By: Dr Metod Berlec
Stane Dolanc, Secretary of the Executive Bureau of the Presidency of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY), declared with great pomp and an ominous tone in Split on 9 September 1972: “Above all, it must be absolutely clear to us that we, the communists, are in power in this country. If we were not, it would mean that someone else was, but they are not and they never will be.” The famous statement was made by Josip Broz Tito’s close associate in the period following the crackdown on the Croatian Spring and shortly before the fall of the Slovenian “liberals” led by Stane Kavčič.
With this declaration, Dolanc clearly signalled the end of political liberalisation and a return to a hard-line party policy and the monopoly of the League of Communists over political power. Symbolically, this marked the beginning of the so-called “leaden seventies.” That era came to an end with the death of the aging Yugoslav communist dictator Josip Broz Tito on 4 May 1980 in Ljubljana.
Although more than half a century has passed since then, it seems that the political successors of the former communist nomenclature took Dolanc’s words very seriously and internalised them as a kind of political commandment. Even after formally relinquishing power during Slovenia’s democratisation and independence process in 1991, they never came to terms with the idea that political power might permanently belong to someone else. On the contrary, even during the Demos government (1990-1992), we witnessed constant attempts to undermine the first democratically elected government before it had succeeded in carrying out the historic project of Slovenian independence. Instead of unity during one of the most important periods in the nation’s history, many representatives of the transitional left were focused on preserving their political, media, and economic positions. A similar pattern reappeared in 2000 during the short-lived government of Andrej Bajuk, when parts of the political and media establishment launched a wave of hysteria the likes of which Slovenia had not previously experienced. This became even more pronounced during all of Janez Janša’s governments, when political confrontation moved far beyond the normal democratic competition of ideas and programmes.
Even today, under Janša’s fourth government, similar reactions can be observed. Instead of debating concrete measures and solutions, the left-wing opposition, together with various NGOs, is relying on a strategy of creating a sense of crisis, mobilising street protests, and fostering the kind of hysteria symbolised by the throwing of parliamentary rules of procedure in the National Assembly. Left-wing activists are already predicting scenarios reminiscent of developments seen in Western European countries, particularly in France. At the same time, it is hardly surprising that the opposition party Resni.ca, which constructively supports the Janša government, has come under attack, while the coalition party Demokrati, led by Anže Logar, is increasingly becoming a target as well. This reflects a well-established pattern of behaviour on the part of the transitional left and its political offshoots, whose objective is to bring down a legitimately elected government by any means necessary. In their view, the state belongs to them, like an ATM machine or a hunting trophy. Everyone else becomes the target of their ideological fervour. In other words, they continue to embody the mindset that the hardline communist party official Stane Dolanc expressed so openly and unapologetically back in 1972. And that is why his words remain ominous even today: a reminder that democracy is not self-evident, particularly for the ideological heirs of the former regime, but instead requires respect for political pluralism and the legitimacy of those who hold different views.