Is this bullshit or truth?

[Toppler]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/balkan-leftist-punk-t115338/index.html?t=115338


Your analysis of Yugoslavia is hilarious. Tito was not "our" leader, he was a dictator, hedonist "red bourgeoisie" who lived in villas while people in Kosovo, East Serbia, Bosnia etc. were starving. But since this is a punk thread I'll give you few good bands to listen.

Somehow, this smells "bullshit" to me. Considering that SFRY had far lesser unequality that capitalist countries and almost every older ex-Yugoslav citizen think it was the best place to live, isn't this bullshit? Especially considering this map http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_map_of_Energy_consumption_1979-1981.svg Yugoslavia had more food per capita than USA at the time, yet Kosovans etc. were supposedly starving? Especially when even Bosnians etc. are nostalgic towards Yugoslavia? Or is this the typical bullshit emotional hyperbole in the same vein as when someone was writing about how proletariat in "Eastern Europe" is starving while most EE countries have malnutrition below 5 percent (and I mean EE, not CE)?

[Toppler]

Something interesting:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1225065&postcount=6


Although it's not entirely accurate, Yugoslavia operated on many mutualist principles, and despite being the source of attack from the USA and USSR it faired pretty well. Living standards were comparable to France.

Here's what someone who lives in Bosnia right now says of Tito. She was born in the 80s, so take that into consideration:

There are many different views regarding Tito here, Dream Theater. However, it is very safe to say these views are overwhelmingly positive in my country - perhaps more so than in any of the other republics.

The positive opinions of him range from viewing him as some sort of infallible idol to sober opinions about how managed to hold the country together. The negative opinions of him are largely experience-based and specific to individual families.

So, does the "Bosniaks and Kosovans were starving" stuff hold any actual basis in reality? Or is it just tearjerker anarchist bullshit made up to make "dictatorial communism" look bad? It seems to take the stereotypically poorer parts of the Balkans and then claim "teh ppls starved there".

[Toppler]

Hm, anybody? Anyone from Bosna or Kosovo who lived under the SFRY here?

[Red Future]

There is a user "Punisa" who is from the former SFRY, try asking him?:)

[Toppler]

He is from Croatia through, apart from Jurko I've never seen anyone on this or other forum who lived/had relatives in the SFRY and had a negative view of it, anyways, Jurko is from Croatia and born in the 1990s so I doubt he has any actual evidence of his claim, it sounds like something Kosovan nationalists would claim (and those guys are organ trading scumbags http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2010/12/kosovo-and-myth-of-liberal-intervention.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/14/kosovo-prime-minister-llike-mafia-boss )

[Rafiq]

Some kid in my school is from Croatia. This is what he pretty much told me:

"Under Tito, and 'soialism' it was good but not that great, then, under the FRY, when we had capitalism, it sucked major shit. It was terrible. Then when croatia got independence, it was okay, but not as good as under Tito"

[Toppler]

I know.
I never saw the outrageous starvation claims about Kosovo, Eastern Serbia and Bosnia starving from anybody except for Jurko.

[Toppler]

So I've chatted a bit with Punisa and he says he lived in the SFRY and travelled a lot of it and never heard of anybody being hungry, so it is safely total bullshit. Probably far right propaganda.

EDIT: With Punisa's permission, here's some information about it:



My dad and granddad were to Yugoslavia many times. They say they always envied the style of socialism there, how good the people there lived (not like they lived bad in the CSSR, but the meat,orange and bananas queues 2x per week were unpleasant, alongside the authoritarian Soviet political control) and of course the Adriatic sea and the climate :)

In a rush I just saw the "Slo" part, my mistake :D
Anyway, glad to meet you my Slovakian comrade.
The calims that Jurko made is pure revisionism. It's sad that anarchists will attack communists so violently that in the end they will resort to using far-right propaganda as ideas to trash Tito's image.
There was never any hunger in Yugoslavia, I've traveled the country extensively and I would hear it if there were.

Yugoslavia had some though economic times in the late 80's, but this was heaven compared to the situation we live in now.
We live in an era of "super-capitalism" here and it's getting worse by the day.

For a time being, let's say... 1950-1980 Yugoslavia was probably the best country to live in the world. Everyone was secured and able to live their lives to the fullest.
People had houses, jobs, lot's of vacation time etc.
Yugoslav passport was the only passport in the world that will take you to any country.

