World War II On 6 April 1941, Yugoslavia was
invaded by the Axis powers led by
Nazi Germany; by 17 April 1941, the country was fully occupied and was soon carved up by the
Axis. Yugoslav resistance was soon established in two forms, the Royal
Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and the
Communist Yugoslav Partisans. The Partisan supreme commander was
Josip Broz Tito. Under his command, the movement soon began establishing "liberated territories" that attracted the occupying forces' attention. Unlike the various nationalist militias operating in occupied Yugoslavia, the Partisans were a pan-Yugoslav movement promoting the "
brotherhood and unity" of Yugoslav nations and representing the Yugoslav political spectrum's republican, left-wing, and socialist elements. The coalition of political parties, factions, and prominent individuals behind the movement was the
People's Liberation Front (
Jedinstveni narodnooslobodilački front, JNOF), led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ). The Front formed a representative political body, the
Anti-Fascist Council for the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ,
Antifašističko Veće Narodnog Oslobođenja Jugoslavije). The AVNOJ met for the first time in Partisan-liberated
Bihać on 26 November 1942 (
First Session of the AVNOJ) and claimed the status of Yugoslavia's
deliberative assembly (parliament). In 1943, the Yugoslav Partisans began attracting serious attention from the Germans. In two major operations,
Fall Weiss (January to April 1943) and
Fall Schwartz (15 May to 16 June 1943), the Axis attempted to stamp out the Yugoslav resistance once and for all. In the
Battle of the Neretva and the
Battle of the Sutjeska, the 20,000-strong Partisan Main Operational Group engaged a force of around 150,000 combined Axis troops. The conclusions, known as the
Tito-Šubašić Agreement, granted the King's recognition to the AVNOJ and the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (DFY) and provided for the establishment of a joint Yugoslav coalition government headed by Tito with Šubašić as the foreign minister, with the AVNOJ confirmed as the provisional Yugoslav parliament. recognized the state in the agreement, signed by Šubašić and Tito on 17 June 1944. The Tito-Šubašić agreement of 1944 declared that the state was a pluralist democracy that guaranteed democratic liberties; personal freedom;
freedom of speech,
assembly, and
religion; and a
free press. But by January 1945, Tito had shifted his government's emphasis away from pluralist democracy, claiming that though he accepted democracy, multiple parties were unnecessarily divisive amid Yugoslavia's war effort, and that the
People's Front represented all the Yugoslav people. But the nature of its government remained unclear, and Tito was reluctant to include the exiled King Peter II in post-war Yugoslavia, as
Winston Churchill demanded. In February 1945, Tito acknowledged the existence of a
Regency Council representing the King, but the council's first and only act was to proclaim a new government under Tito's premiership. The nature of the state was still unclear immediately after the war, and on 26 June 1945, the government signed the
United Nations Charter using only
Yugoslavia as an official name, with no reference to either a kingdom or a republic. Acting as head of state on 7 March, the King appointed to his Regency Council constitutional lawyers Srđan Budisavljević,
Ante Mandić, and Dušan Sernec. In doing so, he empowered his council to form a common
temporary government with NKOJ and accept Tito's nomination as prime minister of the first normal government. The Regency Council thus accepted Tito's nomination on 29 November 1945 when FPRY was declared. With this unconditional transfer of power, King Peter II
abdicated to Tito. This date, when the second Yugoslavia was born under international law, was thereafter marked as Yugoslavia's national holiday
Day of the Republic, but after the Communists' switch to
authoritarianism, this holiday officially marked the 1943 Session of AVNOJ that coincidentally fell on the same date. In the first months after the end of the war, the Partisans were ruthless in executing alleged collaborators along with anyone perceived to be their enemy. An American OSS officer reported from Dubrovnik: "The inhabitants were living in a state of mortal terror...The Partisan attitude was that anybody who had stayed in town during the occupation and didn't work in the Partisan underground was ipso facto a collaborator. The dreaded secret police was going to work and people were being taken from their homes to the old castle and shot everyday". One witness reported in the early summer of 1945: "In Crnogrob there are mass graves. Trucks are bringing men with bound hands and feet every evening from the prison in
Škofja Loka and none are ever seen again. Every evening one hears shots from Crnogrob". In July 1945, Tito ordered a stop to summary executions, but it was not until the fall of 1945 that the mass executions finally stopped. In Kosovo, there was an uprising that was only put down in the summer of 1945 as many Albanians did not want to rejoin Yugoslavia, and much preferred to join Albania. In attempt to settle the long-standing "Macedonian question", Tito declared the Macedonians to be one of the official nationalities of Yugoslavia and created a republic for Macedonia. It was declared that Macedonians did not speak Bulgarian, but rather their own language, leading to the publication of several books meant to promote standard Macedonian.
