354 The Presidential Years
the end of 1941 from an Italian ambush, had only one quality: he knew how
to obey. These changes could not clear the air of the tension and intrigues
that dominated the army, where nationalism gained a foothold, worrying those
officers from the original Partisan core who still nurtured “Yugoslav” ideals.
Because of these internal frictions, 38 generals and 2,400 officers were removed
from active duty in 1968. At the same time, the structure of the LCY in the
army was reshaped to connect it more organically with the sociopolitical reality
of the country.^495
The Strengthening of NationalismsIn the second half of the sixties, the national question escalated throughout the
country. As early as autumn 1966, the Slovenes and Macedonians made their
voices heard, lobbying for their languages to be used in federal institutions as
dictated by the constitution.^496 Between the end of 1966 and the beginning of
1967 a conflict between Bulgaria and Macedonia flared up, initially involving
the historians of both countries: the Macedonians accused their neighbors of
prac ticing an oppressive policy toward members of the Macedonian minority
living in the Pirin Valley. The government in Sofia turned a deaf ear to their
request to grant this minority administrative autonomy, even denying the exis-
tence of a Macedonian ethnicity within its borders. Over the following two
years the polemics grew more and more strident and did not cool down until
Tito’s death.^497 Ever since the end of the war, in order to reinforce their national
identity, the Macedonians had been attempting to establish an autocephalous
Church (functioning independently of a higher authority), the traditional sign
of statehood in the Orthodox world. This aspiration could not be realized
while Ranković was in power, since he was a protector of the Serb Church,
which also included the eparchies in Macedonia. It was not until a year after his
fall, on 18 June 1967, that Macedonians received the assent of the commun-
ist authorities to elect their own patriarch. The Serbian Orthodox Church
opposed this with all its might, stressing that this was a blow to the Yugoslav
ideal but without result. It could only refuse to recognize the autocephaly of the
Macedonian Church, as it was not recognized by the ecumenical patriarch of
Constantinople.^498
Tito observed the rise of nationalist feelings within all the Yugoslav repub-
lics with concern. At the Fourth Plenum, in February 1967, he declared openly
that he would not tolerate “the spreading of subversive slogans, national intol-
erance, and chauvinism, as sometimes happens in our schools, or other spheres
of our public life.”^499 In spite of this warning, a linguistic quarrel exploded the
following month between Serbs and Croats, which appeared to be a greater
problem than the Serb-Macedonian ecclesiastical conflict. The origins of the