The Croatian Spring ( hr, Hrvatsko proljeće), or Maspok, was a political conflict that took place from 1967 to 1971 in the
Socialist Republic of Croatia
The Socialist Republic of Croatia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Socijalistička Republika Hrvatska, Социјалистичка Република Хрватска), or SR Croatia, was a constituent republic and federated state of the Socia ...
, at the time part of the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yu ...
. As one of six republics comprising Yugoslavia at the time, Croatia was ruled by the League of Communists of Croatia (SKH), nominally independent from the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (SKJ), led by President Josip Broz Tito. The 1960s in Yugoslavia were marked by a series of reforms aimed at improving the economic situation in the country and increasingly politicised efforts by the leadership of the republics to protect the economic interests of their respective republics. As part of this, political conflict occurred in Croatia when reformers within the SKH, generally aligned with the Croatian cultural society , came into conflict with conservatives.
In the late 1960s, a variety of grievances were aired through , which were adopted in the early 1970s by a reformist faction of the SKH led by
Savka Dabčević-Kučar
Savka Dabčević-Kučar (6 December 1923 – 6 August 2009) was a Croatian politician. She was one of the most influential Croatian female politicians during the communist period, especially during the Croatian Spring when she was deposed. Sh ...
and
Miko Tripalo
Ante "Miko" Tripalo (16 November 1926 – 11 December 1995) was a Croatian politician. He was one of the members of Croatian Spring, a movement for higher level of autonomy of SR Croatia within SFR Yugoslavia.
Biography
A son of a well-to-do far ...
. The complaints initially concerned economic nationalism. The reformists wished to reduce transfers of
hard currency
In macroeconomics, hard currency, safe-haven currency, or strong currency is any globally traded currency that serves as a reliable and stable store of value. Factors contributing to a currency's ''hard'' status might include the stability and ...
to the federal government by companies based in Croatia. They later included political demands for increased autonomy and opposition to real or perceived overrepresentation of the
Serbs of Croatia
The Serbs of Croatia ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, separator=" / ", Срби у Хрватској, Srbi u Hrvatskoj) or Croatian Serbs ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, separator=" / ", хрватски Срби, hrvatski Srbi) constitute the largest national minority in Cro ...
in the security services, politics, and in other fields within Croatia. A particular point of contention was the question of whether the Croatian language was distinct from
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...
.
The Croatian Spring increased the popularity of figures from Croatia's past, such as the 19th century Croat politician and senior Austrian military officer, Josip Jelačić, and the assassinated leader of the
Croatian Peasant Party
The Croatian Peasant Party ( hr, Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) is an agrarian political party in Croatia founded on 22 December 1904 by Antun and Stjepan Radić as Croatian Peoples' Peasant Party (HPSS). The Brothers Radić believed that t ...
, Stjepan Radić, as well as an increase in patriotic songs, works of art, and other expressions of
Croatian culture
The culture of Croatia has roots in a long history: the Croatian people have been inhabiting the area for fourteen centuries. Linguistic anthropological evidence suggests Croats originated from orth Iran There are important remnants of the ear ...
. Plans were made for increased representation of Croatia-related materials in the school curriculum, measures to address the overrepresentation of Serbs in key positions in Croatia and to amend the
Constitution of Croatia
The Constitution of the Republic of Croatia ( hr, Ustav Republike Hrvatske) is promulgated by the Croatian Parliament.
History
While it was part of the socialist Yugoslavia, the Socialist Republic of Croatia had its own Constitution under the ...
to emphasise the nature of the republic as the national state of Croats. There were also demands for increased powers for the constituent republics at the expense of Yugoslavia's federal government. These issues increased tensions between
Croats
The Croats (; hr, Hrvati ) are a South Slavic ethnic group who share a common Croatian ancestry, culture, history and language. They are also a recognized minority in a number of neighboring countries, namely Austria, the Czech Republic, ...
and the Serbs of Croatia, as well as between the reformist and conservative factions of the SKH.
While other republics, the SKJ, and Tito himself were not initially involved in the internal Croatian struggle, the increasing prominence of
Croatian nationalism
Croatian nationalism is nationalism that asserts the nationality of Croats and promotes the cultural unity of Croats.
Modern Croatian nationalism first arose in the 19th century after Budapest exerted increasing pressure for Magyarization of Cro ...
led Tito and the SKJ to intervene. Similar to reformers in other Yugoslav republics, the SKH leadership was compelled to resign. Nevertheless, their reforms were left intact and most demands of the ousted leadership were later adopted, ushering in a form of federalism that contributed to the subsequent breakup of Yugoslavia.
Background
Economic crisis
In the early 1960s, the
Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yu ...
was a
federation
A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-govern ...
according to its constitution (comprising the people's republics of
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...
,
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
Montenegro
)
, image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Podgorica
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, official_languages = M ...
,
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...
, and
Slovenia
Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
), but ''
de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' operated as a
centralised state
Centralisation or centralization (see American and British English spelling differences#iseize, spelling differences) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, framing ...
. The Yugoslav economy was in
recession
In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various ...
, prompting economic reforms, which were hastily implemented and proved ineffective. By 1962, the country's economic difficulties worsened, prompting debate on the foundations of the economic system. In March 1962, President Josip Broz Tito convened the extended central committee of the country's ruling party, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (SKJ), to discuss the role of the SKJ and the relationship between the central government and the constituent republics. The meeting exposed a clash between
Serb
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language.
The majority of Serbs live in their na ...
s, openly supported by a Serb
deputy prime minister
A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president ...
Aleksandar Ranković
Aleksandar Ranković ( nom de guerre Marko; sr-Cyrl, Александар Ранковић Лека; 28 November 1909 – 19 August 1983) was a Yugoslav communist politician, considered to be the third most powerful man in Yugoslavia after Jo ...
Miha Marinko
Miha Marinko (8 September 1900 – 19 August 1983) was a Slovenian revolutionary and communist statesman who served as Prime Minister of Slovenia
The prime minister of Slovenia, officially the president of the Government of the Republic of Slove ...
and Sergej Kraigher, cautiously supported by Slovene deputy prime minister
Edvard Kardelj
Edvard Kardelj (; 27 January 1910 – 10 February 1979), also known by the pseudonyms Bevc, Sperans and Krištof, was a Yugoslav politician and economist. He was one of the leading members of the Communist Party of Slovenia before World War II ...
. The Slovene delegation advocated for devolving power and authority to the constituent republics. The Serb delegation sought to preserve the central government's monopoly on decision-making and the distribution of tax revenue to less-developed republics. As it was less developed than
PR Slovenia
The Socialist Republic of Slovenia ( sl, Socialistična republika Slovenija, sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Socijalistička Republika Slovenija, Социјалистичка Република Словенија), commonly referred to as Sociali ...
and PR Croatia, PR Serbia would have benefited from such an arrangement. In 1963, a new constitution was adopted, granting additional powers to the republics, and the 8th Congress of the SKJ expanded the powers of the SKJ branches the following year.
Politicisation of reforms
Further economic reforms were adopted in 1964 and 1965, transferring considerable powers from the federation to the republics and individual companies. Some of the reform measures exacerbated conflict between the banks, insurers, and foreign trade organisations owned by the Yugoslav government versus those owned by the constituent republics, a conflict that became increasingly political and nationalist. Competing alliances were established. Ranković gained the support of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, in addition to Serbia. Slovenia was supported by Croatia, based on the belief of
Vladimir Bakarić
Vladimir Bakarić (; 8 March 1912 – 16 January 1983) was a Yugoslav and Croatian communist revolutionary and a politician.
