A Form of Feudalism

The Eighth Session took place after a longer period in which dissatisfaction culminated over the previous regime's results. This was not characteristic of Serbia alone; the population felt similar frustration in other parts of Yugoslavia and in Eastern Europe. It was characteristic of Yugoslavia at the time that reform (where we moved ahead of the countries of Eastern Europe) was in the offing. However, there came a turn from which it became apparent immediately that Yugoslavia would start to lag. This was clear during the Eighth Session too, as the methods applied were in no way democratic but authoritarian, characteristic of single-party monopoly. There was unanimous condemnation, manipulation - everything recalled the Soviet problem resolving methods of the 1920's. An attempt was made to resolve things in the familiar, outmoded way, but this could not be done because the circumstances were quite different from those of the twenties and the thirties. Real socialism started to move in a totally different direction, and we had embarked on the road of real socialism.

The issue were communist leaders who sought fresh support in nationalism. The socialist and the nationalist blended, and what resulted was a type of national socialism which always stood for an authoritarian product. We will have to endure this for who knows how much longer, and nobody can say how we will manage to extricate ourselves from this trap.

War would not have been unavoidable had we had more flexible and liberal leaders. But in 1985, 1986 and 1987, the rule of law and civil society were proclaimed counterrevolutionary ideas, and ideological sabotage was looked for in every nook and cranny.

The Eighth Session itself, as an event, is of no great importance, except that false security was acquired, the understanding that everything can be accomplished with democratic centralism. This is the method that led to Yugoslavia's disintegration at the last congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.

The fact that, through the Eighth Session, Yugoslavia separated completely from the other socialist countries has several sources which will be only mentioned here. Firstly, national leaders in Yugoslavia had turned to their own respective environments already in the 1960's. Tito was still alive when the battle for power began, and the national leaders found the easiest support in their respective nations, i.e. republics. This marked the beginning of a specific form of feudal socialism. Even then the citizen was reduced to a mini-inhabitant. Other socialist countries - Poland and Hungary - found it that must easier because they were not nationally complex. However, Yugoslavia was not the only one to fall apart. All socialist federations have disintegrated, in the first place because of disrespect for human rights which caused the frustration and turn to nationalism and religion. These federations simply could not count on those whose rights they were choking. Another important reason for their disintegration was the ban on private initiative and free enterprise, which is why the economies were being shut in small statist entities which, in themselves, weakened the federations. All these countries will, now, need a long period of transformation from nationalism to democracy.