Stories I have heard about the working class are simply amazing, I'll give you a short one.
In Zadar (city at the coast) there was a factory that produces some machines, like typing machines etc.
At the end of the economic year they managed to increase productivity and exports to such a degree that they ended up with a large surplus.
As all company improvements and needed investments were already taken care of, the surplus was given to workers - so they all went with their families for 2 full weeks in Hawaii in a top class hotel - all things payed.

This was told to me by a worker who worked there and is now one step away from living on the streets (collects plastic bottles from dumpsters to survive.)

I know, Tito was a radical Marxists - that is true. He mixed up a special stew that incorporated certain market economy elements alongside with worker self management programs.
Was it by the book and was it strictly marxist-lenints? No.
Did it work? Hell yeah :)

Tito is remembered well among his people. Those who oppose him are the loud minority.
Tito's sons and wife live today in small apartments in Belgrade. You know how much money they inherited from Tito? NONE !
Tito believed in socialism and practiced it to the fullest, but he was also a stubborn guy who wanted to do things his way and never to be dominated by either Moscow or Washington.



BTW can I post your message about Yugoslavia in the forum in the thread?
Sure you can.
Sorry I'm in a bit of hurry right now, talk to you again when I log back.

[Wanted Man]

It is hyperbolic and Yugoslavia certainly had high living standards compared to surrounding countries. But I would certainly cast doubt on the "socialism" that involves putting your country into massive debt with western countries, the IMF, etc. in order to build a vast welfare state. That's always going to have its consequences, as we've seen.

Workers' self-management is also a great idea, but I often read that in the Yugoslav practice, it was simply a pretext for vesting large amounts of individual power to managers. As we've clearly seen, the workers' self-management apparently wasn't present enough to cause the withering of the state, nor was it a model that inspired workers abroad, and nor did it lead to a fraternisation between the workers of different nationalities within Yugoslavia (in fact, there was constant peddling between and suppression of different national interests). Maybe that's what happens when you're really just working for a "socialist" boss.

Two other things that are in strong doubt are the idea that the regime was very humane and that they were independent from both power blocs. The latter seems untrue when you look at how they willingly indebted themselves to other countries to fund their welfare state, and heavy collaboration with the CIA was also recently discovered. And of course Mr President for Life Tito also sent people to prison camps for even the slightest suspicion of opposition.

It seems clear to me that there are a lot of Tito fanboys who are satisfied with a "socialism" that consists of a benevolent dictator who throws money around for short-term prosperity, even if it means an inevitable collapse on the longer term. "He was a good dictator who cared for the people!" Yet they usually criticise anyone from Stalin to Castro for just that reason (I also don't think these are good arguments to support the USSR, Cuba, etc., just for the sake of clarity; they are used too often by socialists of all stripes).

I would therefore say that modern Titoism is not an analysis that gets us any closer to socialism, but just a matter of fanboyism, playing historical favourites from one's armchair. At least with people from Yugoslavia, there is an element of nostalgia, which is quite sensible considering what happened afterwards. But it's not like everything suddenly went to hell when Mr President for Life died.

[Dimentio]

Yugoslavia was a federal state. Slovenia was as wealthy as Austria while Kosovo more reminded of Sub-saharan Africa in terms of wealth. From the 1970's, each state had it's own central bank.

[Omsk]

Kosovo more reminded of Sub-saharan Africa in terms of wealth
Not quite,it was poor,but the alot of the people had descent lives,there was no hunger,dont belive the American media.
The truth is,north Serbia,Croatia,Slovenia got the money and industry,while the other republic's always had the status of second order states.Although,after the breakup of Yugoslavia,Slovenia came out as the only un-harmed state.
They were untouched bu the horror and the war that was raging in almost all other states?And do you know why?
Because Slovenia was a state with no minorities,no Serb's,Croat's,while all the other states had big minorities,and that's why there was so much carnage.

[Jose Gracchus]

They also could not maintain full employment; only by exporting workers to East Germany and Czechoslovakia did they keep the problem down.

[Alleline]

They also could not maintain full employment; only by exporting workers to East Germany and Czechoslovakia did they keep the problem down.

I think you meant West Germany.

[Ocean Seal]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/balkan-leftist-punk-t115338/index.html?t=115338



Somehow, this smells "bullshit" to me. Considering that SFRY had far lesser unequality that capitalist countries and almost every older ex-Yugoslav citizen think it was the best place to live, isn't this bullshit? Especially considering this map http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_map_of_Energy_consumption_1979-1981.svg Yugoslavia had more food per capita than USA at the time, yet Kosovans etc. were supposedly starving? Especially when even Bosnians etc. are nostalgic towards Yugoslavia? Or is this the typical bullshit emotional hyperbole in the same vein as when someone was writing about how proletariat in "Eastern Europe" is starving while most EE countries have malnutrition below 5 percent (and I mean EE, not CE)?

