The most dramatic manifestation of anti-Serbian
policies was the crisis in Kosovo. In fact, Serbs in
Kosovo were exposed to "physical, political, cultural,
and legal genocide For this reason, the resolution of the
Kosovo crisis was becoming a question of the survival
of the Serbian nation as a whole.
On the more positive side, the academicians
advocated a decentralization of the federal state, market
reforms, an end to strict "ethnic parity" in state
institutions, and the reassertion of the Serbian nation as
a "historical subject."
If, in retrospect, the "Memorandum" appears to be a
relatively boring and highly uninspiring document even
from the Serbian nationalist point of view, it was not
seen as such at the time. Non-Serbian communist elites
were especially quick in attacking the Serbian party
organization for lack of vigilance in the struggle against
"Serbian liberalism and nationalism."
By 1986, therefore, the Serbian nomenklatura found
itself facing several political challenges:
- growing
pressure for finally restoring constitutional control over
the autonomous provinces, especially Kosovo, where a
grass-roots nationalist movement was in the making;
-
the ideological challenge of "Serbian liberalism and
nationalism" inside Serbia itself;
- growing pressures
for reform combined with latent aspirations for greater
social justice in a period of economic decline;
- attacks
from republican elites with a vested interest in
decentralization. It was to these challenges that
Slobodan Milosevic found a most peculiar response.
II. Slobodan Milosevic: From Orthodox Communist to Charismatic Hero
Nothing in Milosevic's biography or political career
suggested that he would be capable of responding to
these political challenges better than any other Serbian
or Yugoslav communist. Moreover, future biographers
of the Serbian President will have a hard time finding
any intriguing evidence concerning Milosevic's
"pathological" childhood or youth, so characteristic of
some better-known twentieth century dictators. Indeed,
Milosevic's dull biography sharply contrasts with his
strong preference for "non-routine," exciting politics.(9)
Slobodan Milosevic was born in August 1941, in a
relatively poor family of provincial teachers in
Pozarevac, an inconspicuous town in Eastern Serbia.
According to witness accounts, he was remembered as
a very good (but not outstanding) student who disliked
sports and, somewhat unusually, regularly wore a jacket
and tie. At an early age, he fell in love with Mirjana
Markovic, whom he later married (they have two
children, a daughter and a son).
Nevertheless, from the psychological point of view,
several facts do stand out, although their significance is
hard to evaluate. Both of Milosevic's parents, as well as
an uncle (his mother's brother) committed suicide within
a span of ten years. His mother-in-law also suffered a
tragic fate. A well known Partisan activist during the
war, Vera Miletic was captured in 1943, when Mirjana
was only one year old. She allegedly revealed under
torture the names of important communist activists, but
was nevertheless executed and, to make matters even
worse, posthumously treated as a traitor in communist
hagiography. Speculation has it that Mirjana Markovic's
subsequent fanatical devotion to communism had
something to do with the familiar psychological
mechanism of overcompensation.
Milosevic joined the party while still in highschool
(1959), and later enrolled in law school in Belgrade.
Some of his erstwhile colleagues who later became
dissidents remember Milosevic as an excellent party
organizer (he was later called "our little Lenin" by his
comrades). He was soon recognized
as such, becoming the head of the student party
organization at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, and later
(1963-65), the ideological secretary of the University
Committee of Belgrade. Subsequently, Milosevic
worked in managerial positions and as a president of
one of the large Belgrade banks.
Milosevic's political career began in earnest in 1984,
when he was promoted to the position of head of the
City Committee of Belgrade by his patron Ivan
Stambolic, at that time the president of the Serbian party
organization. The most prominent Serbian politician
aside from Dragoslav Markovic, Stambolic attempted to
solve the challenge of Serbia's integration within the
framework of Titoist nationality policy. Indeed, his
speeches abounded with calls for "brotherhood and
unity," equality of all Yugoslav republics, and a
simultaneous struggle against Serbian and Albanian
nationalism. At the same time, Stambolic was relatively
tolerant of dissent and presented himself as an advocate
of economic reform within the framework of
"self-management socialism."
