The YUGOSLAVIA NATION chapter one
The Balkans area it’s been since ages the theatre of events that have had inevitably a crucial effect to all the old continent, it’s due to the terrorist attack to Franz Ferdinand of the june the 28th 1914 in Sarajevo the started the first world war in the early years of a century the European map was redesigned by the arrival of new young Nations, Germany and Italy on top but there were other ethnics groups that were struggling to complete an Unitarian process, the importance of having a defined place for each ethnic group with defined borderline to extend therefore the political and economic control was and still is a natural sentiment other than a legitimate ambition.
After the end of the First World War Serbia who joined the victorious alliance sat at the peace conference held in France having gained that chair on the battlefield with honor and absolute sense of the duty paid his price of victims
The frontier of the new state was established in 1920 and included Serbia , Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia plus Montenegro and Macedonia former Ottoman enclave, that was the first time in history that the Slavic people have formed an unique big State, back in the days all people were in favor of the big state despite the differences, two religion, two alphabets and different ethnics groups, the new state already appears to be wick due to all these differences so the idea of which structure the new Unitarian state should have been was an important practical problem.
Croatian was of the idea that it should have be a sort of confederation of the five or six ethnics groups but their intentions was to keep the Serbians divided in minor communities anywhere, if the Serbian on a hand were already a solid formed state Croatian wasn’t and had always been forced to fight for their political aspiration of independence or more simply for the recognition of their rights, therefore the arm wrestling about the future of new born Yugoslavian State was between Croatian and Serbian the others countries were just territories of conquest political and economic first of all to be taken at its own side for both the biggest competitor.
In 1921 the constitution it’s been written and the new state it’s a Centralized Monarchy ,Alexander the King will rule on a Nation formed by three different ethnic group to which he didn’t concede any particular right in order to maintain the necessary stability between Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian, however there was a problem named Kosovo, a small region lived by a 60% of Albanian and Muslim that would prefer to join the motherland of Albania it will follow a war known as Kaciak Movement who was the cradle of the Albanian nationalist movement at the same time it’s in Kosovo were the ancient Serbian fought to defend Christianity till the last man and despite having been defeated in the Serbian imaginary Kosovo represented the cradle of the Serbian heroism and bravery against the Muslim invader, that day known as Vidovdan became the day of Serbian national celebration, it’s on Kosovo that historically Serbian and Albanian fought each other till the present time, actually in Kosovo there are Italian military forces deployed in defense of the Christians churches and Monastery.
The King Alexander however managed to restore the Serbian Authority all over the kingdom despite the Kosovar affair, Croatian use to elaborate different political plan, Stefan Radic leader of Farmers Party was an important figure of the Croatian politician class that never clarify its geopolitical intention, to be independent or to gain territories from the Bosnian state?, in 1928 during parliamentary meeting a Serbian nationalist will shoot on the Croatians m.p.s seats killing some of them Radic included got shoot deeply wounded will die a few days later, that was the most dramatic moment for the Croatian and it will compromise the future of the Yugoslavian state, Radic will became an important figure of the Croatian Nationalist cause so for the Ustascia and later for F.Tudjiman too. Alexander then abolished the constitution and imposed dictatorship so before it was called the Kingdom of Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian then would became the Yugoslavian Kingdom, Alexander plan was to create a new state at all with an unique people, trough patriotism expressed by public events of national parade Alexander will try to encourage the new identity but he will fails, the differences between the various ethnics were too strong.
From Croatia soon it will emerge Ante Pavelic who will form a political party of small proportion named Ustascha that literally means the one who join the revolution or simply The Rebel, Pavelic radical plan it’s to create a Nation based on racial fundament and the first obstacle to his project was the King that had to be eliminated.
On the 8th of October 1934 Alexander went in France to join an alliance against Hitler and Mussolini while Ustascia took the occasion to take the side of their natural ally, Italy and Germany, in spite of the fact that the King Alexander was protected by a huge of police he will be killed by a terrorist while the cameramen are recording the parade, that was the first time that a head of a State by the way a King would have been caught on camera while being assassinated a few seconds before dying Alexander whisper “ preserve Yugoslavia “the killer it’s a Macedonian man at Pavelic dependences, but the effect provoked was opposite of what Pavelic expected, the whole country will gather united around the coffin of the King that from Spalato ( Croatia ) will travel through all the country and the people will attend alongside the rails in sign of respect as it happened with Tito too.
