What’s left of the Left in Serbia following the restoration of capitalism?
What’s left of the Left in Serbia following the restoration of capitalism?

Author(s): Jovo Bakić
Subject(s): Politics, Political Philosophy, Politics and society, Sociology of Politics
Published by: Институт друштвених наука
Keywords: Left; radical democracy; socialist legacy; symbolic hegemony; world capitalist system
Summary/Abstract: The Left in Serbia shares the general weaknesses of the European Left, which has found itself in an unsteady position since 1989. However, there are certain specific features of the Serbian Left, related to both the Yugoslav socialist past and the 1990s legacy of the Milošević regime, that make its prospects even worse. Socialist Yugoslavia, which emerged from the self-styled ‘Socialist Revolution’ and was developed within the framework of self-management and non-aligned policies, has still retained some negative legacies from the standpoint of symbolically hegemonic Serbian conservative and liberal nationalism with which the Left in Serbia must cope today. Socialist Yugoslavia did leave behind some positive legacies, but, after 1989, these were cancelled out by the extremely negative legacy inherited by the Serbian Left from the Serbian president Slobodan Milošević and his wife Mirjana Marković. As the leaders of two parties, the Socialist Party of Serbia (Socijalistička partija Srbije, SPS), and the Yugoslav Left (Jugoslovenska levica, JUL) respectively, they incorporated values of nationalism and a form of specific political capitalism at the periphery of the world capitalist system. Today’s SPS collaborates with the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (Srpska napredna stranka, SNS) on nearly all neoliberal legislative initiatives and policies. Despite these numerous negative legacies and the peripheral position, a new young generation of radical democrats and leftists in Serbia, such as the Civil Front and the Radical Left Party (Partija radikalne levice), is now involved in various social and political initiatives and movements.

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