At first glance, Milosevic faithfully followed in
the footsteps of his mentor. Yet, a more careful look
at his early speeches reveals a much more blatant
insistence on communist orthodoxy. Milosevic's
rhetoric at the time abounded with metaphors of
confrontation: "Communists should not be
ashamed of strong-arm methods"; "we are waging
a new battle for unity"; "Serbian communists never
fought for unitarism, and should not be ashamed of
advocating unity"; "it should be clear that separatism
will not pass"; "advocates of false democracy
will be defeated"; "we are entering a period of great
mobilization for economic reform"; "those who
wish to read the works of Slobodan Jovanovic
should visit antiquarian bookstores," etc. (10)
Milosevic's orthodox communism, his battle cries
and generally uncompromising stance towards
"anti-socialist forces" were well received in
conservative party circles. In 1986, "our little Lenin"
was promoted to the leadership of the Serbian party
organization, while Stambolic took over the important,
but more ceremonial Serbian presidency. Nothing in
Milosevic's behavior then suggested that he was a
champion of Serbian nationalism.
Milosevic's attitude slowly began to change during
the first half of 1987, when it became obvious
that the new president of the Serbian party was not
overly zealous in the anti-Memorandum campaign.
While Stambolic and some of his reformist followers
were waging attacks on the Academy of Sciences, the
Serbian Union of Writers and other "hotbeds of
reaction," Milosevic was busy creating a power base in
the party and taking over the media. Milosevic's
conspicuous silence on the Memorandum question
soon brought him into conflict with his erstwhile patron
Stambolic.
The conflict became especially visible after April 24,
1987, the day the new president of the Serbian party
visited the small town of Kosovo Polje. When the
predominantly Albanian police used truncheons to
disperse the crowd of Serbs and Montenegrins eager to
communicate their grievances to the president of the
Serbian party, Milosevic suddenly pronounced a
sentence which ensured him a place in national
mythology for years to come: "From now on, no one
has the right to beat you!" In a subsequent meeting
which lasted for 13 hours, Milosevic patiently listened
to the grievances of Kosovo Serbs. He concluded the
meeting with a powerful speech in which he stated that
the process of migration of Serbs and Montenegrins
from Kosovo under economic, political and simple
physical pressure is probably the last tragic exodus
of a European population. The last time such
processions of desperate people were seen was in
the Middle Ages... But our goal is to overcome this
state of hatred, intolerance and mistrust. So that all
people in Kosovo can live well. And this is why the
first thing I want to say to you, comrades, is that
you should stay here. This is your land, here are
your houses, fields and gardens, your memories.
You are not going to leave your land just because
life has become difficult, because you are suffering
from injustice and humiliation. It was never in the
spirit of the Serbian and Montenegrin people to
withdraw in the face of difficulties, to demobilize
itself when it should fight, to become demoralized
when the situation is hard. You should stay here
both because of your ancestors and your heirs.
Otherwise, your ancestors would be ashamed and
your heirs disappointed. (11)
Despite his repeated emphasis on Titoist ideals,
brotherhood and unity, and the continuity of the revolution,
Milosevic's appeal to Serbian heroism was highly
non-traditional for a communist.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the Kosovo Polje
speech almost instantly turned him into a charismatic
leader in the classic, Weberian sense of the term. At a
time when institutional gridlock was paralyzing the
fragile federation and other communist leaders spoke in
a frozen language far removed from the concerns of their
people(s), Milosevic's "gift of grace" appeared to many
as "manna from heaven."
Milosevic made use of his newly-won popularity,
accumulated party authority and the media with truly
Leninist determination and astonishing speed. In
September 1987, he staged a coup in the Serbian party,
purging the new secretary of the city committee of
Belgrade, Dragisa Pavlovic who publicly criticized
Milosevic's "flirting with Serbian nationalism." Several
months later Milosevic's erstwhile friend, Ivan
Stambolic, suffered the same fate. Ironically, both were
accused of indecisiveness in their struggle with
"counter-revolution in Kosovo" and a lack of true
Titoist zeal in confronting internal class enemies. Even
more paradoxically, orthodox communists from other
republics (notably the Croatian leader Stipe Suvar, but
others as well) welcomed the change in the Serbian
party as a triumph of a true Titoist against the "liberal
weakling" and "nationalist" Stambolic.
Milosevic's two-pronged ideological strategy
(orthodox communism for the party faithful and army
generals and populism for the masses) soon gained
more stable organizational forms. During 1988, the
newly-formed Committee for the Defense of Kosovo
Serbs rapidly developed into a parallel structure of
power.
