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Yugoslavia Political Life in the 1920s
The Serbian Radical Party, Croatian Peasant Party, and
Democratic Party competed with and allied with a large number of
other ethnic and sectarian parties, with no single party ever
gaining a majority. The Serbian Radicals under Pasic, the
strongest party in the country, drew backing from Serbia proper
and advocated strong central control under Serbian leadership.
The Croatian Peasant Party under Stjepan Radic dominated Croatia
and campaigned for an independent Croatian state and agrarian
socialism. The Democrats found support mostly from Serbs outside
Serbia; after initially advocating centralism, they turned to an
opposition agenda.
The Serbian-Croatian rivalry, which was a clash of
uncompromising advocates of central rule versus regional
autonomy, produced the main political conflict in Yugoslavia. In
November 1920, voters chose delegates to a Constituent Assembly.
The Radic party won nearly all Croatian seats but, adopting an
obstructionist strategy that had been typical of Croatian
politics under the Dual Monarchy, it boycotted the assembly. When
other anticentralist groups left the assembly in 1921, the
Serbian Radicals and Democrats won by default the opportunity to
adopt a centralist constitution. This document provided some
liberties but allowed little room for local initiative or popular
democracy, and it gave non-Serbs inadequate legal expression of
their discontent. Communists attempted to assassinate King
Aleksandar the day after the constitution took effect, and
murdered the interior minister a month later. The new Federal
Assembly (Skupstina), then passed broad security laws to suppress
the Communist Party, which had gained considerable support with
worker groups and poor peasants in the south.
Radic campaigned at home and abroad for Croatian autonomy,
even seeking support in the Soviet Union--a country Yugoslavia
did not recognize. The Croatian Peasant Party boycott of the
kup tina lasted until 1924, when a dissident coalition of
Democrats, Slovenes, and Muslims forced the Serbian Radicals from
power. King Aleksandar then appointed an anti-centralist prime
minister. Charges of corruption and Radic's harsh criticism of
the Serbian establishment undermined the new cabinet. The
Radicals soon regained power, arrested Radic for sedition, and
threatened to ban his party.
Political realities, including the threat posed by fascist
Italy to Croatia, induced Radic in 1925 to strike a deal with
Aleksandar to recognize the monarchy and to join a government
coalition led by Pasic. This union lasted until a corruption
scandal forced Pasic to resign in 1926. Thereafter, weak
coalitions failed to maintain stability, the Croats returned to
obstructionism, and floor debates in the Federal Assembly often
became violent. In June 1928, a Montenegrin deputy shot Radic,
who died two months later. Deputies from Croatia and Bosnia and
Hercegovina soon left the assembly, demanding a federal state.
Fearing anarchy, Aleksandar abrogated the constitution in January
1929, dissolved the Assembly, banned political parties, and
declared a temporary royal dictatorship.
While the Serbian-Croatian conflict occupied center stage, an
equally bitter conflict arose between the Serbs and the ethnic
Albanians in Kosovo. Serbs consider Kosovo to be hallowed ground,
but their exclusive hold on the region slipped during the Ottoman
tyranny in the late seventeenth century, and many Serbs fled
Kosovo for Habsburg protection. After the mid-eighteenth century,
Albanians became a majority in Kosovo and began oppressing the
Serbs that remained. Between 1878 and 1912, Serbs left Kosovo in
large numbers; in 1920 Belgrade began a drive to resettle Serbs
in the region. Coercion, illegal expropriation of Albanian-owned
land, and forced deportations marred this campaign. When
Albanians attacked Serbian settlements and government
institutions, the police seized Albanian property, imprisoned
families, and destroyed homes. The government adopted a similar
policy in Macedonia.
Data as of December 1990
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