A Tired Serbia

Centuries have passed since September 1987. However, in the technology of the Communist rule, in its nomenclature and personnel policy, nothing much has changed at all. The Eighth Session - thanks to Slobodan Milosevic who was the catalyst of the process - was understood to be the last chance for the survival of the socialist regime, at least in Serbia. From the beginning ambitions were greater, which is proved by the "ideological plenary sessions", the flirtation with Suvar and the army about "non-party pluralism", the endless stories about the opposition and enemies of all colors. The boat sprung leaks on all sides and it was clear that the break in ideology was unavoidable. Everything became artificial, filled with sawdust: "ideology", "Marxism", "the working classes", "socialism", "self-management"; empty words with no correlation to reality, mere ritual stripped of purpose. Things didn't look good for scientific socialism, which was soon to be seen in the example of the first country of socialism.

When the City Council of the CP of Belgrade got a new president in 1983, and when Slobodan Milosevic began to behave like a new broom, everyone thought, as always in such instances: he's new, he'll get tired of it... He didn't get tired of it: he began by intensifying the class conflict when he immediately tried, in cooperation with Stane Dolanc, to parcel the political monster process known as "case 28". The case met its inglorious end in the courts, and the Stalinist initiative was paid for by one of the 28 accused, who killed himself in a moment of derangement brought on by political pressure. It should have been clear to Milosevic that political processes had gone out of fashion. However, first love is never forgotten: Slobodan Milosevic's stay in the City Council was marked by "vigilance" and "cases". The best illustration is the famous secret "Information on the link between external and internal enemies, the impact of reactionary forces and attempts to stir up trouble in Belgrade between 4 and 10 November 1984...." etc., a document at the same time terrifying and boring in the best of the Brezhnev tradition.

The Eighth Session, apart from intensifying the class conflict, was also prepared according to the "ideological plan" of stirring up the conflict between the two equally empty concepts of "Marxist education": the "creative" and the "integral". This conflict was important because under its disguise positions were taken in the University and City Council for future battle. Dr Mira Markovic, Milosevic's wife, played a major role in organizing a hard Marxist-Leninist core at the University.

At the 1986 Congress of the Serbian party, the Stambolic corporation made a fatal and tragic mistake in ousting Draze Markovic in order to mount Slobodan Milosevic: this comical concoction with "more candidates" for president of the party (when all but one withdrew) was formulated by Ivan Stambolic by the famous sentence: "We didn't come from Comrade Milosevic; we came to him".

At the Fifth Session (April 1987) Milosevic stressed "disunity, indecisiveness and vacillation" as the main weaknesses of the party, after having stressed "the establishment of unity in economy, politics and culture" as "a condition for survival" at the previous plenum. "Unity" was one of the most frequent words to come forth from the mouth of Milosevic; it was later joined by "homogenization" and "mobilization". In Krusevac in February 1987 Milosevic spoke the ominous sentence: "We must once again fight for that strong and avant-garde spirit which was expressed in the heroism of the war, the dignity in the poverty that followed the war... These are duties for which we must prepare our children". Slobodan Milosevic should have been taken seriously; even then he was right: we got the war and the poverty, but somehow lack the heroism and dignity.

Other warnings of Milosevic should also have been taken literally, for instance the one about the danger of Serbian nationalism. "Serbian communists and the Serbian people have never been soft on their nationalists. They never avoided condemnation - either criminal, political, or moral... Today Serbian nationalism is not only intolerance and hatred towards other nations, but a snake in the breast of the Serbian people who throughout their history have inclined towards unification with all the southern Slav peoples, and whose most progressive force was their working class which was the bearer of the spirit of brotherhood and unity, solidarity and equality with all the nations and peoples on the territory of Yugoslavia before, during and after the war" (the Second World War: editor). "Apart from this, Serbian nationalists would cause the most damage to the Serbian people with what they offer: intolerance and suspicion in others which would bring about practical isolation. Economically, politically, socially, culturally, so that it lives alone, and its own free small nation of Serbs can no more live alone than any other larger nation in this world where nations and people are more and more bound together and more and more dependent on each other." These were the prophetic words of Slobodan Milosevic at the closing of the Eighth Session, exactly five years ago. The man was completely right; if he were to say something similar today - and this is not impossible because we live in times when anything is possible - would he have the same success he had after the Eighth Session.

