Regional Development In Communist Yugoslavia

Success, Failure, And Consequences

Dijana Plestina

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367285449
• eBook ISBN: 9781000309430
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The brutal war now raging in what was Yugoslavia, the author argues, is fueled not merely by interethnic hatred but also by longstanding disparities in economic well-being among republics and regions. The Communist leadership, having stated its intention when it took power to eliminate economic disparities, nonetheless failed to confront the conflict of interests that distorted the country's economic policy—and thus never worked out a coherent strategy for regional development. Interregional tensions were inflamed by the failure to close the gap between wealthy and poor areas, directly contributing to the breakup of the country. Basing her argument on longitudinal data and on in-depth interviews with Yugoslav leaders at federal and regional levels (Milovan Djilas, Svetozar Vukmanovic-Tempo, Bosko Gluscevic, Hasan Zolic, and several dozen others), Dijana PleÅ¡tina examines and assesses the economic inequalities as well as the effects that the leadership's regional policies had on them. She shows that despite the mandate for equalization that was part of socialist doctrine, Yugoslav leaders were at first unwilling, and later unable, to formulate policies that would enhance the economic well-being of the poorest regions. Instead, they adopted a strategy of "top-down" growth, which enhanced the further development of the wealthier regions. Later, partially in an effort to placate the disadvantaged, they shifted funds to some of the less-developed regions. Rather than promoting equality, such ad hoc "solutions" fostered competition for scarce resources and intensified political cleavages. PleÅ¡tina also looks at how the devolution of decisionmaking from central to regional levels, designed to increase government legitimacy and efficiency, actually provided an opportunity for regional leaders to build independent power bases. This trend, in conjunction with the economic slump of the 1980s, further eroded the unity of the federation.

1
Historical Antecedents of Regional Inequality

Introduction

One of the most striking features of the former Yugoslavia was the extent of the country's diversity. With eight political units, seven borders, six republics-one for each of the six recognized nations-and a population speaking four main languages, following three religions and using two different alphabets, further subdivided between the wealthier, historically more industrialized, Catholic, European-oriented and influenced northwest (Slovenia, Croatia and Vojvodina) and the poorer, peasant, Orthodox or Islamic southeast (Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Kosovo), Yugoslavia was easily the most heterogeneous country in Europe.

This heterogeneity can be seen by other indicators as well. With a population of 23,559,000 Yugoslavia was comprised of twelve officially recognized nationalities inhabiting an area of 255,804 square kilometers,¹ approximately the size of the state of Wyoming. Politically and administratively it was divided into six republics and two autonomous regions which varied a great deal in size and only roughly corresponded to the ethnic and national divisions of the population.² These were, starting in the northwest and moving southeast, Slovenia, Croatia, Vojvodina, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia.³ A further division, an economic one, cut across the ethnic, national, linguistic, religious and cultural differences and bifurcated the country between a wealthier, historically more industrialized and relatively developed northwest and a poor, peasant, "Balkan" southeast. But this "north-south" division, which corresponded to the former boundaries of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires that ruled over much of this area from the twelfth and fifteenth centuries to the twentieth, should not obstruct the fact that development in Yugoslavia was highly uneven, not only along this primary axis, but also along republic and regional lines, as well as within the republics and regions.

This chapter will examine the impact of the diverse geography and history of the republics and regions which comprised the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia (FNRJ), at its creation in 1945. It will focus on the centuries-long foreign domination and the different values, cultures and institutions which resulted at all levels of societal interaction-social, political and economic. In addition, it will examine how, during the inter-war period, nationalist suspicion and distrust were added to this historical legacy of differentiated development and overall backwardness as one nation sought to politically dominate all others in the newly created Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The discussion will turn briefly to the ways in which this political repression and economic immiseration, along with the devastation of World War II and the civil war which raged simultaneously throughout, further set back the underdeveloped country. It will conclude with the formation of the second Yugoslavia, the initial obstacles faced by the communist regime and the first steps taken to create a developed socialist society.

Geography and Its Effects⁴

Running the full length of the coastline in a narrow stretch is the Adriatic Littoral with the typical Mediterranean climate of mild winters, hot summers and a heavy rainfall. Tourism has become the major "industry" in the economy of the littoral, though shipping, shipbuilding, cement making, canning and aluminum plants remain significant. Meanwhile, the historic sources of income (fishing and crops such as olives, vines, figs, almonds and citrus fruit), though retaining some importance, have been declining.

