More nationalist madness in the Balkans (2001)

From the August 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Late June and early July saw much tension in Macedonia, threatening once more to ignite nationalist hatreds that have ripped the Balkans apart now for almost a decade.

It was uncannily ironic that as Yugoslavia was sending former president Slobodan Milosevic to stand trial in The Hague on war crimes, a mob of 5,000 Macedonian protestors, including police, soldiers and reservists, stormed their parliament and forced president Boris Trajkovski flee in fear of his life. His crime? He had agreed to a Western brokered cease-fire with Albanian rebels and also allowed NATO to ferry rebel fighters to safety from a village they had captured six miles away from the capital Skopje. Not only was the mob furious that their government had signed a cease-fire with a movement that Nato’s own command had labelled “terrorists” and “murderers”, but here was the West once again coming to the aid of insurgents.

Ostensibly, the Albanian rebels claim to be only interested in winning equal civil rights for Albanians and constitutional changes. This however is no civil rights movement. If so, then why the armed insurgents and why do they call themselves the Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA)? The answer is simple, they are nationalists bent on creating a greater Albania. They are after territorial gain and control of the porous borders which show a fair profit in drugs and arms smuggling and the lucrative trade in “illegal” immigrants. Violence and guerrilla warfare as practised by the NLA is not normally the stuff of “civil-rights” movements, which generally pursue a non-violent agenda. It is the remit of liberation forces intent on wresting territory from its present owners. What has prompted the NLA to pass themselves off as a “civil-rights” movement is NATO’s refusal to redraw the borders of the Balkans.

Moreover, why do they launch attacks on government forces? Simple – they hope to incur a heavy-handed response from Macedonian forces which would win them support from Macedonia’s Albanian population, who perhaps need a little egging on, bearing in mind their social and economic gripes, and from Kosovo – Albanians and Albania itself. They have further counted on benefiting from a similar situation when their parent organisation, the KLA, incurred such a harsh and brutal response from Serb forces that NATO was forced to intervene on behalf of the Albanians in 1998.

The risk of all-out war is serious enough. It is feared that the mob fury could now be focused on isolated pockets of Albanians in Macedonia (they make up one third of the population) now that Trajkovski has agreed to the temporary EU brokered cease-fire. At present the rebels have captured areas of territory in the west of the country and have cut off water and electricity supplies, further inciting Macedonian hard-liners in Skopje to demand armed intervention – a situation made all the worse with the rebels threatening to descend on Skopje to protect Albanians living there.

Chief protagonists of the Macedonian Slav majority, including Prime Minister Ljubco Georevski still hanker after a ham-fisted solution to the problem and perhaps the fact that the government has recently taking delivery of eight new attack aircraft – doubling the size of its air force – and that Georgevbski’s VMRO-DPMNE political party have recently handed out automatic weapons to 2000 reservists suggests they are not putting much faith in a peaceful solution to the crisis. If Macedonian Slavs, tired at the slow pace of a settlement in their favour, frustrated with the unchecked gains of the rebels, decide to even the score and attack ethnic Albanian areas, this will most certainly witness the beginning of a new wave of civil war.

 A political settlement however is still on the cards, with negotiators from the EU and NATO having set an unofficial deadline for a peaceful solution, which would then pave the way for British, French, Italian and Greek soldiers to take part in a mission to disarm Albanian rebels. The cease-fire, signed by the heads of the Macedonian army and police force as well as the NLA, consists of two linked agreements – one between the NLA and NATO and the other between the Macedonian forces and NATO, with the NLA agreeing to disarm if a political settlement can be reached.

Critics, meanwhile, warn that by acknowledging the NLA as a legitimate protagonist in debates about Macedonia’s future, the West has effectively conceded the carving up of Macedonia along ethnic lines – and this is cold comfort for Macedonian nationalists and the paramilitary groups now springing up and arguing for the expulsion of Albanians from Macedonia’s mixed communities. Many Macedonians still remain distrustful of the US, who they see as pro-Albanian following the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and are contemptuous of any Western-designed solution.

Little surprise, then, that Balkan analysts see only a deteriorating situation and one that can’t be solved by further Western solutions that sparked the storming of the Macedonian parliament.

To date the present conflict has not been as bloody as previous Balkan disagreements, but it has nevertheless resulted in 100,000 refugees who represent perhaps 5 percent of the population. It is perhaps too early to predict events in the coming weeks in Macedonia. Whilst nationalism, like the disease it is, can be diagnosed, there remains no immediate prognosis. For it feeds on fear and insecurity, alienation and ignorance which themselves can lead to irrational passions and attempts at quick-fix and spontaneous violent attempts at remedy which always prove counterproductive and detrimental to all concerned.

Nationalist conflict has raged for 10 long years in the Balkans. What, in all honesty, have any of the victors gained? What is the “independence” they yearn after, if it means being trapped within borders – artificial constructs, no, prisons – inside of the bigger prison of capitalism?

John Bissett

The socialist position on Kosovo vindicated (2001)

From the March 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Very occasionally, the bourgeois media serve socialists tasy snacks which cut to the reality of how capitalism operates. Hidden away on the comment pages of the Guardian, arch greeny liberal George Monbiot provides a compelling case for how Caspian Sea oil was a major factor in the Kosovan war after all. With one eye on an article by fellow liberal Jonathon Freedland (written at the time of the bombing), which mocked the idea that oil had anything to do with the war effort, Monbiot quotes from various prominent sources to demonstrate the opposite.

The Trans-Balkan oil pipeline (which is coming up for approval) will transport Caspian Sea oil from the Black Sea port of Burgas to the Adriatic, passing through Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. According to a paper by the US Trade and Development agency, the pipeline will “provide American companies with a key role in developing the vital east-west corridor” and “facilitate rapid integration” of the “Balkans with western Europe”. Monbiot says that there is “no question” that this featured prominently in Balkan war politics. The then US energy secretary said: “This is about America’s energy security . . . We’ve made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it’s very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right.” The pipeline does not pass through the former Yugoslavia, but as the Albanian president said: “no solution confined within Serbian borders will bring lasting peace”. Monbiot adds that “the message could scarcely have been blunter: if you want Albanian consent for the Trans-Balkan pipeline, you had better wrest Kosovo out of the hands of the Serbs”. Subsequently, we can now fully understand the strategic need for “stability” in the Balkans.

The May 1999 Socialist Standard said that “wars are fought over markets, investment outlets, raw material sources and trade routes and strategic points to control them”. Liberals mocked us at the time. Now, after their support for the slaughter of our class in Kosovo, they will have to concede that we were right all along. Thanks George!

World Review: Nightmare scenarios (1995)

From the July 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

From the middle to the end of May, Western commentators treated the working class, already stressed out and fed up with the rat race we know as capitalism, to a triple synopsis of doom.

In mid May, the International Institute of Strategic Studies revealed US concerns about China's $100 billion annual defence budget, the growing Chinese military assertiveness and their strong resemblance to a superpower.

Only two days after China had joined other nuclear powers in endorsing an indefinite extension of die Non-Proliferation Treaty, it carried out an underground atomic explosion that brought immediate international condemnation.

A few days later the Guardian reported China as setting "alarm bells ringing . . . with its military muscle flexing", and how there were "renewed anxieties about its willingness to live by international rules" (22 May).

China, it seems, had taken a sudden interest in the Spratley Islands and the mineral wealth beneath its reef. That this reef could provide China with oil revenues and access to wider Pacific Rim markets only added to Western fears of China becoming a rival superpower.

A few more days and the Guardian would run another panic-laden story about how "the West’s nightmare scenario of an alliance between Iraq and Iran moved a little closer . . . with the former enemies pledging to improve relations" (26 May).

The catalyst it appears has been the mutual acceptance of Iraq and Iran as the joint focus of Western economic boycotts.

If Iraq, with a population of 17 million, and with a rag-tag army, war-weary after an eight-year conflict with Iran, necessitated the mobilisation of 750,000 allied troops and accompanying hardware in 1990, what, analysts wonder, would be the consequences if Iran sided with Iraq?

Iran, for instance, with a population of 55 million, with a recently upgraded missile system and a nascent nuclear programme and an army of fundamentalists famous for their suicide missions, siding with a vengeful Iraq, could give Western governments and their masters the mother of all headaches.

