As someone who witnessed the collapse of the former Yugoslavia firsthand, I find your three-step approach succinct. However, it doesn't answer the question: Was an alternative path for Yugoslavia possible? And is the 1974 constitution truly ground zero? From its inception, the idea of a country that encompasses the South Slavs, Yugoslavia, has always had a con/federal essence. Fast forwarding to the '70s, I remember being shocked by the mandatory high school reading of Kardelj's writings, in which he predicted the dissolution of Yugoslavia as a logical and unavoidable step in its development. It was wrapped up in, for me at least, an incomprehensible line of argument, but it was there in black and white (as they say in what was then called the Croato-Serbian language). At the same time, Croatian "soft" nationalists were receiving long prison sentences for claiming the same thing. My question is: Was there an alternative for a country like Yugoslavia?
I do not know/remember that particular writing of Kardelj. However, if I were to gess, I would say that K's writing was couched in terms of the state as general losing all importance ("withering away of the state" which is in Marx), not necessarily the withering away of SFRJ. That is, the associated producers will take away all the state functions. As for the alternatve path, it is difficult to say. Yugoslavia was always a bit of an artificial construct. It was not an "organic" community. But many artificial constrcts survive. But they are brittle.
The Constitution of the SFRY from 1974 disturbed Serbian nationalists in particular. Nationalists were upset by the "confederate" decision-making principle "one republic - one vote" in the constitution; they demanded the decision-making principle "one citizen - one vote". Seen from their perspective, the request to change the way of decision-making and representation in federal institutions was logical for the Serbian population represented approximately 36% of the population of the SFRY (according to the 1991 population census), and with the new way of decision-making, Serbian political decision-makers would gain political weight, while when the representatives of other less numerous Yugoslav nations and republics would have lost them. They also demanded a unitary Serbia, in other words - the abolition of the autonomy of the provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo.
Milosevic came to power in 1987 and included the abovementioned goals in his "anti-bureaucratic revolution". In 1988 and 1989, the latter took away the leadership and autonomy of the two provinces. Milosevic also managed to "export" the "revolution" to Montenegro, where it replaced the republic's leadership and practically turned the Republic of Montenegro into an annexe of Serbia.
The Albanian majority in Kosovo reacted most harshly to Milosevic's "revolution" - first with demonstrations, then with the formation of armed groups and terrorist actions. The results of the "revolution" in Kosovo were only ended by NATO in 1999 (10 years after the abolition of Kosovo's autonomy) with the bombing of Serbia and Montenegro and the withdrawal of the Serbian-Montenegrin army and police from the region.
In the 1980s, Milosevic was also opposed by the political leadership in Slovenia, who warned that Milosevic’s attack on constitutional principles was playing with the fate of Yugoslavia. The Slovenian authorities and the then emerging "democratic" opposition in Slovenia supported the rebellion of the Kosovar Albanians. The political aggravation between the "treasonous" Slovenia and Serbia grew into an economic "war" (Serbia introduced customs duties on Slovenian products and thereby initiated the disintegration of the internal Yugoslav market). Despite this, the authorities in Slovenia did not lose faith in Yugoslavia. On the contrary, they wanted to reform Yugoslavia. In 1989, the Slovenian communists adopted the "Europe Now" program, which implied a political and economic system change and would bring Yugoslavia closer to the liberal democratic European Community. At that time, the member states of the European Community were in the phase of negotiations regarding the deepening of integration; the talks ended in 1992 with the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty, which established the European Union. The program "Europe Now - Yugoslavia in Europe" was rejected at the 14th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in Belgrade in January 1990, and the Slovenian delegation was ridiculed. The protesting departure of the Slovenian delegation from the congress meant the breakup of the Yugoslav Communist Party and, according to some historians, the beginning of the breakup of Yugoslavia.
