12th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia

12th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
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Overview
Type	Highest forum
Convenor	13th Session of the Central Committee of the 11th Congress
Presiding organ	Working Presidency
Electoral organ	Commission for the Verification of the Election
Elected bodies	Central Committee Statutory Commission Supervisory Commission
Meeting place
Sava Centar, Beograd SR Serbia, SFR Yugoslavia

The League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) convened the highest forum for its 12th Congress on 26–29 June 1982 at the Sava Centar in Belgrade, Socialist Republic of Serbia. It was the first party congress in four years and the first since the death of Josip Broz Tito, the long-standing leader of the LCY and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) on 4 May 1980. The 12th Congress was attended by 1,570 delegates, 355 guests and 118 foreign delegations. Preparations for the congress began on 29 September 1980, and the exact date of the congress was set at the 25th Session of the Central Committee of the 11th Congress on 8–9 April 1982. The 12th Congress was preceded by the congresses and conferences of the LCY constitutive branches that elected delegates and elected members of the Central Committee, Commission on Statutory Questions and Supervisory Commission of the LCY.

The 12th Congress was expected to give answers to the socio-economic difficulties Yugoslavia were facing at the time. With Tito's death, his dominant one-man leadership was replaced by a system of collective leadership centred on the Presidency of the LCY Central Committee and the Presidency of the SFRY. This leadership had to grapple with the 1981 Kosovo riots and its repercussions and the economic crisis the state was experiencing. Congress proceedings went smoothly, and they ended with the successful verification of the Central Committee, Commission of Statutory Questions, and the Supervisory Commission of the LCY. But the 1st Session of the Central Committee of the 12th Congress, held on 29 June, tasked with the election of the Presidency of the 12th Congress nearly provoked a party split.

At the Central Committee's 1st Session, Branko Mikulić with the help of Dušan Dragosavac, the president of the Presidency of the LCY Central Committee, tried to block the election of Draža Marković, an outspoken member of the League of Communists of Serbia who called to reduce the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina within the Socialist Republic of Serbia. Petar Stambolić, a member of the LCY Central Committee and the sitting president of the Presidency of the SFRY, accused them of foreign interference in the internal affairs of Serbia and threatened to resign from office. Marković's opponents eventually relented, and he was elected to the Presidency.'

The 12th Congress was considered the freest party gathering up to that point, with open and candid criticism and differences aired out in public. However, commentators have usually hailed the congress as a failure. It neither managed to put forth solutions to any of the major problems the country was facing, nor did it manage to intensify the conflict between the Serbian branch and the other branches. The resolutions adopted by the congress have been accused of being vague, and of not contributing to finding solutions for the crisis.