Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Master's Theses Graduate College 8-1969 The Yugoslav Communist Party: Decentralization and Reorganization Barbara P. McCrea Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses Part of the International Relations Commons Recommended Citation McCrea, Barbara P., "The Yugoslav Communist Party: Decentralization and Reorganization" (1969). Master's Theses. 3081. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/3081 This Masters Thesis-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE YUGOSLAV COMMUNIST PARTY: DECENTRALIZATION AND REORGANIZATION by Barbara P. McCrea A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the Degree of Master of Arts Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan August 1969 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am greatly indebted to Professor George R. Klein, who directed this thesis, and to Professors Jack C. Plano and William R. Ritchie, who offered much help and encouragement. The opportunity to participate in the 1967 Yugoslav Seminar was of incalculable value in the preparation of this thesis. My thanks go to the faculty, in the Department of Political Science, for encouraging me to undertake this project and for making my graduate study a pleasure. Barbara P. McCrea Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. uoissiujjad }noi|}!M pGjjqjiiojd uojpnpcudsj jsq yn j jsumo mBuAdoo sqj jo uojssiiujsd pjim psonpojdgy THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED uefittprjAi 'io q iyu u y "ouj; 'suqijoior^i A jisiaA iufl suoxqHxsa puB mbx ^^o u b x o s xe^T^TT°H 6 9 6 1**V‘W ‘AxTsasATun u bS t i p t h T iiaqsaw •NOIXVZINVOHOSa ONV N0IXVZI3VNXN303a :AX3V3 XSINOWWOO AV7S000A 3HX •j BaBqaBg cV3N0OW 88IS-W SIS3HX S|N3XSVW TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION .............................................. 1 CHAPTER I THE M A T R I X ....................................... 5 The Socio-Historical Complex ............... 5 The Party: Genesis and Brief Period of Legal i t y ............................... 12 The Party: 1921-1937, The Underground Years of Persecution and Dissent . 13 The Party United: Tito Takes Control . 16 The Party at War: The Partisan Epic . 18 The Party Triumphant: The Stalinist Model ....................................... 23 The Cominform B r e a k ........................ 29 Institutions in Flux: 1948- 1958 .......... 33' The Seventh Congress ........................ 40 The Conflict Unresolved ................... 43 The Rankovich Ouster ........................ 51 II ECONOMIC DECENTRALIZATION AND THE GROWTH OF P L U R A L I S M ................. 6 3 The Early R e f o r m s ................... 63 The Rise of N a t i o n a l i s m ................... 66 The First Decade of Decentralization . 72 The Early Sixties: Tentative Reforms . 79 The 1965 Economic R e f o r m s ................. 82 i i Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. i i i TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued) Chapter Page 11 The Economy Since 1966 ...................... 87 The Growth of Parliamentary Debate .... 95 Pluralism and the Trade U n i o n ....... 104 III MARXISM REASSESSED: THE IDEOLOGICAL- PHILOSOPHICAL DEBATE .................... 115 Discipline Versus Anarchy ................. 113 A Heretic Among Heretics: Djilas Opens the C o n t r o v e r s y ............... 117 The Debate R e v i v e d ...................... 123 The Constitution Tested: Mihajlov .... 127 Discipline Versus Anarchy: The Serb- Croat Linguistic Battle ................. 134 Discipline Versus Anarchy: The Foundations Questioned ................... 140 IV THE MAJOR REORGANIZATION OF THE PARTY . 154 From the Rankovich Ouster to the Ninth C o n g r e s s........................ 154 Democratic Centralism and the Ninth C o n g r e s s ................................ 167 1966: The Halfway H o u s e ............... 171 Disarray in the Republican Parties: The Serbian P a r t y ................... 179 The Serbian Party: The Kosmet Erupts . 184 The June Student R i o t s ................. 188 The Czechoslovak Crisis ................... 193 Party Reforms and the Republic Parties . 201 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. i v TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued) Chapter Page V CONCLUSIONS ......................................... 213 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................ 227 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. INTRODUCTION At the close of World War II Yugoslavia was consti­ tuted as a federation of six republics. These corres­ ponded in main to the regions inhabited by the five major nationalities of Yugoslavia, the exception being Bosnia-Hercegovina where Serbs, Croats, and Slav Moslems are intricately mixed. This was a legalistic fiction; the reality was a centralist and authoritarian Communist government. As with its Soviet model, all power lay in the hands of the Communist Party. However, a crucial event diverted Yugoslavia from Stalinism. In 1948, Stalin, suspicious of Tito's power and independence, expelled Yugoslavia from the Cominform. Contrary to all expectations East and West, Tito refused to cave in and was furthermore able to preserve Yugo­ slavia's position outside the Communist bloc. Tito's success was due in large part to the ability of the Yugoslav Communists to innovate and the internal strength of the party, which was unique in Eastern Europe in that it owed no debt to Soviet arms or largesse. In order to justify themselves ideologically to their own Party and to differentiate their regime from the Soviet Union, the Yugoslav Party has effected a 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 series of innovations which have gradually led them away from an authoritarian, centralist government. The seminal innovation was the institution of Workers' Self- Management of 1950 whereby the management of the indivi­ dual enterprises was turned over to workers' councils, the state proclaiming that the means of production were to be "socially owned." The Stalinist system of subor­ dinating economic criteria to administrative criteria was whittled away. This inevitably included in decision­ making non-Party technicians, whose main concerns were economic rath r than political. As a concomitant of economic decentralization, the Party announced that the proper road to socialism lay in both the state and Party "withering away," which was to be effected through decen­ tralization. However, decentralization in the Party was lethargic, lagging behind that of the economic sphere. Intraparty resistance blocked many proposed reforms and, in general, conservatives retained a strong voice in Party affairs. By the early 1960's Yugoslavia had proven its ability to survive and trade with both blocs, but its political survival was far more debatable. The Party had become far out of step with the increased freedom in the economic sphere. A worsening trade position forced far-reaching Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 economic reforms in 1965. Their effectiveness was blunted by Party conservatives, who resisted attempts to decentralize political power. In 1966 the divergence between liberals, led by those committed to the reforms, and the conservatives came to a crisis. Aleksander Rankovich, Tito's heir-apparent and the leading conser­ vative, was purged. The concepts of self-management and decentralization have begun to acquire real meaning within the Party since his ouster, and the range of per­ missible criticism has appreciably broadened. Decen­ tralization gave increased power to the parties of the republics. The problems posed by their growing indepen­ dence appear to have been finally faced at the Ninth Congress of 1969. The Ninth Congress marks a major transformation of the Party, both in personnel and in structure. The new institutions set up by the Congress represent an attempt to accommodate the growing pluralism within the Party structure. Decentralization has also served to revive the nationality problem, an ever-present facet of Yugoslav life. Essentially, any consensus politics in the country depends on the support of several nationalities, as not one holds a numerical majority. In essence, the govern­ ment's function is to effect a balance among the nation­ alities which will not threaten the fragile unity of the country. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I intend to concentrate my examination of the changes within the League of Communists on the last crucial years, from the ouster of Rankovich to the Ninth Congress. No study of Yugoslavia can be properly made without considering the grave threat posed by national antagonisms, and thestresses these place on the Party. Therefore, national rivalries, and the economic decen­ tralization which has served to reinforce nationalism, will also receive much attention. Because of the problems involved in writing Serbo-