Latinka Perovic


Flight from Modernity



How is one to approach today Serbia�s attitude to Western Europe? That attitude is not always or primarily explicit, nor is it tied to any given political, scientific or cultural institution. It is more implicit and, as such, can be detected through analysis of the crucial trends of its internal development and especially the role played by the elite in directing this development. We are speaking essentially about a spontaneous but articulated response to the challenge posed to the Serb elite by: 1. the unification of Western Europe and on that basis its further economic modernisation; 2. the collapse of the East European systems and the consequent need to choose new paths for an all-round future development.

Much more specific research is needed before we can answer two crucial questions: 1. what has been Serbia�s attitude over the past decade and a half towards Western Europe, and towards the type of society and the civilisational standards associated with it? 2. why is it important to pose the problem of Serbia�s own Europeanisation?

Unification of the National Elite

The stance and role of the Serb elite after the death of Josip Broz Tito - which were crucial in deciding between an orientation that would have drawn Serbia closer to Europe and one that moved it further away - needs to be established by reference to many different sources. Nowhere, however, were they more openly expressed, and in such concentrated form, than in the daily Politika, especially its �Echoes and Reactions� rubric.

This rubric drew in many masters and doctors of science who until then had been little known even in their own professional circles. It gave this type of intellectual a chance to emerge from anonymity and to achieve, if not a professional, than at least a social promotion. Their numbers gave the impression of the existence of a wide and united front of �wise men�. As the circle widened of those aspiring to contribute to the solution of the nation�s fateful problems by airing arbitrary and simplistic views, an appearance on the pages of Politika became increasingly obligatory and, at the same time, quite easily achieved.

The tone was set, however, by academicians, eminent scientists and artists, famous writers, painters, philosophers, jurists, economists, doctors, engineers, architects, lawyers, journalists, actors, generals and politicians. Although the �Echoes and Reactions� rubric was by definition open to all, it never contained attempts to right personal wrongs or settle accounts with one�s detractors. The debate was about global problems and solutions, around which the authors of individual contributions would spontaneously coalesce. Any contrary opinion was torn apart and made to disappear under the weight of this mass. This is why the rubric is a fascinating index of the spirit of a time when Serbia glorified itself and, drunk on self-sufficiency, gradually closed up, isolating itself from Europe and the world. .

Traditionally highly respected as one of our national institutions, Politika now acquired first place among them. What was expected of it - and generously satisfied by it - went well beyond the role of any paper, even such an old and famous one. Politika was not just a mere tool in the hands of powerful political and ideological mechanisms. It became an institution with a particular mission, a kind of holy book, in whose every word one had to trust unconditionally. It was said of it that it was �stronger than the law�, a �torch-bearer and leader�, a �spiritual bastion of truth, justice and progress�, a �real source of inspiration�. �The people�s Politika is eternal.� This is the source which will enable us to follow closely the developmental line of Serb National Socialism.

In the paper as a whole, and especially in the �Echoes and Reactions� rubric, there were explicit and unambiguous anti-European statements and declarations. In contrast, however, to these arrogant and frequently tasteless and primitive statements, filled with provincialism and hatred, far more important for understanding the fundamental choice being made by the paper and Serbia in that crucial decade were the basic positions adopted on vital questions of the country�s internal development: the pressing need for modernization and democratic transformation of the common state; reform of the political system; party pluralism and parliamentary democracy; property and the market; the status, rights and freedom of individuals and ethnic communities; our relationship to, and cooperation with, other nations and states; and so on. For an investigation into the general spirit of the time, and into Serbia�s attitude to Europe and its civilisation in particular , it is necessary to analyse the expressed trends in relation to all these real and burning issues, for they decided not only Serbia�s momentary behaviour but also the long-term development of its society.

It was the academicians who gave greatest weight to this column. It, and the paper as a whole, gave them a platform from which to question authoritatively the 1974 Constitution - from an anachronistic, strictly nationalistic and simultaneously centralist position, and in complete contrast to civilisational and democratic European tendencies towards a greater affirmation of the independence and sovereignty of nations - and to explain the need for abrogation of the autonomy [of the two Provinces]. They denounced as secessionism every proposal for reform of the Federation, and resolutely rejected the idea of a Yugoslav confederation while demanding the right of self-determination only for the Serb nation.

