ABSTRACT
In order to understand later events, especially with regards to nationalism, it is important to describe the basis on which the state was built under the communists. With the importance of nationalist politics established in the 1990s, one has to have an especially careful view of the communist regime in Bosnia, with regards to its nationalities policy. The Yugoslav system was successful in mobilizing popular support and had certain unique features compared with other communist countries, in particular self-management and, later on, the freedom to travel. Nevertheless, it was still tightly controlled from above and much of what happened has to be explained in terms of elite behaviour. In particular, in Bosnia, communist rule mixed with a traditional social structure, where clientelism, cronyism, patronage and kinship networks were widely prevalent. While the Yugoslav federation was becoming ever more decentralized, the elite were much more focused on the leadership of the republics. Each republic became a virtually autonomous, separate communist model, which some authors have described as ‘decentralized totalitarianism’.1
