War and Deceit

The war was the most efficient mechanism of compensating for the "legitimacy deficit" of the old system's political oligarchy, which - even though worn out - did not want to get down from the stage of history. In addition to war, Serbia's socialists applied various mechanisms of justifying their political power and eliciting political support. Professor Milan Podunavac is quite right when he describes Slobodan Milosevic's rule as a specific history of "deceit, treachery, fraud and violence". One political project followed another, one political formula was replaced by another. The most outstanding in the short history were the projects of the Loan for Serbia's Revival, "fast railways," plunder of the citizens' foreign currency savings, the "Jugoskandik" and "Dafiment" affairs, a promise of all-Serbian unification, etc. However, the Cesarean type of order proved to have its limits and that the reservoir of the plebiscite-populist support was not inexhaustible. The regime's involvement in the war begins when the power of the 'plebiscite appeal' is diminished and when the undifferentiated political public diminish their expectations." (...)

Calculations about the Army

In early 1991, the military and SPS leaderships started considering the possibility of resolving the Yugoslav crisis by introducing the state of emergency. Their estimate was that the West wanted the "Left forces" to step down from power in Serbia and Montenegro. The military leadership assessed that Slovenia and Croatia were carrying out the "policy of fait accompli" and thought they "must act in accordance with the law, including the state of emergency, if nothing else could be done."

As regards the resolution of the Yugoslav crisis, until the outbreak of the war the military and SPS leaderships kept pointing out that the right to self-determination belonged to the people, and not to the republics or minorities. They underscored that the Serbian people had its federal state within Yugoslavia and that this was the position from which the Serbian people wished to decide about its future. According to them, all of the Serbian people wanted to live in one state, with equal civil rights, with internationally recognized borders, one army, money, market. For them, the state could have been either unitary or federal. They pointed out that confederation is not a state and that Serbs did not want to think about it. Federation with minimum functions was, they reiterated, the optimal form for the functioning of Yugoslavia. This practically meant that the right to secession was denied to republics and given to peoples.

SPS leadership's plan was to have the army "cover up Serb territories in Croatia." The military leadership assessed that the situation in the country could not be resolved unless the use of force was announced and force was to be used to the extent in which it was necessary so as to get out of the crisis without a civil war and in a democratic way. This is why the military leadership was making plans to overthrow the leaderships of Slovenia and Croatia. According to their assessments, Serbia, Montenegro, the army and Serb parties in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were pro-Yugoslavia. The army's basic idea was to rely on the "forces which are pro-Yugoslavia" and then to "combine political and military measures in order to overthrow the governments in Croatia and later in Slovenia."

In the republics which the army assessed as hesitant, governments were to be overthrown by demonstrations and rebellions, in the way in which the League of Communists of Serbia had carried out the political coup in Serbia, overthrown the Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro governments.

Leader's Cult

The Socialist Party of Serbia's propaganda technology and mobilization of political support was based on authoritarianism as the dominant feature of Serbia's social character, which was accompanied by people's fear. Besides, SPS tried to keep the socialist system and to monopolize the rule by taking advantage of the existing social stereotypes concerning social justice and by relying on the authority of Slobodan Milosevic and his "leader's cult" which had been created with the help of media from 1987 to 1990.

Egalitarian Phase

The basic program adopted in the SPS founding congress contained a chapter on "social equality," which said that SPS "pays special attention to the implementation of solidarity, equality and social safety," and also to the principle of solidarity, especially with the poor members of the society. SPS views social equality as "offering equal material, political and cultural possibilities to all people," the right to work and creating conditions for full employment.

SPS ideologists reiterated that "social differences should be restricted to reasonable and socially acceptable proportions." They advocated "better social safety which is expressed through the right to pension, health and social insurance, education, availability of culture to citizens."

In order to accumulate political support and increase its political capacity, SPS affirmed the communist-egalitarian model of social justice and the recognizable political formulas which were to make the citizens (voters) feel that only the Socialist Party would be able to ensure a prosperous future for Serbia's citizens. The target group were the social strata formed in the days of communism, the people who were socially promoted and felt socially and politically favored during communism.

"With us, there is no uncertainty"

In the 1992 Program, Serbia's Socialists clearly expressed their political strategy sublimed through the election slogan "With us, there is no uncertainty:" "The future in Serbia belongs to the Socialist Party of Serbia. It enjoys mass support of Serbia's citizens, due to its stabilizing, dynamic and progressive role. On the one hand, it tries to maintain the social heritage of the preceding period: free education and medical care, pensions, social security for the unemployed and handicapped citizens, social support for culture, social legislature which guarantees the rights of employees, the rights of ethnic minorities and religious communities. In the situation when strong political forces are trying to abolish this heritage for ideological reasons and material interests, the socialists are strongly struggling to save them and pass them down on to the future generations. The citizens know this and, in this respect, with the socialist, there really is no uncertainty."

