Jona Everdeen
For months, the protests of Serbia’s students have been shaking the country. Ever since the freshly renovated canopy of the train station in the city of Novi Sad collapsed on 1 November 2024, killing 15 people, one of the largest protest movements in the country’s history has been taking place. It is directed against the corruption held responsible for the disaster and the government of President Aleksandar Vučić in general.
Students have played a particularly active role in the movement, quickly turning the fight into a fundamental one against the entire political system of the country. They have been at the forefront of the protests, which are now including ever larger masses of the population, especially in urban centres such as Belgrade and Novi Sad. And it is they who may be able to show a way out of the misery!
The pressure on the government is clearly increasing, to the extent that Serbia’s Prime Minister, Miloš Vučević, resigned on 28 January 2025 over corruption allegations. President Vučić is clearly trying to let some steam out of the kettle, because the ongoing protests are also undermining his power base. The regime has long since stopped holding pro-government demonstrations in the major cities. On 24 January, Vučić and his supporters organised their own rally in Jagodina (formerly Svetozarevo; Pomoravlje district, central Serbia), to which buses were organised from across the country at state expense. According to the government, 100,000 people were expected to attend, while other observers speak of 15,000.
Vučević’s resignation makes it clear that the regime is on its last legs. The question now is whether, how and by whom it can be overcome and replaced.
The Serbian students‘ revolt
The massive uprising of Serbian students began at the Faculty of Arts and Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. There, on Friday 22 November, three weeks after the disaster in Novi Sad, they gathered to observe a minute’s silence for the victims. But they were physically attacked by alleged passers-by. In response, they began to block their faculty and demanded the identification and punishment of the attackers. Other students across the country joined and eventually 62 of Serbia’s 80 faculties were occupied. Instead of lectures and seminars, organising took place, which is supported by large parts of the student body.
The demands were initially relatively simple: disclosure of the documents for the construction of the new train station in Novi Sad; prosecution and punishment of those who attacked the protests, many of whom were identified from pictures on the internet (most turned out to be active members of the ruling party); release of all those detained during the protests and cessation of all criminal proceedings.
In addition to these direct and immediate demands, however, the protests were increasingly directed against the political system surrounding the autocratic president Vučić. The protesters are calling for an end to corruption, which is widespread in Serbia, and for „compliance with the law“. This can ultimately be understood as a defence of democratic rights, which Vučić has increasingly restricted during his time in office. The latest election in 2023 finally made it clear that it had been blatantly manipulated by the ruling party. The state is increasingly being remodelled so that power lies solely in the hands of President Vučić and his party.
The students refer to this development towards authoritarianism when they say, „Serbia is not a democracy“. At the same time, they are creating their own democratic forms of grassroots organisation in their faculties. General assemblies are held and the students themselves decide on and implement everything of importance at the university, from the communal kitchen to political demands. There is also a division of labour between the faculties. For example, students from the architecture faculty examined the documents of the new building in Novi Sad that the government had published to ease the pressure – probably in the hope that this would satisfy the masses, who have little knowledge of the subject. However, the students found that these documents were insufficient to understand the construction process and where the blame for the disaster lies. That is why they are now demanding the release of all documents. The law faculty is also working to advise the movement on legal issues and to examine whether the actions of official authorities are lawful.
Repression cannot break the movement
The faculties have been under the control of the students since the occupations began and have become the movement’s bases. This is also possible thanks to the autonomy of higher education in Serbia, which prevents students at the university from being directly affected by state repression. Unlike in Berlin, where the „democrat“ Kai Wegner, the Christian Democrat mayor, can have universities cleared, the autocrat Vučić in Belgrade cannot simply send his uniformed thugs onto the campus.
There is plenty of repression nonetheless, not directly at the university, but all the more on the streets. Peaceful protests, which consisted mainly of silent commemoration, were fired upon with tear gas. Demonstrations were violently attacked by gangs of thugs in civilian clothes working for the ruling party. The police did not arrest the thugs, but those who defended themselves from them. Arrests and charges against protesters were almost always made on a completely arbitrary basis. Detentions for 48 hours without any real charge are common. There is also evidence that when the police were able to take protesters into custody, they implanted listening devices in their mobile phones.
