yugoslavias implosion

22
IntroduCtIon
systemic reform, for any bold move threatened to alter the balance
of forces established in Tito’s day. The second phase was marked by
the rise, in 1986–87, of Slobodan Milošević, the first politician to step
forward with a proposal for overcoming the Yugoslav crisis by reinforcing
federal institutions and the central government with Serbia
playing a dominant role. This program was diametrically opposed
to the view that had meanwhile evolved in Slovenia, which saw a
future for Yugoslavia only if it substantially decentralized power to
the republics. Later, Croatia joined Slovenia in its demands.
Checked in its efforts to assert Serbian dominance within the
federal system, the Serbian elite, led by Milošević, reverted to its
national program, which had been prepared informally in the early
1970s and articulated in the 1986 Memorandum. The Eighth Session
of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia
in September 1987 marked the turning point in efforts to resolve
the Yugoslav crisis and brought about a rift within Serbia’s political
establishment. Milošević and the nationalist political orientation triumphed
over the old guard, and subsequently Milošević engineered
the largest purge of the party so as consolidate Serbian power in
anticipation of a forthcoming showdown in Yugoslavia. The Eighth
Session was the key event in the dissolution of Yugoslavia. It was
followed by the so-called anti-bureaucratic revolution of 1989 that
managed to homogenize both the then Serbian Communist Party
and the nation. It opened space for Milošević to centralize Serbia
under the slogan, “One people, one state, one court of law.”
After the dissolution of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
at its extraordinary fourteenth congress in January 1990, Milošević
announced that “Serbia has to prepare itself to live without Yugoslavia.”
The adoption of the new Constitution of the Republic of
Serbia in September 1990 marked the end of the first phase of preparations
to destroy Yugoslavia. This constitution usurped two paramount
federal functions: national defense and foreign relations. It