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The paper analyses the structure of Stjepan Radic's ideological attitudes, based on an unpublished text - a letter to the leadership of the Peasants' International - which served as an ouverture to the possible membership of HRSS in that pro-communist international organization. The paper also includes the original text by Radic. The author claims that the increased interest of the Communist International for winning over HRSS was in the function of a graduaI breakup of the unity of interests of the Croatian people and the curtailment of the influence of HRSS' ideology and policies. The strategic aim of the Communist International was the bolshevization of the Balkans and the Danubian region and that is why it advocated the disbandment of the South-Slavonic federation and the creation of a Balkan or Balkan-Danubian federation of the Soviet Socialist Republics, including the Soviet Republic of Croatia. The central part of the text is devoted to the analysis of Stjepan Radic's ideological attitudes. He upholds the unity of interests of the Croatian people under the leadership of peasants, the principle of an independent and nationally sovereign state of the Croatian people and is in favour of a confederal relationship of Croatia with Serbia and other South-Slavonic states. The Peasants' International was only a tactical move exacted by the existing relationships in the South-Slavonic monarchy and Europe in general. (SOI : PM: S. 253)

The SANU-Memorandum of 1986 is the ultimate manifesto of the Greater Serbian idea; in the economic department, it is manifested in the form of vying for investments into Serbia, of the elimination of the "political and economic domination of Slovenia and Croatia", and of "disencumbering Serbia from contributing to the Federation fund". Its authors put the blame for the alleged lagging of Serbia exclusively on Slovenia and Croatia, and thus consequently make them responsible for all unsound economic policies in the former Yugoslavia. Particularly venomous charges are reserved for the Constitution of 1974, which makes for the independence ("secession") of Slovenia and Croatia, viewed as a precursor of a possible catastrophe. These two republics, they believe, are "morally obliged" to aid the development of the underdeveloped republics, since Serbia has sacrificed most, and the price of that has been its own thwarted development. + Two issues are central to Serbian economists: the 1961-1965 five-year plan and the system of financing a faster development of the underdeveloped regions (the Federation Fund). They demand that Serbia should be completely exempted from aiding the underdeveloped and, at the same time, extra measures for a faster development of Serbia proper should be decreed. The impossibility of solving these problems in this dictated manner brought about the economic disintegration of Yugoslavia, followed by the strategy of violence which ended in the aggression. Nevertheless, the Serbian political elite thinks that their political and economic standing has been enhanced and thus, in the negotiations about the succession, they flaunt the Memorandum propositions, and continue to live under the illusion that the Greater Serbia is a viable option, both economically and politically. (SOI : PM: S. 27)

The author analyzes the process of the NATO expansion in Europe following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Paradoxically, after the end of the cold war, the security conditions in Europe have not improved. On the contrary, the danger of military conflicts has increased. That is why most former communist countries, including the newly created states which emerged after the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, have been trying to eliminate this danger and strengthen their security by joining NATO. The Russian Federation is the main opponent of the NATO expansion in Eastern Europe, particularly on the states which came into being after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The author describes in detail the geostrategical and geopolitical implications of the admittance of the first group of Eastern-European countries into the NATO (Poland, Czech Republic and Romania), as well as the prospects of the NATO expansion onto the other countries in the region. He sees the American initiative for the cooperation in Southeastern Europe as a complement to the process of the NATO expansion. In the end he criticizes NATO's process of selection of new members, the process which has left Croatia (for the time being) in a sort of a geostrategical void. (SOI : PM: S. 118)

Based on the experience of former rightist and communist dictatorships in Europe regarding different forms of opposition - both open and hidden within these regimes' structures - the author analyzes the role of the opposition in the process of the sweeping democratic change that has taken place the "new democracies" of Central and Eastern Europe in the direction of the state of law and civil society. His conclusion is, that in today's Central European countries political multi-party pluralism which includes viable parliamentary opposition was given a smooth start and has since taken root. However in the countries with only superficial democracy and an obvious "democratic deficit" - for example Croatia (and Slovakia) - parliamentary opposition plays the second fiddle. The prime movers of the change - and of the democratization as well - are still the ruling parties (not unlike during the communist single-party regimes). Changes occur only when the ruling party or its major fraction opt for them considering them the lesser of two evils, either because they are no longer satisfied with the distribution of power and goods within the existing status quo or because they are aware that it cannot be maintained in its present form. This happened in the Soviet Union , first under Nikita Khruschev and then again under Mihail Gorbachev. Changes, however, when imposed from above get out of hand and backfire against those who have set them off (remember Gorbachev); what emerges is usually a compromise between tbe vestige of the old and the emerging regime. (SOI : PM: S. 92)

The author points up the proverbial complexity of Yugoslavia and the inadequacy of its political structure, officially made up of six republics, five peoples, four languages, three religions, two alphabets, and one party. That is why the subjective orientations of its many peoples went counter to its existence, leading to its disintegration following the first multiparty elections. Serbs and Montenegrins were its partisans and due to a lack of democratic political culture they launched the war for the preservation of Yugoslavia. The properties of the political culture of the peoples living on its territory had acted as trip-wires for that war, defined its form, course and intensity. Due to their national identification with Yugoslavia and insufficient democratic political culture, Serbs and Montenegrins started the war for the territories of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The aggressors belong to the Eastern civilisational sphere, speak the Serbian language, write in the Cyrillic alphabet. are culturally tribally oriented, want to live in Yugoslavia and Greater Serbia which would be socialist, and are adherents of repressive types of political culture. The victims belong to the Western civilisational sphere, they are Catholics and Moslems, speak Croatian, write in the Latin alphabet, are culturally communally oriented, and favour the participatory political culture. During the Serbian and Monetenegrian aggression, two civil wars erupted in Bosnia and Herzegovina: (1) between the Muslims and the Croats and (2) between the Muslims. The participants of this war all swear their allegiance to the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but differ in their visions of its political structure. The Moslems wish a unitarian state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Croats want it to be a federal state, while the Serbs are against any separate state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. (SOI: PM: S. 242)

