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Johannes Schneider and Jared Israel discuss political forces among the Kosovo Albaninans:

Johannes: I dont know of which area you are speaking, but before 1989 the demands raised by Kosovo Albanians were to give Kosovo a status of a republic inside Yugoslavia. 

Jared: Very cute. The Yugosolav constitution allowed Republics - not provinces - to secede. So during the pre-1989 period, while the secessionists were still struggling within the framework of participation in Yugoslavia (that is, they had not yet adopted the policy of boycotting the autonomous institutions, as they did beginning in 1989-90) the secessionists demanded Republican status so that they could then secede. Cute? Yes, but no cuter than Johannes' attempt to pass this off as anything other the attempt of a highly organized secessionist movement to employ a legal trick to get into a position to secede. Everyone in Yugoslavia understood this was behind the demand for Republican status and everyone understood that Milosevic's limitation of autonomy was not a racial act, but rather an attempt to curb the secessionist movement. It was by then in the service of the US which had committed. Under Dole's leadership Congress endorsed the secessionist cause as early as 86. He and DioGuardi made it clear what Congress was voting for: DioGuardi spelled it out - he wanted the Albanians to secede from the evil commite Yugoslav regime - and this at a time when Serbs were in the position of black people in NEw York.

 Johannes: I doubt that there was much American influence in the 80ties. If you read LPK or LPRK (predecessors of todays KLA) publications of that time, you will see it were full of Hoxahist propaganda. German secret service reports listed those groups among the 'social-revolutionaries'. To have the Reagan administration behind those groups is not very convincing. I am sure the CIA tried to use some monarchist Albanian exiles for their purpose. But inside Kosovo and the large group of migrant workers from Kosovo inside Western Europe (mainly Germany and Switzerland) the main influence was Hoxhaist. 

Jared: The racist-secessionist movement in Kosovo has been quite flexible. It has had many ways of describing itself, and played with various outside forces, including Hoxha's Albania. But regardless of the WORDS employed the DEEDS reflect the existence of a fascist movement in Kosovo since 1941. It coalesced around fascist ideas because fascism (and particularly, German nazism) supported its racial stance: hatred of Serbs, "Gypsies" and Jews. Fascism gave the secessionists their dream: Greater Albania with these untermenschen unter the boot. It is true that some of the secessionists in the 60s called themselves Hoxhaists but I think the appeal here was Hoxha's expansionism, not Mao's socialism which is NOT racist. (Note that China is Yugoslavia's closest allies.) In any case, the main forces of secessionism were hardly Maoist. And through all these currents, whatever they called themselves, anti-Serb racism was very strong. Instead of being influenced by the more tolerant broader Yugoslav society, the Kosovo Albanians were allowed to live insulated lives where the racism of the large Nazi movement, not crushed by Tito for unfortunate reasons, could exert its influence. 

Johannes: This is really an innovative interpretation of Yugoslav history: Within Yugoslavia existed fom 1944 until 1989 a large Nazi movement, even supported by Tito! Actually from 1974 till 1989 Kosovo Albanian were influenced by Hoxhaist ideas. E.g. school books were imported from Albania. One does not have to like the ideas of Enver Hoxha, but to label it a Nazi movement is somewhat strange in my eyes. 

