>
> In Israel's case His Master's Voice-- Slobodan Milosevic-- has clearly shown
> that he is the template. Milosevic, who combines self-pity with political
> gangsterism in equal measure, now has a record of almost absolute political
> failure. Given such an opponent, even the leaders of modern Germany
> (revanchists with feet of clay) can get to look like Machiavellian evil
> geniuses. However, the truth, as always, lies somewhere in between. If
> Parenti's paranoia was supplemented by some serious historical materialist
> analysis of the *internal* reasons for the moral and political decay of
> "actually-existing socialism" we might be able to see more clearly that what
> is really at stake here is not simply a tale of of predatory "Nato" v. Serbian
> victimhood, but the real internal crisis of Yugoslav so-called "socialism"
> which made the collapse of the FRY not only (possibly) desirable in Bonn,
> Washington, Paris and London, but also something which was inevitable in its
> own terms.
I'm guessing from your sentence here that you haven't read the book. For others who
have not, do not be deceived by Mark's misdescription of what Parenti's thesis is.
The name `Milosevic' is barely part of Parenti's story. He does what a good Marxist
does, and that is start from the background of what had been going on inside
"actually existing socialism", as it were. quote from Parenti's book:
" In the late 60's and early 70's, FRY leaders... committed a disastrous error. They
decided to borrow heavily from the West in order to simulataneously expand the
country's industrial base, its export production and its output of domestic consumer
goods. [...] this created a huge debt for Belgrade. And the massive debt began to
develop its own interest fed momentum."
Such is the foundation upon which Parenti develops his thesis of what had happened
(and is happening) to Yugoslavia. It certainly isn't as though he is writing on
behalf of Milosevic- or even Tito.
>
> Nature abhors a vacuum and it was the collapse of Yugoslav economy and society
> which opened the door to German revanchism and to "Nato" plundering. The same
> thing happened throughout eastern Europe.
On very different levels, as there were very different economies here. The Yugoslav
one was fused to the West, unlike the East European Warsaw countries- fused to the
USSR.
Yes, the endless insidious pressure
> of Cold War containment sapped the vitality out of "actually-existing"
> socialism, but yes, it was George Bush Sr. who in one of his last speeches as
> president, vehemently urged the USSR not to go down the Yeltsin road of
> dissolution. Not much Machiaviellianism there, but Bush was a former CIA
> director!
>
While quietly passing the "foreign reappropriations act", which state that only
broken off former Yugoslav republics, and not Yugoslavia itself, would ever see
another penny in "aid". We know what the debt trap is, but of course this was a
deliberate bill aimed at the dividing up of Yugoslavia into statelets that cannot
resist or be independent of the IMF, WB, etc.
The fact that these
> people were also victims as well as agents, and were sometimes punished as
> well as being beneficiaries of the process they unleased, does not absolve
> them of their ultimate historical responsibility. It is precisely people like
> Pavel Borodin, Boris Yeltsin and Slobodan Milosevic, who first privatised
> their socialist societies.
Milosevic was never that easy to peg at all. I'd venture you still couldn't. Suffice
to say, he has a lot more gumption that Gorbachev and a lot more patriotism than
Yeltsin.
The fact that Milosevic did it under the banner of
> Serbian nationalism changes little. It is no good pointing to what he actually
> said in his famous speech, or to the multi-ethnic, tolerant nature of Serbian
> society. Yugoslav socialism was founded on the unity of Serbian nationalism
> with socialism; national independence with abstention from the capitalist
> world market. But that rock began to be washed away a very long time ago, at
> least as early as 1948; possibly it was always illusory. You cannot build
> stable, permanent social orders on illusions and historical spin. It was
> obvious by at least 1990 that there were only two choices before Yugoslavia
> (and in particualr, before Serbain national feeling and values) and that was
> either capitulation, or revolutionary absolutism.
So what do we do? Not support those who are clearly not the Che's of the Balkans, but
are desperately waging a battle to maintain some form of independence from not only
the world economy, but the bottom rungs thereof? Moldovans, who have never had such
defenders, are eating each other at lunch counters. That is a difference that
Yugoslavia had not reached, and deserve our whole blanket supprt for avoiding. That
is an extreme example- but a government that avoids those pitfalls and never even had
much in the way of foreign trade, nay they never even had a seat at the UN! That is
very much something.
Macdonald
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