The academicians thus insisted that the position of Serbs in Croatia was worse than at the time of Austria-Hungary, and without any proof announced to the public that during the past 45 years Serbs in Croatia had been exposed to genocide. They presented in equally bleak terms the position of Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, whose Islamicization they considered to be a real danger - without, however, offering any arguments to support this conclusion. Unable to impose the variant of a strengthened, unitarist federation dominated by the most numerous nation (encapsulated in the slogan �one man-one vote�), they accused the north-western republics of separatism, while openly seeking the separation of the Serb nation. �We Serbs�, wrote the president of the Academy of the Sciences and Arts (SANU) Antonije Isakovic, �should consider whether we can live alone. We have behind us the experience of an independent state, and we gained that state on our own, unlike the others who gained theirs by various compromises.� Academician Miodrag Jovicic had this to say: �Serbia is sufficiently large and wealthy and can therefore survive alone, or united with the republics who wish it.

Supportive of the programme of the �new Serbian leadership�, the academicians declared on the occasion of the promulgation of the Republic of Serbia�s new constitution, which removed the autonomy of the two provinces, that the proposed reforms were inevitable, but that they should not stop there. And while others in Yugoslavia were growing alarmed by such statements coming from representative members of the Serb elite, which coincided with openly imperial and war-mongering slogans raised at mass rallies across Serbia, the menacing front moved from Kosova towards Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia. Academician Dejan Medakovic, on receiving the Sixth of July Prize, declared that the process of renewal of the Serb people�s suppressed historical consciousness - in other words, the �anti-bureaucratic revolution� - was characterised by �dignity and nobility�.

The Academy presented its political role as not only a scientific but also a national mission, relying on its popular prestige. Its president Du�an Kanazir stated at the end of 1989, after the publication of the Memorandum, that �as a result of the Academy�s energetic demand that errors committed against the Serb people be rectified and the social and political problems in Kosova and in the country as a whole be solved more effectively, the Academy�s moral status grew considerably.� This prestige, its leaders believed, imposed an obligation upon the Academy, which would, its president forecast, �vigilantly follow and critically and scientifically assess events in our society.� To remain silent on the status of the Serb people would bring into doubt its moral integrity; as a result it had to �turn to the Serb people as a whole, regardless of where they live.� Concerned with the interests of the Serb people as a whole, the Serb Academy of Sciences and Arts gave a lead to other national institutions. The presence of the Serb Orthodox church in public life had, until Patriarch German�s death in 1991, been more discreet, but the positions aired in its publications largely coincided with those of the Academy.


The Rise of the Anti-Democratic Movement


In accordance with their perception of the Academy�s role and mission, the academicians discussed also the nature of Serbian society and economic or political relations within it. Despite the strong movement in the rest of Europe towards transition and change, Academician Mihailo Markovic declared that Serbia would remain socialist as long as social ownership, �which at this moment amounts to 300 billion dinars�, remained the norm. The argument that Serbia was alone and surrounded by a hostile coalition, and that it was endangered by a world conspiracy, was used to deny the need for transition towards political pluralism in Serbia and to defend de facto the one-party system. �The political situation in Serbia�, argued Academician Markovic, � is such that the majority of serious people do not wish to join other parties, even when they are critical of the Communist party. ... Most important is the fact that the political system projected by the current reform is not, and cannot be, a multi-party one.�

Thanks to this and other such theories about how non-party democracy was the highest form of real democracy, the multi-party system and free elections were introduced in Serbia under great pressure, later than in other Yugoslav republics, and only after the autocratic regime in place had consolidated its hold on the republic by means of the �anti-bureaucratic revolution�.

According to Markovic, � the forms of direct democracy which our system affirms and nurtures are different from the indirect democracy based on parties. So the political organisations which exist in a system of this kind are not proper parties, though that is what they are called, because they cannot seize or hold power, which is the aim of every true party.�

Academician Markovic was referring here to a document called Positions of the Presidency of Serbia�s commission on reform of the political system. As one of its authors, Markovic praised it as �a radical programme for the democratisation and modernisation of our political system�. The central principle of this document was �one man-one vote�. Such a document, consequently, stood no chance of being adopted in multinational Yugoslavia, offering as it did a plan for a unitarist and centralised federation, in opposition to the strongly expressed demands of the non-Serb peoples of Yugoslavia and also to democratic views throughout Europe. Such a plan not only posed a barrier to any progressive democratic evolution, it represented in actual fact a regression with regard to the state of relations that had been achieved among the peoples of Yugoslavia.

