Serbia: the revolution has outgrown its naïve phase

Since the collapse of the canopy that killed 16 people last November, Serbia has seen massive mobilisations, including the largest in the country’s history on 15 March. They have continued down to the present yet still no justice has been had for the victims. Patience has run out.

Instead of justice, the regime has met the masses with continuous violence that has added to the bubbling anger in society.

Back in January, members of the ruling party, the SNS, emerged from their party offices and broke the jaw of a female student. Other students attempted to enforce restraint by cordoning the offices to prevent violence from escalating.

Since then, the culprits in that attack have been pardoned by Vučić. And we’ve seen more attacks by thugs and car ramming attacks on students. Still, throughout it all, the official stance of the students was that the violence of the Vučić regime should be met with restraint and dignity.

But now things have reached their limits. Fatigue had been setting in without justice being achieved, and many began to feel that the students did not have a way forward. The blockades of the university faculties were slowly falling apart. It had become clear that the students’ attempts to peacefully achieve justice were ineffective.

It was in this context that, on the national Vidovdan holiday, 28 June, the students gave the green light for the masses to use any form of civil disobedience. Until this point, only the restraint of the students themselves, whose authority had provided the leadership of the movement, has held the masses back.

In a speech, the students have now given the “green light” to the masses not to hold back any longer in the face of a regime that clearly will not refrain from using violence.

Green light

At the protest on 28 June, when the students gave the green light, a significant part of the demonstrators headed towards ‘Ćaciland’ – a camp that the regime had established in front of the parliament, and filled with party members and pan-Serbian criminal scum.

Huge police cordons were set up at checkpoints to prevent any approach to the camp. Blocked and filled with fury towards the regime and the state of society, a significant part of the demonstrators attacked the police. They attempted to break through the cordon to Ćaciland, but without success.

The next day, the regime began the mass arrests of students. Footage of police brutality surfaced. Students were accused of calling for the violent overthrow of the constitutional order.

In response, the masses escalated their struggle in other ways. Barricades were erected in Zemun and other places, which the police then had to clear. Roadblocks began in many cities. In Novi Sad, the entire main boulevard was blocked and turned into a promenade, while Užice hit the headlines as protesters broke through the police cordon to block the local highway. New, large protests were held in Šabac and Valjevo in the fight against Rio Tinto.

From that moment on, the struggle spread to smaller towns in Serbia. Although there were many arrests, they were mostly for minor offences, and those detained were quickly released with fines.

Within a few weeks, things quietened down again and the pace slowed. Students came to an agreement with their professors about the end of the year. This threw the lives of students and the blockades into chaos. The regime smelled its opportunity: that this was the right moment to attack.

Open provocations by regime thugs

On 9 August, a photo exhibition was held in the small Slovak town of Bački Petrovac, which primarily featured pictures from previous protests. Thugs and supporters of the Serbian Progressive Party came to the exhibition, tore up the photos, and at one point physically attacked those present.

War veterans, who are in charge of the security of students and protesters, not only received blows themselves, without returning them, but were also detained. None of the regime’s attackers were detained, although the attack took place in full view of the police.

On the same day, a significant number of the party’s supporters gathered in Vrbas to threaten speakers at an opposition rally, while on the following day, around 200 of them gathered to paint facades in the colours of the Serbian flag in Liman in Novi Sad, a neighbourhood where the SNS has won local elections. The intention was primarily to intimidate and harass residents. One member of the opposition was injured in that incident.

The masses did not endure these events in silence. The day after the attack in Bački Petrovac, a solidarity event was organised in the town, and the photo exhibition held once more. Footage can be seen of columns of cars heading towards the town. The police literally blocked the entrance to that town. However, citizens nevertheless managed to get around the blockade and ensure the exhibition was held. In one incident, a resident of Bačka Palanka was attacked by regime thugs who also blocked the entrance to the town.

In the midst of all these provocations, on 12 August, synchronised solidarity protests were organised in Bačka Palanka and Vrbas. Regime thugs who had gathered from all over the country, specifically from Vojvodina, and some even from Bosnia and Herzegovina, also mobilised for both.

At one point, they began throwing objects at the demonstrators. A particularly disgusting escalation occurred in Vrbas, where members of the SNS rained down fireworks on the demonstrators. There were hardly any police.

