Ever since the fall of socialism, Serbia has had virtually no left-wing parties. The legacy of the workers’ struggle and radical politics, reaching to the 1870s, had been up to that point upheld by the League of Communists of Serbia, a national branch of the ruling party of Yugoslavia. In 1990 the League became the Socialist Party of Serbia, and all organizing and political experience was repurposed for war and privatization. Left-wing politics had to start from scratch.
The Party of the Radical Left is the only registered party in Serbia with an anti-capitalist program. Formed in 2020, it grew out of different movements, organizations and social struggles that reacted to the violent introduction of neoliberalism. Mostly comprised of members born after the breakup of Yugoslavia the party is based on experiences spanning from anti-war activism, strike action against privatization and deindustrialization, and student activism to anti-eviction actions and international solidarity campaigns.
Marko Crnobrnja is the Party’s international. He is a long-time activist in social politics, housing struggles, Palestine solidarity and other causes.
Sopo: Tell us about your party.
Marko: Our party was founded four years ago to unify the left, and create a democratic socialist party. Our goal was to create a socialist party to fight for workers rights on the basis of anti-imperialist struggle and anti-fascism. To create a space in Serbia for politics that is not directly tied to the EU or the nationalists. To create a worker base, a popular option in politics.
Sopo: Why was it necessary for the party to distance itself from the EU in Serbia at this moment?
Marko: We started with the struggles against privatization andevictions. We then tried to create a party that could lead a parliamentary struggle. During our initial struggle, we saw firsthand the effort the EU puts into foiling opposition to these policies. For example, the neoliberal policies we fought against in evictions were promoted by the EU and promoted by USAID and the embassies. Or the bailiff law. The functions of bailiff were privatized: he is now basically a private entrepreneur, who executes court decisions and other claims, and this was presented as a way to make court decisions more easily executable. But there was a longstanding problem of people not getting paid. Due to deindustrialization and privatization, many people are left wageless. They had experiences of our courts being functionless in protecting their rights to their wages and the like. The bailiff law was presented as a way to make the process faster, to delegate part of the court’s work to private bailiffs. But once the private baillifs were introduced, our experience was that wages were not actually paid.Rather, the bailiffs were used to collect debts owed to utility companies, banks and so on, and also to steal homes in which the same apartment was sold multiple times; due to unclear ownership, they could be repossessed due to someone else’s debt. So you might buy a house and be living in it when a bailiff comes and tells you to get out. You as a third party, in this case. You’re living in a house, you have papers for it, but you’re not registered by the land registry. Basically these bailiffs were used to take homes from the working class.
Here in Serbia, we have a high rate of home ownership. Our collective housing was sold to the people who were living in thehouses at the time. We don’t really have a problem with landlords as is the case in the housing struggle in Germany and the UK. We have a problem with poor homeowners. Most working-class people’s wealth is in housing. Most people own their homes, or their parents do. So this is a way to strike at their wealth: to take their housing fund that they have left from socialism. This law was pushed by the EU to make our system more “efficient”. To make business easier. To avoid dealing with our courts, which are underfunded and understaffed. But that doesn’t protect people’s right of to housing. It was thus obvious to us that we needed to make our politics anti-EU and anti-US. The US plays a large role in the German Cooperation Society [GIZ] and the Foreign Investors Council. We couldn’t avoid this aspect of Western-funded NGO money which goes to support reform laws which capital from the EU needs.
Sopo: What are some of your party’s policies, your vision? What are people getting on board for?
Marko: Our goal is to develop a social housing policy and a more neutral foreign policy. To create a social state, to get back what we lost during socialism. To fight against monopoly capitalism, to fight against retail monopolies. To give people economic freedom and political freedom. To organize without having to deal with restrictions by various “anti-corruption” laws which are used to fight against political opposition. Political rights which are not talked about enough: there is little consideration of how expensive it is to form a party here to contest elections. You need 50,000-100,000 euros to form a party, and you need to collect thousands of signatures. It’s similarly hard to start a union or cooperative. Organizations are expensive. We want to make it more accessible for common people to organize and fight for their rights.
Sopo: What are some of the other challenges? How do you overcome the hurdles to getting on the ballot?
Marko: Usually we need signatures for elections, and how many of them are needed depends on the type of election. It takes tens of thousands of euros to collect signatures. We need to create a critical mass of people who can campaign to make our cause more visible.
Sopo: How do you make your cause visible?