The document, nevertheless, enjoyed the broad and united support of the Serb elite, which judged it to be historic in nature. Professor Miroslav Egeric called it no more nor less than the magna carta of Serb democracy. They praised to the skies what in reality was but one in a series of bureaucratic documents, as testified to by its title Positions. It was said of it in the pages of Politika that it �foresaw the end of the great Serb delusion�; that it �derived from the [Serb] nation�s strength�; and that it was �the logical ... consequence of developments in Serbia over the past two years� - i.e. of the �anti-bureaucratic revolution�. The document was seen as an expression of readiness to �move ahead of the times�, and as proof that �Serbia ...is turning towards the future�. The role of the academicians in the creation of this document, and in mustering public support for it, is evident. Their participation gave it a scientific character, and diluted and weakened in advance any questions, doubts or open reservations about its basic principles.

Academician Nik�a Stipcevic said that there was no reason to fear Serbia, because the principle of one man-one vote was �the starting point of every democracy�. While not disputing the existence of the �Serb question�, he denied the existence of any national question in Yugoslavia. �Those in Yugoslavia today�, he said, �who favour a federation of states rather than a federal state, support a kind of social-feudalism and national-bureaucratic feuds which are Yugoslavia�s greatest evil.� That is why he found in the above-mentioned document the directions for �mastering our future�.

Academician Radovan Samardzic considered that �with this document the Serb people, and the commission of scientists which has presented it, have not so much enabled Serbia to renew itself by returning to Europe as showed that this country and its people speak from the very heart of Europe.� According to him, the Serbs were one of those rare nations who were not allowed to struggle for their own unification: �The notorious constitution of 1974 revealed finally and to the full the intention to reduce Serbia to the narrowest of borders and place it in a position of constitutional inequality and semi-colonial economic dependence. [...] The return of the Serbs to their historical traditions and their spiritual being cannot be treated as a step backward, because it is a move which - from the Middle Ages to the present day - has sought in our historical heritage the basis for new transformations and progress.� In this way, renewal of the past became a programme for the future.

The Academy openly supported the Serbian leadership in its intention to resurrect Serb statehood and thereby automatically become the representative of the Serb people as a whole. The leadership, for its part, did not show any public appreciation of this support, thus allowing the Academy wide freedom of action. In October 1989 the President of the Republic of Serbia declared: �As for the Serbian Academy of Sciences, I do not see any reason why it should not influence Serbian politics. Which nation in the world, which serious state, is ashamed of its academy of sciences? If within it ideas were to emerge which were not in the interest of the democratic and socialist development of our country, that would not mean that such ideas were dominant or that all Academy members shared them. But the Academy should not play the dominant role. In these turbulent times, the crucial role is played by Serbian citizens.� In other words, the Academy�s services were welcome, but its role could only be subordinate. Milo�evic sent similar messages also to the Writers� Association of Serbia and to the Serb Orthodox Church. In this way they all found themselves fully united from the start on terms which the recognised leader determined, and which were politically and ideologically specified in advance.

The contributions to the �Echoes and Reactions� rubric are thus a crucial source for analysing the events of a period which, as is already clear, now appears closed. It was a period of preparation for what was to come. This material quite unexpectedly discloses also that - despite certain material criteria: elements of a market economy, Yugoslavia�s openness to the outside world - there was no mental or psychological readiness in Serbia for fundamental changes of the social and political structure, especially any redefinition of inter-state relationships. There was no readiness for this, either in the masses or - which is particularly important - in the elite. One should, of course, compare Serbia at this stage with other parts of the former Yugoslavia, as well as with other East European countries. Although one could not as yet speak of fundamental changes there, a certain crumbling of the old structures and mechanisms of rule was already present in Eastern Europe, which were a necessary condition for essential changes to occur. It is true, as Ralf Dahrendorf has said, that �despite all the clamour and noise, not a single new idea emerged from Eastern Europe in 1989'; nevertheless, the slogan �Europe here and now!� did help to crystallize an alternative. For some East European nations it meant a resumption of the movement, violently severed in 1945, along the path of West European civilisation; for others it meant retracing the path along which West European nations had evolved. How is one to place Serbia in this regard?


