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The world has watched with horror while post-World War Two Yugoslav federalism, rationalized and reinforced with Marxist ideology and the political/philosophical debates creating and critiquing that federal political economy, has collapsed through ethnic strife, confrontation, declarations of independence, and finally the terrible chaos, destruction and death of war. With ethnic nationalism, hegemony and war destroying the federal Marxist socialist experiment, one realizes that this recent federalism and ideology was only an illusion of political unity built upon an historically inappropriate union of ethnic and religious identities following World War One. Ethnic hatred and irredentism created and manipulated by illegitimate and irresponsible political leadership and the rapidity of events leading to war came as a shock to me.
I had been disturbed by US news reports of right wing Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska NDH (Ustashi) nationalism in Croatia and particularly in Split.
It was not that I had not been told by my friends in Croatia what the ethnic strife might lead to. Early in my research in 1970 I was warned to keep my car filled with gasoline so that my family and I might escape to Austria or I was to make friends with a fisherman who might get us to Italy when the country erupted into civil war between Serb and Croat. In 1987, I was warned that Yugoslavia would become another "Beirut." I attributed the first observation to paranoia and the second to depression and personal career despair. I ignored these warnings. The larger Yugoslav questions dealing with ethnicity and conflict were elsewhere. This Adriatic coastal island community was entirely "Croatian." The ethnic, linguistic and cultural borrowing and integration is more Italian historically through the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church, and former Venetian commercial/political control, e.g., three prominent families received nobility titles from Venice in the 18th Century. One of these families having Italian origin prevented the community from being burned during Italian military occupation in World War Two.
In 1970, there was only three Serbian Orthodox burials in the village cemetery. However, Serbian tourists were tolerated and nearly half of the summer homes had been constructed by Serbs and other ethnic people from Yugoslavia. This was an important economic input in that they used village building contractors. But there were symbolic ethnic separations, e.g., in 1970 a retired Belgrade policeman operated a tavern (kafana) which the Serbian summer home owners and tourists patronized to the exclusion of the community tavern in the hotel. Negative comments were made about Serbian military officers on vacation-comments with which I would now agree. Today, there are a couple of Croat/Serb mixed marriages that I know of. Except during the summer tourist season, this simply is not a community with marked Croat/Serb ethnicity. In fact, with the ethnic summer mix I felt that this tourist community represented the post World War Two Yugoslavia which accommodated ethnic differences into the pan-Yugoslav economic/political experiment
(Hockenos, 1991). In the summer of 1991, I visited friends in a Croatian village to discuss with them the newly emerging Croatian nationalism, the ethnic conflict in that nationalism, and statements rejecting communism. Croatians had just voted on a referendum for independence and would declare that independence on June 25, 1991.
In these discussions I found that there was an accommodation with the recent Marxist ideological past. This essay will focus on my observation that former communist ideologues, officials and party members in the community seem to be "forgiven," that there is little disruption in community social and political processes, that privatization of socialist public enterprises will have little or no economic consequences, and that friends in the community talked hopefully about the possibility for some sort of confederation and ethnic accommodation replacing the former Yugoslav federation.
The possibility for accommodation, forgiveness and reconciliation with an ideological past has its origins in the moderation and flexible dynamics of decentralization in the former Yugoslav Marxist experiment which allowed an active praxis interaction of durable family and community values with that larger societal Marxist ideological experiment. In this praxis, the resulting articulations of contradictory relations of production were mediated in a viable and durable community social space which produced a participatory assuredness allowing accommodation today rather than vindictiveness in new economic relations.
In their hope for confederation, there seemed to be a hope for accommodation of the ethnic problems and differences. However, a year and a half later, this hope for ethnic accommodation and reconciliation has been shattered by the horror of Serbian military hegemony, ethnic cleansing including evacuation of whole communities, concentration camps, and massacres of civilians. With the ethnic question seemingly irreconcilable, I will focus my analysis on what appears to be the more rational part of the changes taking place - the changes in ideology.
In what is now in the past tense, the reason why I had been doing research in this community for over 20 years was that Yugoslavia was the experiment in Marxism which seemed to incorporate into it participatory decision making through political decentralization to the community and workplace. In 1970, I ethnographically described a community which was changing from traditional agriculture and fishing to a complex socialist/private economy within legislative allowances for private business in commercial tourism and agriculture (Bennett, 1974).