Bakarić helped to organise the partisan resistance in the Independent State of Croatia during World War II. From 1948 ...
—the
Secretary of the Central Committee
The Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was responsible for managing and directing the day-to-day operations of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, while the Politburo was charged with the ...
Krste Crvenkovski
Krste Crvenkovski () (July 16, 1921 in Prilep – July 21, 2001 in Skopje) was a
Yugoslav Communist political leader in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. He was a leader of the League of ...
, the head of the
League of Communists of Macedonia
, logo = Emblem of the SKJ (Cyrillic).svg
, colorcode =
, leader = President of the League of Communists of Macedonia
, predecessor = Regional Committee of the Communists in Macedonia
, foundation = 1943
, dissolution = 20 April 1991
, s ...
(SKM), to support the Slovene–Croatian reformist bloc, which managed to enact substantial legislation curbing federal powers in favour of the republics. The conflict was framed as a contest between Serbia's interests against those of Slovenia and Croatia.
In Croatia, positions adopted by Ranković's allies in the
League of Communists of Serbia
, logo =
, colorcode =
, leader = President of the League of Communists of Serbia
, predecessor = Provincial Committee for Serbia of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia
, merged =
, successor = SPS
, ...
(SKS) and the
League of Communists of Montenegro
, logo =
, colorcode =
, leader = President of the League of Communists of Montenegro
, foundation = 1943
, dissolution = 22 June 1991
, successor = Democratic Party of Socialists of Montene ...
(SKCG) were interpreted as hegemonistic, which in turn increased the appeal of
Croatian nationalism
Croatian nationalism is nationalism that asserts the nationality of Croats and promotes the cultural unity of Croats.
Modern Croatian nationalism first arose in the 19th century after Budapest exerted increasing pressure for Magyarization of Cro ...
. By the mid-1960s, the United States consul in Zagreb, Helene Batjer, estimated that about half of SKH members and 80 percent of the population of Croatia held nationalist views.
Peak of the reformist forces
By early 1966, it was clear that the reforms had not produced the desired results. The SKJ blamed the Serbian leadership for resistance to the reforms. In early 1966, Kardelj persuaded Tito to remove Ranković from the SKJ Central Committee and dismiss him as vice president of Yugoslavia. Ranković was accused of plotting to seize power, disregarding the decisions of the eighth congress of the SKJ (December 1964), abuse of the
State Security Administration
The State Security Service ( hr, Služba državne sigurnosti, sr, Служба државне безбедности; mk, Служба за државна безбедност; sl, Služba državne varnosti), also known by its original name ...
directly or through allies, and illegally
wire-tapping
Telephone tapping (also wire tapping or wiretapping in American English) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet-based conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitorin ...
the SKJ leadership, including Tito himself. Tito saw Ranković's removal as an opportunity to implement greater decentralisation. In devolving power to constituent units of the federation, Tito assumed the role of sole arbiter in inter-republican disputes.
In 1967 and 1968, the Yugoslav constitution was amended once again, further reducing federal authority in favour of the constituent republics. The peak of the reformist coalition occurred at the 9th congress of the SKJ in March 1969, during which decentralisation of all aspects of the country was proposed. A
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...
loan for the construction of motorways caused a major rift in the reformist coalition after the federal government decided to shelve plans to develop a highway section in Slovenia and build one highway section in Croatia and one in Macedonia instead. For the first time, a constituent republic (Slovenia) protested a decision of the federal government, but Slovene demands were rejected. The situation became heated, prompting the Slovene authorities to publicly state that they had no plan to secede. In the aftermath of the affair, the Slovenian authorities withdrew their support for the reformist coalition. Regardless, the SKH and the SKM pressured the SKJ to adopt the principle of unanimity in decision-making, obtaining veto power for the republican branches of the SKJ in April 1970.
Student demonstrations erupted in Belgrade in June 1968 against authoritarian aspects of the Yugoslav regime, market reforms, and their impact on Yugoslav society. The students were inspired by the worldwide
protests of 1968
The protests of 1968 comprised a worldwide escalation of social conflicts, predominantly characterized by popular rebellions against state militaries and the bureaucracies.
In the United States, these protests marked a turning point for the ci ...
, and criticism of the reforms leveled by the
Marxist humanist
Marxist humanism is an international body of thought and political action rooted in an interpretation of the works of Karl Marx. It is an investigation into "what human nature consists of and what sort of society would be most conducive to huma ...
Praxis School
The Praxis school was a Marxist humanist philosophical cycle, whose members were influenced by Western Marxism. It originated in Zagreb in the SFR Yugoslavia, during the 1960s.
Prominent school's theorists include Gajo Petrović and Milan Ka ...
. They opposed decentralisation and criticised nationalism in Yugoslavia through the ''Praxis'' journal. In November 1968,
Petar Stambolić
Petar Stambolić (; 12 July 1912 – 21 September 2007) was a Serbian communist politician who served as the President of the Federal Executive Council of Yugoslavia from 1963 to 1967 and as President of the Presidency from 1982 until 1983.
Biog ...
and other SKS leaders whose political views were a blend of communist
dogmatism
Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Isla ...
and
Serbian nationalism
Serbian nationalism asserts that Serbs are a nation and promotes the cultural and political unity of Serbs. It is an ethnic nationalism, originally arising in the context of the general rise of nationalism in the Balkans under Ottoman rule, u ...
, were removed on Tito's initiative. Tito specifically blamed Stambolić for not stopping the student demonstrations in a timely fashion. The replacements were
Marko Nikezić
Marko Nikezić (Serbian: Марко Никезић; 13 June 1921 – 6 January 1991) was a Serbian politician. He was a Minister of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia and Chairman of the League of Communists of Serbia. He was dismissed in 1972 under t ...
, as the
president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
, and
Latinka Perović
Latinka Perović ( sr-Cyrl, Латинка Перовић; 4 October 1933 – 12 December 2022) was a Yugoslav communist leader, historian and politician. During the existence of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Perović was a secre ...
as the secretary of the SKS, respectively. Nikezić and Perović supported market-based reforms and a policy of non-interference in other republics' affairs except where officials from those republics denounced Serbian nationalism outside of Serbia.
National revival
Grievances
By the end of the 1960s, the economic reforms had not resulted in discernible improvement within Croatia. Belgrade-based federal banks still dominated the Yugoslav loan market and foreign trade. Croatia-based banks were pushed out from Dalmatia, a popular tourist region, and hotels there were gradually taken over by large companies based in Belgrade. Croatian media reported that favourable purchase agreements for Serbian companies were the result of political pressure and bribery, and the situation was framed as an ethnic rather than economic conflict.
Furthermore, the situation was worsened by a perception among Croatian nationalists of cultural and demographic threats to Croatia from the following policies: use of school textbooks to suppress Croatian national sentiment, a campaign to standardise the
Serbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia a ...
in a way favouring Serbian dialects, demographic displacement by Serbs, and encouragement of Dalmatian regionalism. Calls for the establishment of autonomous Serbian provinces in Dalmatia and elsewhere in Croatia, seen as a threat to Croatia's territorial integrity, added to these concerns. Many people in Croatia believed these to be substantive threats intended to weaken the republic, and rejected alternate explanations of them attributing the changes to economic phenomena or results of modernisation. Early in 1969, a number of grievances were listed in an article by the
Croatian Writers' Association
Croatian Writers' Association ( hr, Društvo hrvatskih književnika; abbreviated DHK) is the official association of Croatian writers. It was founded in 1900 in Zagreb with the goal "to unite writers and help them support one another, and promote ...
president, Petar Šegedin, in , a magazine published by . In the article, Šegedin accused the Yugoslav government of attempting
cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially.
