Chris S said:
This is where it gets confusing for me. Serbs as an ethnic group had zero say in how Kosovo and Vojvodina got granted substantially more autonomy in 1974 since the Serbs as an ethnic group were governed under a one party system just like the other ethnic groups in Yugoslavia.
That was possible in 1974 because Tito willed it in order to weaken the Serbs after stomping the leadership of Croatian CP in 1971/72. Also to imagine the CP of Yugoslavia as some monolithic entity is completely wrong. It was fiercly divided along the ethnic lines even though Serbs had a higher percentage of membership that their population percentage. If CP leaderships in 1984. sit down at the table to discuss the future of Yugoslavia they would never come to a solution that would give more power to the Serbs which would be giving more power to the Serbs. Slovenians, Croats, Kosovars, Macedonians would never vote for such a solution how the Montenegrin and BiH vote would go is anyones guess (though I suspect MN would support such a thing while BiH CP would be against it) so you would either get a deadlock at beast or a solution not favouring the Serbs. And we known where the road leads if the Serbs are not satisfied.
Chris S said:
If so what does it matter that Croats in Croatia don't care much about BiH Croats? And is this "don't care much" to mean they don't care at all and wouldn't welcome Croat autonomous provinces in Bosnia?
When I spoke of "Croats" I was thinking of the political elites, I should have expressed myself better. As for your other question no they wouldn't welcome it if it meant creation of autonomous areas within Croatia in return.
Chris S said:
And you still seem to be overlooking the fact that under what I had outlined Croatia (and the other republics) would have had more autonomy granted to them, while the autonomous provinces would have had less autonomy than granted under the 1974 constitution (so it's not as if Krajina would have the ability to veto legislation from Zagreb). How could that be seen as assimilating Croats if Croats are given more autonomy and Croatia retains ultimate authority over its autonomous provinces (unlike the situation in the OTL autonomous provinces where Serbia retained only imaginary control)?
Because in the minds of the political elites it creates a dangerous presedant that new territorial divisions can be created on the territories of existing republics and no republic CP was willing to deminish its own influence at the expense of another ethnic group. Sometimes it is really hard to convey how fundamentaly flawed second Yugoslavia was, even more so than the first one.
Chris S said:
Is this the view now or the view that you knew to be true in 1984? Because what may be true now may not have been true 28 years (or more) ago. And were there any opinion polls in 1982-1985 to support this?
I don't have any polls but have read several biographies of BiH CP high ranking officials (Angel Heart would be better source of info on that I think) which pretty much state that. And that was not endemic to BiH it was for Yugoslavia as a whole. They (as in republic CP leaderships) were all willing to share power to suite their own needs but as soon as one (Serbian CP) started to gather more strength than the others things fell apart.
Chris S said:
Read it again. It wouldn't be about whether or not they would be willing to use the "others" language.
In many autonomous areas, the language issue means that the autonomous area can use its local language in addition to the nationally/federally mandated official language or languages. So in Krajina it would not be only Serbian (or Serbo-Croatian with cyrillic letters only) but Serbian and Croatian (and use of both the cyrillic and latin alphabets). The only choice Krajina would have is if they want to use Serbian (or the cyrillic alphabet) in addition to Croatian (or the latin alphabet), but Croatian (the latin alphabet) would be mandatory.
The problem is that it would be percieved as Serbianisation of historic Croatian lands if it was limited territorialy and at the same time Serbs would resent Croatian bening mandatory as Croatisation of historic Serbian lands.
Chris S said:
Sure, but it is kinda of contradictory isn't it to say that the solution is to make the 5 major south slavic languages (and at the time there were only 3 recognized major south slavic languages according to officialdom in Yugoslavia weren't there?) official and equal in use, but to deny that autonomous areas should use their local language along with the language predominant in their republic?
And I might be wrong about this, but weren't the 3 recognized major south slavic languages (with Serbo-Croatian considered as one language with multiple dialects) already official in Yugoslavia?
So my idea what I have failed to properly explain due to anwsering to my previous posts in somewhat of a hurry is:
In 1946 Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian and Macedonian along with later Bosnian or even Montenegrin be declared all as valid forms of communication in all republics (in OTL S-C was mandatory everywhere with Slovenian and Macedonian being restricted to their respective republics, so though three were recognized they weren't equal) and both Latin and Cyrilic script being accepted as valid forms of writing. The Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin speach is mutualy intelligible to a great extent and if an effort is made by both speakers S-C-B-M can communicate with either Slovenian or Macedonian. So a Croatian writes and talks in Croatian but is expected to understand all others and the same goes for all other groups. So the level of preservation of each language is on the speakers rather than institutions. At first it might be slightly confusing but languages can evolve pretty quickly when requiered for a positive thing such as mutual benefit and cooperation.
Chris S said:
But the moment the 1974 constitution is adopted you have only two options to remove a major point of grievance for Serb nationalists - the very unusual autonomy arrangements for Kosovo and Vojvodina. Either they would have to be scrapped entirely leaving Yugoslavia with only 6 republics and no autonomous provinces OR to have 6 republics and multiple autonomous provinces with less autonomy than Kosovo and Vojvodina had from 1974. Sidestepping that issue will only allow the nationalists in Serbia to gain influence as Yugoslavia democratizes and this will only lead to conflict.
