Talk:Socialist Party of Serbia

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[edit] Socialism

I changed political ideology from Socialism to Nationalism and Social-Democracy again. I follow their activities regularly and am not shore what type of Socialism would they represent. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fachuk (talk • contribs) 22:11, 26 December 2006 (UTC).

Whatever it is, it is not nationalism, not atleast in the name of Serbia. The SPS were in power when Macedonia broke free; the Radical Stranka would to this day have never recognised Macedonia as to any Serb nationalist, that is Serbia and its people are Serbs. Apart from attempting to salvage what was left of Yugoslavia to allow a state in which all Serbs could live (baring in mind, they were already living in the same country), there is no evidence that the SPS had aspirations for the Greater Serbia devised two centuries back. There is on the other hand, all the evidence in the world that this was note the case: ie.never interfering outside Yugoslavia's 1944-92 borders where Serbs lived since before the Serbian Kingdom pre-Yugoslavia (eg.Hungary and Romania). Evlekis 08:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't the Socialist Party of Serbia, the successor to the League of Communists of Serbia. Shouldn't the ideology be communism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.95.166.158 (talk) 00:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] On SPS Ideology

I agree in a way that nationalism wasn't a policy itself of the SPS, but it was a tactic used to save the dying Serb Communist Party, therefore, though it is not an ideology, the party could be described in the 1990s as opportunist. Still, isn't the reason why the SPS did not foster war with Macedonia was because during the 90s they were too busy about supporting war with Croatia and Bosnia and later Kosovo? I believe that the SPS would have supported an invasion of Macedonia to tap into Greater Serbian nationalism and Yugoslav communist supporters under the name of uniting Yugoslavia again. I apologize if I have made mistakes, but from what I've read, I can only conclude that they are a survival branch of the Serb Communist Party that utilized nationalism as an opportunistic tool —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.95.173.85 (talk) 17:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

