Yugoslavia: A History of its Demise - Indymedia

FATEFUL WEAKNESSES 3
these organs and for all party members concerned, even if they had voted against
the decision and did not approve of it. This “Leninist” principle of democratic
centralism entailed also an obligation for party members in state and communal
organs, for example in enterprises, to vote and work in accordance with party
decisions. For the constitutional life of the Yugoslav federal state, this signified
that important decisions were always taken in the highest party organs, in the
Party Presidium or in the Central Committee, and were then supposed to be
binding on the state and administrative organs. In the final phase, this principle
continued to work only to a limited degree, although party leaders tried to
maintain this principle until the actual death of the LCY in early 1990.
Mitja Ribičič said that democratic centralism and its role already stood in
contradiction to the constitution of 1963, insofar as it attempted to concede an
independent role to the parliaments at both federal and republic levels. Until
almost the end, democratic centralism and the ban on factions were used to exert
a pressure on the republics. 4 The first great error on the part of Milovan Djilas
consisted in the fact that he earnestly believed that the Sixth Party Congress of
1952, with its renaming of the party, was an honest effort in the direction of
liberalization and democratization.
For all that, there were certain special developments within the Yugoslav
communist party. These showed themselves already at the time of the Second
World War, insofar as the Partisan struggle had to be conducted on a
decentralized basis reflecting the multiethnic composition of Yugoslavia. There
was an effort during the early period of democratization to revive some of these
developments, which had been most marked in Slovenia, Croatia, and
Macedonia. They were largely eliminated after 1945, but the party apparatchiks
in the republics retained considerable organizational independence. These
relatively independent apparatchiks created, on the other hand, independent
power bases for the leaders in the republics and provinces. 5 The federalization of
the party was in this way practically pre-programmed. It assumed practical form
as a certain identity of interest between leadership and population developed, first
in the economic sphere, subsequently also in the political and national domain.
After the death of Tito there developed a vacuum of authority also in the
central party apparatus. To be sure, there continued to be a central party apparatus,
but it retained real power only within circumscribed limits. Political life shifted
to the republics and provinces (Kosovo and Vojvodina). The political life in the
federal League of Communists consisted almost entirely of in-fighting between
representatives of the republics in its sundry organs. Compromises were reached
which often evaporated before the functionaries from the republics and provinces
had even reached the Belgrade airport or railroad station to begin the trip home.
Djilas committed the second great error of his life when he thought that the
problem of democracy in Yugoslavia could be solved after the English prototype
through the establishment of a general dualism of ruling party and opposition.
There was, quite simply, no general Yugoslav framework any more which could
have made possible such a path. Those politicians who tried to make their