War footing

On the last day of May, Britain declared it was sending 6,000 troops to the Balkans. The US also looked for ways of muscling in on the world publicity this would generate and NATO gave a sigh of relief, at last being given the chance to justify its existence.

The Guardian's front page headline—"Allies on war footing"—appeared a sad irony for those apologists who saw VE Day in May as a vindication of world peace thanks to Western liberal democracy.

May had also been the 50th anniversary of die United Nations—a contradiction in terms considering there have been over 300 conflicts since 1945. Nowhere has the futility of the UN been more apparent than in the Balkans in which the Croat-Bosnian-Serb war has exhausted every UN method of conflict resolution. Sanctions have been imposed, negotiators have redrawn maps and attempted to broker cease-fires while peacekeepers have been sent to see they are carried

Any credibility the UN had was lost when the UN pulled out 75 percent of its forces from Rwanda following the death of 10 Belgian peacekeepers, leaving the country to anarchy, starvation and the machete. This was followed by the UN pull-out from Somalia at the end of another attempt to bring stability to an African country.

It is a grave indictment of the capitalist system, that the initial relief and joy with which the demise of the cold war was greeted has melted into an increasing anxiety about the future. Within five years of the Berlin Wall falling, 25 new states have sprung up, only two minus the blood that accompanies such birth pangs. More await to be born.

The logic of capitalism is as insane as it is obscene. Conflict rages in 30 countries and much bigger ones await that gentle shove into motion, from Iraq to China. There are wars in Chechenya, Bosnia. The South China Seas seethe with tension. The time-honoured panacea remains military readiness and the threat of aggression. just as the nuclear bomb and the awareness of its destructive potential forced a 40-year stand-off between the US and the Soviet Union.

The 20th century, more than any period in history, should have taught the working class that bombs and borders do not solve problems or bring peace. They only stall war and make conflict, when it does come, more gruesome.

As we approach the millennium, we look back over 100 years that have witnessed more bloodshed than any other century in human history, on a world punctuated with 100 million land mines, on a world one fifth of whose population live in extreme poverty. What an indictment of capitalism.

John Bissett

Editorial: The Balkan War (1999)

Editorial from the May 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again European cities are being bombed. Once again displaced persons are on the move. This has never ceased to be the lot of people in Africa and Asia but one of the claims of Western capitalism was that it had at least established peace and prosperity in Europe. Now full-scale war has returned to Europe. The illusion that permanent peace and prosperity is possible under capitalism has been shattered.

The NATO bombing raids on Yugoslavia are aimed not just at direct military targets but at the industrial infrastructure of power stations, fuel depots, factories, chemical plants, roads, railways and bridges which serve civilian purposes as well as supplying the Serbian military machine. All this represents the destruction of useful wealth. As Socialists have always said, war means social regression.

But is it sometimes necessary? Although we are not pacifists (we would countenance fighting should a pro-capitalist minority take up arms to try to prevent the democratic establishment of socialism) we say there is no such thing as a “just war”. Wars are fought over markets, investment outlets, raw material sources and trade routes and strategic points to control them.

The present Balkan War is no different. It is a continuation of the process that started in 1991 when Slovenia declared its independence from Yugoslavia, in which the stake has been: who shall control the territories of the former Yugoslavia—Serbia or the West, in particular Germany?

When “communism” (in reality state capitalism) collapsed, the NATO powers had a choice. Let the Serbian ruling class continue to maintain order and stability in the area so that trading and profit-making there could continue normally. Or apply the principle of “national self-determination” in the hope that a collection of smaller, more “ethnically pure” states would provide greater stability.

Reunited Germany, with its historic enemy Russia on its knees, was able to revive its ambitions in Eastern and Central Europe and it led the way in working for the break-up of Yugoslavia so that it, rather than Serbia, could dominate the area. First Slovenia, then Croatia, then Bosnia, then Macedonia broke away or rather were broken away. The result, however, has not been stability. Quite the reverse, with only a NATO army of occupation maintaining a fragile peace in Bosnia and eastern Croatia.

And now Kosovo. Serbia claims that it is fighting to retain Kosovo because this is the cradle of “Serbian civilisation”, but there is more at stake than the bones of Prince Lazar. As retired Canadian Major-General Lewis MacKenzie, who commanded UN troops in Bosnia during the siege of Sarajevo, has pointed out: “Quite frankly, they want the northern half of Kosovo. That’s where the mines and natural resources are” (Times Colonist, Victoria, 26 March). There has been speculation in the media that this may be the compromise that will emerge once the killings and bombings have stopped: the partition of Kosovo with Serbian forces controlling an ethnically-cleansed north and a NATO army of occupation looking after the impoverished refugees in the south.

Faced with this latest manifestation of capitalist barbarity and cynicism we once again place on record our abhorrence of all war and call upon workers everywhere to unite to bring the war-prone capitalist system to a speedy end.

Watching the war go by (1999)

From the May 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The capitalists have never gone to war to promote Justice and they never will.

Last year The Most Dangerous Man In The World was Saddam Hussain. Pronounced Sadaaam Hoosayn by the plastic propagandists employed to spin the latest line for CNN. There had never been a nastier dictator than the Evil Saddaaam and that was why forces of the American Empire—sorry, NATO—had to “go in there and kick ass”. Any resemblance to a gangland settling of scores should be ignored. After all, that upright defender of virtue, Slick Willy Clinton, had cast himself as Batman against the Iraqi Joker, with wee Tony doing his best to look like Robin.

But let us not distract ourselves with nostalgia. That was yesterday’s war. Now, in the world of CNN-speak, an even more demonic evil has come to threaten the stability of the globe. Plucky little Kosovo must be defended. Think not of the fact that nine out of ten Americans had never heard of Serbia, let alone Kosovo, until CNN told them about it fifty times a day. The threat to the New World Order has been identified. Milosevic must be banged to rights. The propagandists, using a script uncannily similar to Wag The Dog (a fictional account of a sleazy US President saving his reputation by a bogus war against Albania), invite us to shout and curse against the crimes of the Belgrade regime.

And, blinded by the light of the TV screen, large numbers of decent people are weeping for the oppressed Kosovars and cheering NATO as it drops its bombs on Serb towns and villages. Because most people are decent and they hate to see injustice against a defenceless minority, so they are sucked in to the drama of war.

But there are some other defenceless minorities whose plight is not shown on CNN. There are some defenceless minorities for whom NATO would not so much as fire a shot from an air gun. In fact, the NATO states are the very ones which have sold the weapons by which these defenceless minorities are oppressed. For example . . .

There are the Kurds in Turkey. Between 1990 and 1994 about one million Turkish Kurds were driven from their homes. Over 40,000 Kurds have been killed. And in 1994 Turkey became the biggest single importer of US military equipment and the world’s largest arms purchaser. Turkey is a member of NATO. Its troops are currently part of the NATO forces in Yugoslavia. Why is NATO attacking Serbia and not Turkey? The US administration justifies Turkish state atrocities on the grounds that they are defending “law and order” against Kurdish terrorists. The Serbian regime uses precisely the same logic: that it has only slaughtered people and burnt villages to the ground in a war against Kosovar terrorism.

Within the past month 10,000 people were killed in a war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. There are countless refugees. When did we hear about this on the TV News? Where are the calls from those incorrigible humanitarians, Albright and Cook, to send aid to these refugees and to stop the fighting? Since 1994 820,000 have died in Rwanda. Since 1986 a million and a half have died in Sudan. Where was CNN?  

What about East Timor? Conduct a simple experiment. Go on to the streets of Kansas City or, for that matter, White City in London and ask people what they think about the slaughter of the Timorese people. Most will never have heard about East Timor. The propagandists have forgotten to tell them about that atrocity because that one is a NATO-armed assault on a defenceless minority. East Timor was taken over by Indonesia in 1975, since when one third of its population has been killed—that’s 200,000 people. Since 1975 the USA has sold over $1 billion of weapons to the Indonesian dictatorship. The other main arms suppliers are Australia and Britain. Just as the NATO troops were whizzing off to knock the shit out of Belgrade, Indonesian militia entered a church full of people in East Timor and slaughtered them. Reports have not made it on to the CNN News, perhaps because the reporters are too busy congratulating the West upon its humanitarian campaign to help oppressed minorities.

