Equality, Participation, Transition: Essays in Honour of Branko Horvat

120 Market Socialism in Yugoslavia
socialism’ is sketched, and the reasons for the gaps between norms and
reality are considered. Section 8.4 discusses economic performance
within systemic periods, and the effects reforms might have had on both
economic performance and structural change. Section 8.5 deals with the
prospects of the Yugoslav economy for the 1990s, as they were seen in
the 1980s, and discusses the prerequisites for a new economic reform. It
will be noted that economic reforms were enacted within the existing
political system and rather easily adaptable ideology. The persistency of
the overwhelming crisis in the 1980s indicated, however, that to be effective,
a new reform would require the abandonment of the basic orientations
in the economic sphere, the leading role of the Party in the political
sphere, and the Marxian ideology in the ideological sphere. Finally, the
developments leading to the collapse of the socialist economic system
and the breakdown of Yugoslavia are presented in Section 8.6.
8.2 Systemic changes 1945–73
8.2.1 Administrative socialism, 1946–52
The major goal of administrative socialism was to transform the underdeveloped,
predominantly agricultural, capitalist society into an industrial
socialist society. Basic reasons for this objective were ideological
and political; economic and social issues were comparatively less
important. A rigidly planned economy was at the time believed to be
the only viable socialist model, and the transformation of Yugoslavia
into such an economy was to be achieved by nationalizing most of the
means of production, collectivizing the agricultural sector, and establishing
a planning apparatus. The principle of control over the private
sector was included in the Constitution of 1946 by stipulating that private
property could be expropriated if so required by an extendable
‘common interest’. In the agricultural sector, the anti-peasant policy
was brought forward by compulsory deliveries and forced collectivization.
The organization of the economy was modeled on the Soviet pattern;
all basic economic problems such as valuation, organization of
production, income distribution, savings, and investment were to be
solved by centrally planned solutions. Enterprises were agents of the
planners obliged to fulfill their instructions.
The specific means employed to bring about the transformation can
be attributed only in part to the faith of the new political elite in the
supremacy of the new system over a market economy; they were also in
part intended to eliminate political competition and social pluralism.
The period was to be dominated by the First Five Year Plan
(1947–52), an ambitious program of rapid Soviet-type growth, giving