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Yugoslavia The Military and the Party
In 1990 more than 100,000 YPA soldiers, airmen, and sailors
were members of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and formed
party cells in the military. Because party membership was a
criterion for officer status, virtually all officers were LCY
members. Despite this, LCY control over the YPA was relatively
loose. In fact, the large number of military personnel in the LCY
made the YPA a powerful constituency with interests claiming full
party attention.
As in most communist states, military representation in the
party leadership was significant in the 1980s. The LCY Committee
in the YPA was virtually a military wing of the party. The
president of the committee, always a general, was likely
eventually to become federal secretary for national defense. The
committee held party conferences to elect delegates to represent
the YPA at LCY congresses. YPA party conferences were similar to
the regional conferences that elected republican and provincial
delegates to LCY congresses. The YPA also elected its president,
secretary, and fifty party committee members. YPA delegates
elected to the Thirteenth LCY Congress in 1986 included primarily
generals and other officers, but some noncommissioned officers,
soldiers, civilian YPA employees, and higher military school
cadets also participated.
The LCY Committee in the YPA elected fourteen officers to
serve on the LCY Central Committee in 1986. Other officers were
elected to the central committee as representatives of the party
in the republics and autonomous provinces. By 1986, having
steadily increased since the 1970s, the percentage of military
leaders in the Central Committee was greater than the percentage
of military personnel in the total population. In Central
Committee representation, the YPA allotment almost equaled that
of the republics and did equal that of the autonomous provinces.
At various times, the federal secretary for national defense has
been a member of the Presidium of the LCY Central Committee.
Tito controlled the YPA by exercising his tremendous personal
authority and purging the ranks occasionally, while allowing
considerable professional autonomy. Many YPA leaders were loyal
Tito compatriots from the Partisan years, although their numbers
were declining noticeably by the late 1980s. Even in retirement,
many of this group remained politically active within the
Federation of Associations of Veterans' of the National
Liberation War (Savez udruzenja boraca Narodno-oslobodilackog
rata, SUBNOR, see
Veterans' Association
, ch. 4).
Military influence in the political system increased steadily
after the early 1970s. The military earned its influence by
stabilizing Yugoslavia during critical periods of internal
tension. In 1979 its high political profile obligated the YPA to
issue a formal disavowal of any intention to assume power after
Tito's death. In the 1980s, the constant speculation about the
political role of the YPA was due less to the political ambitions
of Yugoslav generals than to the many social, economic, and
political crises afflicting the state. On several occasions,
military leaders felt compelled to warn that the army would not
allow disunity to cause the dissolution of the Yugoslav state.
The possibility of a "Polish" situation was openly discussed;
this term referred to General Wojciech Jaruzelski's 1981
imposition of martial law and communist military dictatorship
during a political crisis in Poland. Were the LCY and civilian
government unable to solve longstanding problems, the YPA might
be seen as the last effective, cohesive force in Yugoslavia,
intervening in politics to ensure the survival of the state. A
military coup against the LCY was considered unlikely, however,
because the YPA was too well integrated into the LCY and the
process of government. The interests of the two organizations
were more parallel than contradictory. The YPA was, to an extent,
the party in uniform. If it acted to rescue party rule, it would
actually be demonstrating LCY impotence and further undermining
LCY legitimacy.
Data as of December 1990
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