If Milosevic's appeal to traditional Serbian and
Montenegrin virtues was the first sign of ideological
heterodoxy, his endorsement of the "spontaneous
activity of the masses" marked a decisive shift in the
direction of right-wing populism and nationalism. Yet,
Milosevic did not entirely abandon his socialist agenda,
let alone his combat rhetoric. As the "class enemy"
increasingly became "national in content" and not only
"in form" (as Stalin would have it), Serbia's "revolution
from above and below" took on a distinctive
national-socialist character.
Even a cursory glance at the major slogans of the
Milosevic-sponsored "rallies of solidarity" which shook
Serbia and Vojvodina in summer 1988, reveals the
peculiar combination of extreme nationalism, populist
adoration for the leader, frustrated aspirations for social
justice and reform, and a nostalgia for the glorious days of
Yugoslavism. Thus, calls for revenge ("out with immigrants
from Albania, "we will hang Vllasi"-the Albanian communist
leader) went hand in hand with "Yugoslavist" slogans
("we don't want civil war"; "down with nationalists");
celebration of the leader ("Slobodan our hero, Serbia
will die for you") along with anticommunist sentiments
and a craving for social justice ("Central Committee,
aren't you ashamed to hear the people crying"; "down
with the red bourgeoisie") .
At the same time, during 1988 Milosevic made his
first overtures towards the intelligentsia, especially the
Academy of Sciences and the Union of Writers.
Suddenly, books which were deemed reactionary only a
few years earlier could be published, while yesterday's
class enemies from the "bourgeois right" became
"friends of the people." Nor was the generally mare
conservative technical intelligentsia with meritocratic
aspirations pushed aside: for them Milosevic had
promises of economic reform.
For all these reasons, analyses of the "Milosevic
phenomenon" which insist on only one dimension of
his appeal (typically nationalism), are bound to miss the
point. On the contrary, it was precisely the combination
of simultaneous appeals to different constituencies
which helps explain Milosevic's success. Yugoslavia,
unity and Titoism for the party orthodox and army
officers, Serbia for the nationalists, reform and
rehabilitation for the intellectuals, protection for the
Kosovo Serbs, social justice for the workers and
pensioners-this was the Serbian leader's equivalent of
Lenin's "bread, peace, and land." Nevertheless, there
was one, but highly significant, difference between
Vladimir Il'ich and his Serbian pupil, which reflected the
new "dialectical" turn in mature orthodox communism:
through a peculiar process of Hegelian transcendence,
the "left' was becoming "right" in a striking confirmation
of the old French wisdom - "les extremes se touchent."
It would be equally misleading to interpret
Milosevic's simultaneous and contradictory appeals to
different audiences as a sign of pure "opportunism,"
despite the pragmatic skills of the Serbian leader. If we
are to follow Ken Jowitt's lead, charismatic leaders
typically reconcile ideological elements and latent
political dispositions which were previously perceived
as mutually incompatible. (12) Thus, according to Jowitt
Hitler reconciled traditional German nationalism with the
Nazi emphasis on race; Lenin, the impersonalism of
party organization with an emphasis on virtues more
typical of traditional societies: hierarchy, authority,
altruism, personal self-sacrifice. The secret of
charismatic innovation, then, consists precisely in the
novelty of a Gestalt which refashions the familiar in
novel and unpredictable ways.
From this point of view, Milosevic appears as the
creator of previously forbidden fruits such as
Serbo-Yugoslavism or, in its more extreme variants,
"chetnik-partisanism"; (13) a conciliator of latent
aspirations for social justice and economic reform
(never mind that it never happened); one of the
originators of post-communist national socialism;
finally, an orthodox communist who violated traditional
norms of party behavior by giving free rein to mass
activity, and thereby satisfying aspirations for political
participation of an audience disgusted with the
ineffectiveness of institutions.
Not surprisingly, Milosevic and his spokesmen
referred to the events of October 1988 and January 1989
(the toppling of the elites in Vojvodina and Montenegro
through mass protest partially directed from above) (14)
as the "anti-bureaucratic revolution." The very choice
of words thus confirmed in dramatic fashion a
well-known Weberian truth: that nothing is as alien to
the spirit of charisma as the spirit of bureaucracy.
During the next few years, Milosevic's endless "mobilizations," "battles,"
his strong preference for
non-routine, crisis politics and aversion for procedure
(he almost never appears in parliament and generally
treats the opposition as a nuisance) revealed his
charismatic propensities in ever sharper form.
