AHC: Create a Better Yugoslavia

Cook

Banned
I think you would really need to go back to Yugoslavia’s origins to have a workable point of departure. It the Croats and Slovene’s had been able to negotiate a democratic constitution for the Kingdom of the Southern Slavs with Pasic prior to the union becoming a fait accompli then Yugoslavia may have become something other than the Kingdom of Serbia writ large. Instead the Croatian and Slovenian regiments of the old Austro-Hungarian army were disbanded and the Slav army became the core of the new Yugoslavia. The civil institutions suffered a similar fate. Particularly, the Serbia idea that they had won Yugoslavia with their sacrifices in World War One and therefore had a greater claim to it than anyone else, and the other nationalities resentment of such arrogance could have been avoided. Had things been different from the start, the people may have really started to think of themselves as Yugoslavs rather than the various nationalities and the venomous civil war during the German occupation may have been avoided or greatly reduced in its impact on the people.

As it was it required an ideology (Communism) and a dictator (Tito) to plaster over the permanent seismic cracks between the nationalities, but that was all it was; a topcoat of plaster that hid the underlying cracks from sight, it did nothing to heal the wounds of the war or have the people think of themselves as anything other than their individual nationalities.
 
The thing is- IMF ( and USA ) with his measures have probably helped Yugoslavia to live for another 12 years.
In 1983 average worker in Yugoslavia was working only 3 hours and 12 minutes per day.
IMF and USA aren't guilty for that. And that is what destroyed Yugoslavia, from economical POV, of course.
Simply, self-managment (samoupravljanje ) was unfeasible system from the start that have to collapse sooner or later.


Well the figure I find is not necessarily that the average worker in Yugoslavia was only working that long, but rather that in 1983 "workers in relatively high productivity enterprises in the more advanced republics of Yugoslavia were doing an average of 3 hours and 6 minutes of actual work a day" (according to calculations by Subotica professor Stjepan Han in 1983). Also 1985 Business Chamber survey found that of over 3,000 workers in 305 fields, 1.8% (by their own admission) were busy 25% of their working time, 14% were busy less than 50% of the time, 36.6% were busy about 75% of time and only 14.8% were busy 90-100% of their working day. Yugoslavia also seemed incredibly inefficient - a comparison of two salt works built in the 1960s (one in Yugoslavia and one in the USA) both with a production capacity of 200,000 tonnes per year found that in 1987 the Yugoslav plant employed 1,200 people while the US plant employed 120.

This does demonstrate just how potentially low productivity in Yugoslavia was. However the transition to higher productivity did not have to result in the breakup of Yugoslavia.

To me at least, the IMF's involvement had benefits and drawbacks. Yes it probably did allow Yugoslavia to stave off incredibly harsh austerity in the early 1980s (I don't know about allowing Yugoslavia to last 12 years more than it otherwise would have - this would mean Yugoslavia would have collapsed in 1979), however a lot of accounts seem to agree that Yugoslavia got high interest loans in the 1980s. Under no circumstances were high interest loans ever going to help Yugoslavia. Because the high interest would essentially cripple any prospects for economic recovery. Note that within 2 years of the IMF requiring the government to devalue the dinar, stop transfers to the federal subjects (republics and provinces). freeze wages and restructure lots of state enterprises in a kind of badly implemented shock therapy we saw republics seceding. What might have worked would be for the IMF package (or any other package be it from the USA directly or the USSR (if the USSR had managed to reform itself through the 1970s and 1980s and become somewhat like China after 1980)) to include really low interest, long-term loans. Wages might then be frozen or the dinar devalued, but not both (that's just crazy!). In addition there could then be a gradual shift towards greater productivity, possibly through the introduction of competition first within the work place (more productive workers get better wages) and then competition within the business environment. Lay offs would still have to occur but they would best be done in an environment where jobs can be created either through new (and productive) state businesses and new private businesses and/or through self-employment.

