Introduction: The Significance of the Antibureaucratic Revolution

Abstract

In the 1980s, Yugoslavia was in turmoil. The death of Tito and the change of political generations had left a large power vacuum, and economic and political crises now further undermined the communist regime and the loose multi-national federation. The power gap and ensuing elite conflict resulted in the rise of Slobodan Milošević and massive popular unrest in Serbia, the country’s largest republic. In 1988–89 the popular unrest peaked in the ‘antibureaucratic revolution’—a series of large rallies and demonstrations of industrial workers, Kosovo Serbs, their allies and other groups, which were strongly backed by Milošević—and in a counter-mobilization of Kosovo Albanians. The events came to be called the antibureaucratic revolution, at times sarcastically, because large demonstrations turned dramatic and resulted in major political change. Scores of high Yugoslav officials and regional governments, labelled ‘bureaucrats’ by the protesters, left office in disgrace amidst popular upheaval, which ended with violence and repression. The wave of popular unrest was the most crucial episode of Yugoslav conflicts after Tito and contributed to the fall of communism and the rise of a new form of authoritarianism, competing nationalisms and the break-up of Yugoslavia. It also played an important role in the ascent to power of Milošević and in the making of the contemporary Serb-Albanian nationalist conflict in and over Kosovo.