III. From Triumph to War
At no point did Milosevic's charisma reach such
heights as in 1989. This was the year of the overthrow
of the Montenegrin leadership (January); the purge of
the Kosovo leadership (March); the proclamation of a
new Serbian constitution (end of
March); the campaign for the convocation of an
extraordinary party congress at which Milosevic hoped
to take control over the federal party; the 600th
anniversary of the Kosovo battle (June 28); the
confirmation of Milosevic as president of Serbia in a
referendum-type election (November 1989).
Predictably, Milosevic's most glorious moment was
the celebration of the 600th anniversary of the Kosovo
battle, when almost a million Serbs (about 10% of all
Serbs in Yugoslavia!) came to Kosovo to hear the
charismatic leader. Significantly, this was the first time
that the Serbian leader explicitly referred to the
possibility of armed conflicts in the future.
Admonishing Serbs to remember the main values
bequeathed to them by the legacy of the Kosovo
battle-values such as "unity," "courage," and
"heroism"-Milosevic proceeded to state that
Today, six centuries later, we are once again in
battle, and facing battles. They are not armed
battles, although the possibility of those cannot be
excluded. But, regardless of what they are like,
battles cannot be won without determination,
courage, self-sacrifice. Without those virtues which
were present in Kosovo a long time ago. Our main
battle today is for the realization of economic,
political, cultural, and general social prosperity. For
a faster and more successful catching up with a
civilization in which people will live in the 21st
century. For this battle we need courage. To be
sure, of a somewhat different kind. (15)
Milosevic concluded his speech by underscoring
that in Kosovo Serbs not only defended themselves,
but all of Europe as well. For this reason, all accusations
of Serbia's "anti-Europeanism" were unfounded
(notably, accusations coming from Slovenia-V.V.).
Serbia was always in Europe and would remain sot but
"on its own terms, with dignity."
Milosevic's Kosovo Polje speech illustrates in particularly
sharp form the ambivalent character of his appeal: his
simultaneous emphasis on traditional Serbian virtues and
modernizing aspirations; the juxtaposition of "heroism" and
"prosperity," of " Europe" and "Serbian dignity." Throughout
much of the next two years, the Serbian president skillfully
tailored parts of his agenda to the needs of the moment,
always leaving the ultimate question unanswered: whether he
was more for reform or for socialism, more for Europe or for
heroism. Milosevic's political practice, however, soon
demonstrated the predominance of "national" over "rational"
considerations, "traditional" over "procedural" and
"modernizing" components of his agenda.
The first manifestation of Milosevic's ideological distaste
for mundane procedure in the aftermath of his numerous
successes was his preference for plebiscitary acclamation
instead of a democratic vote.(16)
If Milosevic truly wanted to be "in the vanguard" of the
movement for democratic reform, there were hardly any
obstacles in his way. At a time when his popularity was
unprecedented and communist states were rapidly "withering
away" in almost all neighboring countries, a free multiparty
election would have legitimated all of Milosevic's gains on the
national front. More than that, the Serbian leader would have
appeared as one of the first East European "communist
democrats," putting his Yugoslav ethnic counterparts to
shame. Finally, such a move would have taken away the
odium from Serbia as "the last bastion of communism" in
Eastern Europe. It is highly likely that, under these
conditions, Milosevic's revocation of Kosovo's autonomy
would not have appeared any more dramatic to international
public opinion than the Basque problem in Spain, while
Slovenian and Croatian arguments for secession would have
lost much of their credibility.
Yet, as Milosevic himself explained in a well publicized
interview to Le Monde in the immediate aftermath of his
Kosovo triumph, nothing was further from his intentions than
multi-party democracy.(17) According to the Serbian leader, the
question of "one or more parties" was an "ideologized" one in
the sense that "everyone who is for more parties is called a
democrat, while the one who expresses reservations is an
autocrat." On the contrary, the "future of democracy" did not
lie in the process
of "citizens joining parties," but in a type of "non-party"
participatory democracy in which citizens would freely
associate in order to delegate multiple candidates.
