Archive : ISG Pamphlets : War in the Balkans

The Murder of Bosnia - Part Six

Geoff Ryan

Our Position on the National Question

We reject the notion that the state must satisfy `democratic’ criteria before the democratic right of the people to national self-determination can be `granted’. The mistreatment of the Serb minority by Tudjman should be strongly criticised and opposed, but Tudjman’s crimes do not negate the right of Croatia to independence.

Self-determination can only be exercised on the basis of the existing Republics. Of course the boundaries are not sacrosanct. Part of our criticism of Tito is that the boundaries were drawn without involving the masses in decision making. However changes can only be made on the basis of negotiations and agreement between the different nationalities. The alternative is forcible attempts to change them in favour of one nation at the expense of another. Our position is based on the concrete reality of the national and ethnic composition of the peoples of former Yugoslavia.

Nations, Nationalities and National Minorities in Ex-Yugoslavia

The SFRY recognised 6 ’nations’: Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Croats and Slovenes. In addition there were 10 ’nationalities’: Albanians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Turks, Romanians, Italians, Ruthenians [1] and Roma. [2] There were also numerous ’national minorities’ including: Austrians, Greeks, Jews, Germans, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Vlahs [3] and those who classed themselves as Yugoslavs. [4] Thus a minimum of 25 different national or ethnic groups were to be found in the SFRY. Moreover, the distribution of the different national groups throughout former Yugoslavia does not make the division into ethnically pure states a simple option — even if it were to be thought desirable! Not only could members of the 6 ’nations’ be found in all 8 of the former federal units, so could much smaller groups such as Hungarians, Bulgarians and Ruthenes. It would, therefore, be utterly absurd for all the 25 national groupings to attempt to create their own states. Whatever the weaknesses of the Titoist project its attempt to build a federal state based on multi-ethnic Republics was the only possible solution. Its weakness lay not in any supposed inability of different nationalities to live in the same state but on the total absence of any real socialist democracy that could have allowed problems to be resolved in a non-nationalist way. It is on the basis of the actual make-up of the Yugoslav state that we have to analyse the right of national minorities to secede — in particular the Serbs of Croatia and Bosnia or the Croats of Bosnia.

The ’Autonomous Republic of Krajina’, as we have argued above, represent a minority of Serbs in Croatia. Indeed, if support from the majority of national minorities were the sole criteria for self-determination then there is much stronger arguments in favour of the Serbs and Croats of Bosnia being entitled to secede. However, as we have also argued above, the establishment of the ARK had nothing to do with defending national rights. It was an act of war aimed at preventing Croatian self-determination. In the same way the creation of the Croat Herceg-Bosna and the ’Serb Republic’ in Bosnia-Hercegovina have nothing to do with defending national rights. They are designed to break up Bosnia. [5] Ultimately both the Serbs of Krajina and Bosnia and the Croats of Bosnia are attempting to build ethnically pure states.

We are opposed to "ethnically pure" states. That is why defence of Bosnia is so important. For the same reason we are opposed to measures that privilege one national group over others such as the change in definition of citizenship in Croatia. Croatia used to be the Republic of ’the Croat people and the Serbian people of Croatia`. Today it is the state of ’the Croatian people and members of other peoples and nationalities`. Whilst in theory this represents an advance the practice has been to encourage Croatian nationalism and attacks upon non-Croats. Those Croats who have protested against this have been denounced as ’bad Croats`. Thus we not only defend the right to self-determination: alongside this we demand the right of national and ethnic minorities to participate fully, on an equal basis, in political and social life.

Whilst we are in favour of self-determination this does not mean that we prefer to see large numbers of small states. On the contrary, the only way in which the peoples of the Balkans can really exercise self-determination is by uniting. There can be no real self-determination under imperialist domination. Of course that does not mean, therefore, that we adopt an ultra-left attitude to the national question and refuse to support the right of Slovenia, Croatia etc to independence on the pretext that they are more susceptible to imperialist intervention and domination. However, we do have to explain that the right to self-determination that the Slovene, Croat etc people have won will be threatened — not strengthened — the closer their leaders move to accommodation with imperialism. In particular we have to argue forcefully for the defence of the existing socialised property relations, opposition to privatisation and for the expansion of the nationalised sectors. All Trotsky’s arguments about the need for a Balkan federation remain valid today:

This peninsular, richly endowed by nature, is senselessly split up into little bits: people and goods moving about in it constantly come up against the prickly hedges of state frontiers, and this cutting of nations and states into many strips renders impossible the formation of a single Balkan market, which could provide the basis for a great development of Balkan industry and culture. On top of all this is the exhausting militarism that has come into being to keep the Balkans divided, and which has given rise to the danger of wars fatal to the peninsula’s economic progress....