But the masses were not afraid. Not only did they not retreat, but they threw missiles at the regime supporters, calling for a showdown. When the thugs charged at them, no one backed down. The thugs were forced to stop and abandon their assault.

Only after the fireworks and after the regime’s servants were worn out did additional police forces arrive to “restore order”. None of the regime’s thugs were detained, despite the regular practice of arresting protesters at their homes. This clearly shows this was a planned provocation by the regime. It has aroused indescribable anger among the masses.

You asked for fireworks, you got fireworks

The day after, on 13 August, protests were organised all over Serbia. It was noticeable that the regime was carrying out a general mobilisation of its members and associates from the criminal milieu, as significant numbers of SNS supporters gathered in front of the party's main offices in all the places where the protests took place.

To make matters stranger still, not only were local commanders on the ground, but Aleksandar Vučić himself literally gave a speech in Ćaciland, accompanied by his brother Andrej Vučić, who is widely rumoured to be the unofficial head of the underground. Meanwhile, at the Novi Sad city office, former Prime Minister Miloš Vučević and the party president, who had resigned in the midst of the movement, gave a speech. This made it clear that the Serbian Progressive Party was preparing for what they expected to be ‘judgment day’.

The demonstrations and repression manifested varied across different cities. In Belgrade, there was heavy police repression. In some other cities, demonstrators managed to break through police cordons. However, the heart of the struggle was in Novi Sad, where the regime was openly seeking a showdown, in the city where it all began with the fall of a canopy that killed 16 people.

The column of demonstrators passed by the SNS offices near the university campus, in front of which about a hundred regime supporters had gathered. At that moment, SNS supporters again started shooting fireworks and throwing missiles at the demonstrators as soon as they arrived. There was no police anywhere. Then hooligans with sticks and flares attacked the column from the rear. In no case did the protesters retreat, but instead fought back with punches and missiles of their own. The regime staged a showdown, and the masses responded.

The matter culminated at the main office of the Serbian Progressive Party's Novi Sad branch. Footage of an open, all-out showdown between protesters and hooligans has flooded the internet. The footage shows the regime hooligans being knocked to the ground and retreating. By the looks of it, they got the worst end of it.

A viral clip that went particularly viral showed a showdown with a member of the special army unit for personal protection, known as the Cobras. When the protesters chased the thugs, who were retreating towards the back entrance of their offices, they left the Cobras outside the offices, at the mercy of the protesters. The Cobras are tasked with guarding people, but it is not stated who they were there to guard. It is suspected that it was former Prime Minister Miloš Vučević.

There are two reasons why the masses showed no mercy, despite the warnings of the Cobras that these military personnel were on official duty. Firstly, in the midst of open physical confrontation and chaos, who can distinguish between the attackers and ‘civil servants’?

Secondly, if the Cobras literally enabled the armed regime thugs to retreat, isn’t it crazy to expect mercy from the enraged masses at a time when neither the police nor the Cobras are doing anything to arrest and eliminate these criminals, but are in fact providing them with protection? Even some police officers were struck in retaliation.

Vučić had threatened to break up the demonstrations in December using the very same Cobras. In the midst of the heavy beatings they received, one of them took out a gun and fired a shot into the air. Commenting on the mood of the masses, the warrant officer who fired the shot stated:

“I have been doing this for 20 years and I can responsibly claim that I have never seen so much anger, so much hatred towards the authorities.”

As the criminals were brought in from various places, they parked their often expensive cars all over the place, alongside streets, and often removed their license plates. The demonstrators smashed their cars with whatever they could. It was a truly inspiring sight to see such large numbers of demonstrators, well-equipped to deal with the thugs.

Many wore helmets and masks, and carried batons – their message to the regime was that these were not cowards and naive demonstrators. They were determined youth and working people who, fed up with the regime's violence and ready to fight back.

Although the fireworks mostly came from the direction of the SNS offices towards the demonstrators, there were also cases of the demonstrators returning fireworks with fireworks of their own.

The regime’s open engagement in conflict led to humiliation on their part. It exposed the fact that, despite the police, the Cobras and criminals at their disposal, this regime has no way to impose its will on the masses.

