CHANGE IN THE POSITION OF AUTONOMOUS UNITS IN SERBIA AND THE BEGINNING OF SOCIALIST YUGOSLAVIA’S DISINTEGRATION (1957–1969)

Abstract

Under the cover of “new” economic and social models, Edward Kardelj utilized his position as the League of Communists’ principal ideologue to erode Yugoslavia’s unity and gradually lead it to collapse. He considered Serbia, whose interests were tied to the preservation of the Yugoslav state, as the major impediment to his ambitions being realized. Kardelj introduced the question of “national minorities in Yugoslavia” to the League of Communistis Central Committee in 1957, and Serbia’s authority in its autonomous regions was thereafter curtailed by federal party commission control. The basis for the adoption of the Constitution of Yugoslavia in 1963 was the aspiration to strengthen the statehood of the republics, with the gradual reduction of Yugoslavia to an alliance of sovereign states, with a small number of security and monetary competencies. After the Brioni Plenum, the League of Communists of Serbia lost all influence in the creation of Yugoslav state policy, which was determined by the common interests of Josip Broz, Croatian and Slovenian communists and Albanian officials from Kosovo and Metohija. Constitutional changes in the late 1960s effectively suspended Serbia’s sovereignty in the provinces. With escalating destabilization and political problems in Kosovo, and Broz and Kardelj considerably limiting Serb power to oppose separatist aspirations in Croatia and Slovenia, Serbian statehood in Yugoslavia became hazy.