The Decisive Reform

Abstract

During the debates on how to get the economy and especially investment under control, a new constitution was adopted on 7 April 1963. It proclaimed general self-management, i.e. the widening of self-management from economic working units to all working units, including such institutions as schools and hospitals, and to political units, particularly communes. Accordingly it was deemed to be more than a political constitution, namely a charter of self-management, in which ‘state functions were performed less and less by a separate organisation above society but were merging with the needs of working people in their work and life’. Political power was based on ‘the working class and the entire working people’. Labour had been liberated — the main principle being ‘from everybody according to his capabilities — to everybody according to his work’ — and the final goal was a society in which the principle would be ‘from everybody according to his capabilities—to everybody according to his needs’ (Art VIII). The Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Yugoslavia (Art. V) and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Art. VI) were expressly mentioned in the Constitution, the former as the place for political activity of all comers, the latter as the ‘principal initiator of political activity’.