I can tell you that Jurko's response here was mainly rhetoric. It was something of an attack towards Tito for not being a perfect socialist. And indeed Tito was not a perfect socialist, like nearly all socialists. But, my grandmother who I was very close to did tell me some stories about the life in Croatia both before and during Tito. Although she was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire she was a child before it fell apart. Then under Yugoslavia (pre-socialist), she said that life was absolutely horrible. She lived in rural Yugoslavia and no one went to school, few knew how to read, healthcare consisted of your fellow villagers taking care of you, and yes people starved. She said that it was especially bad in Croatia because the Serbian controlled government wasn't exactly too kind to Croatia; however, she knew that conditions were terrible everywhere in Yugoslavia. Suffering was crippling, and she as well as most of her family didn't have enough money to buy shoes during the winter a season during which many people considered young died. Then fascism came, during the second world war. This was as she said the worst part of her life as one would expect with a war. The fascist puppet government brought no improvement, and it was strongly reviled. Then Tito came and he managed to bring together several nationalities and changed Yugoslavia into a place where food became available and education became better.

She said that there were flaws. And there are many flaws in Yugoslavia, and no it wasn't entirely socialist. Whether Tito is a red bourgeois I don't know, all I can testify is that Yugoslavia did not have a starving epidemic under Tito.

[Jose Gracchus]

I think you meant West Germany.

Oh, you think ML's "socialist" regimes didn't export labor for foreign exploitation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastarbeiter#Gastarbeiter_in_the_GDR

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1999747&postcount=12

Even if it was West Germany, that just makes it reflect even worse on Titoism.

[Omsk]

She said that there were flaws. And there are many flaws in Yugoslavia, and no it wasn't entirely socialist. Whether Tito is a red bourgeois I don't know, all I can testify is that Yugoslavia did not have a starving epidemic under Tito.
Starving epidemic?Not by a chance,the situation was bad in the years after the war,but after that,and the rebuilding program,everything changed alot,the people were happy,there were absolutely no problems with food,no problems with unemployment,no problems with the youth.(as in,the public order was higher than in most of modern states today-no drugs,theft,criminal)

[Widerstand]

I think you meant West Germany.


Oh, you think ML's "socialist" regimes didn't export labor for foreign exploitation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastarbeiter#Gastarbeiter_in_the_GDR

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1999747&postcount=12

Even if it was West Germany, that just makes it reflect even worse on Titoism.

The DDR (or GDR in English) was East Germany. It makes sense that one "socialist" state would export workers to another.

[Omsk]

But it didn't,(in large numbers) most of the worker's went to Austria,to Vienna,and some of them went to Germany - but they went to Frankfurt.

[Alleline]

Oh, you think ML's "socialist" regimes didn't export labor for foreign exploitation? Even if it was West Germany, that just makes it reflect even worse on Titoism.

No, I was just correcting you. Yugoslavs went to West Germany, and not the GDR or Czechoslovakia. The point was to earn drastically higher wages, not similar or even lower ones. I don't know why you had to react this way because I know about Yugoslav guest workers as well as guest workers in the GDR.


no problems with unemployment

There obviously were problems with unemployment, particularly after the economic reforms in the 1960s. The unemployment rate never dropped below 6% after 1965 (over 50% were women), and would have been even higher had Yugoslav workers not been allowed to seek jobs abroad. All this at a time when the Western capitalist economies had near full employment.

[Ocean Seal]

Starving epidemic?Not by a chance,the situation was bad in the years after the war,but after that,and the rebuilding program,everything changed alot,the people were happy,there were absolutely no problems with food,no problems with unemployment,no problems with the youth.(as in,the public order was higher than in most of modern states today-no drugs,theft,criminal)

That's why I said there was NO starving epidemic. Everyone got what they needed to eat. Tito did make a series of positive reforms to Yugoslavia, and given the conditions that he started out with, it should be noted that the Yugoslavian communists basically created a decently wealthy state from a war and nationally torn country without US aid or Soviet control. That being said it wasn't perfect...

[Omsk]

He has a-semi wrong picture of Yugoslavia, it was a multi-ethnic state, which survived the test of time, Tito's Yugoslavia sufficiently developed,both in economic and infrastructure aspects,because of that,it lasted so long, people were happy, there were enough jobs, the Socialists were living from their work and everyone was able to afford the most common and the cheapest things.It is surprising that the Yugoslavia survived so long, given these hard condition after the war,and plus it was composed of many small republics, each of which had its own branch of administration.And i need to point out that JNA was a very successful creation, although it eventually,and naturally fell apart during the civil war.

