On March 15, the largest demonstration in Serbia’s history took place. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the government, demanding new elections and justice for the victims. This summer, the struggle has gained new momentum.
The deadly roof collapse caused long-simmering discontent to explode. The mass movement that followed forced the prime minister and several other ministers to resign. At least two former ministers and a number of senior officials are also in custody for their role in the corruption surrounding the shoddy renovation of the railway station. But the increasingly desperate president, Aleksandar Vučić, remains in office and refuses to give in to the mass movement’s main demand for new elections.
State Repression Spurs on the Struggle
At the end of June, the mass protests gained new momentum and, as a result of the regime’s escalating violence, the struggle has become both more determined and more organized. The struggle has thus entered a phase that could bring down the president, but the demonstrations would need to be combined with a general strike to bring the country to a complete standstill.
The regime has not only mobilized the state forces – including the police, army, and special forces – against the demonstrators, but also armed gangs linked to the ruling SNS party. This is the reason for the civil war-like scenes that have unfolded in several Serbian cities since July, and for the fact that several of the SNS’s headquarters have been set on fire.
Until this summer, the regime hoped that the mass struggle, as so many times before in Serbia’s modern history, would eventually run out of steam and dissipate. But this time, the mass movement has become more persistent than before (something which is a global trend) and has developed into a struggle that is not satisfied with small concessions but wants to settle the score with the entire rotten political regime.
“These are unprecedented protests in this region, and probably even more broadly in Europe in the last few decades. The country is about 6 million people and you had literally hundreds of thousands of people protesting for months. Only in Belgrade, you had four protests in several months, each larger than 100,000 people. And Belgrade is a city of 1.5 million. And one of these protests in mid-March was about 300,000 people, which is four to five percent of the population of the country as a whole, so it’s massive”
This is what Nebojša Vladisavljević, professor at the University of Belgrade, told French public service broadcaster France 24 on August 15, adding that:
“The country is totally blocked. Nothing works. You can’t do anything – the government has lost the capacity to rule, essentially. The only way out is by elections.”
However, the struggle has not only been marked by large recurring demonstrations, but also by occupations of schools and universities, road blockades, and teachers’ strikes. The only way out is building a political alternative, based on the working class, internationalism and socialism; and preparing for a general strike as a means to get rid of the government, new elections and the continuation of the struggle to overthrow capitalism.
After failing to divert and wear down the mass struggle, President Vučić, with the support of both Russian imperialism and imperialist powers in the West, has decided to crush the mass struggle once and for all. State violence therefore threatens to escalate, but so far the increased repression has had the opposite effect – the struggle has intensified and the demonstrators have been prepared to defend themselves.
Imperialist Powers
Europe’s largest lithium mine is to be opened in Serbia. Large protests stopped the mining plans in 2021-22. But the regime, strongly backed by the EU, has given the green light to the mining plans again, which has been met with new huge protests. As recently as the end of July, tens of thousands demonstrated against the mining plans in Jadar in western Serbia (the Jadar deposit is the largest known high-quality, long-life lithium deposit in Europe, with the potential to cover up to 10 percent of global demand).
The EU, and German capitalism in particular, is casting hungry eyes on Serbia’s lithium reserves. On June 4 this year, the European Commission gave its official support to lithium extraction in the Jadar mine in Serbia, placing the extraction on the list of 13 strategic raw material projects outside EU territory.
The West has accused those who protested against the mine of “doing Russia’s bidding,” which is nonsense. Russian imperialism, like the EU and Trump, supports Vučić and his regime. Putin has even offered Vučić help in crushing the mass struggle.
Because EU governments continue to cultivate their ties to Vučić and their desire to turn Serbia into a “lithium colony,” the mass struggle is not hampered by any major illusions about the EU, and support for EU membership is falling, especially among young people.
Nor can there be any illusions in Russian or Chinese imperialism. The fraudulent renovation of the railway station in Novi Sad was part of Chinese imperialism’s investments in the country, and the station construction was an important part of an infrastructure project aimed at upgrading the railway connection between Belgrade and Budapest. Behind the project was a Chinese consortium and the governments of Serbia and Hungary.
The new phase of the mass struggle in Serbia underscores the need for a general strike and for the growing grassroots organization to take the step towards political self-organization in the form of a new socialist and internationalist party. Otherwise, there is a great risk that the movement will be hijacked by various bourgeois groups and self-appointed “leaders,” and that the corrupt, despotic regime will succeed in remaining in power.