So far, students and protesters have shown restraint and patience, despite the immense anger they have been bottling up. Now that the naive phase has come to an end. The revolution has entered a new phase, and these are the regime's last desperate attempts to hold onto power through fear.

Why is Vučić doing this?

Lenin once commented that a man at the edge of a cliff does not reason. As the regime collapses, so too are the last traces of Aleksandar Vučić's mental abilities. It becomes increasingly difficult to assess why the regime would decide on such a crazy course, which has awakened all of Serbia. What are the final factors that could have triggered it?

The main ones are the arrests of high-ranking officials by the prosecutor's office for organised crime and corruption, including Goran Vesić and Tomislav Momirović, two former ministers of infrastructure who were in charge of the reconstruction of the Novi Sad railway station.

While the masses accepted this with a dose of scepticism, feeling that it was probably just a populist move of ‘arrest and release’, it was nevertheless noticeable that Vučić didn’t welcome this development. It took him more than a day to make a statement regarding a development which is by no means insignificant, given that for eight months there has been no progress in the court process around the canopy collapse.

When he finally spoke, he only repeated what the regime tabloids had already said: that it was the pro-European wing of the judiciary lined against him that made the move, while another former Minister of Infrastructure, Zorana Mihajlović, complained about the ‘deep state’. While we definitely have to take the statements of these pathological liars with a grain of salt, there could be a dose of truth in it. The fact that the SNS launched a campaign against the prosecutor who filed the lawsuit supports the idea that this was a move taken despite Vučić.

The judiciary became completely independent of the parliamentary government with the 2022 referendum. Like all capitalist organs of state power, its main role is to carry out the interests of the ruling capitalist class as a whole – both domestic and foreign – which they and Vučić serve. Capitalism in Serbia has undoubtedly been destabilised by the political crisis. The economy is slowing down. Prices are rising. It is quite possible that a part of the European bourgeoisie wants to put an end to this revolutionary fire before it spreads.

However, it is also noticeable that despite the mini civil war that is taking place in Serbia, where the regime is openly using criminal elements in its defence, the European media is extremely quiet and restrained in its criticism. Vučić is a servant of every possible imperialist power – of Europe and America, but also of Russia and China. He has been their reliable partner so far, and pressure is certainly piling on him from all sides in order that the affairs of these imperialist powers can carry on unhindered in Serbia.

It may also be possible that Vučić fears that the investigation into corrupt deals related to the reconstruction of the canopy could land him in prison. He himself, as well as many others from his party, has expressed this concern.

There are undoubtedly huge divisions within the ruling SNS on how to deal with this revolutionary crisis, and everyone is afraid of who will backstab whom. In his speech, Vučić complained that some of his supporters and officials were on vacation “when the state should be defended”. One wing of this gangster party was certainly pushing him to incite the protests by force. They’ve been burned by the effort. Indeed, one of his ministers suffered a stroke live on television. Without wishing to speculate, it could be that this stroke was a consequence of the pressure that all members of the regime are under.

The third factor is that the students have announced a new wave of intensified protests, which was planned for September, and Vučić is thinking about how to prevent it. The summer was relatively slow when it came to protests. At present, many students are overwhelmed with exams after coming to an agreement with their professors to sit them in order to finish the year. Vučić may have thought that the distraction of the students might have made this the right moment to strike, given that the students remain the main leadership of the movement.

But instead of intimidating the protesters, he has only succeeded in encouraging them and in exposing the weakness of his regime. The morale is so low in the police, they cannot be expected to strictly follow orders. Meanwhile, criminals got their asses kicked by an opponent they underestimated, having been used to only facing weaker enemies.

But the masses are not weak. As communists always say – once they are on the move, nothing can stop them. They are the strongest force in society, and the criminals, the police officers and the politicians are a minority that is at their mercy.

So far, the movement has shown mercy. But that came to an end today. We must not stop here and must go all the way. We cannot just sit and wait for an even crazier outburst by the regime. The awareness has matured that there is nothing to be gained by restraint or by naive appeals to the consciences of this psychopathic clique in power. Events will accelerate significantly, there will be sudden turns and escalations, but the tendency is towards the final collapse of the Aleksandar Vučić regime.