I observed considerable political pluralism and praxis as individuals from both private businesses and public enterprises interacted in community associations, government, and political decision making. I observed a great deal of "old praxis" for the reproduction of community and private business enterprise in contradiction to the "new praxis" for socialist enterprise in hotel development and a local plastics factory. Individuals played active roles in both modes or relations of production and it was (past tense to present events rejecting Marxism) a question as to which relation of production, private or public, would be the dominant mode in the developing tourism and industry. I attempted to analytically apply to a community social space Bourdieu's concept of habitus (durable dispositions and cultural capital) and reproduction of power in class society.
I shifted from Bourdieu's focus on reproduction of power in class society to a focus on community reproduction and reproduction of durable dispositions for business acumen in the private tourist and agricultural businesses and how these existed alongside socialist public enterprise. I extended the analysis in an attempt to answer the question: Can a socialism with the face of civil society which incorporates both market competitive self-managed enterprises based on social ownership and enterprises based upon private ownership become a realistic social formation in some sort of equilibrium? My conclusion was that this was possible. But, it was a problematic within an assumption of continuing federalism (Bennett, 1989).
However, out of both of these analyses there is a basic proposition of cultural capital and praxis which allows one to understand why today there is accommodation with the recent Marxist past in the community and why communist community members are now forgiven. The origins of this accommodation lie in a continuity of commercial history (habitus) and an allowance in the Marxist experiment for actualized participation or praxis in community economic, political and social affairs.
The island and coastal area had deep historical origins into Illyrium, the Greek and Roman empires, and finally, Venetian/Austro- Hungarian commercial capitalism. This historical position within the cultural crossroads of the Adriatic, the urbanization processes in the Roman empire coastal cities and villages, and the commercialism in the Venetian state produced cultural commercial capital in families and individuals.
The community and its people exemplified the influence of Venetian commercialism in Central Dalmatia. Alberto Fortis, in Travels into Dalmatia, 1778, noted the commerce on the island of Brac: "Bol is no inconsiderable town, and S. Giovanni [Sutivan], S. Pietro and Pucischie are large villages full of industrious and trading people" (Fortis 1971:341, quoted in Bennett, 1979:183). Vera St. Erlich also noted these commercial attitudes in Dalmatia in contrast to the traditional Slavic self-sufficient subsistence oriented household (zadruga) elsewhere in Yugoslavia (Bennett:183-84).
Therefore, the community has "always" had maritime commerce, commercial fishing, viticulture and olive oil production. Though this viticulture commerce was devastated by grape phylloxera in the early 20th century with resultant massive migration abroad, I did find a smaller commercially viable community in the 1970's with an economic mix of viticulture, olive oil production and fishing households shifting to new business opportunities.
Reproduction of community as social space for habitus or durable dispositions for commerce came about through participatory community decision making and the structural mechanisms for that participation. Traditionally, the associational mechanism for marketing agricultural production was the Poljopriveda Zadruga (Agriculturalist's Association). This association, with its origins in traditional Slavic family structure (zadruga), had become a community cooperative and therefore a structural mechanism by which individual household viticulture and olive oil production became participatory in a community sense.
This was also the situation with the Tourist Society in that it provided a structural mechanism to coordinate the family tourist and restaurant businesses in the community. Individuals who had access to foreign earning remittances through employment abroad or as seamen were those who could develop private tourist businesses and through these businesses project themselves into community political and economic leadership. The former director of the Tourist Society and mayor was a successful agriculturalist and private tourist businessman. His role as director and mayor exemplified mediation between the two contradictory dispositions in the community. Another individual whom I consider the most successful restaurant and tourist businessman (rumored to be a millionaire) was always a political player behind the scenes.
Participation in community affairs, and more directly community as social space for political decision making, came through the local community association, mjesna zajednica. An "event analysis" describing the implementation of zoning law regulations in 1970-71 revealed the structure of decision making from the federal to local community levels. The Croatian Republic master plan attempted to preserve the historical cultural monuments and architectural features in Central Dalmatian communities. Within these broad Republic guidelines, urban and village plans could be initiated by commune assemblies and within these initiations local community associations could approve or reject detailed zoning law applications and building permits. There were several examples of participatory community autonomy in the mjesna zajednica decisions about zoning laws.
In 1987, I observed that these larger hotel complexes would appeal to organized foreign tour groups booking vacations through public enterprise tourist companies, e.g., Kompas of Ljubljana. However, private business tourist homes and restaurants preserving the quality and quaintness of the historically interesting old village was an essential mix with the modern hotels. Tourists came to these villages for this history as well as the comforts of modernity in the new hotels. The villages are extensions of the more popular historical cities such as Dubrovnik.