[Toppler]

Yeah I agree, not perfect, but it pretty much rocked, my dad visited Yugoslavia for a seaside holidays many times in the 1970s and 1980s and he says everybody envied the Yugoslav style of socialism, not that we weren't pretty well off here, but still... considering that punisa knows people who've been on a holiday to Hawaii just for producing a big surplus in production ... in a sense this was the real "American Dream", hard work actually brought rewards (not just an excuse to blame to poor people "you should have worked harder you slob").

And AFAIK, Goli Otok (the infamous "gulag" in Yugoslavia) was closed down in 1956, and it did not involve actual killing, just hard work in shitty conditions, better than Abu Gharaib if you ask me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goli_otok. And it was mainly for Stalinists, for which I have little sympathy as they would've repressed everybody else 100x as bad if they took power.

Anyways it is, in my opinion, a vastly superior system to neoliberal capitalism.

And yes, Kosovo was poor, but not hungry, what is clear is that nowadays it is far worse off http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/articles/2009/05/18/reportage-01 , with extreme poverty, unemployment of 40 percent (76 percent for youth), etnic cleansing and goverment being a bunch of organ trading psychopathic scum http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2010&mm=12&dd=14&nav_id=71512 http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/kosovo-rights.86b/. Kosovo under Tito was certainly no Sub-Saharan Africa, but it is now, complete with a corrupt goverment in bed with the US (whose force, KLA, was described as a force for liberty by Western media despite engaging in organ theft and genocide), almost universal unemployment and ethnic strife.

And the poverty immediately after the World War 2 was not limited to SFRY, hell, even West Germans were surviving on oat porridge in the late 1940s and early to mid 1950s.

And I share RedBrothers sentiment, the same was done by the communists here, they turned a fascist (our WW2 fascist leader Tiso even paid germans to deport the Jews) agrarian state with a GDP per capita akin to Republic of Congo today (through this is the better Congo, the one 10x wealthier than DRC, which is still shit) into a modern industrial country with a good standard of living (through lower than SFRY, mostly due to the fact we were under the Iron Curtain).

[Toppler]

And if anybody wants to know something about the hated fascist regime in Yugoslavia that was there before SFRY, before partisans and Tito, read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_State_of_Croatia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ustase
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasenovac_concentration_camp

These guys disgusted even Nazis.

[Toppler]

There obviously were problems with unemployment, particularly after the economic reforms in the 1960s. The unemployment rate never dropped below 6% after 1965 (over 50% were women), and would have been even higher had Yugoslav workers not been allowed to seek jobs abroad. All this at a time when the Western capitalist economies had near full employment.

Oh yeah. 6 percents is suuch a huge unemployment rate. And considering the conditions were in some areas better than the West, isn't it unfair to compare a poor shithole-turned to advanced socialist country in a few years to imperialist superpowers? The Western cappie economies might have had less unemployment at that time. They also plundered the rest of the world for 500 years and still do up to this time in the form of sweatshop labor. It is amazing how people can attack socialist countries because they didn't meet full Western standards in some areas, yet continue believing in their own superiority.

Fuck the West. Fuck it a thousand times. All the "prosperity" in the West was created by sucking off the entire 3rd world till the last drop of lifeblood.

Tito's Yugoslavia has not despoiled any country, yet it achieved one of the best living standards in the world. True, it did trade with the West that did despoil, but this was a necessity to avoid queues and shortages of oranges, in Poland even of meat, toilet paper etc. like in the other socialist countries.

[Toppler]

Also, debt? Yeah, but aren't the cappie countries in unbelievable debt too? As the Hungarians say "What's the difference between communism and capitalism?" ""Under communism we had a big government debt but we lived well. Under capitalism we have a big government debt but we don't live well."

http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2008/10/hungary-is-counting-cost-of-capitalism.html

[Wanted Man]

Also, debt? Yeah, but aren't the cappie countries in unbelievable debt too? As the Hungarians say "What's the difference between communism and capitalism?" ""Under communism we had a big government debt but we lived well. Under capitalism we have a big government debt but we don't live well."

http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2008/10/hungary-is-counting-cost-of-capitalism.html

Absolutely, they can go fuck themselves a hundred times. But it gets a bit problematic when the "socialist" country becomes fully dependent on this, with all the consequences that we've seen in Yugoslavia. In the 1980s, Yugoslavia had massive debts. IMF loans were taken on in exchange for liberalisation. If it was a great socialist state, fully owned by the workers and not 100% dependent on imperialism, then why did this happen?

