Thoughts on Bought & Sold: Living and losing the Good Life in Socialist Yugoslavia by Patrick Patterson

The ‘Yugoslav Dream’ is the novel concept this book centres on, with the snappy by-line of ‘Living and losing the Good Life in Socialist Yugoslavia’ competently underscoring how the story is to unfold. A country believed to have been definitively behind the Iron Curtain, might make many people baulk at the initial idea that a socialist country run by a Communist Party could in any way have possessed a consumerist ‘Dream’, when these ‘Dreams’ are the by-product of capitalism. Patrick Patterson’s narrative evades choosing either a simple chronology, or an analysis by theme. Instead, by a combination of both, and through elevating key actors, processes or events, he traces the main points in the development and practice of consumerism in Socialist Yugoslavia.

Patterson initially details the material strife many Yugoslavs had to endure in the immediate post-war period. And from the comfort of 2019 you could think this a bleak description reserved only for this part of the world. But one needs to recall that not all was good in the West either. We in the UK did not come out of the war as a consumer society of abundance, rationing being the order of the day. And we suffered less damage to our infrastructure than Yugoslavia during the occupation, civil war, and then retreat.

During this immediate post-war period, the initiation and growth of the theory and practice of advertising and consumerism emerged; primarily from Western influences in the post World War Two era, with little, if any of it, having come from the small, domestic sector prior to the war. However, there had to have been favourable economic, social and political circumstances for it to take hold, resist suppression, and grow in Socialist Yugoslavia. The move in the 1950s away from Stalinist economic orthodoxy to a novel Yugoslav ‘self-management’ structure, allowed for more freedom to produce goods and saw the emergence of a ‘market’ mechanism to Yugoslavia. This was the key economic move.

Advertisers emerged out of ‘in-house’ advertising departments of large, mostly industrial, businesses into ‘bureaus’ themselves, and kept pushing, ever so softly, at the outer parameters of appropriate behaviour and acceptability. The profession had perennially been viewed suspiciously by the regime, to greater or lesser extent over the period. How consumerism presented itself also evolved too, for example magazines departing from hard news to lifestyle content. Furthermore, Gastarbeiters, and those living close to Italy and Austria, were already experiencing consumerism, just not in Yugoslavia. Advertisers saw and filled the domestic void when the opportunity arose.

Different ideological arguments over consumerism emerged over the period of Socialist Yugoslavia, both critical and supportive; and Patterson describes how officials, agencies, or the consumers themselves, stood by or participated as consumerism grew. One example he provides is that advertisers decided to make their profession ‘rational’ and ‘scientific’ in its practice, so that it fit into Marxist philosophy. Initially, this was through the content of adverts by providing basic facts about products and from where they could be bought. But opponents argued that adverts played on a ‘false need’, a new ‘opium of the masses’ as Patterson asserts. Even he concludes that the content of the adverts were not socialist. But they were advertising in socialism. Thus it was the environment in which they operated that had an impact on its functioning, its content, and it being ‘socialist’.

But why did the regime just not ban advertising? Especially if it was deemed to have emanated from capitalist practices. Tito’s concern was how people earned money, not how they spent it. With no opportunities to invest, Yugoslavs spent it on goods instead – either in the country or on shopping trips to Italy or Austria. Opposition from orthodox Marxist, ‘Praxis’ theorists wanted a return to Stalinist economics, and blamed the regime for wanting to impose market mechanisms, with the by-product being consumerism and (in their view) a more individualistic society. Instead, the regime saw this as an attack on its delivery of the uniquely Yugoslav self-management economy. Hence orthodoxy was suppressed, not consumerism. Fundamentally, Patterson believes that the regime wanted the positive political capital that it received from consumers enjoying the good life.

And from this good life emerged a New Class, one not highlighting ethnic differences, but a genuinely Yugoslav experience. Instead, it was a cultural class, defined by the ambition for the good life and material goods. Yet, if it was a cultural class, Patterson does not delve into the social side that consumerism and the need for material goods also created. Only passing references are made to shopping, but they are devoid of a more anthropological observation of how people spent their time shopping, and for goods other than mechanical for the home. Were people convinced to buy good foods, coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, clothes; and what about entertainment venues, such as restaurants, cinemas and theatres? The sites where one consumes these goods are outside of the house, and would have benefitted from the extra income people had to spend. This would make for intriguing reading, but inevitably may only be an observation seen in urban settings.

But the good life did not, ultimately, last. And neither did Yugoslavia as a state. Failings in the self-management system, with bonuses being awarded and not kept for investment; republican squabbling about the allocation of incomes and their distribution; and a borrowing binge used to fund a spending binge; as well as other factors – all contributed to the good life being constrained then reversed. But beyond the wars, Yugoslav consumerism lives in the culture of the people in the successor states, possessed in the persistent Yugo-nostalgia that is still evident. It remains in the minds of those who experienced the ‘good life’, members of the cultural ‘New Class’, now lamenting for it; and has emerged in the generation born since the recent wars free from the ‘lived’ experience of communism.

