ABSTRACT
Sequential secessions and attempts at secession from the USSR and SFRY were also major causal factors in the dissolution of these two federal states. Sequential secessions had already contributed to the dissolution of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I. Article 72 of the USSR Constitution granted each union republic the right to freely secede' from the federation. The USSR proceeded to establish military bases in all three, and with the help of its military and Communist party officials, pro-Soviet left-wing governments were brought to power. In the industrial and mining regions of the USSR, including Russia, large numbers of workers and miners were engaged in protest against the rapid decline of living standards and unpaid or inadequate wages. In 1948, under the Communist leader Josip Broz 'Tito', Yugoslavia was expelled by the USSR from the Communist bloc and subsequently developed a less centralized and less coercive form of mono-party system, called 'socialist self-management'.