The safety and social justice ensured for the citizens by SPS looked like this: early 1992 started with shortages of detergents, oil and sugar ... "The Serbian Government headed by Prime Minister Radoman Bozovic passed an act on the restriction of trade of strategic food articles - wheat, maize, flour, sugar and oil. In this way, the state took artificial monopoly over the products which were plentiful in Serbia. While ordinary people were running from one shop to another and were delighted when they found some basic foods to buy, certain power-wielders and "businessmen" close to them were getting rich by selling these products at monopoly prices and limiting their sale from overloaded warehouses."

Inflation became hyper-inflation and reached 200 percent by the end of the year. Because of Socialist Party of Serbia's war policy, U.N. Security Council on 30 May 1992 adopted Resolution 757 which imposed economic sanctions on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. U.N. Resolution 787 of 16 November 1992 tightened the sanctions by banning international transit on important raw materials and products in the territory of F.R.Y.

Forty percent of socially-owned factories stopped working. The Serbian Parliament adopted a package of laws proposed by the Government, which were to "ease the effect of the sanctions." The most important law in the package was the one which guaranteed the employees their salaries and jobs for as long as the international sanctions were in effect. In addition to this, the Government limited the salaries and froze the prices of about 50 percent of products. Belgrade streets were soon overcrowded with improvised and often ugly stands, merchants and dealers from all social strata.

In spite of all this, the Socialist Party won the elections held on 20 December 1992.

Economy of Destruction

After SPS's new victory, the new Serbian Government was formed in February 1993, headed by Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic. The Government's economic program contained three major goals: "rise of production, restriction of hyper-inflation and commencing public works in order to encourage economic activities."

The Government's Program, however, was pure demagogy. SPS's war policy in 1993 caused one of the greatest hyper-inflations in the history of Serbia. In late December, one German Mark cost a billion dinars! In December, the National Bank of Yugoslavia released four new bank-notes, the largest one worth 500,000 million dinars. In late 1993, the dinar was completely out of practical usage. The hyper-inflation culminated in January 1994 when the prices went up by over 313 million percent.

By describing SPS's "economy of destruction," i.e. the ruling party's "great robbery," Mladjan Dinkic in his book quoted the following figures which illustrated the population's standard of living in 1993: "...in mid-November 1993 an ordinary electricity switch cost two average salaries, while a baby carriage cost 97 average salaries. One could buy as many as four ball-point pens for an average salary."

Early parliamentary elections were held at the time of the greatest hyper-inflation and SPS won again.

The Socialist Party of Serbia undoubtedly is a significant political subject of the post-communist era in Yugoslavia. It is enormously responsible for the tragic and ruthless civil war in the territory of the former Yugoslavia and for the pauperization of immense proportions which Serbia's citizens went through. The policy of protecting its own domination at all costs prevented further modernization of the Serbian society. It interrupted the historical flow of social reform and transition of the political and economic system which would have enabled Serbia's progressive development and its entrance into the union of European nations.

Illegal Recruitment of Members

The analysis of SPS Program and Statute - the forms and principles of party organization - shows that there is a political continuity of SPS and the former League of Communists of Serbia. According to Article 10 of the Statute, SPS is organized in municipalities, at universities, in cities and autonomous regions. The SPS Organization as the basic unit is formed in the local community, part of the municipality, company, institution or faculty. The Statute foresees a special organization for the youth within the Socialist Party of Serbia. In the Autumn 1990, SPS formed action staff for attracting new members. Former local organizations of the Socialist Alliance of the Working People were used for the recruitment of new members and extending the party infrastructure.

The most important form of extending the party infrastructure was the meetings of the municipal SPS committees with directors of major companies. On these occasions the directors joined SPS after the Socialists reminded them that "they got their positions because they were communists."

The Law on Political Organization, Article 4 says: "Political organizations are established and operate only on the territorial principle." According to the writing of the President of the Nis branch of SPS Mile Ilic, the decision to establish SPS organizations (in companies) was made in the meeting of the Executive Council of the Nis branch of SPS on 8 November 1990, prior to the first multi-party elections in Serbia. This practice continued after the elections.

"In the SPS meeting held in Nis on 31 January 1991 two SPS organizations were formed in the companies "Masinska Industrija" and "Elektronska Industrija," whose directors were Dragan Gocic and Dragan Stankovic.

In the same meeting, the membership coordinators of the Nis SPS Branch were chosen. They covered almost all of the Nis companies and all other institutions and bodies, so there was no place where an SPS coordinator was not active. In addition to the two above mentioned companies, SPS also controlled the Nis Bank.