Marxism versus campism - a reply to Socialist Action
Socialist Action supporters were influential last year in the Campaign for Peace in the Balkans, the principal campaign in Britain against NATO’s war on Belgrade. Their campist view of the world strengthened the Campaign’s pro-Serb bias, which in turn narrowed the appeal of its anti-war mobilisations. Those, including Socialist Outlook, who opposed Milosevic’s war in Kosova as well as NATO’s war against Serbia, were denounced as pro-NATO. The December edition of Socialist Action is devoted to the war and the political debates around it. Here Alan Thornett takes up some of the debates raised.
The central theme of the articles in Socialist Action (SA) is to present Milosevic as the protector of some kind of actually existing socialism, and Serbia as constituting "the chief obstacle to the capitalist break-up of Yugoslavia".
The Yugoslav federation, it insists, was broken up principally by imperialist intervention.
In particular the economic conditions imposed by the IMF in the mid-1980s (around the repayment of loans taken in the 1970s) and the decision of the two wealthiest republics, Slovenia and Croatia, "in coordination with German imperialism", to secede from Yugoslavia in order to "stop subsidising the poorest parts of the federation" were supposedly decisive.
These factors, it argues, along with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, were behind the break-up, rather than the regime’s own political degeneration, or the rise of Great Serbian Nationalism within it – which it presents as an invention of western media.
Once Slovenia and Croatia had opted for independence, it says, it was "natural" for Serb minorities within Croatia and Bosnia to "rebel" in the way they did. But what is the truth?
Obviously, imperialism will always seek to intervene into non-capitalist states and attempt to restore capitalism. It has done so since 1917. But this does not, in itself, tell us much.
Would Yugoslavia have held together if imperialism had not intervened? That would be to suggest that Yugoslavia had been a healthy socialist state free from the social, economic and political paralysis which brought down Stalinism is Eastern Europe and the USSR – which it was not.
Of course the collapse of Stalinism in Eastern Europe and the USSR was a factor in the break-up of Yugoslavia – imperialism no longer needed its unity against the Warsaw Pact – as were economic conditions. But were these the decisive factors involved?
Were the "rebellions" of the Serb minorities in Croatia and Bosnia a "natural process", or were they fomented by Great Serb Nationalism and then planned and organised by Serb nationalists – political and paramilitary – in order to pursue Milosevic’s vision of a Greater Serbia?
Was German imperialism the decisive driving force behind the session of Slovenia and Croatia or did it pursue its own interests in a process which had a separate dynamic? This is what we have to look at.
Rewriting history
The infamous assertion that it was the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia by the EC which led to the break-up of Yugoslavia, and the Croatian and Bosnian wars, is something SA shares with other sections of the left. It has been repeated until accepted as fact. But it is simply not true. SA present it this way:
"Although Croatia, with its 11% Serbian population did not comply with the EC’s criteria for respect of minority rights, Germany pressured the EC into recognition of its independence, and thereby precipitated the break-up which led to war, first in Croatia and then in Bosnia"
Yet EC recognition of Croatia and Slovenia came almost a year after the start of war in the region. It came a long time after the invasion of Slovenia and Croatia by Serbian forces. It came after the fall of Vukovar and the siege of Dubrovnik.
It came after the bulk of Serbian territorial objectives in Croatia had been achieved. Most significantly, it came after the political dye was cast on the unity of Yugoslavia.
Other myths about the region are prevalent on the left, in particular that the nationalities of the Balkans are incorrigible warring factions historically programmed for conflict with each other.
Again the reality is different. Neither nationalism or religion were strong in Yugoslavia until nationalism was stoked up during the 1980s by Greater Serb nationalists.
1974 constitution torn up
After Tito’s death it was clear that Yugoslavia, which already had problems, could not be held together by force. There had to be a guarantee against the rise of the strongest power, Serbia, back to the dominant position it held in pre-war Yugoslavia.
The federation could only be held together by increased socialist democracy and a strengthening, not a weakening, of the 1974 constitution.
This constitution had devolved power and autonomy to the constituent Republics: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia, and to the autonomous provinces – Kosova and Voijvodina (which remained a part of Serbia).
It defined Yugoslavia as a multinational state in which no single nationality could claim a majority, and it became the basis on which the Federation coexisted.
Yet within a year this coexistence was under challenge from the rise of Serb nationalism. In 1981 force was used in Kosova against demonstrators calling for the status of a Federal Republic to tackle its economic backwardness. In 1984 intellectuals were put on trial for taking part in debating societies. Serb intellectuals, who were collapsing into nationalism, collected 50,000 signatures calling for a crackdown in Kosova and more Serb control of the Province.
In 1987, party boss and nationalist demagogue, Slobodan Milosevic addressed a huge rally of Serbs in Kosova (his infamous "no one should dare to beat you" speech) and came away as Serb leader-in-waiting.
In 1989 Kosovan and Voijvodinan deputies were pressed into ratifying new constitutional arrangements which abolished their rights as Autonomous Provinces.
Belgrade was tearing up the constitutional basis on which Yugoslavia rested, ironically in the name of the unity of the federation. The aim of Serb nationalism was to reverse the advances of the 1974 constitution, which was now under fierce attack, in favour of a highly centralised state, dominated by Serbia.
Soon afterwards Milosevic was endorsed as president of Serbia. He pledged to reunite a Serbia which had been divided by the 1974 constitution. The stronger Serb nationalism became, the less other nationalities were prepared to stay within the Federation.
This is not to "demonise Milosevic" as SA suggest. It is to present history as it happened.
Worse, SA actually defends the crushing of Kosovan and Voijvodinan autonomy as "logical" since Serbs were "under-represented under the 1974 constitution".