Parallel to the littoral and extending in a triangular shape across much of Bosnia-Hercegovina, all of Montenegro, southwest Serbia and northern Kosovo is the Mountainous Heartland of the country. Comprising about 25% of the total area of Yugoslavia and corresponding roughly to the Dinaric mountain range, this area is relatively sparsely populated and, because of the inaccessibility of much of the terrain, has been underused economically. Where accessibility permits, forestry, mining and stockbreeding have been the main occupations through the centuries. Some agriculture is found in the fields and valleys between the mountains; in the northeast, cereals like barley, oats, rye and buckwheat are grown, while in the southwest, vineyards, tobacco, almond trees and maize predominate. Droughts, poor drainage and an inadequate transportation system, as well as the scarcity of land suitable for agriculture, however, limit their commercial value. In more recent times (since 1945), the development of mineral resources (both ferrous and non-ferrous metals like copper, gold, silver, lead and zinc), as well as the channeling of water power for electricity, has meant rapid modernization for selected parts of the area.⁵ Historically isolated and backward, the mountainous area has been a source of some seasonal out-migration within the country, like the Serbian pecalba, and more importantly of permanent migration outside the country, notably to America. With the rapid industrialization in the post-World War II period, migration gravitated to the urban center(s) within republics and regions, with both the positive and negative effects that very rapid urbanization entails.

Adjoining the Dinaric range of the mountainous heartland are the outliners of the Rhodope Massif⁶ which form Central Serbia. The varied relief and climate of this area, which is transitional to the neighboring regions, is reflected in the diversity and distribution of crops. Wheat and maize are grown predominantly in the north and wheat, tobacco and some cotton in the south. Fruits, especially plums, are found everywhere. Cattle in the west, sheep in the south and east and pigs in the north and center round out the agricultural importance of this region. Large deposits of non-ferrous metals, chromite, magnesium, asbestos, as well as the historically important copper mines of Bor and Majdanpek, form the base of many of the industries established in the aftermath of World War II.

To the south of central Serbia is the Kosovo and Vardar Region which encompasses all of the former republic of Macedonia and autonomous region of Kosovo. A hilly area consisting of a series of basins interconnected by low mountain passes, it has relatively little land suitable for agriculture. The diversity of this region is seen by the varied climate and vegetation which range from subtropical in southeast Macedonia (where, with the help of irrigation, cotton, rice, tobacco, ground nuts and fruit-growing predominate) to the more continental climate in the northern part of the region; here cattle and stockbreeding as well as mining remain the base of the economy today as they have for centuries. Lignite, lead, zinc, silver, chrome, manganese, uranium and some low-grade brown coal are all mined throughout the region, while the lead-zinc ores of Trepce in Kosovo are among the largest deposits in Europe. It is ironic that this region, rich in the mineral deposits which form the backbone of Yugoslav industry, was and remained the least economically developed region in Yugoslavia.

To the north and east of central Serbia is the Plain of Vojvodina, the "bread basket" of the former Yugoslavia. Once the Pannonian sea, subsequently filled with alluvial deposits from rivers in the surrounding mountains, it is now, along with adjoining Slavonia (in Croatia), the richest agricultural area of the region. Wheat and maize are the main cereals, though viticulture, the raising of poultry and geese and freshwater fishing are also of importance. New industries, as well as those built up during the Hungarian rule and greatly enlarged since 1945, also center on agriculture. Processing of agricultural products —canning, sugar refining, alcohol distilling and flour milling—and the production of fertilizers, agricultural machinery and building materials round out the economy, while the excellent transportation and communications network and the natural proximity to the major markets enhance their commercial value.

To the west and north of Vojvodina are The Croatian-Slovenian Hill Lands, the oldest and still the most important industrial region of Yugoslavia. Ironworks, machinery, textiles, furniture, electrical appliances, building materials and food processing are some of the major industries which thrive in this area. The fertile loess-covered valleys and the mostly continental climate of this para-Panonian region are suitable for agriculture. With the modernization of the latter from the mid-1960s, this region assumed a position of importance in the Yugoslav economy. The overall combination of skilled labor, industrial tradition and excellent rail and road connections to all parts of Yugoslavia, including to the ports on the Adriatic, as well as to neighboring European capitals, made the Croatian-Slovenian Hill Lands the most important and, as we shall see, the most developed region of the country.

