130 Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino LVIII – 3/2018
*  Research Fellow, PhD, Institute for Historical Studies, ZRS Koper, Garibaldijeva Street 1, SI–6000 Koper, 
Slovenia; jure.ramsak@zrs-kp.si
1.01 uDC : 323.2(497.4)»1945/1991»
Jure Ramšak*
The Contours of Social Criticism 
in Late-Socialist Slovenia
IZVlEčEk
GAbARITI DRuŽbENE KRITIKE V POZNOSOCIAlISTIČNI SlOVENIJI
Tako kot na mnogih področjih družbenega življenja je samoupravni socializem tudi 
pri upravljanju družbene polemike oz. javnega življenja nasploh izkazoval dvoumnost 
in nejasnost, ki je bila vzrok mnogim posebnostim tega fenomena v Jugoslaviji. V ozadju 
Kardeljevega recepta za »družbeno odgovorno kritiko« je bilo leninistično razumevanje 
demokracije v socializmu, hkrati pa je bil jugoslovanski in slovenski prostor tudi pod vpli-
vom zahodnih liberalnih konceptov. Upoštevajoč politični in ideološki kontekst poznega 
socializma, prispevek obravnava sistemski način soočanja z družbeno kritiko od konca šest-
desetih do sredine osemdesetih let in ugotavlja, kakšen pomen je imelo to stanje za kasnejši 
razvoj demokratizacije. Preden so se v drugi polovici osemdesetih let zgodili veliki družbeni 
premiki, se je »pluralizem samoupravnih interesov« lahko v praksi artikuliral predvsem 
na način, da ni bil v kompeticiji s partijskim monopolom. V kolikor pa je do tega prišlo, 
je vodilna politična garnitura obračun najraje zaupala svojim »pooblaščencem«, sama 
pa zavzela arbitrarna stališča, prek katerih lahko prepoznamo nekaj ključnih značilnosti 
poznosocialističnega režima v Sloveniji.
Ključne besede: samoupravni socializem, družbena kritika, intelektualci, Zveza komu-
nistov Slovenije, Edvard Kardelj
131Jure Ramšak: The Contours of Social Criticism in Late-Socialist Slovenia
AbsTrACT
Self-management socialism displayed ambiguities and vagueness in handling social 
controversy and public life in general, giving rise to numerous peculiarities particular to this 
social phenomenon in Yugoslavia. While a Leninist interpretation of democracy in socialism 
constituted the background of Edvard Kardelj’s recipe for “socially responsible criticism,” 
Yugoslavia and Slovenia were at the same time under the influence of western liberal con-
cepts. Considering the political and ideological contexts of late socialism, the article discusses 
the systemic way of dealing with social criticism between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s, 
while trying to determine the impact of these circumstances on the subsequent evolvement 
of democratisation. Prior to the major social shifts of the second half of the 1980s, the “plu-
ralism of self-management interests” could be articulated in practice primarily in a way 
that did not force it into competition with the Party. In those cases when this nevertheless 
occurred, the leading political establishment preferred to leave it to its “proxies” to deal with 
the transgressors, while itself taking on arbitrary positions that displayed some of the key 
features of the late-socialist regime in Slovenia.
Keywords: self-management socialism, social criticism, intellectuals, League of 
Communists of Slovenia, Edvard Kardelj
Introduction
In steering intellectual debates and in the public sphere in general, as in vari-
ous other areas of social life, self-management socialism displayed ambiguities and 
vagueness, giving rise to numerous peculiarities unique to this social phenomenon in 
Yugoslavia that now make it difficult to compare the system or phenomenon with situ-
ations in central and eastern European ‘real-socialist’ countries. In the background of 
the idea of an organic connection between the social system and the engaged intellec-
tual as a predisposition for a “socially responsible criticism,” advocated by the leading 
Yugoslav ideologist, Edvard Kardelj, was essentially the Leninist conception of social-
ist democracy. This country, and its northernmost constituent republic of Slovenia in 
particular, situated at the intersection of liberal capitalism and state socialism, bore 
impacts of exposure to western intellectual and political currents, and the dynamics 
of public controversy were strongly correlated to the political (and judicial) culture, 
clearly distinctive in each of the Yugoslav republics.
Taking into account political oscillations, this article aims at profiling the cultural 
hegemony of self-management socialism between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s 
and ascertaining what this configuration meant for the vigour of the public sphere 
and the later democratisation process. Rather than scrutinising concrete forms of 
132 Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino LVIII – 3/2018
individual intellectuals’ engagement,1 this article is based on an analysis of key theo-
retical texts and political documents in order to present the typology of the regime’s 
classification of social criticism and the ways of dealing with its contents in the late 
socialist republic of Slovenia. The restraint in the use of repressive measures, the loose 
“rules of the game,” which did not require a complete identification with the dominant 
ideology, the open borders, the mechanisms of catalysing public debate through the 
Socialist Alliance of the Working People (SAWP), the designation of the League of 
Communists [of Slovenia] (LC[S]) as the bearer of national interests, and a series 
of other influences led to the fact that even during the early 1980s there was neither 
complete identification nor direct opposition to the regime among the greater part 
of the intelligentsia. It is, therefore, difficult to draw a clear line between what was 
allowed to write or say in late-socialist Slovenia and what wasn’t; however, any such 
attempt at illustrating the limits of acceptable social criticism should be taken as a basis 
for comparing the development of intellectual life within Yugoslav as well as central 
and eastern European contexts, and therefore as a prerequisite to the various debates 
addressed by this special issue.
Yugoslavia as a model of Non-dissent?
