"Fool's Crusade", part four

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

In "Comparative Nationalisms", chapter 3 of "Fool's Crusade", Diana
Johnstone deals with the national question. For many Marxists, including
especially those from a Trotskyist tradition, Milosevic was another Stalin
trampling on the rights of oppressed nationalities. Backing the
independence of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and--finally--Kosovo
became a litmus test for Leninists. The Militant newspaper, for example,
described Kosovo as being under the thumb of chauvinist overlords in much
the same fashion as Puerto Ricans being dominated by the USA:

"In the Yugoslav constitution of 1946, Kosovo was given only limited
regional autonomy. Although important gains were made in the area of
language and education, the key area of internal security and all
managerial appointments were to be controlled from Belgrade. Using the
pretext of suppressing Albanian irredentism, longtime chief of the Federal
Police Alexander Rankovic, ordered police pressure on Albanians to
emigrate. Between 1954 and 1957 some 195,000 Albanians left for Turkey."

To say the least, the Militant's characterization of the Titoist system as
heavy-handed Stalinist centralism not only falsifies the way the system
worked but what drove the secessionist impulses of the 1980s and 90s. While
Tito was bureaucratic, he was *not a centralizer*. He continually resorted
to methods of decentralization, including "workers' self-management" in the
economic sphere. Closely related to this policy was a tendency to
*strengthen* the powers of the constituent republics and autonomous regions
against the central Federal government. Both of these "radical" practices
eventually contributed to the implosion of the nation. As soon as the
economic benefits afforded by a special relationship to imperialism began
to unwind, the various components of Yugoslavia began to flee a sinking
ship. When Lenin spoke in favor of national self-determination, he had
socialism in mind. The fracturing of Yugoslavia has done nothing except
strengthen capitalism. This is something the Marxist left has to come to
terms with at last.

The first republic to bolt from Yugoslavia was Slovenia, which had been
increasingly drawn to the capitalist charms of its neighbors immediately to
the west, especially Austria and Italy. Johnstone cites an increasing
affinity between Slovenian intellectuals and Western European leftists,
whose attention was being drawn increasingly to German Green type issues
such as disarmament, feminism, human rights and the environment. In this
changing climate, opposition to Belgrade's power, especially through its
army, was seen as a vanguard of democratic progress in the spirit of a
renewed "civil society". The old Titoist vision of workers' self-management
and trans-national solidarity had gone out of fashion.

The Slovenian intelligentsia defined their agenda in the pages of "Mladina"
(Youth). They were as recognizably "one of us" to the Western Europeans,
just as much as the blue-eyed Bosnian Muslims. In article after article,
they lambasted the Yugoslav army which was suppressing "democratic civil
society". The hero of the anti-army movement was Janez Jansa, a leader of
the "Alliance of Socialist Youth of Slovenia", who was pushing to
"modernize" the organization by dropping the word "socialist" from its
name. After Jansa was arrested for stealing a secret military document that
purportedly detailed plans to contain a domestic uprising, he became an
icon to the German peace movement.

Jansa's defenders saw the conflict as a simple one of democratic
modernization versus conservative repression. A closer examination would
reveal a different reality. The Slovenian modernizers sought to be freed
from the constraints of the federal state. With only 8 percent of the
population, they contributed 20 percent of the federal budget. Slovenia's
deliverance would come through the free market and improved job
opportunities for college-educated urban professionals. Ironically, this
milieu resented the money being "wasted" on Kosovo and regarded all of the
Eastern peoples of Yugoslavia, either Albanian or Serbs as unwelcome
country cousins. In June 1991, Dr. Peter Tancig, the Slovenian minister of
science, send out a mass email to the world's scientists that tried to
explain the "mess" in Yugoslavia. One on side was a "typical violent and
crooked oriental-bizantine [sic] heritage, best exemplified by Serbia and
Montenegro". On the other side was a "more humble and diligent
western-catholic tradition."

Fast-forwarding a couple of years we discover that Janez Jansa, the darling
of the German peace movement, had gone through a remarkable transformation
that would anticipate Joschka Fischer's. After the former anti-militarist
icon became Slovenia's defense minister, he oversaw the clandestine import
of weaponry into his country, most of which was sold illegally to Croatia.

When Croatian nationalism exploded in the 1980s, there was very little to
inspire leftists. The modern movement saw itself as fighting for the
recognition of the "rights" of the medieval Kingdom of Croatia, which had
been absorbed by Hungary in 1102. It was always torn between the Serb
revolutionary nationalist movement of the late 1800s and the Hapsburg
empire, which always sought a Slavic outpost to pursue its ambitions. When
the Hapsburgs ended up on the losing side in WWI, it made the choice easier
for the Croat nationalist leaders. By becoming part of the new nation of
Yugoslavia, they would avoid the heavy reparations imposed by Versailles.

After Hitler invaded Yugoslavia, Croatia was detached from the country.
While it lost portions of the Adriatic coast to Italy, it was awarded the
territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Under Ustashe rule, Croatia set out to
develop a racially pure state. On May 14, 1941, over 700 Serbs were rounded
up in Glina and take to the local Orthodox Church. After the doors were
locked, Ustashe gunmen killed everybody inside. The total number of Serbs
who died in such fashion will probably never be known, but it is at least
700,000. It is, therefore, not surprising that Serbs began to demand
protection from the federal government after Tudjman demonstrated an
affinity for the Ustashe. What is surprising, however, is the willingness
of some Marxists to regard this as Serb expansionism.


Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org