Slobodan Milosevic's success depends on the correct use of people. The Eighth Session was prepared and carried out on the basis of a document which Milosevic had nothing to do with, so he says; the "Memorandum" of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU). It is known that the Academy, i.e. a special commission, under the presidency of Antonije Isakovic, had begun work on the "document" whose aim was to place the Serbian nation in a new historical perspective. The aim of the "Memorandum" was achieved: a nationalistic pseudo-opposition was collected around it which - at the signal - would join Slobodan Milosevic.

The Eighth Session had a number of ordinary rehearsal and one dress rehearsal. The detonator was the speech made by Dragisa Pavlovic (President of the Belgrade League of Communists) to the chief editors of the Belgrade media, a speech unusual and surprising in its new tone, a sign that differences had come to a breaking point. Pavlovic warned against a "lightly promised speed" in the solving of the Kosovo question, though it sounded much broader than this. "Politika Expres" immediately awaited this announcement with a knife in the hand of Dragoljub Milanovic (the present Editor-in-Chief of the Belgrade TV). In the communist world the president of the City Council of the party of the capital city is only attacked with a special licence or an order from above, so that the situation was clear at once: Pavlovic was being prepared for execution. A closed session of the Presidency of the CK SKS before the plenum worked it all out; the Eighth Session was a show without drama, with well-learnt roles and a clear conclusion, a classical communist ritual of automatic pogrom. In the best of traditions, the theme of the Eighth Session was the "Economic situation in Serbia" which was lackadaisically and speedily dealt with, though the economic situation was in an alarming state. Then Zoran Sokolovic (now Minister of the Interior), in the standard communist manner, reviled Dragisa Pavlovic and began the three day long discussion.

Straight after the Eighth Session - the very next day - all was clear. It was clear who was in charge and who would be "differentiated"; continuity was given to the apparatus and all was good in the best of communist dreams. Next on the agenda were mobilization and homogenization, a state of emergency in Kosovo, Gazimestan (celebration of the 600th year of the Battle of Kosovo), Usce (a meeting of support to Milosevic in Belgrade). And then the "but" appeared: the fall of communism in the Warsaw Pact. How difficult it was for Slobodan Milosevic to forgo "non-party pluralism" and accept multi-party elections, we don't know. We only know he "revised" his attitude towards Serbian nationalism. Without the support of the Great Orthodox and All Slav Brother, who treacherously betrayed the Leninist legacy, the Serbian communists - alone in the world - had to find a new foothold. Did they prepare it quietly in time (with the "Memorandum", the Kosovo Serbs, in the Writers' Club and M. Perisic's "Literary Magazine" - Perisic is now Minister of Information), or were they suddenly inspired? History cannot bear a vacuum, and the vacuum which appeared with the fall of communism was enormous. Nationalism - an old weapon of the communists - appeared as the first idea.