Finally, Isolated Mountain Regions are located in a number of areas along the former Yugoslav frontier, notably separating Slovenia from Italy and Austria, Macedonia from Albania and Bulgaria and Serbia from Romania and Bulgaria. Though generally poor and a source of outmigration, they typically took on the characteristics of the neighboring region. Thus, the Slovenian Alps, historically the most developed mountain region, is indistinguishable from other areas in the developed regions partly as a result of the development of tourism. In contrast, the mountain regions in southeast Serbia and those of northeast and western Macedonia have become almost depopulated, as city jobs, inevitably easier and better paying by comparison, have attracted the young and able-bodied. From the late 1970s, the regime did for strategic and security reasons make some effort at reversing this trend by facilitating work in these areas, such as setting up knitting cooperatives using wool from local sheep and starting the wool mill in Tetovo. Nevertheless, both the overall attraction of life in the city, on the one hand, and the psychological and material hardships associated with living in isolated mountain areas, on the other, limited the success of government intervention.

By isolating the mountain people while exposing those of the lowlands to easy conquest, geography had obstructed the possibility of their union. Simultaneously, as will be shown below, history had ensured that the various conquests that did take place over the centuries resulted in further fragmentation into widely differentiated patterns of socio-political rule, as well as great differences in the manner and extent of their economic development.

The Impact of History⁷

The Slavic tribes which came from trans-Carpathia to the Balkans between the sixth and tenth centuries A.D. were the last migratory wave to settle into the territory that became known as Yugoslavia. By the time of their arrival the Roman Empire had been overrun by the Lombards, and the area had already been divided for three centuries between Rome and Byzantium. The original dividing line traced by the Roman Emperor Diocletian in 285 A.D. still forms the boundary between the Western-oriented, Roman Catholic Slovenes and Croats in the northwest arid the Orthodox Serbs, Macedonians and Montenegrins of the southeast.

As various Slav tribes migrated into different regions, they established their own systems of rule, beginning with tribal communism, some progressing to larger political units which achieved periods of prominence under later near-mythologized leaders. During the four to six centuries of political independence, a number of these units developed their own cultural characteristics, political and economic institutions and national identity. These periods of political independence and expansionist greatness, which have survived in the respective collective national memory, have sporadically reappeared either in the form of a nostalgic glance backward or as political demands for the restoration to the past position of independence or even dominance.⁸ Thus, each of the six republics has had its period of greatness to look back to. For the Slovenes, this was the kingdom of Samo, circa 650 A.D., which encompassed Slovenia and parts of Austria, Czechoslovakia and southern Germany; the Serbs looked back to Tsar Dusan, who in 1345 extended the Serbian Empire to include Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, northern Greece and Bulgaria; Macedonia was at its greatest under Tsar Samuilo around 1000 A.D., Bosnia-Hercegovina under the Kotromani dynasty of the late fourteenth century; and an active and independent state of Croatia flourished from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, reaching its zenith with King Tomislav in 924 A.D.

For all, however, the period of independence was relatively shortlived. The Slovenes came under the rule of Charlemagne by the eighth century and remained under Germanic domination until World War I. The Croatians, who first came willingly under Hungarian rule in 1102,⁹ elected the Habsburgs as their kings in 1526 following the Hungarian defeat by the Turks. Thereafter they remained under Germanic rule, first under the Habsburgs until 1806, then as part of the "Austrian Empire" until 1867 and, finally, under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy until 1918. The battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389 established the Ottoman Empire in the southern part, with Serbia, Macedonia and BosniaHercegovina falli...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Map of Yugoslavia
• 1 Historical Antecedents of Regional Inequality
• 2 1950s: Centralization and the First Steps to Development
• 3 1960s: Decentralization and Reform
• 4 1970s: Institutional Change and the Price of Reform
• 5 1980s: From Decline to Disintegration
• 6 Explanations Revisited: Summary and Conclusion
• Appendix I: A Note on Methods
• Appendix II: Formal Interview Questions
• Appendix III: Names and Positions of Interviewed Yugoslav Decision-Makers for Regional Development by Republic and Region
• Selected Bibliography
• Index
• About the Book and Author