Peter the young prince was only 11 years old then it’s the Uncle Prince Paolo who took control of the situation and soon will put the end of the dictatorship experience, will restore constitutional rights and promoted new elections, Prince Paolo recognize more autonomy to the Croatian, the Banovinan of Croatia will define the future federal asset of the Nation.
With the second World War Prince Paolo signed a path with Germany provoking popular violent reaction and will be destitute as head of the state, Yugoslavia would be soon bombarded by Hitler and the Yugoslavia would be divided in a big Croatian independent State, Kosovo and Montenegro will join Albania already member of the Italian colonial empire.
Croatian Ustascia will apply racial laws against Serbian, Jews and gypsies, death camps and persecution similar to the Germans but with more extreme brutality, the camp of Jesanovac would be sadly famous for the huge number of victims over 600.000 Serbian, 200.000 Jews and 40.000 gypsies are estimated to have died plus all various opponents to the Croatian regime.
In the meantime in Serbia it’d be Mihailovitch that will form the first armed group of resistance against Germany and therefore Croatian, the Chetniks group became soon famous among the family members of the Slavic monarchy in exile in London and during the war was appointed as Minister of the War by the exiled government, nicknamed 'the Hawk of the Balkans' would be named man of the year by the Time Magazine in 1942 alongside the Chetniks leader in 1941 there’s another group who managed to affirms itself whose leader Josef Tito 49 years old had already a long career of militant communist born and raised in a little Croatian village will join the first world war in the Austro Hungarian army, captured by the enemy managed to escape in the newborn U.S.S.R. were will discover the communist ideology and will convert himself to the communist cause by joining in 1917 the Red Army at the early 20s will reach the top of Yugoslavian communist party during a time when the party it’s officially declared illegal, Tito it’s very close to Stalin, it was famous for its oratory passionate skills, he will do career within the party and became in 1937 the absolute leader.
At the end of 1941 Chetniks and Communist Partisans are in open competition, the two groups were opposite, one wanted to restore the Monarchy while Tito initially cheated declaring he was fighting only for the Yugoslavian independence gaining therefore the sympathy of all partisan groups opposed to the Ustascia regime.
In 1943 allied abandon the Serbian Mihailovitch in favor of Tito who shown to be more efficient in the guerrilla against the Axis forces, between civil wars and war of liberation the entire Yugoslavia it’s in total chaos, Chetniks against Ustascia and both in opposition against the Communist, the second world war represented the first internal fight that underlined the deep differences among the big major ethnic groups, indeed if the Yugoslavia had a high number of victims it was because of these differences.
The 20th October 1944 partisans free the country with the help of the Red Army, it’s the end of the war and now Tito have no competitor at all it's just him taking on the scenes , Tito transformed what was an Unitarian Kingdom into a federation of States united under its figure or rather the cult of its figure as a sort of physical guarantee of peace and unity among all the different ethnics groups, it was inevitable that he associated the balance of the new Nation to its own persona and that was a great risk as indeed later on happened.
The new Yugoslavia recognized the existence of 6 different Republic, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Macedonia plus two autonomy provinces Kosovo and Voivodina both united to the Serbian Republic, a complicated system controlled by the central power of the communist party, Tito with special trials will eliminate, as in a perfect Stalinist style, all the enemies or supposed to be according to him only the communist have fought for the country liberation, a typical arrogance of the commies anywhere they took over have soon proven to be absolutely antindemocratic and totalitarian worse than any others preexisted ideological state.
Tito as a true liar affirmed that only commies had the legitimacy to govern the Nation in a fake unity and brotherhood will try several times to resolve the differences of the ethics groups.
Tito political aspirations was to include Bulgaria, Albania and Greece too in an even more great Federal Nation and because of his great ambitions that Stalin started to boycott its figure till the point that Moscow will isolate economically the Yugoslavian federation giving so indirectly to its figure an important role in the eyes of the Western countries especially during the cold war period, Moscow describe Yugoslavia as a sort of fake communist state more close to a capitalistic one but Tito didn’t gave up and affirmed that Moscow plan was to destroy the Yugoslavian Federation regardless of the sufferings the populations have been through, at the end of 1948 the break is total so in U.S.S.R. all citizens supporting of the Tito politics were deported same destiny for the Yugoslavian in favor of Stalin and this is the very essence of Communism a fake utopia supposed to be based on values as ‘internationalism, brotherhood, moral justice etc. supposed to be ideologically superior to the Western values the communist in all their historical life never hesitated to stab themselves, in any contest of war the communist partisan have attacked whoever had a different political orientation in particular communist leader of the first hour, socialists and anarchist or rather these elements came always as the first of the list of those who had to be eliminated
The isle of Golly Ottok close the Croatian cost would be known to be the prison of all the Yugoslavian pro Stalinist till the 50s 4.000 opponent jailed and tortured the majority of them will have died behind those wall, a new regime was born and the repression didn’t spare anyone.
