Socialist Republic of Croatia

Socialist Republic of Croatia
Socijalistička Republika Hrvatska
Constituent republic of Yugoslavia
1943–1991
Flag Emblem
Anthem Lijepa naša domovino Our Beautiful Homeland
Location of Croatia Location of Croatia in Yugoslavia
Capital		Zagreb Split (1944-45)
Languages		Serbo-Croatian
Government		Socialist republic
Prime Minister
•	1945–1953	Vladimir Bakarić (first)
•	1991	Franjo Gregurić (last)
Secretary
•	1943–1944	Andrija Hebrang (first)
•	1989–1990	Ivica Račan (last)
President
•	1943–1949	Vladimir Nazor (first)
•	1990–1991	Franjo Tuđman (last)
Legislature		Sabor
Historical era		Cold War
•	Second Session of the AVNOJ	29 November 1943
•	End of World War II	8 May 1945
•	Croatian Spring	1971
•	Independence referendum	19 May 1991
•	Independence declared	25 June 1991
•	War of Independence	Mar 1991–Nov 1995
Area
•	1991
Population
•	1991 est.	4,784,265
Density
Currency		Yugoslav dinar
Preceded by Succeeded by Independent State of Croatia Kingdom of Hungary (Regency) Kingdom of Italy Free Territory of Trieste Croatia
a.	^ Referred to in the 1974 constitution as Croatian or Serbian.

The Socialist Republic of Croatia (often abbreviated SR Croatia; Serbo-Croatian: Socijalistička Republika Hrvatska, SR Hrvatska) was a constituent republic of Yugoslavia. By its constitution, modern-day Croatia is its direct continuation. Along with five other Yugoslav republics, it was formed during World War II and became a socialist republic after the war. It had four full official names during its 48-year existence (see below). By territory and population, it was the second largest republic in Yugoslavia, after the Socialist Republic of Serbia.

In 1990, the government dismantled the communist single-party system of government and adopted a multi-party democracy. The newly elected government of Franjo Tuđman moved the republic towards independence, formally seceding from Yugoslavia in 1991 and thereby contributing to its dissolution.

Names

Croatia became part of the Yugoslav federation in 1943 after the Second Session of the AVNOJ and through the resolutions of the ZAVNOH, Croatia's wartime deliberative body. It was officially founded as the Federal State of Croatia (Croatian: Federalna Država Hrvatska, FD Hrvatska) on May 9, 1944, at the 3rd session of the ZAVNOH. Yugoslavia was then called the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (Demokratska Federativna Jugoslavija, DFJ), it was not a constitutionally socialist state, or even a republic, in anticipation of the conclusion of the war, when these issues were settled. On November 29, 1945, the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia became the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (Federativna Narodna Republika Jugoslavia, FNRJ), a socialist People's Republic. Accordingly, the Federal State of Croatia became People's Republic of Croatia (Narodna Republika Hrvatska, NR Hrvatska).

On April 7, 1963, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (FPRY) was renamed into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Yugoslavia (and therefore Croatia) gradually abandoned Stalinism after the Tito-Stalin split in 1948. In 1963 the People's Republic of Croatia also accordingly became the Socialist Republic of Croatia.

Establishment

World War II

"For the freedom of Croatia", Partisan poster from World War II.

In the first years of the war, Yugoslav Partisans in Croatia didn't have support of Croats. The majority of partisans on the territory of Croatia were Croatian Serbs. However, in 1943 Croats started to join partisans in larger numbers. On the territory of the Independent State of Croatia, 75-80% of partisans were ethnic Serbs. In 1943, number of Croat partisans in Croatia increased, so in 1944 they composed 61% of partisans on the territory of Croatia, while Serbs made 28%.

On 13 June 1943, Croatian partisans founded the ZAVNOH (National Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Croatia), a legislative body of future Croatian republic within the Yugoslavia. Its first president was Vladimir Nazor. Croatian partisans had their autonomy along with the Slovene and Macedonian partisans, however, on 1 March 1945 they were put under the command of Supreme Command of the Yugoslav Army, thus losing their autonomy. Partisans of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina didn't have such autonomy.

Because of partisan victories and increased territory held by partisans, AVNOJ decided to held the second session in Jajce at the end of November 1943. At that session, the Yugoslav communist leadership decided to reestablish Yugoslavia as federal state.

