Yugoslav Gastarbeiter and the Ambivalence of Socialism: Framing Out-Migration as a Social Critique

Abstract

Labour migration was a hallmark of the openness of socialist Yugoslavia towards the West. By the early 1970s, more than one million Yugoslav citizens lived abroad, two thirds of them in the Federal Republic of Germany. This article argues that the so-called Gastarbeiter (guestworkers) migration a headache for the communist regime because the Gastarbeiter embodied structural shortcomings of the economy, especially its inability to provide enough jobs. Left-wing student protesters in 1968, critical film-makers and intellectuals claimed that out-migration was a consequence of inequality and alienation in the country. In this article, I focus on representations of the Gastarbeiter in the press in the 1960s and 1970s, arguing that constant reporting reminded readers of unsolved problems of the country. Out-migration and its criticism highlighted the pitfalls of the country’s integration into the capitalist world economy.