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Yugoslavia Socialist Alliance of Workers
The Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia
(SAWPY), formerly the People's Front, was the largest and most
influential mass organization in Yugoslavia from 1945 through
1990. In 1990 its membership was thirteen million, including most
of the adult population of the country. The political purpose of
this national organization, sponsored by the LCY, was to involve
as many people as possible in activities on the party agenda,
without the restrictions and negative connotations of direct
party control. SAWPY also was chartered as a national arbitration
forum for competing, cross-regional interests. Although party
officials were forbidden to hold simultaneous office in SAWPY,
the top echelon of the latter was dominated by established party
members. The importance of SAWPY to the party leadership
increased as the party's direct control over social and state
institutions decreased. It was useful in mobilizing otherwise
apathetic citizens during the Croatian crisis of 1971 and the
Kosovo crisis of 1987.
The Constitution stipulated a wide variety of social and
political functions for SAWPY, including nomination of candidates
for delegate at the commune level, suggesting solutions to
national and local social issues to assembly delegates, and
overseeing elections and public policy implementation. Both
individuals and interest groups held membership. The structure of
SAWPY was very similar to that of the party, including a
hierarchy that extended from national to commune level. SAWPY
organizations in the republics and provinces were simplified
versions of the national structure.
The national organization was run by a conference of
delegates chosen by the regional SAWPY leadership. The conference
presidium included members from the party, the armed forces,
trade unions, Socialist Youth League, and other national
organizations. Like the LCY Central Committee, the SAWPY
conference established departments to formulate policy
recommendations in areas such as economics, education, and
sociopolitical relations. Coordinating committees were also
active in interregional consultation on policy and mass political
action.
In Slovenia, the Socialist Alliance became an umbrella
organization for a number of nonparty organizations with
political interests, beginning in 1988. On a lesser scale,
similar changes occurred in other republics. This development
rekindled the idea that SAWPY might be divorced from LCY
domination and reconstituted as a second political party at the
national level. Pending such an event, SAWPY was regarded
throughout the 1980s as a puppet of the party elite, particularly
by virtue of its exclusive control over the nomination of
assembly delegates at the commune level.
Data as of December 1990
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