Tito and Market Socialism - Cold War DOCUMENTARY
Yugoslavia held a unique position during the Cold War era the country had a complex ethnic composition which was reflected in its internal structure consisting of six socialist republics Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatia Macedonia Montenegro Serbia and Slovenia as well as the two autonomous provinces of Kosovo and voivodina the country was a dictatorship ruled by the league of Communists of Yugoslavia the lcy and its charismatic Leader Joseph Tito it was a socialist country yet unlike most of the other socialist nations of Central and Eastern Europe at the time it was not a part of Comic-Con or the Warsaw Pact I'm your host David and today we are going to take a closer look at Yugoslavia a country that placed itself somewhere between the Cold War East and the Cold War West this is the Cold War Tito kept himself safe by refusing to pick a side in the Cold War and if you want to keep your money safe then you need the sponsor of today's video Ridge wallet wallets from Ridge come with RFID blocking technology that protects you from digital pickpockets and not only do they hold up to 12 cards but they still have room for cash there are over 30 different colors and styles to choose from I Love the burnt titanium and the carbon fiber looks amazing also check out the options at ridge.com TCW now best of all Ridge also lets me organize my keys with a slim sleek and Silent key case in the same material to match my wallet but don't just take my word for it Ridge has over 50 000 5 Star reviews each wallet comes with a lifetime warranty and the ridge team is so confident you'll like it that they'll let you try it for 99 days if you don't love it just send it back and get a full refund get the best offer with ridge.com TCW and right now you can save up to 40 through December 22nd in previous episodes we've talked about the follow-up between Tito and Stalin which forced Yugoslavia out of moscow's orbit after Stalin died in a pool of his own urine however relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union were normalized there was a mutual interest to do so the USSR was interested in closing the rift with the international workers movement and Yugoslavia saw the huge and less demanding Comic-Con Market as the best place to sell its Industrial Products Yugoslavia despite its desire to be seen as an online Nation still sided with the USSR on multiple occasions when it felt it was necessary notably during the Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956 and during The Six Day War in 1967. now at the same time Yugoslavia was also open to the West the country welcomed and encouraged for an investment its borders were open well certainly more open than other eastblock nations anyway many thousands of yugoslavs worked abroad and the country was visited by millions of Western tourists in return posters for concerts of the most popular singers in the 1960s replicated those of performers like Elvis Presley a domestic soft drink cockta was produced in Slovenia in order to compete with foreign Brands like Coca-Cola in the west a policy of quote keeping Tito afloat was followed between 1950 and 1955 Yugoslavia received as much as 1.2 billion US dollars in food arms and
Machinery from the United States alone no don't get us wrong Tito is No Angel but to the West he was preferable to a Soviet presence on the Adriatic but in his search for allies Tito looked to the South rather than to the west or the east in 1954 he visited India in Burma and received a state visit from Emperor Hali Selassie of Ethiopia Tito also enjoyed a bond with Nasser and had a particularly close relationship with nehru in their joint statement in 1954 Tito nehru described their foreign policy in such terms as active peaceful coexistence non-commitment and non-engagement 1961 of course saw the first Conference of the non-aligned movement held in Belgrade attended by participants from 25 countries of Europe Asia and Africa this movement became the voice of many third world governments and for a time at least posed a challenge to Cold War by polarity for more detail please check out our video on the non-line movement diplomacy was not the only sphere in which Yugoslavia followed the Third Way its economic system Market socialism offered a middle ground between the openness of capitalism and Soviet Central planning Market socialism started with a set of economic reforms in the early 1950s which included price liberalization the abolishment of the state foreign trade Monopoly and the development of a commercial legal code our private sector was allowed but it was restricted to firms employing fewer than 10 workers most importantly though the reforms introduced something called social ownership this became one of the dominant forms of ownership in Yugoslavia and provided Enterprises with rights to be able to use their assets and appropriate their product but it retained full property rights to the state in other words factories could decide what to do with profits but they could not sell the factory building overall the state still had a lot of control over the country's development and was still able to centrally allocate Investments financed by high taxation Yugoslavian Market socialism rested on three pillars socialism the market and self-management let's start with its socialist features the Yugoslavian economy retained overall party control of the economy with Central planning although this could be rather General and flexible in nature and Collective ownership of the means of production in the form of social ownership the Yugoslavian government pursued rapid industrialization provided free education and health care and tried to reduce the differences in the level of Economic Development throughout the country to create a more economically equal country overall the second pillar the free market was never an easy topic for yugoslavia's Marxist theorists it was viewed as a necessary tool to regulate supply and demand at least in some economic branches yet its influence had to be limited so that social inequalities could not increase this conflicted with some of the Socialist ideals like personal income which had to be distributed somewhat equally but money paid for work still had to reflect the success of the product as well as individual contribution application of those principles in practice reached inevitable difficulties self-management was the third pillar the workers were allowed to elect workers councils which decided on production on inputs on hiring policies and even though to a lesser extent on prices and income distribution the councils could even appoint and remove Enterprise managers initially however self-management was rather limited as in reality both the distribution of Enterprise income and overall investment decisions remained under strict government control and workers overall decision-making rights were under a strong political influence workers wages were subject to multiple state regulations all that being said self-management still played an important role especially because of some long-term implications self-management was our reformist ideal which progressively modified the Yugoslavian economic model despite its limitations self-management gave workers the feeling that they could participate in both decision making and partake of any profits interestingly by combining the two economic models Yugoslavia suffered from the problems of both although the country did experience remarkable economic growth it was also plagued by high unemployment inflation and cyclical instability just like a capitalist economy but at the same time it struggled to find adequate economic stimulus for the common worker not atypical in many socialist economies now just to add a little spice to this the effects of the yugoslavia's political decentralization started to present themselves the authority of the republics was growing at the expense of the federal Center when a minor strike broke out in Slovenia in 1958 Slovenian leadership was accused by Tito as the instigators of the crisis allegedly using social discontent to exert pressure on the federal government federal inspectors were expelled from Croatia and even beaten in Bosnian Herzegovina several directors of Enterprises despite even Tito's intervention retained their posts through protection from Republican officials Tito's personal Authority was being obstructed and bros's position was beginning to look precarious Now by this point Tito was an old man in his late 60s and suffered from questionable Health He was largely viewed at least in domestic affairs as an observer rather than a doer by 1958 most of yugoslavia's Elites had sided with one of two potential successors Edvard carday or Alexander rankovic her day was a slovene a vice president of reformist a Visionary and quite possibly the Mind behind Market socialism not alignment and self-management in his view Yugoslavia should be less centralized the Republic should have more powers and the economy should be more Market oriented rankovic on the other hand was a Serbian and held among other posts The Head of the State security service he was often viewed as carday's complete opposite in many ways according to rankovic decentralization was yugoslavia's problem in the first place and his program was unsurprisingly recentralization the party had to be remobilized initially Tito picked rankovic Tito was never a liberal and rankovic's vision appealed to Tito rankovic was given Tito's approval and four years to restore the unity in the league of Communists in Yugoslavia he began a slow process of negotiations reaching out to other political groups making compromises no just kidding he started with purges unwanted officials had their functions reduced while loyal cadres were promoted and all the while incriminating evidence on party members was collected was fighting an uphill battle however in his quest for re-centralization he contradicted the ideology of the Yugoslavian State those same ideals of self-management that set it apart from the Eastern Bloc while rankovic got support from Tito and federal officials Carter day got his power from the republics including frankovic's home of Serbia after four years of rankovic's efforts the party was still far from United Tito had had enough on the briuni islands in 1966 Tito acted the night before the party's plenary meeting rankovic received the meeting's agenda and then suffered a heart attack he would be accused of wiring Tito's own bathroom and bedroom and preparing a takeover of the party utilizing the secret police rankovic was then stripped of all his posts in a clear sign from Yosef Bros to the rest of the party Tito was not just an observer the final words of the party meeting would belong to carday but there are those who think that it is necessary to create order and force using the policy of a firm hand in Yugoslavia and when I say the firm hand I say it with negative connotation to force upon in fact one greater system which will subdue to that greater interest all the other just interests of the nations in Yugoslavia the country then entered its most liberal period in its post-war history a new constitution had been designed by cardei's team and adopted in 1963. the country was renamed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the republics gained more autonomy from the state a series of pro-market reforms were introduced and most importantly the responsibility for investment allocation was transferred from the state to socially owned Banks prices were liberalized and the economy was made more open the State security apparatus was weakened and reorganized and consequently media became Freer and social life began to flourish it would seem that Yugoslavia was on its way to become more well democratic all of these processes had an important side effect however in the atmosphere of social liberalization and power dynamics shifting in favor of the republics National sentiments began to manifest themselves more clearly a good example of this can be seen in language since the 1950s Yugoslavia favored serbo Croatian a language which had two variants two accents and two alphabets in 1967 a number of cultural and scientific institutions in Croatia publicly appealed to the state to recognize Croatian and Serbian as two separate languages the publication provoked a reaction with similar demands from you guessed it Serbia the language debate would continue for years and spread to Bosnia and Herzegovina and to Montenegro in those years the clashes of interest between the republics became more rural than an exception