Philippe Alcoy
Released in January 2015 by Verso Books, Welcome to the Desert of Post-Socialism: Radical Politics after Yugoslavia
is a collective work coordinated by two of the best-known leftist
intellectuals in the region, Croatian Srećko Horvat and Bosnian Igor
Štiks. The book aims to break down certain prejudices that weigh on
Eastern Europe and especially in the Balkans after the collapse of the
USSR and the disappearance of the "socialist bloc," in an effort to
re-think "radical politics" for this part of the continent.
As the editors say in the introduction, “These regions have been seen
as a lost cause for progressive forces after 1989 and prone only to
right-wing politics and extremism, support of pro-US and pro-NATO
policies, and unconditional surrender to neoliberalism” (p. 3).
Twenty-five years after the process of "transition", this work sheds
light on the harmful social, political and economical consequences on
the working class of the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Another
objective is to analyze the struggles and the resistance that existed
(and continue to be) of the working class, youth, and other oppressed
sectors. The authors also point out the emergence of what they call,
"new political subjectivities".
Twenty-five years after the beginning of capitalist restoration, the
book is also about exposing the "unfulfilled promises" of "democracy"
and about economic and social progress. The contributors to the book lay
the foundations for a critical discourse of the endless transition,
which ultimately serves only to legitimize the intervention of
imperialist powers and the application of reactionary policies in the
name of “modernization” and the “route to Europe".
In this context and as a consequence, social mobilizations have been
developing for several years in the Balkans and Eastern Europe (see here, here and here).
As stated in the book’s introduction, “All these examples [of
protest] show that for the first time we have more than anti-government
rhetoric per se – instead there is a true anti-regime sentiment. Not
only the state but the whole apparatus on which the current oligarchy is
based is called into question by self-organized citizens (albeit
chaotically) (…) They also compel us to understand the nature not only
of state institutions, in their weakness or failure, but the nature of
post-socialist regime (almost) cemented over the last two decades but
susceptible to cracking under the weight of their own contradictions—
such as, for example, rampant poverty” (p. 12).
Back to the Tito’s era
The book is divided into four parts, each comprising three chapters.
The first part is devoted to the "socialist Yugoslavia", Tito’s model of
self-organization, its crisis and the "capitalist disaster" that
occurred in the 1990s during the process of transition, its impact on
trade unionism and on the working class.
This historical background is actually fundamental to a clear vision
of the issues affecting the region today because many elements of
Yugoslavia’s "final crisis" were present during Tito’s era. In this
sense, we can talk about the growing debt towards international
creditors in the 1970s, when the Western banks were eager to recycle the
"petrodollars", the "liberal" reforms that were increasing
individualistic tendencies and regional particularities, etc.
But it is Tito’s self-organization model itself, introduced in 1950,
which was a source of problems often leading to a weakening of the bonds
of solidarity between the different republics of the federation. This
trend accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s, after the introduction of a
new income-sharing system in 1958, in which workers gained the right to
wages based on their affiliation with a work collective: “This meant
that, since the workplaces were social property, the worker collectives
had the right to run and benefit from their workplace, but within
certain legal limitations, like paying various taxes according to
government regulations, which were often justified by references to the
common good or national interest. (…) Distribution was not according to
‘work’ but according to ‘results of work’. (…) That encouraged
competition among workers not only within but also between workplaces.
(…) Struggles over state investment and economic policies were
increasingly regionally contested, which meant that workplaces tended to
identify their interests with their enterprise management or the
regional government of their republics rather than with other workplaces
or other republics of the federation” (p. 28-29).
The privileges of republican bureaucracies, based on regional
networks in the mid 1980s would contradict the policies of the central
government based in Belgrade that, under pressure from international
creditors in the country, advocated for a re-centralization policy of
the State. In that same decade, there was a rise of workers’ struggles
against austerity measures and the crisis.
