Yugoslavia: The Delicate Balance

David A. Andelman

From Foreign Affairs, Spring 1980

Article preview: first 500 of 6,639 words total.

Summary:  The grand old man of Balkan politics, Marshal Josip Broz Tito, no longer rules. At this writing, the founder of nonalignment, the originator of the first new brand of socialism since Lenin, the friend, or at least the colleague, of world leaders from Stalin and Roosevelt through Khrushchev and De Gaulle to Hua and Carter, lies mortally ill. At home he attempted, at the very least, to forge a united nation from a host of competing, often antagonistic ethnic groups, each with its own aspirations in terms of economic and cultural development, religion, language and political awareness. Here, too, his success has been tempered by a gnawing realization that perhaps this very success has contained less than meets the eye, that perhaps it was merely Tito?s own personal charisma and personal loyalty to an ideal that produced a progressive, prosperous and united Yugoslavia.

David A. Andelman served as East European correspondent of The New York Times, based in Belgrade. He is now with the Times' New York staff.

The grand old man of Balkan politics, Marshal Josip Broz Tito, no longer rules. At this writing, the founder of nonalignment, the originator of the first new brand of socialism since Lenin, the friend, or at least the colleague, of world leaders from Stalin and Roosevelt through Khrushchev and De Gaulle to Hua and Carter, lies mortally ill. At home he attempted, at the very least, to forge a united nation from a host of competing, often antagonistic ethnic groups, each with its own aspirations in terms of economic and cultural development, religion, language and political awareness. Here, too, his success has been tempered by a gnawing realization that perhaps this very success has contained less than meets the eye, that perhaps it was merely Tito's own personal charisma and personal loyalty to an ideal that produced a progressive, prosperous and united Yugoslavia.

The future of Yugoslavia, in short, contains many pitfalls and dark passions all waiting to be exploited by the opportunists, at home and abroad, who have long lain in wait for this time.

II

From the moment of its formation more than 60 years ago, one nation or another has wanted something from Yugoslavia. An amalgam of the leavings of the Hapsburg monarchy and a disparate set of the most backward peoples of the Balkans, Yugoslavia, long before its present leadership or its present communist system appeared on the scene, was a particularly tempting and apparently vulnerable prize. The Ottoman Turks prized its trade routes, and its roads carried their troops to the gates of Vienna. Hitler and Mussolini coveted its Adriatic ports and its rail lines leading down through the Balkans toward Greece.

But there is more to Yugoslavia's value today than its unquestionably strategic geopolitical position. For Yugoslavia has become a symbol: of resistance to the Soviet Union; of a system of economics and government of value throughout the Third World; of cohesion, continuity and the existence of a ruling communist party that is unique because of geographical proximity to the Soviet bloc and its refusal nonetheless to take its lead from Moscow.

Many countries, for their own peculiarly selfish reasons, have sought out ties with Yugoslavia. And for its part, Yugoslavia has not been loath to exploit them in its effort to gain support in the large portion of the world that calls itself nonaligned. But now another period of transition has arrived at a time of particular sensitivity for the various forces with the most immediate interest in Yugoslavia.

Today, a quiet, but intense, three-cornered power struggle for Yugoslavia between the Soviet Union, China and the United States is underway with a variety of other clearly not disinterested players-Europe, both East and West, and the Third World-watching nervously for the outcome. It is a diplomatic, political, economic and perhaps ultimately military struggle with stakes growing steadily in an era of collapsing détente. It is a struggle that encompasses many of the same elements of the triangular relationship that are at play in ...

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