There is something deeply disgusting about the pretence that bombing is a civilising mission. The people who drop bombs from the sky upon towns and villages are bullying cowards and deserve no respect from anyone. The people who give them the orders to drop their bombs are self-serving hypocrites whose concern for the safety of Kosovar refugees is about as genuine as their domestic concern for single mothers, the unemployed and the disabled. The minority who own and control the world—the Directors of USA Inc and UK Plc—are ruthless, exploitative thieves whose primary interest is in the fast buck and protecting what they imagine their interests to be. The capitalists have never gone to war to promote justice and they never will. Indeed, the notion that justice can be furthered by violence can only make sense when you have a social system that is rooted in violence and plunder.

We will no doubt be told that by opposing the military escapades of Clinton and Blair we are siding with those who are committing unspeakable acts against defenceless Kosovars. Socialists side with no state, for all states are merely organised forces of national coercion. We are opposed to the lot of them and support the interest of the oppressed, not selectively, but wherever they are. In time of war we refuse steadfastly to be deluded by the crass propaganda of any section of the ruling class or to become entrapped in the rhetoric of militarist terror.

Instead of taking sides between this nation or that, we oppose all nationalism. Workers have no country. None to live for. None to die for. Workers should refuse to fight, for every drop of working-class blood shed in battles within capitalism is wasted.  

CNN’s viewing figures have gone up since the war in Yugoslavia started. What exciting pictures the explosions make. What a terrific diversion from thinking about the poverty of life under the profit system it is for wage slaves to be presented with 24-hour live coverage of Clinton’s Heroes. CLOBBER SLOBBA, says the Sun, ever eager to find new depths of banality, illiteracy and tastelessness by which to woo its prey. So, we sit at home and we watch the war and just occasionally we might wonder how much it cost to build the US bomber planes (more than the total GDP of Albania, as it happens) and what kind of world we might live in if those resources were not used to produce ever more sophisticated weapons of death, but libraries, homes and hospitals for all.

Steve Coleman

Bombing for peace—the real crisis in NATO (1999)

From the May 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Western liberals are in a flap about NATO’s bombardment of Serbia. Whichever position they take appears to condone violence against somebody, and the shallowness of liberal thinking has never been more cruelly exposed than now. Yet the cynics are having trouble too, because they can’t see an economic motive behind NATO’s actions, and nobody can believe that the West would spend £2 billion on a purely humanitarian exercise when it didn’t show the slightest concern over East Timor, Rwanda or any other killing ground of recent years.

It’s easy to see the economic value of Kosovo to Milosevic, but what’s in it for NATO? The West don’t seem to be after land or resources in the area, and is facing a huge bill for its pains. So is NATO really a cuddly philanthropic defender of the weak?

Wars, though generic to capitalism, do in fact interrupt the process of wealth accumulation and are frequently against the interests of large sections of the capitalist class, who will therefore try to prevent them. You can’t make money when some gangsters are shooting up your casino. Hence capitalism’s need for an international police force. But as with a domestic police force, the willingness of populations to accept law enforcers whose main concern is private property and money-making depends on those enforcers also preventing other types of crime, like mugging, rape, murder and street violence, which don’t directly concern the owning class but which worry the hell out of the rest of us. If the police couldn’t prevent a gang war on your doorstep you’d start wondering why you bothered respecting the law yourself. And when the law breaks down, the looting starts.

At the heart of this crisis is the problem of credibility, not only for NATO in its efforts to keep the peace, but for the Western Liberal Democracy model of capitalism. This is more serious than it sounds. Capitalism, as everyone knows, requires majority support and participation. Now you can enforce this support the hard way, by having a police state with heavy duty surveillance, martial law, “disappearances”, 24-hour border patrols and a huge state propaganda machine. This is the 1984 approach of George Orwell, but there are severe practical problems, because such a system is incredibly expensive to maintain and, being so crude, unable to get the best out of its workers. The collapse of state capitalism in Eastern Europe had long been predicted by the Socialist Party for these very reasons (although it lasted much longer than we expected).

The other way to ensure support is much cheaper, more efficient, more stable, and more user-friendly. It is called Liberal Democracy. Nobody is going to rebel if they believe that they are already free, and this belief is central to the West’s perception of itself. Consequently the capitalist class is obliged to tolerate a (semi-) free press, the vote, and open criticism of itself, because there has to be evidence of this “freedom” for all to see. And there are other costs. We will not co-operate unless capitalism supplies us with a reasonable safe and secure environment. The police rule by popular consent, and could not rule otherwise. Employment has to be supplied, or else a dole, otherwise food riots will ensue. 

 

The credibility of “Western democratic capitalism” is in bad shape, even for Westerners. We are better informed than we’ve ever been, and we are not impressed by what we see. Nobody believes in leaders like they used to. Nobody doffs their cap to their local MP as they once did. We are accustomed to think of them as generally useless and usually corrupt. Governments, we realise, don’t really care a damn about us except for that little X once every five years or so. Thirty percent of the population doesn’t even bother to give them that.

After the pyramid-selling fiascos in Albania a couple of years ago, capitalism in the region has a poor public image. Millions in Eastern Europe were hoping it was going to be better than Leninist state-capitalism but the bread queues are still there and instead of the secret police they now have the Mafia, that ultimate expression of the free market. If it now appears that NATO, the international Police Department, can’t even stop some tinpot dictator from murdering his way to power, the capitalist hold over workers’ minds will be weakened. We will begin to see through their cosy propaganda and their self-serving laws that nobody else obeys anyway. We might turn back to fascism. But what is worse, we might go forward to socialism. There are no bars on our windows, thanks to the money-saving logic of capitalism. There is only our belief in the system that prevents us acting, and that is increasingly under strain.

Paddy Shannon

Balkan Bubbles (1941)

From the May 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The spectacular changes that have recently transpired in the Near East have induced many people to study the geographical features of the locality affected who heretofore never troubled to do so. Greece has a large coastline for so small a country, with many islands in the vicinity and is so situated that its importance from the standpoint of naval and military strategy can at once be perceived. In the old days it was often stated that the control of Corinth meant the control of Greece, but that was when danger came from the East. The points that comprise the gateway between Europe and Asia are the Serbian plateau, Salonika and the Dardanelles. Germany has already captured two of these and is preparing to make a bid for the third. The extension of the sphere of operations to Asia can be anticipated, from which in all probability it will spread to the American continent. This means that practically all the human family will be involved and it would be of interest to discover how many of them have any clear idea of what the trouble is about.

The Prussians are marching with seven-leagued boots; they have often marched before. Under a Frederick, a Bismarck, the Kaiser, or Hitler, they indulge periodically in military adventures. Their recent trek is the longest they have made and their enemies are apparently determined it shall be their last. The reason why Germany has been able to move so rapidly in the Balkans is because ever since the days of Charlemagne, large numbers of her people have been moving South-East. In all the Balkan countries German minorities had settled themselves and many of these had for years been preparing the way for the invader.

In a previous issue of the Socialist Standard it was pointed out what is at stake in the present conflict. The control of the Rhine and the Danubian Waterways is the German Dictator’s ambition. He also aspires to cut a canal from Bucharest, in Roumania, to Salonika, in Greece. If the Rhine and the Danube are connected by a larger canal than the one now in operation, and the connection above referred to established with the Mediterranean, boats will be able to travel from the north to the southern sea without having to pass through either the Straits of Gibraltar or the Dardanelles. If the scheme above referred to could be put in operation, Germany thinks she would be in a position to tap the wealth of practically all the European countries and lay a foundation of power upon which she could build a superstructure strong enough to enable her to successfully challenge the rest of the world.

In times of peace British working-men take little or no interest in international politics, and the consequence is that when the country in which they live is involved in a war, they are totally dependent upon the ruling class for any ideas they may have in regard to the cause. To some extent the same thing prevails in all countries, but in many other lands there is a keen interest taken in what is going on in the world as a whole; there is not more class-consciousness, but a greater knowledge of international affairs.

The “Unofficial Observer,” in his book “Our Lords and Masters,” says (commencing page 64):

“Terrorists play an especially important part in the affairs of eastern and southern Europe and one of the most important groups of them originated with the ‘Green Organisation’ of deserters from the Austro-Hungarian Army. After the war this organisation fell into the hands of General Sarkotich, a Croat who fought on the side of Austria and devoted himself to the cause of the Hapsburg Monarchy and of detaching Catholic Croatia from orthodox Yugoslavia.”