In Slovenia, the point of view gradually prevailed that in other republics - especially in Serbia - there is no sincere readiness for political and economic reforms and that Slovenia's "rapid" accession to "Europe" is conditioned by disunification with other Yugoslav republics. At the same time, the political top in Serbia concluded that "stubborn" Slovenia should be expelled from Yugoslavia. The expulsion of Slovenia and the "amputation" of Croatia were discussed by Milosevic and Bora Jovic, Milosevic’s closest associate, already in June 1990. In the end, Serbia did not need to expel Slovenia; Slovenia expelled itself in a referendum on independence in December 1990.
Despite the warnings of several international factors, Slovenia hastened to declare independence unilaterally. The federal Yugoslav government reacted to the declaration with a military intervention in Slovenia. The European Community, however, forced Slovenia to cancel its unilateral declaration of independence and enter into negotiations with the federal government. Slovenia was "saved" from the negotiation quandary by Milosevic, who controlled half of the collective presidency of the SFRY. The "anti-bureaucratic revolution" enabled Milosevic to make personnel changes in federal institutions and appoint loyal personnel, including to the SFRY's presidency, the collective commander-in-chief of the Yugoslav People's Army. Members of the presidency dedicated to Milosevic, together with a member of the presidency from Slovenia, voted for the withdrawal of the Yugoslav army from Slovenia. Slovenia's actual independence followed the retreat. At the same time, the withdrawal represented the announcement of new wars on the territory of the other Yugoslav republics - wars for territories and new boundaries between the republics, which Milosevic started. Milosevic lost all the wars. In 2006, Montenegro left the alliance with Serbia and, 11 years later, became a member of the NATO pact.
Milosevic’s political legacy is still alive in Serbia today. Most political parties still build their programs primarily on an ethno-nationalist agenda. The failed project of a territorially rounded Greater Serbia was replaced by the mythomaniac dream of a "Serbian world", which includes all "historical Serbian lands" and somehow also "Serbian" Kosovo. It seems that most of the political factors in Serbia - following the example of the Russian role model Putin - are still fighting for the right to live in the "glorious" medieval past.
Kravchuk was born in interwar Poland to Ukrainian peasants before the Soviet takeover. Before the takeover, and even after especially in the villages and western Ukraine in general, Russian was not spoken. So I find it hard to believe he 'never' spoke it before. Too often these claims are tossed about loosely about Ukrainian elites as if it was entirely Russified. Even Zelenskyy before being president was dominantly a Russian speaker, but it'd be false, as I've seen some claim, that he never spoke Ukrainian.
You are right. Zubok says the same thing. What I meant, but perhaps did not say it clearly, is that he never spoke Ukrainian in public, as a "political language". In addition, as you know, he supported the 1991 coup, and made a volte-face when the coup failed.
Fair enough about language, but to my knowledge Kravchuk did not back the coup. That's not to say he didn't do a volta-face. Post coup he certainty played up into the nationalist wave when he saw he could grab greater power in an independent Ukraine.
Excellent review. There is a point I found important in the book, Yeltsin Kravchuk and Nazarbayev, all understood clearly that large minorities were a huge potential time bomb. That agreement over economy and minorities for two out of the three were less important than grabbing power sooner rather than later. That time bomb in Ukraine eventually detonated, whatever one may think of VVP, he can't be held responsible for that, and reacting to the civil war in the way he has. At least that is how I see it
Sounds like Zubok's book didn't make many value judgements. Did he make any statements about endogenous vs exogenous pressures on the USSR that led to its dissolution?
Regardless of Zubok's POV, what are your thoughts on exogenous pressures on SFR Yugoslavia and/or the USSR?
Zubok thinks (and says so in the Introduction) that the dissolution of the USSR was not inevitable. A modernist reformer like Deng or Andropov+, could have reformed the economy and country and kept it together. It is possible but not easy & I think mostly because of a certain domino effect. With reforms, USSR loses Eastern Europe; but that spills inevitably into the Baltics which raises the issue of USSR territorial integrity; but if Baltics are allowed to go why stop the Ukraine etc.
"Yeltsin, who was always supportive of Baltic secessionism, and in 90 out of 100 occasions, of Ukrainian independence, nevertheless issued, two days after the failed August 1991 coup and his de facto assumption of full powers, a statement that Russia will not accept arbitrary Lenin-drawn borders with Ukraine" Very interesting! Could you please copy citation for that?
It is discussed on pp. 323-4. First, Yeltsin's declaration of 26 August 1991 that "RSFSR reserves the right to raise the Q of the revision of boundaries" with all republics except the Baltics. Then, Lukin's statement that the territories in Q were Crimea and the Donbass region. (p. 324).
With a climate of national grievance also comes an urge for self agrandissement - something from a national chauvinism playbook we've become familiar with, let us make great again, or restore some imperial claim over neighboring regions. Local historians or wordsmith national bards singing former communist peans started publishing and peddled kooky ethnocentric theories of greater Pelasgic, Thracian, Dacian unity that actually ended up in fostering enmity for some group or another.
These are all endogenous - but I was also intrigued about Zubok's observation that Gorbachev's late infatuation with Lenin didn't come with a knowledge of political economy, somehow at the opposing pole of China - where economic theory, old and new, was being recuperated. Zubok makes much of the way Gorbachev surrounded himself with cultured people that didn't have a clue how to run a country. This artistic elite that he himself fostered seems go have lost touch completly with the administrative bolts and nots of this bizarre but essential dualist payments znal and beznal that allowed the Soviet Union to circumvent capitalist strictures.
There's also an exogenous external factor that plays in the 2nd and 3rd phase - the way this dissolution or demontaža was cheered by various secessionist antistatist gurus (particularly Rothbad Murray but not only), that even started touring and lecturing during those years in Yugoslavia I think. The waning of the Soviet or Yugoslav state and disassembling of the ruling party - was instantly becoming the immediate proof that secession and escaping the fiscal and regulatory grasp of federal power was viable. These was of course just a spilt of the neoliberal Washington consensus, but a very particular anarcho libertarian one that was ready to cheer away not just the end of socialism which is saw as an abomination but of the state as such in the face of micro nationalism, startup nations and intentional communities built on ethnos and familial cohesion (thinking here on fhe analysis by Quinn Slobodian).
I found Collapse fascinating and appreciated the factual approach as a welcome contrast to the normal accounts that are heavily refracted through cold war ideological prisms from one side or the other.
The strongest message for me was the well-meaning but arrogant economic incompetence of Gorbachev. His high standing in international liberal circles reflected his uncritical admiration for Western political systems which he didn’t understand and his complete disengagement from the day-to-day economic experiences of ordinary Soviet people. Not only did he ruin the economy in his political lifetime, his naivety carried forward into even worse suffering under Yeltsin’s free market sharp shock in the 1990s.
In 1964, only 11 years after the death of the untouchable Stalin, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union deposed Khrushchev in a constitutional manner for his policy failures and the terrifying near miss of the Cuban missile crisis.
However, during the 6 years of chaos of Gorbachev’s leadership, the most that the CPSU could manage was a bungled attempt at a coup in 1991. So much had clearly changed over that 27 years and I would welcome your comments on why.
My second question is regarding China. If the Communist Party government were to be replaced there, do you think it would follow your three-step sequence and be based on a steady growth of separatism, or do you think China would remain united?
No other republics wanted to rechange thei borders. Only Serbia wage war first with Croatia and three parts of it taken and called Repiblika Srpaka Krajina. After they attakced Bosinia with full support from Serbia, and Bosnan Serbes led Karadzic and Mladic under whose commend the Serbs
commited heavy war crimes. It is big difference in the ways of Yugoslav cases and Soviet Union.
Great work by Zubok (and a great review as well!), but I wonder what you think about the end results? I am inclined to think the collapse of Yugoslavia a tragedy, but am rather ambivalent about the end of the USSR. Can we say that it was ultimately good for democracy and national identity?
I would that here is exactly the spot where foreign meddling can be plugged in into the model of dissolution. To clarify - there is a school of thought that claims that it was all about foreign meddling, which obviously doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and can exist only by ignoring the evidence of general sclerosis in soviet and Yugoslav government structures.
However the opposite school of thought, that claims that foreign meddling wasn’t there or didn’t matter, and which gained currency in the 90s, is also clearly wrong based on evidence that emerged in the 10’s. I am not aware of a single book that brings all those revelations about prominent dissident figures basically working directly, or at least getting support from, CIA and its fronts, but it was coming hard and fast in the newspapers in such quantity that it has become safe to assume that this or that “dissident” was at least approached by the spooks, rather than not.
As for nationalists - it’s most visible in the case of Ukraine where they stopped being shy about it after the first maidan in 2004. Half the government was either related or direct descendants of banderovtsy who fled to USA and Canada in the 40-50s after their defeat. The docs about their organisation being run by the CIA the US after the end of the war were declassified in the 90s. A bunch of them, or their kids, came back after independence and formed a vocal and powerful group in power, and later pretty much took over in the 00’s.
The story is exactly the same for the Baltics, very similar for Georgia , Armenia. I unfortunately just don’t know about Azerbaijan and the stans in Central Asia .
I find it hard to believe that foreign meddling was responsible for the breakup of Yugoslavia.
It took some time for the secessionist republics to gain international recognition. One would expect that the foreign meddlers would recognize them sooner, rather than later.
There was a war and secessionist republics were under the international weapon sales embargo. One would expect that the foreign meddlers would arm them a lot better, otherwise the whole secession business becomes very questionable.
As far as I know all foreign powers were against the dissolution of Yugoslavia because it would create instability and they had nothing to gain from that.
I agree that both break-ups were essentially domestically-induced and driven. Foreigners (esp. US and later Germany) began to play a more important role, I think, from 1987 onward. Two reasons: the collapse of the federal center in Yugoslavia and increasing irrelevance of the USSR. For example, US ambassadors' behavior in SFRJ after Milosevic came to power is impossible to imagine in a Titoism Yugoslavia when they never spoke on internal Yugoslav matters. But the reason for that is the country was already. falling apart.
As someone who witnessed the collapse of the former Yugoslavia firsthand, I find your three-step approach succinct. However, it doesn't answer the question: Was an alternative path for Yugoslavia possible? And is the 1974 constitution truly ground zero? From its inception, the idea of a country that encompasses the South Slavs, Yugoslavia, has always had a con/federal essence. Fast forwarding to the '70s, I remember being shocked by the mandatory high school reading of Kardelj's writings, in which he predicted the dissolution of Yugoslavia as a logical and unavoidable step in its development. It was wrapped up in, for me at least, an incomprehensible line of argument, but it was there in black and white (as they say in what was then called the Croato-Serbian language). At the same time, Croatian "soft" nationalists were receiving long prison sentences for claiming the same thing. My question is: Was there an alternative for a country like Yugoslavia?
I do not know/remember that particular writing of Kardelj. However, if I were to gess, I would say that K's writing was couched in terms of the state as general losing all importance ("withering away of the state" which is in Marx), not necessarily the withering away of SFRJ. That is, the associated producers will take away all the state functions. As for the alternatve path, it is difficult to say. Yugoslavia was always a bit of an artificial construct. It was not an "organic" community. But many artificial constrcts survive. But they are brittle.
The Constitution of the SFRY from 1974 disturbed Serbian nationalists in particular. Nationalists were upset by the "confederate" decision-making principle "one republic - one vote" in the constitution; they demanded the decision-making principle "one citizen - one vote". Seen from their perspective, the request to change the way of decision-making and representation in federal institutions was logical for the Serbian population represented approximately 36% of the population of the SFRY (according to the 1991 population census), and with the new way of decision-making, Serbian political decision-makers would gain political weight, while when the representatives of other less numerous Yugoslav nations and republics would have lost them. They also demanded a unitary Serbia, in other words - the abolition of the autonomy of the provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo.
Milosevic came to power in 1987 and included the abovementioned goals in his "anti-bureaucratic revolution". In 1988 and 1989, the latter took away the leadership and autonomy of the two provinces. Milosevic also managed to "export" the "revolution" to Montenegro, where it replaced the republic's leadership and practically turned the Republic of Montenegro into an annexe of Serbia.
