CONTENIDOS ESPECÍFICOS DEL CURSO

The carving out of the autonomous provinces in Serbia was justified on grounds of their ethno-cultural heterogeneity. Vojvodina and Kosmet

77 _{Union of Jurists’ Association of Yugoslavia, The Constitution of the Socialist Federal}

were two regions inhabited by a multitude of ethnic groups. Therefore, the most effective way, the Party officials contended, to safeguard the collective rights of all groups resident in those regions was to promulgate the administrative autonomy of Vojvodina and Kosmet.78

However, this decision should be better viewed in line with the establishment of SR Macedonia and SR Montenegro as republics: Both policies aimed to weaken the political status of Serbs within Yugoslavia and allay fears of ‘renewed Serbian predominance’ in the other republics and among other ethnic groups. At the same time, the demands by some Dalmatian Communists for the concession of autonomy to their region within Croatia, as well as the appeals by Moša Pijade and other Serbian Communists for the establishment of a Serb autonomous area in inner Dalmatia (the areas around Knin) were rejected by the CPY.79 _The motives behind this decision are not difficult to discern, considering that towards the end of the war the CPY urgently needed to gain the support of the Croatian masses.

The prevalence of the Communists over their domestic rivals saw the marginalization of the national–liberal current among Vojvodinian Serbs. A certain percentage of Vojvodinian national–liberals fled abroad following the victory of the Partisans. There can also be made speculations that a strain within the pre-war national–liberal generation modified their previous positions, joined the Communist structures and continued to exert some political influence in the province, even though subordinated to the Party line. Still, little information about the post-war purges and the fate of the pre-war national–liberal elites in Communist Vojvodina is available.

According to Article 4 of the ‘Law on the Constituent Assembly’ (August 1945), the citizens of Vojvodina could elect fifteen

78 _{‘Zaključak plenuma GNOO Vojvodine o priključenju Vojvodine Federalnoj Srbiji’,}

as cited in Jelena Popov, ‘Glavni narodnooslobodilački odbor Vojvodine 1943–1945’, Istraživanje, broj 4 (1974), 411. The CPY decided to give Baranja to Croatia on grounds of its demographic composition. Vojvodina within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia comprised most of historic Srem, Bačka and the Banat.

79 _{Vladimir Dedijer, Novi priloži za biografiju Josipa Broza Tita, vol. 3 (Mladost: Rijeka,}

representatives to the Chamber of Nations and those of Kosmet ten. Vojvodina was endowed with its Supreme Court and Assembly but Kosmet was not. These early policies on Kosmet aimed at keeping a check upon the unreliable elements among the ethnic Albanians. In the 1950s, both provinces were little more than administrative divisions of Serbia. Their status was further marginalized when the Constitutional Law of 1953 relegated the Chamber of Nations to a component part of the Federal Chamber, with little legislative competence. With regard to Vojvodina, in the period between 1947 and 1963, a few acts apart from the provincial statute were passed by its assembly. In most cases, these were sub-legal acts of Serbian laws that focused on matters of minor significance.80 _{The status of the provinces in the 1950s may be partially} interpreted as consequence of the drive towards the integral version of Socialist Yugoslavism. It was also a necessity dictated by external factors, namely the rift with the Soviets. In Vojvodina, the local Party committee had gathered evidence that some ethnic Hungarians were influenced by Cominform’s anti-Yugoslav propaganda.81

The status of the autonomous provinces was upgraded with the transition from integral to ‘organic’ Socialist Yugoslavism in the 1960s. The 1963 Constitution did not introduce any changes in regards with Vojvodina’s status.82 _{Nevertheless, by the second half of the 1960s,} Kosmet and Vojvodina were urging for a more equal treatment within the federation. Some of these desiderata were granted by the amendments that were passed between 1967 and 1968. Amendment 7 formally recognized Vojvodina and Kosmet as constitutional elements of the federation. Moreover, Amendment 18 (Paragraph 3) guaranteed that the boundaries of the provinces could not change without the assent of their assemblies. This guarantee was incorporated into the Serbian Constitution in 1968. The same amendment (Paragraph 2) upgraded

80 _{Milivoj Kovačević, ‘Normativna Funkcija Autonomne Pokrajine Vojvodine u Razdoblju}

1945–1968. Godine’, Zbornik za Društvene Nauke, broj 58 (1973): 114–16.

