...Vojvodina are given autonomous status in order to acknowledge the specific interests of Albanians and Magyars, respectively.

The creation of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and the Autonomous Region of Kosovo-Metohija is intended to reflect their special circumstances as areas of ethnic complexity, rather than any status as quasi-republics that might serve as “homelands” for the Hungarians (Magyars) or Albanians.

Greater autonomy for the Serbian republic throws into sharper definition the problematic position of Albanians.

Serbia's provinces of Kosovo and ...

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, formed after Josip Broz Tito and his communist-led Partisans had helped liberate the country from German rule in 1944–45, covers much the same territory as its predecessor, with the addition of land acquired from Italy in Istria and Dalmatia.

When a new Soviet-style constitution is promulgated in January 1946, the political development of Serbia is once again merged with that of Yugoslavia.

In an effort to prevent Serbian domination of the new state, the regime makes separate republics of Montenegro and Macedonia and creates within Serbia itself an ethnically mixed Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and a mostly Albanian Autonomous Region of Kosovo.

A federation of six nominally equal republics—Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia—replaces the monarchy.

This new federation is intended to satisfy the national aspirations of all its peoples, but a centrally controlled Communist Party and a revived push for Yugoslav unity undermine this structure.

Despite its federal form, the new state is highly centralized both politically and economically, with power held firmly by Tito's Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

The Yugoslav system consists of three levels of government: the communes (opshtine), the republics, and the federation.

The 500 communes are direct agents for the collection of most government revenue, and they provide social services.

The constitution establishes a rubber-stamp Federal Assembly and a presidential council to administer the federal government.

It also includes restricted wording on the inviolability of the home, the right to work, freedom of speech, association, and religion, and other rights.

Tito heads the party, government, and armed forces; his party functionaries oversee the industries and supervise republican and local officials.

The communist strategy of unifying Yugoslavia through a federal structure elevates Montenegro to the status of a republic, thus securing Montenegrin loyalty to the federation.

Slovenia and ...

...Croatia, as constituents of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, undergo a complete restructuring of their respective economies, politics, and societies along Stalinist lines.

Life in the new Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina undergoes all the social, economic, and political changes that are imposed on the whole of Yugoslavia by its new communist government, but Bosnia is particularly affected by the abolition of many traditional Muslim institutions, such as Qur'anic primary schools, rich charitable foundations, and dervish religious orders.

Under the direction of Rankovic, many thousands of Albanian Muslims are deported from Kosovo to Turkey, their religious affiliation being used to justify their “repatriation.”

Within the Serbian republic, the communist seizure of power in 1945 has created a markedly conservative and bureaucratic political apparatus exemplified by such party stalwarts as Aleksandar Rankovic and Mijalko Todorovic.

A change of official policy in the 1960s has led to Yugoslavia's acceptance of “Muslim” as a term denoting a national identity: the phrase “Muslim in the ethnic sense” had been used in the 1961 census, and in 1968 the Bosnian Central Committee decrees that “the Muslims are a distinct nation.”