The Albanian majority in Kosovo reacted most harshly to Milosevic's "revolution" - first with demonstrations, then with the formation of armed groups and terrorist actions. The results of the "revolution" in Kosovo were only ended by NATO in 1999 (10 years after the abolition of Kosovo's autonomy) with the bombing of Serbia and Montenegro and the withdrawal of the Serbian-Montenegrin army and police from the region.
In the 1980s, Milosevic was also opposed by the political leadership in Slovenia, who warned that Milosevic’s attack on constitutional principles was playing with the fate of Yugoslavia. The Slovenian authorities and the then emerging "democratic" opposition in Slovenia supported the rebellion of the Kosovar Albanians. The political aggravation between the "treasonous" Slovenia and Serbia grew into an economic "war" (Serbia introduced customs duties on Slovenian products and thereby initiated the disintegration of the internal Yugoslav market). Despite this, the authorities in Slovenia did not lose faith in Yugoslavia. On the contrary, they wanted to reform Yugoslavia. In 1989, the Slovenian communists adopted the "Europe Now" program, which implied a political and economic system change and would bring Yugoslavia closer to the liberal democratic European Community. At that time, the member states of the European Community were in the phase of negotiations regarding the deepening of integration; the talks ended in 1992 with the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty, which established the European Union. The program "Europe Now - Yugoslavia in Europe" was rejected at the 14th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in Belgrade in January 1990, and the Slovenian delegation was ridiculed. The protesting departure of the Slovenian delegation from the congress meant the breakup of the Yugoslav Communist Party and, according to some historians, the beginning of the breakup of Yugoslavia.
In Slovenia, the point of view gradually prevailed that in other republics - especially in Serbia - there is no sincere readiness for political and economic reforms and that Slovenia's "rapid" accession to "Europe" is conditioned by disunification with other Yugoslav republics. At the same time, the political top in Serbia concluded that "stubborn" Slovenia should be expelled from Yugoslavia. The expulsion of Slovenia and the "amputation" of Croatia were discussed by Milosevic and Bora Jovic, Milosevic’s closest associate, already in June 1990. In the end, Serbia did not need to expel Slovenia; Slovenia expelled itself in a referendum on independence in December 1990.
Despite the warnings of several international factors, Slovenia hastened to declare independence unilaterally. The federal Yugoslav government reacted to the declaration with a military intervention in Slovenia. The European Community, however, forced Slovenia to cancel its unilateral declaration of independence and enter into negotiations with the federal government. Slovenia was "saved" from the negotiation quandary by Milosevic, who controlled half of the collective presidency of the SFRY. The "anti-bureaucratic revolution" enabled Milosevic to make personnel changes in federal institutions and appoint loyal personnel, including to the SFRY's presidency, the collective commander-in-chief of the Yugoslav People's Army. Members of the presidency dedicated to Milosevic, together with a member of the presidency from Slovenia, voted for the withdrawal of the Yugoslav army from Slovenia. Slovenia's actual independence followed the retreat. At the same time, the withdrawal represented the announcement of new wars on the territory of the other Yugoslav republics - wars for territories and new boundaries between the republics, which Milosevic started. Milosevic lost all the wars. In 2006, Montenegro left the alliance with Serbia and, 11 years later, became a member of the NATO pact.
Milosevic’s political legacy is still alive in Serbia today. Most political parties still build their programs primarily on an ethno-nationalist agenda. The failed project of a territorially rounded Greater Serbia was replaced by the mythomaniac dream of a "Serbian world", which includes all "historical Serbian lands" and somehow also "Serbian" Kosovo. It seems that most of the political factors in Serbia - following the example of the Russian role model Putin - are still fighting for the right to live in the "glorious" medieval past.
Kravchuk was born in interwar Poland to Ukrainian peasants before the Soviet takeover. Before the takeover, and even after especially in the villages and western Ukraine in general, Russian was not spoken. So I find it hard to believe he 'never' spoke it before. Too often these claims are tossed about loosely about Ukrainian elites as if it was entirely Russified. Even Zelenskyy before being president was dominantly a Russian speaker, but it'd be false, as I've seen some claim, that he never spoke Ukrainian.