Although all socialist systems shared a common frame of reference, from which 
the leading party groups derived their politics of the day, the dissimilarities between 
these had magnified over the first two decades after WWII to such a degree that indi-
vidual countries could have more in common with other political systems than with 
other socialist countries. The extent of these differences can be appreciated particu-
larly in terms of the following key variables: level of economic development, type 
of political culture and mode of communist takeover.2 In close connection to these 
factors, it is also possible to trace differences in the phenomena of dissent and opposi-
tion, in the importance of the integration of critics into society and party circles since 
the early post-Stalinist era. The vigour of social criticism was strongly related to the 
degree of a country’s political dependence on Moscow, to the economic and ideo-
logical capacity of a regime to preserve the loyalty of its citizens, the ability to curb 
religious communities, the level of cultural interconnectedness and openness to the 
West.3 Based on a survey of comparable factors that had a significant effect during the 
late-socialist period, the political scientist Rudolf Tökés remarked, towards the end of 
1 For details on the trajectories of different Slovenian intellectuals during socialism see Aleš Gabrič, “Vloga intelek-
tualca kot političnega subjekta v enostrankarskem sistemu,” in: Slovenija 1948–1998: iskanje lastne poti, eds. Stane 
Granda and Barbara Šatej (Ljubljana and Maribor: Zveza zgodovinskih društev; Univerza v Mariboru, 1998), as 
well as other contributions by the same author.
2 Chalmers Johnson, “Comparing Communist Nations,” in: Change in Communist Systems, ed. Chalmers Johnson 
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971), 4, 28.
3 Detlef Pollack and Jan Wielgohs, “Comparative Perspective on Dissent and Opposition to Communist Role,” in: 
Dissent and Opposition in Communist Eastern Europe, eds. Detlef Pollack and Jan Wielgohs (Hants and Burlington: 
Ashgate, 2004), 231.
133Jure Ramšak: The Contours of Social Criticism in Late-Socialist Slovenia
the 1970s, that Yugoslavia had always been a peculiarity in this sense, as it solved its 
internal conflicts with methods that significantly reduced (though did not annihilate) 
the potential of the opposition in the country.4 
The most frequently quoted argument distinguishing between eastern European 
dissent and Yugoslav forms of opposition to the socialist regime is a considerably lower 
level of repression compared to the measures that the critics in ‘real-socialist’ coun-
tries were subjected to, which was particularly evident from the 1960s onwards.5 On 
account of that, Yugoslavia was missing one of the three conditions necessary for the 
existence of dissent delineated by sociologist Sharon Zukin in the early 1980s {1) pub-
lic action, 2) criticism of the current conditions and their rejection, 3) administrative 
measures}, so that, to Zukin, Yugoslavia was “a model of non-dissent,” as it inspired 
few statements that could be perceived as dissident and even fewer groups that could 
claim the status of dissidents.6
Before proceeding with an analysis of the status of social criticism in Yugoslavia, 
it is necessary to look at some preconditions that essentially defined its scope and 
significance in the specific Yugoslav environment. First, we should point out the 
“authenticity” of the Communist revolution in Yugoslavia, based on the wartime 
resistance movement under the leadership of the Communist Party, which rose to 
power principally owing to the majority support of the masses and only partially 
through assistance from Soviet troops, as was the case in east-central Europe.7 The 
National Liberation Struggle and revolution became key social integrative factors and 
an integral part of civil religion as an amalgamation of spontaneous and manipulated 
creation in Yugoslavia. At and after the end of the war, much of a potential opposition 
was exiled or liquidated, while a considerable part of uncompromised adherents to the 
left wings of pre-war bourgeois parties and movements was drawn to participate in the 
Liberation Front, slowly merging with the Communist majority.8
Of particular importance for the handling of the domestic situation was the 1948 
break with the Soviet Union, which made of Yugoslavia a valuable ally of the West. 
According to the Croatian publicist Daniel Ivin, at the triumphant VI Congress of 
the LCY in 1952, the Yugoslav party itself assumed the position of a collective dis-
sident, a renegade, although in the belief that it was faithfully following Marx’s ideals. 
Due to its constant interest in preserving a stable multi-ethnic Yugoslavia, the West, 
in most cases, did not cultivate such sympathies for Yugoslav dissidents as it did for 
4 Rudolf L Tökés, “Introduction,” in: Opposition in Eastern Europe, ed. Rudolf L. Tökés (London and Basingstoke: 
Macmillan, 1979), 18.
5 Božo Repe, “Podobnosti in razlike med slovenskim (jugoslovanskim) in vzhodnoevropskim tipom socializma,” in: 
Evropski vplivi na slovensko družbo, eds. Nevenka Troha et al. (Ljubljana: Zveza zgodovinskih društev Slovenije, 
2008), 414.
6 Jasna Dragovič-Soso, “Spasioci nacije”: Intelektualna opozicija Srbije i oživljanje nacionalizma (Beograd: Edicija Reč, 
2004), 36.
7 Jože Pirjevec, Jugoslavija: Nastanek, razvoj ter razpad Karadjordjevićeve in Titove Jugoslavije (Koper: Lipa, 1995).
8 Sergej Flere, “The Broken Covenant of Tito’s People: The Problem of Civil Religion in Communist Yugoslavia,” East 
European Politics & Societies 21, No. 4 (2007): 681–703. Aleš Gabrič, “Opozicija v Sloveniji po letu 1945,” Prispevki 
za novejšo zgodovino 45, No. 2 (2005): 97–119.
134 Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino LVIII – 3/2018
their east-European contemporaries and denied them the support enjoyed by other 
fighters against Communism.9 The foreign policies of western countries were quite 
reserved towards nationalist movements, showing only slightly more sensitivity to 
human rights issues; although their official representatives were willing to turn not 
one, but two blind eyes to this sort of problem, as the omission of Yugoslavia from 
US reports on the implementation of human rights protection following the Helsinki 
Conference or leniency towards the host country at the Belgrade follow-up meeting 
in 1977 clearly demonstrate.10
The most important social prerequisite to reduce the incidence of dissent in the 
Yugoslav socialist system was most certainly a peculiar interpretation of Marxism, 
established after 1948. Among western philosophers and sociologists the opinion 
became consolidated that the Yugoslav system was where socialist humanism was 
particularly well-anchored, and where, accordingly, emphasis was placed on greater 
respect of individual rights and the needs of man as a well-rounded being. The under-
lining of the system’s distinctness from its Soviet counterpart was a sort of security 
valve for a controlled release of criticism of the authoritarian elements of ‘real social-
ism,’ which the self-management system was supposed to have long reckoned with. 
This obsession with “Stalin’s phantom,” which persisted among intellectuals for quite 
some time, distracted Yugoslav critics from searching for flaws in their own social-
ist development.11 The introduction of self-management attained to a rather highly 
institutionalised articulation of interests in individual communities of producers 
(workers), but the political highest-class never gave free rein to self-management and 
continued to use the levers of both bottom-up and top-down control.12 This is prob-
ably the very origin of the paradox of Yugoslav self-management, as the philosopher 
Slavoj Žižek defined the discrepancy between the continuous official campaign for 
joining the self-management process and the regime’s actual fear that its citizens would 
indeed act out Communism, their cynical attitude towards the ruling ideology pre-
senting the least threat to it.13
9 Daniel Ivin, “Pojav disidenata u socijalističkoj Jugoslaviji,” in: Dijalog povjesničara – istoričara 9, ed. Hans-Georg 
Fleck (Zagreb: Zaklada Friedrich Naumann. 2005). Krsto Cviić, “Dinamika političke promjene unutar komunistič-
ke vlasti: primjer SFRJ,” in: Disidentstvo u suvremenoj povijesti, eds. Nada Kisić Kolanović et al. (Zagreb: Hrvatski 
institut za povijest, 2010), 38.
10 Oskar Gruenwald, The Yugoslav Search for Man: Marxist Humanism In Contemporary Yugoslavia (South Hadley: 
Bergin, 1983), 277. Pirjevec, Jugoslavija, 351.
11 Predrag Matvejević, “Samoupravljanje in kulturno ustvarjanje,” Sodobnost 27, No. 2 (1979): 190.
12 Juan J. Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (Boulder and London: Lynne Riener Publishers, 2000), 170. 
Greuewald, The Yugoslav Search, 34–61. Richard Lowenthal, “Development vs. Utopia,” in: Change in Communist 
Systems, ed. Chalmers Johnson (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971), 114. Paul Shoup, “The Limits of Party 
Control: The Yugoslav Case,” in: Authoritarian Politics in Communist Europe: Uniformity & Diversity in One-Party 
States, ed. Andrew C. Janos (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, 1976), 192.
13 Slavoj Žižek, Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the (Mis)use of a Notion (London-New York: 
Verso, 2001), 91, 92.
135Jure Ramšak: The Contours of Social Criticism in Late-Socialist Slovenia
Undoubtedly, this contributed to relativising the “feeling of hopelessness” typi-
cal of ‘real-socialist’ countries,14 as did, specifically, the possibilities of travelling and 
working abroad. The resulting contacts with the West enabled a more comprehensive 
understanding of the situation there and the related critical distance to the problems of 
the liberal-capitalist system, neo-colonialism, US foreign policy, etc. Also significant, 
of course, was the increased standard of living, of great importance for Yugoslavia, even 
more so than for eastern European countries, and which in the very 1970s reached its 
highest point during the entire period of post-war development.
The attitude of the Yugoslav political establishment towards social criticism 
remains a very complex issue. In his well-known survey of the main currents of 
Marxism, Leszek Kołakowski pointed out that in Yugoslavia the public word may 
have enjoyed more freedom, but the repressive measures there were just as severe 
as in other socialist countries, and the elements of pluralism in social life could only 
stretch as far as it suited the leading group in the Party.15 There should be no doubt, 
therefore, that in terms of personal autonomy and restriction of civil rights Yugoslav 
intellectuals were still much closer to their eastern European peers than to those from 
western liberal democracies. Indeed, the line between the permitted and the prohib-
ited was quite blurred and dependent on the current political situation in individual 
republics, and particularly on the personal history of the author of the criticism in 
question. In individuals who put their head on the block it was important whether 
they were members of the League of Communists or former partisans, whether 
they had international connections or enjoyed a good reputation abroad. In fact, the 
regime strived to preserve its image as a liberal system and looked for alternatives to 
harsh repressive measures (e.g., reassignment from teaching to research institutions, 
pressure to move abroad).16
Censorship formally did not exist, but the establishment spread a wide web of 
formal and informal mechanisms with a censoring effect and could, through specific 
methods, also reach outside the state borders, particularly into the environment of the 
Slovene minorities in neighbouring Austria and Italy. Rather than by repressive meas-
ures, the autonomy of an individual was most often restricted by “friendly” or even 
cautionary conversations, by a system of punishment versus reward, that trapped them 
in the nearly undetectable position of self-censors. Despite the relinquishment of some 
of the most obvious mechanisms of ideological control - e.g., the abolition of agitprop 
following the Cominform rift - the control was maintained through boards, faculty 
councils and editorial offices, where members of regime socio-political organisations 
held the majorities. Outwardly, the autonomy of cultural institutions was preserved, 
but inwardly they were controlled and run by the so called Party cells (basic organisa-
tions of the League of Communists). This was particularly evident in the period of late 
socialism, when a certain illusion of freedom was maintained: the leaders imagining 
14 Srđan Cvetković, “(Ne)Tolerisani disidenti / specifičnost jugoslovenskog socijalizma 1953–1985,” in: Disidentstvo 
u suvremenoj povijesti, eds. Nada Kisić Kolanović et al. (Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2010), 110.