The different types of cultural ass ...
of Croatia.
Language question
In 1967, the first two volumes of the
Dictionary of Serbo-Croatian Literary and Vernacular Language
The Dictionary of Serbo-Croatian Literary and Vernacular Language (Речник српскохрватског књижевног и народног језика, ''Rečnik srpskohrvatskog književnog i narodnog jezika'') or the Dictionary of the ...
based on the 1954 Novi Sad Agreement were published, sparking controversy about whether Croatian was a separate language. Both volumes excluded common Croatian expressions or treated them as local dialect while Serbian variants were often presented as the standard. The unrelated 1966 Serbo-Croatian dictionary published by further inflamed the situation by omitting the term "Croat" from the vocabulary.
The Declaration on the Name and Status of the Croatian Literary Language was issued by 130 Croatian linguists, including 80 communists, on 17 March 1967. The declaration criticised the 1967 dictionary and called for official recognition of Croatian as a separate language and for a requirement for the government of Croatia to use the Croatian language in official business. This step would have disadvantaged the many Serb bureaucrats in Croatia. The declaration drew "A Proposal for Reflection" in response, drafted by 54 Serbian writers calling for
TV Belgrade
Radio Television of Serbia ( sr-Cyrl, Радио-телевизија Србије, sr-Lat, Radio-televizija Srbije, italics=yes; abbr. RTS/PTC) is Serbia's public broadcaster. It broadcasts and produces news, drama, and sports programming thro ...
to use
Cyrillic script
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
and to provide education for the
Serbs of Croatia
The Serbs of Croatia ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, separator=" / ", Срби у Хрватској, Srbi u Hrvatskoj) or Croatian Serbs ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, separator=" / ", хрватски Срби, hrvatski Srbi) constitute the largest national minority in Cro ...
in the Serbian language. There were also several denunciations of the declaration on the Name and Status of the Croatian Literary Language from the SKJ within days. The declaration was not universally supported in Croatia. The deputy speaker of the
Sabor
The Croatian Parliament ( hr, Hrvatski sabor) or the Sabor is the unicameral legislature of the Republic of Croatia. Under the terms of the Croatian Constitution, the Sabor represents the people and is vested with legislative power. The Sabo ...
Većeslav Holjevac
Većeslav Holjevac (22 August 1917 – 11 July 1970) was a Croatian and Yugoslav soldier and communist politician.
Holjevac was born in Karlovac, at the time in Austria-Hungary. He joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1939. Following t ...
, the head of the Croatian Heritage Foundation, for hiring known Croatian nationalists. The declaration marked the beginning of the four-year long period of increased Croatian nationalism commonly referred to as the Croatian Spring.
withdrew from the Novi Sad Agreement on 22 November 1970 because insisted that Croatian was only a dialect of Serbian. went on to publish a new Croatian dictionary and orthography manual by Stjepan Babić,
Božidar Finka
Božidar Finka (19 December 1925 – 17 May 1999) was a Croatian linguist, lexicographer and member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Life and education
Božidar Finka was born in Sali on 19 December 1925. In 1947 he finished high sch ...
, and
Milan Moguš
Milan Moguš (; 27 April 1927 – 19 November 2017) was a Croatian linguist and academician.
Biography
He was born in Senj, where he finished primary school and high school. In the academic year 1948/49 he attended in Faculty of Philosophy in Z ...
, which was condemned by Serbia. The Croatian nationalists reacted by promoting linguistic purism and by revising school textbooks to increase coverage of Croatian history and
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...
. became the rallying point of the nationalist revival, and its economic secretary
Šime Đodan
Šime Đodan (27 December 1927 – 2 October 2007) was a Croatian politician, a two-term Member of Parliament who also briefly served as the 3rd Minister of Defense of Croatia in 1991.
Personal life
Šime Đodan was born on 27 December 1927 i ...
was particularly popular. In 1970, 's membership grew from about 2,000 to 40,000, increasing its political influence. It also enabled complaints to
Ekavian
Shtokavian or Štokavian (; sh-Latn, štokavski / sh-Cyrl, italics=no, штокавски, ) is the prestige dialect of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin standards. ...
spelling ought to be supplemented with Croatian
Ijekavian
Shtokavian or Štokavian (; sh-Latn, štokavski / sh-Cyrl, italics=no, штокавски, ) is the prestige dialect of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin standards. ...
spelling in all official notices and schedules.
While multiple newspapers and magazines supported , the organisation also introduced its own organ, (Croatian Weekly), which enthusiastically promoted Croatian nationalism. Edited by
Vlado Gotovac
Vladimir "Vlado" Gotovac (18 September 1930 – 7 December 2000) was a Croatian poet and politician.
Early activism
In the late 1960s, Gotovac joined the Croatian movement demanding political and economic reform, which eventually led to the Cro ...
, it quickly surpassed the number of subscribers of all other newspapers including , the newspaper of record in Croatia.
SKH factions
Initially, the SKH was internally divided over support for , and its leadership remained mostly silent on the matter. The party was led by a reformist faction consisting of SKH Secretary of the Central Committee
Savka Dabčević-Kučar
Savka Dabčević-Kučar (6 December 1923 – 6 August 2009) was a Croatian politician. She was one of the most influential Croatian female politicians during the communist period, especially during the Croatian Spring when she was deposed. Sh ...
and
Miko Tripalo
Ante "Miko" Tripalo (16 November 1926 – 11 December 1995) was a Croatian politician. He was one of the members of Croatian Spring, a movement for higher level of autonomy of SR Croatia within SFR Yugoslavia.
Biography
A son of a well-to-do far ...
, supported by
Pero Pirker
Pero Pirker (5 July 1927 – 1 August 1972) was a Socialist Republic of Croatia, Croatian and Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, Yugoslav politician. He was the mayor of Zagreb from 1963 to 1967. His mayoralty coincided with the 1964 Za ...
, Dragutin Haramija, Ivan Šibl, and others. Dabčević-Kučar, Tripalo and Pirker assumed the top positions in the SKH in 1969 with Bakarić's support. The reformists were opposed by a conservative or anti-reformist faction including Žanko and
Stipe Šuvar
Stipe Šuvar (17 February 1936 – 29 June 2004) was a Croatian politician and sociologist who was regarded to have been one of the most influential communist politicians in the League of Communists of Croatia in Socialist Republic of Croatia d ...
,
Dušan Dragosavac
Dušan Dragosavac ( sr-cyr, Душан Драгосавац; 1 December 1919 – 21 December 2014)Jure Bilić
Jure Bilić (12 September 1922 – 27 January 2006) was a Yugoslav communist politician.
Bilić was born in Makarska in 1922. In 1941 he joined the Yugoslav Partisans and became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
After the World W ...
, and . In search of support, the conservative faction allied with the Praxis School. Dabčević-Kučar and Tripalo, on the other hand, found support in SKH ranks closer to or associated with such as Đodan and
Marko Veselica
Marko Veselica (January 9, 1936 – February 17, 2017 in Zagreb) was a Croatian politician, economist and university professor.
During the Croatian Spring, Marko Veselica developed a reputation of being a Croatian nationalist. He was close to Iv ...
