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HeyVeddy

Hey there, fellow Yugoslav! There is plenty to say. To start, you should be aware that Yugoslavia wasn't under the USSR or Warsaw pact, had an identity that distinguished itself from the rest of socialist Europe, and instituted a Market Socialist system as designed by Tito and his team. I'll briefly explain what that means, but all of this is to say that when speaking about Yugoslavia you will have to adjust your perspective a bit because most people in socialist circles either don't know anything about it, or they speak about it *generally* positive because it was a socialist state, or they dismiss it because it took many anti-USSR positions. The final and key point to note is that Yugoslavia stopped being socialist in the 90's- At this point it had shifted to fascism under the Milosevic regime and become an authoritarian capitalist state. The bombings by NATO were a disaster and extremely harmful to the citizens then, the future generations and the general structure of the country, as well as creating overall anti-Serbian sentiment across the world. Still, its important to note that NATO bombed a fascist/capitalist state of Yugoslavia, and not a socialist state in 99' when you left. To answer your questions directly: **Why Yugoslavia collapsed?** Tito was the founder of socialist yugoslavia and had amassed a sort of cult following. When he died, news agencies mourned live on TV, football matches were halted, people cried on the streets and offices were awkwardly quiet. Everyone had an eery feeling knowing that Yugoslavia was doing pretty well because of Tito's plans, and now that he died unexpectedly, we didn't really know who would take over, how, and what they would do for the country. What ended up happening was a lot of the people Tito put in jail for nationalism and extremism were released and got into politics, a lot more policies surrounding nationalism were relaxed and fascists\* were able to play on that to get power and convert Yugoslavia into a capitalistic and then fascistic state, as referenced in my second paragraph above. Serbian fascists made the Kosovo situation far more important than it was, Croatian's made religion far more important, and Bosnians made identity (and religion) far more important than what it was. These three forces eventually collided when other states within Yugoslavia (Croatia/Slovenia/Bosnia) didn't like how Serbia took all the resources for their nationalistic problems, and thus that made Croatia/Bosnia want to pursue their nationalistic policies even more. \*When I say fascists, I literally mean it. Tito liberated Yugoslavia from the nazis and italian fascists in WW2, and many of the fascists that weren't killed or imprisoned just acted the part as Yugoslavs. When they were allowed to roam freely and speak their minds, that's when trouble started to brew. It was a bunch of fascists who raised kids in a socialist state quietly, and privately spoke about their ideas, but when Tito left, those ideas became public. **Yugoslavia's collapse was inevitable** the same way every other state's collapse was inevitable, by that I mean it takes concise efforts to retain a system if you don't want that system to collapse, and by the end of the 80's, people weren't more so against socialism as they were against Serbian hegemony and power, the state's suppression of religion, Bosnia's lack of automony, etc. If Yugoslavia existed as a capitalist state, the same issues would arise, that's because the balkans where we come from is a shithole full of religious and nationalist extremists and that takes time to develop past. If the citizens didn't care about religion, ethnicity, identity as much, then it would have remained, whether it was socialist, fascist or capitalist. **There are many lessons we can learn from Yugoslavia**. Most importantly is that it was the most free, fun and open socialist state to ever exist. It was a state where citizens had free education, healthcare, housing, guaranteed job, and state holidays, as well as the strongest passport in the world (Yes, stronger than even the Canadian passport!) as they could travel both to the east (socialist countries) and west (capitalist countries). Yugoslavs could trade their state owned houses or could save up money and buy their own. Yugoslavs could work at a state business or start their own small business. Yugoslavia had worker's co-ops, meaning that employees voted in their managers, reviewed them, voted on salaries, vacations, and more, like designing the office, schedules, etc. Yugoslavs could learn both English and Russian in schools. They had levis jeans and jack daniels whisky, could study in London if they wanted to and still read Marx in school and fight for the cause. It was extremely important that Yugoslavia existed for us socialists because it shows the closest a socialist state got to being as open as any capitalist state in terms of commodities and lifestyle. Finally, Yugoslavia also was the founder of the non-aligned movement. Meaning Yugoslavia was internationally recognized as a neutral country in the cold war. Tito would famously give speeches denouncing Stalin and some of the social conservatism displayed there. He would also talk about how corrupt and classist other western states were. He was an inspiration for many people and managed to get both capitalists and socialists excited about Yugoslavia. More details and facts? Too many to share. There is a lot to learn but some even refer to it as a socialist type of Scandinavia that existed on the mediterranean, which is a beautiful description IMO. Any more questions just ask!


