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Yugoslavia Serbia
Serbia was the largest of the Yugoslav republics in
population and territory. Serbs also had the largest ethnic
representation in the other republics. Throughout the twentieth
century, the Serbs saw themselves as the basis of whatever
greater-Yugoslav federation existed, because of their central
role in nineteenth-century liberation struggles and in both world
wars. After 1945 this concept was represented in a consistent
Serbian drive for strong federal government and a strong,
centralized LCY. Virtually all the steps in postwar political
decentralization diminished Serbian dominance by giving equal
status to all republics and weakening federal institutions. Under
Aleksandar Rankovic, Serbia conducted a Serbianization campaign
against ethnic minorities in Vojvodina, Kosovo, and BosniaHercegovina to advance Yugoslav unity. Rankovic's fall in 1966
weakened this drive, and the party reforms of the 1960s and 1970s
weakened Serbian influence on party appointments in other
republics. The long political dominance of the Croat Tito also
diminished Serbian power.
The 1974 Constitution rekindled the Serbian drive for
dominance by limiting Serbian control of Kosovo and Vojvodina,
constituent provinces with large non-Slav ethnic groups. By
applying the consensus principle to the assemblies of the
republics, the 1974 Constitution gave Kosovo and Vojvodina
virtual veto power within the Serbian parliament. This was a
serious obstacle to Serbian control over Kosovo in the face of a
strong Albanian separatist movement in the province. Therefore,
recapture of the Serbian provinces became the chief political
goal of all Serbian leaders after 1974. In 1980 a new generation
of Serbian political leaders appeared, led by the moderate Ivan
Stambolic. Stambolic used conciliation and his considerable
national stature to seek the approval of the other republics for
reducing provincial autonomy. Failing in this effort, Stamboli
was displaced in 1987 by his protégé, Slobodan Milosevic. As head
of the League of Communists of Serbia, Milosevic used the
nationalist appeal of the Kosovo issue and a national economic
crisis to overcome the Stambolic faction. Milosevic's ascendancy
was a triumph for the concept of a monolithic Serbian communist
party permitting no dissent and aiming for ultimate dominance of
the LCY.
In 1988 Serbian officials began orchestrating mass
demonstrations to support the Serbian position in Kosovo. These
demonstrations led to purges of the party leadership in both
Kosovo and Vojvodina. The main goal of the purges was to ensure
passage of amendments to the Serbian constitution that
effectively abolished the autonomy of the provinces in the name
of Serbian political unity. Party leaders in other republics
condemned both the purges and the amendments. Serbia was expected
to make a strong effort to influence a new round of amendments to
the federal Constitution, scheduled for 1992, toward
recentralizing political institutions under greater party
control.
At the end of the 1980s, Milosevic completely dominated
Serbian politics, using mass demonstrations and media campaigns
in every republic except Slovenia to stir support for Serbia
against the Kosovo drive for separatism. In 1989 Serbia
established direct popular election of its president and assembly
delegates, but nomination of all candidates remained under party
control. The idea of legalizing opposition parties received
little attention by the Serbian party, which through 1990 gave
only lip service to "pluralism" within the party. Nonpolitical
alternative groups such as the Serbian Writers' Association were
permitted. By 1990 the dictatorial and manipulative image of
Milosevic, particularly his unyielding approach to the Kosovo
issue, had isolated Serbia politically within the federation.
Only Montenegro continued to vote consistently with Serbia on
federal issues. By contrast, Milosevic's tough nationalist
approach to "Serbian unification" made him very popular with his
fellow Serbs, who often compared him to Tito. In 1989 Milosevi
was elected by a wide margin to a second term as president of
Serbia, on a platform of political and economic reform. The SerbSlovene conflict escalated in 1990 when the Serbian government
ordered the severing of commercial ties with Slovenia in
retaliation for the Slovenian prohibition of Serbian nationalist
demonstrations in Ljubljana.
Data as of December 1990
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