. In late 1969, Žanko also criticised the SKH leadership as well as Bakarić, accusing them of nationalism and anti-socialist attitudes in an article for . He also wrote a series of articles denouncing , Radio Television Zagreb, and literary magazine and
Bruno Bušić
Ante Bruno Bušić (6 October 1939 – 16 October 1978) was a Croatian writer and critic of the government of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He was one of the best-known victims of UDBA (Yugoslav secret police) killings.
Biography
...
as a writer contributing to the magazine. Others accused by Žanko of stirring up nationalist views were writers Šegedin, Gotovac, and
Tomislav Ladan
Tomislav Ladan (25 June 1932 – 12 September 2008) was a Croatian essayist, critic, translator and novelist.
Ladan was born in Ivanjica, Serbia, and spent his formative years in his native Bosnia and Herzegovina (Travnik, Bugojno), where he g ...
; literary critics
Vlatko Pavletić
Vlatko Pavletić (; 2 December 1930 – 19 September 2007) was a Croatian politician, university professor, literary critic and essayist who served as acting President of Croatia from 1999 to 2000, as well as he served as Speaker of the Croatian ...
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zagreb
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zagreb ( hr, Zagrebačka nadbiskupija, la, Archidioecesis Zagrebiensis) is the central archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Croatia, centered in the capital city Zagreb. It is the metropolitan see of Croatia, an ...
Trpimir Macan
Trpimir Macan (born August 20, 1935) is a Croatian historian and lexicographer.
He was born in Dubrovnik. He studied history in Zagreb and Sarajevo, where he graduated in 1959. In 1971 he received his Ph.D. in Zagreb with a thesis ''Life and work ...
, art historian
Grgo Gamulin
Grgo Gamulin (21 August 1910 – 2 October 1997) was a Yugoslav art historian, literary critic, writer born in Jelsa on the island of Hvar. Gamulin graduated from the University of Zagreb
The University of Zagreb ( hr, Sveučilište u Zagreb ...
, as well as economists Đodan, , Marko and Vladimir Veselica. On 19 December, Tito criticised Žanko's actions. In January 1970, Dabčević-Kučar accused Žanko of unitarism and of trying to topple the SKH leadership. Žanko was removed from all political functions and the SKH moved closer to 's positions. Some sources, including Perović, mark Žanko's dismissal as the beginning of the Croatian Spring.
Throughout, the SKH's central economic demand was that Croatia be permitted to retain more of its foreign currency earnings. To this end, the SKH maintained good relations with counterparts from Slovenia and Macedonia, and also attempted to secure the support of the
League of Communists of Kosovo
The League of Communists of Kosovo ( sh, Savez komunista Kosova, Савез комуниста Косова, SKK; al, Lidhja Komuniste Kosovare) was the Kosovo branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the sole legal party of Yugoslavia f ...
. Due to its rejection of the SKH's economic agenda, the SKS was dismissed as "unionist" by the SKH despite Nikezić's support for other reforms. The SKH also opposed the under-representation of Croats in the police, security forces, and the military, as well as in political and economic institutions in Croatia as well as across Yugoslavia. The predominance of Serbs in these positions led to widespread calls for their replacement by Croats. At the federal level, Serbs represented about 39 percent of the Yugoslav population, while Croats accounted for about 19 percent. Serbs were over-represented and Croats under-represented in the civil service by a factor of two, accounting for 67 percent and nine percent of civil servants, respectively. Similarly, Serbs made up between 60–70 percent of the officer corps of the
Yugoslav People's Army
The Yugoslav People's Army (abbreviated as JNA/; Macedonian and sr-Cyrl-Latn, Југословенска народна армија, Jugoslovenska narodna armija; Croatian and bs, Jugoslavenska narodna armija; sl, Jugoslovanska ljudska ar ...
(JNA). In Croatia alone, Serbs represented about 15 percent of the population, but accounted for nearly one-quarter of the SKH's members and more than one-half of the police force.
SKH involvement until mid-1971
In December 1970, the SKH candidate lost the election of student pro-rector of the
Zagreb University
The University of Zagreb ( hr, Sveučilište u Zagrebu, ; la, Universitas Studiorum Zagrabiensis) is the largest Croatian university and the oldest continuously operating university in the area covering Central Europe south of Vienna and all of ...
to an independent, . The remaining student organisations headquartered in Zagreb were taken over by non-communist candidates in April 1971.
Dražen Budiša
Dražen Budiša (born 25 July 1948) is a Croatian politician who used to be a leading opposition figure in the 1990s and a two-time presidential candidate. As president of the Croatian Social Liberal Party through the 1990s he remains to date the ...
was elected the head of the Zagreb Student Federation, and
Ante Paradžik
Ante Paradžik (10 February 1943 – 21 September 1991) was a Croatian right-wing politician and communist-era dissident. Paradžik was one of the founders of the Croatian Party of Rights.
Early life
Paradžik was born in 1943 in Ljubuški. H ...
became the head of the Croatian Student Federation.
Within days of the student-body elections, Tito requested that Dabčević-Kučar order the arrests of Šegedin, Marko Veselica, Budiša, Čičak and Đodan, but she declined. This decision made Dabčević-Kučar very popular in Croatia. At a rally of 200,000 people to mark the 26th anniversary of the 1945 fall of Zagreb to the
Yugoslav Partisans
The Yugoslav Partisans,Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene: , or the National Liberation Army, sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska (NOV), Народноослободилачка војска (НОВ); mk, Народноослобод ...
on 7 May, observers from the United States reported that her speech was interrupted about 40 times by cheering and applause directed at her rather than the SKH. According to the British ambassador to Yugoslavia Dugald Stewart, Dabčević-Kučar and Tripalo were very skilled at use of public political rallies and their speeches drew crowds typically expected only at football matches.
Another set of amendments to the Yugoslav constitution was adopted further restricting federal powers in June 1971. The only powers retained by the federal government were foreign affairs, foreign trade, defence, common currency, and common
tariff
A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and pol ...
s. Inter-republic committees were set up to make decisions before
ratification
Ratification is a principal's approval of an act of its agent that lacked the authority to bind the principal legally. Ratification defines the international act in which a state indicates its consent to be bound to a treaty if the parties inte ...
by the federal government. The SKH wanted further decentralisation in 1971 to include banking and foreign trade, and changes that would allow Croatia to retain more foreign currency earnings. There were other demands coming from outside the central committee of the SKH, ranging from the establishment of a Croatian military to complete independence. Ultimately the Croatian Spring involved a wide variety of elements including anti-centralists, moderate and extreme nationalists, pro-
Ustaše
The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Move ...
,
anti-communists
Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...
, reformists, democrats and
democratic socialists
Democratic socialism is a left-wing political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within ...
, liberals, and
libertarians
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's enc ...
.
The SKS leadership did not criticise the SKH; on the contrary, Nikezić and Perović defended Croatia's reformist leadership to Tito in 1971. Serbian and Croatian newspapers traded accusations of mutual hostility, nationalism, and unitarism, leading Tito to admit that the SKJ had lost control of the media. In a meeting with the SKH leaders in July 1971, Tito expressed concern with the political situation and offered Tripalo the post of Prime Minister of Yugoslavia to move him away from the SKH, but Tripalo declined. Later that month, the conservative faction managed to gain sufficient support to expel Đodan and Marko Veselica from the SKH as "nationalist ringleaders".
