AH Challenge: Yugoslavia without tears

The challenge: with a POD after 1974 (the year the last Tito-era consitution was enacted), have Yugoslavia transition away from communism without breaking up and without any major ethnic violence.
 
Stopping the Reagan-enforced, sorry, encouraged economic reforms that absolutely ruined the economy would do a lot to help. Also, make sure that remarkable rise from mid-level bureaucrat to president of Yugoslavia of a certain S.M. doesn't happen.
 
Stopping the Reagan-enforced, sorry, encouraged economic reforms that absolutely ruined the economy would do a lot to help. Also, make sure that remarkable rise from mid-level bureaucrat to president of Yugoslavia of a certain S.M. doesn't happen.

Another thing I was thinking of was having Tito name a successor (instead of the ten-person "Presidency Committee" of OTL...I wonder what Tito was smoking when he came up with that idea). Does anyone know of any major political figures who would be good candidates?

Anyway, I was going to have Tito's successor croak in the late 1980's, and then have Ante Markovic become President-but you mention the 1980's economic reforms as a cause of Yugoslavia's collapse, and the genocide implies he was heavily involved in them (I don't know that much specifically about his career, just that he was a pro-western liberal who seemed to not be affected too much by ethnic prejudice).
 
There have been a few threads about the break-up of Yugoslavia just a few weeks ago. If someone has the link...

I agree that someone like Ante Markovic should have been able to politically rally those elements of Yugoslav society which didn't wish for a break-up. Maybe a slightly earlier liberalization would help. In an ASB-scenario, I proposed a Spain-like transition via the way of monarchy.

It would also help immensely, if the Yugoslav constitution didn't create such large armed forces under command of the single Republics. I am not promoting a better outcome for the Serbs, but maybe a deterrent for the separatists.
 
There have been a few threads about the break-up of Yugoslavia just a few weeks ago. If someone has the link...

I agree that someone like Ante Markovic should have been able to politically rally those elements of Yugoslav society which didn't wish for a break-up. Maybe a slightly earlier liberalization would help. In an ASB-scenario, I proposed a Spain-like transition via the way of monarchy.

It would also help immensely, if the Yugoslav constitution didn't create such large armed forces under command of the single Republics. I am not promoting a better outcome for the Serbs, but maybe a deterrent for the separatists.

Another idea that comes to mind-a military coup. I think you mentioned it on another thread, and according to Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, the army commander actually wanted to remove the governments of Slovenia and Croatia in January 1991, but couldn't get authorization from the Presidency Committee*.

So, what if the army decided to launch full-blown coup in 1991? The separtists in Slovenia and Croatia would be removed, but Milosevic probably wouldn't fair too well in the new regime either (he was a Greater Serbia-ist, and the army supported a Yugoslavia of all its nationalities, with no overt ethnic nationalism). At the same time, the newly created military junta probably wouldn't have the popular base to rule the country on its own, so it would have to turn to a civilian politician who did.

So, here's my scenario-the army launches a coup, and backs Ante Markovic (who has a pan-ethnic base). However, tensions grow between Markovic and the army junta, and after the failure of the August 1991 coup in the USSR, Markovic decides to break with Yugoslavia's junta and publically demands free elections, which the junta comes under massive pressure (both international and domestic-I imagine massive rallies in support of Markovic) to allow. In early 1992, the junta finally agrees to resign, and Markovic easily wins Yugoslavia's first nationwide elections. Yugoslavia becomes a united, liberal democracy.

*Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation. Sibler, Laura and Little, Alan. pp 115-118
 
Yes, I also regard the Jugoslav army to be an assett for anybody striving for Yugoslav unity - if the cards are played right.

A military coup is an interesting scenario to keep order and control in the country. I have also toyed with the idea of a quick Sovjet takeover after Tito's death. This might weaken the republics and in the long run discredit the Communist parties and anybody coming through them. But the butterflies would be enormous and maybe the threat of WW III to big to make this idea feasible.
 
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