Sarkotich became Croatian and Yugoslavian ‘expert’ on the monarchist Reichpost of Vienna, where the movement maintained its intellectual headquarters until the assassination of Dollfuss in July, 1934. The most active terrorists, however, were Percec and Pavelic, who were connected with several attempts to bomb trains running from Italy to Austria via Yugoslavia. In 1932, when Goemboes became Prime Minister of Hungary and appointed Koloman as his Foreign Minister, the Hungarian Government became an open party to the terrorist plots. Percec and Pavelic were given Hungarian passports on the theory that they were really Hungarians and they established a training ground for terrorists on a big estate at Jankapuszta, near the Yugoslav frontier. The men trained here were assigned the task of leading domestic revolts in Yugoslavia in the event of trouble and the whole organisation modelled itself pretty faithfully on the Serbian ‘Black Hand’ society, which had plotted the Sarajevo murders.

In 1933, the year after Goemboes came into power, Mussolini himself began to aid the Croatian cause and the terrorists established training camps for larger bodies of troops on Italian soil at Borgotaro, Bonegno and Bardi. Here Croats were given uniforms provided by Italy and were shipped to Zara by Italian ships and then made their way inland along the Dalmatian coast. Giorgio Sanza, an Italian journalist who spoke Croat, was put at Pavelic’s disposition. The climax came when the assassin of King Alexander was revealed to be a member of this terrorist group and when Italy refused to surrender Percec and Pavelic, who were on Italian soil after the murders at Marseilles. Germany has also maintained connections with the Croat cause, via a certain Wilhelm Singer, who travelled on a German passport issued in the name of Guttman, and after the Dollfuss murder Germany supplanted Austria as the brain centre of the Croatian terrorists, who now publish their official organ, ‘Gric,’ in Berlin, although all their actual printed matter bears the mark of the Free City of Danzig.

Hungary is the one country in which terrorists associate openly with the governing officials. In 1921, Premier Goemboes gave refuge to Schulze and Thyllessen, the assassins of Matthais Erzberger. The noblemen who forged the French francs back in 1926 belonged to the move organisation, of which Goemboes was the head; and Count Julius Karolvyi, who served as Premier for a brief interval between Bethlen and Goemboes, was a business associate of Slavisky’s. Between 15,000 and 17,000 political murders are said to have been committed in Hungary since 1919, the victims having included a Catholic priest of 75 who attacked the advocates of treaty revision, and a Czechoslovak journalist who was imprisoned and beaten up because Czechoslovakia opposed changing the frontiers. Bela Somogyi, editor of a right-wing Socialist paper, who had refused to support Bela Kun’s Soviet regime, was also murdered by some high army officers, who were never punished.

“The dean of the European terrorists, however, is found further south, in that terrific geographic, religious, racial and national scramble known as Macedonia. Here all the races and creeds of the Balkans are intermingled and it has dominated the political struggles of the Near East for the last fifty years. When a new stick of dynamite cracks in the Balkans to-day, the chances are better than ever that the political detonator is the little known Ivan Michailoff, leader of the Imro (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation). Like Lawrence of Arabia, Michailoff became a legend in his own lifetime. So widespread are tales of his deeds of heroism and cunning, that Michailoff is often called “King Ivan” by the Macedonians. His secrecy and skill at conspiracy make him one of the most dreaded figures in the Balkans, with a price on his head in Greece, Yugoslavia, and at times even Bulgaria. . . . Michailoff says: There will be no peace in Europe until Macedonia is free.'”

The above will give the readers of the Socialist Standard some idea of the undercurrents in the Balkans and will show them how foolish it is to judge these people from a modern capitalist standpoint. Their views of life differ from those of the rest of the western world. Socialism is the child of Capitalism and in taking stock of the struggle now raging, let us realise that those members of the proletariat who have been trained and disciplined by the industrial mechanism are the only section of the working-class yet capable of taking the initiative in the building of a Socialist Society.

The writer will return to the situation in the Balkans in a later article.

Charles Lestor

Roumanian Ripples (1940)

From the October 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The Balkans Have No Future.” Karl Marx

The River Danube is one of the most important rivers in Europe, and the desire on the part of Germany for possession of this waterway is closely connected with the cause of the war.

As pointed out in a previous issue of the Socialist Standard, the Rhine and the Danube have been connected by a canal so that boats can go from the North to the Black Sea: the German capitalists desire to enlarge this canal and also to cut a canal from Bucharest in Roumania to Salonika in Greece. This would enable ships to travel from the North Sea to the Mediterranean without having to go into the Black Sea and pass through the Dardanelles.

It is because Hitler is determined to have full control of these waterways that he is being so vigorously opposed. With these in his possession he could utilise the wealth of all Southern Europe in the interests of German capitalism. His object is to turn France into a producer of raw materials for the benefit of German industry, and to compel all the countries in South-Eastern Europe to dance to the same tune. The complete control of the main transportation system would go a long way to enable Hitler to succeed in his object of dominating Europe. A glance at the map will show how Roumania occupies a strategic position of the highest importance in the present conflict.

Nearly 80 per cent. of the people of Roumania are engaged in agriculture and kindred occupations, but there are a number of important towns. Between the peasant and the townsman there is rivalry; the merchant to a great extent holds the whip hand over the peasant, who must sell to and buy from the former.

Low-grade capital is always at the mercy of high-grade capital, and as the peasant is the sufferer in Roumania he supports the Iron Guard and the Nazi Party.

King Carol has recently abdicated and fled along with the lady to whom he is apparently more attached than to his wife. The Iron Guard were strongly opposed to the lady above referred to, not so much on account of her Jewish blood, but principally because she is said to receive diplomatic pin money from a country outside Roumania.

In the Economist (September 21) we have the following: —

“Those who argue that with the dismemberment of Roumania the sphere of possible agreement between Germany and the Soviets would be all but exhausted, can point to the Danube question to prove their point. In spite of Russia’s demand that no Danubian question should be settled without her, and her sharp reminder that as an interested party she expected to be consulted, Germany has taken the law into her own hands, and at the recent Danubian Conference the representatives of Germany, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Jugo-Slovia, Roumania and Bulgaria agreed to do away with the International Danube Commission, under the presidency of a German, Herr Martius. German control is assured, since only the President has the power to convene a session. An Iron Gates Committee, representing Jugo-Slavia and Roumania, is also to be set up under German presidency. Thus the Soviets have received a very obvious and very serious rebuff, and for the first time since the signing of the Russo-German Pact an obvious difference of opinion has been made public. Germany’s attitude to Russia has not suffered a serious change, since it always completely opportunistic. It is merely the circumstances that have altered. Russia has now advanced to the utmost limit compatible with Germany’s Eastern interests. And Germany is now busy playing her cards in Italy and Spain, where her connection with Russia has always been suspect. But Germany will find it more difficult to be rid of Russia than it was to invite her in. Control of Bessarabia gives the Russians control of the Kilia channel; the most-used outlet of the Danubian Delta. Their decisions on Danubian traffic can not only be formulated but also enforced. And Germany is in no better position to risk a clash with Russia than she was a year ago. Neither will thwart the other to the point of an open estrangement, but the events of last week suggest that the elements of a permanent divergence of opinion are there.”

We do not see the Economist attempting to analyse Russia’s moves in Bulgaria; it is interesting to speculate what is likely to be the effect on Turkish and Grecian politics if Bulgaria, stimulated by Russia, demands the return of the territory formerly “belonging to her bordering on the AEgean Sea; the Balkans is full of combustible material.

The strange part of the present situation is that the Balkans, generally at war with one another, are now at peace.

It is a precarious peace, however, and exists solely because those engaged in hostilities (both sides) do not desire war in the Balkans just now.

As things stand the Nazis can do as they like in Roumania. All hopes of genuine solidarity have been abandoned and the enforced unity of a single party—and that party one which in normal times could not once achieve a parliamentary majority—has thwarted all party concentration. The Iron Guard is the sole legal and political party, and in General Antonescu’s new Cabinet Horla Sima, leader of the extremist faction of the Iron Guard, is deputy Prime Minister—four ministers and five out of nine under-secretaries are influential.