Subsequently, the beginning of the process of capitalist restoration
accentuated these trends, later causing the terrible wars of the 1990s,
the complete subordination to the imperialist powers of the EU and the
US, the closure of public enterprises, the rise of unemployment,
inequality and mass privatization.
The bitter fruits of the "transition"
The second and the third parts of the book deal more directly with
the "transition" period, or the process of capitalist restoration in the
former Yugoslavia.
An important focus is the "winners and losers" of the process. Thus,
“we, people of former Yugoslavia, learned – or should have – that
transition also means the evolution of thieves into businessmen. From
the EU’s perspective, Balkan thieves are much more desirable as partners
than Balkan Reds. This is because thieves respect ‘sacred’ private
property. They value it so highly that they risked their own freedom to
accumulate property illegally, while Reds want the freedom to take that
property away from them. And when thieves succeeded in gaining control
over the desired property, no one was more interested in establishing a
legal system, maintaining the new status quo and averting any potential
revolution. Those who have accumulated capital illegally now have all
the legal instruments at their disposal to protect that property.
Thieves are thus the main supporters of the current system because no
one is more determined to prevent the emergence of ideas about the
redistribution of wealth” (p. 147).
Throughout these two parts the authors outline in their own way a
criticism of the "false promises" of liberal democracy and of the
prejudices against Balkan populations about their supposed "lack of
maturity" to build "true democracies" and to join the EU. On this last
question, one of the objectives of this part of the book is to
deconstruct the idea of that joining the EU is the only viable path for
the countries of the region.
Furthermore, this process of "transition" is identified as a
counter-revolution with harmful consequences for the working class: “The
anti-bureaucratic revolution was really a counter-revolution.
Immediately after installing the new communist leadership, it swapped
class rhetoric for ethno-nationalism. (…) The Yugoslav wars and the
sanctions were exploited to accelerate what lay to the heart of the
dissolution of Yugoslavia – the transition from socialism to capitalism.
The socio-economic processes of the last quarter of a century are today
ideologically photoshopped and proclaimed to be the entry into an age
of parliamentary democracy, transition, independence, and integration
into the EU and NATO, but their real ramifications are quite different:
widespread fascist tendencies in society, war, growing unemployment, the
eradication of workers’ rights, privatizations (a synonym for plunder),
commercialization of the health and education sectors, flourishing
inequality, deindustrialization and desecularisation” (p. 145).
In such a context it is not surprising that a feeling of
"yugo-nostalgia" or "tito-stalgia" develops as a form of challenging the
current system. However, this does not mean that a "return" to the old
system is concretely proposed today by any political force or even this
"nostalgia" implies an uncritical claim of the past: “Titostalgia is
more a rejection of the current political situation and leaders than an
uncritical glorification of the politics of several decades ago and of
Tito himself. It can, therefore, be understood as a protest, or an
effective provocation, or even a defense, particularly on the part of
young people against the aggressive imposition of new ideological trends
(e.g. nationalism, the dictate of humble accession to Europe,
neoliberalism, conservatism, traditionalism, clericalism, the
restoration of the old political situation)” (p. 189).
A rise of struggles
However "nostalgia" was not the only reaction of the masses in the
region. In fact, since 2008- the onset of the global economic crisis-the
Balkan countries were strongly affected and attacks against workers’
living standards have increased. This has only deepened the crisis of
legitimacy of the governments in the region and increased workers’ and
youth struggles. This rise in struggle is what the fourth section of the
book focuses on.
In 2009 there was a wave of workers’ struggles in Serbia involving
around 30,000 workers from 40 to 45 factories. There were many and
various forms of strikes and actions like the kidnapping of bosses,
street blockages, hunger strikes and even desperate tactics like
self-harm and suicide. The fight against the neoliberal government’s
measures went hand in hand with a great distrust towards some
traditional trade unions that the workers perceived as linked with the
bosses. This is how in August 2009 the Workers’ Protest Coordination
Committee was born.