15 Leszek Kolakovski, Glavni tokovi marksizma. Tom III. (Beograd: Beogradski izdavačko-grafički zavod, 1985), 538.
16 Dragović-Soso, “Spasioci nacije”, 38. Cvetković, (Ne)Tolerisani disidenti, 110–16.
136 Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino LVIII – 3/2018
they were not censoring and the authors imagining they were not being censored. 
Within this framework, ironically latitude was obtained by the surface adherence to 
Marxist forms in, for instance, introductions and conclusions, camouflaging less con-
formist philosophical or historiographic contents.17
The self-management of the Intellect
“The social valorisation of mass reproductive forms of cultural activity” in the con-
text of the restoration of ideological orthodoxy in the early 1970s implied a universal 
introduction of Marxist aesthetic criteria of art criticism and the “steering of currents 
of ideas,” in which there should no longer be any room for “ideas of the intellectualist 
value nihilism.”18 Accordingly, Franc Šali, the responsible for culture in the Central 
Committee of the LCS firmly rejected the thesis that culture in self-management 
would shed the class criteria.19 On the contrary, all philosophical, sociological and 
artistic-theoretical intellectual activities would have to be subjected to Marxist crite-
ria. The Commission for Conceptual Issues of Culture with the Central Committee 
of LCS estimated that the penetration of bourgeois influences and the relativisation 
of the position of “scientific socialism” were enabled through the spheres of philoso-
phy (the introduction of existentialism and phenomenology), sociology (reception of 
functionalism, structuralism and logical positivism) and art (separation of art topics 
from class topics, reception of consumer psychology, abstract avant-garde).20 This was 
supposed to be countered by an in-depth Marxist criticism provided by communists 
in educational institutions, institutes and newspaper editorial offices.21 These were 
supposed to take over the task of “gardeners who [would] not let just any weed bloom 
and overgrow”, as one of the leading Slovene philosophers put it.22 The special role of 
generator and coordinator of Marxist (counter)criticism was entrusted to the Marxist 
Centre with the LCS established in 1972.
Taking into account the importance of the media in modern society, this sphere of 
social activity, too, was assigned a special role in the social transformation in keeping 
with the tenets of self-management. According to Edvard Kardelj, the public commu-
nication system had to reflect “the state of social consciousness in learning about col-
lectively shared social interests.”23 And for this social consciousness to be represented 
17 Gregor Tomc, “Cenzurirani punk: analiza primera cenzure Punk Problemov,” in: Cenzurirano: Zgodovina cenzure na 
Slovenskem od 19. stoletja do danes, ed. Mateja Režek (Ljubljana: Nova revija, 2010), 244. Dean Komel, “Cenzura 
filozofije in filozofija cenzure,” in: Cenzurirano: Zgodovina cenzure na Slovenskem od 19. stoletja do danes, 285.
18 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 20, f. 121, Poročilo o delu Centralnega komiteja ZKS in aktivnosti ZKS med 3. in 4. konferenco 
Zveze komunistov Slovenije, 79–80.
19 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 551, f. 5790, Nekatera idejna vprašanja v kulturi, 22.
20 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 223, f. 503, Poročilo o dejavnosti ZK Slovenije v aprilu in maju 1973, supplement O idejnih toko-
vih v kulturi in njih izvorih.
21 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 242, f. 730, Nekateri elementi za oceno družbenoekonomskih in idejnopolitičnih razmer v 
Sloveniji ter aktivnost ZKS (Ljubljana, 28. 11. 1974), 48.
22 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 1848, f. 87, Pristop k analizi idejne naravnanosti izobraževalnega procesa, (Ljubljana, 8. 2. 1975), 4
23 Edvard Kardelj, Smeri razvoja političnega sistema socialističnega samoupravljanja (Ljubljana: ČZP Komunist, 1977), 220.
137Jure Ramšak: The Contours of Social Criticism in Late-Socialist Slovenia
correctly, journalist-communists had to take upon themselves the responsibility of 
not letting any journalistic activity take place outside LC policy. In concrete terms, 
this meant acting in accordance with the instruction of the supreme body of LCS, 
which established that “the struggle for an influence of the League of Communists over 
the press, radio and television [was] at the same time a struggle against the bourgeois con-
cepts of freedom and autonomy, and against spontaneity in our social system.”24 It was 
particularly important that this instruction be adhered to by editors, who were organ-
ised in a special work group of magazine editors-communists, who were instructed 
to make sure, in the name of “the sense of formation of socialist consciousness,” that 
no article or other printed work be published which could “carry out a political diver-
sion” through their contents.25 As the high official Franc Šetinc informed his fellow 
journalists-communists, they were expected to perform “responsible” reporting, in 
other words self-censorship, which can be understood from his quote: “the freedom 
of creation and responsibility are just two sides of the same process, and there cannot 
be one without the other.” This responsibility included “friendly” control over one’s 
colleagues: “It is not humane, in our relations to friends, to a colleague, to a journalist, not 
to be honest, straightforward in a Communist manner. It is a true humanity to help a person 
by timely drawing their attention to problems. […] It is far better to help a person at the 
right time and even move them to another job if we think that they lack the conditions to 
exercise such a function.”26 In case the internal control proved insufficient, there was also 
an “expert analytical” group for the monitoring of press, radio, television, journalistic 
and editorial activities, newly founded with the Central Committee of the LCS, to 
keep a particularly close watch over the reporting.27 In addition, a new law restricting 
the freedom of the press was passed in 1973.
We can draw the general conclusion that in the 1970s, the League of Communists 
maintained relatively strong control over the social state of affairs. After the political 
reckoning at the beginning of that decade, the situation calmed down and stabilised, 
the internal authorities recording a relatively stable security situation year after year. 