We can see, as yet, no sign of a clash between Russia and Germany; it may come, but at present with some writers the wish is father to the thought. Russia goes out of her way to make things as irksome for the enemies of Germany as she dare without exciting comment. Note the action of her Communist agents here and in U.S. In the latter country the Nazis and the Communists propagate the same policy—the United States must keep out of the war.

It is true, however, that the Soviet Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs recently informed the German Ambassador in Moscow that Soviet Russia as a state bordering on the Danube “must take part in deciding questions that concern the Danube and that the Soviet Government expects to receive all relevant information regarding the Vienna Conference of experts on Danubian questions of International concern.”

The hope of Socialists is beyond the war, and the object of the ruling class is to devise some ways and means of preventing the working-class carrying out their historic mission at the end of the present conflict. The Editor of the “Nineteenth Century” has his ear to the ground and he can see what is coming. Note carefully what he says :

“Broadly speaking, England should assume the conscious leadership of the potential European revolution and give her support of every subversive or revolutionary movement against German domination. There is no sign of revolt amongst the Germans themselves, but if they meet with failure in the field they will be threatened with revolt at home. England cannot assume revolutionary leadership in Europe if she does not herself accept profound social changes which will cumulatively achieve as much as violent revolution can achieve. But that she should proceed any other way than by organic reform, that she should undergo violent upheaval can only be the earnest wish of Hitler and his Allies. Organic change that will deepen national unity by promoting greats social justice and eliminating excessive individual greed and privilege in the bitter need and heavy sacrifice which the war will impose is essential to ultimate victory. Without it England will have no lasting inner strength and no real authority in Europe. Without it she will be unable to win not only the war, but also the peace. Nothing must be allowed to weaken her effort on the land, on the sea and in the air. Necessary as it is for her to promote the anti-German revolution everywhere it will not win the war.

“The war will be won first by defeating the Italians, then the German armed forces in battle.

“Defeat will accelerate the advent of revolution, but defeat must come first. Every Italian or German reverse inspires and fortifies the revolutionary forces and weakens Italian and German resistance to them. But the revolution itself will be the consequence, not the cause of defeat. Defeat once it comes will be clinched by revolution or even by the menace of revolution. Revolution can help decisively to accelerate the final overthrow of German power.

“For England the European revolution is a means to an end. It is not in itself desirable as revolutionary romantics pretend. It is an accessory, an important one, but, nevertheless, an accessory to the action of the armed forces, a means to achieve not a ‘new order’ or a ‘better Europe’ (except in so far as Europe will be renewed and made better by the removal of German domination) but the one war aim, which must be achieved at all costs, to break the power of Germany, and the one peace aim—which no ideal or Utopian proposals of any sort should be allowed to obscure—to keep the power of Germany broken.”

The grave-digging by the capitalist class goes busily on.

Charles Lestor

Kosovo: Open for business (2008)

From the April 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Kosovo became an independent state in February and was immediately recognised by the US and most European countries. We look at one of the reasons why.

Kosovo emerged as an independent State after decades of uneasy existence as part of Serbia. There was an inevitable new anthem and new flag.  But there are real political concerns best not forgotten in the ballyhoo and hopes for a brighter future. 

One man interviewed by the BBC’s Mark Mardell described how during the war he fled his village with many relatives under attack by Serbian troops. He had to leave his aunt behind and she was burnt to death. He said: “Kosovo is rich in minerals and rich in farming land, is rich in all other aspects. Here, we provided wealth for so many years for the whole of Yugoslavia, there is no reason why we cannot provide now for just Kosovo. That’s why I’m saying Kosovo has a bright future.” (Mark Mardell’s Euroblog: ‘Mining Kosovo’s Future’  29 January)

Alongside the declared humanitarian reasons for the UN intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s there were other, economic and political, considerations also in play. It is these interests that will shape future developments in the states of the former Yugoslavia and dominate the lives of workers there.

The New York Times (8 July 1999) carried an article by Chris Hedges about the Stari Trg mining complex in Trepca, Kosovo. Possibly inadvertently, it gave an insight into some of the  considerations that surrounded the decision to intervene. According to Hedges, “The sprawling state-owned Trepca mining complex, the most valuable piece of real estate in the Balkans, is worth at least $5 billion.”

It was the reported view of the mine’s director, Novak Bjelic, that “The war in Kosovo is about the mines, nothing else. This is Serbia’s Kuwait – the heart of Kosovo. In addition to all this, Kosovo has 17 billion tons of coal reserves.” The Yugoslav web site www.yugoslavia.com (now defunct) described Trepca as having the “richest lead and zinc mines in Europe.” The capacity of the lead and zinc refineries ranked third in the world and the area as a whole represented some 80% of Yugoslavia’s mineral deposits. The problem was they were old and inefficient and seriously polluting.

According to Michael Palairet of the University of Edinburgh, a leading authority on the economic and social history of the Balkans,

  “The Trepca system ‘as a rule’ lost money under Yugoslav socialism … Because of Trepca’s incapacity to generate funding of its own for investment, all investment funding had to be financed externally, by fund providers who did not anticipate that they would see any return on (or of) their capital.” In his opinion the $5bn figure quoted by Hedges above was exaggerated. However while Trepca consistently performed poorly, this was not because it could not have been managed more effectively: “Unlike most heavy industry… Trepca had good mining assets and low cost access to energy, so on the face of things there were no structural reasons for its inability to trade profitably.” (European Stability Initiative)

Further insight may be gained into the economic underpinnings of the UN intervention from a report by the International Crisis Group. The report is interesting in that it provides further evidence that the breakup of the former Yugoslavia was in large part motivated by conflicting economic interests. The various regions of the Federal Republic had fallen out over how their assets and liabilities were to be divided and allocated. The differences were long standing and could not be resolved peacefully. In other words it was a fight among competing capitalists interests. One of these interests lay in Kosovo – the supposed “heartland of Serb identity.”

 “Trepca is a sprawling conglomerate of some 40 mines and factories, located mostly in Kosovo … Its great mineral wealth is the basis of the economy of Kosovo, but the complex is badly run-down as a result of under-investment and over-exploitation by governments in Belgrade.” (Trepca: Making Sense of the Labyrinth (ICG Europe Report N°82, 26 November 1999) )

In 1974 Tito’s new constitution accorded the province near-republic status, with its own parliament and courts, Kosovo elites enjoyed a period of greatly increased control over their own resources. They used their enhanced authority to build factories in Kosovo that capitalised on their mineral production, created thousands of jobs, and brought some income into the province.

After Tito’s death, pressure grew for more rights and greater political and economic autonomy, but with little success. Belgrade reasserted control of the mines.  Kosovo Albanian workers were accused of having stolen vast quantities of gold and silver and many engineers and technicians were fired.

  “From 1981-89, Belgrade monopolised the export of Trepca’s minerals to Russia and elsewhere, reaping the profits in hard currency and oil, while compensating the Kosovars only with electricity and other non-fungible forms of payment.…

  Trepca’s Kosovar management attempted to sell its products on the European market and to modernise the facilities’ modes of production, only to be foiled time and again by the Serbian government, which was in the process of “integrating” Serbia’s economy – that is, of tethering all economic sectors even more closely to Belgrade.

  By the late 1980s, with the final integration into the Serbian system of the power generating system, Kosovars had lost virtually all control over their economy, as they would over their politics and civic freedoms.” (Trepca: Making Sense of the Labyrinth (ICG))

In 1996 Trepca had exported $100 million of products, making it the largest exporting company in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and an invaluable foreign exchange earner at a time when the country was experiencing grave economic difficulties.

Throughout the 1990s the ownership of Trepca conglomerate was never entirely clear. In November 1997 Trepca was under consideration for privatisation by the federal government in Belgrade. This process stalled when the ‘red businessman’ Zoran Todorovic, was murdered by a gunman in Belgrade. Todorovic had been a close confidant of Slobodan Milosevic and was one of the richest men in Yugoslavia.  He was one of a group of state capitalists who had been able to use their political connections to purchase state assets at bargain prices. (He was also director of Beopetrol, another state firm in the process of being privatized.) This was in effect a conversion of state owned assets into de facto privately owned ones by the ruling capitalist class.