Self-isolation


Speaking in general, Serbia did not adopt an openly hostile position towards West European civilisation in the 1980s. The view of Western Europe endorsed by Serb theologians - that, having abandoned the way of Christ, it had become a great evil and a �source of poison� for part of European humanity; or that, by building its culture around the individual, it had turned him into a slave of materialism - had remained within the confines of the Serb Orthodox Church. Only in recent times, characterised by a marked politicization of the Church, has this position come to be embedded also in wider social and cultural structures. However, from the start of the political conflicts in Yugoslavia, and especially after these grew into military conflicts, Serbia built its attitude towards Europe on one need only: to persuade Western Europe of the �Serb truth�.

The refusal to consider how others saw us was an increasingly telling sign of a growing self-enclosure and self-isolation; of a loss of ability to see another point of view, without which it is impossible to gain a realistic perception of one�s own. In this context, the Serb elite was expected to play a crucial role in propagation of the �Serb truth�: this was to be its primary patriotic duty. This elite - not only in Politika and not only by way of the �Echoes and Reactions� rubric, joined the struggle to �spread the truth about Serbia�, insisting on its �tragedy� and on the battle for �biological salvation of the Serb people�.

The problem of the relationship to Europe was not disputed by the highest Serbian leadership; it was rather that the latter specified strict conditions for Serbian membership of Europe. This was possible - Slobodan Milo�evic in May 1989 informed those in Yugoslavia who favoured the country�s Europeanization, the supporters of �Europe here and now!� - only if internal solutions were adopted that favoured �a new socialism, as a more prosperous and democratic society, a society which will belong to Europe.� �We shall not, however, enter that Europe�, Milo�evic continued, �as lackeys who flatter that Europe by denigrating their own state and institutions, particularly the Army [the reference is to Slovenia�s �alternative movement� at the time], and by making fun of other, allegedly uncultured, peoples who live in the same state as they. We shall enter that Europe on the basis of equality and, of course, in our own Yugoslav and socialist manner.�

Milo�evic had formulated his social credo even earlier, and more decisively: �We must reach the level of the developed countries of Europe and the world, not by returning to private property and a parliamentary system; not as a civil, but as a socialist society.� It is also the case, he argued, that �the dispute over a civil versus socialist society has never up to now been resolved without the shedding of blood.�

Socialism, purified of bureaucratic deformations but also of all elements of capitalism and liberalism, was to remain, therefore, both as a practice and as a social ideal. This choice was made in Serbia before the Yugoslav crisis manifested itself as a crisis of the state. More precisely, Serbia�s choice was one of the essential elements of the crisis and break-up. �At the Eighth Session of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia [SKS]�, said one of those who implemented its decisions, �it was the left wing of the SKS that had won.� This choice was not made by the Serbian regime alone. Dobrica Cosic, the leading Serb nationalist ideologue, wrote: �There is no doubt that in a historical sense the Bolshevist-Leninist, Stalinist, and if you wish Titoist, variant of the idea has become spent. That idea has suffered its historical debacle. But the idea of socialism, in my view, is a living idea. [...] I personally remain a supporter of utopian socialism, since my whole ethos is such that to the end of my life I will never stop aspiring towards such an albeit utopian ideal.�

The essence of this view was reflected in Politika headlines: �The press must express and implement people�s, workers�, socialist truths�; �We stand by a socialism of high efficiency�; �It is reforms, not surrender of socialism�; �The building of socialism can only be a joint enterprise of all progressive social forces�; �Not the end, but the spring of socialism�.

By way of the anti-bureaucratic revolution, the regime in Serbia consolidated itself and offered resistance to all political and economic change. Since the need for change had matured, its rejection necessarily led to a negative evolution - indeed a degeneration - of the system. It should be recalled that this was the starting point of the inter-Yugoslav divisions, which soon manifested themselves also as conflicts of national interest. The war was only their most drastic expression.

