ABSTRACT
When the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) took powers after the Second World War, it had a vision for a new and better society-a society in which all humans would live together in peace and prosperity and in which their mutual exploitation would be eliminated. League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) considers both the intentions and accomplishments of the party's persuasive strategies and shows the evolution of their content and form during the first nine years of Communist rule. Cold war-era historiography of Communists regimes has tended to perceive them as monolithic behemoths that persistently imposed their policies on helpless and passive subjects. Yet even while adhering to their strategy, CPY policies and rhetoric were necessarily limited by existing conditions, institutions, and social relations in postwar Yugoslavia as well as by the international constellation of power. The party's uses of coercion clearly affected the nature and impact of its persuasive policies as well as the character of state-society relations.
