----- Original Message -----
From: Gothique <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 1999 11:15 PM
Subject: [anarchism] Bombing Yugoslavia into the Dark Ages


>
> ---------
> Bombing Yugoslavia into the Dark Ages
> by Brian Oliver Sheppard ([log in to unmask])
>
>
>     The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was originally
> envisioned as a union of Southern European Slavs. The
> 1946 Constitution of the country recognized 5 Slavic
> ethnic groups: Montenegrins, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes,
> and Macedonians (though more than this did exist).
> There were likewise six republics established beneath
> the umbrella of the Yugoslavian Federation that
> closely corresponded to these groups. Each republic
> had ethnic minorities and a majority, as does any
> nation on earth. The war that has divided the former
> Yugoslav Republic for the greater part of this decade
> (the 1990s) is usually explained in terms of an
> internecine conflict between these ethnic groups. We
> are told how they have historically hated each other,
> how they have always resented and disagreed with one
> another, how their religious differences got the
> better of them, etc. The 78-day US/NATO bombing
> campaign against the nation of Yugoslavia (now
> composed of Serbia and Montenegro) is presented as a
> regrettable yet necessary humanitarian action designed
> to quell further campaigns of "ethnic cleansing"
> conducted by Serbs against ethnic Albanians or others.
> More evidence is showing, however, that the massive
> bombing campaign was the culmination of an effort to
> destabilize, economically and morally, this Balkan
> nation.
>
>     Yugoslavia was always fiercely independent with
> regards to resisting influence from any side during
> the Cold War. Though Yugoslavia's diverse peoples held
> largely populist socialist views, it was not a puppet
> of Soviet control as most Eastern European nations
> were. But neither was it a capitalist democracy
> beholden to US interests, as was (and is)
> characteristic of Western European nations. Rather,
> its economy was a highly unusual, innovative, and, for
> awhile, successful, blend of socialism and economic
> decentralization. The economy was not a centrally
> planned command economy in the classic State Socialist
> sense, nor was it composed of decentralized markets
> characterized by private ownership of capital. This
> presented a challenge to both traditional socialist
> economists and free market apologists, who had, up
> until the example of Yugoslavia, been victims of an
> either/or mentality that insisted nations had to
> choose between either a Soviet model or an American
> one. The example of Yugoslavia was one that irritated
> both capitalist and traditional socialist ideologues.
>
>     Tom Bottomore, Professor Emeritus of the University
> of Sussex, observed many of the unique features of the
> Yugoslavian economy in a 1990 book-length survey of
> socialist systems past and present (The Socialist
> Economy: Theory and Practice, The Guilford Press).
> Writing before the disintegration of the Federal
> Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991, Bottomore states that
> "[t]he Yugoslav economy can be characterized briefly
> by saying that property is managed directly by workers
> themselves, in a system of social ownership which is
> contrasted with state ownership in other socialist
> countries." (p.76) He also states that this system was
> the "first major break with the Stalinist system"
> (p.75) and that this Yugoslav form of "social
> ownership approaches more closely the conception of a
> 'society of associated producers,' formulated
> abstractly by Marx, but influenced by the cooperative
> factories of the nineteenth century." (p.76)
> Bottomore, who has edited the Dictionary of Marxist
> Thought, and who could probably be characterized as a
> "Western Marxist," is far from being anticommunist -
> but neither does he uncritically gloss over, accept,
> or glorify the achievements of State-managed
> socialism. Bottomore admits that Yugoslavia "was the
> first socialist country to introduce major
> innovations, through an alternative conception of
> social ownership, [of] a decentralization of the
> economy and especially of management, and the
> development of market relations." (p.86) The
> Yugoslavian economy was a bold initiative into the
> realm of market socialism, or, more precisely,
> "socialism within markets." Workers' councils ran
> industries and made decisions democratically for their
> firms. Stalinists and other critics said this merely
> led to "group egoism" where the collectives of each
> firm acted in their own self-interest and not
> necessarily in the better interests of consumers and
> other members of society. Free market theorists
> despised the form of shared ownership of capital that
> Yugoslavian labor-managed firms represented -
> especially when it worked. Nevertheless, this form of
> decentralized socialism was enormously popular with
> the people of Yugoslavia and was for several decades a
> success.
>
>     The decentralized socialism of Yugoslavia "was one of
> considerable achievement in economic growth and rapid
> industrialization, and in the liberalization of social
> and cultural life" (Bottomore, p.86). "The initial
> achievements of Yugoslavia under the new regime were
> impressive, with very high growth rates and a high
> level of accumulation and investment, and they
> attracted widespread attention." (Botomore, p. 76)
> However, authoritarian politicians of Stalinist
> persuasion increasingly began to feel that such
> independence of the economic sector from the State,
> whether socialist or not, was dangerous for national
> policy. "The process of liberalization," Bottomore
> writes, "was ... halted in an effort to re-establish
> the authority of the Communist party in the face of
> radical students' and workers' movements...." (p.87)
> The Yugoslav economic initiative, directed not by
> state planners or by private holders of large amounts
> of capital, represented a dangerous new alternative
> that appeared to be meeting with success. Just one
> year before the Federal Republic launched into civil
> war, Bottomore admitted that this unique "Yugoslav
> system has demonstrated its feasibility over a fairly
> long period...." (p.77) In 1988, economist Gyorgy
> Szell wrote that the system of federated workers'
> management as represented by Yugoslavia "has proved
> that simple workers are able, without being experts,
> to run companies and social institutions, and that
> this society therefore provides some hope that
> political apathy will be overcome." (Current
> Sociology, 36 (3), 1988) The Yugoslavian achievement,
> though far from perfect, seemed to show a new
> possibility for socialism that was, in fact, old: a
> return to a grass roots socialism wherein industry was
> managed directly by workers and their federated
> associations, much in the tradition of the original
> libertarian socialist ideas of the early 20th and late
> 19th Centuries. The refusal of the Yugoslavs to fully
> align with the imperialist powers of either East or
> West only added to the frustration that leaders on
> both sides of the Iron Curtain felt towards the
> obstinately successful republic.
