Was the socialist system of Yugoslavia successfull ?
Posted by GoHardLive@reddit | AskBalkans | View on Reddit | 58 comments
Many people say Yugoslavia was the only prosperous socialist/communist state. Was that true? Would ex Yugo countries be far better off today that the rest of eastern block countries if yugoslavia dissolved peacefully ?
Poglavnik_Majmuna01@reddit
Depends what you mean by successful. The system was successful in the sense that it substantially developed the country, but it was still a relatively poor country and the economy collapsed in the 1980s. Also keep in mind that each republic within Yugoslavia was at a different level of success and the disparity was massive.
What made Yugoslavia a better socialist state compared to the others wasn’t its economic performance, it was the far greater freedoms and openness to the world that made the quality of life much better. In Yugoslavia you could buy western goods that were superior to that of the East, you had the freedom to travel anywhere alongside decent levels of freedom of speech and low oppression.
If the country dissolved peacefully instead of Serbs choosing to wage war the region would be much more developed than it is currently. •Slovenia is already more developed than all Eastern and Southern European countries and is on par with Central Europe. Their success wasn’t impacted by Yugoslav wars given that they had no war. •Croatia is on par with countries like Poland, Czechia and the Baltics which is a good standard. That being said the 4 year long war destroyed 1/4 of the economy and resulted in $37 billion in damages, shit ton of mines, 25,000 dead and hundreds of thousands of displaced + massive refugee crisis due to Bosnian war (equivalent to Germany taking in 9-10 million refugees in 3 years). War in Croatia also allowed for mass corruption and mass privatisation that haunts the country to this day. The war also led to a 10 year delay in joining the EU despite us being ready since 2004. It’s safe to say that without the war Croatia would be substantially more developed than it is currently and on par with Slovenia if taking the current state of the 2 countries into account. •Bosnia is basically everything that happened to Croatia but 1000x worse and the fact that Bosnia was always a poorer republic makes its recovery even slower which explains why Bosnia is one of the poorest in Europe. The war also resulted in the current dysfunctional political system where RS exists and the actual leader of the country is chosen by a Western international organisation, essentially a puppet state. Without the war, Bosnia would most likely be on par with Romania. •Serbia was untouched by horrors of the 1991-1995 wars given that it was the invader, but it was still heavily sanctioned and the 1999 bombardments resulted in damages of $29.6 billion. The issue of Kosovo as a result of war has obviously hampered Serbia’s accession to the EU. Without the war, Serbia would most likely be on par with Romania and Hungary. •Montenegro faced little issues relating to war so its current progress like that of Slovenia is natural. •Macedonia is the same thing as Montenegro. •Kosovo was always a shithole and the war didn’t help. Without war it would probably be on par with Bosnia and North Macedonia.
Hot_Carpenter_8191@reddit
Compare it with Spain's Franco regime and the Portugal one. You will see that the literacy bloomed in Yugoslavia compared to the other regimes across Europe.
MrImAlwaysrighT1981@reddit
Good answer.
I don't think Croatia would catch up with Slovenia without the war, although GDP would be closer to Slovenian one. Serbia would be much better, especially without Kosovos burden, they would be on par with Poland. Bosnia, probably close to Hungary.
Kosovo, it's another story, they almost had no industry, so hard to say, but, as you said, war and political crisis didn't help for sure.
cedrico0@reddit
What do you mean by the Bosnian leader being chosen by an Western organization?
Poglavnik_Majmuna01@reddit
The High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina is the most powerful politician in the country. They are elected by PIC, an international body consisting of 55 bodies. The current one is a man called Christian Schmidt.
So yeah Bosnia is basically a playground for intergovernmental organisations as a result of Dayton.
UtterHate@reddit
i don't know, maybe he means the dayton accords? but that's just when they set up the system. either way bosnia is a joke of a country with racial discrimination unintentionally built into the system (you cannot fill a bunch of offices including the presidency unless you are an ethnic croat, serb or bosnian). i heard they put it up for EU ascension but it violates basic human rights and it's barely even a country, just boiling with separatism.
DroughtNinetales@reddit
Croatia was never as developed as Slovenia so it wouldn’t be on par with Slovenia today even if the war never happened. The war definitely stalled the progress, but comparing it to Slovenia is a big reach.
Go to page 23 to see the economical stats of each Yugoslav state pre war.
