Yugoslavia: The Non-Leninist Succession

摘要

The Yugoslav Communist system was once, to be sure, a Leninist system, and the Leninist model of political succession did apply. As late as the mid-1960s, there was a single heir-apparent, Aleksandar Rankovic, who owed his position (apart from his wartime association with Tito) to his control over the Party's organizational levers of power as Central Committee Secretary responsible for organizational and cadre questions and as former chief of the secret police. But since the late 1960s, the Yugoslav system, and the resulting prospects for political succession, have changed profoundly -- for reasons which will be reviewed. At the end of the 1960s, Tito himself recognized the imperative of a new approach to the succession issue. Expressing these concerns, Tito initiated and oversaw the construction of new, less personalized mechanisms intended to provide Yugoslavia with leadership 'after Tito.' The resulting process has now been underway for about a decade and has (particularly in the past year) achieved considerable success. This paper outlines the highlights of that process.