Was Yugoslavia really communist? : asklemmygrad

[–] AnarchoBolshevik@lemmygrad.ml 30 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I have to admit that I chuckled when I saw your thread since the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia tends to be a heated topic for socialists, but to answer your question: it depends on your criteria. If you define communism as a classless, stateless, moneyless existence distinct from socialism, then the SFRY wasn’t communist, but you could say that about any other people’s republic, and I think that that’s a moot, uninteresting point to make anyway.

If you define socialism as the negation of capitalism — that is to say, the negation of capital, the law of value, and generalised commodity production — then I’d categorize the SFRY as merely presocialist (as silly as it may sound to call a self‐described Socialist Republic ‘presocialist’).

After the Soviet stance on the Greek civil war alienated the Yugoslavs, the SFRY adopted a sort of semiplanned economy where market mechanisms continued to exist (hence why some pro‐Soviet communists consider the SFRY capitalist). This was not so much because Yugoslav politicians now rejected scientific socialism, but because the SFRY’s isolation from the rest of the Eastern Bloc made it an inevitability. There is a great book titled Class Struggle in Socialist Poland that delves into the subject of the SFRY’s market mechanisms, but I can’t give you a link yet since Archive.org is partially down.

The lower classes won some very important gains because of the SFRY (as they did in the other people’s republics), so as much as I can sympathize with the left communist tendency to categorise these republics as ‘capitalist’, I can’t heap scorn on them either. That would be like rolling my eyes at strikers for winning concessions when they ‘really’ should be abolishing capitalism, but now I’m just rambling.

[–] multitotal@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 1 month ago (3 children)

China has markets, wage labour, multi-national corporations... yet people say they're communist. Therefore yes, Yugoslavia was really communist.

Yugoslavia allowed "private enteprise", but privately owned companies were limited to 5 employees. Yugoslavia was instrumental in forming the Non-Aligned Movement. Pretty much every country that wasn't in NATO or Warsaw Pact was in NAM, including Cuba, DPRK, and other socialist states.

inb4 "muh debt!" Go check it out. Yugoslavia as a whole had a much lower debt than each former Yugoslav state has now. Yugoslavia exported a lot, its debt wasn't a problem, the problem was that US, IMF, and other creditors demanded the principle paid in full immediately. This caused inflation to skyrocket and Yugoslavia to default on its debts.

Funny how smaller, neoliberal states with a diminishing and aging population who don't produce or export anything can maintain a debt that is some 10-20x larger than Yugoslavias (a country with a growing population and billions in exports). The Economy works in mysterious ways.

[–] Sinister@hexbear.net 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well isnt the fault still the debt? Since Yugoslav leaders trusted the IMF to uphold proper conduct?

[–] multitotal@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sure. The debt was a catalyst, though. If not debt, it'd have been something else. The US wanted to break apart Yugoslavia after the fall of the Soviet Union, to create states friendly to it who'd eventually join NATO. Local nationalists collaborated with foreign capital to sell off all the means of production and state-owned capital. Same thing happened in Russia, the Baltics, and every other socialist state that turned neolib (shock therapy).

How long does it take for CIA to declassify documents? I wouldn't be surprised if we read about their activity in Yugoslavia in the 80s to find they stoked separatism.

[–] Sinister@hexbear.net 2 points 1 month ago

For sure they supported some latent ustasha remnants.

[–] Rextreff@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's what confused me, Cuba was clearly aligned with Soviet Union so how could they be a part of NAM?

[–] multitotal@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 month ago

Even before Cuba was removed from the OAS and the American embargo was enforced, Castro was already making plans to outmaneuver the Americans in a way that would also result in them asserting their independence as a nation against the Soviet Union. Thus, in 1961, Cuba joined the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) and became the only member of the organization in the Western Hemisphere.[8] The purpose of NAM is to “protect the right of nations to independent judgements and to counter imperialism while also committing itself to restructuring the world economic order,” which not only coincided with Cuba’s very core ideals, but it also encouraged multilateral cooperation and thus, aided Cuba economically by providing it with more allies to trade and collaborate with.[9] Although Cuba did not perfectly fit the criteria for the ‘non-aligned movement’ as they were affiliated with the USSR, they joined the organization to help differentiate themselves from the Soviets as they wanted to display how the country could act independently and sometimes even against Soviet wishes, but to also show how even with the strong American influence throughout the world, it could not prevent every political move that Cuba made.

source

[–] cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

As Anarcho-Bolshevik and multitotal have noted, and in my personal view, Yugoslavia was definitely, firmly socialist. It had more markets and concessions to capital than the USSR for instance, but the commanding heights of the economy were controlled by the state in the name of the working class, and commodities were mostly produced to generate profit for Yugoslavia to survive in a capitalist world and provide for it's citizens. This is something that every single socialist country has and had to do, for now.