Poglavnik_Majmuna01@reddit
Yes Slovenia was more developed than Croatia even before the war. However, that doesn’t mean that Croatia would have been unable to catch up had the war not occured. Slovenia has been relatively stagnant in recent history
I will admit that it is very optimistic, but looking at the gap between the 2 countries in 2024, it is not that unfeasible to say.
DroughtNinetales@reddit
Croatia was never as developed as Slovenia so it wouldn’t be on par with Slovenia today even if the war never happened. The war definitely stalled the progress, but comparing it to Slovenia is a big reach.
Go to page 23 to see the table with the economical stats of each Yugoslav state pre war.
HeyVeddy@reddit
It was successful for that generation. When Tito died, there was confusion and lack of confidence, a rotating presidency, a psycho in Milošević who took votes away from other states and directed state funds to Serbian conflicts and ultimately pushed others away from Yugoslavia.
It was offered speedy access to join the EU, and Milošević gave a hard no. If Milošević didn't exist hypothetically, we could see it transition into European social democracy, or a weaker market socialism, and still exist.
Difficult thing is when it collapsed, the world has a tech revolution with mass production and new online capabilities so our two worlds are insanely different now. A person might say "fuck Yugoslavia because x y z" which are not Yugoslav issues but generational/societal issues mostly present everywhere
branimir2208@reddit
You wouldn't since Tuđman existed.
That pushing started in 1971 with MASPOK and 1974 constitution.
MrImAlwaysrighT1981@reddit
Actually, the 1974 constitution was a way to give more autonomy to other republics and Vojvodina and Kosovo inside Serbia, and keep Yugoslavia in piece after Tito's death.
Milošević (ab)used this, by removing autonomy from Kosovo and Vojvodina provinces, while keeping their votes in collective presidency of Yugoslavia. And even before that, they changed the Serbias constitution, where they stipulated Serbias right to violate Federal constitution if it's considered in their interest.
On the 14th extraordinary Congress of Communist party of Yugoslavia, the conflict escalated, which was essentially the last straw in Yugoslavian crisis.
branimir2208@reddit
Peace or one piece?
1974 didn't do any of those things. If your constitution has an article that allows for seccesion that seccesion will happen. Constitution of 1974 was trash and ineffective.
"Until Milošević came we lived in peace and harmony"-cut the crap we all know that he was a reaction to that constitution that hurt only one side.
In 1989 there was constitutional change, but in late 1990 new constitution was voted in.
By that point yugoslavia would collapes no matter what.
MrImAlwaysrighT1981@reddit
Both, in one piece and in peace.
Yes it was, Yugoslavia was never meant to be unitarian state, although Serbian leaders and politicians, since the SHS state, wanted more control and domination over whole country.
Constitution from 1974. was the main reason those intentions couldn't be implemented.
Reaction isn't necessary good or right, and Milošević and his decisions were neither.
Potato potato, it was done as a way to try and take over the Yugoslavian Presidency, and implement apartheid against Albanians in Kosovo. And it almost succeeded, had Bogić Bogićević, who was ethnically Serb, voted for Serbian proposal. Luckily, he made his decision according to his own conscience, and did the right thing.
Maybe not, but after that, it was a done deal.
branimir2208@reddit
Serbian politicans in late 1930s supported federation. But a strong one. There is a diffrence between centralism and unitarism.
What intetions? Can you next time quote my text so that i could understand what you mean?
Lol, before 1988 there was apartheid against Serbs from Kosovo goverment.
MrImAlwaysrighT1981@reddit
Those who were in power obviously didn't, otherwise we wouldn't get "banovine" instead of republics.
Intentions of Serbs dominating Yugoslavia. I thought it was pretty clear.
Yeah, you're always endangered, everybody hates you for no reason at all. 🙄
branimir2208@reddit
What I wanted to say is that by that point nobody denied Croatian right for national federal unit.
What was the reason for Croatian genocide on Serbs in WW2 or Muslim hate for Serbs during WW1?
There is somenthing called democracy? Where a majority rules. In every multiethnic state largest group dominates other smaller ones.
MrImAlwaysrighT1981@reddit
Not trying to make nazi NDH regime looking good in any way, but genocide in WW2 doesn't justify intetions of Serbian leadership during disolution of Yugoslavia.
In a federation, and especially a federation closer to confederation like Yugoslavia was after 1974, certain power is given to the republics or states constituting the federation itself, in order to protect smaller members or people from domination of bigger ones. Yugoslavia was no different in that regards.