Is Slobodan Milosevic a Serbian nationalist? He isn't; there is no definition of a nationalist that could be applied to him. He isn't even a communist, if it makes things easier. The furthest he went in the direction of nationalism was immediately after his return from Kosovo Polje ("No-one will be allowed to beat you!"), on 27 April 1987, when at the Central Committee Presidency he said: "Here, as down in Kosovo, there is a such an atmosphere that what we are now talking about is no longer politics. It is now the homeland. It is a question of the homeland." Like an inexperienced cabinet minister he was upset by the drama of the events, and this is understandable. But - this was all. Slobodan Milosevic is empty of ideology and doctrine: he is only interested in power. This is why he succeeded in tricking both the communists and the nationalists: the communists believed he was only pretending to be a nationalist and the nationalists that he was only pretending to be a communist. The people believed in the empty rhetoric and pugnacious chin, his personal magnetism and decisive words. The apparatus saw its chance; one of the lucid commentators at the Eighth Session stated: "When I watch them speak, I immediately see who has a small flat, whose car is rusty and who needs a job for his child.." Milosevic promised everyone everything: the Kosovo Serbs dignity, the population 10,000 dollars each, the apparatus security. One state for all Serbs, communism and victory to the army, a common state to Moscow and the capital city of Dubrovnik to the Bosnian Serbs, Dusan's Kingdom to all Serbs - these were promised by others who would be coldly denied by Milosevic when the need arose. They were the ones to promise - not he. Dobrica Cosic was the one who moaned: "And we, like our fathers, were victors in war, and defeated in peace", not Milosevic. Milosevic was quiet and let them speak - though he could have stopped them, denied, corrected, censured and advised. Everything that has happened has happened in his name, and he hasn't said a thing; he didn't even feel the need to say something to the families of the dead, to visit the wounded, widows and orphans. If he had done this - he will tell us one day - he would have given a basis for the charge that Serbia was at war...

The rule of the game of the Eighth Session is still valid, enlarged upon, sharpened in extremis (to the end, to death): differentiation. Into Serbs and others; into "good" and "bad" Serbs; into Serbs better than ordinary good Serbs, etc. Milosevic still fascinates all Serbs all over the world, even the opposition. It is no wonder that Slavoljub Djukic, witness and researcher, has sold out his book on Milosevic. "Has only five years passed?", asks Djukic. "I feel as if a whole eternity were behind us... At the time of the Eighth Session many with reason believed it was only a question of replacing the main people in government. I wrote down Dobrica Cosic's opinion then: "To me it is only a battle within the framework of Titoist ideology: the battle between opportunistic Titoism and militant Titoism. The conflict is almost perfect, morally and psychologically covering its protagonists. It is a battle inside a bureaucratic clan, essentially motivated by power, and the outcome is absolutely logically to the nature of the League of Communists: victory of the more militant...". All that has happened had to happen in order to understand the reach of the Eighth Session, the extent to which it represents a turning point in the history of the Serbian people and just how tragically it determined the fate of the present, and who knows how many future, generations."

"Many in 1984 saw in him an orthodox communist-Bolshevik," says Djukic to VREME. "That's what he was then. Later, however, he showed that he was not a politician of strong ideological conviction. In these last few years, Milosevic, whenever necessary to strengthen his position, has skillfully changed his political clothing: he was a passionate communist, Titoist, anti-Titoist, Yugoslav, unitarianist, Serbian nationalist and war leader, and in the most recent phase he appears in the role of peace-maker. Ideology is for him a mere formality, for use in his career and preservation of his power. And now, when the whole world expects Milosevic's withdrawal, he once again, on the eve of the elections, rises up like a phoenix from the ashes and triumphantly announces his return, with good prospects of succeeding! It is here that the main story about us and the Serbian opposition, not Milosevic, begins," says Slavoljub Djukic.

Slobodan Milosevic is now a candidate for president of the SPS "and other of the highest duties", as expressed by the nominator. This could be the beginning of the third political life of the Leader of all Serbs. First he was a communist and man of special calibre; then he became Leader of Serbianhood; now he should become leader of a "tired Serbia". Communism has fallen; Serbia has lost the war for a communist Yugoslavia and the wars for all Serbs to be in one state. Now, under sanctions and in isolation, Milosevic carries through the Eighth Session: he throws into the game his trump card - his charismatic personality - in an attempt to strike a blow against Milan Panic and his ever stronger political pool of power (popularity, support of the opposition (even the new social-democrats), the favour of the outside world). Milosevic is playing on the proved communist card - the worse, the better. Winter is coming, bearing with it hunger, cold, a breakdown of the system, social unrest and a further erosion of the already seriously damaged social tissue of Serbia.