[Marxism] The core of demonizing Milosevic is demonization of the Serb nation

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Okay, I'm going to take a stab at this although I have insufficient
factual knowledge, and have not reviewed it.  I have just had a basic
feeling that the old axis I inherited from the Socialist Workers Party
on this was off -- not right-wing off like about some things, but just
off.  Part of the problem was the assumption that the parts of
Yugoslavia are all workers states.  I don't think that any of them are
and I suspect that none of them (including Serbia) were by the time
the wars started. I believe that the workers state in the Soviet Union
was already gone when Brezhnev died, and I suspect the same may be
true of  Tito, although I have fewer facts to go on.  The end of the
workers' state is not  privatization, it is what makes privatization
possible as a necessary and natural consequence. Privatization is one
of the things that registers and concretizes a change in class power
that has occurred.

But I suspect that the biggest thing I kept forgetting about Serbia is
that it is an oppressed nation, traditionally the most formed nation
among the semicolonies oppressed by imperialism in historic Yugoslavia
and therefore both helping lead the struggle against national
oppression and also, through its privileged layers, attempting to
assert its domination against the others.

The tendency is to talk about the Serbs as though they were virtually
an imperialist power or at least a Brave (or Wicked)  Little Israel
contending against the others. (Sometimes rightist Serb nationalists
sound this way themselves, I admit, and some of the defenders of
Serbia in this conflict have adopted the same tone.)

The tendency of the imperialists to confront Serbia developed after
some hesitation including by the United States,  who at first saw
Milosevic as a potential stabilizer of the situation but came to see
Serbia and Milosevic as obstacles to taking what was there for the
taking.

The attempt to strengthen Serb independence and block the imperialist
takeover by military action against the other states was an adventure
and doomed to fail.  But I believe this was a real part of the
motivation -- especially towards German imperialism (who had replaced
the Ottomans as the traditional enemy), but also toward American as
they moved forward to take the lead.

The demonization of the Serbs seems to me to be the heart of the
demonization of the reactionary nationalist Stalinist politician
Milosevic.  The portrayal of them, not as an nation oppressed by
imperialism (not, by the way, primarily by Croats, Albanians, and
Muslims as the Serb rightists  and Milosevic liked to portray matters)
but as a pure Oppressor Nation, a regional Rumpelstiltskin to be
gotten off the backs of its neighbors.

Was Serbia a pure and classic Oppressor Nation, as it  was portrayed
across the board in the imperialist media? No, it was an oppressed
nation, like Iraq which oppressed the Kurds and Shiites (and where
broad layers fear to recognize the Kurds' right to independence, a
potentially powerful weapon against the occupation, for fear it will
mean the end of their nation).

Was the breakup of Yugoslavia a result of independence movements?
Argiris Malapanis, for whom I have high respect for his capacities as
a journalist, made a couple of trips to Yugoslavia as a Militant
reporter.  In every Republic, except among the Albanian Kosovars, he
found many who expressed the view that independence was not something
they had done, but something that had happened to them, something done
from above, a breakup in relations with others that they had come to
take for granted.

And now they were at war with the Serbs and what were they to do? (By
resorting to a war that had to be objectively a war for their
domination, the Serb-"Yugoslav" government cut off the possibility of
reaching out to such people.)

There is no question that Albanians were an oppressed nationality in
Yugoslavia, by every applicable standard, and that they have the right
to self-determination. There is no evidence to support a claim that
denying them this right helped to defend any workers state, including
Serbia, assuming for purposes of argument that Serbia was a workers
state when this conflict hit the fan.

The Albanians made advances through the Yugoslav revolution, but the
refusal to permit their adhesion to Albania was probably a crime, with
harmful effects on both countries.  (It became a big part of the
pretext for Hoxha regime's rejection of a Balkan federation and
hyper-militant anti-Titoism which helped him impose the
ultrarepressive regime whose consequences we see today.)  As national
divisions worsened under Titoist decentralization and post-Titoist
disintegration, the Albanians' situation tended to worsen and
politicians like Milosevic were no different than his opponents in
other republics in playing the national card in a reactionary way.

But I believe that we will not get clear on Yugoslavia until we see
Serbia and the other republics primarily as nations oppressed by
imperialism. Fred Feldman



_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism