yugoslavias implosion

the armed forces were concentrated mostly on the western border.
Many generals, including Rade Hamović, were under suspicion
of being in the service of the Soviets. 181 Meanwhile, liberals and
conservative hard-liners in the Army began to adopt increasingly
different positions, with the former favoring and the latter opposing
democratization of the Communist Party’s unit in the Army. 182
Conservatives claimed that most liberals were jeopardizing the unity
of the armed forces at a time when the Soviet threat was very real.
The conservatives’ arguments won the day and most liberals were
forced to leave the military or were marginalized within it. Although
a new national defense doctrine was developed to deal with the
Soviet threat, the danger was nonetheless exploited to strengthen the
Army’s influence in all spheres of life.
A NEW CONSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENT,
A GROWING POLITICAL ROLE
The internal use of the Army was an indicator of the delegitimization
of the Yugoslav political system: the state could now only be
held together by the threat of the use of force. The sfry’s increasing
reliance on the ypa was reflected in the constitutional amendments
leading up to the 1974 Constitution as calls for the decentralization
and confederalization of the country grew in intensity. Tito was
aware that decentralization was inevitable, but he insisted that the
Army’s role as guarantor of the integrity of the state be enshrined in
the constitution. Article 240 of the 1974 Constitution formalized the
role of the ypa, stating that the ypa would “protect the independence,
sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the social system of the Socialist
181 Branko Mamula, Slučaj Jugoslavija, CID, Podgorica, 2000, p . 27 .
182 Ibid ., p . 28 “Tito prevented a liberal victory in the Army: for a long rime the
battle was waged between the two powerful centres consisting of Gošnjak,
Hamović, Nenezić and most generals in army command posts who advocated
strong-arm tactics, on the one hand, and Ivan Rukavina, Bogdan Oreščanin,
Ivan Dolničar and Veljko Kovačević who represented the liberal course .”
135
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