�The populist movement in Serbia and Montenegro had a social component at the start [...] In parallel with the socially determined �voice of the people�, its ethnic voice too was heard at the rallies. Already at the rallies in 1988 and 1989 the voice of the people was best heard once it was identified as the voice of the Serb people.� In relation to the ethnically defined Serb people, �members of other peoples easily become opponents and enemies.�

The period between the mass rallies and the first multi-party elections in Serbia may be described as a period of stabilisation of the ruling structure and consolidation of the mechanisms of its rule. Serbia in this regard represents an exception, both in the former Yugoslavia, where the war has if nothing else shaken parts of the ruling structure, and in Eastern Europe, where the old structures of power were seriously destabilized and even destroyed. Viewed in this context, the anti-bureaucratic revolution represents a negative anticipation of what was to follow in Eastern Europe. It fortified collectivism: what began as social ended up as national. The main body of the Serb elite failed to see in this yet another movement away from individualism as the basic principle of West European civilisation. On the contrary, the Serb elite encouraged and crucially contributed to the �enthroning� of the nation as the only political and social subject.

Hundreds of thousands of people on the streets of Serbia, over one million in Belgrade and over two million at Gazimestan, chose a form of democracy, a permanent state, to which even urban plans were supposed to adapt. In Ni�, for example, there was an initiative to alter the urban plans, and it was expected that the example would be followed in other Serbian cities. Every town was to have a square for mass rallies: one for approximately three hundred thousand in Ni� and one for up to a million in Belgrade. [...]

This identification of the individual with the mass, the absorption of the former into the latter, which occurred during the anti-bureaucratic revolution left a deeper trace than would appear at first glance. It was expressed not only in the attack on urban culture during the war, but also in the way it diluted the meaning of superficially adopted West European values such as private enterprise, multi-party system, parliamentary democracy, freedom of the press. These never were aspired to, in actual fact. �In this historic moment�, wrote Dobrica Cosic, �the content and quality of the proposed constitution is far more important for Serbia�s democratic future than is the quality of the democratic procedure.�

What was being lost from sight is what Slobodan Jovanovic once wrote about: the fact that �as soon as the individual raises himself a little above national egoism, it becomes clear to him that the nation in itself does not represent what in philosophy is called �value�. This it can acquire only by entering the service of general cultural ideals.�

The distancing of Serbia from West European civilisation happened before the outbreak of the war. The war only accelerated it, and the war�s end [in Bosnia-Herzegovina] has made it drastically plain. We are dealing, among other things, with the victory of a cultural model whose bearer is the semi-intellectual - a man whom Slobodan Jovanovic described as
someone with a school diploma, but without either cultural or moral education. In the course of the anti-bureaucratic revolution, by way of the pages of Politika, such individuals disseminated hatred and established the foundations for a politics of war. They were able to sever for the first time the never dominant, but always present, West European orientation in the political culture of Serbia, and to replace it with self-sufficiency.

The power of traditional collectivism

This reconstruction of the role the Serb elite has played in the events of the last decade should not be taken as a plea for its condemnation, but rather as an attempt to understand its history and its contribution to the development of the Serb nation. During its not very long history the Serb elite has remained torn between East and West, between patriarchalism and modernity. Born of a peasant nation, the small Serb elite of the mid-19th century emanated the collectivistic democracy of the people from which it derived. Afterwards, especially after Serbia�s acquisition of independence, in the decade of 1878-88, it also institutionalized it. All the movements which the Serbian elite inspired in the second half of the 19th century - the youth movement of the 1860s, which counterposed the �Srbenda� [true Serb] to the �rotten West�; the �positivist� movement of the 1870s; and the radical movement of the 1880s - �suffered from a spiritual, intimate need for collectivism�. This evident need was seen as proof that �our social life is not deep enough to be capable of adopting a higher culture, which in its basis is wholly individualistic.� However, by using Western phraseology �our superficial political intelligentsia� consciously or unconsciously prevented the understanding �that we are not a democratic nation in the Western sense of the word�, and that �there exists an essential difference between our and the Western understanding of democracy�.

The history of social ideas in Serbia shows that the economic and political dimensions of social development were seen more in terms of their conflict than their interdependence. It was always disputed whether the political or the economic should have priority. It is difficult to find a political party in Serbia which had a coherent political and economic programme. They all aspired to national and social liberation and to unification, as well as to political freedoms; but none had a clear programme for economic development - i.e. modernisation - and the inevitable price which had to be paid for it. Up to the Second World War, Serbian society remained an agrarian one with a surplus of agricultural population, whose social structure could not provide the roots for a parliamentary democracy.