Addition to Comment
I would like to add to my previous comment, that while the Socialist Party of Serbia did not officially declare that the would create an entity of Greater Serbia under Milosevic (instead pushing for a Serb-controlled Yugoslavia, very much the same), they DID support Pan-Serbism as defined in Wikipedia. I'm very certain that SPS and Milosevic claimed repeatedly that they represented all Serbs, not just those in Serbia, Milosevic himself was a Serb who was born in Montenegro and whose parents where from Montenegro. Though I am no expert, I think Pan-Serbian representation is more politically accurate that nationalism, since Milosevic did back down during the Bosnian peace conference in that it secured Serb independence from other nationalities under a Bosnian state. This is unlike the Serb Radical Party which would accept nothing other than complete annexation of Srpska and Krajina. I will put Pan-Serbism on the page just so people can recognize that the Socialist Party of Serbia is not just another regular socialist party that appear throughout the world, and that it is far different in its approach to politics, as it is a fact that its leadership, Slobodan Milosevic openly supported and allowed wars for the cause of a nationality, which betrays Marxism as well as socialist tradition in Yugoslavia of "brotherhood and unity" as defined by former Yugoslav dictator Joseph Broz Tito. R-41, 04:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I see what you mean. The evidence surrounding Milosevic and the SPS ideology is very scanty. The reason that I chose not to use the term nationalism to define the SPS is first, because the party is nominally left-orientated. Now, I would never say that Milosevic was a good Marxist; he was rich whilst many his very own supporters were poor. But Lenin too drove a Rolls Royce whilst those to whom he preached socialism rode on donkeys. So, yes, the SPS as leftists did move away, but if you scan down the list of parties who compose Socialist International, a federation of leftist parties who unanimously rejected the SPS (bar the French and Greek), you'll find they too are all Leftists from the Right. On principle, left politics and nationalism don't go. Nationalism is a vision of the right: it involves the superiority of one nationality, where-as leftists are more embracing of each other, but as I said, that is all theory: leftists do build secular walls and still fight for expansion/independence, but use different propaganda tactics. If we analyse the SPS, the first conclusion you reach is that they fought to salvage what was Yugoslavia. Milosevic himself when addressing the nation would speak of Yugoslavs and Serbs interchangeably. The country was still called Yugoslavia. And as you said, the Radical Party would never have recognised Macedonia and never had given in on Bosnia and Krajina until they were finished. Equally, Yugoslavia continued with the support of another republic, Montenegro, in 1992; so if the SPS advocated Serbian nationalism, not only would they have gone to war with Macedonia but they would have changed their own name to Serbia, taking with it Montenegro too. Montenegro withdrew its alliance to the entity of Serbia in 1996 when Djukanovic emerged as leader, and the following year, when Milosevic took presidency - the highest office - he still declined to interfere with Montenegro. As Montenegrin nationalism grew, and they adopted the Deutsch Mark among other things, there was still no interference from the SPS. To that end, Montenegro participated in Yugoslav life all be it minimal (the President still controlled units such as the military and the customs control but not the police). To die-hard Serbs however, this was not acceptable. So, the nationalism represented by the SPS was probably one of being Yugoslav and not Serb: these are two individual entities. The claims of Serbian interest and control having dominated the country were largely claims by disseident non-Serbs when encouraging their republican population to vote independence. In truth, actual Serbian nationalism was quashed for much of the Yugoslav period, and even Seselj was not a long term ally of Milosevic. So the fact that Serbia benifited so much was to do with other reasons. As for not going to war with Macedonia because the military was pushed with Bosnia and Krajina. That isn't true, the vast majority of soldiers who fought it both conflicts were locals who took up arms. Even if the campaigns until 1995 had made setbacks to Serbia, there was nothing stopping Yugoslavia from refusing the recognise Macedonia (as Seselj still does) and suspending all diplomatic relations with them, but as it happened, Kiro Gligurov had a good relationship with Belgrade. As for inside Macedonia, 2% of the population is Serb, very little but they do form majorities in some small municipalities and it is certainly enough to build an army and foment revolution. Milosevic did "meddle" with