Building on the allegories of the greatest political “homo
politicus” and literary chronicler of the First Yugoslavia, Miroslav
Krleža, the author establishes in the introduction that
the state was corrupt to its foundations; however, no one was
willing to fight it. The article continues with a question as to
how it was possible that despite its apparent omnipresence, the
fight against corruption was so unsuccessful. Is the impression
about vast extent of corruption in the First Yugoslavia wrong?
Was the threshold of perception of corrupt acts considerably
different (lower) compared to the then-valid standards in the
West? Is it possible that society as a whole did not want to fight
corruption? The author seeks answers to these questions on
the basis of syntheses, theoretical discussions and a case study.