Making and Breaking the Yugoslav Working Class

Goran Music is a research fellow at the Research Platform for the Study of Transformations and Eastern Europe, University of Vienna.

• Figures and TablesAbbreviationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionUnfulfilled ExpectationsMighty Elites and Subservient Workers(Re)Discovering LaborApproaching Class and Nation in a Yugoslav FactorySources and Chapter OverviewChapter 1. Two Roads to Self-managing SocialismTwo Blue-Collar CommunitiesDiffering Origins“Factories to the Workers”Market SocialismLosing Factory UnityChapter 2. Factory Structures and Everyday Life under Associated LaborReviving Revolution through Normative ActsThe More Things ChangeClaiming TitoThe Factory as a CollectiveChapter 3. Shades of Blue-collar WorkersProletariat in the MakingWho Creates Value?Skill, Gender, and Place of OriginVeterans and the YouthAppendix 1Chapter 4. The Dragging Crisis, 1979–1986The Sudden BreakdownThe Party at an ImpasseTAM’s Pushback of Associated LaborIMR Tries to Catch UpChapter 5. Breaking the Pact: Workers, Liberals, and Nationalists against the Status QuoCutting out the MiddlemenThe Stolen Golden ApplesThe Diligent OnesAppendix 2Chapter 6. Mobilizations at the Bottom—Realignments at the Top, 1986–1988Reaching Beyond the Factory GatesA “Firm Hand” Inside SerbiaBypassing the Working Class in SloveniaBeggar Thy NeighborChapter 7. Workers in the StreetsTwo Outlets in RakovicaDeus Ex MachinaMaribor’s Blue-Collar WrathPost FestumConclusionThe Unsettled Working ClassLiberal and Collectivist Self-ManagementIn Search of Allies and EnemiesUnanticipated ChangesBibliographyIndex

"As Musić describes, workers act through the shifting alliances between factory management, the party apex, and their own occupational communities—which are themselves segmented according to age, skill, gender, and origin. The result is a dense and lucid analysis that pays equal attention to the institutional changes, class relations, and the shifting common sense that framed Yugoslavia’s labor politics from 1945 until 1990. Musić’s book is one of the most important recent contributions to the study of the political and moral economy of socialist Yugoslavia. It will shape discussions on class agency, hegemonic liberalism, and distributional conflicts in Southeastern Europe and beyond for years to come."https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/soeu-2021-0084/html