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8 CRIME AND THE ECONOMY UNDER MILOSEVI– AND HIS SUCCESSORS MAJA MILJKOVI– AND MARKO ATTILA HOARE T he Serbian regime of Slobodan Milopevi_ is usually associated in Western minds with Greater Serbian nationalism and expansionism . Yet there was another side to the coin: the Milopevi_ regime was neocommunist and represented the negative flowering of a half century of communist rule. As such, Serbia under Milopevi_ followed the pattern of the Soviet Union under Stalin and China under Mao: a communist regime brings into being a new elite, one that—to use MarxistLeninist terminology—lacks the cohesiveness or “class consciousness” of a genuine “bourgeoisie”; the new elite then implodes, inflicting massive damage on its own people, their state, and economy. The violence and destruction inflicted by the Milopevi_ regime on its own people, although not on the scale of Stalin’s Great Purges or Mao’s Cultural Revolution, nevertheless bear some similarities. They succeeded in transforming Serbia from one of the richest countries of communist Europe into one of the poorest of postcommunist Europe within the space of less than fifteen years. The total control over the Serbian economy exercised by the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and the Yugoslav United Left (JUL)— Serbia’s twin neocommunist parties—was a means by which members of the Serbian elite could enrich themselves through a systematic plunder of the state, in what amounted to one of the biggest asset-stripping operations in history. Among other relevant factors, the prevailing impoverishment of the Serbian people under Milopevi_ produced a rising discontent at both the popular and the elite levels that culminated in the revolution of October 2000. Yet it was only with the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindji_ on 12 March 2003 that the reformist, postMilopevi_ regime finally moved against the Serbian criminal elite, hopefully paving the way for a future economic recovery. A year after the Djindji_ assassination, the future prospects for Serbia are uncertain. Serbia has lost its main pro-reform engine. Right-wing politicians are rising again and the overall atmosphere in Belgrade is more depressive than ever. Life is increasingly di‹cult for ordinary people, and the high hopes for the future are definitely lost. Part I: The Destruction of the Serbian Economy (Maja Miljkovi_) The destruction of the Serbian economy by the Serbian political elite under Milopevi_ began with the defeat of Ante Markovi_, the last prime minister of the Socialist Federated Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Markovi_ was one of the last politicians on the Yugoslav political scene to endeavor to safeguard the SFRY and to enact essential social and economic reforms, and his name still commands wide respect in Serbia today. In the consciousness of ordinary people in Serbia the “golden age of Ante Markovi_” represents the last days of Atlantis. After Markovi_’s fall began the worst period in Serbia’s history since World War Two. Markovi_’s main policy, one that accorded with the wishes of millions of Serbian citizens and Yugoslavs generally, was to reform the old political and economic system while safeguarding the Yugoslav federation. His ultimate goal was the introduction of a Western-style democracy. However, every sober analyst at the time rated the chance of Markovi_’s reforms succeeding as very low. The Yugoslav state was absolutely bureaucratized and the Yugoslav public was accustomed to an authoritarian and two-dimensional ruling ideology , while the process of disintegration of the federation had already reached the point of no return. The political elites of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia , and Montenegro had ceased to support a united Yugoslavia and looked unfavorably on the reform program of Markovi_, who consequently played the historical role of the last “Yugoslav” politician. Markovi_’s reforms centered on the building of market institutions, the development of a market economy, the opening of the country to the world market, the establishment of a legal state, the broadening of civic and human rights, and the abolition of the League of Communists’ monopoly on power and introduction of a multiparty system. His failure was part and parcel of the collapse of Yugoslavia into fratricidal war. The destruction of the Serbian economy was one aspect of this collapse. Under the Milopevi_ regime the Serbian political elite succeeded in destroying the basis of the identity of the Serbian nation: its democratic structure , economy, and culture. An important part of the Serbian identity was based on relatively good relations with the West, but in the period of the recent wars the positive...

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