All this was, naturally, put down to greater political activity on the part of the LC, to 
the assertion of the SAWP as the largest front of socialist forces, and to the precedence 
given to political over administrative measures. At the same time, there was already the 
awareness of the subversive charge that a deterioration of the economy and a decline 
in full employment could have,28 but the potential causes of instability on the thresh-
old of the 1980s were still sought exclusively in an inadequate implementation of the 
principles of self-management.29 It is no exaggeration to say that in the last decade of 
24 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 302, f. 1256, Stenogram uvodnih misli Franca Šalija z razgovora s predstavniki slovenskih sredstev 
množičnega komuniciranja (Ljubljana, 11. 7. 1974), 9.
25 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 339, f. 2044, Kratka informacija o aktivnosti Zveze komunistov Slovenije v boju proti političnim 
odklonom v družbi in za njen nadaljnji razvoj (Ljubljana, 17. 3. 1977), 11.
26 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 286, f. 1065, Razgovor z aktivom komunistov – novinarjev (Ljubljana, 28. 10. 1974), 15/4, 
XVI/1, XVI/2.
27 Ibid., 65.
28 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 450, f. 3877, Zapisnik 14. seje predsedstva CK ZK Slovenije (Ljubljana, 29. 1. 1979), 2, 3.
29 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 453, f. 3891, Vojnopolitična in varnostna ocena (Ljubljana, 9. 5. 1979), 22.
138 Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino LVIII – 3/2018
Kardelj’s life, the principle of self-management reached the level of sole redemption, 
its deficient actualisation representing the cause, and its consolidation the cure for any 
social problem.
Within Certain bounds
“Social criticism cannot be separated from political struggle.” With this motto 
we could sum up the essence of the thought of Kardelj, who, believing that social 
critics are not beyond the objective conditions of struggle for socialism, set the key 
parameters for social criticism in self-management socialism. His fundamental work 
dealing with this aspect of public life, Beležke o naši družbeni kritiki [Notes on Our 
Social Criticism], which focussed entirely on the treatment of social criticism, was first 
published in 1965 in the magazine Sodobnost, and then in 1966 and again in 1985 in 
the form of a monograph. Essentially, his conceptions of social criticism held up until 
the collapse of the regime, in his later chef d’oeuvre Smeri razvoja političnega sistema 
socialističnega samoupravljanja [The Directions of the Development of the Socialist 
Self-Management Political System; 1977], his only additions were evaluations of some 
new phenomena of social criticism that had not been so widespread in the mid-1960s 
(the New Left, in particular).
It would be wrong to claim that Kardelj was not aware of the intrastructural value 
of social criticism and of the fact that an absence of criticism could pave the way to sub-
jectivistic decision-making, bureaucratism and even political absolutism.30 However, 
he did not fail to add an essential restriction to this relatively open conception of the 
public sphere: “But socialist society needs democracy in socialism, not democracy as 
a weapon in the fight against socialism.”31
Kardelj avoided directly prescribing a recipe for what the critical engagement of 
the “progressive” intelligence (a euphemism replacing Lenin’s “honest” intelligence) 
should be, but by pointing out the consequences of public action he succeeded in 
achieving the very norm for an organic link between “progressive” criticism and the 
socialist form. The basic rule was that it should strive for synthesis, for a solution 
of problems arising from the materialistically conceived “objective nature of social 
movements.”32 From it society – so Kardelj – did not require infallibility, but rather a 
socialist point of departure and destination. Intelligentsia as a class is not automatically 
the actor of social progress; as a reflection of objective processes it can be a projection 
of the most progressive as well as the most reactionary social currents; therefore it 
should not only clearly convey the socio-historical interest of the working class, but 
30 Edvard Kardelj, Beležke o naši družbeni kritiki (Ljubljana: Delavska enotnost, 1985), 53, 54.
31 Kardelj, Smeri razvoja, 83.
32 The notion what ideal Marxist criticism of social practice and theory of the LCY by ideologists and cultural workers 
themselves should be can be gathered from the concept drawn up for the magazine of the Presidency of the Central 
Committee of the LCY called ‘Kritika’ (SI AS 1589/IV, b. 324, f. 1745, Okvirni projekat koncepcije petnaestodnev-
ne revije Predsedništva centralnog komiteta SKJ (Beograd, 31. 3. 1976)).
139Jure Ramšak: The Contours of Social Criticism in Late-Socialist Slovenia
transcend the role of expert medium and become “the creative subject of advanced 
social action.” Criticism is thus organically linked to socialist progress, from which its 
“humane” responsibility also arises. Distancing, or the “philistinism of clean hands,” 
is not acceptable, nor is critical judgement from the position of ideal (albeit Marxist) 
constructions; criticism should stem from the current social practice without becom-
ing a prisoner of “everyday empiricist practice.”33
With respect to the restriction of the freedom of criticism, Kardelj had no doubt: 
“[S]ince the progressive forces of our socialist society are not neutral, like a speaker in the 
English Parliament, rather a protagonist of something specific - i.e., of the socialist social 
movement -it is clear that they cannot be limited solely to the formal defence of the freedom 
of criticism.” He allows a democratic battle of opinions that are “an organic expression 
of socialist socioeconomic relations,” and not of a “formalist absolute freedom.” Thus, 
criticism “cannot be ‘free,’ just like the political struggle for the restoration of old social 
relations is not ‘free.’” There is no absolute freedom, not even in self-management 
socialism, and in the context of class struggle any instance of criticism is a political 
act: “Social criticism from the perspectives of historical interests of two classes in diametric 
opposition is inevitably deeply contrasting. Within such relations any social criticism, howe-
ver unbiased and strictly scientific or even abstractly theoretical it may seem, automatically 
becomes, to some degree or another, part of the political practice and therefore shares the 
fate of the political practice of one class or the other.” In this sense, criticism bears its own 
responsibility in relation to the effects of its action and at the same time determines 
the level of its own freedom, as the “more accountable to the truth and its socialist 
basis [it becomes], particularly when it comes to the fundamental issues of survival 
and progress of socialist forces,” the greater freedom it can enjoy.34
breaking the bounds
 “Responsible” social critics were therefore supposed to draw their own bound-
aries. For those “irresponsible” or even antisystemic critics who started “exploiting 
democratic freedoms” for their political battles, Kardelj saved various administrative 
measures, but advised prudence in their implementation.35 Unless the constitutional 
order was under threat, which was a quite flexible category, and there was a danger of 
a counterrevolution, the principal Yugoslav ideologist preferred leaning towards the 
“preemptive” political battle, for which he was certain it could compensate for repres-
sive measures almost entirely.36 Still, this was not so much about introducing liberal 
principles, which Kardelj opposed all his life, as it was about a special strategy of set-
tling accounts with opponents, which occurred particularly in Slovenia. It was, in fact, 
