The Factors That Led To The Breakup Of Yugoslavia

After World War II ended, Yugoslavia was a large nation that consisted of six republics. These republics were divided by borders according to historical ethnic boundaries. The six republics that made up Yugoslavia are now known today as Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, and Macedonia. All six republics had their own slice of the pie in the Yugoslavian Communist Party and any disputes between republics were solved federally. The Yugoslavic state and its communist rulings had proven to be a success, as the nation had experienced economic frutation and political solidarity under the commandment of president Josip Broz Tito.

However, things started to take a downfall when President Tito became ill and later died in 1980. He was recognized as Yugoslavia’s main unifying force and his death proved to weaken what used to be a strong, formidable nation. Following his passing, the Yugoslavian government was left incapable of dealing with various growing political challenges. These political challenges included economic collapse, the downfall of communism, and a variety of ethnic disputes and wars which eventually led to republics seeking independence from Yugoslavia. In this article, I will introduce and analyze these challenges and how they eventually led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

This first challenge encountered by post-Tito Yugoslavia was major economic collapse. When he was ruling, Tito pushed for economic policies that seeked rapid economic growth without repercussion. These economic policies were deemed successful at first as economic growth was high in the 1970s. However, the extreme growth and over-expansion of the economy caused major inflation and pushed Yugoslavia into an economic collapse (Gibbs, 2009). Major work strikes developed as laborers demanded greater incomes to make up for inflation. Heavy debt started to accumulate and became extremely difficult to repay. Yugoslavia’s debt total turned out to be around 21 billion dollars in the 1980s.

Due to this, there was a great rise in tensions between the wealthier republics like Slovenia and Croatia against the poorer republics such as Serbia. Croatia and Slovenia believed that they were giving too much aid to the federal support of the poorer republics, while Serbia thought the exact opposite and sought even more considerations from the wealthy countries. Serbia advocated for laws that would force Croatia and Slovenia to pay more money to support the poorer countries, but these propositions were ultimately refused. A long period of economic meagerness caused growing dissatisfaction and resentment towards the Serbian rulers and the minorities who were to benefit from it.

The sputtering of the Yugoslavian economy is a huge reason why the nation fell apart. Once the economy became weaker due to the repercussions of extreme growth and expansion, major social and political issues came to surface as well. A weaker economy resulted in more reasons for citizens to become divided and conflicted. When economically ridden republics like Serbia struggled to provide for their citizens, it required wealthier countries such as Croatia and Slovenia to pay extra to help them out. This resulted in bitter resentment between the republics.

Another challenge that was encountered by Yugoslavia was the downfall of communism. Tito’s main leading tactics and political regime was structured as communism. After his death, the communism of Yugoslavia began to weaken due to ethnic tension and the common people’s lack of trust in their communist leaders. Not much longer after Tito’s death, the national communist party in Yugoslavia had lost its vitality. The 1980s was a span of economic cautiousness due to international organizations enforcing strict regulations upon Yugoslavia. This caused resentment from the common people toward the Communist leaders who had carelessly mismanaged the economy by borrowing money internationally.

The policies enforced by the international agencies revealed a world of secret corruption by the communist leaders, and had revealed that the leaders were living luxurious lifestyles much greater than the ordinary people with money they had stolen from the government. This corruption in Yugoslavia massively damaged the reputation of the Communist system. The problems tainted the legitimacy of the Communist system as common citizens began to lose trust in the integrity of their leaders. In summary, the downfall of communism in Yugoslavia brought many ugly issues to the surface such as inner corruption and economic inefficiencies.

In addition to the downfall of communism, another political challenge encountered by Yugoslavia was the rise of ethnic tensions between various republics. There were a handful of notable disputes between various ethinic groups. For example, the problems between Serbs and Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo were especially prominent. Albanians in Kosovo wanted Kosovo to be a neutral state beginning in the early 1980s. This was a major deal to the pride of Serbians because of the historic connections that Serbians have with Kosovo and they believed that the neutralization of Kosovo would be devastating to their fellow Serbians living in Kosovo. This eventually led Serbia to take action and to reduce the Albanian majority in Kosovo, (Sadiku, 2010).

The tensions between Serbs and Albianians led to the eventual rise of nationalism in Serbia. The rise of nationalism in Serbia began when Slobodan Milosevic, a Serbian who was initially a communist was sent to bring peace to ethnic protests by Serbians against the Albanians. Up until this time, Milosevic had been a prominent communist who had condemned any form of nationalism. Many Serbians were outraged by the neutralization of Kosovo, which had always been an unpopular ideology among Serbians. Milosevic used this situation to fuel Serbian nationalist movements and retreated away from traditional communist neutrality on the issue of Kosovo. Milošević promised his Serbians followers that their persecution by Albanians would come to an end. Following this, Milosevic started an aggressive nationalist agenda that would revive Serbia within Yugoslavia and while promising the protection of all Serbians.

Ethinc tensions continued to grow in Croatia as well. The Croatian Democratic Union, led by nationalist Franjo Tudman, who publicly advocated for Croatian supremacy, was elected to power. Serbians living in Croatia were skeptical of Tudman’s nationalist principles. This resulted in Serbian nationalists living in southern Croatian organizing and forming a detached organization known as the The Serbian Autonomous Oblast of Krajina. The organization requested to remain associated with the rest of Serbia if Croatia sought independence. The Serbian government supported the rebellion of SOA Krajina and Milosevic used the situations to motivate the Serbians against Croatia.

After a series of long series of wars and political exchanges, the independence of Croatia was declared on June 25, 1991. However, the Croation Independence War dragged on until 1995. Slovenia was also granted independence from Yugoslavia on the same day in 1991, although their war only lasted ten days. Other former Yugoslavian republics such as Bosnia claimed independence after long wars ensued in both countries against the Yugoslavic army.

In conclusion, economic collapse, the downfall of communism, and ethnic tension all led to the break up of what used to be known as Yugoslavia.

Works Cited

1. Gibbs, D. N. (2009). First do no harm: Humanitarian intervention and the destruction of yugoslavia. Vanderbilt University Press.
2. Sadiku, Lejla (2010). Civil Society and Anti-Corruption. Experiences from Albania, Kosovo and Serbia