I agree that giving Kosovo and Vojvodina back to Serbia would have defused much of Serbian resentment but once Tito is dead it will be a hard thing to do because republic CP-s are selfish entities and wouldn't not be particualarly willing to strengthen Serbia and through it Serbian CP.
Chris S said:
Thinking over what you wrote, I have to ask if you declare republics to be "historic" rather than "ethnic" and saying all citizens are equal and Yugoslavs....wouldn't that then be seen as a threat to Croatia and as "further slights against Croatdom" which would "further strengthen extreme nationalists in their views" that the communists (and Serbs) are "bent on dismantling Croatia and assimilating Croats"?
I don't see how you can have it both ways. Either the views of the nationalists win out and the authorities can be smart enough to incorporate enough of their views (more autonomy for the republics and granting autonomy to other members of the same group found outside of those republics) so as to placate the population and discourage the prospects of rallies and protests or riots, or the views of the nationalists don't win out and the republics are viewed as historic constructs with little meaning while ethnicity is viewed as secondary and the primary social construct is Yugoslavia and Yugoslav citizenship is seen as primary.
The thing is no one can deny that country Croats are living is Yugoslavia and therefore they have Yugoslav citizenship but as long as they are free to state they are Croats out loud, display symbols of their ethnicity and sing patriotic/ethnistic songs they would be very few people that would mind. It would be as natural for a Croat to be Yugoslav Croat as it is today to be British English.
People outside ex-Yu mostly don't know or don't understand that Yugoslav communists were mostly nationalists hiding behind a communist name and having socialistic economic views. The same was during the second World War. Our war down here was not - various nationalists vs each other vs communists, but moderate nationalists that later got united under the leadership of the CP vs batshit insane nationalists.
So allowing nationalism into the legal sphere robs extreme nationalists of their hold on societies that feel oppresed and stregthens Yugoslavia as a whole because people were for the idea of Yugoslavia (as in together we are strong to smack Italians, Germans, Russian, whoever) as long as they can be what they are (Croats, Serbs, Slovenians...) without any repercussions.
Chris S said:
EDIT: Ultimately it seems we are talking about two different types of scenarios. You seem to be talking about the optimal scenario where there would be no trouble and there would be peace and harmony. I'm talking about a scenario where Yugoslavia simply survives and doesn't descend into a bloody civil war but ends up like a more debt-ridden version of Spain (with some amount of conflict like with ETA and the Basque conflict) and Canada (with tensions between Quebec and the rest); i.e. a country where the prospects of secession are real but not overwhelmingly likely and where the prospects of a bloody civil war are weak. Under that scenario Yugoslavia could well survive into 2012 and maybe obtain the room for manouevre that would allow it to reform economically such that the prospects of secession and violence are lowered even further as the state of Yugoslavia enables all Yugoslavs to have a better of standard of living. After a while, enough economic growth and wealth creation would begin to put ethnic considerations on the back burners of people's minds. They would still be highly visible, but people's primary considerations would be more economic ("who can provide me with the best standard of living?" rather than who will defend Serbdom or Croatdom? being the first question on the mind of voters with "who can do this while defending Serbs/Croats/Macedonians/Slovenes/etc?" being the second question on most people's minds).
The best way to keep Yugoslavia functioning post Tito's death is to keep the status quo that existed between 1980 and 1986 when Milošević was elected as Serbia's presidental representative on the CPJ central committee. Prevent the opportunist like Milošević rising to that spot and Yugoslavia could trudge on for some time more. Also have the SANU memorandum quashed (that occured later in 1986) by UDBA since that was the main spark that started extreme nationalist awakening first in Serbia and than followed in Croatia and Slovenia and Yugoslavia would be a derelict thing riven with economic problems but still capable of going forward by the sheer momentum it had.
As to your suggestion better economic situation with ethnicities agitated would not defuse the situation, since much of Slovenian and a good portion of Croatian resentment was because these two richest republic had to send most of thier earnings to the centre in Belgrade that redistributed the wealth towards the poorer regions, predominantly southern Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia. Slovenia and Croatia wanted that money to put to their own use, prefereably to creating even more wealth through tourism and clean industry.
Better life in my part of the world does not lead to pushing the ethnic question into the background since most people grow up under the influence of their grand parents and the stories they tell about the "others" leaves little space for coexistance and the circle continues to the next generation since the parents of those kids mostly wont be satisfied and will pass to their grand children what they have been told with further slights against their nation added to the tally. The ex-Yu is no more and the stories are still here, to make sure the next generation knows who has slighted us, who are our enemies and what lands are still unrightfully under the occupation of others and they as the next generation should strive to recover them.
Yugoslavia could have worked and could have become a contry on parr with Switzerland in wealth but that would recquire a very different people living in these parts governed by a selfless idealist that had the interest of all as his goal rather than just keeping the balance so his subject don't get at each others throats.
