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Josip Mihaljević, PhD
Croatian Institute for History
Zagreb, Republic of Croatia

 

Goran Miljan, PhD
Hugo Valentin-centrum, Uppsala University
Uppsala, Kingdom of Sweden

 

WAS TITO’S YUGOSLAVIA NOT TOTALITARIAN?

Vol. XXXVIII, 1/2020, pp. 223–248
https://doi.org/10.29362/ist20veka.2020.1.mih.223-248

 

ABSTRACT/RESUME

This paper is a response to an article “Was Tito’s Yugoslavia totalitarian?” written by Sergej Flere and Rudi Klanjšek and published in the journal Communist and Post-Communist Studies 47 (2014). The authors indicate the inadequate theoretical framework and untenable interpretations made by Flere and Klanjšek, who provided a distorted picture of former Yugoslav society and the position of an individual in it. Their reduced theory of totalitarianism combined with their simplified interpretations served their aim of proving that the system established by the Yugoslav communists was not totalitarian nor did it strive to become one. Flere and Klanjšek’s main argument for the absence of totalitarianism is that of a federal state concept of Yugoslavia, which is not in correlation with contemporary understanding of totalitarianism. The fact that the Yugoslav communists never denied the existence of nations (in their terminology “nations and nationalities”) nor ever really tried to enforce a policy of creating a Yugoslav nationality, should not serve as an argument for the negation of the presence of a totalitarian experiment. On the contrary, it should serve as a scholarly problem in trying to investigate how a totalitarian experiment directs its actions within such a society, and whether its practices and outcomes were to be different from those exercised in a nation-state. Flere and Klanjšek also refer to the role of Josip Broz Tito, who, they believe, can not be considered a totalitarian dictator, but a concerned political leader. This article argues that the system was not totalitarian exclusively because of one individual (Tito) but due to the very character of the political organization he headed. Flere and Klanjšek claim that the Yugoslav Constitutions did not have a propaganda role. This article argues that the constitutional system in the Yugoslav communism had exclusively an instrumental role and it regulated only trivial political relations. The main problem in Flere and Klašnjek’s article is that the position of the individual within the Yugoslav society is nonexistent. Their article, which set out to answer the question of whether Tito’s Yugoslavia was totalitarian, there is no analysis concerning the freedom of an individual. The communist regime systematically suppressed the fundamental human rights, and imposed only one worldview that was created by the communist thinkers and practitioners. Finally, Flere and Klanjšek claim that Yugoslavia was totalitarian only until 1953, after which Tito’s regime “liberalized”, or converted from a totalitarian to authoritarian one. However, we argue that by 1953 Tito’s regime consolidated its power with brutal crackdown against all its actual, and potential political opponents. After that, a strong physical repression was not necessary because all potential opposition had been pacified. Tito’s rule shifted into “low intensity totalitarianism”. By deconstructing their arguments, this article argues for a more elaborated and up-to-date conceptual understanding of Tito’s Yugoslavia and its relation to the concept of totalitarianism.

 

KEYWORDS: Totalitarianism, Yugoslavia, Communism, Federalism, Josip Broz Tito, Individual

 

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