ABSTRACT
During the inter-war years the class differentiation whose beginning has been discussed in the previous section developed fairly rapidly, partly as a consequence of the creation of the new state. The former upper classes virtually disappeared after 1919, since they had been associated closely with the non-Slav ruling powers, Turkish in the east and in Bosnia, Austro-Hungarian in the western part of the country. Those who did not actually leave the country lost all political power and a great part of their former wealth as a result of the Agrarian Reform. This social vacuum came to be filled by groups which had already become differentiated from the peasant masses at an earlier date and by others which were in the process of becoming so.