33 Kardelj, Beležke, 22, 56, 69, 85, 93.
34 Ibid., 41, 45, 49, 52.
35 Ibid., 48.
36 SI AS 1589 IV, b. 1219, f. 571, Razprava tov. Edvarda Kardelja na 18. seji P CK ZKJ (Ljubljana, 26. 4. 1976), 23/2.
140 Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino LVIII – 3/2018
a coordinated political campaign with the goal of “isolating” ideological opponents, 
the ability to apply differentiation to negative phenomena in society, while adminis-
trative measures were reserved for emergency situations and therefore did not spark 
discomfort among the general population.37
Based on the data on the low degree of political criminality and the estimates that 
in Slovenia there were only some 100 “adversely disposed” individuals who did associ-
ate among themselves, but failed to elicit a wider response with their ideas,38 towards 
the end of the 1970s, the Presidency of the Central Committee of LCS reached the 
conclusion, which they also forwarded to their headquarters in Belgrade, that a posi-
tive atmosphere reigned among humanist scholars and artists and their agreement 
with the policy of the LC could be intuited.39 Such an optimistic conclusion was not 
entirely ungrounded, although one should bear in mind that the majority of the intel-
ligentsia clearly understood it was the monopoly of LC that threatened free cultural 
development, not the other way round.40 Nevertheless, in most publicly exposed intel-
lectuals, even those who would later abandon the hegemonic self-management cul-
tural scheme, we could not recognize complete identification or direct opposition to 
the ruling system until the end of the 1970s or even later.41
To understand the position of social criticism in late-socialist Slovenia, it is very 
important to take into account the increased level of inclusion of the general public 
into the mechanisms of public discussion about socially relevant issues. Acting the part 
of the primary catalyst of expert as well as general social points of view was SAWP. In 
the context of self-management transformation, it was assigned particularly the role of 
a forum of democratic discussions about concrete pressing issues, through which it was 
to transcend the status of LC transmission and become a factor of self-management 
conscience formation.42 To this purpose, Kardelj, pointed out the low threshold for 
entering this forum arena: “Thus, a person need not have received a Marxist education and 
their ideological views need not be always and in every area aligned with Marxist ideology; 
one need not always agree with the opinions of the majority, either, to be committed to socia-
lism as a form of actualisation of one’s socioeconomic and political interests.”43 But virtually 
in the same breath behind closed doors he added the warning that Communists should 
not allow the “enemies” to exploit “our” institutions and forums for their activity.44 It 
would be wrong to assume, though, that the stressed integration of non-Communists 
into the building of self-management socialist society through SAWP would also mean 
that the League of Communists was (at least partly) relinquishing its political and 
37 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 450, f. 3877, Magnetogram 14. seje Predsedstva CK ZKS (Ljubljana, 29. 1. 1979), 5/1-JK, 
6/2-JK.
38 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 453, f. 3891, Vojnopolitična in varnostna ocena (Ljubljana, 9. 5. 1979), 26.
39 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 486, f. 4369, Idejni tokovi med inteligenco (Ljubljana, 13. 9. 1978), 2.
40 HU OSA, 300-10-2, b. 209, f. Intellectuals 1966–1983, Intellectual Ferment in Yugoslavia (Munich, 11. 11. 1980), 4.
41 See for instance Dimitrij Rupel, “Umetnostna proizvodnja in njene politike,” Problemi 17, No. 188 (1979): 63–70.
42 Kardelj, Smeri razvoja, 190, 191.
43 Kardelj, Beležke, 193, 194.
44 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 1219, f. 571, Razprava tov. Edvarda Kardelja na 18. seji P CK ZKJ (Beograd, 26. 4. 1976), 26/1.
141Jure Ramšak: The Contours of Social Criticism in Late-Socialist Slovenia
ideological hegemony. The respect of its avant-garde and monopolistic role remained 
the prerequisite from which no social engagement emerging among the public before 
the second half of the 1980s could depart.