areas of Serbian nationalism but it seems more like he was trying to save as much of Yugoslavia as he could. You said that "Greater Serbia" is a better example than "Nationalism" but the two are inextricable. The Serbian nationalists, like 19th century Croats such as Starcevic, did not believe in unity, and even in their wildest fantasies as to what constitutes a Serbian state, never touched Slovenia. It appeared that he was the first high profile polititian to rise up in Yugoslavia and appeal to the Serbian nationalists, and in doing so, he alienated the rest of the country: Catch 18. Many Serbs had felt hard done in Yugoslavia: suppression of Cyrillic, autonomy given to non-Yugoslavs in two of their provinces, and other things which may have sooner or later led to Serbian doubts in Yugoslavia. Finally, if the SPS did stand for Serbian nationalism, not only would they have: 1)quashed Montenegro's post-1996 distancing campaign, 2)not recognised Macedonia, promising to go to war with them as soon as the time is right, 3)kept the name Yugoslavia, but just as the first Yugoslav kingdom gave away areas delicate to Slovenes and Croats to Italy, a Yugoslav republic also agreed to return captured areas to Hungary after the war which was in "Yugoslav" interest in keeping good relations, and against "Serbian" aspirations which did not care about that. So, the Serbian right wing to this day claims territory not only in Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Montenegro, but also parts of Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. The only reason they don't scramble to unite the Slavs of Greece whom they see as Serbs is that they themselves agreed with Greece to split the region of Macedonia at that very point, again, this was a Serbian action, not Yugoslav. This is a closer inspection as to why I believe that SPS and Serbian nationlism don't go. Evlekis 10:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to say that Milosevic specifically endorsed "Greater Serbian" aims, he did not, as you said, Montenegro would never have had a pro-independence candidate win. What Milosevic advocated was a populist Pan-Serbian agenda, an admitingly more moderate form of Pan-Serbism than in the past (look up Pan-Serbism in Wikipedia)advocating Serb representation in all lands with Serbs. I.e. independence of Serbs in Krajina, independence of Serbs in Bosnia, and independence of Serbs in Albanian-dominated Kosovo. The reason why Milosevic did this, was in part due to Yugoslav history, he saw Yugoslavia under Tito as disgregarding that fact the Serbs were the principle founders of Yugoslavia, they did lead the fight against Austria-Hungary in the First World War. However with the ousting of the Serb-run monarchy and following the violence perpetrated between the Ustasha, the Chetniks, and the Partisans, divisions were still strong and eventually those divisions forced Tito to have to reduce Serbian voting power, concerned of the very situation which struck the Yugoslav parliament in 1990, with Serbs blocking Croat votes causing tension. To Milosevic they saw this as disgracing Serbia, as to Serbs it was deemed as forgetting the key role Serbs played in the creation of Yugoslavia and defending it in World War II. As can be seen, Balkan history and political interpretations is not an easy thing, what western media can describe as nationalism on Milosevic's part can be described by Milosevic as an act AGAINST nationalism in the other republics and protecting Serbia from further territorial losses. Milosevic, an ardent opportunist, realizing dissidence by Kosovo Serbs against Kosovo Albanians, used the alledged discrimination by Albanians on Serbs as a plank to promise an end to discrimination against Serbs across Yugoslavia and vowed to protect them from discrimination. I see this as a long-term aim at becoming the leader of Yugoslavia as a new "Serbian Tito" as his ambitious wife believed he could achieve. The first step was to run for President of Serbia, then work his way to Yugoslav presidency (which he did by 1997), but things went terribly wrong, the Slovenes protected Kosovo Albanians, then the Croats backed the Slovenes. Contrary to Serb nationalists, Milosevic was very concerned about Croatia breaking away from Yugoslavia. But by the time the authoritarian Croat nationalist and post-fascist Tudjman came to power, Milosevic had no choice but to turn to his Serb base, promising that Serbs would be protected from "Croatian fascism". Milosevic and the SPS advocated war to protect the Serbs and sustain Yugoslavia. But being authoritarian, Milosevic would not let anything stand in his way from his goals, allowing terrible atrocities to be committed. It is a long explanation which most want to simplify but each part is important, no simple explanation can explain what happened in the Balkans in the 1990s. R-41, 19:59, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Indirect tie to National Bolshevism?

