yugoslavias implosion

significant results but not its ultimate aim: Communism was not
crushed in Yugoslavia. According to the document, the West maintained
a firm position on the preservation of Yugoslavia: “[T]he idea
of Yugoslavism and the orientation toward Socialism have much
stronger roots than they [the West] estimated and … the destruction
of Socialism in Yugoslavia is not the same thing.” 234
The authors of the text indicted the West for its efforts to bring
down Communism and some at the federal level for their attempts to
hinder the implementation of economic reforms or provoke unrest
similar to scenarios in Bulgaria and Romania. “Yugoslavia can exist
only as a state,” the document proclaimed. “If it is not a state, it is not
Yugoslavia and is something else. The state can be either unitarian or
federal. The unitarian state has failed. Yugoslavia can only be a federal
community with some original rights and functions of a federation.”
With this assessment of the situation, the document’s authors
envisaged that over the following few months the League of Communists—Movement
for Yugoslavia (sk-pj) would become the main
political force in Yugoslavia and the hub of all left-oriented political
parties, associations, and organizations. 235
As election campaigns gained momentum in the early months
of 1990 in both Slovenia and Croatia, the ypa’s leaders took a twotrack
approach: publicly accepting the need for multiparty elections
while intensifying attacks on the programs and election campaigns
of non-Communist parties, especially the Democratic United Opposition
in Slovenia (demos) and the Croatian Democratic Community
(sdc). Behind the scenes, the ypa exerted pressure against
holding the elections. 236 For example, Kadijević visited commands,
234 Ibid.
235 “Army Document Published on NATO ‘Pressure’”, Narodna armija (Belgrade), March 1,
1991, trans . in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), Eeu-91–041, p . 33 .
236 This was conrmed by some leaders of the League of Communists of Croatia
and reports in the media . See, for example, Vjesnik Panorama, Saturday
supplement of the daily paper Vijesnik Zagreb, June, 9, 1990, p .7 .
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