Milosevic

by Adam LeBor

  Milosevic did not like long speeches because he did not have much to say. He met the demands of Yugoslavia’s political system, paying due homage to Titoism when necessary. Otherwise he shut up. He knew that the Yugoslav public was weary of having to endure long political tirades. Unlike most Communist leaders Milosevic has never felt the need to explain his political philosophy, to be published in rows of eternally unread volumes, or to share his thoughts with the world at large. He has published one book of collected speeches, which tends towards the emptily epigrammatic – statements such as: ‘The difficulties are neither unexpected nor insurmountable’, or: ‘The future will still be beautiful and it is not far away’.11 He used orthodox Communist language, but was not prolix. Words became empty rhetorical devices, and sentences were full of terms such as ‘future’, ‘triumph’ and ‘inevitable’.

  Milosevic’s relationship with Communism is complex. There is a need to distinguish between the utopian ideals of Communism and the more mundane political methodology that was actually used to govern Communist countries. Unlike his partisan predecessors such as Draza Markovic, Milosevic was not an idealistic believer in class struggle, who wanted to build the workers’ paradise and destroy capitalism. In this he was hardly alone. By the mid-1980s the Communist system was so atrophied, and riddled with cynicism and corruption, that even the least prescient comrade could see that Marxism’s prognosis was poor, not just in Yugoslavia but across the world. The Communist system had degenerated into a system of interest protection. These were primarily the personal interests of those who enriched themselves by corruption and stealing, and the political interests of those who exercised power through the one-party state. The two groups overlapped considerably. More far-sighted officials realised that once Communism collapsed, it would be replaced by the free market.

  Yet Milosevic was undoubtedly influenced by some aspects of Marxism, particularly its deterministic philosophy and authoritarian methodology. ‘Little Lenin’, as Milosevic became known while running the Belgrade party, had grown up under Communism, and was known for his orthodoxy. The works of Marx and Lenin decreed that history moved inexorably according to the laws of class struggle, that the victory of the proletariat was inevitable, and the triumph of Communism was preordained. The Communist system of government worked on a command and control theory. Instructions were issued, and were then carried out. Both found a ready echo in Milosevic’s authoritarian psyche. Even at party committee meetings Milosevic stated his points as though they were self-evident, and once he had finished talking, he left. Like Marxism, Milosevicism – the pursuit and maintenance of power – was based on a sense of an inevitable victory, whether of the working class, or a provincial Communist official from Pozarevac. ‘Power was his only ideology and he didn’t care about anything else. But Milosevic grew up under Communism, and if he had any ideology, it was Communism and socialism, and some of the values we produced in that society,’ said Seska Stanojlovic.12

  Dusan Mitevic saw things clearest. ‘At that time in Yugoslavia they said “After Tito, Tito”. I told Ivan Stambolic, you have to understand, there is no Tito after Tito. When somebody is dead, they are dead. The one who understands this will win and take power. This was a revolutionary thing to say after Tito died. Ivan Stambolic used this sentence. He did not really understand what it meant. But he told it to Milosevic. He did.’

  6

  All the President’s Men

  Wooing Two Constituencies

  1985–6

  When Milosevic was recruiting his own people, he behaved like someone seducing a girl. He had fantastic patience. He would listen to you like you were the only person in the world at that moment.

  Braca Grubacic, editor at a Yugoslav publishing house

  in the mid-1980s.1

  Mira was matchmaking. She was worried about her daughter Marija. It was August 1985 and Marija’s twentieth birthday was one month away. Marija already had one broken marriage behind her, and their mother-daughter relationship was bumpy. In the last few years Marija had been unhappy in Belgrade, as her parents’ increasing devotion to Milosevic’s career left her feeling neglected.