81 _{Paul Shoup, Communism and the National Yugoslav Question (New York: Columbia}

University Press, 1968), 137.

82 _{In the case of Kosmet, the province was now officially designated as autonomna pokrajina}

the statutes of Vojvodina and Kosovo to constitutions. This enabled the establishment of constitutional–judicial branches of the Supreme Courts of Vojvodina and Kosovo that could perform the same duties as the republican constitutional courts.83 _{Amendment 18 (Paragraph 4)} also upgraded the legislative power of the provincial assemblies and specified that any changes to the provincial legislation should have had the assent of both the provincial and the republican supreme courts.

Finally, in late 1967, Vojvodina and Kosovo had gained the right to independent representation in the Chamber of Nations, after a change permitted each republic to send twelve delegates to this body and each autonomous province eight, while leaving the procedural law intact. By the late 1960s, the secretary general of the Vojvodinian LC was Mirko Čanadanović. Alongside Marko Nikezić and Latinka Perović at the Serbian LC, Čanadanović and his team were anti-centralist liberals and proponents of structural decentralization. The constitutional amendments of 1967–71 were largely introduced, with respect to the provinces, with the intention to reach a compromise at least with the legitimate demands of the Albanians in Kosovo.84 _{The 1971 amendments} granted additional legislative and judicial powers to the provinces, which now enjoyed almost the same degree of autonomy as the republics. The Vojvodinian and Kosovan assemblies were enabled to introduce amendments to their constitutions without consultation with SR Serbia.

This is not to say that no restraints were placed on the Vojvodinian organs. In 1972, the LCY accused the Vojvodinian LC of promoting its younger and better-educated cadres to positions of responsibility up to then monopolized by older representatives of the Partisan generation. Consequently, in December 1972, certain provincial cadres (including Čanadanović) were removed from their posts. These changes were largely prompted by the Croatian crisis.85 _{At that time, the LCY}

83 _{The official establishment in the autonomous provinces of the constitutional courts did}

not take place before 1972.

84 _{John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History: Twice There Was a Country (Cambridge:}

Cambridge University Press, 2000), 302–4.

85 _{Savka Dabcević-Kućar, the then dissident leader of the Croatian LC, maintained}

adopted the medium of the so-called democratic centralism. This tactic consisted in the maintenance of the decentralized system but, at the same time, the appointment of trusted individuals to key posts. Apart from Vojvodina, an effective check was placed upon vocal liberals in the Serbian Committee. The concession of extensive competencies to Vojvodina and Kosovo was codified in the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution. Article 244 specified that the common interests within the state would be served: through federal agencies, with participation on the basis of

equality and responsibility of the republics and autonomous provinces in

these agencies and in the formulation and execution of foreign policy; through federal agencies and organizations on the basis of decisions or agreement by the republics and autonomous provinces; through

direct cooperation and agreement among the republics, the autonomous

provinces, communes and other socio-political communities.

In its Constitution, Vojvodina was designated as ‘part of SR Serbia and constitutional element of the Yugoslav socialist federation’. It was clarified that ‘SAP Vojvodina participates in decision-making in the federation, on the principles of consensus among the republics and autonomous provinces … in the organs of the federation on a basis of

equality’. The Supreme Court of Vojvodina was the highest judicial organ

in the province. According to Article 292, Vojvodina was empowered to make contacts and enter into agreements with ‘organs and organizations’ of foreign states.86 _{The broad autonomy enjoyed by the two provinces} was rendered a target of criticism by the Serbian LC in the early 1980s, especially following the Kosovan riots in 1981. Progressively, a dispute arose between Vojvodina and SR Serbia over provincial autonomy, especially in the realms of national and civil defence, the economy and foreign trade. In the beginning, Vojvodina succeeded in defending its political gains. Nevertheless, the aggravation of interethnic tensions in Kosovo soon took its toll on Vojvodinian autonomy.

86 _{SAP Vojvodina, Ustav Socijalističke Autonomne Pokrajine Vojvodine (Belgrade:}