Postwar period The first Yugoslav post-World War II elections were set for
11 November 1945. By that time, the coalition of parties backing the Partisans, the People's Liberation Front (
Jedinstveni narodnooslobodilački front, JNOF), had been renamed the People's Front (
Narodni front, NOF) and was primarily led by the KPJ and represented by Tito. The reputation of both benefited greatly from their wartime exploits and decisive success, and they enjoyed genuine support among the populace. But the old pre-war political parties were also reestablished. The election results of 11 November 1945 were decisively in favour of the People's Front, which received an average of 85% of the vote in each
federated state. Yugoslavia became a
one-party state and was considered in its earliest years a model of Communist orthodoxy. The principal concern of the new regime was rebuilding a country devastated by the war under the slogan "No rest while we're rebuilding!" During the war, over a million people had been killed in Yugoslavia while 3.5 million were homeless in 1945, and 289,000 businesses had been completely wrecked. One-third of Yugoslav industries had been destroyed in the war and every single mine in the country had been wrecked. In 1944–1945, the Wehrmacht staged its standard "scorched earth" policy while retreating, and systematically destroyed bridges, railroads, telephone lines, electrical plants, roads, factories and mines, leaving Yugoslavia in ruins. The new regime mobilised thousands of people, especially young people, into work brigades that saw to rebuild the country. Between 1945 and 1953, Yugoslavia received a sum equal to $553.8 million
US dollars to help rebuild from various sources, including $419 million from the
United Nations. In 1947, Tito launched an ambitious Five-Year Plan, closely modelled after the First Five-Year Plan in the Soviet Union, that placed the first emphasis on investing in shipyards, machine manufacturing, and the electrical industry along with reopening the iron and coal mines with the aim of making Yugoslavia into a major producer of steel. A major weakness for the old Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a lack of an arms industry, and Tito intended for Communist Yugoslavia to be self-sufficient in arms, leading for dozens upon of arms factories being opened in Bosnia and Serbia in the late 1940s-early 1950s. By the mid-1950s, Tito had nearly achieved his aim of military autarky with virtually all the weapons being used by the Yugoslav People's Army being manufactured in Yugoslavia and the country later became a major exporter of arms to the Third World. Between 1947 and 1949, a third of the national income was invested in heavy industry and the number of Yugoslav workers increased fourfold to two million. Between 1953 and 1960, Yugoslavia's industrial production increased by 13.83% annually, which gave Yugoslavia a higher rate of industrialization than Japan during the same decade, albeit Yugoslavia was starting from a much lower basis than Japan. Between 1947 and 1957, the population of Belgrade and Sarajevo increased by 18%, the population of Skopje by 36% and Zenica, which had been chosen as a new industrial center, by 53%. The post-war era saw the flight or expulsions of the Italian and German minorities. Before the war, Yugoslavia had a population of half-million
volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans), of whom the majority fled to the
Reich in 1944–1945. The
volksdeutsche were favored during the occupation, and many had served in the SS Prinz Eugen division that had been used to hunt down partisans, making the
volksdeutsche the object of much hatred and distrust from the new regime. Of the remaining 200,000
volksdeutsche living in Yugoslavia in 1945, the entire community had all of its assets confiscated by the new regime (including those
