"Dusan T.Batakovic. The Kosovo Chronicles " - читать интересную книгу автора

Croatia, where the entire Serbian population rose against large-scale terror
wrought by the Ustashas (the authorities of fascist Croatia). Cunningly
manipulating the indigent Serbian hilly population who, void of developed
state and political traditions, cherished a devotion to the cult of "mother
Russia" and patriarchal egalitarianism, the communists managed - by calling
on the authority of Moscow - to win over many of them who had fallen in
numerous Chetnik formations after the capitulation of Italy.
The communists won the bloody civil war, in which ethnic and religious
divisions were the chief instigators of massacres, owing to crucial aid from
the Soviet troops which, in agreement with Tito, crossed over to Yugoslav
territory in the fall of 1944, and helped bring the communists to power and
defeat the Yugoslav army in the homeland - the Chetnik movement of Draza
Mihailovic. The first to be punished then was Serbia: its bourgeoisie and
peasants were exterminated in the "second stage of the revolution", i.e. in
the "squaring of accounts with the class enemy" -without trial and by
summary procedure, while its youth - conscripted into partisan units, was
decimated at the Sremski Front when it was forced to continually storm the
well-fortified German positions without sufficient weaponry and military
training. With the destruction of its potential classes for resistance - the
bourgeoisie, the wealthy peasant layer and the town youth - Serbia's back
was broken: most of its bourgeoisie and intelligentsia were abroad
(officers, politicians and diplomats), while those who remained in the
country were permanently marginated. The raison d'etre of the communist
Yugoslavia was a carefully set balance of power among the peoples and
minorities of Yugoslavia over a potential threat from Serbian predominance.
The importance which the communist authorities attached to the political and
ethnic affirmation of the ethnic Albanian minority could not be understood
if viewed otherwise.
The numerous Serbs in the party, army and police of Tito's regime were
carefully selected by the criterion of blind obedience and complete devotion
to the leader, and by their readiness to fully subject Serbian interests to
the interests of the CPY. Most of them, through a negative selection of
cadres, were recruited from patriarchal Serbian milieus in Croatia,
Herzegovina and Montenegro or lower classes in Serbia, as lacking commitment
to the national and state traditions of Serbia. Their major task during the
entire period of Tito's reign was to fight against "Serbian nationalism and
chauvinism" which, considering the Serbs were the predominant nation,
constituted the gravest threat to the regime. These Serbs thus mercilessly
destroyed everything even resembling the traditions of the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia and the Kingdom of Serbia. They were forerunners in the
persecution of dignitaries and the clergy of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Under such circumstances, the communist authorities in Yugoslavia were able
to deal with the ethnic question in keeping with their designs without
fearing for their rule.
The predominance of Serbs in the military units of the new authorities
demanded, for the sake of precaution, that the question of the status of
Kosovo and Metohia be brought up prudently, as the party there - due to
stubborn ethnic-Albanian resistance - had no other followers but Serbs and
Montenegrins (i.e. Serbs who accepted the CPY's ideological precept on the
existence of a separate Montenegrin nation). The decision that Kosovo and