Milosevic's dislike of "parliamentary cretinism" had a
logical counterpart in his opposition to economic reform
inaugurated in January 1990 by the new federal prime
minister, Ante Markovic. Judging from articles which
appeared in the Milosevic controlled press at the time, there
was hardly a greater enemy of Serbia than the genuinely
Yugoslav-oriented and highly popular federal prime
minister. Once Markovic formed his own party, the Union
of Reform Forces (July 1990), this vilification campaign
reached an unprecedented intensity.
Much the same treatment was reserved for the
newly-formed opposition parties in Serbia itself, whether of
centrist or right-wing orientation. On June 13, 1990, when the
united opposition organized its first independent rally on the
streets of Belgrade, the forces of order quickly moved in to
disperse the pluralistically-minded citizenry, while Milosevic
passed a referendum on a new constitution strengthening his
presidential authority.
Under these adverse and generally threatening
circumstances, the Serbian president received a political gift
which, in more traditional times, could only be compared to
manna from heaven. The triumph of Franjo Tudjman's extreme
nationalists in the Croatian elections of April 1990 could not
have come at a more opportune moment for the Serbian
president. Tudjman's personal bigotry and the heavy
nationalist rhetoric of his followers quickly pushed the
Serbian diaspora in Croatia and Bosnia, as well as an
increasing number of army officers, into Milosevic's warm
political embrace. At last the class enemy did not appear any
more under the impersonal guise of economic reform, or
threatening opposition leaders with impeccable Serbian credentials
such as Vuk Draskovic.
Paradoxically, Milosevic was able to portray himself as a
voice of reason and moderation during the electoral campaign
of fall 1990. Unlike the ethnically-oriented Croatian president
who had a difficult time controlling his language when it came
to the "Serbian question," Milosevic warned his electorate
that "truly dark forces" were provoking conflicts which could even
"lead to war", despite the best intentions of the ruling party.
The pressure of right-wing, conservative, and
frequently, truly dark forces, ideas and
individuals, is threatening not only to call into
question all efforts and the first important
results of reform... but also to push Serbia into
the past plunge her into chaos. These ideas,
parties, and individuals... are provoking
conflicts, spreading hate towards other people
and nations and seeking an exit from current
difficulties in the past. These forces are
separating us from the world and this century, are
quarreling with reason and making us ashamed
of our past. (18)
Only three months later, however, these words of the
Serbian president appeared as little more than a
Freudian projection which, instead of revealing the
intentions of the opposition in fact exposed the plans of
Milosevic and his henchmen from the ruling socialist
party. On March 9, 1991, clashes between supporters of
the opposition and the police broke out on the streets
of Belgrade, opening the worst crisis of the Serbian
regime. Milosevic quickly "mobilized" against the
"forces of chaos and destruction" by bringing tanks into
the streets. By March 16, when Milosevic's repeated
attempts to extract a "state of emergency" from the
federal presidency had failed, the Serbian president
suddenly once more turned from a "voice of
moderation" into a "bellicose Serb."
Speaking to local party and government leaders,
Milosevic stated:
"We have to insure unity in Serbia if we want, as
the largest republic, and the most populous one,
to dictate the course of evens. These are
questions of borders, therefore essential
questions of state. And, borders, as you know, are
always dictated by the strong, not by the weak...
So, if we have to fight, we will fight. And I hope they
are not so crazy to wish to fight with us. Because,
if we do not know how to work and economize
well, at least we will know how to fight..."(19)
Against the background of ever more threatening
clashes between Serbian irregulars and the
newly-formed Croatian militia in Krajina and Slavonia,
these words of the Serbian president deeply
resonated with the needs of the moment. However,
they also revealed the true face of a combat-oriented
charismatic leader threatened by the prospect of
economic and political rationalization. After all, real
communists, populist charismatics, and romantic
nationalists were never known for their technocratic
attitudes, let alone their love of the mundane, boring
ways of purely "formal democracies." There was no
reason to expect from the Serbian president a sudden
behavioral change in the absence of stronger external
stimuli. Was it surprising, therefore, that metaphorical
mobilizations soon turned into real ones?
Conclusion
It would be wrong to deduce from the preceding
analysis the conclusion that Milosevic was the sole
Yugoslav politician responsible for the war As has
become obvious to all in recent months, his Croatian
counterpart is not exactly the personification of ethnic
tolerance (but perhaps this should not be openly
stated, because he listens to the West?). Nor is this
necessarily the case with the Bosnian president Alija
Izerbegovic, misleadingly portrayed as a great
"multi-culturalist" by a moralizing American press eager
to draw clearly the line between the evil oppressor and
the eternal victim.