volksdeutsch who joined the Partisans) and the
volksdeutsche were placed into camps prior to their expulsion. In Dalmatia and Istria, there were massacres known as the
foibe massacres of Italians who were suspected of supporting the Fascist regime, and the remaining Italians all either fled or were expelled. Women had played a prominent role in the Partisans with about 100,000 having served in the Partisans between 1941 and 1945 as messengers, saboteurs, commissars, nurses, doctors, and soldiers. The female veterans insisted that they would expect equality in new Yugoslavia. In 1945, women were given the right to vote and hold office. The new regime favored giving Partisan veterans positions in the civil service, through this often caused problems. About two-thirds of the Communist party members in 1945 came from working class or peasant families, and many were barely literate. In October 1945, the Ministry of Forestry issued a memo saying that food and cigarettes were not to be tossed out of windows; spitting in the hallways was not acceptable and there was a "purpose and a proper way to use toilets". The memory of the Second World War was ubiquitous in post-war Yugoslavia with most of the holidays such as Fighters' Day on 4 July and Army Day on 22 December having something to do with the war, and most of the local holidays likewise had something to do with the war. Over 200 feature films were released in post-war Yugoslavia about the Partisans, several of which became massive hits such as
Walter Defends Sarajevo and
Battle on the Neretva. The Communist regime constructed a legend under which depicted almost all of the Yugoslav peoples rallying under the leadership of Tito in the People's Liberation War as the war was called in Yugoslavia to resist the occupation. At least for a time, this legend served as an unifying factor. The Yugoslav government allied with the
Soviet Union under Stalin and early in the
Cold War shot down two American airplanes flying in Yugoslav airspace, on 9 and 19 August 1946. These were the first aerial shootdowns of western aircraft during the Cold War and caused deep distrust of Tito in the United States and even calls for military intervention against Yugoslavia. The new Yugoslavia also closely followed the
Stalinist Soviet model of
economic development in this period, some aspects of which achieved considerable success. In particular, the public works of the period organized by the government rebuilt and even improved Yugoslav infrastructure (in particular the road system) with little cost to the state. Tensions with the West were high as Yugoslavia joined the
Cominform, and the early phase of the Cold War began with Yugoslavia pursuing an aggressive foreign policy.
Informbiro period The Tito–Stalin, or Yugoslav–Soviet split, took place in the spring and early summer of 1948. Its title pertains to Tito, at the time the
Yugoslav Prime Minister (President of the Federal Assembly), and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. In the West, Tito was thought of as a loyal Communist leader, second only to Stalin in the Eastern Bloc. However, having largely liberated itself with only limited Red Army support, With the American response in the
Korean War serving as an example of the West's commitment, Stalin began backing down from war with Yugoslavia. The Truman administration misunderstood the Tito-Stalin split as a sign that Yugoslavia would ally with the West, and it took some time for those in positions in power in Washington to understand that Tito wanted Yugoslavia to be neutral in the Cold War.
Reform s for
milk, 1950 Yugoslavia began a number of fundamental reforms in the early 1950s, bringing about change in three major directions: rapid
liberalization and
decentralization of the country's political system, the institution of a new, unique economic system, and a diplomatic policy of non-alignment.
