Workers' self-management was one of the unique features of communist Yugoslavia. Goran Musić has investigated the changing ways in which blue-collar workers perceived the recurring crises of the regime. Two self-managed metal enterprises, one in Serbia another in Slovenia, provide the frame of the analysis in the time span between 1945 and 1989. These two factories became famous for strikes in 1988 that evoked echoes in popular discourses in former Yugoslavia. Drawing on interviews, factory publications and other media, local archives, and secondary literature, Musić analyzes the two cases, going beyond the clichés of political manipulation from the top and workers' intrinsic attraction to nationalism.
The author explains how, in the later phase of communist Yugoslavia, growing social inequalities among the workers and undemocratic practices inside the self-managed enterprises facilitated the spread of a nationalist and pro-market ideology on the shop floors. Yet rather than being a mass taken advantage of by populist leaders, the working class Musić presents is one with agency and voice, a force that played an important role in shaping the fate of the country. The book thus seeks to open a debate on the social processes leading up to the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
Table of Contents:
Figures and Tables
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Unfulfilled Expectations
Mighty Elites and Subservient Workers
(Re)Discovering Labor
Approaching Class and Nation in a Yugoslav Factory
Sources and Chapter Overview
Chapter 1. Two Roads to Self-managing Socialism
Two Blue-Collar Communities
Differing Origins
“Factories to the Workers”
Market Socialism
Losing Factory Unity
Chapter 2. Factory Structures and Everyday Life under Associated Labor
Reviving Revolution through Normative Acts
The More Things Change
Claiming Tito
The Factory as a Collective
Chapter 3. Shades of Blue-collar Workers
Proletariat in the Making
Who Creates Value?
Skill, Gender, and Place of Origin
Veterans and the Youth
Appendix 1
Chapter 4. The Dragging Crisis, 1979–1986
The Sudden Breakdown
The Party at an Impasse
TAM’s Pushback of Associated Labor
IMR Tries to Catch Up
Chapter 5. Breaking the Pact: Workers, Liberals, and Nationalists against the Status Quo
Cutting out the Middlemen
The Stolen Golden Apples
The Diligent Ones
Appendix 2
Chapter 6. Mobilizations at the Bottom—Realignments at the Top, 1986–1988
Reaching Beyond the Factory Gates
A “Firm Hand” Inside Serbia
Bypassing the Working Class in Slovenia
Beggar Thy Neighbor
Chapter 7. Workers in the Streets
Two Outlets in Rakovica
Deus Ex Machina
Maribor’s Blue-Collar Wrath
Post Festum
Conclusion
The Unsettled Working Class
Liberal and Collectivist Self-Management
In Search of Allies and Enemies
Unanticipated Changes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Goran Music is a research fellow at the Research Platform for the Study of Transformations and Eastern Europe, University of Vienna.
Review :
"Goran Musić hat ein umfangreiches und beeindruckendes Werk vorgelegt, dass mit scharfen Analysen unter anderem die Konkurrenz zwischen Unternehmen sowie die daraus mangelnde Solidarität unter Arbeiter:innen unterschiedlicher Betriebe herausarbeitet. Er zeigt auch, dass die Strukturen der Selbstverwaltung keine Organisationsformen für den Ausdruck ihrer Unzufriedenheit boten; der Streik wurde jenseits dieser Gremien organisiert. Dabei beweist er auch immer Talent für spannende Erzählungen und die Auswahl anschaulicher Interviewzitate." Mirjam Baumert https://kritisch-lesen.de/rezension/unruhe-in-der-selbstverwaltung