You are right. Zubok says the same thing. What I meant, but perhaps did not say it clearly, is that he never spoke Ukrainian in public, as a "political language". In addition, as you know, he supported the 1991 coup, and made a volte-face when the coup failed.
Fair enough about language, but to my knowledge Kravchuk did not back the coup. That's not to say he didn't do a volta-face. Post coup he certainty played up into the nationalist wave when he saw he could grab greater power in an independent Ukraine.
Excellent review. There is a point I found important in the book, Yeltsin Kravchuk and Nazarbayev, all understood clearly that large minorities were a huge potential time bomb. That agreement over economy and minorities for two out of the three were less important than grabbing power sooner rather than later. That time bomb in Ukraine eventually detonated, whatever one may think of VVP, he can't be held responsible for that, and reacting to the civil war in the way he has. At least that is how I see it
Sounds like Zubok's book didn't make many value judgements. Did he make any statements about endogenous vs exogenous pressures on the USSR that led to its dissolution?
Regardless of Zubok's POV, what are your thoughts on exogenous pressures on SFR Yugoslavia and/or the USSR?
Zubok thinks (and says so in the Introduction) that the dissolution of the USSR was not inevitable. A modernist reformer like Deng or Andropov+, could have reformed the economy and country and kept it together. It is possible but not easy & I think mostly because of a certain domino effect. With reforms, USSR loses Eastern Europe; but that spills inevitably into the Baltics which raises the issue of USSR territorial integrity; but if Baltics are allowed to go why stop the Ukraine etc.
"Yeltsin, who was always supportive of Baltic secessionism, and in 90 out of 100 occasions, of Ukrainian independence, nevertheless issued, two days after the failed August 1991 coup and his de facto assumption of full powers, a statement that Russia will not accept arbitrary Lenin-drawn borders with Ukraine" Very interesting! Could you please copy citation for that?
It is discussed on pp. 323-4. First, Yeltsin's declaration of 26 August 1991 that "RSFSR reserves the right to raise the Q of the revision of boundaries" with all republics except the Baltics. Then, Lukin's statement that the territories in Q were Crimea and the Donbass region. (p. 324).
thanks! will check it out!
With a climate of national grievance also comes an urge for self agrandissement - something from a national chauvinism playbook we've become familiar with, let us make great again, or restore some imperial claim over neighboring regions. Local historians or wordsmith national bards singing former communist peans started publishing and peddled kooky ethnocentric theories of greater Pelasgic, Thracian, Dacian unity that actually ended up in fostering enmity for some group or another.
These are all endogenous - but I was also intrigued about Zubok's observation that Gorbachev's late infatuation with Lenin didn't come with a knowledge of political economy, somehow at the opposing pole of China - where economic theory, old and new, was being recuperated. Zubok makes much of the way Gorbachev surrounded himself with cultured people that didn't have a clue how to run a country. This artistic elite that he himself fostered seems go have lost touch completly with the administrative bolts and nots of this bizarre but essential dualist payments znal and beznal that allowed the Soviet Union to circumvent capitalist strictures.
There's also an exogenous external factor that plays in the 2nd and 3rd phase - the way this dissolution or demontaža was cheered by various secessionist antistatist gurus (particularly Rothbad Murray but not only), that even started touring and lecturing during those years in Yugoslavia I think. The waning of the Soviet or Yugoslav state and disassembling of the ruling party - was instantly becoming the immediate proof that secession and escaping the fiscal and regulatory grasp of federal power was viable. These was of course just a spilt of the neoliberal Washington consensus, but a very particular anarcho libertarian one that was ready to cheer away not just the end of socialism which is saw as an abomination but of the state as such in the face of micro nationalism, startup nations and intentional communities built on ethnos and familial cohesion (thinking here on fhe analysis by Quinn Slobodian).
I found Collapse fascinating and appreciated the factual approach as a welcome contrast to the normal accounts that are heavily refracted through cold war ideological prisms from one side or the other.