Edvard Kardelj, the chief ideologue of the Communist regime, in a 1949 article "On People's Democracy", harshly criticised the Stalinist regimes in the Soviet Union for becoming a bureaucratic dictatorship that had merged party and state into one, and had elevated itself over Soviet society. Taking a phrase from Frederich Engels, Kardelj called for a "withering state", arguing that ordinary people should placed in charge of their workplaces to create the sort of society that Karl Marx and Engels had envisioned in the 19th century. In 1950, Kardelj along with
Milovan Djilas,
Moša Pijade,
Boris Kidrič and
Vladimir Bakarić drafted the "Basic Law on the Management of State Economic Enterprises" that called for councils elected by the workers to manage businesses along with a decentralisation of state management of the economy. Yugoslavia refused to take part in the Communist
Warsaw Pact and instead took a neutral stance in the Cold War, becoming a founding member of the
Non-Aligned Movement along with countries like India, Egypt and Indonesia, and pursuing centre-left influences that promoted a non-confrontational policy towards the United States. The country distanced itself from the Soviets in 1948 and started to build its own way to socialism under the strong political leadership of Tito, sometimes informally called "
Titoism". Tito reveled in the role of a world leader, and between 1944 and 1980 made 169 official visits to 92 nations, and in the process he met 175 heads of state along with 110 prime ministers. These frequent visits abroad served an important propaganda function, namely to show that Tito as one of the leaders of the non-aligned movement was an important world leader because Yugoslavia was an important nation. The economic reforms began with the introduction of
workers' self-management in June 1950. In this system, profits were shared among the workers themselves as
workers' councils controlled production and the profits. An industrial sector began to emerge thanks to the government's implementation of industrial and infrastructure development programs. The media remained under restrictions that were somewhat onerous by Western standards, but still had somewhat more latitude than their counterparts in other Communist countries. Nationalist groups were a particular target of the authorities, with numerous arrests and prison sentences handed down over the years for separatist activities. Dissent from a radical faction within the party led by Milovan Đilas, advocating the near-complete annihilation of the state apparatus, was at this time put down by Tito's intervention. These liberals were opposed by a group around Aleksandar Ranković. Ranković as secret police chief was known as an advocate of an repressive line, especially against the Albanians of Kosovo, and tended to favor Serbs over the other peoples. In 1966 the liberals (the most important being Edvard Kardelj,
Vladimir Bakarić of Croatia and
Petar Stambolić of Serbia) gained the support of Tito. At a party meeting in
Brijuni, Ranković faced a fully prepared dossier of accusations and a denunciation from Tito that he had formed a clique with the intention of taking power. That year (1966), more than 3,700 Yugoslavs fled to Trieste with the intention to seek political asylum in
North America,
United Kingdom or
Australia. Ranković was forced to resign all party posts and some of his supporters were expelled from the party. Throughout the 1950s and '60s, the economic development and liberalization continued at a rapid pace. Literacy was increased dramatically and reached 91%, medical care was free on all levels, and life expectancy was 72 years. The German historian Marie-Janine Calic noted that the 1960s are remembered as the time of the "economic miracle" when living standards were rising for most Yugoslavs and the prosperity had "a politically pacifying and socially integrating effect". Some of the republics became more wealthier than others. In 1965, Slovenia had an index value of 177.3% of Yugoslavia's per capital income, followed by Croatia at 120.7%, and Serbia at 94.9% while Bosnia-Herzegovina had 69.1% and the poorest region being Kosovo at 38.6%. At least part of the reason for the regional differences was Tito's policy until 1965 of keeping the prices of raw materials and agricultural goods artificially low, which hurt the poorer republics in the south as most people there were employed in either agriculture or mining while Slovenia and Croatia were more industrialised. To address the regional disparity, Tito created a regional development fund in 1965 intended to help the poorer republics of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Macedonia along with the Kosovo region of Serbia "catch up" with the richer republics to the north. In 1965, the Bosnian Muslims were upgraded to a sixth nationality, defined somewhat paradoxically as an ethnic rather than a religious group, and the 1971 census for the first time included the category "Muslim an ethnic sense". The recognition of Bosnian Muslims as an ethnicity allowed for greater Muslim involvement in the politics of Bosnia with the numbers of Muslims on the Bosnian Central Committee raising from 19% of the membership in 1965 to 33% in 1974. However, the recognition of Bosnian Muslims as an official nationality led to sharp disputes about whatever Bosnia-Herzegovina was the republic of the Muslims or if the Muslims were one of the three nations of Bosnia alongside the Serbs and the Croats. The Croats and the Serbs tended to favor the "three nations" theory of Bosnia while the Muslims argued that the Serbs and the Croats already had their own republics and Bosnia was the special homeland of the Serbo-Croatian speaking Muslims. On 2 June 1968,