It is equally misleading to conclude that the
Yugoslav war was the work of bigoted politicians and
the media alone, however great their contribution
might have been. Given the incredibly complicated
Bosnian ethnic maze the existence of a large Serbian
minority in Croatia with strong memories of ethnic
victimization in World War II, the traumatic legacy of
inter-ethnic hatred in regions like Herzegovina and the
difficult Kosovo problem, the peaceful disintegration of
former Yugoslavia along republican borders would
have proven very difficult even under the best of
circumstances. As it was, however, the circumstances
were far from favorable.
As far as Milosevic is concerned, it is legitimate to
observe that while he did not invent the Serbian
question, his uncompromising politics opened a
vicious cycle of self-fulfilling ethnic prophecies. Once
set in motion, the chain effect of ethnic "reactions" and
"counter-reactions" created a highly irrational dynamic
in the Yugoslav body politic, bringing tensions to a
boiling point. Milosevic's uncompromising style,
intolerance, battle cries, combat metaphors, heroic
postures, and the particularly repelling combination of
orthodox communism and extreme nationalism with
which he came to be associated, did much to alienate
even those non-Serb Yugoslavs who showed some
sympathy for the cause of Kosovo Serbs and Serbia's
demands for constitutional revision. It is almost certain
that a less charismatic and more rational leader could
have realized a mow modest, but also more realistic
Serbian national program without the tremendous
human, material and moral cost which the nation had to
pay under Milosevic.
On a more theoretical note, the preceding portrait of
Milosevic as the charismatic warrior could be criticized
on several grounds. Indeed, if Milosevic is a charismatic
hero as the preceding analysis has suggested, what
explains his more recent willingness to give up Krajina
and Western Bosnia and watch the stream of Serbian
refugees without firing a shot? Is this not a
manifestation of pure pragmatism and opportunism?
Would not a true charismatic hero join the troops in the
trenches?
The answer to such an objection could take several
forms. Firstly, the notion of charisma has less to do with
the personality traits of the leader and mow with the
nature of his appeal. To be sure, in certain cases the
very nature of the appeal obligates the charismatic
leader to die for a cause (imagine Jesus begging for his
life instead of humbly suffering on the cross). But this is
very far from being true in all cases, and some
charismatic leaders were not exactly known for their
great personal courage (the bookish Lenin, for example,
and one suspects, Milosevic as well). Moreover, in the
presence of overwhelming external stimuli such as the
devastating NATO air campaign or crippling economic
sanctions, even the most charismatic and heroic among
us might suddenly hear the voice of reason.
Secondly, on the more important sociological side of
the equation, as an inherently unstable form of
domination, charisma is subject to routinization, i.e., a
reconciliation with the mundane. Sooner or later, the
sacred mission is over and the never-ending nationalist
trance must give way to the mundane mechanism of
social reproduction. There are plenty of signs that the
Serbian body politic is tired of more than seven years of
endless "battles" and "mobilizations" (if we count 1988
as the beginning). In such circumstances, the
charismatic may decide to devolve in the direction of
more rational forms of authority.
Nevertheless, if my portrait of Milosevic as a
charismatic leader is even partially correct, the fall of
Krajina and Western Bosnia is likely to present the most
serious challenge to his authority to date. If we are to
follow Weber's lead, the most dangerous moment for a
charismatic leader comes when he reneges on his
promises or fails in his mission. A prophet who ceases
to produce miracles; a Mussolini who is defeated in
Greece; a Stalin who cries in the Kremlin as his troops
suffer crushing defeat; a Milosevic who fails to create
greater Serbia - these are the pathetic images of
charismatic defeat. Once such images enter the
collective consciousness, yesterday's hero quickly
becomes today's villain and, from there onwards, it is
just one step to the act of retribution. As Milosevic's
best political biographer Slavoljub Djukic has written,
the most difficult thing to imagine is the president of
Serbia peacefully walking down a Belgrade street as the
retired and well-respected former leader of the nation.
Veljko Vujacic is Assistant Professor of Sociology
at Oberlin College and Academy Scholar at the Center for
International Affairs, Harvard University.
