The zbor (zborovi in the plural) is a grassroots democratic council that is currently experiencing a renaissance as a model of political participation in countries that were formerly part of Yugoslavia. This resurgence is evident in the adoption of the zborovi by the student movement in Serbia, which has now spread to other areas of society. While authoritarian President Aleksandar Vučić warns that such councils will bring Bolshevism to the country, pro-government television talk shows are discussing whether the revived zborovi could lead Serbia into anarchy. In this interview, Stefan Gužvica and Gal Kirn explore the history and political potential of the zborovi.
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Magdalena Taube/Krystian Woznicki: The council model zbor is often considered a legacy of socialist Yugoslavia, which existed from 1945 to 1992. But it existed before that. In which historical constellations were zborovi first introduced, shaped, and disseminated?
Gal Kirn: Historically, the zbor council was a political institution used during the feudal era of the Habsburg monarchy at the regional level. Some consider the early forms of ‘national awakening’ in the mid- to late 19th century to be the first embryonic form of grassroots political participation. A more politically articulate form of council emerged at the end of WWI with the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. In Ljubljana, the popular council decided to join the new state of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs in October 1918. There were also corporatist-inspired, church-related political ideas and organizations that inscribed certain hierarchies in different societal bodies. These organizations identified with councils as a representation of a specific part of society. Some of these political organizations were adopted by fascists in the 1930s. However, the more revolutionary history of the councils should be ascribed to the Partisan movement and the antifascist resistance, which became a transformative movement. Each liberated territory and occupied city held councils of the liberation struggle. These self-governing bodies received their most important political expression in the AVNOJ (Antifascist Council of the Liberation Struggle of Yugoslavia). Among other things, AVNOJ announced the creation of a new, federally organized Yugoslavia in 1943. This new Yugoslavia would be based on international antifascist solidarity and would guarantee equality for all nations and nationalities. Josip Broz Tito led that council and the entire partisan liberation movement. This was a double political process. On the one hand, there was a more organized process led by communists that influenced ideological and communicative networks and coordinated struggles and delegations. On the other hand, there was a process of emancipation in all regions of Yugoslavia. Starting in 1943, this process brought the masses onto the historical stage. Councils demonstrated increasing political autonomy and were accountable to both the people and AVNOJ.
Stefan Gužvica: The word zbor has a rather broad meaning, and the best translation is probably assembly. However, it has always implied a broader assembly of people, rather than a parliament of elected representatives. For instance, in 1804, Serbia’s nascent urban merchant class decided to begin an uprising against the Ottoman Sultan. This eventually turned into a national revolution with demands for an independent state and the abolition of feudalism. This decision was made at a zbor, or assembly, in a village in central Serbia that gathered a wide range of local notables. By the early 20th century, with the advent of organized labor, zbor came to mean demonstration. A zbor became a meeting of economically (and sometimes politically) organized working-class people that would gather for a particular purpose or for a general show of strength on major socialist holidays, such as May Day. In socialist Yugoslavia, following the 1945 revolution, the term zbor first referred to a supervisory body of local government – essentially an ideal public forum where the government presented its activities and was scrutinized by the population. By the time of the 1963 and 1974 constitutions, the term also came to explicitly refer to economic assemblies within a given workplace.
MT/KW: How did zborovi function prior to Socialist Yugoslavia? Where and how were they carried out? What significance did zborovi have for social processes back then?
Stefan Gužvica: In terms of history, I think it’s important to note the shift in organization from shared economic units to shared geographical communities. For example, over the past 150 years, a zbor was a popular workers’ demonstration, and in socialist Yugoslavia, it was a workers’ meeting in a factory. Before Marxism became the defining ideology of emancipation, Serbian populists, inspired by Russian ‘narodnichestvo,’ adopted ‘zadruga’ – essentially the village commune – as the basis for political organization. I am skeptical of this shift from workplace-based to local politics. I believe that forms of collective political action organized around people’s direct material conditions are much more likely to succeed than those organized around geography.
Gal Kirn: I would also add that many early workers’ organizations were inspired by Soviets and self-organization. Once communist organizations became illegal, the organization of party cells and larger networks could be considered a type of tight, closed council. However, due to their illegality, these organizations did not spread widely in the 1930s except during temporary strike activities, which became more active and radical towards the end of the decade.