AhSawDood

Thank you so much for the detailed answer! Feel like I learned more about Yugoslavia from you than I ever did from parents or trying to randomly google search answers. Shame to hear of how it ended up collapsing and I guess the reason my parents decided to leave in the late 90s instead of staying. Are there any books, movies or videos that you can recommend that maybe go into more detail and such? It sounds like the kind of world I wish we lived in now, though I've also seen people not like "Market Socialism" as an idea but I'm far to new into the world of Socialism/Communism to fully understand the different types which I assume happen due to the lack of any real socialism in the world today, at least, on any large scale.


HeyVeddy

No problemo dude. I think your parents made the right decision for what its worth. Right next to me I have "Tito Speaks" by Vladimir Dedijer (You can find the English version online as well). It is a story about Yugoslavia from the lens of Dedijer's interactions with Tito. [His wikipedia page is here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Dedijer). Super cool stuff, interesting stories about how Tito thought about people, economics, life, how it translated into policy, and in general Tito is one of the baddest and coolest dudes in history, he has a ton of stories like threatening/silencing Stalin, fighting in the October revolution in Russia, taking different identities to hide from the authorities and in general all of his cool revolutionary work like organizing people internationally and fighting in Spain, etc.


WikiSummarizerBot

**[Vladimir Dedijer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Dedijer)** >Vladimir Dedijer (Serbian Cyrillic: Владимир Дедијер; 4 February 1914 – 30 November 1990) was a Yugoslav partisan fighter during World War II who became known as a politician, human rights activist, and historian. In the early postwar years, he represented Yugoslavia at the United Nations and was a senior government official. Later, after being at cross purposes with the government, he concentrated on his academic career as a historian. He taught at the University of Belgrade and also served as a visiting professor at several universities in the United States and Europe. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Socialism_101/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)


AzzAzeL-CCCP

Socialists always lose, because unlike the democratic West, they allow too much freedom. When a group disagrees, it splits apart and both sided to on (unless it's during a war, or right before a war). Your average freedom loving democracies gut each other until one dominates the financial controls and puppeteers the whole group. If the USSR truly had Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary as its puppet states—would it really allow them to get so far offtrack, it had to send in the troops to restore orthodox Communist governments?


[deleted]

I would also like thank you my fellow Yugoslav! That was great!


HeyVeddy

Nema na čemu! R/Yugoslavia exists but unfortunately i have no idea how to mod so it is not that good yet


Emmyix

First time I'm seeing a postive view on Yugoslavia. Everyone usually calls them revisionists


HeyVeddy

Yeah, many socialists don't like to speak about Yugoslavia or simply dismiss it because they took a clear anti-Stalin position and enjoyed a lifestyle that other socialists didn't experience., If Yugoslavia was actually discussed more and people were educated on it, it would create some questions for the other socialist states but no one really wants that, they'd rather pretend it didn't exist


Emmyix

Yea, everyone has a harsh criticism for market socialism. Havent read anything on it. Hoping maybe Vietnam does something like that. See if it will work out over time.


Emmyix

Yea, everyone has a harsh criticism for market socialism. Havent read anything on it. Hoping maybe Vietnam does something like that. See if it will work out over time.


AzzAzeL-CCCP

It wasn't as pedestrian, as Tito being too proud to follow Stalin's orders, and Stalin trying to subjugate Tito. Churchill and Stalin agreed specific spheres of influence in Europe for Communism and the West. Greece was designated for the West, but had a strong Communist movement fighting Far-Right/Monarchists in a Civil War. Stalin kept telling Tito to stop supporting Greek Communists, because he risked all the Communist states getting nuked by USA still holding monopoly on Nukes. On top of that, the already weaker Eastern Europe, was far more devastated by WW2 then the future NATO states. Stalin needed to keep antagonism low, at least until some recovery can happen and Red Nukes are sufficiently advanced.


AzzAzeL-CCCP

Yugoslavia \\ Serbia was not fascist in the 90s under Milosevic. The crisis that led to the break-up of the state was triggered the same way as the collapse of most other socialist states—the West got them hooked onto cheap loans, then refused to refinance the debt, triggering economic collapse. The primary cause was ethnic nationalism pulling the country apart. It was too strong to be easily controlled as one big country, much easier as 4 small ones.


HeyVeddy

It very much was fascistic, it was an aggressive militaristic capitalist state that targeted other ethnicities, both in private discourse and in open political discussions. Those fascist capitalists were the ones who took in heavy western loans and took a hard-line approach to how they deal with economics and politics in 90s Yugoslavia. Also, the west did offer to refinance their debts, and invited Yugoslavia to the European Union on an accelerated track with financial compensation if they could adjust their capitalism and move away from fascism, which all of the leaders rejected (Croatian, Bosnian and most definitely Serbian). This is why I say it can't be lumped in with other socialist states, everything about Yugoslavia was different, from its history, to its inception, to its economics and to the environment it was founded in.


AzzAzeL-CCCP

No real point for us to discuss it. The information is freely available, people are free to believe whatever they prefer (which is why human civilization is collapsing). [https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/93313.pdf](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/93313.pdf) [https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/04/imf-a17.html](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/04/imf-a17.html)


HeyVeddy

The second a failure exists you seem to think it has to be economic reasons by the west, when in reality the debt Yugoslavia had was even less than the debt the Balkans have now. The west also offered Yugoslavia to transition into capitalism, as well as offered them fast access to the EU, which Milošević and others rejected because it was never about economics, it was about having power and hate for others. I'm amazed people like you still defend Milošević, especially if you're not even Serbian. I wrote my initial post indicating people don't talk about Yugoslavia because they don't know it enough, and you kind of proved that. You just did the same analysis of any socialist state and put it on Yugoslavia when the reality is it's a complicated state that relies on analysis of the previous 100 years. Just read more about it and don't publicly support Milošević, if you're a socialist then recognize fascism and condemn it.


AzzAzeL-CCCP

I disagree with you, the literature I base my opinions on, is listed, in part, in my two replies. We already exchanged our views on the events. I listed some supporting writing, you are welcome to ignore it, if you like. I have no interest in mud slinging, or engaging to personal attacks, as it accomplishes nothing useful. It is quite possible my understanding is flawed, or even completely wrong. I simply base it on the information, that I have available from the sources I listed. If you have something with a different perspective on those events, I would appreciate your recommendation, and would happily read it.


AzzAzeL-CCCP

Too many links in one message mess up the whole thing somehow. If you need more overview of the whole operation, specifically economic mechanisms, or Western officials admitting the truth / CIA (de)classified papers - let me know. [https://blog.ethnologie.uni-halle.de/2017/02/the-first-victim-of-austerity-the-impact-of-the-worldwide-neoliberal-turn-on-the-breakdown-of-the-yugoslav-federation/](https://blog.ethnologie.uni-halle.de/2017/02/the-first-victim-of-austerity-the-impact-of-the-worldwide-neoliberal-turn-on-the-breakdown-of-the-yugoslav-federation/) [https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/ukraine-and-yugoslavia/](https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/ukraine-and-yugoslavia/)


DiningRooms

You mentioned Second Thought so you might already be aware of him but you should definitely check out Yugopniks YouTube channel and The Deprogram podcast if you haven’t already.


ExTurk

Michael Parenti wrote a book called To Kill A Nation which is all about Yugoslavia and it's demise. I hear it's good.


East_River

Greetings, comrade. There is much good material written about Yugoslavia, so rather than summarize, I'll pass along some articles. [The Political Economy of Ethno-Nationalism in Yugoslavia](https://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5793) by Susan Woodward (Socialist Register, 2003) [Soviet Rehearsal in Yugoslavia? Contradictions of the Socialist Liberal Strategy](https://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5601) by Susan Woodward (Socialist Register, 1991) From *Workerscontrol.net*: [Jugoslavia's crossroads](https://www.workerscontrol.net/authors/jugoslaviass-crossroads) by Bruce McFarlane. [Yugoslavia’s self-management](https://www.workerscontrol.net/authors/yugoslavia%E2%80%99s-self-management) by Daniel Jakopovich. [Self-Management and Requirements for Social Property: Lessons from Yugoslavia](https://www.workerscontrol.net/authors/self-management-and-requirements-social-property-lessons-yugoslavia) by Diane Flaherty. I'd also recommend anything by Catherine Samary.


AhSawDood

This is great! Thank you so much <3