Politics
In the Socialist Republic, the only legal political party was the League of Communists of Serbia (Savez komunista Srbije), which was part of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. The party remained relatively stable and loyal to the federal party until the late 1980s, when the party became split over what action to take in Kosovo when protests and fights broke out between ethnic Albanians and Serbs.
The more traditional Communists supported President Ivan Stambolic advocated continued neutrality as a means to solve the dispute while more radical and nationalist-leaning members supported Slobodan Milosevic advocated the protection of Kosovo's Serbs who had claimed that their population was being pressured to leave Kosovo by Albanian separatists. Milosevic utilized public sentiment and opposition to Kosovo separatism to rally large numbers of supporters to help him overthrow the Communist leadership in Vojvodina, Kosovo and the Socialist Republic of Montenegro in what was known as the anti-bureaucratic revolution. Afterwards, the Serbian League of Communists selected Milosevic as their leader. Milosevic took a hard stand on Albanian nationalism in Kosovo and pressured the Yugoslav government to give him emergency powers to deal with Kosovo separatists. Furthermore he reduced the autonomy of the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina and installed politicians loyal to him to serve as their representatives.
In the congress of the Yugoslav League of Communists in 1990, Milosevic and his subordinate representatives for Vojvodina, Kosovo and the Socialist Republic of Montenegro attempted to silence opposition from the Socialist Republic of Slovenia which opposed the actions taken against Kosovo by blocking all reforms proposed by the Slovene representatives. The tactic failed and Slovenia, along with its ally Croatia, abdicated from the Yugoslav Communist Party. This caused the Yugoslav Communist party to fall apart, and then the state of Yugoslavia itself one year later.
Read more about this topic: Socialist Republic Of Serbia
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
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