The end of the "cold war" brought about the emergence of geopolitics which has not been to such an extent burdened with the former international geopolitical views. One of the most significant shifts has been the recognition that geopolitical events cannot be limited to national states and their borders. Of course, states are still central for the world's geopolitical map, but no longer as the sole factors in the global geopolitical system. On the one hand and under the influence of globalization, new conditions have arisen, influenced by geopolitical factors; on the other, new entities are emerging whose influence is very similar to that of the central factors - contemporary states. These similarities are primarily reflected in the claims of sovereign control over a certain territory, the organization of government on it, the shaping of a particular national identity by the majority population, and so on. It is these new territorial and political units that contribute to the deconstruction of the geopolitical order; the disintegration of the Soviet Union is the best illustration. (SOI : PM: S. 88)

More than a decade has passed since the momentous events of 1989 that changed the world order and redefined the geopolitics of Central Europe. This is just the right moment to assess the results of these changes and discuss the future of that region. Based on the past comparative studies or those currently going on, we may say that Central Europe differs from the post-communist East (the former Soviet Union) and the South-East (the former Yugoslavia with the exception of Slovenia) and Albania. First, Central-European states overthrew their communist regimes earlier and in a more decisive manner than the USSR; second, the economic transformation of Central Europe, though not completely smooth, is nevertheless much smoother than the transformation of the member countries of the CIS; third, the post-communist societies differ in the pattern by which their systems of social stratification have changed after the collapse of their communist regimes; fourth, there are big differences between the Central-European post-communist states, including the Baltic states on the one hand, and the CIS members and Serbia/Montenegro-Yugoslavia on the other regarding their international orientation. The author highlights three significant events that are going to leave their trace on the regional geostrategic situation: NATO's eastern expansion, NATO's campaign against SKY and the election of Vladimir Putin for president of Russia. The regional geopolitical picture may become more stable with closer ties between the states of Central Europe and Germany. (SOI : PM: S. 11)

The dissolution of the great Soviet empire and the demise of the socialist system in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe has undoubtedly been one of the most significant political developments at the turn of the 20th century. Whether this has been brought about by international factors or has been the consequence of the internal cave-in of the system, has been the subject of numerous and extensive analyses. It is obvious that the geostrategic shifts and the completely altered position of the new state (the Russian Federation) have made it necessary to look into the political aspect of the problem. That Russia is not faced with an imminent threat from abroad is certainly an extraordinary change, unprecedented in the long Russian history. This particularly applies to the western Russian borders, which used to be almost continually threatened. Political relations that have been developing between Russia and the West, despite all the obstacles, have been improving and both sides demonstrate a willingness to continue with this trend. (SOI : PM: S. 167)

The two construction ventures mirrored political currents and were affected by politics while themselves making politics. In the aftermath of the regime's backlash following the Croatian quest for more autonomy within the Yugoslav federation, the Cathedral was reduced in size and relocated to an inappropriate site. Builders of the St. Sava's church, meanwhile, defied recommendations by experts to adjust its style to the surroundings or change the location. Even though the authorities offered financial assistance with the construction permit, the Serb church in Split remained unfinished. In the late 1980s as ethnic tensions grew and the multiethnic country was on the brink of war and disintegration, leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church and propaganda in the capital of Serbia Belgrade exploited the Split case as an evidence of discrimination against the Serbian ethnic minority in predominantly Catholic Croatia. The Serbian Church, utilizing the unfinished temple, also attempted to revive symbolically the ancient Byzantine/Roman disputes over the church community in the ancient city in order to imply that there existed a long tradition and "continuity" of religious disputes in this region. Yet, both the Croatian authorities and the Catholic Church sought to appease the Serbian church, rather than to accept the challenges. This case demonstrates that the Serbian Orthodox Church followed the militant course of the regime in Serbia, which was the principal firebrand of the 1991-95 Balkan war. (SOI : CSP: S. 126) + This article is built on primary sources that include the author's research in the offices of state commissions for relations with religious communities with numerous interviews carried out between 1985-1991. It examines church-state relations and interconfessional rivalry under communism in the former Yugoslav federation of six republics. Construction of new religious facilities, especially in case of building of significant edifices symbols of religious and ethnic identity, was a popular practice by which religious institutions animated the faithful, sought to break the isolation imposed upon them by the regime, and symbolically expressed resistance against the communist system, and finally, competed with one another in a society with three major religious institutions and over forty minor religious groups. The analysis tracks down coinciding processes of rebuilding of two significant churches symbols. One is a Serbian Orthodox memorial church dedicated to the chief Serb national saint Sava, built in neo-Byzantine style, and installed amidst a historic Romanesque block in the predominantly Croatian Catholic town of Split. The other church under construction was the city's co-Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle, damaged in World War II

The entire Croatian history has been fraught with conflicts in which the advocates of Croatian interests have been maligned by means of numerous conspiracies and fabrications which would serve as a pretext for their most brutal liquidation. Andrija Hebrang is a tragic figure of recent Croatian history, a victim of the Politburo fraction of Kardelj-Djilas-Rankovic, to whom Tito gave the go-ahead for Hebrang's political and physical elimination. The accusations that he was a spy for the Ustashas and later for the Soviets are totally unfounded - an innocent victim whose demise has remained unexplained. (SOI : PM: S. 296)