  Like many children of successful parents Marija and her eleven-year-old brother Marko lived in a trap of privilege. Milosevic’s salary as president of Beogradska Banka had ensured they never lacked for material goods. In fact, both were over-indulged, and relatives noticed the lack of firm parental guidance. Ljubica Markovic remonstrated with her half-sister Mira when the family gathered at the birthday party of their father Moma in 1980. ‘Marija was still a teenager then, and she was already completely spoilt. She had a lot of make-up on, and gold jewellery. She was impolite and did not even know the names of all the family members.’2

  But make-up and jewellery were not enough. To her parents’ anger, Marija married a Yugoslav diplomat and moved to Tokyo while still a teenager. The escape brought no relief. Left alone all day at home, with no friends, and little interest in Japan, she soon became bored there. The life of a diplomat’s wife held no appeal for an unhappy young woman. The marriage had ended and now she was back home.

  The man Mira had in mind for her daughter was Tahir Hasanovic, a physics student at Belgrade University. He was one of her favourites, bright, politically committed and a real Yugoslav. His family were not Serbs, but Turks, who had moved to Belgrade in the nineteenth century. Yugoslavia’s small Turkish Muslim minority was part of the ethnic mosaic that made the country such a cosmopolitan place. Hasanovic was a dynamic young student politician, tipped for great things once he graduated from university. Mira and Slobodan had already helped him set up a student organisation at university. They decided to make Hasanovic the guest of honour at Marija’s party, and he was flattered to accept.

  While the guests arrived, Hasanovic made small talk, and looked over the bookshelves. They were lined with rows of Serbo-Croat translations of the German philosophers, and Russian authors such as Dostoevsky whom Mira enjoyed so much. Milosevic himself was not that much of a reader. Mihailo Crnobrnja recalled how when he had recommended that Milosevic read the 1980s business best-seller In Pursuit of Excellence, he had asked for a five-page digest of the most important parts.

  Most of the guests at the party were politicians, friends and acquaintances of Slobodan and Mira. None of these were of much interest to Marija. But she was quickly attracted to the young man with such exotic, dark, good looks. Hasanovic too liked what he saw in the slim and vulnerable young woman with thick dark hair and large brown eyes. To Mira and Slobodan’s satisfaction, the two young people were soon going out together. ‘She did not have any friends at the time, because she had just come back from Japan,’ said Hasanovic. ‘We were together for a year. It was an extraordinary love, especially from Marija, but in the end it was not enough for her,’3 Hasanovic is now vice president of Serbia’s liberal New Democracy Party, but in the mid-1980s, when Milosevic was head of the Belgrade Communist Party, the older man was his political mentor and he became known as ‘Milosevic’s young lion’. By 1985, he was president of Belgrade Communist Party’s youth organisation. Hasanovic had initially been wary of becoming emotionally involved with a member of Milosevic’s family, fearing that Milosevic might damage his career if his relationship with Marija went wrong. But Hasanovic was always warmly welcomed at their home, where he saw a side of Milosevic revealed to few outside his immediate family.

  In these early years at least, Slobodan and Mira exhibited little appetite for luxury or conspicuous consumption. They spent their weekends quietly in Pozarevac. ‘They behaved like completely average people,’ said Dusan Mitevic.

  They would go on Friday evening, come back on Sunday afternoon, and have lunch with their friends. They had a completely normal relationship with their neighbours. Their neighbours used to give them a bowl of stuffed peppers. When I first knew them they did not even have guards at the house. They liked to sit in the garden. Later on, when Milosevic became more important, the police built a high wal
l around it, but he did not like that.4

  Milosevic’s tastes remained modest: a glass or two of whisky or his favourite drink, Viljamovka, the Serbian pear brandy, and a cigarillo. He showed no interest then in fashionable western clothes, luxurious cars or expensive jewellery, and he never has since.

  Like Mitevic, Hasanovic recalled an unassuming couple, who although ambitious, still remembered their roots in provincial Serbia. Milosevic later harnessed Serbian nationalism and xenophobia in his drive for power, but there was never a hint of prejudice in his attitude towards Hasanovic. In fact the two men became quite close. ‘Slobodan and Mira lived modestly at this time. I was lucky to be with them when they remembered how poor they had been, and how they first fell in love. They never cared that I am from a Turkish background. This was in the first phase of his career, before he became a god.’ Hasanovic also heard a surprising side of Milosevic, especially after he had downed a glass or two of Viljamovka ‘Slobo sang beautifully, Russian ballads, French chansons and old Serbian songs. There was a warm atmosphere at their home.’

