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Yugoslavia Croatia
Like Slovenia, Croatia was a relatively wealthy northwestern
republic with longstanding cultural ties to Western Europe and a
tolerance for liberal political experimentation. The removal of
Rankovic in 1966 unleashed a strong Croatian nationalist
movement, led by the Matica Hrvatska society. The movement played
on Croatian fears of Serbian dominance and sought political
reforms that would substantially increase Croatian autonomy, but
it clashed with Serbian and Slovenian interests and threatened
the unity of the federation. Tito's intervention to purge the
nationalist elements of the Croatian party in 1972 moderated the
republic's political climate for the next two decades.
The influence of the moderate wing of the Croatian League of
Communists was felt in the Serbian-Slovene polemics of the 1980s,
when the Croats often attempted to act as mediators and avoid
reviving the ancient Serb-Croat nationalist antagonism within
their republic. Because 30 percent of the members of the Croatian
League of Communists were Serbs in 1989, a substantial difference
of opinion arose by the end of the decade as to Croatia's proper
position toward the issues in the Serb-Slovene dispute. The 1989
election of the moderate Ante Markovic, a Croat, as a reform
prime minister, moderated Croatia's position on some federal
issues. Beginning in 1988, however, both official and unofficial
Croatian sources were highly critical of the policies of Slobodan
Milosevic, particularly his manipulation of party politics in
Vojvodina and the staging of demonstrations in the Croatian
province of Knin, a Serbian enclave. The issue of the Serbian
minority promised further conflict when Vojvodina proposed
creation of four autonomous provinces in Croatia, all with large
Serbian populations. Croatia strongly supported Slovenia on the
Serbian trade embargo issue in early 1990. Such issues caused
heated polemics with Serbia, and between pro- and anti-Serbian
factions of the Croatian League of Communists.
In 1989 the Croatian League of Communists followed the
Slovene party in legalizing opposition parties and establishing
multiparty elections. The republic amended its constitution in
1990 to create the statutory basis for such elections. In 1989
the Croatian League of Communists became the first Yugoslav party
organization at any level to hold direct elections of party
officials. Among noncommunist groups formed that year were the
Association for a Yugoslav Democratic Initiative (which had
thirteen affiliates throughout Yugoslavia in 1990), the Croatian
Democratic Union, and the Croatian Social Liberal Alliance, all
with strong reformist platforms. The Croatian Democratic Union,
led by former Tito colleague Franjo Tudjman, won a sweeping
victory in the first Croatian multiparty election in 1990,
forming the first postwar noncommunist government in Yugoslavia.
Because that coalition had a nationalist and separatist platform,
its success intensified the threat of secession and national
collapse. Bosnia and Hercegovina feared that Croatia planned a
takeover of Bosnian territory that was once part of Croatia. In
the election, the reorganized Croatian League of Communists and
the reform Coalition of People's Accord trailed the Democratic
Union, in that order. These developments in Croatia consolidated
the "northwest bloc" of Slovenia and Croatia in Yugoslav
politics, put those republics into the mainstream of East
European political reform, and widened the gap between them and
Serbia.
Data as of December 1990
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