Significant data for determining the attitude of the authorities towards social criti-
cism, which corroborate the above presented traits with concrete examples, can be 
found in the systematic survey of 76 highly visible critics compiled in October 1977 by 
the State Security Service (SSS).45 It comprises individuals, almost a quarter of them 
members of LC, who were active in the fields of culture, education and research and 
who “in one way or another, publicly opposed or appeared against our sociopolitical 
order or LC policy.” Depending on the degree of opposition expressed against the 
socio-political regime and LC policy they were divided into three groups. The first 
group comprised 51 individuals, for whom it was assumed that sociopolitical organi-
sations could “through concrete engagement, animate them to actively participate on 
the SAWP or LCS platforms;” in other words, that they could be co-opted into the sys-
tem’s operation. The second group included 21 individuals “in purgatory,” whom the 
guardians of the regime considered still susceptible to the influences of sociopolitical 
organisations, but requiring further monitoring by the SSS. Deemed as “irreclaimable” 
were “only” four persons, whom the SSS was convinced required close surveillance.46
With a combination of strong socialist cultural hegemony and weak repressive 
measures, the Slovene Communist Party managed to preserve the action of the intel-
ligentsia in its Herrschaft well into the 1980s, even absorbing the first direct attempts at 
articulating the opposition agenda through culture and journalism (the emergence of 
the Nova revija magazine soon after Tito’s death).47 Eventually, by the end of the 1980s, 
this current of anti-communist oriented critics had consolidated as the key antipode 
to the LC. An equally substantial impulse, if not more so, towards the disintegration 
of cultural hegemony of self-management socialism came in the mid-1980s from the 
left-liberal milieu. The circumstance that truly expanded the limits of social criticism 
in the final years of socialism was, in fact, their realisation that the distinction between 
society and state – even a self-management state – could not be annulled. A notion of 
civil society emerged that did not necessarily follow the logic of political competition 
with the LC, but managed, perhaps even more easily this way, to introduce into public 
debate all those topics that had never been discussed before, and in some cases would 
never be afterwards.48
45 SI AS 1589/IV, b. 2606/6, f. sovražna dejavnost, Pregled nekaterih kulturnih in prosvetnih delavcev (Ljubljana, 20. 
10. 1977).
46 Viktor Blažič, Janez Gradišnik, Edvard Kocbek, Vinko Ošlak; all of them as a consequence of ‘bourgeois pluralism’ 
as a type of ‘hostile’ activity.
47 Stefano Lusa, Razkroj oblasti: slovenski komunisti in demokratizacija države (Ljubljana: Modrijan, 2012), 52–57.
48 Tomaž Mastnak, “Socialistična civilna družba, demokratična opozicija,” Tribuna 12, 1985/86, 8, 9.
142 Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino LVIII – 3/2018
Conclusion
A continuum of pluralism and monism. This is the scheme in which the German spe-
cialist for the history of south-eastern Europe, Wolfgang Höpken, placed the develop-
ment, limitations and the democratic potential of Yugoslav self-management socialism 
at the beginning of the 1980s, avoiding this way the use of western ideologically tinted 
categories of liberal democracy and totalitarianism. The Kardeljan pluralism of self-
-management interests could not, in fact, be defined by the criteria of bourgeois multi-
party system or by the then current theory of interest groups.49 Through structural 
decentralisation, in the last decade of his life, Kardelj as its chief architect succeeded 
in establishing a system that, at least at a normative level, enabled full participation in 
“socialist democracy.” Whereas in fact, in the public sphere that social criticism pen-
etrated, he left a series of anchors for the “subjective forces” (LC members) to weigh 
this criticism down, so that it remained faithful to the “objective nature of social move-
ments” beating to the pattern of the ossified Party establishment, of course.
We cannot fully dismiss the notion that the “self-managers,” even those without 
the Party membership card, took advantage, at least in part, of the opportunity of par-
ticipating in joint decision-making. But Kardelj was unable or unwilling to grant them 
majority. He was convinced that they should be led into socialism by the hand.50 In the 
complex structure of the Yugoslav self-management system, which reached its acme 
with the constitutional changes in the 1970s, LC therefore preserved the exclusive part 
of ideological and political avant-garde of the working class. Not only did this entrust it 
with the role of guarantor of the existence of the regime, but also with the role of social 
hegemon that had the right answer to all open issues concerning current and future 
development. Pluralism could only reach the areas from which the Party was prepared 
to withdraw, while “self-management” interests could only be articulated in a way that 
did not put them in competition with the Party interests.51 Critical voices were not 
very audible in the “merry, spendthrift, hedonistic and megalomaniac” Yugoslavia,52 
until the crisis prompted the masses, too, to start questioning the foundations of 
self-management socialism. Until the circumstances matured, intellectuals could not 
express their radical criticism. At least for Slovenia it can be said that the loosening 
after “day X” (Tito’s death) found the critically-prone activists quite well prepared, as 
in the more impervious years they dedicated themselves to actively monitoring the 
situations in the West and East. Armed with the knowledge about newly emerging 
social concepts they could, cautiously at the beginning of the 1980s, then ever more 
assertively, enter the public sphere with their idea of (socialist) civil society and claim 
their share in the process of democratisation.
49 Wolfgang Höpken, Sozialismus und Pluralismus in Jugoslawien. Entwicklung und Demokratiepotential des 
Selbsverwaltungssystems (München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1984), 404.
50 Jože Pirjevec, “Tito in Kardelj: od ‘tovarišije’ do sovraštva,” Annales. Series historia et sociologia 21, No. 2 (2011): 505.
51 Höpken, Sozialismus und Pluralismus, 405.
52 Dragović-Soso, “Spasioci nacije,” 90.
143Jure Ramšak: The Contours of Social Criticism in Late-Socialist Slovenia
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Jure Ramšak
THE CONTOUrs Of sOCIAl CrITICIsm IN  
lATE-sOCIAlIsT slOVENIA
SummARy
Self-management socialism displayed ambiguities and vagueness in handling 
social controversy and public life in general, giving rise to numerous peculiarities 
particular to this social phenomenon in Yugoslavia. While a Leninist interpretation 
of democracy in socialism constituted the background of Edvard Kardelj’s recipe for 
“socially responsible criticism,” Yugoslavia and Slovenia were at the same time under 
the influence of western liberal concepts. Considering the political and ideological 
contexts of late socialism, the article discusses the systemic way of dealing with social 
criticism between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s, while trying to determine the 
impact of these circumstances on the subsequent evolvement of democratisation. It 
is principally based on an analysis of key theoretical texts and political documents in 
order to present the typology of the regime’s classification of social criticism and the 
ways of dealing with its contents in the late socialist republic of Slovenia. The restraint 
in the use of repressive measures, the loose “rules of the game,” which did not require 
145Jure Ramšak: The Contours of Social Criticism in Late-Socialist Slovenia
a complete identification with the dominant ideology, the open borders, the mecha-
nisms of catalysing public debate through the Socialist Alliance of the Working People, 
the designation of the League of Communists as the bearer of national interests, and 
a series of other influences led to the fact that even during the early 1980s there was 
neither complete identification nor direct opposition to the regime among the greater 
part of the intelligentsia.
