yugoslavias implosion

the relative majority (in 1981 the census number of Serbs was
36.3 percent of the total Yugoslav population or 8,136,578) that ruled
over the rest. It was not surprising, therefore, that they identified
themselves with the state: theirs were the dynasty and the army,
and most state leaders were also Serbs. Those leaders supported
and implemented a policy of “integral Yugoslavism,” perceived as a
way of constructing the integral Yugoslav nation. But the ideology
of integral Yugoslavism was dominated by Serbs, who were privileged
as victors and unifiers and who kept reminding the Croats and
Slovenes that Serbs had made the greatest contributions in terms
of both casualties and victories. In other words, the Serbs regarded
themselves as the champions of nation-building, the foremost lovers
of freedom, and the saviours of Slavdom. 164
Whatever the nature of the regime in Belgrade, the Army served
as the mainstay of the regime and the state’s official ideology. In the
first Yugoslavia, the Army actively supported the king’s decision to
abolish the constitution and rule by personal dictatorship. In the second
Yugoslavia, the Army was no less unwavering in its support of a
regime of a very different political stripe.
The post–World War II Communist government based its
authority in large part on the moral legitimacy of the National Liberation
Army (Narodna Oslobodilačka Vojska Jugoslavije, or novj),
the partisan force led by Tito that fought against the Nazi occupiers
and quisling governments of Ante Pavelić in Croatia and Milan
Nedić in Serbia. 165 Partisan delegates from all parts of the country
formed the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia
(avnoj). In November 1943, avnoj decided that Yugoslavia should
be organized as a federal state of equal nations and nationalities, and
164 Ibid.
165 The supreme command of the National Liberation and Partisan detachments of Yugoslavia
(NOPOJ) was established on June 27, 1941; Tito was appointed commander-in-chief .
He founded the First Proletarian Brigade in Rudo the same year; in 1942, he issued
orders to create what would become the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia .
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