What happened in OTL may have saved Yugoslavia for maybe 5-10 years, but high interest rates would have eventually meant that the government would have to collect lots of money (in the form of taxes) to pay it off. Unless Yugoslavia magically got lots of businesses which would provide tax revenue the most likely outcome would have been more tax revenue collected from more businesses but more tax revenue being collected through an increase in taxes. With higher taxes, less jobs, a devalued currency and frozen wages what you will get is a lot of angry, under-employed and/or unemployed people (who have a lot of time on their hands) who are facing either poverty or financial straits. The end result will very likely include lots of violence. And once you get a lot of low-level violence in a context of different groups of people it only increases the chances that the violence is stepped up to the next level and instead of people fighting with sticks and stones you have them fighting with missiles and bullets.

The trouble was that such reforms were impossible to make.
Slovenia and Croatia would never accept something like that, as they OTL didn't.

Slovenia and Croatia were never really offered this in OTL so we can't know if they would accept it or not in an ATL. They were offered the Serbian package of reforms only which they rejected.

However in an environment where:

- the economy isn't going down the drain like a turd (though it doesn't have to be flying like a kite)

- access to really cheap loans keeps Yugoslavia from having to undergo severe austerity in a short space of time (and to continue allowing for transfers from the centre to the republics and provinces)

an atmosphere might be created where the participants are more willing to seek compromises. Thus either the officials who proposed the Serbian package or the delegates from the other republics might have tried to throw in other proposals on top of the Serbian package - such as Slovenia's proposals for greater democracy (initially by having popular votes for the candidates from each republic for the collective leadership) or proposals for Croat autonomous provinces in Bosnia and for greater democracy in the party (and longer terms for the leaders in the rotating leadership in a transition towards non-rotation with simple 5 year terms for leaders) and for more autonomy for the republic's governments.
 

abc123

Banned
I think you would really need to go back to Yugoslavia’s origins to have a workable point of departure. It the Croats and Slovene’s had been able to negotiate a democratic constitution for the Kingdom of the Southern Slavs with Pasic prior to the union becoming a fait accompli then Yugoslavia may have become something other than the Kingdom of Serbia writ large. Instead the Croatian and Slovenian regiments of the old Austro-Hungarian army were disbanded and the Slav army became the core of the new Yugoslavia. The civil institutions suffered a similar fate. Particularly, the Serbia idea that they had won Yugoslavia with their sacrifices in World War One and therefore had a greater claim to it than anyone else, and the other nationalities resentment of such arrogance could have been avoided.Had things been different from the start, the people may have really started to think of themselves as Yugoslavs rather than the various nationalities and the venomous civil war during the German occupation may have been avoided or greatly reduced in its impact on the people.

As it was it required an ideology (Communism) and a dictator (Tito) to plaster over the permanent seismic cracks between the nationalities, but that was all it was; a topcoat of plaster that hid the underlying cracks from sight, it did nothing to heal the wounds of the war or have the people think of themselves as anything other than their individual nationalities.

I fully agree.
 
I just started a huge thread about a Greater Yugoslavia following WWII so if anyone is interested take a look at that. here's the link:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=231249

I think that if Tito had offered to make Macedonia an autonomous province of Bulgaria on the condition that Bulgaria join Yugoslavia as one of its republics (as opposed to an equal partner) the Bulgarian leadership may conceded to such a trade off and joined the Yugoslav federation. Bulgaria entered WWII with the goal of finally annexing Macedonia and creating the Greater Bulgarian state it for decades fought for. If Tito made such an offer it would be difficult for the Bulgarian leadership to reject it. Sure, one could make the claim that Bulgaria would probably never agree to voluntarily give up its sovereignty and cede leadership, however, Bulgaria had already de-facto lost its sovereignty following the Soviet victory and was about to lose it anyway along with all theo ther countries of Eastern Europe. By joining Yugoslavia, Bulgaria would be able to achieve its war aims and annex Macedonia, and although it would lose its sovereignty, it would also never become dominated by the Soviet Union following Tito's split with Stalin (which of course occured later).