(1) "Nationalist Mobilization, Historical Legades, and Political
Outcomes: A Comparison of Russia and Serbia," paper presented
at the conference
(2) The particularism of the dominant nation, however, does not
necessarily have to take extremist Thus, the new Russian
particularism which developed partially as a response to the
growing pressures of peripheral nationalisms in the Baltic
states and the Caucasus, took an isolationist form Another cage in
point IS the decision of the Czech elite to dissolve peacefully
the multinational state.
(3) For Cosic's speech see Dobrica Cosic, Stvarno i moguce, Ljubljana-Zagreb:
Cankarjeva zalozba 1988), pp 27-40.
(4) For Djuric's speech see "Anali pravnog fakulteta up Beogradu" no.3
May-June 1971, pp.230-33
(5) For the text of the Blue Book see Mirko Djekic Upotreba Srbije
Optuzbe i priznanje Draze Markovica (Beograd: Beseda 199tl), pp 123-75
(6) Between 1961 and 1981 the proportion of Serbs and Montenegrins in the
population of Kosovo dropped from 27% to 15% By 1987, the time of
Milosevic's rise to power, it was little more than 10% The 1981
Yugoslav census listed 110,000 Serbs and Montenegrins from Kosovo
living in other parts of Yugoslavia. By 1987, an additional 25-30,000
had left the province See Michel Roux, Les Albanais en Yougoslavie
Minorite territoire et developpment (Paris: Editions de la Maison de
Science de l'homme, 1992), for an "ethnically neutral" analysis of the
Kosovo problem
(7) These themes were seconded in the works of historians like Veselin
Djuretic, who explicitly questioned official myths about Partisan
struggle in World War II, and sought to rehabilitate Draza Mihailovic
and the Chetnik movement. On the more liberal side, two dissidents,
Kosta Cavoski and Vojislav Kostunica, challenged the communist legacy
by meticulously documenting the suppression of democratic political
parties in postwar Serbia and Yugoslavia and arguing for the establishment
of a multiparty system
(8) "Memorandum SANU," Duga June 1989
(9) Milosevic's biography is reconstructed or the basis of Slavoijub
Djukic, Izmedju slave i anateme: politicka biografija Slobodana
Milosevica (Beograd: Filip Visnjic 1994;
(10) Milosevic's speeches through 1989 have been collected in Slobodan
Milosevic, Godine raspleta (Beograd: BIGZ, 1989).
(11) Ibid.,pp.14047.
(12) Ken Jowitt, New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992).
(13) One of the most striking aspects of the Yugoslav war which has
completely eluded most observers is the willingness of ideologically
indoctrinated Yugoslav army officers to fight side by side with their
erstwhile mortal ideological enemies - the Serbian Chetniks. As is
well known during the Yugoslav civil war (1941-45) Partisans and
Chetniks mercilessly fought each other. In the aftermath of victory,
tens of thousands of Chetniks "collaborators" were liquidated in
Serbia, a process which culminated in the execution of their
monarchist leader General Draza Mihailovic. Only a year or two
before Milosevic s "anti-bureaucratic revolution," Yugoslav army
officers of Serbian background would have been quick to identify
and penalize any prospective "Serbian chauvinist" in their ranks
in the name of the Titoist ideal of brotherhood and unity." While
officers of Serbian background certainly predominated in the ranks
of the Yugoslav army the ideological reality was far from "Serbian
in content." It was only the combination of Milosevic's ambivalent
appeals and Tudjman's victory in Croatia that finally changed this
equation.
(14) In October 1988, one hundrad thousand people led by the organizers
of the "Committee f or the Defense of Kosovo Serbs" surrounded the
building of the provincial committee of Vojv odina forcing the
resignation of the whole leadership. There is a lot of evidence to
suggest that Milosevic helped organize this crucial rally although the
element of mass spontaneity was far from negligible In January 1989.
the Montenegrin leadership was forced to resign in the aftermath of
an almost identical mass protest.
(15) NIN July 2 1989
(16) In November 1989 Milosevic in good communist fashion staged a
referendum-type election which pitted him against several
candidates of socialist orientation Needless to add Milosevic
overwhelmingly won this deadly race.
(17) 17 Le Monde July 12 1989 Translated in NIN July 16 1989.
flicts which could even "lead to war," despite) the
best intentions of the ruling party:
(18) NIN, November 2, 1990
(19) The text of the speech can be found in NIN, April 12, 1991.
END
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