On 2 August, the SKH announced an Action Programme, criticising nationalism which was referred to in the programme as "national movement", and denouncing unnamed individuals associated with for conspiring against the SKH and the SKJ. The SKH leaders determined that the Action Programme would be formally adopted or rejected by its next
plenary session
A plenary session or plenum is a session of a conference which all members of all parties are to attend. Such a session may include a broad range of content, from keynotes to panel discussions, and is not necessarily related to a specific st ...
in November. The SKH arranged another meeting with Tito on 14 September, insisting that he had been misinformed about the situation. After the meeting, Tito said he was convinced that the stories about chauvinism reigning in Croatia were absurd. He also implied that he favoured the SKH's proposal for a reform of Yugoslavia's foreign currency policy. After the meeting, Tripalo suggested that the Action Programme would no longer be considered.
Looking for role models from the past
The Croatian Spring spurred increased interest in Croatian historical figures. A commemorative plaque to Stjepan Radić, the founder of the
Croatian Peasant Party
The Croatian Peasant Party ( hr, Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) is an agrarian political party in Croatia founded on 22 December 1904 by Antun and Stjepan Radić as Croatian Peoples' Peasant Party (HPSS). The Brothers Radić believed that t ...
(HSS) and a champion of the Croatian cause in pre-war Yugoslavia, was put up in Zagreb, followed by a monument to him in the town of
Metković
Metković () is a town in the Dubrovnik-Neretva County of Croatia, located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the river Neretva and on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Demographics
The total population of the city municipal ...
. The city of
Šibenik
Šibenik () is a historic city in Croatia, located in central Dalmatia, where the river Krka flows into the Adriatic Sea. Šibenik is a political, educational, transport, industrial and tourist center of Šibenik-Knin County, and is also the ...
cancelled a plan to erect a monument to the victims of
fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
, instead erecting a statue of the medieval Croatian king Peter Krešimir IV. A marching band and a
living history
Living history is an activity that incorporates historical tools, activities and dress into an interactive presentation that seeks to give observers and participants a sense of stepping back in time. Although it does not necessarily seek to ree ...
troop named after the 18th-century
Trenck's Pandurs
Trenck's Pandurs ( hr, Panduri, german: Panduren, Hungarian: Pandúr) were a light infantry unit of the Habsburg monarchy, raised by Baron Franz von der Trenck under a charter issued by Maria Theresa of Austria in 1741. The unit was largely co ...
were re-established in Požega in 1969. There were also unsuccessful calls to restore a monument to the 19th-century
Ban of Croatia
Ban of Croatia ( hr, Hrvatski ban) was the title of local rulers or office holders and after 1102, viceroys of Croatia. From the earliest periods of the Croatian state, some provinces were ruled by bans as a ruler's representative (viceroy) an ...
Josip Jelačić, which had been removed from Zagreb's central square by the SKH in 1947.
Traditional Croatian patriotic songs—some of them banned—experienced a resurgence in popularity. The most popular and controversial singer of such songs at the time was
Vice Vukov
Vinko "Vice" Vukov (3 August 1936 – 24 September 2008) was a Croatian singer and politician.
Biography
Vukov was born in Šibenik. In 1959, he achieved instant fame by winning the Opatija Music Festival in his singing debut, with the song "Mir ...
. returned to formal use as a patriotic song when a plaque was placed in the
Zagreb Cathedral
, native_name_lang =
, image = Zagreb Cathedral 2020.jpg
, imagesize =
, imagelink =
, imagealt =
, landscape =
, caption =Zagreb Cathedral in 2020, ...
commemorating the noblemen involved in the 17th-century
Magnate conspiracy
The Magnate conspiracy, also known as the Zrinski- Frankopan Conspiracy ( hr, Zrinsko-frankopanska urota) in Croatia, and Wesselényi conspiracy ( hu, Wesselényi-összeesküvés) in Hungary, was a 17th-century attempt to throw off Habsburg ...
. The opera , retelling the 16th-century
Siege of Szigetvár
The siege of Szigetvár or the Battle of Szigeth (pronunciation: siɡɛtvaːr hu, Szigetvár ostroma, hr, Bitka kod Sigeta; Sigetska bitka, tr, Zigetvar Kuşatması) was a siege of the fortress of Szigetvár, Kingdom of Hungary, that block ...
, was regularly sold out whenever it played at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. Paintings by
Oton Iveković
Oton Iveković (17 April 1869 – 4 July 1939) was a Croatian painter. A graduate of Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Iveković later taught at the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts. He largely concerned himself with historical topics as well as some ...
(1869–1939) depicting events from Croatian history became very popular. Croatia's historical chequy coat of arms became a popular symbol sewn by youths on jackets and berets or applied on stickers to car windshields. In 1969, it was incorporated into the crest of the football club
Dinamo Zagreb
Građanski nogometni klub Dinamo Zagreb ( en, Dinamo Zagreb Citizens' Football Club, link=yes, italics=yes), commonly referred to as GNK Dinamo Zagreb or simply Dinamo Zagreb (), is a Croatian professional football club based in Zagreb. Dinamo ...
. While the Yugoslav flag was still flown, it was always paired with the Croatian one. The latter was also used on its own and in overall use in Croatia it outnumbered the Yugoslav flag by ten to one.
The SKH went on to point out the significance of the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
in Croatian culture and political identity. Dabčević-Kučar later said that the move was motivated by her wish to counterbalance the Serbian Orthodox Church as a "source of Serbian chauvinism". While the Catholic Church did not play an important role in the Croatian Spring, it contributed to the strengthening of national identity by introducing the Cult of Mary as a Croatian national symbol around the same time. This contribution was reinforced by the
canonisation
Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of s ...
of the 14th-century Croatian
Franciscan
, image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg
, image_size = 200px
, caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans
, abbreviation = OFM
, predecessor =
, ...
friar and missionary
Nicholas Tavelic
Nicholas Tavelic ( hr, Nikola Tavelić) was a Croatian Franciscan friar and missionary who died a martyr's death in Jerusalem on November 14, 1391. He was beatified as part of Nicholas Tavelic, O.F.M. and companions, which included friars from I ...
in 1970.
The SKH maintained that its current policy was rooted in the Partisan legacy, arguing that the Yugoslav federation was not set up as envisaged by the World War II-era
State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia
The State Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia (''Zemaljsko antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobođenja Hrvatske''), commonly abbreviated ZAVNOH, was first convened on 13–14 June 1943 in Otočac and Plitvice as the ...
(ZAVNOH); in particular, ZAVNOH's solution to the
Croatian question
The Croatian question () refers to a political, cultural, social and economical status of Croats in Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, SFR Yugoslavia and post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The first steps towards Croat home rule were made ...
was not implemented. The SKH said that national sentiments were a legitimate expression of interests which must be defended by communists and that Yugoslavia must be organised as a community of national sovereign republics. published an article by Tuđman praising ZAVNOH. Its cover page carried a photo of the wartime secretary of the
Communist Party of Croatia
League of Communists of Croatia ( sh, Savez komunista Hrvatske or SKH) was the Croatian branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (SKJ). It came into power in 1945. Until 1952, it was known as Communist Party of Croatia (''Komunistička ...
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
spy and a traitor since the 1948
Tito–Stalin split
The Tito–Stalin split or the Yugoslav–Soviet split was the culmination of a conflict between the political leaderships of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, under Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin, respectively, in the years following World W ...
. The article also coincided with a request, ignored by the SKH, to posthumously rehabilitate Hebrang. The initiative was launched as a form of "moral rehabilitation" by anti-communist émigrés including former high-ranking KPJ official
Ante Ciliga
Ante Ciliga (20 February 1898 – 21 October 1992) was a Croatian politician, writer and publisher. Ciliga was one of the founders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ). Imprisoned in Stalin's Gulags in the 1930s, he later became an ardent ...
.
