Rukovođenje i komandovanje Oružanim snagama SFRJ: Vrhovna razina
THE LEADERSHIP AND COMMAND OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE SOCIALIST FEDERATIVE REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA: SUPREME LEVEL

Summary/Abstract: For the command of the Yugoslavian armed forces from the 1960s onward, the concept of leadership and command is used. Command is a well-established concept, while leadership presupposes the existence of a collective body which makes political decisions that are carried out by command structures. Since Yugoslavia was neither a democratic state nor one that respected the rule of law, the leadership and command structure was established to organize and preserve communist hegemony in the state. Secondly, since Josip Broz Tito was the leader of Yugoslavia from 1945 until 1980, this created a peculiarly Yugoslavian distinction in that the leadership and command of the armed forces was in his hands, and no one else could interfere in this direct relationship. This meant that after his death the Yugoslavian Army could become politically independent, while the Presidium of Yugoslavia remained only formally the constitutionally established body with responsibility for the leadership and command of the Yugoslav armed forces. In the 1980s the Yugoslavian Army succeeded in forming a Supreme Command in which the post of Chief of Staff was filled by the federal secretary for national defense. On the basis of later developments it can be concluded that the purpose of the Supreme Command was to shift the power of command from the Presidium of Yugoslavia to the federal secretary of national defense on the principle that in the absence or impediment Presidium, the secretary of national defense would be able to carry out command. This is the manner by which the units functioned, from the regimental level upward to the military districts. In the last phase of the Yugoslav crisis and following the division of the Presidium into two parts which could no longer function as a whole, the Yugoslav Army through the Supreme Command began to act independently. Until October 1991, the secretary of national defense was the real, if unlawful, supreme commander of the Yugoslavian Army. At the beginning of October, when the remaining members of the Presidium of Yugoslavia consisted only of Serbia with its regions and Montenegro, the Presidium began to function again, though the other republics and the international community did not recognize its legitimacy. From then onward the Yugoslav Army became de facto the armed force of Serbia and the Serbs in the remainder of Yugoslavia, which in May 1992 it became de jure.

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