Creation

On November 29, 1945 the Yugoslav Constituent Assembly held a session where it was decided that Yugoslavia would be composed of six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia. Not long after, the Communist Party started to prosecute those who opposed the communist one-party system. On January 30, 1946, the Constituent Assembly made the Constitution of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. SR Croatia was the last of the republics to make its constitution, which were mostly the same. The Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Croatia was made on January 18, 1947. In their constitutions, all republics have been deprieved of gaining independence.

Republics had only formal autonomy; in reality, communist Yugoslavia was a centralized state, based on the Soviet model. The Communist Party's officials were, at the same time, state officials, while the Party's Central Committee was de iure, the highest organ of the state; however, main decisions were made by the Politburo. The governments of the republics were only part of the mechanism in approval of Politburo's decisions.

Election

Ivan Šubašić, Prime Minister of Yugoslavia in exile and prominent member of the Croatian Peasant Party.

In post-war Yugoslavia, communists had a struggle for power with the opposition that supported King Peter. Milan Grol was leader of the opposition; as the leading figure of the opposition he opposed the idea of federal state, denied the right for Montenegrins and Macedonians to have their republics and held that agreement between Tito and Ivan Subašić guaranteed that the opposition needed to have half ministers in the new government. The Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), part of the opposition, had divided into three branches: one supporting the Ustaše, the other supporting the communists and the third supporting Vladko Maček. However, communists had the majority in parliament and control over the army, leaving the opposition without any real power. Šubašić had his own supporters within the HSS and he tried to unite the party once again, believing that, once united, it would be a major political factor in the country. The Croatian Republican Peasant Party, a split party of the HSS, wanted to enter the People's Front, a suprapolitical organization controlled by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Šubašić knew that this would put the HSS under control of the communists and ended the negotiations about the unification.

In the election campaign, the opposition parties wanted to unite with the Serbian Radical Party and other parties; however, communist activities, using various wiles, ruined their plan. On August 20, 1945, Grol resigned and accused the communists for breaking the Tito-Šubašić agreement. Šubašić himself was also soon forced to resign at the end of October as he also disassociated himself with Tito. Soon, the communists won the election. They even used the so-called "blind boxes" for voters who wouldn't vote for them. They won absolute majority in the parliament which enabled them to create their own form of Yugoslavia.

Politics and government

Tito period

Vladimir Bakarić, the first Prime Minister of the SR Croatia.

The first post-war President of the Socialist Republic of Croatia was Vladimir Nazor, who was, during the war, Chairman of the State Antifascist Council of the People's Liberation of Croatia (ZAVNOH), while the first Prime Minister was Vladimir Bakarić. Ironically, even though communists promoted federalism, post-war Yugoslavia was strictly centralized. Main organ was the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia made of around ten persons. Its members were assigned for certain fields, one controlled the armed forces, other the development of the state, third the economy etc. Ostensibly, the system of government was the representative democracy, people would elect councilors and members of parliaments, however, the real power was in hands of executive organs. Parliaments only served to gave legitimacy to their decisions. The party that ruled the SR Croatia was the branch of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, the Communist Party of Croatia (KPH). Even though the party had Croatian name, it had only 57% of Croats and 43% of Serbs. Majority of members were peasants and majority was half-educated.

Soon after they gained power, the communists started to persecute former officials of the Independent State of Croatia in order to compromise them to the general public. On 6 June 1946, the Supreme Court of the SR Croatia sentenced some of the leading officials of the NDH, including Slavko Kvaternik, Vladimir Košak, Miroslav Navratil, Ivan Perčević, Mehmed Alajbegović, Osman Kulenović and others. Communists also had number of major and minor show trials in order to deal with fascist regime of the NDH. Also, local leaders of the civic parties would often "disappear" without any witness. Communists didn't only cleansed the officials who were working for the NDH, but also those who supported the Croatian Peasant Party and the Catholic Church.

Only major civic party in Croatia, the Croatian Republican Peasant Party, was active only few years after the election, but as satellite of the Communist Party. The clash with the civic anti-communist forces stimulated Communist Party's centralism and authoritarianism.

When he took power, Tito knew that the greatest threat to the development of the communism in Yugoslavia is nationalism. Because of that, the communists would crush even the slightest form of nationalism by repression. The communists made the most effort to crush nationalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia and tried to suppress the hatred between Croats, Serbs and Muslims, but even so, their greatest support in this process were local Serbs. Soon, the Serbs were overrepresented in Croatian and Bosnian state and party leadership.