Now a Yugoslavia that included Bulgaria would undoubtedly help calm fears of Serbian domination and balance out the various national groups. I think that it was stupid and there was really no need for Tito to create artificial 'macedonian' 'montenegrin' and 'bosnian muslim' nations as a way of solving Yugoslavia's national problem. In fact, including Bulgaria in Yugoslavia would have eliminated the need to create a 'macedonian' natioanlity at all, since most macedonians were either Serbs or Bulgars before WWII (i'd say around 75% were Bulgarian while 25% Serb). Both Montenegrin and Bosnian Muslim nationalities are completely artifical and unncessary.

Yugoslavia would then be a federal state consisting of four republics: Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Slovenia. The constituent nations of Yugoslavia would be Serbs, Croats, Bulgars, and Slovenes. Each of the four republics however would have autonomous provinces in areas that either had significant minorities living in them or had a historic tradition of independence and regional self-identification. As has already been mentioned, Macedonia would have been an autonomous province of Bulgaria, and I also think that Rumelia could have created as an autonomous province in order to integrate the large Turkish minority in Southern Bulgaria and also reduce the dominance of Bulgaria in the federation.

I think that Serbs as the largest nation and traditionally the leaders in South Slav unification, and also their clear victory in WWII unlike Bulgarians, Croatians and Slovenians who sided with the Axis, makes for a strong case for why the capital of Yugoslavia should have still remained in Belgrade. The autonomous provinces of Serbia I believe would be Vojvodina in the North for Hungarians. Instead of making Montenegro a republic (which was pretty useless on the side of Tito, since the country barely has 600,000 inhabitants) it should have been created as an autonomous province within Serbia. However its territory should have been expanded to include all of Sandzak (novi pazar and whatnot) along with all of Kosovo. I think this would have been a much better call than to create only Kosovo as an autonomos province within Serbia. By making Montenengro very huge it would have reduced the dominance of Albanians in the province and discouraged separatism.

I also believe that Bosnia-HErzegovina should have been attached to Serbia as an autonomous province to which the Peljasac Peninsula (Dubrovnik) would be added as the Herzegovinan coast. This is because Serbs clearly formed a majority in the province before the massive slaughter of Ustashe during WWII and also because Bosnia's muslims would be forced to declare themselves as either Muslim Serbs or Muslim Croats, the majority of which I think would opt for a Serbian identity. I'd say out of Bosnia's Muslims 75% would consider themselves Serbs while 25% would consider themselves Croats. This would give Serbs a clear majority in Bosnia, and satisfy Serbian desires to have more Serbs live together in their own republic. I think that adding the Mljet republic area around Dubrovnik to Bosnia would also have been necessary to give Serbia a much needed coastline, although it would still remain relatively small

Finally in terms of Croatia, I would make Dalmatia an autonomous province, since Dalmatians even today have a strong sense of regional identity and historically have long been seperated from their Croatian counterparts in Hungary. I would also hvae made Istria an autonomous province, however in my opinion, it would have been better to make it an autonomous province of Slovenia isntead of Croatia. This is because it would give Slovenia access to the sea and a coastline, something which all the republics would then have. It would also incorporate the large Italian minority in the area. I also think Trst should have been given to Yugosalvia following wWII and not Italy, so Trst would be made the capital of Istria

So basically here's what a better Yugoslavia would have looked like: Four republics and seven autonomous provinces listed below

1. Slovenia
-Istria
2. Croatia
-Dalmatia
3. Serbia
-Vojvodina
-Bosnia
-Montenegro
4. Bulgaria
-Macedonia
-Rumelia
 
I know what happened and what bunch of murderes and idiots came to power with the occupation forces. Just because people in Zagreb saw the Germans as liberators in 1941 (which tells alot about the first Yugoslavia) doesn't mean Serbia (as a country) or Chetniks (as units on the ground) did not cooperate with the Axis.
 
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