Demands for autonomy and a new constitution
At the time of the Croatian Spring, civic relations between Croats and Serbs in Croatia were increasingly framed by diverging narratives of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and especially World War II. While Croats focused on the role of the
Royal Serbian Army
The Army of the Kingdom of Serbia ( sr-cyr, Војска Краљевине Србије, Vojska Kraljevine Srbije), known in English as the Royal Serbian Army, was the army of the Kingdom of Serbia that existed between 1882 and 1918, succeed ...
in the creation of the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and killings of collaborationist Ustaše troops and their sympathisers in the 1945 Yugoslav pursuit of Nazi collaborators, Serbs negatively evaluated the Croatian participation in Austria-Hungary's
Serbian campaign
The Serbian campaign was a series of military expeditions launched in 1914 and 1915 by the Central Powers against the Kingdom of Serbia during the First World War.
The first campaign began after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 J ...
during World War I, and especially the genocide of Serbs committed by the Ustaše in the
Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
* Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...
puppet state
A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government, is a state that is ''de jure'' independent but ''de facto'' completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders.Compare: Puppet states have nominal sove ...
known as the
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia ( sh, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH; german: Unabhängiger Staat Kroatien; it, Stato indipendente di Croazia) was a World War II-era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. It was established in p ...
(NDH). In a series of articles in , Tuđman expressed the view of the majority of the SKH as well as : that Croats had made a significant contribution to the Partisan struggle and were not collectively to blame for Ustaše atrocities.
Among Croatian Serbs, Serbian nationalism flared in response to the Croatian national resurgence. By 1969, the cultural society came to the forefront of Croatian Serb nationalist discourse. A plan put forward by SKH reformists to revise elementary and middle school literature and history
curricula
In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...
so 75 percent of the coverage would be on Croatian topics drew complaints from , which argued that the plan was a threat to Serb cultural rights. also objected to the SKH's attempts to reinterpret the wartime Partisan struggle as a liberation of Croatian nationality within the Yugoslav framework. By 1971, demanded that the Serbian language and Cyrillic script be officially used in Croatia alongside the Croatian language and
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
, as well as legislative safeguards guaranteeing the national equality of Serbs. rejected the federal model advocated by the ZAVNOH and the SKH, arguing that nationalism was no longer needed in Yugoslavia. Furthermore, denounced the work of and asserted that the Serbs of Croatia would preserve their national identity by relying on Serbia's help regardless of the borders of the republics.
Finally, 's
Rade Bulat
Rade Bulat (28 August 1920 – 25 January 2013) was a Yugoslav Partisan and communist activist. He was one of the last three living recipients of the Order of the People's Hero in Croatia.
Biography
Bulat was born August 28, 1920 in Vrginmost, Sis ...
demanded the establishment of an autonomous province for the Croatian Serbs, and there were calls to grant autonomy for Dalmatia as well. The SKH central committee declared that no region of Croatia could make any legitimate claim to autonomy of any kind and labeled calls for regional Dalmatian autonomy as treason to the Croatian nation. Such responses were in line with the SKH's objective of national homogenisation. To that end, the SKH blocked the option of declaring one's ethnic identity as regional in the 1971 census. The campaign led by to emphasise the distinction between Croatian and Serbian was reflected in the prevailing speech of Croatian Serbs, which changed from predominantly Ijekavian, or an Ekavian-Ijekavian blend, to predominantly Ekavian.
The Serbian philosopher
Mihailo Đurić
Mihailo Đurić (Serbian Cyrillic: Михаило Ђурић; 22 August 1925 – 25 November 2011) was one of Serbia's most prominent philosophers. He was a professor at the University of Belgrade's Law School and member of the Serbian Academy ...
argued that Croatia's constitution should be amended to describe the republic as the national state of not only Croats, but also Serbs. This remark sparked another series of public debates in March 1971 in the context of constitutional reform of Yugoslavia. The SKJ responded by bringing charges against Đurić and imprisoning him. proposed an amendment to the constitution further emphasising the national character of Croatia. The SKH dismissed the proposal and drafted its own wording, arguing that it was a compromise. Ultimately passed, the SKH's amendment mentioned the Croatian Serbs specifically, but defined Croatia as a "national state" of the Croats, avoiding use of the exact same phrase for the Croatian Serbs. The meaning of this difference in formulations was not explained in the text of the constitution. By mid-September 1971, ethnic tensions had worsened to the point that in northern Dalmatia, some Serb and Croat villagers took up arms in fear of each other.
Outside Croatia
In February 1971, the Croatian nationalist émigré magazine , printed by
Branimir Jelić
Branimir "Branko" Jelić (28 February 1905, Donji Dolac, Kingdom of Dalmatia, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy – 31 May 1972, West Berlin) was an exiled Croatian nationalist and doctor of medicine. He was a member of the fascist Ustaše organization.
...
in
West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
, published a story attributed to its
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
correspondent claiming that the
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist repub ...
would help Croatia achieve its independence, granting it a status comparable to that enjoyed by Finland at the time. The article also stated that the SKH was collaborating with Ustaše émigrés. The Yugoslav Military Mission in Berlin reported the story to the
military intelligence service
The Military Intelligence Service ( ja, アメリカ陸軍情報部, ''America Rikugun Jōhōbu'') was a World War II U.S. military unit consisting of two branches, the Japanese American unit (described here) and the German-Austrian unit based ...
along with the names of alleged Ustaše émigré operatives in Croatia. The report was initially believed, leading the Yugoslav authorities to become concerned that the Soviet Union might be instigating and aiding the SKH and the Ustaše émigrés. A federal investigation concluded on 7 April that the story was false, and the authorities decided to bury the affair. Immediately, the SKH announced that foreign and domestic enemies of the SKH stood behind the allegations. The same day,
Vladimir Rolović
Vladimir Rolović (21 May 1916 – 15 April 1971) was a Yugoslav politician, diplomat, and a former high officer of the State Security Administration (UDBA). Holder of the " Commemorative Medal of the Partisans of 1941" and as a former commander ...
, the Yugoslav ambassador to Sweden, was mortally wounded in an unrelated attack by Ustaše émigrés, further escalating tensions. According to Dabčević-Kučar, the SKH leadership treated the enthusiasm of the émigrés with suspicion, believing it to be linked with the Yugoslav State Security Administration, and also because their activity weakened the SKH's position.
Even though the leadership of Bosnia and Herzegovina was cautious in its response to the SKH's January 1970 shift towards 's positions, relations became much more tense, primarily reflected through texts published by journals and , the newspaper of record in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The leadership of Bosnia and Herzegovina initially distinguished between the positions of the SKH and those held by , but this distinction eroded over time. In September, expanded its work to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serbian autonomous province of Vojvodina, claiming Croats were underrepresented in government institutions there due to policies implemented during Ranković's tenure. By November 1971, Croatian nationalists were advocating the annexation of a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia to rectify the situation. In response, various Serbian nationalists claimed other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina for Serbia. Officials from Bosnia and Herzegovina responded by prohibiting the establishment of branches within the republic.
Foreign policy considerations
During a meeting of the SKJ leadership at the
Brijuni Islands
The Brijuni () or the Brijuni Islands (also known as the Brionian Islands; same as it, Brioni) are a group of fourteen small islands in the Croatian part of the northern Adriatic Sea, separated from the west coast of the Istrian peninsula by t ...
on 28–30 April 1971, Tito received a telephone call from Soviet leader
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1964 and ...