After Tito's death

In 1980, Josip Broz Tito died. Political and economic difficulties started to mount and the federal government began to crumble. The federal government realised that it was unable to service the interest on its loans and started negotiations with the IMF that continued for years. Public polemics in Croatia concerning the need to help poor and less developed regions became more frequent, as Croatia and Slovenia contributed to about 60 percent of those funds. The debt crisis, together with soaring inflation, forced the federal government to introduce measures such as the foreign currency law for earnings of export firms. Ante Marković, a Bosnian Croat who was at the time the Croatian Prime Minister, said that Croatia will lose around $800 million because of that law. Marković became the last Prime Minister of Yugoslavia in 1989 and spent two years implementing various economic and political reforms. His government's efforts were initially successful, but ultimately they failed due to the incurable political instability of the SFRY.

Ethnic tensions were on the increase and would result in the demise of Yugoslavia. The growing crisis in Kosovo, the nationalist memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the emergence of Slobodan Milošević as the leader of Serbia, and everything else that followed provoked a very negative reaction in Croatia. The fifty-year-old rift was starting to resurface, and the Croats increasingly began to show their own national feelings and express opposition towards the Belgrade regime.

On October 17, 1989, the rock group Prljavo kazalište held a major concert before almost 250,000 people on the central Zagreb city square. In the light of the changing political circumstances, their song "Mojoj majci" ("To my mother"), where the songwriter hailed the mother in the song as "the last rose of Croatia", was taken to heart by the fans on the location and many more elsewhere because of the expressed patriotism. On October 26, parliament declared All Saints Day (November 1) a public holiday.

In January 1990, during the 14th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the delegation of Serbia led by Milošević insisted on replacing the 1974 constitutional policy that empowered the republics with a policy of "one person, one vote", which would benefit the majority Serb population. This caused first the Slovenian and then Croatian delegations (led by Milan Kučan and Ivica Račan, respectively) to leave the Congress in protest and marked a culmination in the rift of the ruling party.

Ethnic Serbs, who constituted 12% of the population of Croatia, rejected the notion of separation from Yugoslavia. Serb politicians feared the loss of influence they previously had through their membership of the League of Communists in Croatia (that some Croats claimed was disproportionate). Memories from the Second World War were the rhetoric coming from the Belgrade administration. As Milošević and his clique rode the wave of Serbian nationalism across Yugoslavia, talking about battles to be fought for Serbdom, emerging Croatian leader Franjo Tuđman reciprocated with talk about making Croatia a nation state. The availability of mass media allowed for propaganda to be spread fast and spark jingoism and fear, creating a war climate.

In February 1990, SR Croatia changed its constitutional system to a multi-party system.

In March 1990, the Yugoslav People's Army met with the Presidency of Yugoslavia (an eight-member council composed of representatives from six republics and two autonomous provinces) in an attempt to get them to declare a state of emergency which would allow for the army to take control of the country. Serbian and Serb-dominated representatives (Montenegro, Vojvodina and Kosovo) already in consent with the army, voted for the proposal, but as representatives of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia voted against, the plot failed. The dying country had yet to see few more Serb leadership's attempts to push the plan for centralizing the power in Belgrade, but because of resistance in all other republics, the crisis only deteriorated.

Transition to independence

Main article: Independence of Croatia

The Croatian parliamentary election, 1990 was held on April 22 and May 6, 1990. After the first multi-party elections, the creation of a constituent republic based on democratic institutions occurred.

After the first free elections, in July 1990, the prefix "socialist" was dropped, and thereafter Croatia was named the Republic of Croatia.

Franjo Tuđman was elected president and his government embarked on a path toward the independence of Croatia.

Economy

Economic model and theory

The economy of the SFR Yugoslavia and thus of the Socialist Republic of Croatia was initially influenced by the Soviet Union. As the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was member of the Communist International, Yugoslav communists thought that the Soviet way to the socialism is the only option to create the socialist state. In the early years of the SFR Yugoslavia, Communist members suppressed critics towards the Soviet Union and harbored sympathies towards it.

In the CPY, it was generally thought that the state ownership and centralism are the only way to avoid economic break down and that without the state ownership and administrative control it would be impossible to accumulate vast resources, material and human, for economic development. Since every undeveloped country needs vast resources in order to start developing, and Yugoslavia was among them, communists thought that this is the only way to save the economy of the Yugoslavia. Also, their ideology included elimination of private sector, as they thought that such economic system is historically wasted.

Economy during the war

The first process of nationalization started on 24 November 1944, when Yugoslav Partisans dispossessed the assets of their enemies. First victims of the confiscation were occupiers and war criminals, however, not long after, assets of 199,541 of German economies, the whole German minority, which included 68,781 ha of land was confiscated also. Until the end of the war, the state controlled 55% of industry, 70% of mining, 90% of ferrous metallurgy and 100% of oil industry.

Renewal of economy

In SR Croatia, material damage and losses were high. In the war, SR Croatia lost 298,000 people, 7,8% of total population. Because of 4-year partisan war, bombings, over-exploitation of raw materials and agricultural resources, destruction of roads and industrial facilities, the state entered into economic chaos. The peasantry that supplied all conflicted sides in war was wasted and human losses were also high. The damage of industry in Yugoslavia was the worst in whole Europe, while the SR Croatia was among the most damaged republic of Yugoslavia, along with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. The communist authority needed to do something in order to prevent hunger, disorder and chaos. Yugoslavia was lacking qualified workers, so economy's renewal was mostly based on mass volunteer work. The recruitment for volunteer work was conducted with propaganda about better communist future, especially among members of Yugoslav partisans and youth. Other segment of this kind of labours were those who feared of persecution, mainly opponents of communist regime and nazi collaborators. They entered volunteer labour in order to escape the persecution. Third segment of the work force were prisoners of war, who worked the hardest jobs.{{sfn|Matković|2003|p=293}?}

The distribution of food and material needed for industry was depending on fast renewal of damaged roads. The railway Zagreb-Balgrade had been in reconstruction in day and night, so first train to pass this railway after the war, did it even at the end of June 1945. The mine fields were also in process of cleaning.

Even though the relations between the Western countries and Yugoslavia become tense, the significant help to people of Yugoslavia came from the UNRRA, an American help formed as a branch of the United Nations. They deployed food, clothes and shoes, this, in fact, helped the communists to avoid the hunger. Between 1945 and 1946, the UNRRA deployed 2,5 million of tones of goods, mostly food, worth 415 million USD. This amount was equal to the double import of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia of 1938 or 135% of its tax revenues. It is generally thought that UNRRA fed and clothed some 5 million people.

Agrarian reform

Map showing the economic development of the Yugoslav republics in 1947 (average development is 100%).

At the same time with the process of persecution of political enemies, communist authorities conducted the Agrarian Reform, a reform made on 23 August 1945. This process included dispossession of wealthy citizens and peasants. Agrarian Reform changed the ownership relations of the agricultural properties. Land that was above 35 acres was taken from its owners. Near half of taken lands were transformed to agricultural ares (state property), while other half was given to poor peasants. This reform also included the colonization in the SR Croatia where people from the so-called depressed areas moved to areas from which the Volksdeutsche have been expelled. In the SR Croatia, colonization occurred in Slavonia, while colonists were the poor peasants, mostly Croatian and Bosnian Serbs. The confiscation of property was also conducted; people who were trading during the war were declared war profiteers and by this, the state gained factories, banks and large shops.

The communists also introduced a new way of distribution of agricultural products. In order to supply the people who lived in towns and cities, they introduces the redemption of those products. The policy of distribution was based on the idea that working segment of society should have advantage in quantity and diversity of goods over non-working, the parasitic segment. This led to development of black markets and speculations.

Next step in the implementation of the Agrarian Reform was nationalization of the large assets of the bourgeois segment of the population. On 28 April 1948, when small shops and majority of crafts have been nationalized, the private sector in SR Croatia was liquidated to the end; out of 5,395 private shops, only 5 remained active. This decision was a double-edged sword, while poor segment of society was satisfied by it, large majority of population was under psychosis of resistance and even revolt. Just like in the Soviet Union, the state controlled entire economy, while free trade was forbidden in favour of central planning. Because of this, the state started rational distribution of necessities for living, which were distributed among population based on remittances, while consumers gained certain amount of certificates on month for buying certain amount of certain goods, including, food, clothes and shoes.

