A recurring argument in Deca Komunizma is that nostalgia for communist Yugoslavia ( Jugonostalgija ) is not a harmless fondness for the past, but a psychological pathology. Marić distinguishes between remembering a better standard of living (free education, social security) and idealizing the system that produced fear and conformity. He interviews subjects who miss the “safety” of the one-party state, comparing them to abused children who miss their abuser because it was the only parent they knew. The essay within the book suggests that this nostalgia prevents genuine political maturity in the post-Yugoslav states. As long as the “children” remain fixated on the absent parent, they cannot build functional, democratic societies in the present.
Before diving into the book, it’s essential to understand the author. Milomir Marić (born 1947) is a retired officer of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and later the Security Directorate of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs. His career spanned the height of communism, the breakup of Yugoslavia, and the wars of the 1990s. Deca Komunizma Milomir Maric.pdf
If you cannot find or legally access the PDF, try these methods: A recurring argument in Deca Komunizma is that
The book is divided into two volumes:
One of the most poignant sections of Marić’s work deals with the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991. For the children of communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent civil wars were not just political events; they were patricides. Tito, the symbolic father, had died in 1980, but the ideological father—communism—died a decade later. Marić describes a generation left without a moral compass. Having been told that the state would provide everything (employment, housing, healthcare, meaning), these individuals suddenly faced the brutal logic of nationalism and market transition. Many retreated into two extremes: cynical apathy or fanatical chauvinism. Marić is particularly critical of the latter, showing how former communist youth leaders seamlessly became nationalist warlords, because their core identity was never based on democratic principles, but on loyalty to a strong authority figure. The essay within the book suggests that this
Purely altruistic fighters sacrificing everything for worker rights.
Through these themes, Marić reconstructed the revolutionary journey as an "action genre" tale, using a dynamic and engaging style that transformed historical research into a compelling narrative.