position of any other institution or individual with which the author is
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