Vučić was unable to break the protests by force, so he tried concessions and had 13 people arrested who might have been responsible for the disaster, including the former transport minister. Now, sacrificing the next pawn, Vučević, is supposed to calm the movement. However, it cannot be assumed that the process will be conducted neutrally, but rather that the president’s party friends will receive only mild sentences or that the whole thing will simply be sat out. However, the protests are already much more profound, which is why they have not yet been satisfied with symbolic concessions. More and more want to see the end of Vučić’s entire system.
How can the fight be won?
The deeper, more fundamental protest spread from the students to many layers of Serbian society. 100,000 were on the streets in Belgrade for the largest mobilisation, and 23,000 in Novi Sad. Time and again, tens of thousands have been brought into action for change. This also includes school students, who have also begun to take part in the protests. To counteract this, the government quickly brought forward the winter holidays (which fall around Orthodox Christmas on 6 January). However, this did not stop many students. They went to their schools despite being on holiday to use them as a stage for their protest. Over time, trade unions and professional associations have also become increasingly involved in the protest. The protest spread from the country’s major cities such as Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš to rural areas. The demand for a general strike has also been raised repeatedly.
That is exactly what is needed! The students must join forces with the workers and with the large movement against the Rio Tinto lithium mine (Jadar project), which, after it was seemingly prevented in 2022, is now to be built after a revision in 2024.
Just as the students have built structures in their faculties, the workers must also hold assemblies in their workplaces, elect action committees and take control of the mines and factories in the country.
Vučić’s corrupt authoritarian government, which is collectively responsible for the Novi Sad disaster and the general lack of economic prospects in the country, must go. Instead, a new workers‘ government is needed, one that is based on the self-organisation of students, workers and peasants, who also play an important role in the protests! However, for this to happen, the working class must not only be fully involved in the struggle, it must also play the leading role. So far, students have been at the forefront of the movement and have pushed the government onto the defensive. To overthrow it and implement a social alternative not only to the government but also to the root of corruption and mismanagement – that is, to capitalist exploitation – the working class must become the leading force of the movement. That requires, in the heat of the struggle against the government, the most conscious sections of the workers and students to unite in a revolutionary workers‘ party.
International solidarity!
One thing must be clear: Serbia is a semi-colonial country that is being pulled back and forth relatively helplessly between various imperialist powers, mainly the EU and China. This is another reason why the Vučić government is forced to act in this way, and so would any other bourgeois government. This dependency can only be broken if Serbia ceases to be a bourgeois country and replaces capitalism with a democratic planned economy. Even then, international solidarity will be essential, because an isolated small country cannot survive in a hostile environment. The fight against an autocratic regime becomes all the more difficult the stronger the interest of great powers is to maintain it.
Therefore, it is necessary that we organise not only nationally but internationally! The students in Serbia were well aware of this, which is why they published an appeal on 21 December 2024 to fellow students around the world to join the fight and also occupy their faculties to fight injustice. Whether it be in the education system or on political issues, it is particularly encouraging to note that solidarity actions have indeed taken place at many universities in other Balkan countries. It seems that the young generation does not share the nationalist hatred that led to a series of brutal wars in the Balkans in the 1990s and early 2000s. Instead, they share international solidarity, and what counts more is that they are all students and are ruled by corrupt and at best semi-democratic systems, rather than whether they are Croatian, Macedonian or Serbian first.
It is not only in the region, but also, and especially, in the imperialist centres that rule them, that it is important to show solidarity with the students in Serbia! This also applies in Germany. German students should openly show their solidarity, draw attention to the situation and the struggle in Serbia, invite Serbian students to their universities and organise delegations to support the struggle in Serbia. In this way, a student movement can emerge that crosses borders and leads the fight against the unjust system that dominates us all – sometimes more, sometimes less obviously – internationally!