The strongest message for me was the well-meaning but arrogant economic incompetence of Gorbachev. His high standing in international liberal circles reflected his uncritical admiration for Western political systems which he didn’t understand and his complete disengagement from the day-to-day economic experiences of ordinary Soviet people. Not only did he ruin the economy in his political lifetime, his naivety carried forward into even worse suffering under Yeltsin’s free market sharp shock in the 1990s.
In 1964, only 11 years after the death of the untouchable Stalin, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union deposed Khrushchev in a constitutional manner for his policy failures and the terrifying near miss of the Cuban missile crisis.
However, during the 6 years of chaos of Gorbachev’s leadership, the most that the CPSU could manage was a bungled attempt at a coup in 1991. So much had clearly changed over that 27 years and I would welcome your comments on why.
My second question is regarding China. If the Communist Party government were to be replaced there, do you think it would follow your three-step sequence and be based on a steady growth of separatism, or do you think China would remain united?
No other republics wanted to rechange thei borders. Only Serbia wage war first with Croatia and three parts of it taken and called Repiblika Srpaka Krajina. After they attakced Bosinia with full support from Serbia, and Bosnan Serbes led Karadzic and Mladic under whose commend the Serbs
commited heavy war crimes. It is big difference in the ways of Yugoslav cases and Soviet Union.
Great work by Zubok (and a great review as well!), but I wonder what you think about the end results? I am inclined to think the collapse of Yugoslavia a tragedy, but am rather ambivalent about the end of the USSR. Can we say that it was ultimately good for democracy and national identity?
I would that here is exactly the spot where foreign meddling can be plugged in into the model of dissolution. To clarify - there is a school of thought that claims that it was all about foreign meddling, which obviously doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and can exist only by ignoring the evidence of general sclerosis in soviet and Yugoslav government structures.
However the opposite school of thought, that claims that foreign meddling wasn’t there or didn’t matter, and which gained currency in the 90s, is also clearly wrong based on evidence that emerged in the 10’s. I am not aware of a single book that brings all those revelations about prominent dissident figures basically working directly, or at least getting support from, CIA and its fronts, but it was coming hard and fast in the newspapers in such quantity that it has become safe to assume that this or that “dissident” was at least approached by the spooks, rather than not.
As for nationalists - it’s most visible in the case of Ukraine where they stopped being shy about it after the first maidan in 2004. Half the government was either related or direct descendants of banderovtsy who fled to USA and Canada in the 40-50s after their defeat. The docs about their organisation being run by the CIA the US after the end of the war were declassified in the 90s. A bunch of them, or their kids, came back after independence and formed a vocal and powerful group in power, and later pretty much took over in the 00’s.
The story is exactly the same for the Baltics, very similar for Georgia , Armenia. I unfortunately just don’t know about Azerbaijan and the stans in Central Asia .
I find it hard to believe that foreign meddling was responsible for the breakup of Yugoslavia.
It took some time for the secessionist republics to gain international recognition. One would expect that the foreign meddlers would recognize them sooner, rather than later.
There was a war and secessionist republics were under the international weapon sales embargo. One would expect that the foreign meddlers would arm them a lot better, otherwise the whole secession business becomes very questionable.
As far as I know all foreign powers were against the dissolution of Yugoslavia because it would create instability and they had nothing to gain from that.
I agree that both break-ups were essentially domestically-induced and driven. Foreigners (esp. US and later Germany) began to play a more important role, I think, from 1987 onward. Two reasons: the collapse of the federal center in Yugoslavia and increasing irrelevance of the USSR. For example, US ambassadors' behavior in SFRJ after Milosevic came to power is impossible to imagine in a Titoism Yugoslavia when they never spoke on internal Yugoslav matters. But the reason for that is the country was already. falling apart.
Interesting insight into how large States can disappear.
Democracy as explained by Burnham is a legitimating symbol for anything bigger than a city State. The people cannot exert sovereignty the way a monarch or an elite can. https://polsci.substack.com/p/the-machiavellians-defenders-of-freedom