Despite the official assurance that it was not only necessary, but even indispensa-
ble, social criticism could not attain the position that it was supposed to have within 
“the pluralism of self-management interests”. The Communist elite in power almost 
never acknowledged that it was justified and constructive, which however did not 
mean that it was entirely indifferent to its demands. In the period discussed, social crit-
ics could by no means interfere in the League of Communists’ monopolistic authority 
or express doubts about the dominant ideological matrix. As a result of such self-
assurance, communists always treated social criticism as an element of political strug-
gle. The extent to which critical demands were taken into account usually depended on 
the argument of power of the critical exponent rather than the power of his/her argu-
ments. Prior to the major social shifts of the second half of the 1980s, the “pluralism of 
self-management interests” thus could be articulated in practice primarily in a way that 
did not force it into competition with the Party. In those cases when this nevertheless 
occurred, the leading political establishment preferred to leave it to its “proxies” to deal 
with the transgressors, while itself taking on arbitrary positions that displayed some of 
the key features of the late-socialist regime in Slovenia. Well acquainted with the situa-
tions in the West and East, especially with the knowledge about newly emerging social 
movements Slovenian intellectuals however could, cautiously at the beginning of the 
1980s, then ever more assertively, enter the public sphere with their idea of (socialist) 
civil society and claim their share in the process of democratisation.
Jure Ramšak
GAbArITI DrUŽbENE krITIkE V POZNOsOCIAlIsTIčNI 
slOVENIJI
POVZETEK
Tako kot na mnogih področjih družbenega življenja je samoupravni socializem 
tudi pri upravljanju družbene polemike oz. javnega življenja nasploh izkazoval dvou-
mnost in nejasnost, ki je bila vzrok mnogim posebnostim tega fenomena v Jugoslaviji. 
V ozadju Kardeljevega recepta za »družbeno odgovorno kritiko« je bilo leninistično 
razumevanje demokracije v socializmu, hkrati pa je bil jugoslovanski in slovenski 
prostor tudi pod vplivom zahodnih liberalnih konceptov. Upoštevajoč politični in 
146 Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino LVIII – 3/2018
ideološki kontekst poznega socializma članek obravnava sistemski način soočanja z 
družbeno kritiko od konca šestdesetih do sredine osemdesetih let in ugotavlja, kakšen 
pomen je imelo to stanje za kasnejši razvoj demokratizacije. Razprava na osnovi raz-
člembe ključnih teoretičnih besedil in političnih dokumentov prikazuje tipologijo 
režimskega razvrščanja družbene kritike in načine soočanja z njeno vsebino ter njenimi 
nosilci v socialistični republiki Sloveniji. Zadržanost pri uporabi represivnih ukrepov, 
ohlapna »pravila igre«, ki niso zahtevala popolne identifikacije z vladajočo ideolo-
gijo, odprtost meja, mehanizmi kataliziranja javne polemike skozi Socialistično zvezo 
delovnega ljudstva, prepoznavanje Zveze komunistov kot nosilca nacionalnih intere-
sov in vrsta drugih vzrokov so privedli do tega, da še na začetku osemdesetih let pri 
večini inteligence ne moremo govoriti niti o popolni identifikaciji niti o neposredni 
opoziciji režimu.
Kljub uradnim zagotovilom o potrebnosti in celo nujnosti družbene kritike, ta 
ni mogla zavzeti pomena, ki naj bi ga imela v »pluralizmu samoupravnih interesov«. 
Vladajoča partijska elita ji ni skorajda v nobenem primeru priznala njene upravičenosti 
in konstruktivnosti, kar pa še ne pomeni, da je bila do njenih zahtev povsem ravnodu-
šna. V obravnavanem obdobju družbeni kritiki vsekakor niso smeli poseči v oblastni 
monopol partije in podvomiti v ustaljeno ideološko matrico. Na osnovi te zaverovano-
sti je bila družbena kritika vedno obravnavana kot element političnega boja. V kolikšni 
meri so bile kritične zahteve upoštevane, največkrat ni bilo odvisno od moči njenih 
argumentov, ampak od argumenta moči njenega nosilca. Preden so se v drugi polovici 
osemdesetih let zgodili veliki družbeni premiki, se je »pluralizem samoupravnih inte-
resov« lahko torej v praksi artikuliral predvsem na način, da ni bil v nasprotju s partij-
skim monopolom. V kolikor pa je do tega prišlo, je vodilna politična garnitura obračun 
najraje zaupala svojim »pooblaščencem«, sama pa zavzela arbitrarna stališča, prek 
katerih lahko prepoznamo nekaj ključnih značilnosti poznosocialističnega režima v 
Sloveniji. A dobro poznavajoč dogajanje tako na Zahodu kot Vzhodu, sploh kar se tiče 
novih družbenih gibanj, so lahko slovenski intelektualci s svojo idejo (socialistične) 
civilne družbe v začetku osemdesetih let sprva previdno, nato pa vedno bolj odločno 
začeli vstopati v javno sfero ter terjati svoj delež pri demokratizaciji.