ECONOMIC PROGRAM OF THE YUGOSLAV PEOPLE’S PARTY

Abstract

The economic program of the Yugoslav People’s Party (YPP) represented an attempt to formulate an alternative to the economic and social policy of the regime of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the early 1930s. Starting from the belief that the essence of the state’s crisis lies in the alliance between the political elite and big capital, the ideologists of the YPP sought to affirm the idea of a «society of social justice» - a system in which the interests of the peasantry, workers and craftsmen would be protected from the abuses of oligarchic and cartel structures. Although the YPP emphasized social justice and the fight against corruption in its rhetoric, rather than a revolutionary reorganization of property relations, its radical anti-capitalist discourse, populism, and reliance on physical force in political confrontations led to a contradictory public attitude towards it – wavering between perception as a leftist, almost communist group, and as a right-wing - fascist movement. This is precisely the paradox of the JNS’s ideological position: although it strived for social justice, it remained trapped in the forms of the authoritarian political culture of the era.