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Yugoslavia The 1974 Constitution
In 1974 the government enacted a new Constitution, the
world's longest, which created new representative bodies and a
complex system of checks and balances, designed to enhance party
power and limit the influence of professional enterprise
managers. The new constitution replaced direct election of
representatives to legislative bodies, substituting a complex
system of indirect elections by delegates representing associated
labor, sociopolitical organizations, and local citizens in
general. The leadership heralded the new system as direct
workers' democracy, but the mechanism actually allowed the
central party leadership greater control of the Skupstina and
republican and local assemblies. Despite recent nationalist
unrest and conservative backlash, the Constitution retained the
1971 amendments that shifted power from the federal government to
the republics.
In his last years, Tito virtually ignored worsening economic
conditions and worked domestically to strengthen collective
leadership and prevent a single individual or group from
accumulating excessive power. In foreign affairs, Cuba threatened
Yugoslav leadership of the nonaligned movement by pushing the
movement toward a pro-Soviet position at the 1979 Conference of
Nonaligned Nations in Havana. Tito condemned the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan that year. Despite the weakening of the Nonaligned
Movement by the influence of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, in the
1970s Yugoslavia largely succeeded in maintaining friendly
relations with all states, regardless of their political and
economic systems. Tito died on May 4, 1980, and Yugoslavia's
collective presidency assumed full control in a smooth
transition. Most Yugoslavs genuinely mourned the loss of their
longtime leader, who had been their country's strongest unifying
force. The presence of forty-nine international leaders at his
funeral showed the wide respect that Tito had gained around the
world.
In 1980 Yugoslavia entered a new era after the death of the
most unifying leader the South Slavic nation had ever had. The
history of the country had featured division much more
prominently than unification; over the centuries, the constituent
parts of the modern Yugoslav state had alternated between
independence, federation with other states, and domination by
larger powers. Each of the republics of the modern federation
underwent its own historical and cultural development, very often
in conflict with the territorial or political goals of its Slavic
and non-Slavic neighbors. Although the South Slavic state was a
longtime dream of many, initial efforts to establish such a state
were very problematic. After two disastrous world wars, the
nation held together in a relatively calm period of development,
but after Tito the threat of economic and political disharmony
again appeared.
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There is a wealth of informative, well-written
English-language sources on the history of Yugoslavia and its
many peoples. The best short work is Fred Singleton's A Short
History of the Yugoslav Peoples. Black Lamb and Grey
Falcon, by Rebecca West, is a classic popular history and
personal memoir of a tour through Yugoslavia on the eve of World
War II. Robert Lee Wolff's The Balkans in Our Time
describes the emergence of Yugoslavia and the other Balkan
countries and their development to the postwar period. An
excellent study of Yugoslavian foreign policy of the 1920s and
1930s is J.B. Hoptner's Yugoslavia in Crisis, 1934-1941.
The works of Francis Dvornik on the migrations, conversion, and
cultural development of the Slavs devote considerable attention
to the Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and Bulgars. Two excellent
examinations of postwar Yugoslavia development are Dennison
Rusinow's The Yugoslav Experiment, 1948-1974 and
Conflict and Cohesion in Socialist Yugoslavia, by Steven
L. Burg. (For further information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1990
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