I would suggest this book to those who want to get a deeper understanding of how consumerism grew, as a by-product of self-management. It is a complex read, and at points you feel you have to ‘wade’ through it. But it does open up the possibility that Yugoslavia was in fact different to other Iron Curtain countries, and that a good life could to be had.

Social Democracy in Post-Communist States (3/5)

Defining Social Democracy

Social democracy in its present form is the result of over hundred and fifty years of evolution, and breaks from its Marxist origins. Its ties to Marxism were broken after the October Revolution in 1917 in Russia because socialists disagreed on the means to reach socialism. There were those who sided with the revolutionary socialists in the ilk of the October Revolution, and there were those who preferred the democratic means to achieve similar goals. After this split, the former began to call themselves ‘communist’ whereas the latter became known as ‘democratic socialists’. This further evolved to become social democracy, as we know today (Andrew Heywood, and Bruno Coppieters and Kris Deschouwer).  Andrew Heywood states that ‘The social democratic tradition has therefore come to stand for a broad balance between the market economy on the one hand, and state intervention on the other.’ Although this is a theoretical development of social democracy, I seek to work with the definition of social democracy, advocated by Bruno Coppieters and Kris Deschouwer, in its practice as a social movement, an ideology and a type of society. I will focus specifically on the first two criteria.

The social movement is the unity of the wider, organised working class in political parties and trade unions. As a process it has its origins in the emergence of social cleavages as a result of the industrial revolution, and has developed and become institutionalised over the course of a hundred and fifty years advancing its causes slowly. However, this did not occur in the East. Reform was rapid and cleavages were blurry - hampered by other divisions, such as ethnicity, so as to weaken the movement. Ideologically, social democracy advocated a classless society like the communists, but this then altered after World War II to advocate an expansion of the welfare state within a liberal capitalist framework. Yet in the East, ‘socialism’ became discredited even when the ideological content was capitalist and populist. The transition saw a clash of principles where marketisation and economic liberalism rolled back the role of the state, especially in social welfare.   So social democracy developed into two different concepts between East and West based on its experiences of development, although they both face similar challenges today. These two defining features of social democracy will enable me to address its current form in Macedonia. Primarily, the point here is that one cannot directly or fairly compare the nature of social democracy in the East with that of the West.

The Socialist International experienced this problem of definition after the collapse of communism, when admitting members to the social democratic family. This is because the fluidity of the transition hasn’t harboured an environment to make lasting decisions, the concept of ‘left’ is defined differently in the East in ideological/policy terms, the differences between new and successor social democrats within a state make a decision difficult as to the trajectory of the party in the future, as well as a general inability by the populations to differentiate between revolutionary and democratic socialism. Hence a decision upon successor parties is based on the way they have structurally changed. This is evident in who these parties appeal to for support, the composition of their membership, and an experience of internal ideological splits due to democratisation. But the effects of these could lead to nationalist tendencies, the emergence of a small social democratic group within the parties led by individuals who are younger, and a pull to a strong party centre to maintain unity. However one observation by Heinz Timmerman is that successor parties retained a conservative approach to the economy during transition, albeit this may have altered since. Therefore, ‘social democratisation’ as a process of change within the successor parties can allow me to judge how far along this process the SDUM is at present.

Communist Successor Parties and their Legacies

Building on this issue of communist successor parties, as it is highly relevant given the SDUMs heritage, I look to arguments developed in Bozoki and Ishiyama’s ‘The Communist Successor Parties of Central and Eastern Europe’. In their opening chapter, they look at the transformation of political identities that these parties undertook during democratisation through the strategies they employed. The typology of four party positions comes from whether the party is still Marxist or not, and whether it is transmuted or not. Factors that impact on the strategy that is followed are either environmental or internal organisational. The former rests on the reaction a party has to certain stimuli such as election results or vying to dominate political space on the left from similar contenders. The latter, on the other hand, depends on whether the party is a mass or cadre party (as to whom can change its identity), the attitude of the former regime whilst in power, and events during the transition including the carry over of party personnel and internal ideological struggles. Therefore, Bozoki and Ishiyama write, ‘the evolution of the adaptation strategies of the successor parties can be seen as both the product of the interaction between political performance on the one hand and the internal organizational characteristics of the successor parties, on the other.’ These points will allow me to re-evaluate the party within the typology outlined to assess its current strategy.