MT/KW: The United Militant Labor Organization (Združena borbena organizacija rada), or Zbor for short, was founded in Belgrade in 1935. It was formed from the merger of three fascist movements: Yugoslav Action, the ‘Fighters’ from Ljubljana, and Buđenje from Petrovgrad. The politician Dimitrije Ljotić led the fascist party. The name of the party indicates that the fascists tried to appropriate the zborovi and use them for their own purposes. There was also a fascist newspaper called Zbor in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) at the time. How did the attempted fascist appropriation take place, and what conflicts arose for and around the practice of the zborovi during the struggles against fascism in the Balkans?
Stefan Gužvica: It’s important to explicitly state from the beginning that the current Zborovi have nothing to do with Dimitrije Ljotić’s Zbor. Ljotić most likely chose the name to evoke a sense of an organic community and did not have broader ambitions to identify with or reappropriate any existing radically democratic traditions, to which he was strongly opposed. During World War II, zbor again merely meant demonstration, although it referred specifically to large anti-fascist demonstrations organized by communists in territories liberated by Yugoslav partisans. These demonstrations were primarily public expressions of anti-fascist commitment and a statement against the ethnic violence perpetrated by the fascists in the region, particularly in multiethnic environments.
From socialist self-administration to privatization
MT/KW: How can we describe the zborovi’s evolution from a proto-modernist mechanism of direct democracy to socialist self-administration in, for instance, cooperatives in Yugoslavia?
Gal Kirn: I would argue that the Zborov councils’ direct democracy was the best example of participatory politics and collective organization during wartime. However, even back then, direct democracy did not simply fall from the sky or occur arbitrarily. There were political decisions made by higher political councils (such as AVNOJ) and political ideas reflecting a united front or other forms of antifascist resistance that led to popular decisions and discussions. In Yugoslavia, it is perhaps ironic that one of the first laws to implement a new type of worker self-management and property conceived as social ownership was enacted by decree from above after the split with Joseph Stalin in the years following World War II. Self-management councils networks and the very first working councils were first experimented with in fifty larger companies and only to later be socialized and extended to housing, culture, education, and the medical system. This influenced economic governance, giving people, especially workers, a greater voice in budget distribution, investment, and so on. Undoubtedly, many decisions had to be run through the delegation system, as many strategic decisions still came from the republican and federal communist elite.
MT/KW: How did the zborovi change in terms of their political, social, and economic functions in socialist Yugoslavia?
Gal Kirn: They expanded into all social spheres and sparked many discussions, which also produced oversaturation. The expectation that a person should be a worker, a parent, an athlete, and active in culture and politics demanded a strong sense of responsibility and time that many did not have or could not afford. This is why many people were happy to delegate decisions to experts, technocrats, or local party bureaucrats.
MT/KW: What role did zborovi play in the multi-ethnic constitution of Socialist Yugoslavia? Or how did zborovi reflect and support or facilitate multi-ethnic social reality?
Gal Kirn: They were an expression of the multiethnic and federal model, which promoted the idea that affiliations other than ethnic and national ones were more important, and that democratic socialism should expand beyond the party’s strict guidelines. Participating in culture or sports, for example, was considered more important than belonging to a particular group. Similarly, a worker’s identity was considered more important than national belonging. However, this model was pitted against the deeply ingrained republican organization in the realm of ‘national culture,’ while national belonging went hand in hand with market reforms in the 1960s. These reforms reintroduced regional inequalities and underdeveloped certain parts of the federation. In general, workers’, citizens’, and later interest groups’ politics and involvement were structured differently and more openly than they are today, when politics has become a sphere of public relations and experts.
MT/KW: What happened to the practice of zborovi after the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1992, and how did it change during the ‘Yugoslav Wars,’ the series of separate but related ‘ethnic conflicts,’ ‘wars of independence,’ and insurgencies that took place from 1991 to 2001?
Gal Kirn: More or less, everything from self-management to direct democracy was forgotten or eradicated and relegated to an outdated system. In order to be efficient, we should not be hindered by unnecessary discussions. Class expertise reigned supreme.
MT/KW: What happened to the Zborovi practice after the wars during the capitalist shock therapy and privatization?
Gal Kirn: If the wars did not put an end to the practice of the zborovi, then the shock therapies did. However, some local administrative levels and republics still used mechanisms such as referendums as a form of direct democracy. In Slovenia, for example, this was seen as a legacy of socialism. Interestingly, though, it was mostly used by the Catholic Church and the right wing to curtail the political rights of minorities. In the sphere of political economy, however, the zborovi had no impact except in a few cases where workers fought back after bankruptcy and privatization, such as in Tuzla and Remedija.