. According to Tito, Brezhnev offered help to resolve the political crisis in Yugoslavia and Tito declined. The offer was likened by the SKH and by Tito to Brezhnev's call to the First Secretary of the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ( Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Comint ...
Alexander Dubček
Alexander Dubček (; 27 November 1921 – 7 November 1992) was a Slovak politician who served as the First Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) (''de facto'' leader of Czechoslovak ...
in 1968 ahead of the
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...
—as being a threat of imminent Warsaw Pact invasion. Some members of the SKH central committee suggested that Tito invented it to strengthen his position, but the
First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union
The First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union was the deputy head of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR); despite the title, the office was not necessarily held by a single individual. The office had three different name ...
Dmitry Polyansky
Dmitry Stepanovich Polyansky (russian: Дми́трий Степа́нович Поля́нский; – 8 October 2001) was a Soviet statesman who was First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union from 1965 to 1973. F ...
confirmed the conversation took place.
Aiming to improve the United States' position in the
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
, the
United States President
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
toured several countries in the region. Nixon's state visit to Yugoslavia lasted from 30 September until 2 October 1970 and included a trip to Zagreb, where Nixon sparked a controversy in a toast at the Banski dvori, the seat of the Croatian government. His toast ended with the words "Long live Croatia! Long live Yugoslavia!", which were interpreted variously as a show of support for the
independence of Croatia
The independence of Croatia was a process started with the changes in the political system and the constitutional changes in 1990 that transformed the Socialist Republic of Croatia into the Republic of Croatia, which in turn proclaimed the Chri ...
, or alternatively as just a common courtesy. The Yugoslav ambassador to the United States interpreted the episode as strategic positioning for a breakup of Yugoslavia.
Brezhnev visited Yugoslavia from 22 to 25 September 1971 amid continuing tension between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union following the 1968 invasion of
. Brezhnev offered a friendship agreement, but Tito declined to sign it to avoid appearing to move closer to the Eastern Bloc. Yugoslav officials notified Nixon through Secretary of State
William P. Rogers
William Pierce Rogers (June 23, 1913 – January 2, 2001) was an American diplomat and attorney. He served as United States Attorney General under President Dwight D. Eisenhower and United States Secretary of State under President Richard Nixo ...
that the meeting with Brezhnev did not go well. An official visit of Tito to the United States was arranged to reassure Tito of the United States' political, economic, and military support for Yugoslavia. Nixon and Tito met on 30 October in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
Suppression and purges
November plenum and student protest
At the 5 November plenary session of the SKH, Dabčević-Kučar said that the national movement was evidence of the unity of the nation and the SKH, which she said should not be sacrificed to achieve revolutionary purity. After she rejected several of Bakarić's proposals to modify the SKH's policies, the conservative faction—most vocally Bilić and Dragosavac—demanded the enforcement of the August Action Programme. The issue was not resolved by the plenum but, in the aftermath of the session, Bakarić decided to support Bilić and Dragosavac and to ask Tito to intervene. On 12–15 November, Tito visited
Bugojno
Bugojno ( sr-cyrl, Бугојно) is a town and municipality located in Central Bosnia Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is situated on river Vrbas, to the northwest from Sarajevo. Ac ...
in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he was hosted by the republic's leadership (
Branko Mikulić
Branko Mikulić (10 June 1928 – 12 April 1994) was a Yugoslavian statesman. Mikulić was one of the leading communist politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the communist rule in the former Yugoslavia.
Biography
Branko Mikulić was born t ...
,
Hamdija Pozderac
Hamdija Pozderac (15 January 1924 – 7 April 1988) was a Yugoslav communist politician from Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was the 4th President of the People's Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina from July 1971 to May 1974. ...
, and ). On 13 November, they were joined by the Yugoslav prime minister, Džemal Bijedić, who criticised the SKH's demands for changing the distribution of foreign currency earnings. Dragosavac met with Tito on 14 and 15 November to discuss the Croatian Spring. On 15 November, Tito was joined by the heads of the JNA to view recordings of political rallies in Croatia where nationalists and SKH members spoke and where anti-Tito shouts could be heard.
The extended SKH central committee secretly met from 17 to 23 November, but the two opposing factions could not agree. On 22 November, about 3,000 Zagreb University students voted to begin a strike the next morning. Initially, they were protesting federal regulations on
hard currency
In macroeconomics, hard currency, safe-haven currency, or strong currency is any globally traded currency that serves as a reliable and stable store of value. Factors contributing to a currency's ''hard'' status might include the stability and ...
, banking and commerce. At Paradžik's urging, a series of proposed constitutional amendments was added to the demands: defining Croatia as a sovereign and national state of Croats, making Croatian the official language, guaranteeing that residents of Croatia would complete their compulsory
military service
Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job ( volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription).
Some nations (e.g., Mexico) require ...
in Croatia, and formally establishing Zagreb as Croatia's capital and as the anthem of Croatia. The protesters singled out Bakarić for sabotaging Tripalo's currency reform. The Croatian Student Federation expanded the strike over all of Croatia. Within days, 30,000 students were on strike demanding the expulsion of Bilić, Dragosavac, Baltić, Ema Derossi-Bjelajac and
Čedo Grbić
Čedo Grbić (8 April 1921 – 4 December 1994) was a Croatian Serb communist politician.
Grbić was born in Rajić, a village near Novska. In 1937, he became a member of the League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia (SKOJ) and a member of the ...
from the SKH as unitarists. On 25 November, Tripalo met with the students, urging them to stop the strike, and Dabčević-Kučar made the same request four days later.
Karađorđevo meeting and the purges
Tito contacted the United States to inform them of his plan to remove the reformist leadership of Croatia, and the United States did not object. Tito considered deploying the JNA, but opted for a political campaign instead. On 1 December, Tito convened a joint meeting of the leaders of the SKJ and the SKH at the Karađorđevo hunting ground in Vojvodina. The SKH leadership was first criticised by SKH conservatives asking for stern action against nationalism. SKJ presidium members from other republics and provinces then gave speeches supporting the conservative stance and the SKH leadership was told to get the situation in Croatia under control. Tito particularly criticised , accusing it of being a political party and attempting to establish a fascist state similar to the NDH. The next day, after the Karađorđevo meeting, Tito's speech was broadcast to all of Yugoslavia, warning of the threat of
counter-revolution
A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "counter-revoluti ...
.
After the broadcast, the student strike was called off and the SKH leadership announced their agreement with Tito. On 6 December, Bakarić criticised the SKH leadership for not taking any practical steps to comply with Tito's speech of two days earlier, especially for not taking action against . Bakarić particularly accused Tripalo of attempting to split the SKH by exaggerating the popular support for the reformists. Two days later, the SKJ leadership met again and concluded that the SKH was not implementing the decisions adopted in Karađorđevo. Leaders of the student strike were arrested on 11 December, and Dabčević-Kučar and Pirker were forced to resign by Tito the next day. At that point, Tripalo, Marko Koprtla and
Janko Bobetko
Janko Bobetko (10 January 1919 – 29 April 2003) was a Croatian general who had participated in World War II and later in the Croatian War of Independence. He was one of the founding members of 1st Sisak Partisan Detachment, the first anti- ...
immediately also resigned. In the following days, more resignations were tendered, including the head of the government Haramija.
Milka Planinc
Milka Planinc ( Malada; ; 21 November 1924 – 7 October 2010) was a Croatian politician active in SFR Yugoslavia. She served as Prime Minister of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1982 to 1986, the first and only woman to hold this ...
became the head of the SKH. Five hundred students protested in Zagreb against the resignations and were suppressed by riot police.