Yet, it is the existence of legacies which allow me to return to the period prior to independence because ‘If epistemological criteria for causal explanation require a minimum of temporal causal depth, only institutions, structures, processes, and actions that antedate the “proximate” events of the transition qualify as the ultimate causal variables of regime change.’ (Herbert Kitschelt) Yet these legacies do not overcome exogenous ‘shocks’ and internal party maneuverings of ambitious politicians. Understanding the impact of legacies, in their variety, upon the party today helps to assess the extent to which the SDUM are hostages to their legacies, if at all. Kitschelt’s typology of predicting the strategies and organisations of communist successor parties starts his causal chain from the era around World War I. The variables include: the strength of precommunist political society, the professionalization of the state apparatus, whether it was a newly independent country seeking Western support, if the party strategy was programmatic or clientelistic, its ideological clarity, its electoral support, the ratio of members to voters and citizens, as well as the extent of internal party centralization. He describes Macedonia’s typology as ‘paternal communism’, a group marked different because of their association with independence movements.

The impact of legacies on the strategies of the Macedonian successor party show that because they emerged from dominant ethnic rulers, the regional leaders turned to independence, democratisation and reform. Because of weak precommunist political society and a weak state apparatus there was no mobilisation in opposition to communism, and the party was partial to promote clientelistic practices. This may have stymied the ideological renewal of the party. Yet a consociational form of governance possibly cut across these legacies because of internal ethnic divisions, external threats and international instability.

Those in the three-tiered hierarchy of the party may have felt the impact of legacies in the organization of the Macedonian successor party. The leaders (first tier) in newly independent states could expect support for politico-economic reform. The middle ranking bureaucracy (second tier) could lose out, so some may leave parties governed by reformists, as was the case in Macedonia. The members’ (third tier) incentives to remain would be reduced, but sentimental and clientelistic factors play a role in their staying.  The parties in newly independent states may lose members who lose out to reform and clientelist links, but nationalist-minded supporters will join. This was a consistency in membership during transition. The distribution of power within the organisation is also impacted by legacies because differences in political outlooks of the three tiers of the party may increase or decrease internal democracy. In Macedonia, centralisation has occurred, but wholesale purging of the old guard was avoided by a new membership intake. The link to trade unions is tenuous as they tended to be present in those industries that would lose out from reform, and thus proved problematic to parties who pursued economic liberalization such as Macedonia. But to what extent is this typology assigned to the Macedonian case still relevant today?

The Development and Consolidation of the Macedonian Nation (1/5)

This series of posts are re-drafts of my dissertation entitled '20 Years On: Social Democracy in Macedonia'. This piece was written in the summer of 2012, and involved my spending a week in Skopje speaking to individuals in the SDSM and wider social democratic movement. This first post sets the scene and provides an historical overview of the emergence of Macedonian nation.

(Macedonia - without borders both cognitive and material)

Three important historical developments impact on how social democracy in Macedonia constitutes itself today. The first two, to be covered here, from the pre-democratisation period are, the development of the Macedonian nation and the establishment of the first republic for Macedonians. An understanding of these place contemporary issues surrounding national identity, nationalism, and relations with neighbours in an historical footing. The establishment of a republic for the Macedonians, within the context of a Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), puts forth arguments as to why the communist political leadership pursued this task and would have future implications for the Social Democratic Unions of Macedonia in the post-independence era. 

Nation and Nationalism – Definitions

But first, I must clarify what I see are the definitions of ‘nations’ and ‘nationalism’. I use Benedict Anderson’s understanding that the nation ‘is an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.’ For nationalism, Ernest Gellner’s definition that ‘Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and national unit should be congruent.’ and Eric Hobsbawm’s observation that ‘Nations do not make states and nationalisms but the other way around.’ are my anchor and both hold true in the case of Macedonia.

The ‘Macedonian Question’ in the 19th and 20th Centuries

The emergence of the ‘Macedonian Question’ arose during the latter part of the 19th century at a time when established territories surrounded the region whilst it was still formally part of the Ottoman Empire. In the words of Barbara and Charles Jelavich ‘When the struggle over Macedonia became more heated after the Congress of Berlin, anthropologists, linguists, and physiologists from the Balkan countries all used their specialty to claim the area for their own particular nationality.’ Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece were the three states that eyed the region, whose population was a diverse mix. The attributes for their claims came from religion, language, education, history, and culture; and were easily contested. Fundamentally, the geographic-strategic importance of this area for territorial expansion, economic gain and possible regional power status, were the reasons these claims were made, and backed by the ‘Great Powers’. Ottoman era social structures were breeding grounds for these contests, especially in regards to the church organization, to which language and education were tied; yet pro-Ottoman sympathies resulted from these clashes coming from all sides. The Balkan War of 1912 was fought to overthrow Ottoman rule, and Macedonia was split between the three states; however Bulgaria was unhappy and a second war in 1913 erupted, the result of which was the Treaty of Bucharest. During this period the people’s ‘perception from below’ in the region could be characterized as ‘not necessarily national and still less nationalist.’ according to Eric Hobsbawm. But this was of lesser importance for these belligerent states, which previously based territorial claims on co-nationals, but that soon became redundant.