Re-emergence of assemblies in the 21st century
MT/KW: How did the contemporary zborovi emerge?
Stefan Gužvica: I see contemporary direct democratic assemblies as more related to post-1968 global anti-political movements than to Yugoslavia’s socialist legacy. The first major outbursts of these organizing methods began in universities in the 2000s and are more an echo of the post-1968 antipolitics that took root throughout Europe in the latter half of the 20th century than any local traditions. Zbor is essentially the idea of a student plenum applied to broader society – the idea of direct democracy as a solution to the problems of representative parliamentary democracy under capitalism. In the context of the student movement, plenums offered an alternative to student parliamentarianism, which is viewed as a training ground for young political party cadres rather than a representative student body. This is why, from the second half of the 2000s on, student blockades always began with plenums as an alternative meant to rectify these shortcomings.
Gal Kirn: Yes indeed, there were indeed plenums and zborovi in Zagreb, as well as protest movements against privatization. These movements were also present in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There were different forms of uprising against neoliberalism, corruption, and ethnic separation – sorts of regressive identity politics imposed since the destruction of Yugoslavia and socialism. Slovenia and Serbia, with their own historical instances, are known for various uprisings and forms of councils that have also been adopted by political parties. New socialist and leftist political forces have emerged with various degrees of success.
MT/KW: The zborovi are enshrined in the laws of Balkan countries such as Serbia as instruments of local self-government. What is your opinion on the political potential of this legal framework?
Gal Kirn: Some legislation and laws from the socialist period remain in effect alongside neoliberalism. The political elite decides which aspects to accommodate. They change certain things and leave the rest alone. Therefore, I am rather skeptical of the political potential of such laws. However, I am not familiar with the Serbian transition in this regard.
Stefan Gužvica: In most former socialist countries, I think the only things that still function are the remnants of the infrastructure built during the socialist era – the infrastructure, housing, and healthcare system. Sometimes, legal forms also persisted due to inertia.
The Law on Local Self-Government defined zborovi as a one-time meeting of a local community’s members for a specific purpose. Zborovi existed during the time of socialist Yugoslavia but were not nearly as important as workers’ self-management in workplaces, for instance. As such, zborovi were seen as an unintrusive and harmless form of temporary, bottom-up organizing. Frankly, I suspect this reasoning was close to the truth. When students adopted the idea of zborovi, they specifically emphasized that this form of organization is legal and already exists within the framework of the law. The police violence being exercised against students and protesters these days is, of course, also fully legal. Therefore, I think the question should not be how to work within the confines of the law but whether such a tactic is sensible to begin with. More broadly, the question is whether the purpose of the legal system is to facilitate change within the system or to uphold the status quo. I think social scientists have yet to discover a legal system that does the former.
The practice of zborovi re-emerged as an expression of the direct democratic impulse often seen in student protests, which is a knee-jerk reaction to disillusionment with mainstream politics while attempting to remain within contemporary social and political realities. This has been attempted several times before in countries of the former Yugoslavia, but these assemblies were previously called plenums, a term borrowed from university blockades. There is already a Balkan precedent for plenums, and it is clear that they have not been successful in becoming permanent institutions in any society. In fact, in the most recent and militant case of social revolt in the former Yugoslavia, the 2014 Bosnian protests, the plenums did more to dissipate the protests than anything else.
MT/KW: The zborovi, as a political form, does not seem sufficient to change the status quo. Could you discuss the proliferation of social, economic, and ecological movements in the Balkans, such as those in Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, and Serbia, to reflect on this shortcoming?
Stefan Gužvica: These movements are part of the broader international attempts of the left to reorganize in the wake of neoliberalism and the collapse of traditional institutions and forms of organization. As someone who was once enthusiastic about them, I think it is safe to say that they have all failed miserably, including Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn, Syriza, and Podemos, as well as their Balkan offshoots. Even when they were declaratively against established representative politics, social movements were at their most successful when they became typical postmodern political parties based on focus groups and electoralism, such as Možemo in Croatia or the aforementioned Podemos. Of course, the degree to which the outcome was successful or leftist in terms of resulting policies is debatable. What is certain is that no major political movement globally has managed to clearly break with neoliberalism, let alone capitalism. The great social transformations of the 20th century resulted from meticulous, long-term organizing in people’s places of work. This organizing had a direct impact on people’s daily lives, something that politics rooted in local communities failed to do. Conversely, even moderate movements today that want to do away with neoliberalism but not capitalism are doomed to fail since they lack the influence they had when the Keynesian welfare state was created. The German SPD (or KPD) of the pre-1933 era is perhaps the clearest example of this, when compared to today’s politics devoid of mass organization. Major 20th-century social and economic changes did not come about because of parliamentary parties or democratic mechanisms, but rather because of the very real threat of physical force against the ruling class when the workers’ demands were not met. Neither zborovi nor any other contemporary form of political organizing invented after 1968 is capable of turning this tide.