student demonstrations led to wider mass youth protests in capital cities across Yugoslavia. They were gradually stopped a week later by Tito on 9 June during his televised speech. The student demonstrations of 1968 were an important turning point in Yugoslav history as for the first street protests had forced a change in policy, and in the coming decades, successive leaders within the League of Communists were to mobilize street protests as a way of forcing change. In August 1968, Tito was opposed to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The invasion of Czechoslovakia badly frightened Tito, whom believed that Yugoslavia would also soon be invaded by the Soviet Union. In 1968–1969, Tito embarked upon major military reforms with the aim of preparing for the expected Soviet invasion. Tito decided that the Yugoslav People's Army would stage a fighting retreat into the interior of the country and then revert over to guerrilla warfare, a doctrine Tito called "all-people's defense". As part of the planned guerrilla war, Tito sought to enroll as much of the population into the military as possible. The defense forces in 1969 were reorganized with 250, 000 professional soldiers of the People's Army along with 250, 000 reservists forming the core of the military and the territorial defense forces of the six republics, which collectively made up another 900, 000 men to serve as a nucleus of a guerilla force. In the process, much of the population was armed and Tito in effect by creating the territorial defense forces on the republic level gave each republic its own army, which was later to play a major role in the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. In October–November 1968, a series of riots erupted in Yugoslav Macedonia and the Kosovo region by Albanians who demanded that the regions where Albanians were a majority be turned into a new republic. Some of the more radical Albanians called for the session of Kosovo and the Albanian regions of Macedonia to join Albania to form a greater Albania. Tito rejected the demand for a 7th republic with an Albanian majority, but did grant demands for greater Albanian participation in public life. In 1969, the
University of Pristina was opened, becoming the first Albanian language university in Yugoslavia. Likewise, Tito allowed for a greater number of Albanians to be recruited into the League of Communists and into the government, which in turn caused complaints from the Serbs that the Albanians were dominating the political life of Kosovo at their expense. In 1971 the leadership of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, notably
Miko Tripalo and
Savka Dabčević-Kučar, allied with nationalist non-party groups, began a movement to increase the powers of the individual federated republics. The movement was referred to as MASPOK, a
portmanteau of meaning
mass movement, and led to the
Croatian Spring. Tito responded to the incident by purging the
League of Communists of Croatia, while Yugoslav authorities arrested large numbers of the Croatian protesters. To avert ethnically driven protests in the future, Tito began to initiate some of the reforms demanded by the protesters. At this time,
Ustaše-sympathizers outside Yugoslavia tried through terrorism and guerrilla actions to create a separatist momentum, but they were unsuccessful, sometimes even gaining the animosity of fellow Roman Catholic Croatian Yugoslavs. From 1971 on, the republics had control over their economic plans. This led to a wave of investment, which in turn was accompanied by a growing level of debt and a growing trend of imports not covered by exports. After the "Croatian Spring", Tito turned towards a more repressive leadership style, bringing in a new law in 1973 that restricted media freedom. By 1975, Yugoslavia had 4, 000 political prisoners, a figure that was only exceeded in Europe by Albania and the Soviet Union. The journal
Praxis, which was the main organ of criticism of the regime was shut down while a number of the "Black Wave" films were banned. The 1973-1974 oil shock badly hurt the Yugoslav economy as Yugoslavia had no oil of its own while the global recession sharply decreased the demand for raw materials and manufactured goods from Yugoslavia. To compensate, Yugoslavia went on a spree of borrowing money, creating an illusion of prosperity as the 1970s saw the greatest period of construction as thousands of new hotels, sports arenas, libraries, and streets were built that decade. The average annual economic rate after the 1973-1974 oil shock crisis was 8%, but the growth was largely fueled with money borrowed from the West. Many of the demands made in the Croatian Spring movement in 1971, such as giving more autonomy to the individual republics, became reality with the
1974 Yugoslav Constitution. While the constitution gave the republics more autonomy, it also awarded a similar status to two autonomous provinces within Serbia:
