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Once more Kosovo

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The central thesis is that the renewed ethnic violence in Kosovo in March 2004 is not a reversion to ancient hatreds but the predictable outcome of unresolved contradictions produced by imperialist intervention and capitalist crisis. The article argues that NATO's 1999 intervention was never about protecting Kosovar Albanians but about using them as pawns to weaken the Milosevic regime. Once that objective was achieved, imperialism refused to grant independence — not out of principle, but because a sovereign Kosovo would destabilise the entire Balkan region, potentially triggering a wider conflagration involving Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria. The result is a political limbo: a UN/NATO protectorate that can neither integrate Kosovo into Serbia nor allow it to function as a state.

This political impasse is compounded by an economic catastrophe — 70% unemployment, a predominantly youth population with no prospects, and a UN administration that has abandoned economic planning entirely in favour of managing ethnic quotas. The article claims that the national question in the Balkans is, at bottom, a question of bread: when workers have jobs, housing and education, ethnic conflict recedes; when capitalism cannot provide these, nationalists fill the vacuum. The only genuine solution is a united working-class struggle across the entire former Yugoslav space and beyond, organised by Marxists capable of reviving the traditions of internationalist class solidarity that were partially realised — albeit bureaucratically — under Tito.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is rooted in the Marxist theory of the national question as developed by Lenin, Trotsky and the early Communist International. It rejects the notion that ethnic conflict is primordial or cultural, insisting instead that nationalism is a product of specific material conditions — above all, the inability of capitalism to provide for the basic needs of the working class. The article draws on the classical Marxist position that the national question can only be resolved through economic development and workers' democracy, not through ethnic partition or imperialist trusteeship.

The argument also deploys a Leninist theory of imperialism: NATO and the UN are not neutral peacekeepers but instruments of competing imperialist powers that intervene in the Balkans to advance their own strategic interests. The reference to Germany's role in breaking up Yugoslavia echoes the analysis of the Yugoslav wars developed by the International Marxist Tendency (the RCI's predecessor) in the 1990s, which identified imperialist meddling — particularly German recognition of Croatian and Slovenian independence — as a key driver of the conflict.

The article's treatment of the Tito period is nuanced and theoretically significant. It acknowledges that the nationalised, planned economy of the 1950s–1970s partially resolved the national question, allowing different peoples to live together peacefully. But it insists that the absence of workers' democracy and genuine workers' control meant the system was ultimately unsustainable. This is a distinctively Trotskyist position: it rejects both Stalinist apologetics for the Yugoslav bureaucracy and liberal celebrations of Tito's "independent communism," while recognising that the planned economy was materially superior to what came after.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was written in March 2004, five years after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and at a moment when the contradictions of the post-war settlement were exploding. The specific triggers — the shooting of a Serbian youth and the drowning of three Albanian boys — were sparks on a powder keg. The article correctly identifies that the UN's 17,000 peacekeepers could maintain order only in the absence of serious conflict, and that the violence was organised and simultaneous, suggesting political coordination by nationalist forces on both sides.

The geopolitical context is crucial. The article notes that the US and EU were already overstretched by Iraq and Israel-Palestine, and could not afford another Balkan crisis. The British deployment of 750 extra troops was a holding operation, not a solution. The article also identifies the rise of Tomislav Nikolic and the Serbian Radical Party, who were cynically using the Kosovo question to win the upcoming presidential election — a dynamic that would later culminate in the rise of Aleksandar Vucic and the consolidation of a nationalist-authoritarian regime in Serbia.

Economically, the article's claim that "no one in UNMIK is even thinking about the economy" is devastating. The UN's approach was to manage ethnic parity in the distribution of scarce resources — effectively sharing out poverty equally between communities. This created a zero-sum dynamic in which every job given to a Serb was resented by Albanians, and vice versa. The article's prediction that this would lead to recurrent explosions of violence has been borne out by subsequent events, including the 2008 declaration of independence, the 2011–2013 Brussels Agreement, and the ongoing tensions in northern Kosovo.

Where the Argument Continues

The article leaves several questions open. It does not develop a detailed strategy for how Marxists should organise across the Balkan working class, nor does it address the specific challenges posed by the fragmentation of the labour movement after the Yugoslav wars. The call for "a political force capable of uniting the workers of the whole of the former Yugoslav Federation" remains abstract.

The argument is continued in subsequent IDOM articles on the Balkans, particularly those covering the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence, the 2011–2013 EU-mediated talks, and the 2022–2023 tensions over licence plates and barricades in northern Kosovo. Against the Stream episodes on the national question and the Yugoslav legacy also develop the theoretical framework. Readers should consult Trotsky's The Balkan Wars and The War and the International for the classical Marxist approach to the region, as well as the IMT's 1990s pamphlets on the Yugoslav break-up.

Connections

  • Trotsky, The Balkan Wars: The classic Marxist analysis of Balkan nationalism and imperialist rivalry, written during the 1912–1913 wars.
  • Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination: The theoretical foundation for the Marxist approach to the national question.
  • IMT/IDOM articles on the Yugoslav wars (1991–1999): The immediate predecessor texts, which analysed the break-up of Yugoslavia as a product of imperialist intervention and bureaucratic crisis.
  • IDOM articles on the 2008 Kosovo independence declaration: The next major instalment in the analysis, which argues that independence under EU supervision is no solution.
  • Against the Stream episodes on the national question: Broader theoretical discussions that situate the Kosovo case within the Marxist tradition.

Key Quotes

  1. "The Kosovar nationalists, in particular the KLA, collaborated with NATO in pushing out Milosevic's troops, but we explained that they would have a bitter lesson in the trustworthiness of the imperialists. The latter used the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo as pawns in their plans to weaken Milosevic. Once they had used them for this purpose they were prepared to discard them like an old useless rag."

  2. "Imperialism cannot tolerate the idea of an independent Kosovo. The reason for this is that this would further destabilise the region. For the ethnic Albanians to achieve independence from Serbia would encourage the ethnic Albanians in neighbouring Macedonia to move in the same direction. The logic would be to move towards a 'Greater Albania'… From a small spark a general conflagration could ensue involving Serbia, Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Turkey and Bulgaria."

  3. "This confirms what we have always said; at bottom the national question is one of bread. If people had decent jobs and wages, decent housing, decent education and all the other things that make for a civilised existence national conflicts would gradually disappear over time."

  4. "Instead what we have is the international monitors making sure that ethnic parity in local government bodies is guaranteed. This means they are applying the concept of guaranteed quotas in handing out the few jobs that there are. What this means is that both Serbs and Albanians will feel resentful because they feel the jobs are being taken by the 'others'. In effect it means the UN is simply sharing out the poverty equally between the two communities."

  5. "In spite of all its failings and lack of genuine workers' democracy, it was during the best period of the Yugoslav Federation under Tito that the national question receded into the background. In spite of all the terrible ethnic conflict and killing of the period of the Second World War, on the basis of the nationalised and planned economy of the period of the 1950s through to the mid 1970s the economy was able to develop at quite a fast pace."

  6. "What is needed is a political force capable of uniting the workers of the whole of the former Yugoslav Federation in a common struggle against capitalism. This would also have to spread further to the workers of Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Albania, Turkey… Left in the hands of the bourgeois the peoples of these countries can only expect more ethnic conflict and wars."