  In 1987, Hasanovic was sent to do his military service. His relationship with Marija cooled down. Her letters became infrequent, and eventually her visits stopped altogether and the two ended their relationship. Hasanovic was nervous when he met Milosevic for the first time after the break-up, but his fears that Slobodan might damage his political career were groundless. ‘I asked him if he was angry with me, but he was a complete gentleman. He never mentioned it, and he continued to help me with my career at the youth organisation.’ The next year, with Milosevic’s support, Hasanovic was appointed the foreign secretary of the federal Yugoslav youth organisation, charged with overseeing official relations between young people from Yugoslavia and foreign countries.

  Outside the inner circle though, relations between Mira and her relatives were breaking down. Her father Moma Markovic and her brothers and sisters only saw Mira and Slobodan about once every six months or so, usually at Moma’s house. Ljubica did not look forward to the bi-annual meetings. Mira often appeared on the verge of hysteria, and she seemed to have developed a hygiene mania. ‘She told my father that she hates to shake hands with people because she has to clean her hands with alcohol afterwards.’

  The atmosphere was in any case strained, because Mira was devoted to her husband and his career, and could not stand to hear any kind of criticism. ‘It was a ritual, and very cold. I didn’t like going there, because I didn’t feel comfortable. My father and Mira were often quarrelling. Milosevic was making his political career and my father criticised him. Mira could not bear it, she was always on the edge of crying, and hysterical.’

  As Milosevic planned his advance through the party apparat, he understood that with Yugoslavia in a state of flux he could simultaneously appeal to two opposing interest groups within the party: the old guard around Petar Stambolic, and the reformers who wanted to topple the elderly Tito-era leaders. This he achieved by the simple device of speaking in different voices to different audiences. Zivorad Kovacevic, former mayor of Belgrade, recalled: ‘Some elderly leaders believed that Milosevic had something of Tito’s stature. I remember that one said to me that “Sloba is a real pearl of our party”. I said what are you talking about? He said, “He has something, he is a real Tito”.’5

  Milosevic’s admirer might have revised his opinion had he seen the memento of his Wall Street days on the table by his bed: a photograph of himself with the powerful American banker David Rockefeller. However, Mira, the great leftist, did not seem to mind her husband’s capitalist connections.

  The people who led the country at the time were mostly politicians who knew nothing about the economy. He was young and educated, he was seen as the ideal person to be involved in politics to bring modern economic development, to reinforce political life and have a certain influence in decision making. The political leaders of Serbia started to pressurise my husband to get involved in politics.6

  Whatever the degree of pressure was, Milosevic – and Mira – did not object.

  Milosevic’s wooing of two constituencies was skilful, but he was also aided by the fact that the time had not yet come to demand a clear choice between an authoritarian state and a multi-party system. It was then possible to ride two horses at once. Although Yugoslavia – and the Communist system across the region – was increasingly in political and economic crisis, few then predicted that it would collapse so rapidly and completely. To many it seemed feasible to modify the political system enough to kick-start the economy, but still retain the supremacy of the party. And those who were beginning to understand that, ultimately, a multi-party system was inevitable, also looked to Milosevic.

  Young politicians such as Tahir Hasanovic believed that Milosevic would steer Yugoslavia in a modern direction.

  I was on the wing of the party which was aware of him as a reformer, and a man who will build capitalism. I strongly believed then that he knew what a market economy was, and he was ready to build it. When Milosevic was in New York, he really became a banker. He knew the value of money, how the market economy worked and what tools to use to improve Yugoslavia, and make it into a modern society.