The economic model adopted was a different compared with the U.S.S.R.
The workers became the owner of the enterprises on a corporative model imported by early socialist model of the Soviet on the other hand the recognition of a little private propriety of the artworks as of the land, till the 60s economy will grow and the regime will tolerate a sort of cultural freedom it was the golden years of Yugoslavia where people can also travel across Europe, where the government used to finance anything even rock n’ roll music differently by DDR Yugoslavia culturally was open to the West especially for economic reasons, the immigrant used to send money to the motherland plus sharing a borderline with Austria and Italy the sector of commerce expo of goods at cheap price was considerable.
It is important to remind that the gap between the Northern Republics and the Southern region was huge, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia had a significant economic and scientific development so life style of the population had better quality standards differently by Montenegro but in particular of Kosovo.
The central government or rather Tito got the financial support of the USA who saw in the Yugoslavia Federation a good ally and a natural antagonist to the U.S.S.R. by the willing of expansionism however Tito imposed himself internationally as a unique leader even if he always took care of its independency.
The golden years of the Yugoslavia Federation didn’t survived at the passing of time as the economics differences started to show a Nation that was already deeply divided, these gaps would be worse and will determine the tensions among the different ethnics groups.
However there were questions particular still unresolved as the Kosovar situation, The 60s contestation that interested all the Western World erupted in Yugoslavia too, it’s from Belgrade Universities where students claimed more rights, less corruption and put on the table again the ethnic differences among the others groups, the movement of students started to questioning the so called ‘aristocracy of the revolution’ blamed of a thin whispered corruption following the Prague springtime and the mottos of French universities of the 68 Serbian protesters invaded the streets putting directly the system under accuses, asking for an orthodoxy of the system or a more democratic self-management.
Differently from the Serbian of Belgrade the Kosovar of Pristina, capital of the region, didn’t have their own University or any other official institution of the Kosovar Albanian culture, the political contest was completely different, the young Kosovar people Albanian mainly felt discriminated and asked to be recognized as a Republic by the way there were more population in Kosovo rather than Montenegro that instead had the status of Republic, it’s clear that Albanian people do represent a threat to the integrity of the Nation and Tito saw in those protesters a political design of a future independent state willing to rejoin with Albania, that by the way was a communist state, ethnically homogeneous with two official religion, Islam and Christian Orthodox so again the internationalism among proletarians was just a huge of bullshit .
Pristina the Kosovar capital is the theatre where demonstrations took place the press ignored the Albanian political request considered as a form of a ‘nationalist feeling’ and of course wasn’t accepted, a brutal repression will follow and the press as the national TV didn’t reported any news
the National press spoke of the chauvinistic character of the Kosovar inhabitants who unfoundedly claimed their de facto rights trampled on and out of question ,the whole time of contestation that blow up in the Western world have in a certain sense awakened the Slavic consciences too, the Serbians denounced corruption and a less realism of the communist values somehow by the way old Serbian resentments lay deep inside and were the real roots of their resentment.
Tito ability to affirm his political figure internationally was undiscussed he managed to establish himself in 1956 as the leader of the ‘non-aligned communist countries’ a model of inspirations for those communist parties of the Western World who used to participate to the Moscow congress, Italy among all the Western countries had the biggest communist party which was the second one indeed of Italy soon after the Christian Democracy , the violent repression of Hungarians and Czech Republic people of Prague played a key role in this sense, all people of Yugoslavia condemned Moscow brutal repression as they feared it might happen to them of course furthermore even if the Yugoslavian model wasn’t equally right for what happened with the Kosovar, among all of the communist Nations just Yugoslavia and Ceausescu Romanian leader openly spoke up with words of firm condemns, equally many of the Western European Communist leader had a different opinion of the Soviet brutal repression, the Italians leaders for example didn’t condemned the whole thing as they were to close with Moscow being directly funded by U.S.S.R. didn’t had the honesty to take a side and at the end of Communism the Chief of Italian Communist Party Achille Ochetto shameless presented himself with the Socialist Prime Minister of Italy Bettino Craxi to pay homage to the tomb of Irme Nagy leader of the Budapest revolution killed with no mercy by the Soviet, Ochetto that back in the days agreed with the Soviet brutal repression, this double face it’s a common trait of the Italian communist that for what about coherence and dignity are not second to any other commies party of the world.