The politics of direct democracy in the student movement
MT/KW: In the growing student movement in Serbia since November 2024, which has affected the entire population, zborovi are not only a technical tool but also an ideological pillar. The Handbook for Plenums encourages students to organize zborovi as ‘plenums for citizens’ and offers training. As a result, plenums have become popular throughout Serbian society, including among teachers, parents of schoolchildren, public libraries, university professors, and local communities. The students have encouraged all of these groups to exercise direct democracy, either through zborovi in front of a town hall or through an informal Viber group. What is your take on this development?
Gal Kirn: For me, it is one of the most inspiring cases where a political body – those who study under capitalist conditions in a specific nation-state with a high degree of corruption – was able to mobilize and organize far beyond the ‘corporatist’ part and attract various groups of youth, the elderly, and all the groups you mention. Perhaps the fact that they did not immediately enter official politics and had a minimal set of political demands – a kind of Barthleby moment – opened a path for many people to lose their fear of nationalist thugs and plunge themselves completely into the political process. They found joy in meeting and talking to people rather than pursuing individual paths, focusing solely on their careers, and leaving the country. There are many instances of political courage, as well as councils that present themselves as a way to organize thoughts and actions. Even if some discussions seem banal, they are still important. These discussions are part of the political experience of sharing and taking independent steps into the political realm.
Stefan Gužvica: The increased politicization of Serbian society is certainly a positive step. People have become more aware of how various institutions function, how this shapes their everyday lives, and why this understanding is important. The most politically advanced members of society understand that institutional failures are a feature, not a bug, of a capitalist society on the periphery. They also understand that cosmetic changes, such as new elections, will not solve deep dysfunction caused by the way capitalism and the profit motive work rather than by the individual flaws of this or that politician.
Social media is not primarily an instrument of democracy; it is primarily an instrument of marketing and surveillance. The abundance of information on social media can hinder any political movement, and major intelligence agencies have close ties to companies such as Meta, Rakuten Viber, and Telegram. Anyone aspiring to social change would be better off reading books than participating in group chats. Online communication concerning serious political issues should be a last resort.
MT/KW: Regarding the student movement journalist Suzana Ignjatović observes that it is unclear whether zborovi are a correction of representative democracy or a revolutionary method for building a society of direct democracy. She suspects that the recent divisions in the student movement are related to the role of direct democracy, and zborovi in particular, in their struggle. What is your position on whether zborovi are a correction of representative democracy or a revolutionary method for building a society of direct democracy?
Gal Kirn: You can also include those in civil society and the opposition who want to change the political regime. There are a few divisions here, too. I see potential for social transformation if the student movement and its offshoots can maintain their autonomous approach, avoid becoming just another liberal political party, and articulate political demands targeting the causes of corruption, neoliberal privatization, and the nationalist model of politics. Divisions are not necessarily bad; they are part of antagonistic politics that aim to change the world by cutting through the existing state of affairs and topics. They are also part of the process of becoming ‘the people.’ So, don’t let Alexander Vučić and others like him have that word or slogan in their mouths. Instead, let it emerge in councils, strikes, and protests.
Stefan Gužvica: The zborovi have proven to be much more effective in pushing concrete student demands that would have gone unaddressed within the existing parliamentary democratic framework. These demands include addressing the structural inability of the Serbian Progressive Party to lose an election due to electoral manipulation and state capture. However, I think the debate over direct versus representative democracy fundamentally misses the point because the central social conflict is not between ‘the people’ and ‘the politicians,’ but between capital and labor. Most political discourse over the past half century has disregarded this basic fact, consequently allowing capital to become increasingly powerful while labor has become increasingly weak. The fundamental obstacle to human emancipation is the capitalist economic system as a whole, not a dysfunction of a political system subsumed by it. Therefore, the question of direct democracy is, at best, an organizational one. Even there, however, the results of direct democracy have been less than stellar, as anyone who has ever attended a leftist assembly overly focused on procedure can tell you.