Uvođenje radničkih saveta u jugoslovenska preduzeća 1950. godine pokrenulo je proces značajne ekonomske transformacije, eksperimentisanja i sukobljavanja, koji je trajao koliko i sama Jugoslavija. Nominalno su glavni uzroci promena nakon 1950. ležali u smanjenoj ulozi države u ekonomskom razvoju, te u njenoj zameni asocijacijom slobodnih proizvođača. Jugoslavija je ubrzo postala poznata širom sveta po tvrdnji da gradi „treći put“ između tržišnog kapitalizma Zapada i birokratskog etatizma Istoka. U stvarnosti, zemlja je oscilirala između različitih nivoa oslanjanja na tržište odnosno na državnu intervenciju u privredi – delimično u zavisnosti od geopolitičkih i geoekonomskih pritisaka kojima je bila izložena, a delimično u zavisnosti od stepena unutrašnjeg konsenzusa oko različitih ekonomskih prioriteta.
U akademskoj zajednici već se dugo raspravlja o tome koliko je samoupravljanje bilo ključno za uspon i pad jugoslovenske privrede između 1950. i 1990. godine. Gledišta pojedinih istraživač(ic)a često oslikavaju koliku simpatiju oni gaje prema titoističkom projektu. Istorijski narativi i poreci sećanja takođe su često bili odraz vladajućih političkih paradigmi. Tako je u eri titoizma dominantni okvir tumačenja samoupravljanja naglašavao ulogu koju je političko rukovodstvo navodno igralo u davanju sve veće vlasti radnicima, pa samim tim i u otvaranju prostora za potpunije ostvarenje samoupravljanja u praksi. Nasuprot tome, posttitoistički narativi stavljali su akcenat na samoupravljanje kao prepreku potpunijem uvođenju tržišta i modernizaciji privrede. Uprkos tome što su arhivi bivše države u međuvremenu otvoreni, malo je istraživača i istaživačica koji su se posvetili tome da pruže dubinske uvide i analize stvarnog funkcionisanja sistema.
Dokumenti u ovom odeljku pružaju uvid u razvitak sistema radničkog samoupravljanja iz dvojake perspektive. Oni predstavljaju i pogled iz „ptičje perspektive“ na razvoj sistema, onako kako su na njega gledale više instance državnog aparata, ali i pogled „s terena“, onako kako su o njemu izveštavali sami radnički saveti. Odabrana građa obuhvata tri decenije i daje uvid u različite faze evolucije radničkog samoupravljanja – koje se do sredine šezdesetih sve više otvaralo i orijentisalo ka tržištu, da bi tokom sedamdesetih godina došlo do sve većeg otklona od tržišta i zatvaranja sistema. Svaka faza obeležena je bitnim protivrečnostima koje dovode u pitanje dominantne (titoističke i posttitoističke) interpretacije evolucije sistema. Arhivi savezne države stoga predstavljaju bogat izvor materijala za sve koji su zainteresovani za ekonomsku, društvenu i političku dinamiku radničkog samoupravljanja i koji žele da dođu do iznijansiranijih zaključaka o složenoj stvarnosti samoupravnog sistema.
The introduction of workers’ councils in Yugoslav enterprises in 1950 initiated a process of significant economic transformation, experimentation and contestation that lasted as long as Yugoslavia did. Nominally, the reduction of the role of the state in economic development, and its replacement by the association of free producers, were the main drivers of change after 1950. Yugoslavia soon became famous worldwide for its claim to be building a third way between the market capitalism of the West and the bureaucratic statism of the East. In reality, the country oscillated between different degrees of marketisation and state intervention, depending in part on the geopolitical and geoeconomic pressures it was under, and in part on the degree of domestic consensus around different economic priorities.
Scholars have long debated how central self-management was to the rise and fall of the Yugoslav economy from 1950 to 1990, their views often reflecting the degree of their sympathies towards the Titoist project. Similarly, historical narratives and memory regimes have tended to reflect ruling paradigms. In the Titoist era, the dominant interpretative framework emphasised the alleged role of the political leadership in seeking ways to empower workers and clear the way for the fuller implementation of self-management. By contrast, post-Titoist accounts have tended to present self-management as a block on the full implementation of the market and modernisation. Despite the opening of the archives, however, few scholars have attempted to provide in-depth accounts of the actual functioning of the system.
The documents in this section provide insight into the development of the system of workers’ self-management. They represent both a bird’s eye view of this development as seen by higher instances of the state apparatus, and the ground-level view as reported by the workers’ councils themselves. Spanning three decades, these documents offer insight into the different phases of the evolution of workers’ self-management, changing progressively to a highly open, marketised system by the mid-1960s, and then to a progressively less marketised and more closed one in the 1970s. Each phase contained significant contradictions that challenge the dominant Titoist and post-Titoist accounts of the system’s evolution. Thus the archives of the federal state represent a rich source of material for those with an interest in the economic, social and political dynamics of workers’ self-management, and who strive for a more nuanced conclusion about the complex realities of the system.
Bonfiglioli, Chiara. Women and industry in the Balkans: The rise and fall of the Yugoslav textile sector. IB Tauris/Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.
Calori, Anna. The Socialist Global Promise, Non-Alignment and Corporate Culture in a Bosnian Company. Indiana University Press, 2026.
Grdešić, Marko, and Mislav Žitko. Socialist Economics in Yugoslavia: A Critical History. Routledge, 2025.
Kukić, Leonard. “Origins of regional divergence: economic growth in socialist Yugoslavia.” The Economic History Review 73, no. 4 (2020): 1097–1127.
Normand, Brigitte Le. “Rijeka as a socialist port: Insights from Jugolinija’s early years, 1947–1960.” International journal of maritime history 33, no. 1 (2021): 193–208.
Musić, Goran. Making and breaking the Yugoslav working class: The story of two self-managed factories. CEU Press, 2021.
Troch, Pieter. “Tensions between plan and market in a political factory in socialist Kosovo.” Business History 65, no. 7 (2023): 1158–1176.
Unkovski-Korica, Vladimir. The economic struggle for power in Tito’s Yugoslavia: from World War II to non-alignment. IB Tauris/Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016.
Uvalic, Milica. “What happened to the Yugoslav economic model?.” The Legacy of Yugoslavia: Politics, Economics and Society in the Modern Balkans, 2020.
Vejzagić, Saša. “Persistent centralisation of decision-making in the age of industrial atomisation and self-management on the case of construction company Industrogradnja Zagreb (1966–1980).” Business History 65, no. 7 (2023): 1137–1157.
Woodward, Susan L. Socialist unemployment: the political economy of Yugoslavia, 1945–1990. Princeton University Press, 1995.