yugoslavias implosion

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ChApter 1
well-organized party structure and dedicated his energy to installing
his cronies in important posts through a skilful personnel policy.
The Eighth Session of the Serbian Central Committee in September
1987 marked the turning point in efforts to resolve the
Yugoslav crisis and brought about a rift within Serbia’s political
establishment. Serbian president Ivan Stambolić—who had been
Milošević’s political mentor—had submitted a proposal for changes
to the constitutional status of Serbia for consideration at the meeting.
During the previous several years, Stambolić had “obtained the
agreement, consent, and support of all republican leaderships in
Yugoslavia to work toward amending those parts of the Federal Constitution
which pertain to the regulation of the position of the provinces
and Serbia in the Federation, to eliminate the problems calling
in question its statehood, its unity, without impairing the autonomies
in their essential determinants.” 100 With Milošević, supported
by the Army, calling for greater centralization and especially for no
compromise with the Albanians in Kosovo, the Central Committee
voted down Stambolić’s policy of making agreements and compromises.
Humiliated, Stambolić resigned as president.
The revival of the Chetnik movement had begun before the
Eighth Session, but after Milošević prevailed, the movement played a
prominent role in Serbian politics. Milošević never directly referred
to the movement and its national program, nor did he want to be
identified with it. However, all that he espoused coincided politically
and nationally with the greater nationalist policy traditionally
embodied in the Chetnik movement.
The installation of Milošević (first as a president of the Central
Committee of the League of the Communists in Serbia then as
a president of Serbia) and the political execution of Stambolić set
the stage for the nationalists to refashion Yugoslavia. Following the
Eighth Session party coup, Milošević engineered a purge of the party
100 Stambolić’s expose in the Assembly of Serbia, September 1987, Politika, September 19, 1987