<P> The 1974 constitution produced a significantly less centralized federation, increasing the autonomy of Yugoslavia's republics as well as the autonomous provinces of Serbia . </P> <P> When Tito died on 4 May 1980, he was succeeded by a presidency that rotated annually between the six Republics and two Autonomous Regions . This led to a fatal weakening of central power and ties between the republics . During the 1980s the republics pursued significantly different economic policies, with separatist - oriented Slovenia and Croatia allowing significant market - based reforms, while Serbia kept to its existing program of state ownership . This, too, was a cause of tension between north and south, as Slovenia in particular experienced a period of strong growth . Prior to the war, inflation skyrocketed . Then, under Prime Minister Ante Markovic, things began to improve . Economic reforms had opened up the country, the living standard was at its peak, capitalism seemed to have entered the country and nobody thought that just a year later the first gunshots would be fired . </P> <P> Within a year of Tito's death the first cracks began to show when in the spring of 1981 when on 11 March, 26 March, and 31 March to 2 April an escalating series of increasingly large protests spread from the campus of the University of Pristina to the streets of several cities in Kosovo demanding the upgrading of the Autonomous Region to the status of full Republic--these protests were violently suppressed by the Police with many deaths, and a state of emergency was declared . Serbian concerns about the treatment of Serb minorities in other republics and particularly in Kosovo were exacerbated by the SANU Memorandum, drawn up by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and published in Sep 1986 by Večernje novosti, which claimed that Serbs were suffering a genocide at the hands of the Kosovo Albanian majority . Slobodan Milošević leader of the League of Communists of Serbia since May 1986, became the champion of the Serbian Nationalists when on 24 Apr 1987 he visited Kosovo Polje and, after local Serbs had clashed with the Police declared,' No one has the right to beat you' . </P> <P> Slobodan Milošević became the most powerful politician in Serbia on 25 Sep 1987 when he defeated and humiliated his former mentor Serbian President Ivan Stambolic, during the televised 8th Session of the League of Communists of Serbia . Milosevic governed Serbia from his position as Chairman of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia until 8 May 1989 when he assumed the Presidency of Serbia . Milosevic supporters gained control of three other constituent parts of Yugolslavia in what became known as the Anti-bureaucratic revolution, Vojvodina on 6 Oct 1988, Kosovo on 17 Nov 1988, and Montenegro on 11 Jan 1989 . On 25 Nov 1988 the Yugoslav National Assembly granted Serbia the right to change its constitution . In March 1989 this was done, removing autonomy from Vojvodina and Kosovo, which caused great unrest in Kosovo On 28 June 1989 Slobodan Milošević made what became known as the Gazimestan Speech which was the centrepiece of a day - long event, attended by an estimated one million Serbs, to mark the 600th anniversary of the Serbian defeat at the Battle of Kosovo by the Ottoman Empire . In this speech Milošević's reference to the possibility of "armed battles" in the future of Serbia's national development was seen by many as presaging the collapse of Yugoslavia and the bloodshed of the Yugoslav Wars . </P>

After ww1 serbia became part of which larger country