Kosovo, a largely ethnic
Albanian populated region, and
Vojvodina, a region with Serb majority but large numbers of ethnic minorities, such as
Hungarians. These reforms satisfied most of the republics, especially Croatia and the Albanians of Kosovo and the minorities of Vojvodina. But the 1974 constitution deeply aggravated Serbian Communist officials and Serbs themselves who distrusted the motives of the proponents of the reforms. Many Serbs saw the reforms as concessions to Croatian and Albanian nationalists, as no similar autonomous provinces were made to represent the large numbers of Serbs of
Croatia or
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serb nationalists were frustrated over Tito's support for the recognition of
Montenegrins and
Macedonians as independent nationalities, as Serbian nationalists had claimed that there was no ethnic or cultural difference separating these two nations from the Serbs that could verify that such nationalities truly existed. Tito maintained a busy, active travelling schedule despite his advancing age. His 85th birthday in May 1977 was marked by huge celebrations. That year, he visited
Libya, the Soviet Union,
North Korea and finally China, where the post-Mao leadership finally made peace with him after more than 20 years of denouncing the SFRY as "revisionists in the pay of capitalism". This was followed by a tour of France, Portugal, and
Algeria after which the president's doctors advised him to rest. In August 1978, Chinese leader
Hua Guofeng visited Belgrade, reciprocating Tito's China trip the year before. This event was sharply criticized in the Soviet press, especially as Tito used it as an excuse to indirectly attack Moscow's ally
Cuba for "promoting divisiveness in the Non-Aligned Movement". When China
launched a military campaign against Vietnam the following February, Yugoslavia openly took Beijing's side in the dispute. The effect was a rather adverse decline in
Soviet Union-Yugoslavia relations. During this time, Yugoslavia's first
nuclear reactor was under construction in
Krško, built by US-based
Westinghouse. The project ultimately took until 1980 to complete because of disputes with the United States about certain guarantees that Belgrade had to sign off on before it could receive nuclear materials (which included the promise that they would not be sold to third parties or used for anything but peaceful purposes). In 1979, seven selection criteria comprising
Ohrid,
Dubrovnik,
Split,
Plitvice Lakes National Park,
Kotor,
Stari Ras and
Sopoćani were designated as
UNESCO World Heritage Sites, making it the first inscription of cultural and natural landmarks in Yugoslavia.
Post-Tito period Tito died on 4 May 1980 due to complications after surgery. While it had been known for some time that the 87-year-old president's health had been failing, his death nonetheless came as a shock to the country. This was because Tito was looked upon as the country's hero in World War II and had been the country's dominant figure and identity for over three decades. His loss marked a significant alteration, and it was reported that many Yugoslavs openly mourned his death. In the Split soccer stadium, Serbs and Croats visited the coffin among other spontaneous outpourings of grief, and a funeral was organized by the League of Communists with hundreds of world leaders in attendance (See
Tito's state funeral). After Tito's death in 1980, a new
collective presidency of the Communist leadership from each republic was adopted. At the time of Tito's death the Federal government was headed by
Veselin Đuranović (who had held the post since 1977). He had come into conflict with the leaders of the republics, arguing that Yugoslavia needed to economize due to the growing problem of foreign debt. Đuranović argued that a devaluation was needed which Tito refused to countenance for reasons of national prestige. Post-Tito Yugoslavia faced significant fiscal debt in the 1980s, but its good relations with the United States led to an American-led group of organizations called the "Friends of Yugoslavia" to endorse and achieve significant debt relief for Yugoslavia in 1983 and 1984, though economic problems would continue until the state's dissolution in the 1990s. Yugoslavia was the host nation of the
1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. For Yugoslavia, the games demonstrated Tito's continued vision of
Brotherhood and Unity, as the multiple nationalities of Yugoslavia remained united in one team, and Yugoslavia became the second Communist state to hold the Olympic Games (the Soviet Union held them in
1980). However, Yugoslavia's games had Western countries participating, while the Soviet Union's Olympics were boycotted by some in the
1984 Summer Olympics in
Los Angeles. In the late 1980s, the Yugoslav government began to deviate from communism as it attempted to transform to a
market economy under the leadership of Prime Minister
Ante Marković, who advocated
shock therapy tactics to privatize sections of the Yugoslav economy. Marković was popular, as he was seen as the most capable politician to be able to transform the country to a liberalized democratic federation, though he later lost his popularity, mainly due to rising unemployment. His work was left incomplete as Yugoslavia broke apart in the 1990s.
