Splendour, misery, and possibilities : a x-ray of socialist Yugoslavia / by Darko Suvin ; with a foreword by Fredric Jameson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Suvin, Darko, 1930- author.

Contributor:

Jameson, Fredric, writer of foreword.

Series:

Historical materialism book series ; Volume 117.

Historical Materialism Book Series, 1570-1522 ; Volume 117

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Communism--Yugoslavia--History--20th century.

Communism.

Yugoslavia--Politics and government--1945-1980.

Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia--Politics and government--1980-1992.

Yugoslavia--History--1945-1980.

Yugoslavia--History--1980-1992.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (450 p.)

Place of Publication:

Leiden, Netherlands ; Boston, [Massachusetts] : Brill, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Suvin’s ‘X-Ray’ of Socialist Yugoslavia offers an indispensable overview of a unique and often overlooked twentieth-century socialism. It shows that the plebeian surge of revolutionary self-determination was halted in SFR Yugoslavia by 1965; that between 1965– 72 there was a confused and hidden but still open-ended clash; and that by 1972 the oligarchy in power was closed and static, leading to failure. The underlying reasons of this failure are analysed in a melding of semiotics and political history, which points beyond Yugoslavia – including its achievements and degeneration – to show how political and economic democracy fail when pursued in isolation. The emphasis on socialist Yugoslavia is at various points embedded into a wider historical and theoretical frame, including Left debates about the party, sociological debates about classes, and Marx’s great foray against a religious State doctrine in The Jewish Question .

Contents:

Front Matter

Introduction: Pro Domo Sua

Radical Emancipation and Yugoslavia: On the Founding Singularities of SFRY

Accumulation and Its Discontents

On Class Relationships in Yugoslavia

On a Hidden Ruling Class and Central Conflict

What Has Been and What Could Have Been

15 Theses about Communism and Yugoslavia, or the Two-Headed Janus of Emancipation through the State (Metamorphoses and Anamorphoses of ‘On the Jewish Question’ by Marx)

The Communist Party of Yugoslavia

Anatomy: Macro-Political Economics, or the View from Above

Anatomy: Micro-Political Economics, or the View from the Workers

Physiology: The Interests and Stakes behind the Macro-Events

On the Politics of Disalienation, Inside and Outside Economic Production

In Production: Rise and Fall of Self-Management

In Civic Life: Dis/Alienation and Oligarchy Monolithism

Conclusion: On Failures and Potentialities

Bureaucracy: A Term and Concept in the Socialist Discourse about State Power (Upstream of Yugoslavia)

The Discourse about Bureaucracy and State Power in Post-Revolutionary Yugoslavia 1945–72

References

Index of Proper Names of Historical Persons.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

90-04-32521-2

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004325210 DOI