Note: The successor states to Yugoslavia are Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovenia. Bosnia and Hercegovina declared independence in April 1992.

Prior to World War I, the area which became Yugoslavia comprised the Kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, plus parts of the Turkish and Austro-Hungarian Empires. This area occupied a strategic geopolitical position and was the object of rivalry between the great European powers. In 1914, world attention focused on Sarajevo in central Yugoslavia, the site of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz-Ferdinand--the spark that ignited World War I. Serbia had led the movement for unification, and in December 1918, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes emerged from the war a new nation. In 1929, its name was changed to Yugoslavia.

Between the two World Wars, Yugoslav politics were dominated by nationalistic conflicts between the Serbs and the Croats. Adoption of the "Vidovdan" constitution of June 28, 1921, placed all parts of the country under a centralized administration based on the French system. The Serbs and their political allies, the Slovenes, dominated the highly centralized government at Belgrade. The Croats pressed for a federal structure granting a certain amount of regional and ethnic autonomy. The political struggle between the Serbs and the Croats erupted violently in 1928, when a Montenegrin Serb shot the Croatian leader, Stjepan Radic, in the parliament for insulting the Serbs. In protest, the Croats withdrew from parliament, and King Alexander established a royal dictatorship, downplaying regionalism and nationalism and espousing "Yugoslavism." Nevertheless, the struggles continued, and in 1939, on the eve of World War II, Croatia was granted considerable autonomy.

King Alexander was assassinated by emigre extremists at Marseille in 1934. His successor the regent Prince Paul, abandoned the King's pro-French foreign policy for one that resulted in Yugoslavia's adherence to the German-Italian- Japanese tripartite pact on March 25, 1941. Pro-allied Serb military elements, aware of wide public opposition to this move, staged a successful coup and replaced Prince Paul with the 17-year-old King Peter. Beginning April 6, 1941, the armed forces of Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria invaded Yugoslavia and forced the royal family and the government into exile.

During the war, the country was torn by invaders and by internal ethnic, religious, and political strife. A Fascist, pro-Nazi, Croatian separatist group, the "Ustashe," seized power in Zagreb and, on April 10, 1941, established the so-called Independent State of Croatia that allied itself with the Axis. Resistance forces in Yugoslavia were split into the "Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland" (popularly known as Chetniks), which had close ties to the exiled government, and the National Liberation Army (the Partisans), led by Marshal Josip Broz Tito and the Communist Party. In vicious and tragic fighting against the occupiers and each other, the war cost close to 2 million Yugoslav lives, about half of them at the hands of fellow Yugoslavs.

The Partisans developed a broader, more active resistance to the invaders and established their own government in the areas they controlled in late 1943. The Allies recognized the Partisans' effectiveness by sending military missions to Tito's headquarters in mid-1943 and by gradually allocating most of the supplies and equipment available for the resistance effort to his forces rather than to those of Draza Mihailovic's Chetniks. The Partisans' increasing power was facilitated in part by their control of considerable territory and arms during the time Italian forces surrendered to the Allies.

Allied pressure induced formation of a coalition government in 1945, but communist-controlled elections produced a provisional assembly that proclaimed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia on November 29. On January 31, 1946, a Soviet-type constitution was adopted, and Yugoslavia officially became a "people's republic," headed by Tito.

In the immediate postwar period, Tito worked closely with Stalin, but Yugoslavia's insistence on independence strained relations. In 1948, Stalin ordered Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Cominform and imposed an economic blockade.

Economic and military assistance contributed by the United States and its Western allies after the 1948 break helped Tito to maintain Yugoslav independence despite Cominform pressure. With this support, Tito embarked on policies to consolidate public support, strengthen the economy, and justify Yugoslavia's "independent road to socialism"--policies that made Yugoslavia a maverick in communist theory and practice. The rigid Cominform economic blockade from 1949 to 1953 led to a reorientation of Yugoslav trade toward the West, and Yugoslavia broadened its contacts with the free world in political and cultural fields as well.

Yugoslavia's search for an independent base produced efforts in the mid-1950s to identify itself as a leader of nonaligned nations, avoiding proximity to either the Soviet or the Western military bloc. Yugoslavia has been active in the Nonaligned Movement since the early 196Os and also in international conferences dealing with trade and development.

Current Political Conditions

Since the early 1950s, Yugoslavia has followed a pragmatic policy that moderates many features of more orthodox Marxist regimes in pursuing the leadership's own interpretation of socialism. Certain basic human rights are recognized and protected in Yugoslavia, although they tend to be defined more in social and economic terms than in Western terms of political and civil liberties. Most Yugoslavs may travel abroad freely and, until the introduction of austerity measures in 1982, did so in increasing numbers. Emigration is permitted--there are no divided family cases in Yugoslavia--and about 625,000 Yugoslavs work in Western Europe. Churches are open, and seminaries are allowed to function and expand. Private property rights are respected--84% of all farmland is privately owned--and in manufacturing, small, private firms have begun to operate. Economic and social rights are so strongly protected that it is difficult to fire a worker even with cause.

Respect for some other civil liberties, however, varies considerably from region to region. Although the League of Communists (LCY) is the only political party permitted in Yugoslavia, some regions--notably Slovenia and Croatia--have introduced hard-fought, multicandidate elections for some important positions in both party and government. In much of the country, a free-wheeling press recently has become a key outlet for public expression, approaching Western standards of openness in several republics. Nevertheless, some political taboos, such as open criticism of Tito, remain, and individuals continue to be prosecuted on political grounds. Currently, most political prisoners have been jailed for publicly expressing ethnic-nationalist antagonism toward other Yugoslav ethnic groups or the current constitutional order. A majority of such prisoners are members of the non-Slavic Albanian ethnic minority, which generally claims to be the object of discrimination in Slavic Yugoslavia.

The concept of self-management, which is basic to the Yugoslav system, affords operational control to workers' councils in factories and other organizations and institutions. The system of "delegate democracy," opposed to representational democracy, is designed to elect "nonprofessional" politicians and to ensure that workers have direct political power. The aim is to produce a genuine federalism through decentralized decisionmaking. In keeping with political decentralization, most key national issues are decided by consensus among the regional representatives at the federal level. Some Yugoslavs believe the decentralized decisionmaking system is needlessly cumbersome. Others hold that real decentralization is a necessary component of this multinational state.

League of Communists

The LCY is the only political party permitted to function. The executive and policy management of the party is conducted by a 23-member Presidency that includes three representatives from each republic, two from each province, and one from the armed forces. After Tito's death, an annual rotation cycle was established for selecting the formal head of the Presidency, and the president of the Presidency of the Central Committee. The president is selected each June from one of the republics or provinces. President Stipe Suvar from Croatia currently is responsible for convening and conducting meetings of the LCY Presidency.

In June 1982, LCY membership exceeded 2 million, about 9% of the population. The rank and file are relatively young, but the party is still dominated by those who participated in the wartime struggle against the Axis. The party's influence permeates all levels of government through the presence of party "delegates" in state organs.

The party does not function as a Soviet-style monolith but permits open expression of differences on some major policy issues. The federal-level party, moreover exercises virtually no control over most activities of the regional party organizations.

Source: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, April 1989.