Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs: the roots of the crisis

Abstract

Up to the 1970s, Yugoslavia was regarded as a success. It symbolized a Third Way between Soviet-style communism and Western economics. Now it is set to disintegrate, perhaps into civil war. What went wrong? Paul Lendvai traces the roots of the problem in the failure of the first Yugoslav state founded after the First World War. Since Tito's death in 1980, to the old quarrels between Serbs and Croats has been added a new clash between Serbian nationalism and ethnic Albanians in the south, worsened as centrifugal tensions grew within the state party. As national ambitions have revived, Slovenia and Croatia are set in a head-on clash with Serbia over secession, and in Serbia itself demands are surfacing for liberalization. Nationalism has not succeeded in short-circuiting demands for political reform, Lendvai writes, but the outlook for the Yugoslav state is poor.