A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #365 - International - Serbia: A Success Story of Horizontal Struggles (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

For the past year, Serbia has been experiencing a wave of protests 
against the authoritarian regime of President Aleksandar Vucic. 
Following the students, workers have taken up the movement. This 
horizontal movement, which traditional political parties have failed to 
co-opt, offers valuable insights for those who are fighting, both 
locally and internationally. An article on this topic can be found in 
English on the website of our British sister organization, 
Anarchistcommunism.org.

On November 1, 2024, the canopy of a train station collapsed in the city 
of Novi Sad, in northern Serbia. This accident claimed the lives of 
sixteen people, including two children. In Serbia, this event was widely 
seen as a sign of the corruption of the right-wing authoritarian regime 
led by President Aleksandar Vucic. The canopy collapsed after a Chinese 
subcontractor was hired to renovate the station. Many believe that 
government officials and bureaucrats embezzled funds intended for the 
renovation.

This sparked a protest movement against corruption that continues to 
this day. On November 22, students from the drama school joined the 
movement, blocking a street for a 15-minute silent protest. But 
hooligans from a football club in Vucic's pay attacked them. The 
students were not intimidated and went on strike three days later.

A "progressive" president turned fascist
Vucic began his career as an ultranationalist and has now adopted 
populist positions. His Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) emerged from a 
2008 split within the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), a fascist party. It 
is riddled with nationalists and maintains ties with various fascist 
groups. Vucic himself served as Minister of Information under President 
Slobodan Miloshevic.

Demonstrations of up to 500,000 people have taken place against the 
regime, the largest occurring in Belgrade on March 14. This was the 
largest demonstration in Serbian history. In response, Vucic has 
increasingly resorted to the police and fascist hooligan gangs to attack 
the movement. In August, demonstrators in the towns of Vrbas and Backa 
were attacked by these hooligans, with the complicity of the police. 
This continued at the demonstrations the following day. In Novi Sad, 
masked thugs attacked participants with bottles, batons, fireworks, and 
flares. Street battles ensued, and an SNS office was set on fire.

Demonstration on January 24, 2025, in Belgrade.
EMILIJA KNEZEVIC
Vucic also increased the size of the security unit, the JZO, from 300 to 
1,300 personnel. This unit is directly subordinate to him and acts to 
intimidate protesters. He has threatened them with death and compared 
them to fascists and Nazis, claiming they are paid by Germany or Great 
Britain.

Although various Serbian left-wing groups have attempted to keep the 
demonstrations apolitical, trying to prevent them from taking an 
anti-capitalist turn, the movement remains organized in a federative and 
horizontal manner. As student Veljko Radic stated in an interview with 
Transnational Social Strike: "What makes these protests so special to me 
is the horizontal organization of the students. Each faculty has a local 
plenary assembly where everyone can speak freely, followed by a brief 
discussion and a vote. This usually results in near-consensus. 
Furthermore, each faculty has numerous working groups responsible for 
strategy, fundraising, media relations, communication with other 
faculties, security, activities during the blockade, and so on. Every 
decision made at the local plenary assemblies is then passed on to a 
larger delegates' meeting where each faculty has a delegate who shares 
what was decided at their local plenary assembly. This is how decisions 
concerning the entire university are made. In addition, any form of 
collaboration with political parties and NGOs is prohibited."»

Blockade in Belgrade in July 2025.

WIKIPEDIA/SADKO
A victorious strike
The government made no significant concessions, despite the scale of the 
movement. A one-day general strike, in which hundreds of thousands of 
people participated, paralyzed all major cities, with farmers and their 
tractors joining the blockades in Belgrade. Six days after the strike, 
Prime Minister Milosh Vucevic, leader of the SNS, resigned. But this did 
not quell the movement.

During a massive demonstration, the police used a sonic cannon emitting 
high-pitched noises to provoke a stampede. Despite this, the movement 
remains strong. The horizontal "direct democracy" employed by the 
students has spread among the working class in many Serbian cities. As 
one anarchist noted under the pseudonym Random: "I participated in an 
assembly organized for several blocks. People immediately embraced 
direct democracy. Almost everyone who supports this demonstration also 
views this plenary assembly, this direct democracy, this way of 
organizing, with great admiration. And this represents enormous 
potential for the anarchist movement.[...]Anarchist organization is one 
of the main reasons why this movement is so successful today." "

A Beacon in the Night
Similarly, traditional political parties have so far failed to seize 
control of the movement. Another anarchist, Ilik, stated: "It is now a 
social movement that began as a student movement and then grew. Workers 
started to offer their support, farmers joined the movement, ordinary 
people began to participate, and it is now a large social movement over 
which the opposition doesn't really have any power. They are, of course, 
trying to use it, trying to be a peaceful solution, with a transitional 
government or elections, which they want to win because they are the 
only other political option.[...]But they are not popular, and the more 
they try to push for elections and a transitional government, anything 
that can put them in power, the more people organize themselves."

It remains to be seen whether the movement will be able to withstand 
repression. In any case, the example of Serbia needs to be more widely 
known. Along with the movements in Indonesia, Nepal, France, Macedonia, 
and elsewhere, we are witnessing the emergence of a horizontal 
organizing phenomenon that has nothing to do with Leninist dogma and 
offers a glimpse of a new society, of the evolution of humankind toward 
a higher level: that of anarchist communism. In these dark times, this 
phenomenon must be disseminated and celebrated. These heroic movements 
are beacons in the human night.

Anarchist Communist Group

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Serbie-Une-reussite-des-luttes-horizontales
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