Officials of the UN Interim Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), who took over governing Kosovo in 1999 after the withdrawal of Serbian troops, concluded  that the complex was overall public property and therefore came under their authority in accordance with its mandate. The then head of UNMIK, Bernard Kouchner (now French Foreign Minister), confirmed that an international consortium had been appointed to run the plant. A $16m (£10.7m) investment package was also announced, funded by Britain, France, Spain, Germany, and the EU. The money was to be spent on a full-scale refurbishment of the plant prior to it being sold off.  “We have no intention of closing any part of the Trepca mining complex. On the contrary, we’re going to make it safe and profitable.” he said. (The Guardian, 15 August 2000)

But it was not only the mines that capitalist interests had their eyes on. In July 2000 it was announced that a fund run by the billionaire George Soros was to invest $150 million (most backed by U.S. guarantees) in companies in the Balkans. Soros Fund Management would invest $50 million of it own equity in new businesses, expansions or privatization in the region and would have full autonomy to choose the investments in a whole swathe of South East Europe. Soros had invested millions of dollars in philanthropic endeavors in the region, but said this fund would practice “tough love,” and be driven purely by profit.

The U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation had agreed to provide a loan guarantee for another $100 million of investments. OPIC describes itself as a self-sustaining federal agency that sells investment services to American businesses expanding into emerging markets around the world. It provides a level playing field for U.S. businesses in emerging economies.

“Since 1971, OPIC has supported nearly $130 billion worth of investments that will generate over $61 billion in U.S. exports.” (Dead Link.)

The Soros investment was conceived at a “donor” conference in Sarajevo in 1999. It was one of a series of efforts to take advantage of emerging investment opportunities in the Balkans. “A year ago, after NATO won the war in Kosovo, more than 40 leaders came together in Sarajevo determined to win the peace with economic investments”, according to National Security Advisor Samuel M. Berger.

George Munoz President and CEO of OPIC said he was pleased that they were making the region safe for international capital. It was a demonstration that “Southeast Europe is an important region on which we should focus our efforts, to enable it to rebuild and enter the global marketplace as a full partner. The Southeast Europe Equity Fund is an ideal vehicle to connect American institutional capital with European entrepreneurs eager to help Americans tap their growing markets.”

The Soros Private Funds Management, he said, was sending “ a strong, positive signal that Southeast Europe is open for business.”

Gwynn Thomas

Editorial: A danger light on the horizon (1944)

Editorial from the February 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

After each major war there has been a period of discontent and upheaval. In the wake of the last war there came a spark that travelled round the world— Bolshevism. From whence will the spark come after this war? For assuredly there will be a centre of extreme foment. The possibilities appear to be France, Spain, the Balkans and India.

Austria is unlikely to be the source of immediate explosions as it is too closely bound up with Germany. Poland is suffering from expectancy and is not sufficiently closely knit. Italy has been suppressed and dragooned too long to provide any important uprising in a hurry. Russia is at present satisfied. Finland, Norway, Denmark and Holland are too small to give birth to anything world-shaking. England and America are unlikely, as victors, to breed immediate trouble on a large scale as turmoil comes first from the vanquished and suffering where the pressure quickens the mind and incites the emotions to the verge of explosion.

Of the four possibles, the Balkans are so split up with internecine strife that they do not appear capable of setting on foot anything important. India is likely to be both victorious and vanquished. It has possibilities, it is true, but its backwardness may be a hindrance. Spain, like the Balkans, has serious internal strife that was shown up clearly during the Spanish Civil War. It hardly seems capable at present of developing a unified movement though it may produce turmoil. There remains France, which, on many grounds, seems the most likely to produce the spark with international reflections. It is populous, advanced, widespread, vanquished, has suffered much and its emotions have been stirred by underground movements whose fighting content have been workers. It is seething with trouble, and the attempt of an emigre government to fasten the old conditions on the country will probably lead to explosions, the resort to force, and another chimerical panacea for the troubles of the world's workers.

If the workers would escape the futile and time-wasting expenditure of energy that brought so much bitterness And disillusion after the last war, they must be wary this time and give no uncritical support to leader sponsored emotional upsurges that have already cost them so much and put back the clock of working-class emancipation.

The Revelations of Winston Churchill (1954)

From the June 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

The contempt in which the British ruling class holds those over whom it rules is shown by the readiness with which it reveals the truth about its motives and actions in the Second World War only a few years after the event. This column has already remarked upon the revealing statements made since the end of the war about both the Battle of Britain and the invasion of Norway. Now Mr. Churchill himself, the author of those stirring speeches which were so successful in inducing the British working class to fight the battles of the British capitalists for them, has made some extraordinary revelations in his last volume of the history of the war, “Triumph and Tragedy.”

When Churchill met Stalin in Moscow in 1944, they both abandoned the wordy inanities with which they had exhorted their followers to greater efforts, and got down to the business of the real reasons for which the war was fought. Among these reasons the situation in the Balkans in 1939 ranked high. Hitler's successive conquests of Austria, Czechoslovakia and part of Poland gave rise to fears that he was about to begin another "Drang nach Osten,” the drive to the east which had been high on the Kaiser’s programme. Britain wished to conserve her influence over Greece and over the Balkans generally; and Russia was determined not only to keep the half of Poland which she had taken in 1939, but also to extend her hegemony over the rest of Eastern Europe. So when Churchill and Stalin, as the representatives of the victorious ruling classes of Britain and Russia respectively, met at Moscow, they sat down to business with no illusions as to why the other had fought the war.

Blue Pencil
Churchill wrote on a sheet of paper the respective shares which he proposed that each country should have in the various Balkan countries. He suggested that Rumania should be ninety per cent. Russian and ten per cent. British; that Greece should be ninety per cent. British and ten per cent. Russian; and that similar divisions of influence should be made in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and the rest. He pushed the sheet across the table to Stalin. "Stalin took a blue pencil, and made a large tick upon it; and passed it back. It was all settled, says Churchill, in no more time than it takes to set it down ” (Reynolds News, 25/4/54). There was no discussion on either side, according to Churchill’s own account, as to how this dividing up of smaller countries (most of which had been on the Allied side in the war) squared with the lofty motives which each had repeatedly given in public speeches as the sole reasons for which the Allies were fighting the war. Does the reader remember the old gag about “the independence of small nations”? No mention of that here. Does the reader remember how the National Anthems of these small countries used to be played to us regularly by the B.B.C. to show us how intimately this country had their interests at heart? Now they were not even called in to give their approval of the settlement reached as to their future by their big brotherly allies. If these Balkan countries had been told, no doubt they would have raised a cry of "No division without representation" but they were not even told.

Honour Among Thieves

Churchill and Stalin kept their respective bargains. When it looked as if the left-wing .political party EAM, and its guerilla supporter ELAS, was going to take power in Greece, Churchill ordered the British Army and the Royal Air Force into action; thus was Greece saved for its Anglo-American future. And not a word of protest came from Russia, or appeared in the Russian press. Similarly, when the Russian army of occupation in Rumania saw to it that the Communist Party took power and threw King Michael out, there was no interference from Britain.

All this is retold frankly by Churchill. Apparently his scorn for the workers is such that he has no fear of any adverse effect on morale in a Third World War; he is not afraid that the workers, having seen how hollow were the speeches made and articles written in the Second World War, might come to think that those in future wars were just as hypocritical. And such is the hold of propaganda on the mass of the working class, he is probably right

Joshua.

The Coming Balkan Conflict? (2001)

From the April 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two years after NATO and the UN moved into the former Yugoslavia to police a region beset by conflict since the Balkan break-up of the early 90s, a new conflagration threatens. Macedonian troops have clashed with Albanian rebels on the Kosovo border and, on the Serbian border, Albanian nationalists have launched attacks against Serb police positions.

Along the Kosovo/Macedonia and Kosovo/Serbia border, former members of the KLA have formed into guerrilla units intent on creating a “Greater Kosovo”. In the south of Kosovo the small and nascent Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) aims to annex north and eastern Macedonia, whilst on Kosovo’s eastern border, a sister organisation, the UCBMP (Liberation Army of Prosevo Medvedja and Bujanovo)—all towns in the southern part of Serbia with an Albanian ethnic majority—is demanding border changes so that 70,000 ethnic Albanians living in Serbia are included in Kosovo.