Marko: We fight in social struggles. We are present in our streets. We distribute leaflets and so on. We are active on social media. We are active in different social struggles. We defend against evictions. We organize protests against sending arms to Israel. We try to form broader coalitions with left forces and other social forces which are compatible with our politics. In other struggles, not just parliamentary ones. We also want to try to bring the struggle to the parliamentary assembly.
Sopo: Are you ever invited on mainstream TV?
Marko: Not as party activists but as anti-eviction activists. The opposition media invites us more frequently. They always want to run stories about the country that are not good. The government-aligned media rarely does so, but they also sometimes like these social issues. They present it as an inevitable situation that our country is in, that we have to do this kind of stuff to approach the EU, to bring foreign investments. They sometimes bring us into dialogue.
We got invited on to one popular show in mainstream media which discusses social topics. They usually try to partition these as non-political issues, as something tragic that is happening and they feel compassionate about. But it’s off-limits to attack the government directly or attack foreign investors. Mentioning these things will get you off air.
Sopo: Tell me about foreign investment, this heating up of trade wars. I just saw some university positioning itself as a pioneer in researching how Chinese investment is ruining the Balkans, the Caucasus. They find experts to write exposes that this is neocolonialism. Western universities are working towards a spotlight on Chinese investments. What do you say to that?
Marko: This is a new Cold War, it’s a global issue. It’s the same in Africa and Asia. Western state funded NGOs try to create this narrative of the harmfulness of Chinese investment. Here in Serbia, Chinese investment has its own problems, but this is more the result of the way the state is set up from before the investment began. The government’s policy for the past 20 years has been to adapt to attracting foreign investment to do whatever they want. To ban unions. To ignore local law, violate labor and ecological regulations. The government subsidizes these companies. This is the legal framework which was created under the dictates of USAID, the European Commission and the German Cooperation Society. To create an investor-friendly atmosphere. This is the framework that Chinese companies came to, and they demand to be treated the same as Western investors. The Western powers do not like that. Despite all the problems with violation of ecological and labor laws, Chinese investment provides a certain economic independence from Western countries here in Serbia. This creates a problem for the EU because whenever you try to oppose neoliberal policies, the narrative is: if the West pulls its investments, we will not have an economy; if the West imposes sanctions, we will not have an economy. The fact that another country can do business here endangers this narrative. We have the situation that the opposition is at the forefront of denouncing “Chinese colonialism.” They are trying to push the governing party, which is already dependent on the West, into a position of further dependency. They don’t want them to become independent of the West, they don’t know what will happen then. They attack Chinese investments, they attack Russian influence, which is almost nonexistent here.
Sopo: Do you think that getting more Chinese investment is a form of independence?
Marko: I think that investments coming from countries outside of the European Union are a precondition of independence. I don’t think they creates independence by themselves. I think we need to have a sovereign politics, to have an economy which is geared towards the people in the economy and not some abstract GDP growth or whatever. We need to create a new legal framework which would allow economic development that is not geared towards servicing global capital. The Chinese state is more willing to respect the sovereignty of countries like Serbia. If we created laws that did not benefit Chinese companies, like making working conditions stricter, I do not think we would be punished by the Chinese state the way the European Union would punish us. This creates an opportunity for Serbia to have a more independent policy which is geared towards our social needs.
Sopo: Does China also benefit from Serbia’s EU prospects?
Marko: Definitely. It’s beneficial for China that we continue the EU accession process: they can create investments here which they can use to export to the EU. They can do business with European companies, circumventing sanctions through Serbia. As far as China is concerned, President Vucic will continue this policy. I don’t think China would profit from anti-EU politics. It is only the case if the EU completely closes off Chinese investments, to strangle China economically and block Serbia off from non-EU business. That’s a risk for China. But if the present state continues indefinitely, the ruling elites would have no problem for us to be exploited by EU capital or Chinese capital, or whichever. The Economic framework which the EU created is beneficial to them. I don’t think China can save us, we can only save ourselves. China can help, but this in itself won’t bring change.
Sopo: Do you think the Serbian population is ready for your ideas?