Jared: I never said Tito was a Nazi. I referred to "Tito's policy of currying favor with these fascists" My point about the continuity of a Nazi movement from the fascist invasion of Kosovo through the limitation of autonomy is an essentially accurate description, though I should have made this clearer: they didn't always call themselves Nazi. . As I said, when the racist Albanians ruled Kosovo (41-44/45), crushing their racial inferiors, under the guiding hand of the Italian fascists, but most effectively, the Austrian and German Nazis - during that period these forces PROCLAIMED themselves to be Fascists. They lost power when the partisans swept in at the end of the war but some of them continued fighting until 1950. This was one of the most diehard Nazi movements in Europe. Naturally, after 1950 they were careful not to call themselves Nazi's. Tito took some extraordinarily wrong steps after W.W.II. His government banned the return of the Serbs driven from Kosovo by the Albanian fascists. It allowed the return of Albanian fascists who had fled the partisans and it allowed the Albanians, brought into Kosovo by the conquering Italian Fascist army to stay. This had a big impact on the balance of power in the province. It set the stage for a continued fascist movement. The problem of the penetration of racist ideas among the Albanian population was never faced by the Titoists, just as it is not being faced by the champions of the oppressed (sic!) Albanians today. Though the armed component of the Nazi movement was beaten by 1950, the bulk of the movement was alive and well. It had deap roots, among the deepest in Europe. (It was strongest in the Drenica region, which was the early stronghold of the KLA) Realizing that they had to adapt to new conditions, the fascists organized in a secret and semi-secret basis to gain influence over all aspects of Kosovo life. A terror against Serbs and Roma people developed and was pronounced enough during the 1980s to be reported by the Western press before the media started bashing the Serbs (in the late 80s). So before the late 80s we can read many reports of anti-Slav/anti-Roma terror in Kosovo.  

Johannes: The only allies of the struggling miners can be the international workers movement. 

Jared: That is the hustle to fool well-intentioned but uninformed souls into the left's line for supporting the new fasicsm. Everyone gets a line, you see, and of course for th left, its gotta be "help these workers who without us have nothing." That's why in these situations, as a Russian one pointed out, we always have to look at the real, underlying POLITICS of the situation, and not be suckered by "pure class demands." To stand for "workers control" in the abstract can be quite misleading - one must examine circumstance in this PR-conscious world. Of course, in Yugoslavia, everyone used socialist slogans - those were the terms employed - . 

Johannes: So lets have a look at the forces who were using socialist slogans in Yugoslavia: Actually it was Milosevic and his cronies (who are calling themselves socialists today) who were actively promoting privatisation of socially owned industries. Against this reintroduction of private capitalism the workers in Trepca and elsewhere in Yugoslavia raised to defend workers control. I feel you are not thinking in terms of class contradictions, but in terms of contradictions between nations. Marxists do otherwise. Especially in a region like the Balkans, where a nationalsit carnage is going on, only working class self-activity can stop it. 

Jared: Marx says class conflict can assume national forms. For instance he strongly backed the very bourgeois Mr. Lincoln against the racist-secessionists of the time. You know, come to think of it, I bet those racist-secessionists included some workers. The clash of classes is found in seemingly national struggles most especially when a racist group, linked to whatever Imperialism is prominent at the time, tries to break up a country and hitch it to parts of several other countries - which has been the consistent goal of the racist-secessionists in Kosovo, however they might cloak themselves.. Life is not easy. Deeds count; words can be deceptive. In 1989-90, the demand for autonomy in Kosovo, whether raised by workers, store keepers or kangaroos meant secessionism and the right to persecute inferior races. It even meant that if you added WORKERS CONTROL. It also meant that in 1941 and it means the same thing today. Of all the former socialist countries, privatization is least advanced in Yugoslavia. Greg Elich, who spent some time interviewing people in local governments in serbia about economic structures thinks it is primarily a socialist economy. In any case, the local officials want to believe it is - and when you consider it, that is in itself quite a stunning thing to want in this current world. The secessionists sure aren't talking socialism. This could well be the reason the West has singled out the Serbs to be the focal point of their assault on the Balkans, that and the Serbs' history of resistance to colonization. They are viewed as troublesome diehards: a bad example. Along these lines, note that Milosevic's Socialist Party just invited a slew of communist and left-socialist parties from all over the world to their convention. Including the Cubans. They work closely with the Chinese. They defend the Iraqis. Most important, they have not folded before the demands of the West while the secessionists are the military proxies of the US. The former "Hoxhaists" and others in the KLA are a) the enforcers for the new foreign-capital-controlled economy and b) conducting war against the classic targets of fascism: Roma, Serbs, Slavic Muslims and Jews. The Croatian and German government propaganda against Serbia featured the charge: these are the last communists. So maybe Johannes thinks Milosevich is the great privatiser, but the West was never convinced.