To this, there are no answers unless one really wants to believe that everything would have been all right if Tito had lived a while longer, and that his successors just did a bad job.

Also, I don't know whether anyone ever starved in Kosovo, but it was certainly the most deprived part of Yugoslavia, poorer than Albania under self-reliance. How could that happen under the leadership of the president for life?

[Omsk]

How could that happen under the leadership of the president for life?
Well,Tito financed and invested in 3 countries,Serbia,Croatia and Slovenia,basicly,these countries were the moving wheel's of Yugoslavia,so naturaly,they recieved more money,now the problem is,that there are even pre-war factor's that were involved with the situation in Kosovo,for instance,it was a multi-culture multi-ethnic territory,it was poor before the rise of the partizan's and Tito,and the situation changed alot,Kosovo had school's,medical centers,apartment buildings,better quality road's,but-the people were still a problem,many of them were travelling to other countries in the region to get work,because,they didnt want to be farmers,and that is why,for instance,Kosovo did not make much proggres,and than ofcourse,there was the war,which devasteted Kosovo and it's infrastructure,the pressence of NATO troops,the bombing's,the war crimes that happend,Kosovo was always the 'black hole',not just during Tito's time.And that is a shame,the peope down there are really good,although the conflict's between Serb and Albanian population seem to be never ending.. :( That is one of the main proggres hold's.


To this, there are no answers unless one really wants to believe that everything would have been all right if Tito had lived a while longer, and that his successors just did a bad job.
The situation was already near breaking point about a couple of years after his death,when he died,alot of the figgures he kept under-controll rose to power,and a horrible wave of nationalism and hate rose along with the old,in Yugoslav times exstinct aggendas and hates,if only the 3 most influental leader were not so meddling in their lust for power,things would have been better,and we could have a peacefull split.
But,that is highly unlikely,because of the ethnic structure of the population in the states,there were alot of Serb's in Croatia,Croats in Bosnia,Bosnian's in Serbia etc etc.So that proved a horrible factor that would lead to the events of civilian massacres and ethnic cleansing.That is why Slovenia passed without problems,it was a state of Slovenians only,there were no ethnic minorities in Slovenia,so the chances of a civil war were imposibble.

[Toppler]

Absolutely, they can go fuck themselves a hundred times. But it gets a bit problematic when the "socialist" country becomes fully dependent on this, with all the consequences that we've seen in Yugoslavia. In the 1980s, Yugoslavia had massive debts. IMF loans were taken on in exchange for liberalisation. If it was a great socialist state, fully owned by the workers and not 100% dependent on imperialism, then why did this happen?

To this, there are no answers unless one really wants to believe that everything would have been all right if Tito had lived a while longer, and that his successors just did a bad job.

Also, I don't know whether anyone ever starved in Kosovo, but it was certainly the most deprived part of Yugoslavia, poorer than Albania under self-reliance. How could that happen under the leadership of the president for life?

Why are you holding up socialist nations to an unrealisticaly high standard? Considering that in the 1960s-1980s some 80 percents of the world's people still lived under 2 dollars a day his job ruling the country can only be admired. The cappie nations had the luxury of being developed before WW2 (mainly from a century of horrific sweatshop 14 hour a day labour for both kids and adults, SFRY managed the same transition in 10 years while sending their kids to school and caring for them properly, all that in the aftermath of the most devastating war in human history), Yugoslavia, as RedBrother details, was a 4th world country (because the conditions were worse than in the most of 3rd world countries) before SFRY. Also, I am not uncritical of Tito, I just value what he did for his country. I am not a personality cultist and I don't think he is the model for socialism, just that people lived better than under most cappie and all commie regimes except for Hungary. And the hunger for Kosovo is bullshit not only according to people from former SFRY but also according to data: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_map_of_Energy_consumption_1961,2.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_map_of_Energy_consumption_1979-1981.svg , actually, SFRY as a whole was overfeeding more than the US at the time as you can see.

And Albania might have been a bit richer than Kosovo overall. But it was an oppressive shithole where every third citizen was either interregorated by the secret police or served time in the labor camps. And if you baptisized your kid you got shot. So much for Hoxhaist hypocrisy when they are bashing Tito and other "revisionists". If I had to choose Kosovo under SFRY or Albania under Hoxha, I would take Kosovo any time.

[ComradeOm]

Why are you holding up socialist nations to an unrealisticaly high standard?You mean, why hold "socialist nations" to socialist standards? :confused: