The Tito Doctrine

chapter 4 The Tito Doctrine

But if it comes to shooting, if we have to defend our achievements, the army too is here.1 Josip Broz Tito, Thirtieth Anniversary of the JNA, 1971 ∵

The guardian of Tito’s state and his helpmeet in attaining power, the army, underwent dramatic transformations in response to the threats against the Yugoslav regime. First established to expel the reportedly 300,000 domes- tic quislings who cooperated with the Axis Powers to destroy Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) served as the model institution devoted to its commander, Marshal Tito.2 As the most loyal group, JNA officers acted as close confidants to their commander and made sure that they always would take an active role in state building at each stage of Yugoslavia’s history. With the dual role of defending the revolution against internal challengers and deter- ring and fighting against external aggression, JNA leaders sought to solidify their authoritative role in the state. But, the army elite also had to deal with the powerful Communist Party (LCY), and while the JNA remained the most steadfast pillar of the party, it also had to accept certain uncomfortable aspects of party rule. In response to the success of socialist self-management since the early 1950s, military leaders could not continue to resist reforms in their own institution; as a result, they altered Yugoslav defensive doctrine to meet the decentralized reform regime. The military solution implemented at the end of the 1960s was the advent of Territorial Defense (TDF), which harkened back to the Partisan experience of World War II and drew common citizens into an active defense regime, described as completely “integrated with the social

1 Tito in Adam Roberts, Nations in Arms: The Theory and Practice of Territorial Defense, (New York: Praeger Publishing, 1976), p. 202. 2 See, Đorđo Novosel et al., Savezni sekretarijat za narodnu odbranu I, vol. 7.1, Razvoj oružanih snaga SFRJ, 1945–1985 (Beograd: Vojnoizdavačka i novinski centar, 1990), p. 27. “Oko 300.000 ustaša, četnika i drugih izdajnika napustilo je zemlju i uključilo se u antijugoslovensku kam- panju i pružanje podrške reakcionarnim i neprijateljskim snagama u zemlji.”

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004358997_006 132 chapter 4 structure.”3 Alongside the federal army, these territorial defense forces came from local sources and trained primarily in guerrilla warfare techniques; the TDF soldiers represented the popular and large-scale reserve force that would supposedly unite all peoples while enhancing the defensive posture of the armed forces. After having embraced reform in the army, JNA leaders initially saw the TDF as necessary to build a democratic and unified Marxist Yugoslavia, but they soon felt sidelined and attempted to reduce the influence of the TDF as nationalism appeared on the forefront of Yugoslav politics at the beginning of the 1970s. That the officers succeeded is a testament to the critical role that the army played in Titoist Yugoslavia—fear of Soviet invasion propelled all leaders into opting for a popular system of defense that could serve to align more people with the regime. Nonetheless, the critical question for Yugoslav leaders to answer was whom did they fear more: the Red Army or their own people? In this chapter, I will argue that Yugoslav politicians ultimately shaped their policies according to the unrest and potential for rebellion by their own peo- ple. Tito had recast the army to fit foreign policy dilemmas but ultimately the fear of external invasion was small and the ability of Tito’s state to project force in the exterior was minimal. Instead, the regime needed the army to combat domestic unrest precisely at the time that Tito’s foreign-policy had failed to provide a durable legitimacy. The 1960s served as a hopeful period whereby Yugoslavia stood at the forefront of global diplomacy but that decade ended with nonalignment in disarray and Tito alone in Europe facing down Soviet aggression in nearby Czechoslovakia. That chronology helped encourage folks in and outside of Tito’s government to clamor for change, not just in Croatia, but also in Serbia between so-called liberals and conservatives. Tito wanted his army to reflect his socio-economic system and foreign policy and thereby saw the territorial defense system as a critical pillar of the regime. Yet, by 1971 he had recognized that much work still remained and that he needed the army to serve once again as the premier guardian of the state. Tito’s foreign policy after 1948 had little for the JNA to do; only so many observers or military tech- nicians could go abroad to the nonaligned countries. Domestically, the role of the army could shift to become more popular and serve as a school for the nation, putting the Yugoslav supranationality on a pedestal against competing ethnic identities. Thus, the history of the military in Tito’s Yugoslavia stands as a testament to the powerful dilemmas that the regime faced and in the end Tito relied on the army at home in the same way that Brezhnev employed the

3 Viktor Bubanj, “Povodom tridesetogodišnjice JNA,” Vojnoistorijski glasnik 12 (Beograd: Vojnoistorijskog instituta, 1971), p. 6.