Perhaps one of the most symbolic struggles in Serbia (and the region)
was the workers’ struggle of Jugoremedija pharmaceutical company in
northern Serbia. The fight became especially symbolic because employees
were fighting to preserve their jobs against corrupt privatization,
which expressed the situation of thousands of workers in the country and
in the region. During this long struggle, workers have gone far to
establish a "worker-shareholders" type of self-management, something
which limited their ability to fight and even created tensions with
non-shareholders workers: “Despite this success and the ability of
the workers to stabilize and expand production, the situation has
remained fragile to this day. The difficult economic situation put heavy
strains on the organizational model of Jugoremedija and the division
between the worker-shareholders and the ‘ordinary’ workers became more
visible. The latter were less willing to accept stagnating wage and
working overtime for a factory which did not belong to them” (p. 207-208).
There are inherent contradictions of the organizational model that
employees have chosen to set up as a form of "self-management" in that
it creates conflicts between workers. This, along with a difficult
economic situation and political pressure have led to the end of this
experience.
Another important phenomenon in the region was the Croatian student
movement that since 2008 leads struggles that influenced beyond sectors
far beyond youth. In fact, “On 7 May 2008, they organized the first
protest at the University of Zagreb with some 5.000 participants. (…)
With their demand for ‘free education’ and a critique of neoliberalism
and privatization, the students were attacking the political mainstream.
Even the process of EU accession was being discussed critically. For
the first time in more than twenty years, the pillars of neoliberalism
and capitalism were openly challenged and put into question. As a
result, the student protest, practices and perspectives have opened up
spaces far beyond the field of higher education” (p. 213-214).
But it is the spring of 2009’s movement and the occupation of Zagreb
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences that had the most lasting
impression. With the methods of direct democracy and the cooperation
with workers and peasants during the struggle, the movement has
undoubtedly influenced other movements that occurred in the region, such
as in Bosnia in February 2014 where we saw the unity between the
workers and youth as well as the emergence of "plenums".
Some final observations
There is no doubt that this book is a very important initiative for
the region and beyond. Trying to fight a battle of ideas in a region
that is devastated and infested with reactionary ideas of nationalism,
clericalism and neoliberalism is not a simple task. However, it is
essential to lay the foundations to recover the collective memory of the
exploited and the oppressed masses in the former Yugoslavian region,
and more widely in Eastern Europe, in order to put emancipatory ideas on
the offensive.
From this point of view, the book starts from a catastrophic
situation, a true "desert" of emancipatory anti-capitalist and
revolutionary ideas. And because of this, we feel that the book is
crossed by a kind of ideological eclecticism in which some of the
authors have more radical perspectives than others. In the title itself
we see this ambiguity: to talk about "radical politics" does not
necessarily indicate whether one refers to anti-neoliberalism or some
type of anti-capitalism. The aim of a socialist system is never put
forward.
Furthermore, perhaps the greatest gap in the book is the absence of a
chapter on the social revolt in February 2014 in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
despite its explosive nature and short duration, without a doubt it is
one of the most important social movements in the region in last 25
years. It involved many issues, from the fight against the privatization
of public firms to the denunciation of employers and the political
caste’s corruption, to unemployment that especially affects youth. In
other words there was an explosive combination between working class,
youth and popular sectors which were involved in a movement in which the
central axis were class demands, unlike the other movements in the
region with more blurred and poly-classist demands.
In the postscript, the editors return to this movement and explain
that it took place after the deadline to submit the texts for the book.
However, given the importance of this movement and taking into account
that the book was published only in January 2015, one can only regret
its absence.
Welcome to the Desert of Post-Socialism is a work that has opened the
debate and encourages, in the coming years, the publication of this
kind of writings about the space of ex -Yugoslavia and in Eastern Europe
in general, which have long been at the center of imperialist
propaganda against any idea of transcending capitalism.
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