The Party Leadership of Croatia and the Weekly Danas 1982-1983

Abstract

The subject of this paper is the way the weekly Danas was treated by the Presidency of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Croatia in the first year of its publication, during 1982 and 1983. Danas started being published in the second half of February 1982 and half a year later the periodical turned into a huge political issue. The newspaper appeared at a time of a general crisis; with its critical approach, at times even provocative, it frustrated the hardened and obsolete party elite which was determined to defend its hitherto inviolable position. Within a short period of time, the weekly attained a circulation of 120,000 copies, which testifies to its wide appeal as well as to its influence, which in fact distressed the party leadership. With the appearance of Danas, a critical public opinion started to come into being. The party leadership started to deal with the weekly in the summer of 1982 and temporarily discontinued it at the beginning of the following year. This was done by the replacement of the editor-in-chief with a new one, along with young associates who were willing to toe the party line. The result of the changes was a drop in circulation, which literally reduced the weekly to eking out an existence and having only marginal influence. The penalization of Danas was in fact an example of shutting down any public opinion unacceptable to the party leadership, through the principle of democratic centralism and its concrete implementation in practice. It was actually a conflict within the party in which lower-ranking communists lost out.