Secondly, Yugoslavia, was established as a commonwealth of South Slavic people (true, at the beginning, just Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) with all of them being equal members of that state, not Serbian domination. Socialist Yugoslavia was even more specific about that, having republics as the constituents as much as people.
And last, but not least, it was democratical of republics, and citizens of those republics, to choose not to live in a Yugoslavia the way Serbs wanted it to be. And, as we can see now, nobody wanted to live in such state, except Serbs.
HeyVeddy@reddit
Yes, Tuđman and Izetbegović are both awful and part of the problem. For those that don't know Yugoslavia I used Milošević for easy reference.
sku4ubra@reddit
Yes it was especially compared to the rest of the eastern bloc. People in Bulgaria would regularly talk about how good life was in Yugoslavia especially in the 80s when the economy started to really slow down and the regime here started softening.
SwimmingHelicopter15@reddit
Certainly more successful then freacking Romania, we used to smuggle things from them like jeans, food, music ecc.
Thanks again our Danubian brothers
doklevisejbt@reddit
Funny because we got the jeans from Italy hahahaha
branimir2208@reddit
We also smuggled jeans(along with coffe and some luxury goods)
SwimmingHelicopter15@reddit
From us? Nice. I heard more stories from you
Ajatolah_@reddit
Nah, Romania wasn't really a destination to smuggle stuff from. My grandparents went on a roadtrip around Europe back in the day and they always retold how the shops in Romania had nothing to buy and how poor the country appeared comparison to Yugoslavia.
UtterHate@reddit
because it was, especially during the last year of communism when scarcity measures were implemented to pay back debts
Awesome_Romanian@reddit
But hey, at least we were the only country on earth with a national debt of 0 /s
branimir2208@reddit
Not from you, but from Trieste(Italy)
wishfulfilled@reddit
In the late 80s my dad used to drive from Belgrade to Timisoara to buy cheap meat.
Leonardo-Saponara@reddit
Italians used to go to jugoslavia to buy fuel, meats and other cheaper items. A lot of them also smuggled into Italy more fuel and meat that they were allowed to and they also smuggled cigarettes into Italy. At the time the State monopoly on cigarette in Italy was way stricter so there was a massive illegal underground market for smuggled cigarettes.
IntelligentPlate5051@reddit
Yugoslavia by the late 70s was in a stagnant & unproductive economy with rising inflation and debt. People seem to forget that part when they talk about the "glory" days of Yugoslavia. But it was certainly better than other communist states as it embraced some free market principles and had access to Western European markets.
But that being said the elephant in the room (and I will get downvoted for this) that led to the demise of Yugoslavia was Serbian nationalism and to a much lesser extent Croatian nationalism. There was a lost decade of economic growth and a significant change in demographics due to the wars that still impact these countries today. Romania and Bulgaria are ahead of Serbia (Romania is probably by a significant margin at this point) economically but in the 80s the opposite is true.
fastlikefloyd@reddit
Could clarify on why/how you think Serbian nationalism was the demise of Yugoslavia?
IntelligentPlate5051@reddit
Milosevic/Serbs used nationalism to push for a Greater Serbia within Yugoslavia. Used Serbian hooligans to Install puppet Serbian Nationalistic regimes in Kosovo, Montenegro and Vojvodina to give Serbs more influence in government. Made changes to the constitution. Took away Kosovo's autonomous status. Constantly used Albanians as scapegoats in the 80s/90s and pushed narrative that Serbs were victims to gain support from Serbs quite the contrary from the mottos of "brotherhood and unity" during yugo times in which ethic nationalism was quelled.
At a point Milosevic and his serbs didn't care if Yugoslavia were to seperate. They didn't care if Slovenia seperated since it had no Serbs and they only had an issue with Croatia seperating because there were Serbian minority in Croatia. Conflict only started in Croatia when Croatia didn't want to give away the Serb minority regions to the Serb Yugoslav state.
Honestly theres so much more and I would recommend watching death of yugoslavia if you want to gain some more insight.
starwars_supremacy@reddit
It led to a war that destroyed the nation. Ofc it isnt the only reason as breakup of yugoslavia is a very complex topic.
But it did cause a war as milosevic played the nationalism card.
Besrax@reddit
Not really, Bulgaria was about at par with Yugoslavia. Romania was pretty rough though unfortunately, but that makes their growth in the past decades that much more impressive.
DownvoteEvangelist@reddit
Romanian people were deep in powerty but Romanian Economy actually wasn't that bad while Yugoslav people had good standard of living (compared to Romanians) but economy was totally wrecked...