>
>     So, if it was so successful and innovative, what
> happened?
>
>     If you believe the US media, "ethnic tensions" got
> the better of everyone, and people abandoned their
> once relatively prospering economic system in a
> scramble to kill each other off. It's true that ethnic
> tensions existed in Yugoslavia; they exist in the USA,
> in England, in China, and in just about any country
> you care to think of. And, as in many countries on the
> planet, ethnic tensions in Yugoslavia were "centuries
> old." But for ethnic differences to allow for, on the
> one hand, economic innovation and prosperity for a
> sustained period, and then, on the other hand, to
> suddenly be the cause of total systemic collapse and
> civil warfare, is unusual. If ethnic hatred was the
> cause of the breakup that began in 1991, how did
> ethnic hatred factor into the shared economic success
> and experimentation that lasted from 1946 to the early
> 80s?  Is a genocidal compulsion on the part of the
> Serbs the reason for the breakdown of the Yugoslav
> Republic?  And was this hatred so extreme as to merit
> a NATO bombing campaign that will now take Yugoslavia
> decades to recover and rebuild from? If you believe
> the increasingly transparent reports from government
> officials as they are relayed through the media, this
> is indeed the case.
>
>     What becomes more plausible when one goes over the
> facts of the matter is that stories of genocidal
> atrocity by the Serbs against other ethnic groups were
> exaggerated by NATO government officials to
> "necessitate" a massive covert, and ultimately overt,
> campaign to destroy and demoralize the peoples of
> Yugoslavia. I have no doubt that Slobodan Milosevic is
> a corrupt ruler, and that he has been oppressive in
> many ways to the people of Yugoslavia; he does,
> however, allow for opposition parties, protests,
> anti-government television and newspapers, and has
> never directed the Yugoslav military into foreign
> adventures and conquests unlike many traditional
> dictators. Former Yugoslav dictator Tito rewrote the
> nation's constitution in 1974 to make himself
> president for life, something Milosevic has not done -
> a ruler like Tito is the sort that would irk the
> sensitive democratic sensibilities of NATO, one would
> think. Milosevic, however, is as corrupt and bad as a
> Nixon or a Bush, you might say. Because this is so, he
> is worthy of the hatred of the Yugoslav people - just
> as Clinton is worthy of the hatred of the American
> people. But Milosevic has done nothing so outlandish
> as to merit the bombing campaign that has, ironically,
> left him in the seat of power while destroying his
> country's infrastructure and agricultural potential.
> Though the US claims it is acting in the name of
> oppressed peoples of the Balkans, it is quite obvious
> that this is a battle selected for aims other than an
> unflinching desire to root out and eradicate ethnic
> hatred wherever it might be. The 78-day war waged
> against Yugoslavia has resulted in more deaths than
> the supposed "ethnic cleansing" of ethnic Albanians by
> the Serbs. The US/NATO bombing has also led to a much
> greater economic and humanitarian crisis than any
> previous atrocities did. If the results of the US/NATO
> war are that 1) Slobodan Milosevic is still in power,
> and 2) the country's economy, agriculture, and
> infrastructure are in ruins, what conclusions should
> we draw as to the aims of US/NATO involvement?
>
>     Foreign armies now occupy Kosovo and in formal
> ceremonies the CIA-backed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
> has assumed a role as a civil service organization to
> help the US "build democracy" and reorganize the
> economy of the area. Under US tutelage, it is not
> likely that a return to the fairly successful economy
> of social ownership of the means of production will be
> pursued. Already US and NATO governments are awarding
> contracts to corporations in their own countries so
> that they may come in and privatize services - to
> "help" former Yugoslavians rebuild the society that
> NATO was forced, through its good intentions, to
> obliterate. A US Virginia firm, MPRI, Inc., of
> Virginia, is taking charge of the KLA and of
> management of civil society, just as it took charge of
> Bosnian civil militia planning. But government
> contracts will eventually be phased out after private
> enterprise picks up the slack completely. Yugoslavia
> itself - what's left of it - will now have to suffer
> decades of substandard housing, utilities, and health
> care. A massive rebuilding effort will have to take
> place, and Yugoslavia can either somehow try to tax
> and put to work its own demoralized public - or it can
> turn to more powerful Western countries for help.
> World Bank loans from the late 80s had already placed
> Yugoslavia largely under the yoke of external
> creditors; declarations of bankruptcy were prevalent
> in the early 90s when the secession of republics
> began. Yugoslavia has effectively been bombed into the
> Dark Ages and it will be forced, now, to assume the
> role of dependent and rely on external help if it
> wants to even try to approach the success it enjoyed
> in the 50s and 60s pursuing its own unique economic
> initiatives. As a last bastion of independent popular
> economic policy, it has successfully been destroyed
> and rendered incapacitated.
>
>
>
> =====
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -- Talk to your group with your own voice!
> -- http://www.egroups.com/VoiceChatPage?listName=anarchism&m=1
>
>