Someone
tried to kill him as he was taking the oath to uphold the
constitution on June 28, 1921. For 8 long years he had to endure a
kaleidoscope of governments, a revolving door of ministers, violence
in the Assembly and ever-escalating Croat demands for autonomy.
After the hideous slaughter on the floor of parliament, all its
remaining Croat members withdrew.
They refused to go back and parliament had to be dissolved.
Alexander went further, taking advantage of the constitutional
crisis. He abolished the constitution of 1921, outlawed all
ethnically, religiously or nationally based political parties (which
basically meant most political parties, especially the Croat ones),
re-organized the state administration, standardized the legal
system, school syllabi and curricula and the national holidays. He
was moulding a nation single handedly, carving it from the slab of
mutual hatred and animosity. The Croats regarded all this as yet
another Serb ploy, proof of Serb power-madness and insatiable desire
to dominate. In an effort to placate the bulk of his constituency,
the peasantry, King Alexander established rural credit unions and
provided credit lines to small farmers and rural processing plants.
To no avail. The insecurity of this hastily foisted regime was felt,
its hesitation, the cruelty that is the outcome of fear.
Pages:
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69