That all being said, just because a country is socialist doesn't mean it's not above criticism. I'm not saying that you said or thought that, it's just important to keep in mind.

Allegedly, Yugoslavia murdered Soviet and classical Marxist-Leninist-aligned politicians.

[–] multitotal@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Allegedly, Yugoslavia murdered Soviet and classical Marxist-Leninist-aligned politicians.

If true (about Soviet politicians) then it's part of the tit-for-tat between Yugoslavia and Soviet Union. Yugoslavia was run by Marxists, I'd dare even say Marxists-Leninists, their problems with the Soviet Union were not ideological, but political.

Soviet documents showed that the Soviet Union was paying for anti-Yugoslav activities in Yugoslavia all up until 1979. Then there's also the case where the Soviet Union would arm Yugoslavian dissidents and then send them across the Bulgarian and Hungarian borders to attack the border posts. A Soviet general remarked that after the 50s all Soviet battle plans had to do with Yugoslavia's terrain. Stalin famously said "I will wag my little finger and Tito will be gone." There were dozens if not hundreds of attempts on Tito's life, mostly from the Soviet Union.

In popular culture, especially western popular culture, they like to lump Yugoslavia as part of the "communist bloc" but don't know that Yugoslavia and Soviet Union were practically enemies from like 1949 until the 1970s. One of the catalysts was that the Soviet Union made a deal with Britain where they wouldn't arm Greek communists, but Yugoslavia went against "official communist policy" and armed them anyway.

Yugoslavia and Tito did make some mistakes, that's for sure. But I'll say one thing, that whatever Tito & Co. did, they did it not to enrich themselves, but for the people of Yugoslavia. That's why Tito played both sides and on the world stage Yugoslavia always did what's right, not expedient.

Tito supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 but criticized Moscow’s intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Tito’s denunciation of that move further warmed relations with Washington. But they cooled again when he sided with the Soviets during the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict.

[–] cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is it true that Stalin tried to have Tito assassinated? I thought it was mostly neoliberal propaganda.

But if true, this is all fucking horrible and terrifying.

[–] multitotal@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is it true that Stalin tried to have Tito assassinated?

Yes, but it was hard to find anyone close to Tito who would betray him, like with Castro. Both fond of Cuban cigars too. Tito was the only person to smoke inside the White House. The staff told him that smoking isn't allowed and Tito said "Good for you." (or something to that effect)

[–] cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Do you mean the Amerikkkan White House or the Yugoslavian equivalent? Sorry if stupid question.

[–] multitotal@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 month ago

The Amerikkkan one.

[–] multitotal@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thread theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJpd9lX5Bac

Bonus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXBtXLx0Baw

[–] TankieReplyBot@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 month ago

I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

Link 1:

Link 2:

[–] Sinister@hexbear.net 5 points 1 month ago

Yugoslavia and the Soviets are basically the western version of Vietnam and the PRC

[–] darkernations@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If one, for example, could consider a universal health care system such as the NHS in the UK can exist in an overall capitalist system then we can consider capitalist mechanisms could exist under an overall socialist system (though it should be noted that markets existed long before capitalism).

How would then one potentially define a system is socialist or not? If the system is not submissive to capital it could potentially be considered socialist. A century worth of data from various social projects around the world suggests that a dictatorship of the proleteriat with a vanguard party at the helm would be needed to have a hope of being more powerful than capital, of which it could be said that Yugoslavia did meet that criteria.

Each nation will have to discover for themselves through scientific application of political economic development (ie marxism) how this could be achieved.

/edit: grammar/clarity

Ask Lemmygrad