This is a sociological analysis of the construction of a new society initiated in the early 1990s, in which entrepreneurs are recognized as an extremely important social force because they leave their imprint on the new societal organization. In the first section the author studies social processes determining the extremely negative circumstances for transition in the territory of former Yugoslavia, while in the second section he turns to the basic social properties of entrepreneurs as a driving power of transition processes, and to the social preconditions for successful entrepreneurship. In the closing section the findings of an empirical study of new entrepreneurs in Serbia in the early 1990s are presented, focusing on those active in private companies.