The only way out of the national and state chaos and the bloody confusion of Balkan life is a union of all the peoples of the peninsular in a single economic and political entity, on the basis of national autonomy of the constituent parts. Only within the framework of a single Balkan state can the Serbs of Macedonia, the sanjak [i.e. a Serb (and Muslim) inhabited strip belonging to Turkey at the time Trotsky was writing], Serbia and Montenegro be united in a single national-cultural community, enjoying at the same time the advantages of a Balkan common market. Only the united Balkan peoples can give a real rebuff to the shameless pretensions of tsarism and European imperialism.

State unity of the Balkan peninsular can be achieved in two ways: either from above, by expanding one Balkan state, whichever proves the strongest, at the expense of the weaker ones - this is the road of wars of extermination and oppression of weak nations, a road that consolidates monarchism and militarism; or from below, through the peoples themselves coming together - this is the road of revolution, the road that means overthrowing the Balkan dynasties and unfurling the banner of a Balkan Federal Republic.

The Balkan dynasties, artificially installed by European diplomacy and lacking any sort of roots in history, are too insignificant..... The Balkan bourgeoisie, as in all countries that have come late to the road of capitalist development, is politically sterile, cowardly, talentless and rotten through and through with chauvinism. It is utterly beyond its power to take on the unification of the Balkans. The peasant masses are too scattered, ignorant and indifferent to politics for any political initiative to be looked for from them. Accordingly, the task of creating normal conditions of national and state existence in the Balkans falls with all its historical weight upon the shoulders of the Balkan proletariat’. [6]

These few paragraphs by Trotsky are remarkably prophetic. However, we also have to recognise reality. Since Trotsky’s writings there have been two attempts at creating a Yugoslavia. The ’Kingdom of Slovenes, Serbs and Croats` came into being at the end of the First World War (changing its name to Yugoslavia in 1929). It was precisely the expansion of ’one Balkan state` (i.e. Serbia) ’which proved strongest, at the expense of the weaker ones`. It was created not by the Balkan dynasties or bourgeoisie but by imperialism. Trotsky’s second variant, ’from below` was put into practice (partially) by Tito. Both have foundered on the rock of Serbian nationalism.

It is highly unlikely that, in the near future, moves to any sort of federation including Serbia will find an echo in the other Republics. This is even more the case today when it looks more and more probable that Bosnia will be carved up between Serbia and Croatia. The road to a new federation will lie, initially through the creation of independent states. ’Yugoslavia’ will almost certainly never again exist. Any new federation will have to encompass the whole of the peoples of the Balkans. New internal boundaries will have to be drawn. That can only be done on the basis of the fullest socialist democracy. It can, of course, also only be done on the basis of defending socialised property relations.

Geoff Ryan

NOTES

[1] Ruthenians come originally from the Western Ukraine. In Yugoslavia they enjoyed a variety of language and cultural rights in contrast, for example to Poland, where they were oppressed.

[2] Roma only enjoyed ’national’ rights in Macedonia. In the other Republics they were granted rights as individuals but not as a ’nationality’. Nevertheless the position of Roma throughout ex-Yugoslavia was markedly better than in most other states of the world.

[3] Originally from modern day Romania.

[4] These ’national minorities’ enjoyed a wide variety of cultural and linguistic rights — newspapers, TV or radio broadcasts in minority languages, the formation of cultural associations etc.

[5] Indeed, the party of Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban is a Bosnian branch of Tudjman’s HDZ whilst the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) of Karadzic is the Bosnian branch of the Knin based SDS.

[6] L.D. Trotsky, The Balkan Wars (1912-13), p39-40.

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