Politicisation of the Yugoslav Army in the Period of Democratisation and Attainment of Independence of Slovenia

Abstract

The author presents the characteristic aspects of the policy of the so-called Second Yugoslavia's Army and its politicisation especially after the death of its Supreme Commander, President of the State Josip Broz-Tito. He underlines the political activities of the Army and its leadership (especially through Federal Secretaries for People's Defence = Ministry of Defence) in the time when two options formed in Yugoslavia in the second half of the 1980s: the first one in Serbia on the national basis with the emphasis on nationalism and demands for the dominance of Serbia and Serbianism in Yugoslavia and on the centralisation of what was constitutionally a federal state; and the second one in Slovenia, where the process of the democratisation of the political life started and demands were made for the reform of the federal system with a greater emphasis on the role and position of individual Yugoslav republics in regard to the central authorities. The Army leadership politically declared itself for the Serbian policy, and in Slovenian policy they saw an opponent which had to be "subdued" through political means, but if that failed, also through military action (possibly a coup). In this period of political life, the Yugoslav Army functioned as a quite independent and influential political subject.