Fickle-Message-6143@reddit
Wasn't Yugoslavian debt much lesser than todays debt of ex-yu countries?
Tomaz1991@reddit
Probabaly but its notu about thr debt size but if you can pay it off or not. Yugoslavia couldnt pay off her debt and went bankrupt in 82
__Rosso__@reddit
Yesnt
It was flawed, but it had it's success especially during Yugoslavia's economy peak
MrImAlwaysrighT1981@reddit
Had it been successful, it would probably hold its ground against rise of nationalism, but it was better than rest of the eastern block in many ways.
Had Serbian leadership not strive towards domination over others, war could be avoided and Yugoslavia could've survived, which would subsequently mean EU membership from the start, better economy etc.
Key_Information3273@reddit
Margaret Thatcher — 'The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money’
NOTLinkDev@reddit
I remember when my dad visited the “Vardaska SR” as we used to call it at the time and he told me a weird fact that Woman used to follow his group of friends around “because they were wearing high socks which was a sign of wealth”
I still don’t know what to make of this information
S-onceto@reddit
What the hell? Did he go to a mountain-top village?
NOTLinkDev@reddit
He went to a border town, as far as I know. Near Bitola
rakijautd@reddit
Yes and no. There are certain bad decisions that had some snowball effects. One would be insisting on heavy industry, and not enough on food industry. It left a lot of very fertile land unused for what it's perfect. Even if self reliance should be a goal for each country, you simply can't have everything produced in one country.
Domestic branding and marketing those brands on an international scene was neglected in a way. A lot of our food could have gotten good recognition if handled better.
Not enough corruption inspection and penalties for abusing positions and milking the system also played a fairly small but important role that led to certain economic losses that could have been easily avoided.
The biggest blow to ex-Yu economy was bad terms imposed by the world creditors near it's end, which made it's debt much more troublesome than it was for much larger debts of some other countries.
That said, it was much more successful than it's successor states overall.
Ilovelatinas58@reddit
Yes it was under Tito
Hornet_2109@reddit
It took one totaly undevelped place with mostly peasant, iliterate population to the 20th century. It developed modern cities, infrastucture and industry almost from scratch in just one generation.
PickaLiTiMaterina@reddit
No, as soon as the dictator died, everything went to shit.
Garofalin@reddit
Sir Bakir, what did we say about using Reddit without supervision?
nemadorakije@reddit
No.
Sandstorm_221@reddit
In comparison to the USSR and Eastern Bloc as well as 5/6 states that replaced it, it was pretty successful. The problem of why it collapsed is the corruption that took hold shortly before Tito's death and culminated afterwards in the 80s, inefficient spending and just horrible financial decisions all around.
But fuck, seeing all the industry that was working like clockwork during SFRY days now get privatized and then die off slowly is painful.
JaThatOneGooner@reddit
It was on a good trajectory until it stagnated in the 70s-80s, especially after Tito’s death. Also take into account that the majority of the industry was concentrated in the north (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia) and that a lot of the southern most parts were undeveloped and lacked any real industry (especially Kosovo and Macedonia), it really felt like Yugoslavia was being held up by a select few that felt they were no longer reaping the benefits of their labor. Finally, you have corrupt actors and politicians taking advantage of Worker Self Management, leading to embezzlement schemes that undermined the workers, and eventually you have a group of people disillusioned with the communist vision. Nationalism was just the final nail in the coffin, and Milosevic sealed its fate.
VARCrime@reddit
Obviously not and 90s showed it, if it slowly but on time changed on more capitalism structure, maybe, just maybe, all the senseless wars could be avoided.
SantoriniDweller@reddit
successfull to the point it had defense agreements with NATO countries, was part of US Mutual Defense Assistance Act, Western countries were investing with loans, their currency was convertible to western currencies, investments were profit-driven, etc.
SantoriniDweller@reddit
successfull to the point it had defense agreements with NATO countries, was part of US Mutual Defense Assistance Act, Western countries were investing with loans, their currency was convertible to western currencies, etc.
SuperMarioMiner@reddit
No it wasn't.
It was a disaster.... just a little bit less of a disaster then some other examples.
Gertice@reddit
If it was succesful then Yugoslavia would still exist wouldnt it? The only reason yugoslavia survived for how long it did it was beacuse of Titos Iron rule, as soon as he died the whole place went to a crisis it never left
branimir2208@reddit
No, it wasn't.