By: Dr Metod Berlec
In 1994, Janez Janša, in his book Okopi – The Path of the Slovenian State 1991–1994, brilliantly exposed the influence and scheming role of the last head of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Slovenia and the first President of the Republic of Slovenia, Milan Kučan, “for almost a decade the most influential man in Slovenia”.
In doing so, he emphasised that the most important people of the “inner circle of the key politician in Slovenia” were those who, in the years after the Second World War, formed the backbone of the undemocratic and criminal system in Slovenia: Mitja Ribičič, Stane Dolanc, Zdenko Roter, and Niko Kavčič. The first of them to die was Stane Dolanc in 1999 at the age of 74, followed by Niko Kavčič in 2011 at almost 96, and Mitja Ribičič in 2013 at the age of 94. In early August of this year, the last of them, Roter, died at the age of 99. He had been an officer of the OZNA/UDBA, an interrogator of political prisoners in prison, responsible for the crackdown on the Church, head of Kučan’s election campaign in 1992, and until 2002 Kučan’s adviser in the Office of the President of the Republic. At this point it is also worth mentioning two important party officials and operatives who were closely connected with Kučan throughout all the years of transition, something already highlighted by Danilo Slivnik in 1996 in his book Kučan’s Clan: Janez Kocijančič, who died in 2020 at the age of 79, and Janez Zemljarič, who died in 2022 at the age of 94.
Of course, Milan Kučan (born January 1941), who for almost four decades has remained the most influential man of the transitional left, attended Roter’s funeral in Bela krajina. After all, he became President of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Slovenia in 1986. At the funeral, he theatrically shook hands with the partisan “honour guard.” Kučan’s advisor for measuring and shaping public opinion, the sociologist Niko Toš (who turned 90 last November), bid farewell to his close comrade in a speech. Also present were two former politicians of the middle generation, prominent members of the once-influential LDS and later the less influential Zares party – Gregor Golobič and Bogdan Biščak. The former had been the “liaison officer” between Kučan and the late Janez Drnovšek, as Roter himself revealed years ago in his memoirs – thereby inadvertently showing how this network operated throughout the years of transition.
Although it is clear that Kučan’s inner circle is slowly disappearing due to the laws of biology, Slovenia remains in the grip of the post-communist transitional left and its derivatives. In line with Gramsci’s theory of (cultural) hegemony and the “march through the institutions,” they control practically all institutions and veins of Slovenian society. At the same time, we have the Golob government in power, the most leftist and extremist so far. In accordance with this, it acts to the detriment of Slovenia, the Slovenian nation, and its citizens. On top of everything, it carries within it a predatory mentality, a mixture of arrogance, ignorance, clientelism, corruption, and crime. How much longer?