Alongside the ‘Non-Aligned communist countries’ of which Tito was the leader around the seventies a political initiative within the West takes shape, a sort of ‘Western Communist International’ known as Euro Communism, the main participants were the communist parties of Italy, France and Spain the biggest among others European one, in total were 29, considering the divided Germany and the high level of penetration of the Stasi agents these reforming movement within the West was a real thorn in the Western side. We can’t ignore the important political role of this experience as it would be determinant in the birth of the actual EU especially because the main supporters of the actual EU are all these ‘former’ communist or social democrats whatever.
The official birth certificate of Eurocommunism is usually considered the 1977 a meeting between Enrico Berlinguer (ICP), Santiago Carrillo (ECP) and Georges Marchais (FCP), held in Madrid, where the so-called “new way” was theorized. In particular, the Italian Communists had already for many years developed a line of independence from Moscow, starting with the explicitly declared dissent on the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, note as it happened with Hungary the party members had different point of view who supported and justify the Soviet repression who will abandon the Communist party. In 1975 the ICP and the Spanish ECP had solemnly declared that they wanted to “march towards socialism together. “In” peace and freedom “. In 1976 in Moscow, Enrico Berlinguer, in front of an assembly of 5,000 communist delegates, had clearly spoken of a “pluralistic system” (which the interpreter prudently translated as “multiform”) and expressed the intentions of the ICP to build “a socialism that we think is necessary and possible only in Italy”. The crux was the possibility for the European parties to be able to elaborate different political lines, a different path to socialism that was therefore detached from the indications of Moscow. this stimulated a series of meetings between the various European parties, the Italian and French in particular, we have to keep in mind that all these parties have received substantial financial funds from Moscow despite the Soviets had missiles pointed to all European towns ready at any moment to be launched. While the U.S.A. are on the other side of the Ocean it’s on continental Europe that the battlefield of the cold war took place and Berlin in particular was the main camp of the fights, the city full of secret agents from all over the world altogether face to face, Berlin was the city of the famous checkpoint Charlie , where the captured spies got exchanged, the city who was absolutely on the target of the Stasi, well it’s in this city that in the end the Eurocommunist held the first conference of all the 29 European communist parties, West Berlin under strict control of the Stasi who managed to infiltrate the Western Germans institution to its high level, see the case of Brandt.
Yugoslavia and other communist Nations were in a different position of course but still represented a model of inspiration for the West as they managed to build a different model, in conclusion all of these parties never accepted democracy and they proved to be repressive too against whoever had a different point of view, in the West as in the East whoever had a different political ideology was considered a Fascist, the Kosovar workers of the miners were just a bunch of fascists to be reeducated or eliminated at all.
And today there’s no difference all those who are opposing the EU model are considered as Fascist, racist, the Politically Correct it’s a method invented by the ‘democratic’ left wing to silenced the opponent, in the USA as in U.K. too cultural minorities are launched to smash statues or to attack conservative, republicans whatever.
EU built and supported by former communist leaders is not a case that has taken several dictatorial and antidemocratic aspects plus the idea of internationalism it’s been exchanged with globalization that the left wing embrace it at all ignoring or maybe pretending to do so that the economic model of a direct control of the markets over all regardless of different ethnic people had created acute tensions as the Greece crisis or the Brexit referendum indeed.
I will examine in another post the dissolution of Yugoslavia Federation as I was at college during those early days of the 90s and have memory of all what happened only a few miles from us, the genocide and the brutality of a war in the heart of continental Europe and the role of the EU diplomacy of that times, where Germany wasn’t already united at all and the fallen of the old system invested Italy too, the ruling class of that time wiped out except the Communist party who survived and changed name, sometimes I think that only apparently the West have won the cold war as meanwhile all the Western countries were occupied to fight communism the various KGB, Stasi and others have subliminally infiltrated all those intellectual who in the so called second Republic period of Italy occupied key position in the educational system and from there all the rest, mainstream, jurisdictional system, of course the same thing happened in the U.S.A the expression of a Deep State controlling political process regardless of people democratic will it’s quite spread all over the world. The dissolution of a fake federal state as it was Yugoslavia it’s an important lesson we have to consider also to understand the importance of why we have to stop the mass immigration ongoing process that It’s installing masses of different ethnics groups with different values and religion too capable to destabilize the national equilibrium of the native people of Europe.