Smugglers, Fraudsters, Black Marketeers. Yugoslavs as Actors in the Illegal Cross-Border Trade in Czechoslovakia in the Period of State Socialism
Abstract
This article presents the results of primary research on archival sources from the provenance of former state institutions of socialist Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. It focuses on Yugoslavs as actors of illegal cross-border trade in Czechoslovakia during the period of state socialism, which ranged from so-called shopping tourism to organised criminal activities.
It argues that Yugoslav citizens, due to their ability to travel freely to Western and Eastern countries, constituted a privileged group among the actors involved. The article documents the extent of this activity, the types of goods traded and the categories of illegal traders.
It discusses the evolution in the policy of both Czechoslovak and Yugoslav state authorities towards illegal cross-border trade, and how this issue was reflected in the mutual relations between the two socialist, but different and antagonistic regimes. It concludes that for both socialist dictatorships, attitudes towards cross-border illegal trade represented a sign of their political identity and legitimacy.