Whether or not Milosevic deliberately tried to incorporate nationalism into the Socialist Party of Serbia, couldn't it be said that his actions and his support of Bosnian Serb actions make him fall under National Bolshevism? That is a mixture of militant nationalism and communism. In a video on Youtube called "Death of Yugoslavia", Milosevic negatively refers to the Slovenian delegates leaving the Communist Party as "those stingy Slovenes" as well as sending the nationalist General Mladic to lead the Bosnian Serb army which committed mass atrocities. Obviously his party were composed of like-minded people, so could this party be a National Bolshevik party in essence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.95.162.218 (talk) 03:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC).

National Bolshevism is not just Nationalism + Communism. Its a distinct ideological tendency, with its own history. SPS was never in any way close of being National Bolsheviks. --Soman 10:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

It looks like we few people do know exactly what Milosevic advocated and where he stood with Yugoslavia and with Serbia, our problem was finding a simple way of communicating this via the article regarding its policy. First, it seems that in my longer statment, I was wrong to think nationalism is the exclusive preserve of the right, because indeed socialism and nationalism can go together, and with Milosevic, there was a form of nationalism involved. But what was it? We all seem agreed that this isn't the Greater Serbia which emerged during the nationlaist revivals accross Europe during the 18th century. At largest, it would be far too small; and as for the SFRJ - we know that this spread into areas which were of no concern to Serb aspirations (eg. Slovenia and north-western Croatia; the proof being that Belgrade's flogging of Istria to Italy after WWI affected local Croats and Slovenes far more than the Serbs). A plan could have been to make Serbs a dominant plurality in a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia, but in a country of a different name, what is the point of a continued Serbian existence? If they all just call themselves Yugoslavs, then they can all go about their external affairs and support each other internally (eg. together they can voice the claims over Trieste in the same way that Italy, since taking Venice in 1866, automaticly adopted Venice's key interests in wishing to recapture much of the the Eastern Adriactic coastline, thus not alienating Venetians; a fundemental difference between the administration of Post WWI Rome and Post WWI Belgrade). But Milosevic was interested in a new Serbia comprising itself, Krajina and Srpska; this makes sense, but where does that leave the pointless title of Yugoslavia and the partnership with Montenegro which Milosevic very much left alone when becoming national president in 1997 even tough Serbs make up a large chunk of Montenegro! See what I mean? The evidence is scanty. So let's back to the issue: yes, the SPS is the successor of the League of Communists, but one of these exists in all other former republics, though their policies have all changed in two ways: first, they no longer fully support a unified state, and some even took part in the struggle for independence, and secondly, they are not outright communists now, in that they have turned towards other Socialist ideologies, mainly ones in which there is a class system, and privatisation. The SPS have not been in power since 2000, the leadership has changed officially since Milosevic died and we don't know exactly which school of thought they believe in. Their support was never extremely great, and besides, every party in the world follows a political ideology but quite how they run their affairs is all together a seperate issue (ie. The British Labour party believe in Social Democracy, but read Social Democracy ideology and you'll see that there are countless conflicts between itself and the British running of the land). To this end, I plan to alter the infobox to display just socialism and nothing more until we know more: communism is to be forgotten, they were not cast as communists, and were taken off the map internationally as being communists, the fact that they allowed privatisation stood testimony to this. Evlekis 13:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

After reviewing what I've looked at about the collapse of Yugoslavia, Milosevic did take a grab at nationalism. But I question the motivation of that nationalism, when questioned about his musings about the historical and religious importance of Kosovo he claimed it was all "bullshit", he was a self-serving man, but I suspect that he was catering to Serbian nationalists to secure "real" support, as the Communist parties in Europe were unpopular and falling to pieces by the late 1980s. I do not see Milosevic as an idealist, but a calculating man, who knew that the Communist Party's days were running short with the rise of the nationalist Serbian Radical Party and other nationalist forces in Serbia and abroad Yugoslavia. Milosevic did not get along well with the Bosnian Serb nationalists, whom I believe he regarded as too stubborn to accept the Vance Owen peace plan. Anyway, Milosevic had little place to turn but to Serb nationalists by the 1990s with the Croats and Slovenes rebelling against his militant upsurp of power during the late 80s, when he and his supporters installed loyal puppets to Milosevic. For me, I strongly believe that Milosevic would have continued these actions in Bosnia, to allow a majority of Serb members to make him the ruler of Yugoslavia with the backing of communists and nationalists alike. I do not think Milosevic intended to tear the country to pieces, but he wanted power and reputation, one only has to look at the ethnical layout of the former Yugoslavia to see that Serbs dominated much of the land, it was easier to gain the trust of the majority Serbs through patriotic rousing speeches rather than to gather the increasingly divided nationalities together to equally decide that he should be Yugoslav leader. R-41 01:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The only political ideology that stands inbetween nationalism that could describe the motivations of the SPS during Milosevic's reign was Yugoslav and Serb patriotism. Note that before, during, and after Milosevic's rule and death, the Serb and SFRY and FRY flags were used interchangeably. I will add Yugoslav and Serb "patriotism" in this article along with socialism, as socialism in itself is a rather incomplete and bland explanation for this party's actions and motives. R-41 01:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I reverted those edits, but only because of concerns regarding the Wikipedia policies of no original research & verifiability. Please, restore the text citing a reliable source for that description. – If you haven't done so yet, please take a look at the Simplified Ruleset :-) Best regards, Evv 01:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)