Entangled Paths Toward Modernity: Contextualizing Socialism and Nationalism in the Balkans

8. A l’attaque

8. A l’attaque In 1868 Marković explicitly defined the strategy of the intelligentsia: Having risen to leadership, be it through luck or coincidence, the minority has the duty to speak to the people—so that they come to realize what they don’t know, [that is,] that they have been flattered and anaesthetized—, and also tell them the truth as sharply and clearly as possible and ensure that this truth is heard by the majority. This is the only way to inform the majority on [the issues] that the minority already knows [for] all popular goals can only be achieved through popular toil. For the people to move with common energy towards a common goal, they have to become conscious , that means [they have] to recognize this common goal and the paths that lead to it, and what is most important they have to be deeply convinced that the personal well-being of every member of the people depends ultimately on the achievement of the common goal.67 This is precisely what the Radicals set out to achieve: to capture public opinion, secure political rights, and extend the public sphere were the first three indispensable steps to political power. Having opted for a non-violent alternative, and faithful to the prescriptions of their populist doctrine, the Serbian Socialists “went to the people.” The Radicals embarked on a flamboyant social critique expressed in a new militant posture and a poignant, unprecedented popular language , targeting literally the whole edifice of newly introduced institutions and values in Serbia. A special venom was reserved for the privileged state bureaucracy, “the mass that knows no God,” portrayed literally as a class, an alien strata of non-productive people, introducing foreign habits and corrupting local morals. The attack on the bureaucracy as the guardians of a parasitic state and the perpetrators of class divisions within egalitarian Serbian society constituted their strongest weapon, and the juxtaposition of the privileged, non-productive bureaucracy against the productive but exploited narod, formed the central plank of the radical offensive. A critique of the bureaucratic system had previously also formed part of the liberal program. The Liberals , however, had criticized the bureaucracy from a political point of 90 III. The Ambiguities of Modernity view, attacking civil servants on the grounds that they were amassing excessive political power. On the contrary, the Radicals attacked the­ bureaucratic system from an economic standpoint, crediting it with the ruination and exploitation of the peasantry.68 The Radicals’ economic analysis was prone to demonstrate the peasant’s “proletarization” as the probable outcome of the impositions of the state and its need to sustain an expensive apparatus, thus placing an excessive load on peasant economic capacities. As an alternative to this bureaucratic state responsible for the moral and material decline of the people, the Radicals counterpoised the principle of self-management: the empowerment of the people to run their own affairs. In essence, the Radicals almost proposed the abandonment of the idea of the state, which was to be transformed into a kind of loose union among free districts and communities. The Radicals ’ socialism was driven by an egalitarian vision, which idolized the narod rather than class, and upheld the people as the principal and ultimate source of political authority. This rhetoric culminated in a proper cult of the people, a mass identification of the majority of the population —partners in poverty—against an abusive, non-representative state. Appealing to the population of Kragujevac before elections in 1875, Staro Oslobodjenje declared itself unwilling to abandon “our cares to the hands … of one class—the rich, who see in the poor man only the rascal and the thief … In Serbia, the people are peasants and artisans, and they are poor ...”69 Pera Todorović, in his defense after the “Red Banner ” affair (1876), wrote: The bureaucracy accused me of treasonous engagement against the throne, and [in turn] I accuse it, I put it on trial for treasonous engagement against freedom, consciousness, reason, science, and dignity. The bureaucracy accuses me in the name of the throne and I accuse it in the name of our naked, hungry and oppressed people … We Socialists work rather for the fortification of love and harmony among peoples, thus we preach solidarity and reciprocity, we wish to uproot the cause of every hatred among the peoples—[that is] inequality. The bureaucracy, on the contrary, endorses, supports and assists the growth of inequality in possessions , rights, and duties among the people and by consequence sustains...