The Replacement of Economic Elites in Slovenia after World War II

Abstract

Abstract The replacement of elites was integral to the adoption of a centrally planned economy based on the Soviet model. As a result of the changes in the political and economic system pre-war elites were completely stripped of their social functions, and their members were politically and socially marginalised as individuals. The ways in which elites were recruited changed. Education or expertise did not remain crucial factors in the recruitment process, evident in the fact that in 1948 as much as 68 percent of the leading cadre of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had only primary school education, while an additional ten per cent had not even completed this level of education. Political loyalty in the form of Communist party membership was the most important criterion. In the centralised structure of that time individual members of the Communist Party leadership also played an extremely important role. A large group of collaborators and supporters formed around them, who then occupied the leading positions at various levels of economic life.