Marko: I believe that there is great potential for people to accept them. The Serbian public already thinks in the same way. They may not recognize us as their voice, obviously, but in general, only 10% of people are extremely pro-western and on board with joining NATO, sanctioning Russia, and accepting Kosovo’s indepdendence. 90% of people do not want Euro-fanatical policies. There is a growing number of people who do not want to continue EU accession. A minority of the population, say, 40%, are willing to continue the accession. This includes the 10% who want to join NATO. 30% want to stay friends with both Russia and Europe but not join NATO. They think we can join the EU and maintain good relations with China and Russia, and fight for Kosovo to be a part of Serbia. This portion of the population is shrinking. 20% are not sure whether to continue this process or not, but they know they don’t want sanctions on Russia. The government presents itself as an anti-NATO force, but they continue security cooperation with NATO while presenting themselves as having good relations with Russia and taking Chinese investments. The opposition is opposed to Russia and China. They do not openly call for joining NATO, but they side with European foreign policy on all issues. The third force are the nationalists, which have a sympathetic view of Russia but are often critical of Chinese investments; in fact, they have the same narrative of dangers of Chinese investments. The nationalists propose an alliance with Russia and stress the Kosovo issue. Their view of things is too closed. They see the interests of Serbia as the only thing we should look at. They don’t have a wider perspective on how we could find common ground with different nations in the region and globally. How we could make peace with Kosovo, Albanians and Muslims. The nationalist politics reproduce the conflicts within the Balkans. We do not see this as a solution to the problems we face.
These nationalist parties represent a small part of the electorate. We do believe there is a large gap between policies that the public would approve of in regards to social issues and international politics and what is offered by the electoral politics in the country today. If we could take part in elections, I do believe that we would see a strong public response to our politics. If we could take part in elections, we would see huge gains for our politics.
Sopo: What would be your advice to other activists starting left parties in the region?
Marko: I think Serbia is unique in this matter. We no longer have a majority that wants to join the EU, while I think most countries in the region want to continue accession. These groups may have a strong leftist and sovereigntist attitude, and if they want to free themselves of the US/NATO and so on, but their public may not yet be ready for historical reasons, due to wars and other stuff. They are not ready to go against the EU completely. Any party should understand their electorate. I don’t think it would be viable to have a party in Romania demand to quit the EU. Anyone who pushes in the right direction is a potential ally as far I’m concerned, if we share the same view of ant-war politics, anti-imperial politics. It’s a good idea to study the conditions of the country. There are examples where leaving the EU was not a good idea, like Brexit. Maybe it would be better if they stayed. I can’t give suggestions to other countries, basically, try to organize people where they are and to create policies, economic policies to benefit workers. Maybe even parties aren’t an answer in some cases, to build a movement is something that should be done instead.
Sopo: What do you think about being anti-war?
Marko: Basically, the Cold War has already started. The EU is geared towards militarization to fight Russia today, maybe China tomorrow. At the same time, the European economy is not ready for war. It’s capable of arming some proxy forces in Ukraine, but the war machine wants more than that. It needs to recreate European society as a war economy. To bring conscription back. To build a European army. There is growing opposition towards this in Europe. These war policies are costing them social policies. This war thing is pricier than they thought. There is a growing anti-war movement in Europe. It’s a confusing time because this left and right division is breaking up. A lot of left-wing forces are pushing for war in Russia and some right-wing forces are against it. It’s difficult for many left-wing parties to articulate a proper anti-war position. We are hopeful that we will be able to join such anti-war left forces in the future and push against this.
Addendum: on July 19th, the EU and Serbia signed a memorandum on lithium mining. I asked Milena Repajic of the Party of the Radical Left to update us on the situation.
Sopo: Milena, can you tell me of the recent announcement that lithium mining will go ahead, despite it being shut down two years ago?
Milena: The Rio Tinto lithium mining project was stopped following major popular resistance that pressured the government before an election, and a constitutional referendum held in early 2022. It seems that now the government is stable enough to resume the project that by all accounts promises to be an ecological disaster with virtually no benefit for the people of Serbia. The context is, apparently, the Memorandum of Understanding between the European Union and the Republic of Serbia establishing a strategic partnership regarding strategic raw materials used in making batteries for electric cars, signed on July 19. Serbia is supposed to provide the lithium for European “green transition”, while its benefits are, as described by President Vučić, additional billions in direct foreign investments. That means more extraction of super-profits, precarious working conditions and dependence on the EU, alongside a looming ecological disaster.
Marko Crnobrnja was born in Belgrade on the 9th of May in 1993. He graduated in Computer Science at the Faculty of Mathematics, Belgrade University and has since worked in industry as a programmer.
From July 2018, Crnobrnja has been an active member of the Housing movement in Serbia, through Joint Action Roof Overhead (”ZA Krov nad glavom“), a local anti-eviction organization. Since 2019, he is also a member of the Party of the Radical Left, currently serving as its International Secretary.
Sopo Japaridze is the chair of Solidarity Network, an independent care workers union in Georgia. She has been a labor organizer for over a decade. She researches and studies labor and social relations and writes for various publications. She also co-founded the Soviet Georgia history initiative and podcast, Reimagining Soviet Georgia.