What I was observing and describing for "communist" Yugoslavia was a community with pluralistic (private and public enterprise businessmen) leadership in community affairs. This community participation through associations revealed a strong actualization of identity with both a past and present community. The problematic became: What did participation in traditional community identities mean in terms of the larger Marxist experiment and reproduction of that experiment? How might the differing relations of production be generated, reproduced, and articulated together in families and community associations even though there might be contradictory values and objectives between the local community and the federal ideology? And, in these answers is there an explanation for the forgiving of former communists?
The community was a social space for civil society which was opposed to the larger federal political society. The village was a culturally constituted social space with durable family private relations of production (habitus and cultural capital) which was in contradiction, in a dialectic, to these larger societal political forces. The village was a social space where through enculturation and interaction with family and friends, an individual found the support and relationships, the praxis, for traditional economic opportunities, e.g., the networks with community members for employment abroad as seamen.
Federal legislation in the 1950's allowing foreign work visas and capital remittances, as well as federal legislation permitting private construction companies, tourist homes and restaurants would create and allow private businesses and the development of civil space for contradiction to the Marxist ideology. The first man to respond to this opportunity to go to sea used his foreign earning remittances to develop his own shipping business. Two of his cousins went to work for the same Swedish company, one of which capitalized his earnings into a successful tourist business and today is responding to new opportunities in agriculture, growing citrus.
One event which set this community apart from others on the island occurred when a villager became a sea captain and crew agent for an international shipping company. He hired many of his crew members in the village. Through conversations in the community space around the quay or in the kafana (tavern), the durable dispositions found in orientations towards the sea, friendships, and kin networks were quickly actualized into foreign earnings which were capitalized into private tourist businesses. Through this crew agent and sea captain this community had more private tourist businesses than any other on the island. These private business developments in the community came from durable family dispositions or cultural capital inculcating business orientations and networks which went back generations into the maritime and viticultural commercial world with its Venetian origins.
Other individuals went to Australia, e.g., 4 of 7 brothers (and eventually a brother-in-law), to earn capital for very successful restaurant and tourist home businesses. These kin networks were further utilized to become private relations of production where kin were employees and partners to abide by federal legislation in the 1960's and 70's which prevented more than three employees in private businesses. Thus, the problems of employee alienation in private productive processes were circumvented and the private business contradiction to Marxist principles mediated.
When I use the term, relations of production, it means not only employer/employee relationships and ownership of capital, but also cultural capital - one with orientation towards business and community in the old praxis and the other towards the new praxis and leadership in the Marxist experiment.
In the community, the public enterprise hotel remained relatively unsuccessful until recently when the commune government contracted with a successful Slovenian public enterprise tourist company to manage the hotel. They brought in their own employees during the summer tourist season as well as hiring some local seasonal employees. Increasingly, the smaller private tourist homes have been contracting their rooms through the hotel. However, several successful private restaurants had increased in size and there are several additional buffets.
The interesting business development in the community for trying to understand relations of production and contradiction is the plastics factory. The Poljopriveda Zadruga or agriculturalist's association (which is the marketing association for private wine and olive production) was also the association which "owns" the public enterprise plastics factory. Within this cooperative is the setting for articulation of the two contradictory relations of production as well as it being the setting for mediation of those contradictions. Individuals are marketing their wine through PZ while at the same time working for it in the public enterprise plastics factory. PZ also owns the olive oil press which the agriculturalists use for pressing their oil.
The director of the plastics factory also was an important player in the mediation of dispositions. I referred to him as a socialist entrepreneur for his ability to manipulate financial resources of commune government guaranteed bank loans through his position as the elected vice-president of the commune government. He also manipulated personal relationships to obtain the production contracts for the plastics factory. It was recognized that no one else had the abilities to bring about the development of this positive economic input into what had been an economically depressed community. In community affairs there was a deference to him, what I called an aspect of role because of this recognition of his achievement. More importantly, it was revealed to me by a friend this past summer that Rade (the director) had told my friend years ago, before he died, "that he had been a communist only because he had to be."
As well as being the director of the socialist public enterprise plastics factory through his directorship of PZ, Rade had also obtained for PZ the olive oil press as a free demonstration machine from an Italian manufacturer. Thus, in PZ he played a dual role of articulating together and therefore mediating the contradictory socialist relations of production of the plastics factory with the private relations in agriculture.
The public enterprise hotel was also the setting for articulation of contradictions. There was one individual who owned his own small restaurant while working for the hotel. Others who worked for the hotel also had their own agricultural production. Thus, within families the contradictions were mediated with family members working in both relations of production.