The Foundations of Macedonian National Consciousness

Although a small group of people began to attest to a unique Macedonian national movement in the last decade of the 19th century, especially the establishment of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization in 1893, their sympathies were specifically Bulgarian (Jelavich and Jelavich). In applying Victor Roudometof’s ‘thesis that national identity is socially constructed, fluid, situational, and modified through encounters and interaction with other groups, thereby fostering the necessity for boundary preservation and the exaggeration of cultural difference.’, one can see that these clashes could be unending. In Ottoman administrative records there was no categorization of Macedonians with a distinct identity. The idea that the people in the region were a ‘blank canvass’ upholds Roudometof’s constructivist approach. However ‘the notion that Macedonian Slavs were not yet Serbs or Bulgarians was the germ of the idea that they formed a distinct ethnic category, neither Serbian nor Bulgarian’, according to Roudometof. This idea has its legacy in contemporary debates in the region. The debate amongst the intelligentsia revolved around delineating where Macedonia was, its administrative position within the Ottoman Empire, and took on attempts to unite the Christians of the region through a Bishopric. Although multi-ethnic autonomy was their aim, including during the Ilinden Uprising in 1903, the division of the region during the Balkan Wars took on a more important meaning. So, up to the Balkan Wars the region had become defined and markers were established as to who people were not; yet the division of this ‘imagined’ area (up to that point in time) sowed the seeds for future discontent.

Between the Two World Wars

After this territorial division of ‘Ancient Macedonia’ into Pirin, Aegean and Vardar Macedonia, and its subsequent codification after World War I, demographic consolidation occurred. Greece settled Greeks from Turkey in their area and established demographic dominance, whereas in Bulgaria the ‘Macedonian Question’ played heavily on domestic politics. Focusing on the Vardar region, whose borders are co-terminus with those of present-day Macedonia, assimilation was attempted by the Serbs with the aim to de-Bulgarize the region via methods such as name changing. Again, Macedonians weren’t acknowledged in the 1921 and 1931 census calculations as a separate entity, but were counted as Serb or as speaking Serbocroat according to Joseph Rothschild. Politically, Ivo Banac notes that in the 1920 elections ‘The chief beneficiary of Macedonian discontent was the Communist Party, which won 36.72 percent of all Macedonian votes…’ doing better in the urban areas of Kumanovo, Skopje and Tikves. Communism also provided an ideological alternative to nationalism in the region at the time, seeking to establish a Balkan Federation. However, with no sizeable proletariat, they sought to exploit national oppression for social revolution. According to Pavlos Hatzopolous the ‘nationalization’ of the peoples of the Macedonia region by the conquering states proved ripe for this agitation, even if it ultimately failed. Whilst de-Bulgarization, Serbianization, and the Comintern agreeing the existence of a Macedonian nation in 1934, were ongoing processes and events, Alexander Maxwell believes that the masses simply wanted an easy life and identified with whichever state controlled their area.

From World War II to a Socialist Republic of Macedonia

Alexander Maxwell continues that with the arrival of World War II to the Balkans in 1941 came the governance of the most part of Vardar Macedonia by the Bulgarians. At first they were welcomed, but re-Bulgarization and the removal of local elites, as well as the effects of war and displaced peoples, led to increasing support for Tito and the Partisans. The Partisans establishing a Macedonian literary language in 1944 accelerated this. ‘Macedonia’s Slavs simultaneously espoused both “regional Macedonian nationalism” and “ethnic Bulgarian nationalism” in the early twentieth century, but by 1945 an “ethnic Macedonian nationalism” incompatible with Bulgarian loyalties had emerged.’ Rooted in language, Tito sought to capitalize on this. It justified his attempt to gain control of Macedonia, retain it, eliminate Bulgarian national consciousness, and ultimately to act as a step to Yugoslav regional hegemony, according to Stephen Palmer and Robert King. The ‘Macedonian Question’ was a useful vehicle for this, and can be judged as a success in comparison to the strategy employed by interwar communists as suggested by Hatzopolous.

Only with the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, albeit obligated to be part of the Socialist Federal Yugoslavia, could state resources create the Macedonian nation. This was achieved by creating schools, a university and a press in this new Macedonian language. Added to this was the longer-term goal of acquiring an independent Orthodox Church. Thus the state existed because of communism, so when the Tito consolidated the communist organization in the republic via patronage and trading political and economic centralism for cultural autonomy, he could command the loyalty of large sections of the population (Ulf Brunnbauer). But fundamentally, echoing Hobsbawm, ‘the republic was established, but the nation had still to be created.’