Thoughts on Branka Magaš' 'The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracking the Break-up 1980-92'

Deftly avoiding the western media’s, some academics, and some historians, portrayal of the reasons for the collapse of the second Yugoslavia and the wars that followed, Magaš provides an ‘insider account’ which details the events as they occurred in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Magaš charts in ‘real time’ the course of events during the 80s and early 90s with snippets of political and historical context that allows you to comprehend how she came to some conclusions on the actions that led to a notable events in this period. This may come across as somewhat repetitive as you near the end of the book, but understanding that this book’s writing was not a fixed event with the benefit of hindsight, but a commentary on events as they happened, explains her style. Thus she doesn’t resort to explanations of the current collapse of the State, Party, and descent into war on a return to ‘ancient hatreds’ or ‘unsettled scores’; but points to the immediate causal chain of events to set the ‘present’ event in context.

Focus of the book falls on the nature of relations between many actors, processes and events; the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) and the state; the federal LCY party and the republican and provincial LCY parties; democratizing forces and orthodox Stalinist zealots; economic reform and adherence to self-management; the ‘Memorandum’ and the 14^th Party conference; and calls for decentralization and recentralization.

It is this latter tussle between centrifugal and centripetal forces and actors advocating these positions that provides the central theme in the text. This originates from the 1974 constitution in a political/legal manner regarding the distribution of power (in a post-Tito world), and the reactions of the federal and republican LCY parties and state bodies to the growing economic instability in the 1980s. However, Magaš places emphasis on Kosovo as the arena in which the post-Tito consensus began to waver. Disturbances in the region due to socio-economic factors, brought with it calls for martial law, and later calls for repatriation of the Autonomous Province’s powers, to the Serbian republican centre. Latterly, most Western blame lies on the doorstep of Slobodan Milosevic, and Magaš provides enough illustration later on in the 80s as to why he is largely the actor who is responsible; but at this moment it is the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences and the leaking of their infamous ‘Memorandum’ which draws her ire. 

Nationality and the ‘national’ question only come into play after this event in official political discourse. This event witnesses a chasm appearing, eventually turning into a gulf, between official federal LCY ideology epitomized by ‘Brotherhood and Unity’, and the Serbian party’s increasing nationalist rhetoric backed by its local media. Stambolic’s fall symbolizes the latter’s eventual take over and is parallel to the accession of Milosevic to power.

The arena of Kosovo and the linchpin of the Memorandum fused and led to the events that we are familiar with – the fall of republic and provincial LCY party leaders in three eastern regions, the centralization attempt of Milosevic at the federal LCY level, the counter response by Croatia and Slovenia to thwart this attempt, the deepening economic stagnation, and finally the collapse of the LCY after the Slovenes walked out of the 14^th Party congress. This final act, and the observation that the Party held the second Yugoslavia together, saw the Federal idea diminish. What then occurred was an acceleration of the centralizing forces of the Serb leadership (evolving onto calls for a ‘Greater Serbia’) being juxtaposed to the loose confederation idea espoused by Croatia, Slovenia, tentatively backed by Macedonia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. However, the former idea took the view of uniting all Serbs whilst discrediting the idea that republican borders were inviolable. The other republics saw them as such. On top of this was the role of the Army. If Yugoslavia ceased to exist, so would the Federal Army. They had a stake in the future of the state, and thus sided more with Milosevic in order preserve the external borders of Yugoslavia. Yet, not even a short war with Slovenia could prevent this. So the Army, with a lot of its officer corps being Serbian, backed Milosevic and the Greater Serb idea, as their preferred option was now redundant. Croatia was its next focus.

You can see Magaš’ tone change in the course of the text; initially it is the Party that needs to work together internally to ensure the return of economic and national stability. Yet as bureaucratic machinations prevented the effective functioning of the LCY (and thus the state) she comes to see that the Party is then the problem; and without economic reform and a democratic Federal Yugoslavia, she predicts that the state would collapse. The constant underlying anti-Albanian rhetoric from the Serbian leadership acts as the kindle for the future fire.

Magaš delivers a text that looks at the power struggles at the bureaucratic and elite levels, and the actors that interact with them, such as the media, at this level. With this in mind, it seems to suggest that nationality and the exploitation of socio-economic conditions were mere tools for certain actors to pursue their goals. And this relates back to the theme of a clash between centrifugal and centripetal forces. However, with this as the dominant theme of the text, its does not investigate from an anthropological perspective the events, actors and processes that either informed this clash or were in contradiction to it. An example would be that she looks at how national tensions were used by certain republican leaders (and tried to be quelled by federal leaders), but it doesn’t seek to inform us whether this debate was being had at the village or town level, or if national tensions were present prior to such inflammation at the republic/federal level. In saying that though, extensive attention was paid to family living standards decreasing in the 80s, with focus early on in the text looking at the non-nationalist actors who were agitating in the spirit of ‘Brotherhood and Unity’. But this reinforces my critique that only those who were organized received any attention, so one could assume that the rest of the population were either ignored or lazily assumed to have ‘followed’ their co-national ‘leaders’. Overall, its power is in the descriptive observation of the collapse of the LCY and the second Yugoslavia, from a bureaucratic and elite level; providing a refreshing ‘event by event’ analysis detailing the causal chain context prior to each event and its possible implications in the future.