With mediation at family, business, and associational levels there was already built into community relational systems an opportunity for moderation when privatization takes place. Hidden in the community relationships were the contradictions and mediations between two very differing relations of production, two very different externalizations of internality; the private relations of production which were the traditional and basic community habitus and the public relations of production which had become the new habitus of the federal political/economic experiment. The community, then, became the setting, the social space for the interplay, articulation, and mediation of these contradictions.
But the sense of community as contradictive social space to the larger federal processes was larger than this reduction to different relations of production in contradiction. The community was the social space for many durable dispositions beyond the family, family business enterprises and public enterprise. It was a social space for dispositions such as religious beliefs and active church sacraments and interactive mechanisms within the community such as soccer games, bowling and evening promenades. The community was also a sense of place that sailors returned to and that individuals and families returned to on vacation from urban careers. The community was a habitus, a place of durability and praxis that existed beyond the legislative fiats and political appointments in the new economic experiment. It was in the durable dispositions in community social space that I found a larger dialectic of civil society in contradiction to political society.
This dialectic was emphasized in the role of the church in the community. My observations of funerals during my original fieldwork revealed an event which was not only what I referred to as a community identity mechanism whereby tradition held that every household should send a member to participate in the funeral processional, it was also an event with symbolic value by which the individuals identified with the church. The deceased were given Catholic Mass even though some had been prominent communists. Today, using Bourdieu's ideas of habitus and individuals' praxis flexibility to their durable dispositions, I can now note that even 20 years ago, the community had been able to maintain its Catholic institution with its inculcating dispositions dialectically contradicting and, yet, interacting with the new ideological dispositions. Even prominent actors in the new disposition had the praxis flexibility to participate in both dispositions. Back then, the durability of the community religious institutions seemed to be dominant in the contradiction and dialectic as I observed the Catholic Mass for one of the prominent organizers of the communist party.
This religious habitus was actualized ever more strongly this past summer in community identity with Croatian nationalism and independence. The mjesna zajednica met to approve the renovations of the Baroque church steeple. Through participation in the mjesna zajednica meeting, which was no longer chaired by the communist league leadership in the community, community members approved and identified with a project which preserves symbolically the historical role of the church and religion in the community. The Croatian government was to underwrite half the renovation cost, thus reconfirming the identity of Croatian nationalism with Roman Catholicism.
Within Bourdieu's concept of modus operandi, I found that the generation of practices, the external situation of private/public businesses, community associations, etc., were internalized through praxis by individuals in different ways depending upon their individual dispositions. Some became prominent socialist entrepreneurs, e.g., the director of the local plastics factory, and others became successful private businessmen. These contradictory internalizations being integrated in the community social spaces of family, associations, church sacraments, etc., through praxis and a very active dialectic between the more traditional community habitus and the imposed federal ideological habitus explains the moderation taking place today and the forgiving of former communists in the community.
This generation of contradictory dispositions and dynamic dialectical praxis explaining moderation towards former communists also addresses the question of privatization. Because the community commercial maritime and agricultural habitus remained viable with changes to private commercial tourism under the legislative allowances, I do not anticipate dramatic economic and political changes in the community. With Croatian independence and anticipated privatization, the socialist public enterprise hotel will probably be privatized. The former owner, a prominent communist and officer in the World War Two Partisan army, gave the hotel to the commune government. This "gift" was given immediately before the new communist government nationalized these types of private properties. It was stated that if this man had known that they were going to forcibly nationalize the hotel, he would not have given it to the commune. Therefore, I do not know what his heirs' position might be on privatization of this property. From the history I've just described, there are individuals in the community with the business ability and capital who can purchase the hotel as an expansion of their tourist home/restaurant businesses.
I anticipate that the plastics factory will remain similar to what it already is - a cooperative. But, it can become a cooperative with member and employee stock ownership. If there is an offer of stock ownership, the offer of stock will have to take into consideration former employees, retired employees, and heirs. These people made considerable sacrifices in low wages for the capitalization of the factory and will have ownership rights. Thus, the economic processes in the community will not be disrupted with privatization.
Because there had been an active dialectic inclusion of the modus operandi or generation of commercial and community practices in the recent Marxist experiment, the praxes and durable dispositions for reproducing community as social space remain. And, in this community social space there is the possibility for reconciliation with the ideological past and the moderation towards former communists that I observed and was told about in May/June 1991.
In a community that was known as "Little Moscow" in the 1930's and 1940's with the corresponding political actors, I found in the 1970's the same political actors having Catholic funeral Masses in a community that had grown to accommodate contradiction. This accommodation and reconciliation continued into 1991 when I observed that people were "forgiving" those who had been prominent communists in the community because they had been such only because "they had to be."
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Posted:12/24/96
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