Dissolution and war After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, the constituent republics of Yugoslavia split apart in the early 1990s. Unresolved issues from the breakup caused a series of inter-ethnic
Yugoslav Wars from 1991 to 2001 which primarily
affected Bosnia and Herzegovina, neighbouring parts of
Croatia and, some years later,
Kosovo. Following the
Allied victory in
World War II, Yugoslavia was set up as a federation of six republics, with borders drawn along ethnic and historical lines:
Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Croatia,
Macedonia,
Montenegro,
Serbia, and
Slovenia. In addition, two autonomous provinces were established within Serbia:
Vojvodina and
Kosovo. Each of the republics had its own branch of the
League of Communists of Yugoslavia party and a ruling elite, and any tensions were solved on the federal level. The Yugoslav model of state organisation, as well as a "middle way" between
planned and
liberal economy, had been a relative success, and the country experienced a period of strong economic growth and relative political stability up to the 1980s, under
Josip Broz Tito. After his death in 1980, the weakened system of federal government was left unable to cope with rising economic and political challenges. burning amid the
Yugoslav wars In the 1980s,
Kosovo Albanians started to demand that their autonomous province be granted the status of a full constituent republic, starting with the
1981 protests. Ethnic tensions between Albanians and
Kosovo Serbs remained high over the whole decade, which resulted in the growth of Serb opposition to the high autonomy of provinces and ineffective system of consensus at the federal level across Yugoslavia, which were seen as an obstacle for Serb interests. In 1987,
Slobodan Milošević came to power in Serbia, and through a series of
populist moves acquired
de facto control over Kosovo, Vojvodina, and Montenegro, garnering a high level of support among Serbs for his
centralist policies. Milošević was met with opposition by party leaders of the western constituent republics of Slovenia and Croatia, who also advocated greater democratisation of the country in line with the
Revolutions of 1989 in
Eastern Europe. The League of Communists of Yugoslavia dissolved in January 1990 along federal lines. Republican communist organisations became the separate socialist parties. During 1990, the socialists (former communists) lost power to
ethnic separatist parties in the
first multi-party elections held across the country, except in
Montenegro and in
Serbia, where Milošević and his allies won. Nationalist rhetoric on all sides became increasingly heated. Between June 1991 and April 1992, four constituent republics declared independence while Montenegro and Serbia remained federated.
Germany took the initiative and recognized the independence of Croatia and Slovenia, but the status of ethnic Serbs outside Serbia and Montenegro, and that of ethnic Croats outside Croatia, remained unsolved. After a string of inter-ethnic incidents, the
Yugoslav Wars ensued, with the most severe conflicts being
in Croatia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina and
Kosovo. The wars left economic and political damage in the region that is still felt decades later. On April 27, 1992, the Federal Council of the Assembly of the SFRY, based on the decision of the
Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and the
Assembly of Montenegro, adopted the
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which formally ended the breakup. The SFR Yugoslavia had,
de facto, dissolved into five successor states: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (later renamed "
Serbia and Montenegro"). The
Badinter Commission later (1991–93) noted that Yugoslavia disintegrated into several independent states, so it is not possible to talk about the secession of Slovenia and Croatia from Yugoslavia. It was only after the
overthrow of Slobodan Milošević, that the government of FR Yugoslavia applied for UN membership in 2000. == Governance ==