Whilst the nationalist insurgents would have it that a “Greater Kosovo” is at stake, that includes the ethnic Albanian populations of Serbia and Macedonia, others envisage a “greater” Albania, an Albania merged with Kosovo which would become the largest state in the Balkans, if not the most impoverished. Control of the borders is also allegedly a reason for the recent wave of unrest, for whoever controls these also controls the lucrative and illicit trade in drugs and arms and “illegal migration”.

The UCBMP have caused such much mayhem in the Presevo Valley that NATO has handed back part of the border buffer zone to Yugoslav military control, to special units of the 7th battalion of the Yugoslav army created by former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. In other words, the West has sided with forces that battled for a Greater Serbia and only two years after NATO supposedly went to war with Serbia on behalf of Kosovo Albanians.

Once thing is certain—the West has clearly underestimated the threat of Albanian nationalism and indeed dissipated the once popular belief in Kosovo and Albania that NATO was an ally of Kosovo Albanians. There is also a lack of any consensus between NATO and the UN about the shape of any final Kosovo settlement, and US policy is still out of step with the other NATO allies.

Whilst UN officials see in KLA violence a game plan intended to provoke a swift retaliation from Macedonia (home to 600,000 ethnic Albanians) which will in turn incite Kosovos, Stratfor (the US Security consultants) sees the “primary motive for the [UCPMB] campaign in the Presevo valley [to be the desire] to provoke a harsh response and thus damage relations between the new Yugoslav government and K-For”. The UCPMB plan—if indeed it was a plan—has turned sour. The demilitarised Zone is now being policed by Serbian troops under the watchful eye of NATO and the US wishes to settle the Kosovo problem peacefully and to integrate Yugoslavia into a plan for long-term regional stability.

All the signs are that NATO’s Frankenstein is up and walking, fed on the same raw nationalism that has brought so much bloodshed to the Balkans this past decade, bent on carving out a greater Albania from Albania, Kosovo and the ethnic Albanian regions of Macedonia and Serbia. But they face repeated obstacles: not least is the desire by Western powers to cement relations with new President of Yugoslavia Vojislav Kostunica.

K-FOR (the Western peace-keeping force set up to police the region) failed to disarm the KLA, which went on the initiate a criminal network safe in the knowledge they had the backing of US Intelligence. And as the Observer reported on 11th March, that the CIA encouraged KLA fighters to mount a rebellion in southern Serbia to undermine support from President Milosevic. As one K-FOR battalion commander pointed out:

  The CIA have been allowed to run riot in Kosovo with a private army designed to overthrow Slobodan Milosevic. Now he’s gone, the US State Dept. seems incapable of reigning in its bastard army.

One Foreign Office analyst observes:

  We are not looking at a repeat of the circumstances when Yugoslavia began to disintegrate at the beginning of the 1990s. The people we are now dealing with are the fanatics who became wealthy out of national politics, crime and war. They feel that their power is being eroded and they will fight to survive (Guardian, 3 March).

Elsewhere, to the west of Kosovo, nationalists in Montenegro, lulled by the US into believing it would be permitted to split from Serbia once Milosevic was ousted, have been told to put aside these aspirations and re-forge ties with Serbia—news that is already inciting the nationalists of Montenegro. Meanwhile, Croat nationalists allied to Bosnian Croat leader Ante Jelavic are denouncing the government of the Muslim-Croat Federation, threatening to unravel the 1995 Dayton agreement which partitioned Bosnia along ethnic lines. Suddenly, Spring-time in the Balkans looks set to see war once again blossom.

For almost a century, this journal has been consistent in its opposition to nationalism, in the belief that nationalism is a killer epidemic, creating conflict from which those with the least to gain have the most to lose. Whatever cause and victory the misinformed defenders of nationhood believe they are fighting for, it pales into insignificance when compared to the real war that needs to be waged on the battlefield of ideas and against an elite who perpetuate the myth of nationhood for their own ends and always to our detriment.

We maintain that, regardless of the supposed “century-old hatreds” the real problem is that the Balkans is a cockpit for the Great Powers and their local client states and their states-in-waiting. Despite their cultural, historical and religious differences, there is more that unites Muslims and Christians, Albanians and Serbs, than can ever divide them. Their real needs—needs people the world over identify with—can only ever be fulfilled in a world devoid of borders or frontiers. We can only hope it is not too long before the long-suffering people of the Balkans come to realise this.

John Bissett

“Their Country Needs You” (1998)

From the January 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the moment we have adverts appearing on television, encouraging young people to join the armed forces, each one portraying the state killing machine as a force for worldwide benevolence.

The Air Force’s advert, which contains the above slogan shows scenes of helpless civilians, clearly meant to be in the former Yugoslavia, being helped by a British air force aid drop. Isn’t it lovely? “Join the Air Force, save the world.” But let’s look further into what the armed forces really are doing in the former Yugoslavia, and exactly how benevolent the military presence there is.

First, we have to penetrate the fog of media obfuscation and deceit on these matters. There are two big lies, that mutually reinforce each other. The first is the idea that the people of Bosnia are like mad dogs, driven by centuries of ethnic tension to hate and kill one another, and that it was only the suppressing force of the Titoist dictatorship that stopped this war from erupting sooner. How often have we seen British journalists on our screens resignedly despairing at the war, and wondering how people who used to be friends and neighbours could suddenly turn upon one another, and perpetrate such gross atrocities? How often have they glibly explained it away as part of ancient ethnic hatred, spreading back to the Middle Ages? This hides the real cause of the war, and thus protects those truly guilty from facing the accusation of responsibility.

The Second Big Lie follows on from this: that the only way to bring peace to the region was to return a suppressing force, and to enforce a deal upon the peoples there, a benevolent military intervention with the sole aim of bringing peace and rebuilding the devastated region; that “we” are only interested in helping the poor and afflicted of the region, and “our” military presence is a truly selfless act (just as the US invasion of Vietnam was a selfless act to bring peace and freedom there); their country literally does need us, and without us the mad dogs will be at one another’s throats once again.

Local power elites

To dispel the first lie requires a simple examination of the recent history of the former Yugoslavia. In the early eighties Yugoslavia was a relatively prosperous state-capitalist country, with strong, functioning federal institutions, and a decent welfare state. However, its economy was on the wane, and so it was forced to take an IMF loan, which came with an accompanying economic restructuring scheme that involved selling off state assets. Repaying the loan and meeting the interest payments meant that the state had to cut back on welfare benefits, as we have seen happen in so many other countries.

Many workers went without wages, the welfare institutions began to crumble, and as industry after industry began to falter an increasing proportion of the working population found themselves unemployed, leading to a strong degree of discontent. These are precisely the conditions in which hatred can find a good breeding ground, as desperate workers search around looking for someone to blame for their misfortune.

This situation need not have developed into war since working class hatred does not lead to war, it is the conflicting interests of the ruling classthat does this. As Yugoslavia became more and more impoverished the Federal government had less and less money, and began to deny funds to the regional state governments–a clear threat to the power elites of each of those states (since the power elite in a state capitalist country is dominated by the political bureaucracy, which relies on this money for its economic and power base). Economic impoverishment, plus a denial of their source of power, left the political elites with little room for manoeuvre. They hitched a lift onto growing popular discontent, and used the helplessness and despair of the workers to their own ends.

The spate of nationalist secessions (some of which worked to the favour of Western capitalist interests, such as Germany, which hastened to recognise the breakaway Croatia) brought the local elites into open competition for the region’s resources, and as is often in capitalism competition escalated to its ultimate expression, warfare. The so-called ethnic war in Bosnia was essentially a war over property (as all nation states are just an expression of property).

None of this in itself proves that the West is being anything less than benevolent by intervening in Bosnia. There are however, three very strong reasons why this intervention is based on more that simple kind-heartedness.

First, the need for regional stability. The chaos and potential danger of the Balkan war escalating and dragging other people in was too great. The potential for having even more refugees coming across the borders and flooding into Europe was too much for our masters to bear. As long as the region remained unstable and politically tense it was a threat to the local markets, and to our masters’ sources of profits.

