Robert Thomas. The Politics of Serbia in the 1990s. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. xx + 443 pp. $18.50, paper, ISBN 978-0-231-11380-9. Reviewed by Robert Whealey Published on H-Diplo (February, 2001) "Serbian Factionalism" hostile to the future integrity of Yugoslavia. But in If journalists advocating American interven‐ the end, Milosevic's "Socialist Party," i.e. the bu‐ tion in the Yugoslavi- an civil wars at The New reaucracy, counted the votes. Dominating the se‐ York Times and The Washington Post had owned cret police and the mass media, he manipulated a detailed book like this in 1992, much debate elections and demonstrations from 1990-2000, within the State Department about Yugoslavian thereby maintaining himself in power. conditions might have been avoided. Why did the Nevertheless, Yugoslavia evolved, rather U.S. take military action in that lengthy crisis from slowly, toward a fedgling democracy. This book 1991 to 1999? focuses on how Milosevic's great power Serbia President Slobodan Milosevic, as portrayed by first consolidated and then declined. British au‐ Robert Thomas, is a narrow-minded patriot born thor Thomas is the great historian in English of in rural Serbia, raised by an Orthodox priest, who party poli in Belgrade 1987 to April 1998 (his cut- repudiated the multi-ethnic internationalist Yu‐ off date, not the end of the conflict.) His major goslavia created by Josip Tito. Milosevic, although sources are some 35 Serbian periodicals that educated in a Titoist, so-called socialist system, be‐ flourished after 1989. The usefulness of Thomas came a banker and state capitalist. Before the lies in revealing the specifics of obscure Serbian 1991 Yugoslav explosion, he even worked for a politics to an year in the American banking system learning his Anglo-American readership. The American trade. press viewed Yugoslavia 1991 to 1998 through the Inheriting a bureaucracy which wavered be‐ lens of "communist" or "nationalist" stereotypes, tween totalitarianism and authoritarianism, Milo‐ whereas Thomas thought Yugoslavia was suffer‐ sevic allowed, after 1989, a disorganized, diverse ing from too many intellectuals trying to set up opposition to contest half a dozen elections. The too many political parties. Serbian opposition could also propound ideas H-Net Reviews Thomas describes well Serbia's political fac‐ continue to demand decentralization from Bel‐ tionalism, which resembles 18th century Britain grade. His sin was narrow-mindedness, not geno‐ or 19th century Spain. Like Italy in 1921, Germany cide or ethnic cleansing. Retention of Kosovo was in 1932, or Spain in 1936, good ideas were being apparently his number one priority from 1987 on. rejected because the state was hit by economic Eventually Serb military occupation of Kosovo un‐ hardship and political factionalism. leashed the destructive US bombing and refugee Thomas concentrates on six egos: Milosevic, flight of 1999, after Thomas's account ends. Vojislav Seslj, Zoran Djindjic, Vuk Draskovic, Ves‐ This history of the "home front" is missing a na Pesic, and "Arkan" aka Zeljko Raznatovic. clear picture of cause and effect. Foreign political "Arkan" was some kind of professional criminal and economic pressures on Belgrade help explain before the civil wars, and like the other four as‐ the gradual decline of Milosevic's power and the pired to replace Milosevic. Thomas does not show rise of political opposition. The resurgence of na‐ how these oppositionists could have done better tionalism was encouraged by NATO leaders. Brus‐ than the incumbent authoritarian. sels chose favorites within Yugoslavia, and tended The new Serb President, Vojislav Kostunica, to dismiss the Serbs as the enemy. Milosevic's atti‐ suddenly burst into the American press in Sep‐ tude toward the disintegrating USSR remains a tember 2000. Thomas relates quite a bit about mystery. Of course Milosevic can not avoid re‐ Kostunica's unsuccessful early efforts to lead the sponsibility for his blindness and inability to com‐ Serbs to his version of democracy. From 1992 to promise. But he was not, in the opinion of September 2000, Kostunica ran one of Serbia's Thomas, public enemy number one, as he was smaller parties, and was just as patriotic and na‐ portrayed in the American press. tionalist as Milosevic and the other major con- Milosevic's opponents were just as confused tenders for power. as he about the differences between nationalism It is not clear why twenty some odd leaders and democracy. They also wanted to fght the formed and reformed parties in Serbia. They Muslims and Croats for control of Bosnia and made and then broke alliances both with each Kosovo. Some of the diverse opposition appealed other and with Milosevic. Serbs seemed unclear for symbolism to a Serbian hero of the 1940s, the about differences among a democratic party, a monarchist General Drasa Mihailovic and his pressure group, a movement, a patriot, an imperi‐ Cetnik guerrillas, who battled Tito. How deeply alist, a journalist, or a bureaucrat. they believed in monarchy or Orthodoxy remains mysterious. But those symbols were hardly help‐ If Milosevic had been a fexible Titoist, he ful for the 1990s when the four Yugoslavian civil might have rescued the Socialist Federal Republic wars provided the background to the rhetoric of of Yugoslavia from disintegration. But eventually the political campaigners inside Serbia. Paradoxi‐ he put his faith in an exclusive, smaller Serbia cally the Belgrade government could embrace the rather than a big Yugoslavia. To maintain power, idea of a united Yugoslavia only by becoming less he made constitutional changes to parry and di‐ Serbian. vide his opposition. He called himself a socialist, but Thomas provides no evidence that Milosevic The US media publicized "ethnic cleansing" in understood Karl Marx or even contemporary so‐ the former Yugoslavia from 1991-99, accusing cialists like Tony Benn of the British Labour Party. Serbs for most of it. But the crimes were commit‐ Instead, Milosevic's promotion of Serbian nation‐ ted at the village, neighborhood and camp level. alism led Slovenian, Croatian, Macedonian, Mon‐ The atrocities cannot be blamed solely on three or tenegrin, Bosnian and Albanian nationalists to four top Serb leaders, including Milosevic. 2 H-Net Reviews Thomas sheds some light on the initial break with their biggest atrocity story of the war. The up of the SFRY in 1991. The siege of Vukovar, June Krajina Serbs, expelled the next month from their to November 1991 on the Croatian-Serbian bor‐ cantons in Croatia, regarded the do-nothing Milo‐ der, was more the responsibility of paramilitary sevic as their betrayer (pp. 238-39). The factions of volunteers encouraged by Radical Party leader men like Seslj, Draskovic and Kostunica vacillated Vojislav Seslj (born in Sarajevo) and "Arkan" or back and forth with Milosevic's party, both for Zeljko Raznatovic (born in Slovenia) than Milose‐ power in Belgrade, and in intermittent commit‐ vic (pp. 94-95, 97, 99). Vuk Draskovic, self-pro‐ ment to the aggressive Bosnian Serbs, the old line claimed democrat and leader of demonstrations communists, the re-discovered Cetniks and the against Milosevic in the winter of 1996-1997, was Orthodox Church. a leading Serbian interventionist in the Croatian One chapter (out of thirty) focuses on the Al‐ War 1991-1992 (pp. 99-100). banian Kosovars as rather an afterthought. The For the most part, U.S. pressures on Belgrade Kosova Liberation Army's (KLA) battles in April are missing from this account. Thomas has rela‐ 1998 had just started when the book went to tively little to say about Yugoslav foreign affairs press. As debating went on, some bureaucrats in or the international economic pressures on the Milosevic's own party, the Socialist Party of Serbia Milosevic regime from 1991 to April 1998, when (SPS), defected to the opposition in the provinces. Thomas's account ends. But he does make a few Serb factionalism made Serbia more like So‐ interesting revelations which show that the malia than like Hitler's Reich, but the accusation strong man of Belgrade was willing to make of "ethnic cleansing" hid this from the American peace. Milosevic accepted the UN-EU, Vance-Owen public. To his credit, Thomas does not use the peace plan as early as May 1993 (p. 148), while term. He also has nothing to say about the war President Clinton and the Bosnian Serbs head‐ crimes tribunal at The Hague. quartered in Pale did not. From March-July 1994, Milosevic's chauvinism made him a poor Milosevic was pressing Bosnian Serb General diplomat. But Milosevic was no Hitler, no Mussoli‐ Ratko Mladic to compromise with the Americans ni and no Stalin. He wanted Serb domination of to end the Bosnian war (pp. 199- 201). Further‐ Yugoslavia to continue, but without understand‐ more Milosevic, to keep NATO's military away ing the rationale for the state, created in from Belgrade, announced an economic embargo 1918-1919 and reorganized by Tito in 1945 with a on the so-called Pale government. Together with constitution modeled after the Soviet constitution the American bombing, this eventually led to the of 1922. Those constitutions assumed that nation‐ Dayton truce of November 1995. alities like the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs would Thomas implies that the regular Serbian compromise their national aspirations. However, Army in Belgrade was neutral in the Bosnian civil the mood of 1991 everywhere was for nationali‐ war. In contrast, Seslj, Draskovic and Washing‐ ties to reassert sovereignty. Like everybody else, ton's newly found democrat, Vojislav Kostunica, at Milosevic was surprised by the collapse of the So‐ times encouraged para-military volunteers to aid viet Union 1987- 1991. The subsequent expansion their Serbian brothers in Bosnia, across the Drina of NATO into Yugoslavia's internal affairs also was River from old Serbia (pp.