Croatia was particularly active in its demands for greater economic and political autonomy from the center it was yugoslavia's main provider of foreign currency thanks to its developed tourist industry and it was quite unsatisfied with transferring much of what it saw as its income to Belgrade Republican Elites pushed for a better arrangement with the most radical Croatian demands including the creation of its own currency National Bank and even Croatian representation in the United Nations on November 23 1971 30 000 students from Croatian universities organized a strike in support of political and economic autonomy the Croatian spring known as mass Park had begun and Croatia wasn't the only headache for Tito in 1968 student protests had broken out in most Republican capitals notably in Belgrade there were riots in Kosovo and protests in Slovenia serbs and montenegrins debated furiously over the very existence of the Montenegro Nation language and church Hungarian nationalism was on the rise in boivadina croats were casually accused of being chauvinists separatists and mustachi's supporters serbs were casually accused of being centrists greater Serbian nationalists and even neostalonists the Revival of national feelings constructive or not was widespread worst of all in 1968 the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia this intervention crushed the attempts of the czechoslovak leadership to implement reforms similar to the ones which Yugoslavia had been pursuing for the last 15 years with the Declaration of the president of Doctrine the possibility of a Soviet intervention in Yugoslavia almost forgotten since the Tito Stalin split was back on the table under those circumstances political instability was the last thing Tito needed Joseph bras responded with a classic carrot and stick the stick was used first of course in December 1971 Tito convened the presidium and Central Committee of the lcy in order to resolve the situation in Croatia there are Croatian Party leaders were accused of promoting nationalism and an unacceptable form of liberalism political purges affected thousands of party members as well as supporters of the Croatian spring student leaders ended up in prison in October 1972 a similar fate awaited the Serbian Republican leadership Slovenian Party leaders were replaced as well conservatives were now in charge in the era of relative liberalism was over Tito had destroyed the last Potential Threat to his personal Rule and came out on top congrats Tito I guess but the carrot soon followed a new Federal Constitution was adopted in 1974 and this constitution was well something it's 406 articles made it one of the largest of its kind in the world the country was now ruled by a collective a nine-member presidium composed of representatives from each Republic and autonomous provinces as well as Joseph Tino himself Tito also became president for life under the 1974 Constitution the republics were each given more autonomy so much in fact that Yugoslavia became almost a confederation especially since the presidium now followed the One Federal unit one vote rule the republics could now have their own constitutions their own independent governments and their own National Banks the two autonomous provinces of Kosovo and voivodina were given rights almost identical to those of the republics they still had a small but ultimately important caveat they were not allowed to secede so in all of this Tito might have won but it was the card day's Vision that prevailed economic decentralization was also pursued the task was similar to that in the political sphere provide a more steady political direction to the development process and promote self-management the 1974 Constitution strengthened the competencies of the single republics in many important Fields including prices income distribution taxation employment welfare policies and foreign trade monetary and exchange rate policies remained the purview of the federal government but they still had to be based on an agreement between the republics which effectively gave each Republic veto power Banks were transformed into service agencies of Enterprises operating under their direct control large Enterprises were split into smaller units called basic organization of associated labor bowels each having its own self-management apparatus consultative committees by industry and region were convened to decrease competition between bowels these were never coherent however and only made things more confusing the Yugoslavian economy now no longer properly Guided by either the free market or the central government became incapable of any adequate response to a crisis so this begs the question was Tito's Yugoslavia a success the question remains open many people from the former Yugoslavia view those times with Nostalgia but for a good reason the country was a partner of the West a friend to the East and an ally of the South its people enjoyed hope and prosperity at least compared to the stability of the 1980s or yugoslavia's horrible and bloody demise in the 1990s its economy was described as booming although it's hard to say how much of it was thanks to Market socialism rather than foreign financial support but at the same time this is where the roots of yugoslavia's breakup can be found every decade the federal government gave more powers to the republics responding to any political crisis with future Devolution of powers by means of multiple purges over the years Tito destroyed any potential rival to himself making Yugoslavia reliant on him too much politically the policies of Market socialism worked decently well in times of prosperity but created imbalances which would manifest themselves in times of crisis Yugoslavia didn't have to be a giant to have feet of clay we hope you've enjoyed this episode and to make sure you don't miss our future work please make sure you subscribe to our Channel and hire a committee of workers to elect a management team to decide how to press the Bell button please consider supporting us on patreon at patreon.com the cold war or through YouTube membership we can be reached via email at the cold warchannel at gmail.com this is the Cold
War Channel and as we think about the Cold War please remember that history is Shades of Gray and rarely black and white
2022-12-11 18:43
