Yugoslavia's genie is out of the bottle MASS MOBILIZATIONS have occurred in a number of places in Yugoslavia in the late summer and fall, both demonstrations of Serbs and of the Albanian population in the autonomous province of Kosovo. The following article from Die Linke, paper of the Austrian section of the Fourth International, looks at the context and implications of these stormy developments. MATTHIAS SCHREIBER HIAC COURCIRED W ITH A 217 per cent inflation rate, a $21 billion foreign debt and nearly 1.3 million unemployed, the economic crisis that has been brewing for years has reached its sharpest point yet. In May, the government adopted an austerity program along IMF guidelines. These measures in no way improved the situation for the masses but rather brought a drastic worsening of their material situation.
The discontent aroused by the effects of the May reforms was so great that the chair of the Yugoslav State Presidium, Raif Dizdarevic, was the first post-Tito head of state to be forced to appeal directly to the population over TV. Against the background of continual strikes and demonstrations, he declared on October 9 that there was no turning back from the the economic policy undertaken in the spring, but that its negative social consequences had to be mitigated.
People not ready to pay the price for the reforms
In less euphemistic terms, that means that the Yugoslav government is going to stick to the reform concept that it can only impose against the will of the population, if it could in fact impose it. Even if the purposed liberation in the currency market and in the setting of prices and wages could make it easier to "reflate" the economy, in market-economic terms, the Yugoslav people are hardly ready to pay the price for that. The price is, namely, still more social inequality and, along with that, a further decline in the standard of living.
On a national average, the living standard has been pushed back to where it was 20 years ago. But this figure does not not accurately reflect the problem. While in Slovenia, Croatia and Vojvodina, we can 1988 still talk about a slight upward movement, living conditions are deteriorating dramatically in the southern part of the country. In this respect, Macedonia and Kosovo are bringing up the rear. In Kosovo, it is said that the living standard has declined by 70 per cent in comparison with 1970.
Material and social roots of discontent
The explosion of massive conflicts in Kosovo and Vojvodina this fall has to be seen against this background. It is, after all, nothing new to find that it is especially easily to incite national groups against each other in time of crisis in order to divert a discontent that has material and social roots.
At the head of the Serbian League of Communists there is a personality who understands quite well how this is done. His name is Slobodan Milosevic, affectionately called "Slobo" by his followers. By pointing up the poor situation of the Serbian minority in the autonomous province of Kosovo, he managed to rally almost all of Serbia behind him. But his targets were not only the regional (Albanian) leaders in Kosovo but also those in Vojvodina, despite the fact that, with 54 per cent of the population, Serbs are a majority in that province.
Is Milosevic simply a convinced nationalist leading all Serbia into a holy war? That is the appearance of things. However, the real causes lie elsewhere. Milosevic, who sees democratization only as a market-economy orientation, and who would like to replace the Yugoslav federal system with centralism and a personality cult, needs mass pressure in the streets to win his objectives in the League of Yugoslav Communists. In fact, while the Slovenes and Croats have also long been for a market orientation and mixed economy, they
YUGOSLAVIA • ISRAELI STATE are uncomfortable with the centralistauthoritarian style of the Serbian Milosevic.
Nonetheless, at the Seventeenth Plenum of the League of Yugoslav Communists, Milosevic managed to win an important victory. A constitutional change institutionalizing the rights for Serbia over Kosovo and Vojvodina that he had been demanding sailed through.
### Movement may turn against Milosevic
The fact that the Serbian candidate, Ckrebic, went down to defeat in the preceding election for the Presidium of the Yugoslav federation was a drawback, but not an essential one by comparison with the victory on the constitutional question.
In order to strengthen his position, the Serbian party leader was again impelled to seek mass support. He could do that best, and keep the mobilizations under control, with populist-nationalist slogans. It is questionable, however, how long that can work.
Only too easily, Milosevic can find that he can no longer conjure away the spirits that he has called up. Already in Kosovo, almost every adult carries a weapon, and the Serbian minority has long since organized semi-legal vigilante patrols. Will the Serbian population let itself be ordered off the streets when Milosevic no longer needs them?This is hardly likely, especially since the Serbian population, which is been presented in the media here as purely nationalist, has also raised social demands.
For example, the Rakovica workers who besieged the parliament not only demanded more rights for Serbs in Kosovo and Vojvodina but also wage raises and the creation of a third house of parliament, a "Council of Association Labor," through which workers could exercise a direct influence over economic policy.
This demand itself is a devastating criticism of the form of self-management practiced in Yugoslavia, which for the workers means not really self-management but powerlessness against the mismanagement of the party leaders and factory managers. Thus, if Milosevic one day wants to take his leave from this movement, it may easily turn against him.
It is not out of the question that then the movement would split into a militant nationalistic wing that would want to continue the fight for Serbia even without "Slobo," and a wing, sobered by the great leader's departure, that would turn to the real political problems. *