yugoslavias implosion

economic advancement. Being profoundly reform-minded, the liberals
urged the relaxation of the party’s control of the economy and
the appointment of young, educated cadres. What set them apart
from the dominant political orientation in Serbia was their attempt
to end the identification of Serbia with Yugoslavia and the equation
of Serbian identity with Yugoslav identity (i.e., they wished to
disabuse the Serbs of the “burden of Yugoslavhood”). Latinka Perović,
the secretary-general of the Central Committee of the League
of Communists of Serbia, stressed that “Yugoslavia is the best means
of achieving Socialism and the national progress of each people” and
that “the Yugoslav state does not exist by itself—that is, the Federation
does not exist independently of the republics.” She also espoused
a “linguistic decentralization.” 29 The liberals did not want Serbia to
play the role of “defender of Yugoslavia,” especially after the Croat
national movement gained momentum. They believed that the unification
of Serbs would not solve the Serbian problem, so they focused
their efforts on creating a program centered on Serbia as a republic
rather than on the Serbian people. With the benefit of hindsight,
one can argue that such a program might have helped Yugoslavia to
break up in a peaceful fashion. 30
The liberal effort to define Serbia’s national program went
beyond the traditional dilemma of Serbianhood or Yugoslavism
and was ultimately incorporated in the 1974 Constitution. The Serbian
liberals’ main idea was that Serbia’s graduation to a modern
state depended on ending Serbia’s identification with Yugoslavia—in
short, they sought to emancipate Serbia from Yugoslavia. They took
the position that centralism was not in the interest of Serbia because
it was an exhausted concept—Yugoslavia was legitimate only as an
institutional agreement of mutual interests.
Perović explained the liberals’ position in the following way:
29 Latinka Perović, Zatvaranje kruga, p .313 .
30 Ibid . p .165
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