At the start of the 20th century Serbia became a parliamentary state, but the influence of the court and the army was always very great. Serbian society moved between anarchy and autocracy, and the Serbian statesman Milan Pirocanac was not far from the truth when he wrote in his Diary that the Serb nature is �servile when commanded and dissolute and irrepressible when given licence�. When considered in a historical perspective, one can understand the words of the Serbian scientist Jovan Cvijic, spoken after the wars of liberation from Turkish rule. The Serb people, Cvijic wrote, is a democratic people, but it is a natural democracy �without institutions or a democratic mode of government�. Without economic modernisation or democratic institutions, the Serb people - like other Balkan peoples - was in danger of being left on the margins of historical development. Cvijic pointed out the archaic patriarchal nature of the Balkan peoples, including the Serbs, whence deprives the partiality for leaders who easily turn into dictators.

The idea of a people�s as opposed to a legal state is the general locus of Serb political and social thought. Such a state has a social function, in that it initiates and controls economic development but also guarantees a just distribution. The idea of a people�s state has never in fact been abandoned: it originates from the poverty of Serb society. Only the centre of gravity has moved - from the social to the national - but the focus has always been on the people as a whole.

In Serbia the ideology of narodnja�tvo was the response to social and political questions posed by Western Europe. This ideology rested upon the patriarchal mentality of the people, which is why it was able to influence so essentially its social history. It is necessary to get down to a fundamental, non-ideological investigation of our history. This is necessary not only in order to explain the past, but also to understand the present. Serbian society has developed an industry, but it has remained undifferentiated and under the strong influence of �agrarian mysticism�. In such nations, the concepts of state and society have become fused.

Europe is not a trauma for the Serb masses. It is a trauma for the Serbian elite, where it manifests itself as a complex derived from the persistent inability to overcome the country�s lagging behind. The attempt to speed up history by way of a political revolution failed. Communist modernization also reached a limit. Confronted with the challenge of modernisation, the Serbian elite has once again given a patriarchal response. What are the perspectives?

Over a hundred years ago, after Serbia had gained its independence, the Serbian intellectual and statesman Stojan Novakovic posed the following dilemma: �What now remains to be done? What remains for us to do is to look squarely at ourselves and grasp whence the danger comes. Is it more dangerous to remain in the same place or to move on? We were given the possibility of choosing: should we see the culture of the Western world as an enemy from whom we must flee, or as an elder friend and teacher with whom we should and must socialize�.

This dilemma basically still remains valid today. Serbia, however, has dropped out of development and its society is in a state of anomie. This is much more than the defeat of a policy, a regime, a nationalistic nonsense. It is a historic defeat. A maturing awareness of this truth would provide the beginning of a departure from the circle of social-national-social collectivism. Unless this happens, the Serb people will confirm that Alexis de Tocqueville was right when he said that some nations disappear before becoming aware of their errors.


This text was first published in Republika (Belgrade), 16-31 March 1995, and was subsequently included in Srpska strana rata - trauma i katarza u istorijskom pamcenju, Belgrade 1996, pp. 119-132.

Latinka Perovic was born in Kragujevac in 1933. She graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade and gained her PhD at the Faculty of Political Science, where she lectured for a number of years. In 1968 she was elected Secretary of the Communist Party of Serbia at the same time as Mirko Nikezic became its President. In 1972 both were expelled from the party for �liberal deviations�.

She is the author of Od centralizma do federalizam - KP u nacionalnom pitanju [From Centralism to Federalism - the CPY and the national question], Zagreb/Ljubljana 1984; Planirana revolucija - Ruski jakobinizam i blankizam [The Planned Revolution - Russian Jacobinism and Blanqism], Belgrade/Zagreb 1988; Zatvaranje kruga - ishod rascepa 1971-1972 [Closing of the Circle - the outcome of the 1971-1972 split], Sarajevo 1991. This last book is dedicated to Mirko Nikezic, who died just before its publication. Professor Perovic is scientific adviser at the Institute for Contemporary History in Belgrade.

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