In spring 1949, the state introduced high taxes on private farmer's economies for which farmers were unable to pay. This forced them to enter into the peasant labour unions, formed based on the Soviet kolhozes. In such manner, the state introduced forced collectivization of villages. This collectivization soon disappointed the poor peasants who got their land for free in the process of dispossession of wealthy peasants. Even though the communists thought that collectivization would solve the problem with food, on the contrary, the collectivization created the so-called "Bread Crisis" in 1949. The process of dispossession in Yugoslavia lasted middle of 1945 until the end of 1949. It was the fastest process of dispossession, even compared to East European communist states.

For this process, the state needed large number of officials who were members of the Communist Party, receiving orders from the Politburo, thus leaving the Yugoslav republic without any power in economy. The economy of one republic was depending from decisions made by Politburo in Belgrade, thus Yugoslavia become strictly centralized state. Moreover, liquidation of private sector, cleansing of the state apparatus and high officials and their replacement by half-educated partisans, drastic reduction of gap between payments of ministers and workers (3:1), emigration and deaths of the bourgeois class led to the disappearance of the middle class in the social structure, which had a negative effect on the social life.

Industrialization

Five-Year Plan

Andrija Hebrang, 4th Secretary of the Communist Party of Croatia, a creator of the Five-Year Plan

The industrialization was the most significant process in the economic development of the SR Croatia, as communists promoted the industrialization as the main factor in the fast development. After the process of renewal, the process of industrialization and electrification started based on the Soviet model. The whole economy, the creation of a system and the formulation of the strategy of development in the Five-Year Plan, was in charge of Andrija Hebrang. As President of the Economy Council and President of the Planning Commission, Hebrang was in charge of all ministries that dealt with the economy. Alongside Tito, Edvard Kardelj and Aleksandar Ranković, he was the most influential person in Yugoslavia. As a chief of the whole economy, Hebrang finished his Five-Year Plan in winter 1946–47 which was approved by the government in spring 1947. Because of the lack of knowledge, the Plan was copying the Soviet model. The factories which were built faster were factories that were in the sector of heavy and military industry, of which the most known in SR Croatia are "Rade Končar" and "Prvomajska".

In the Five-Year Plan, Hebrang wanted to increase the industrial production by five times and agricultural production for 1.5 times, increase the GDP per capita by 1.8 times and the national revenues for 1.8 times. The plan also included the increase of qualified workers, from 350,000 to 750,000. For SR Croatia, it was designated that its industrial production needed to be increased for 452%. The fast development in the industry sought for high number of workers, so from 461,000 workers in 1945, in 1949 there was 1,990,000 workers. On 17 January 1947, Kardelj stated to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia that Yugoslavia will be industrially stronger than Austria and Czechoslovakia. Both Kardelj and Bakarić advocated development of the light industry, instead of Hebrang's idea for industry that would serve to agriculture. The Five-Year Plan was indeed exaggerated; this plan didn't have qualified personnel, market (placement) and capital; even so, the state continued with its realization.

All across the country, the state built the sites, and all projects of industrialization and electrification were made with propaganda that the population will deprive of poverty and unemployment. The unemployment was indeed reduced, however, new employees weren't educated for their branch, so many objects were built slowly and many of them weren't built at all. As per then views of the Communist Party, the role of leading the economy was given to the directorate-generals, as a link between the ministries and the Party's leadership. By their implementation, the state gained even greater control over the economy. The companies had their legal personality; however, they didn't have the operational autonomy, as they were, as state organs, under state control.

Religion

Coat of arms of SR Croatia

Due to strained relationships between the Holy See and communist Yugoslav officials, no new Catholic bishops were appointed in the People's Republic of Croatia until 1960. This left the dioceses of Križevci, Đakovo-Osijek, Zadar, Šibenik, Split-Makarska, Dubrovnik, Rijeka and Poreč-Pula without bishops for several years. From the mid-1950s, there were only four seated bishops in Croatia in three diocese: Aloysius Stepinac, Franjo Salis-Seewiss, Miho Pušic, and Josip Srebrnič.

Many priests who were collaborating with the enemy during the war were persecuted amid conflicts between the Catholic Church and the authorities, among which was the Archbishop of Zagreb, Aloysius Stepinac, who was arrested on 16 September 1946. He was sentenced to sixteen years' imprisonment, but, in December 1951, he was released to house arrest at his home in Krašić near Jastrebarsko, where he died in 1960.

World War II symbols
Flag used during World War II (1943–45)  Emblem used during World War II (1943–47)

See also

• Croatia
• History of Croatia
• Timeline of Croatian history