  Diplomats too, shared this view. Thanks to his years at UBB, and his time in America, Milosevic was able to power-schmooze diplomats into thinking he was a reformer. He understood the language of capitalism, and presented himself as a moderniser when speaking to westerners. The Stalinist language Milosevic spoke at central committee meetings was not heard at US embassy receptions, where he was a popular guest at the 4 July Independence Day party in 1986, with a glass of whisky in hand. Quite the opposite. ‘Milosevic was seen as a reform Communist, perhaps even a potential Balkan Gorbachev,’ said Janet Garvey, who started work at the US embassy in Belgrade in 1983.7

  During the mid-1980s there was still considerable international goodwill towards the maverick Communist state. Yugoslavia already had one foot in the West, many diplomats believed. With enough help, and encouragement it could evolve into a Balkan success story. Milosevic, many thought, could be the man to turn Yugoslavia into a modern democracy. ‘At this time Belgrade was one of the liveliest cities in Europe. As long as you didn’t criticise Tito you could do anything. Yugoslavia was seen as being so far ahead of everywhere else in eastern Europe, and they were seen as the good guys in the Communist world. The optimistic scenario was that Yugoslavia could be in the EU by the early 1990s,’ said Garvey.

  Meanwhile, Mira Markovic was building her network at Belgrade University. In 1984, the same year that Milosevic took over the Belgrade party, Markovic joined the leadership of the university Communist Party. Markovic was not highly regarded among the more forward-looking professors, who were in touch with developments in western intellectual thought. She was viewed as dogmatic and narrow-minded, capable only of parroting received Communist wisdom. Mihailo Crnobrnja, who was also a professor at Belgrade University, recalled: ‘She is a figure who has a very high opinion of herself and she is not deserving of that opinion at all. She does not have one likeable characteristic. She is not charming, she is not intellectual and she is not pretty. Her literary achievements are next to nothing. She is a miserable intellectual of poor quality.’8 Tahir Hasanovic was equally disappointed with her. ‘I often tried to start discussions with her, but she was not in touch with modern issues. I asked her about Karl Popper and I tried to learn about political science, but she was never ready to discuss these things.’

  Although she was highly strung and prone to crying fits, Mira was not unpopular with students, as she was known as an easy grader. And she had plenty of allies in the corridors of academia. For lazy academics there were few places where it was easier to coast along for years without much work than at a university in a Communist country. The ideological demands of the curriculum, the necessity to conform to Marxist theory, acted as a positive disincentive to think in challenging or radical new ways. Plenty of Mira’s colleagues felt threatened by reformist ideas and were ready for
the ‘return to Marxism’ that Milosevic proclaimed at Belgrade party meetings. The steady advance of her husband also strengthened Mira’s influence.

  In July 1985, Milosevic and Markovic chose the first testing-ground for their power and perspective. The issue was the apparently minor question of classes in compulsory Marxist education at Belgrade University. Marxist education quickly became a totem for both sides. Liberals – backed by some allies of Ivan Stambolic – wanted the classes ended. Hardliners, led by Milosevic and Markovic, demanded their retention. Milosevic and his wife won. The classes stayed.

  The wooing by Milosevic and Mira of Belgrade’s political elite did not go unnoticed, especially by those who knew Milosevic from old, such as Seska Stanojlovic. ‘By that time, in the mid-1980s, it was clear to me that Slobo and Mira were building their parallel organisation. They really went to work on that. I was getting information about this, and I believed it.’9 Stanojlovic decided not to go to Ivan Stambolic, because she doubted he would listen. Instead she visited Dragisa Pavlovic, a member of Serbia’s political leadership who was also a close associate of Ivan Stambolic. ‘I was going back to work for my newspaper, so I went to see Pavlovic as it was the end of our time of working together.’ Stanojlovic warned Pavlovic that Milosevic was planning something. Pavlovic did not take heed. ‘He told me that if he was in the forest with the partisans, Slobo would protect his back. That meant Pavlovic thought he could absolutely trust Slobo, that he was the most reliable person.’

  At this point Milosevic was careful not to unleash nationalist passions. He knew that to maintain the support of party conservatives, and the army generals, he must still pay homage to Titoism. So when a publisher in Belgrade planned to publish the works of Slobodan Jovanovic, a writer whom Titoist orthodoxy branded a nationalist renegade, Milosevic denounced him as a ‘war criminal’. There would be no new edition of Jovanovic’s books, he proclaimed, and anyone who wanted a copy would have to hunt through the second-hand shops. Like a Titoist Torquemada, Milosevic also invited those who had authorised a new edition of Jovanovic’s work to justify themselves. Such language and repressive tactics only boosted Milosevic’s support among the conservatives.