Blowing Up the Self-management Bubble: Yugoslav Propaganda and Italian Reception in the Early 1970s

Drawing on primary sources from the Archives of Yugoslavia and several Italian archival collections, this article shows that, in the early 1970s, faced with mounting internal problems, the Yugoslav leadership reappraised its self-management propaganda in order to convey the image of a reforming and modernising country. This was functional to the external projection of the country's stability, and to favouring its relations with Western European partners, Italy in primis. This article develops in three sections. First, it reappraises the historical development of Italian-Yugoslav relations after World War II, to highlight their political limitation and their link to Yugoslavia's policy towards Western Europe. Second, it shows how the internal crisis experienced by the Yugoslav federation in the early 1970s led to the rediscovery of self-management propaganda. Particular attention is paid to the organisation of the Second Congress of Yugoslav self-managers in Sarajevo (May 1971) and its clear-cut external dimension. Third, this paper discusses the instrumental dimension of the self-management discourse in Italy until the mid-1970s.