yugoslavias implosion

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ChApter 1
Communists of Serbia because both were in favor of centralism and
unitarism. The 1972 sacking of liberal republican leaders marked the
victory of the dogmatic wing in the party and reversed the liberal
process. The internal rift never healed: the wave of liberalism made
the 1974 Constitution possible.
The adoption of the 1974 Constitution was preceded by extensive
public debate. The attitude of the Serbian elite toward other peoples
began to be discussed openly. Once it became clear that the emancipation
of the Yugoslav peoples could not be stopped, intercommunal
tension within the lcy increased; this tension had set in during the
1960s, after Tito realized the danger of “creeping Serb predominance
and opted for institutional innovations to ‘federalize the Federation,’
that is, to breathe some genuine federalism into the rhetorical formulas.”
These innovations were forced by public pressure, though
the hopes for a Greater Serbia did not diminish. Stipe Šuvar noted:
Greater Serbianism is alive in the endeavors to disprove the national
individuality of the Montenegrin and Macedonian peoples, as well as
the ethnic distinction of the Muslims, in the attempts to arrogate the
cultural heritage not only of these peoples but also of the Croat people
(as manifested in the attitude towards Dubrovnik and old Dubrovnik
and Dalmatian literature), in the extraordinary, almost racist intolerance
of the Albanian people and their settlement in Kosovo, in the
striving to accentuate the supremacy of Serb national history and culture,
in the laying claim to Bosnia-Herzegovina and to large parts of
Croatia. 41
The 1974 Constitution could be called fundamentally undemocratic
because it did not fully address all the accumulated problems
of society. It also left the lcy enjoying a political monopoly. However,
it identified many of them—especially economic ones, above
41 S . Šuvar, Nacije i međunacionalni odnosi (Nations and
intercommunal relations), Naše teme, Zagreb, 1970 .