Constitutional Socialism in Yugoslavia

Abstract

The new constitution recently inaugurated in Yugoslavia expresses the profound political and economic changes which have been taking place during the course of the last decade in the country and which are still under way. The beginning of the changes commenced as far back as in 1950 with the law on management of economic enterprises and other organizations under state ownership and control, on the part of workers' collectives in them. This law and its implementation brought about deep political and economic changes in the coun try in the next period. In the sphere of political relations and institutions the system of self-government was introduced. Po litical self-government consists in that all political forms of gov ernment, including the state authority, are performed by all members of the society directly (in communes) or on the basis of representatives in the federal or republican parliament. This system seeks to devolve on associative political bodies— assemblies in communes, republics, and in the federation—all functions of state authority and to integrate the functions of political parties into the system of political government on the part of the entire society. Along with these political changes, the economic system loses the characteristic of a centralized, administratively conducted planned model of the socialist econ omy, such as it was so far, and assumes the characteristics of a new model of planned economy with strongly expressed ele ments of the market and of an independent economic activity of decentralized economic organization. In this sense the Yugo slav social system differs both from the model of the socialist system in the Soviet Union and from the existing systems in the West.