Second, there are the power games of our masters: imperial spheres of influence. Each imperial nation/bloc has an area that the others recognise as its zone in which to operate, and traditionally Yugoslavia and eastern Europe has been the stomping ground of the USSR/Russia. Remember the way in which President Yeltsin warned against NATO military intervention? This was an area where his bunch of capitalists were supposed to be in charge. The US, however, have long had a policy of penetrating their influence into Eastern Europe, and since 1980, particularly Yugoslavia. In this respect the Western occupation of Yugoslavia is beneficial more to the US world political hegemony than it is to the inhabitants of that country.

Third, there is the usual and most elemental reason for any activity by capitalist powers: profit. As noted above, the Yugoslav economy had collapsed, and was now open to penetration by Western capital. Most of the former Yugoslavian states are heavily in debt, in fact Bosnia and Croatia will be heavily in debt until the middle of the next century, becoming debt-slave nations. British forces have been sent in to re-enforce Western entry into that sphere of influence, and guarantee their markets for British business.

Occupation

Bosnia is now effectively under Western occupation. The fig leaf of Bosnia’s democratic procedures falls apart very quickly under any form of scrutiny and shows itself to be an even greater pretence than elsewhere. Whilst there is a parliament, the supreme arbiter on the Dayton agreement, and therefore of any executive decision in Bosnia, is the Western appointed High Commissioner. Further, as part of the enforcement of the Dayton principles, foreign police (the IPTF–International Police Task Force) are being used rather than locally accountable forces. When a country is ruled by an appointed foreign bureaucrat, and their laws are enforced by foreign police, most people would call that colonial rule.

The amount of imperial penetration into Bosnia is even greater, because the local ruling class has been stripped of control over its own economy: all the financial institutions of Bosnia are Western controlled, and the Bosnia governments has no control over fiscal policy. Western capital is remaking Bosnia in its own image, and only when this is finished will it leave the new economy to run itself.

It is curious, given the importance given to the whole Bosnian war and its outcome by the Western media, how few of the details of Dayton were examined by mainstream journalists. We were told it would end the war, and that it would partition Bosnia, but the rest was left unexamined. Could there be some reason for this?

The Bosnian Serbs, and their “hard-liners”, have become the official enemy for daring to call the NATO force in Bosnia an occupation force. As far as Socialists see it the Serb hard-liners are just as bad and exactly the same as their imperial rivals, except they’ve lost out. So we now see them vilified in the Western media. At the moment there is a new film out in the US in which it is a Serbian terrorist that has got hold of the nuclear missile that the hero has to find. It makes a change from Arab terrorists. Serbian protesters in Bosnia are “thugs” while democracy campaigners in Belgrade are “demonstrators”. This is not to say that they are not, but to draw attention to the difference in treatment those who oppose and those who favour Western interests receive.

Western forces seized the transmitters to Bosnian Serb television, because it was “controlled by hard-liners”. It did this to ensure “fairness” in the elections there, because biased television was a threat to the victory of Plavsic, who the West supported. The amount of double-think required to report this must have been terrific: NATO is interfering in the elections, to ensure “fairness” i.e., that their chosen candidate had a better chance of winning!

Neither when NATO broadcast counter television signals from planes, nor when it shut down the television stations did Western journalists raise any objection based upon the freedom of the press. They just went along with the line that it was necessary to do this to protect the “peace process”. The truth is that NATO forces were being used to interfere in the elections to try to ensure a friendly government was put in place, and weaken the grip of a hostile local power elite, to ensure that Western market penetration could continue. Speaking of market penetration, Volkswagen have just opened up a factory in Bosnia, using the empty space in the Bosnian economy to get hold of cheap resources, and even cheaper, desperate, workers.

The Yugoslav war has been a twentieth century tragedy. The tragic heroes (the ordinary people) denied a voice, a role even, left just to die in silence while a whole cast of villains marched around the stage. There can be no doubts about who and what is to blame for this war. Behind the masks of kindliness worn by the villains of the piece lay the identical and twisted face of the god of Mammon, of capitalism. This war was a natural part of the continual war of capitalism, and its victims sacrifices to the cause of profit.

Pik Smeet

The Rise of Yugoslavia - Part 2 (1962)

From the November 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

The new constitution of 1945 brought ninety per cent. of Yugoslav industry under State control. Only those which were not worth bothering about were allowed to escape, such as shoe making, watch repairing, inn-keeping, etc. Agrarian reform dispossessed the old landlords and distributed the land to the peasants according to family size. “The land should belong to those who cultivate it,” was the cry, but this was no common ownership, only the handing over of land from one set of private owners to another.

In any case, the peasants’ troubles were by no means at an end. They still had to sell their agricultural produce in a market, capricious and uncertain as markets are. So that in times of glut it was less costly to leave salad stuff and soft fruit to rot, than to try and sell it. An old and familiar problem, by the way, and one of the many which prompted the start of collectivisation in 1949.

As we mentioned in Part 1, there was much reconstruction and industrialisation to complete, and as early as 1946, the government had announced a five year plan aiming at 400 per cent. increase in industrial production. Belgrade called for workers to assist with voluntary labour, and the response found expression in such projects as the gigantic iron works "Lilostroy” of Ljublijana, the Samac-Sarajevo and Doboj-Banjaluka Railroads and the Cetinje hydro-electric power station.

But in other ways also, Yugoslavia was making her presence felt. Tito had visited Stalin in 1945, and signed a treaty of mutual assistance. Russian technicians and military advisers went to Yugoslavia as a “help to fraternal countries” and quite clearly the country was earmarked for inclusion in the Soviet sphere of influence. Tito and his henchmen began to doubt the wisdom of allowing so much Soviet infiltration and signs of a rift were apparent at an early stage.

It has been said that the 1948 disagreement between the two states was a battle waged for Yugoslavia’s “Socialism” against Russian “Stalinism,” but this is quite untrue, if only for the reason that there never was any Socialism in Yugoslavia anyway. Tito himself came nearer to the mark when he said at the time:

  The real issue is the relation between one state and another. In my view they are using ideological questions as a pretext for putting pressure on us and our state.

The Yugoslav government strongly resented the Russian attempts to regulate buying and selling between the Cominform Stales, seeing it as a threat to their already weak economy.

Nor must we forget the part that Yugoslav/Albanian relations played in widening the breach. Moscow and Belgrade had agreed in principle to the unification of the two states and already their economies were becoming linked, with Yugoslav influence predominating. But the Russians were taken unawares by the subsequent agreements (signed without consulting them) to allow Yugoslav forces to be stationed in Albanian territory. According to Milovan Djilas, who was deeply involved in the dispute with Moscow, it was this military move most of all which persuaded Stalin that in Tito he had a rival rather than an ally. Yugoslavia was promptly expelled from the Cominform to the accompaniment of the most violent abuse.

In 1955, there was some reconciliation between Yugoslavia and the USSR, and since then Tito has managed to sit precariously on a rather wobbly fence, obtaining economic aid from both sides of the Iron Curtain, but refusing to join either power bloc, at least for the time being. It remains to be seen how long he can play one side off against the other in his efforts to win economic elbow room for his ruling class. Only recently, America has scaled down her financial assistance to Yugoslavia, causing Belgrade to go into a panic-stricken huddle. One result has been a renewed demand for farm collectivisation, although many of Tito’s colleagues remember its previous failure and are not enthusiastic. Neither are the peasants, who want to remain proprietors in their own right and not become agricultural wage workers.

Yet this may well be the future tendency, as industry develops and the demand for labour increases. The old peasant family proprietorship will be regarded as wasteful of labour and efficiency, and there is likely to be increasing interference by the State. There is a growing working class today in Yugoslavia facing the same sort of problems as their brothers elsewhere. Sooner or later they will have to get down to an appreciation of the need for Socialism, but there is no sign of this happening, as yet.

In the meantime, it is interesting to speculate on the future role of Yugoslavia in the changing pattern of capitalist world politics. A glance at the map will show the strategy of her position with an Adriatic coastline facing Italy and frontiers with Rumania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Austria and Italy. As her industries develop, we may well see her jostling for a share of the markets in an increasingly competitive world. But it is difficult to view her future as other than that of a minor capitalist power at most. This does after all make sense in a world where even Germany, France and Britain—the major powers of yesterday—have been ousted from dominance, and the arena left to America and Russia, two colossi of capitalism, glaring at each other in sullen anger.

(Concluded)

Remy Starc.