Descent into war
Once Kosova and Voijvodina were swallowed up, resistance to the Greater Serbia project fell to Slovenia and Croatia. They responded by offering Serbia a compromise within a Yugoslav framework. This was rejected by Milosevic, as were all subsequent similar proposals.
In December 1990 Slovenia held a referendum which overwhelmingly favoured secession. Slovenia would now increasingly drag Croatia with it towards independence.
Croatia was now led by Franjo Tudjman. He was a Croatian nationalist and second-string regional dictator, later to have war crimes on his hands. But he was not a fascist, as SA suggest, running an Ustashe regime.
He had won power after the Croatian CP opted for a first-past-the-post electoral system for the multi-party elections. Had they chosen PR they would have been in power themselves – which would have militated against the whipping up of nationalism in the region, to some extent, and probably altered the course of events.
On March 15 1991 the Krajina Serbs, in a so-called spontaneous move, and led by Serb nationalist (and Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) leader) Milan Babic, took over the Krajina region of Croatia by force and declared it independent.
They named it the Autonomous Province of Krajina (later Republika Srpska Krajina). They had the backing of Milosevic and were armed and supported by the Yugoslav National Army (JNA). It was a hammer blow to the unity of Yugoslavia and a huge challenge to Croatia.
No army
Tudjman had no army to resist the JNA and sought to stabilise the situation by diplomacy. He, in any case, had his own agenda for carving up the region (in effect Bosnia) in favour of a Greater Croatia once he was pushed towards independence.
SA defends Milosevic’s Krajina operation this way: "In Croatia, it [Milosevic’s regime] upheld the right to autonomy of the Serbian minority and the federal army was deployed to defend the Serb enclaves against the new Croatian military, until the point where EU and US sanctions pressurised Milosevic to agree to the deployment of UN forces in the disputed areas"
Two weeks later, at the end of March 1991, Milosevic and Tudjman met in secret. They concluded that Yugoslavia was now effectively finished, and that three, or more, successor states would eventually emerge.
The issue was how they would each carve out their own ethnic states to the detriment of Bosnia. Later, EC mediator Lord Carrington, after meetings with Milosevic and Tudjman, made the same point: "When I first talked to Presidents Milosevic and Tudjman, it was quite clear that both of them had a solution which was mutually satisfactory – which was that they were going to carve up Bosnia between them".
In April 1991 Milosevic recognised the Krajina Serb’s. Soon after that the ultra-nationalist Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic called for "an armed force of the Serbian People" to be set up throughout "the Serb lands of Yugoslavia".
Undeclared war
There was now an undeclared war between Serbian forces and Croatia, although Tudjman remained reluctant to recognise it given the gross military imbalance. But Serbian forces were in occupation of a quarter of Croatia, and expanding.
On May 3, Tudjman publicly warned of the likelihood of all-out war with Serbia. It would be a war would have little to do with defending the rights of Croatian Serbs (the 200,000 Serbs living in Zagreb were ignored) and everything to do grabbing Croatian territory and undermining its right to independence.
Invasion, war, and ethnic cleansing
On May 25 1991 Slovenia and Croatia simultaneously declared independence, although practical preparations were far more advanced in Slovenia than in Croatia. The EC called for the unity of Yugoslavia.
Two days after the declaration the JNA invaded Slovenia. They were forced to withdraw after 10 days by international pressure and surprisingly strong Slovenian resistance – leaving Slovenia as an independent state. Ultimately Slovenia could not have defeated the JNA, but Milosevic had little interest in Slovenia since it had a negligible Serb population.
In August 1991 Serb forces carried out the first ethnic cleaning of the war in the Krajina village of Kijevo – which had a Croat population surrounded by Serb-held territory. Soon after Babic announced that the Krajina Serb paramilitary forces had fused with the JNA. The Serbian front line now stretched South from Gospic, north to Karlovac – 30 kilometres south of Zagreb – eastwards to Pakrac and to the Eastern Slavonian city of Vukovar on the Danube.
In early September 1991 Vukovar – 43.7% Croat and 37.4% Serb – was shelled by Serbian irregulars with heavy weapons supplied by the JNA. Tudjman responded by laying siege to JNA barracks across Croatia. On September 19 a JNA force, with a hundred tanks and other heavy weapons, left Belgrade bound for Vukovar.
Within days Vukovar was under siege and heavy bombardment. On October 1 1991 the JNA attacked and laid siege to the port city of Dubrovnik on Croatia’s Adriatic coast. Dubrovnik was 82.5% Croat and just 6.7% Serb.
Vukovar fell a month later. It was reduced to rubble after weeks of hand-to-hand fighting. Over 500 Croats were killed and nearly 2,000 wounded. Surviving Croats retreated in disarray. After this the JNA turned its guns on Osijek to repeat the process.
By the end of November 1991 Serb forces had achieved most of their objectives. Milosevic now favoured a cease-fire and UN intervention, which he calculated would freeze current battle lines to his advantage and protect Serbs in the rest of Croatia.
Borisav Jovic, the representative of Serbia on the Federal Presidency, put it this way: "At this point the war in Croatia was under control in the sense that all the Serb territories were under our control, all, that is except Central Slavonia. Slobodan and I, after many conversations, decided now was the time to get the UN troops into Croatia to protect the Serbs there.
We saw the danger – when Croatia would be recognised, which we realised would happen, the JNA would be regarded as a foreign army invading another country. So we had better get the UN troops in early to protect the Serbs".
Croatia had now lost a third of its territory to Serbian forces and there were half a million Croatian refugees. In early in December Tudjman visited Bonn to meet Kohl and Genscher to seek EC recognition of Croatia. Germany had recently changed it policy on this and he got strong support. A week later Genscher announced that if the EC did not recognise Croatia and Slovenia Germany would do so independently.