Subsequently, tens of thousands were expelled from the SKH, including 741 high-ranking officials such as Dabčević-Kučar, Tripalo, and Pirker. Another 280 SKH members were compelled to resign their posts and 131 were demoted. SKH conservatives demanded a major show trial with Tuđman as the main defendant, but Tito blocked this proposal. Instead, Tuđman was convicted of trying to overthrow the "democratic self-managing socialism". Overall, 200–300 people were convicted of political crimes, but thousands more were imprisoned without formal charges for two to three months. and were banned, including the former's fourteen publications. Purges targeting media professionals, writers, filmmakers, and university staff continued until late 1972. Even though the purges took place only in the period after the 1 December 1971 Karađorđevo meeting, this date is usually thought of as the end of the Croatian Spring in commemorations of the events. Authorities seized and destroyed 40,000 copies of the Moguš, Finka & Babić orthography manual as chauvinist. The remaining 600 copies were bound without any foreword or index and marked "for internal use only". This version was reprinted by
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
-based Croatian émigré magazine (''New Croatia'') in 1972 and 1984. The complete book was published again in
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
in 1990.
Aftermath
Maintenance of reforms
Under the new SKH leadership,
Ivo Perišin
Ivo Perišin (4 July 1925 – 30 October 2008) was a Croatian economist, politician and academician. He held various senior governmental posts in the Socialist Republic of Croatia in the 1970s and was mayor of Split, Croatia from 1965 to 1967.
In ...
replaced Haramija as the President of its Executive Council in late December 1971. In February 1972, the Croatian Parliament passed a series of 36 amendments to the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, one of which introduced as the republic's anthem.
After the downfall of the reformist SKH leadership, anti-communist émigrés wrote about the Croatian Spring as a movement presaging democratisation and praised Dabčević-Kučar and Tripalo as people of "unusual political virtues". Some émigrés believed that the political situation in Yugoslavia, especially among Croats, was conducive to an uprising. Consequently, nineteen members of the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood terrorist organisation launched an armed incursion into Yugoslavia in mid-1972 hoping to incite a rebellion that would lead to the re-establishment of the NDH. After a month of deadly skirmishes with the authorities, the incursion ended in failure.
Pirker died in August 1972, and his funeral drew 100,000 supporters. The size of the crowd attending the funeral confirmed continued broad support for Dabčević-Kučar and Tripalo irrespective of their recent purge.
To reduce the popular support for the Croatian nationalists, Tito granted many of the demands of the ousted SKH leaders. For example, export companies were allowed to retain 20 percent of foreign exchange earnings instead of 7–12 percent while tourism companies increased their retention of foreign currency earnings from 12 percent to 45 percent.
Devaluation
In macroeconomics and modern monetary policy, a devaluation is an official lowering of the value of a country's currency within a fixed exchange-rate system, in which a monetary authority formally sets a lower exchange rate of the national curre ...
of the
Yugoslav dinar
The dinar (Cyrillic script: динар) was the currency of the three Yugoslav states: the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (formerly the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the Federal Republic of Yu ...
by 18.7 percent increased the value of the retained foreign currency income on the domestic market.
The new SKH leadership was unwilling to undo the changes implemented by their predecessors, and subsequently lost support from the Croatian Serbs. Some Serbs called for the constitution of Croatia to be amended to redefine Croatia as a national state of both Croats and Serbs, and create a Serb committee in the Sabor. Those ideas were defeated by Grbić, who held the position of deputy
speaker of the Croatian Parliament
The speaker of the Croatian Parliament ( hr, Predsjednik Hrvatskog sabora, literally the president of the Croatian Parliament) is the presiding officer in the Croatian Parliament, Croatia's legislative body.
Under Article 97 of the constituti ...
; as a result, Serbian nationalists denounced Grbić as a traitor to their cause.
The
1974 Yugoslav Constitution
The 1974 Yugoslav Constitution was the fourth and final constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It came into effect on 21 February 1974.
With 406 original articles, the 1974 constitution was one of the longest constitutio ...
preserved the 1971 reforms almost entirely, expanded the economic powers of the constituent republics, and granted reformist demands related to banking, commerce, and foreign currency.
Legacy in the final decades of Yugoslavia
In the aftermath of the 1971 purge, the authorities began to
pejorative
A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
ly refer to the events that had transpired as the , a
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsmass movement", as a reference to the
politicisation
Politicisation (also politicization; see American and British English spelling differences, English spelling differences) is a concept in political science and political philosophy, theory used to explain how ideas, entities or collections of fact ...
of the masses with the aim of ensuring the involvement of actors beyond the SKH in Croatia's politics. The term ''Croatian Spring'' was coined retroactively, after the 1971 purges, by those holding a more favourable view of the events. The latter term was not permitted to be publicly used in Yugoslavia until 1989.
The end of the Croatian Spring ushered in a period known as the Croatian Silence (), which lasted until the late 1980s, during which the public kept its distance from the unpopular imposed authorities. Discussion pertaining to the position of the Croatian Serbs was avoided by the new Croatian leadership, and Grbić and others became concerned that the question would be left to the Serbian Orthodox Church and nationalists from Serbia to pose solutions without any counterargument.
The Croatian Spring was a significant event for all of Yugoslavia. Reformist factions in the SKS, SKM and the League of Communists of Slovenia were also suppressed by the end of 1972, replaced by mediocre and obedient politicians. During this period, pressure for the complete breakup of Yugoslavia intensified, religious leaders gained influence, and the Partisan legacy that legitimised the state was weakened. The purges of the 1970s in Croatia and elsewhere in Yugoslavia drove many reformist communists and supporters of social democracy away from politics in the country's final decades.
From 1989, several people previously involved with the SKH or during the Croatian Spring returned to Croatian politics. Budiša and Gotovac had leading roles in the
Croatian Social Liberal Party
The Croatian Social Liberal Party ( hr, Hrvatska socijalno-liberalna stranka or HSLS) is a conservative-liberal political party in Croatia. The HSLS was formed in 1989 as the first Croatian political party formed after the reintroduction of mult ...
(HSLS), which was formed before the
1990 Croatian parliamentary election
Parliamentary elections were held in the Socialist Republic of Croatia between 22 and 23 April 1990; the second round of voting occurred on 6–7 May. These were the first free, multi-party elections held in Croatia since 1938, and the first such e ...
. Čičak was prominent in the HSS. In January 1989, Marko and Vladimir Veselica, Tuđman, Šošić, and Ladan launched an initiative to found the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). Dissatisfied with Tuđman's election to lead the HDZ, the Veselica brothers left, and formed the
Croatian Democratic Party
Croatian may refer to:
*Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, ...
(HDS) in November. The HDZ gained
Stjepan Mesić
Stjepan "Stipe" Mesić (; born 24 December 1934) is a Croatian lawyer and politician who served as President of Croatia from 2000 to 2010. Before serving two five-year terms as president, he was prime minister of SR Croatia (1990) after the fir ...
, another SKH official ousted after the Croatian Spring. Dabčević-Kučar, Tripalo, and Haramija formed the
Coalition of People's Accord
Coalition of People's Accord (, KNS) was the bloc of mostly moderate nationalist and liberal parties formed on the eve of first multi-party elections in Croatia in 1990.
The Coalition was initiated by ex-communists Savka Dabčević-Kučar and ...
coalition as independents, supported by several parties including the HSLS and HDS. The HDZ won the elections, Tuđman became the President of the Presidency (later President) and Mesić became the President of the Executive Council (later referred to as Prime Minister).