Yugoslavia/Titoism

[thecoffeecake1]

Being over shadowed by the CCCP, Yugoslavia and Titoism is relativley unknown. What was life like in socialist yugoslavia? was it truly socialism? did EVERYONE receive equal wage? were they fascist? And as far as Titoism, i kno he believed the transition to communism depended solely on the conditions of one country and not on the patterns of those around you. i also know that he openly disagreed with stalin and most of his policies. but thats about the extent of it. i like it so far but i want to know more

[LOLseph Stalin]

From what I know of Tito, he doesn't actually seem that bad which is surprising considering i'm a Trot.

[LOLseph Stalin]

He was a little too nationalistic for my taste though. Communism is supposed to be international.

[punisa]

Ok, I see that some people here would like to learn more of Tito. I am surprised as well that there is not more resources available on the internet.
Perhaps this could be blamed on us Yugoslavs for being lazy : )
I'll write down from several perspectives, know facts (I'll CP some important ones to avoid too long narration), personal observations and personal experiences of living in Yugoslavia.

Tito was not nationalistic, he have spent his entire life fighting against nationalism.. And for practising socialism in one nation alone? Well read on comrades, maybe you'll find some interesting bits as to

why this chapter of history played out like it did.

Let me fill you in with what I've learned so far. When I say "learn", I actually mean a very tedious process, because Tito and his legacy is something very controversial in today's ex-Yugoslavia.

He was born in a small village Kumrovec on 7th May 1892. This is the area of today's Croatia, but in those days it was still a part of a large Austro-Hungarian empire.
He only had 4 years of primary education, but that was something considered "enough" for a rural area where he came from.

In his late teens, he was already working all around. He was apprentice locksmith, mechanic... even a test driver for some car company in Germany

It was during these years he was first introduced to socialist ideas, he joined a union and a socialist-democrats party.

Soon enough he was drafted to Austro-Hungarian army, just one year before WW1 started.
During the Great war, his first position was on the territory of Serbia. There he got arrested for handing out anti-war propaganda. Obviously he was already well connected to numerous leftists cells

operating on the territory.
For this "crime" he got a year in prison.
As soon as he was released he was sent to the Eastern front to fight against Russians.
Although he was praised as a skilled soldier, he eventually got badly wounded and captured by Russians.

This is where Tito's adventures really start.
After spending about a year in hospital recovering, he was sent to work in Ural mountains.

Prisoners selected him for their camp leader. In February 1917, revolting workers broke into the prison and freed the prisoners. Broz subsequently joined a Bolshevik group. In April 1917, he was arrested

again but managed to escape and participate in the July Days demonstrations in Saint Petersburg.
On his way to Finland, Broz was caught and imprisoned in the Petropavlovsk fortress for three weeks. He was again sent to back, but escaped from running train.
He hid out with a Russian family in Omsk, Siberia where he met his future wife Pelagija Belousova.

After the 1917 revolution he joined Red Guard unit and the Russian Communist Party, during his years in Russia he also fought against the white army.
Soon he travelled, along with his new family, back to Yugoslavia.

Yes, its already Yugoslavia now.
But this is not the Yugoslavia we usually refer about here .
This is Kingdom of Yugoslavia that got established right after the WW1, the fall of Austro-Hungary.
The terriotory was (as far as I recall) exact as the future Yugoslavia will be, but - obviously - now it was monarchy and ruled by the king.

So lets take a break and do some chronological ordering:
Austro Hungary - till 1918
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs - briefly for a few months
Kingdom of Yugoslavia- from 1918 - 1941
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1941 - 1992
After 1992 you have several years of bloodshed, ethnic cleansing, genocide and all wraps up nicely with a bunch of new nationalistic states

Anyway, back to Tito. once he came back from what was now already USSR, he immediately joined the communist party in Yugoslavia. Soon they were gaining votes and became the third strongest party in the Kingdom.

South Slavic nations that formed the kingdom are essentially the same tribe of Slavs and there are very very few differences - if any !
BUT there was, and still is one huge stupid difference - religion.

This is a strange spot where three historic religions met, mostly due to various conquests that for 1000 years always ended up here. The very heart of this mix is the republic in middle - Bosnia. Here you have equal numbers of Muslims, Chatolics and Ortodox Christians.
And because each had a slightly different "god", they soon adopted the "hate thy neighbour" way of life.

The escalation of extreme nationalism happened on 9 October 1934, when the king was assassinated in Marseilles, France. He was gunned down by organization that involved Croatian (Ustashe) and Macedonian nationalists.

Those same Ustashe will soon become the most ruthless Nazis in Europe.
Soon WW2 broke out and Germany invaded, putting the end to the kingdom. Countries were occupied, but Croatia rose as a direct German ally, and the Ustashe were put to power.
Soon concentration camps were set up around the land where hundreds, some claim even millions, were executed. Mostly Serbs, Jews, Communists, Atheists and other minorities.

These were the years when anything that remotely smelled like communism was hunted down immediately.

You can still find footage of people in Zagreb (capital of Croatia) welcoming Nazi tanks and soldiers with flowers and salutes, but don't be mistaken, this was not the feel of the entire nation.
Hitler himself visited Croatia on several occasion and was very content with the Ustashe rule.

This was also the time when some great and inspiring things happened. For example, one time Ustahe came to the Zagreb university and called for all students to rally at the courtyard. Then a military officer gave a speech how Croats were the Aryan race and that Jews must be separated from the pure Croats. After delivering the speech he ordered that all Jewish students step forward and go to the left side of the courtyard.

This indeed happened, but ALL students stepped up and moved on to the left. This pissed authorities greatly :che:

Soon Jews were ordered to be labelled on their shoulders and taken away to concentration camps were they were killed. The news couldn't be held under the rug for long, when the truth came out, many students and middle class citizens, truly Croats, decided to rather take their chances in the woods then to be a part of an evil empire.

These details were well know, especially after the war.
When I say "into the woods" I'm referring to the partisan movement. A resistance that started very small, with only a handful of men and women. They retried to the woods around Croatia and planned attacks on the Germans, Italians and Ustashe from there.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Josip_broz_tito_1.jpg
Tito during the partisan resistance

Their lives could be somewhat compared to the lives of Fidel Castro, Che Guevera and other revolutionaries during the Cuba Revolutionary struggle.
What always amazed me about this movement was the honesty and humanism that was a part of it. Indeed many upper class citizens, students, poets, writers abandoned their cosy homes, their comfty lives, to get

out of their houses, even mansions - to join a movement that nobody could possibly predict it would eventually succeeded.

These were considered as worst traitors of the country.
To understand why many Croats still remained faithful to Nazis, you should probabbly know the story of the nation. The Croats occupied these territories during the 7th century AD, but since then they almost

never enjoyed independence. Historically they were always either occupied or in war, Romans, French, Turks, Austrians, Hungarians, Serbs... These historic facts were used as a leverage to sell Nazi propaganda to people by also granting them the "long wished independence", indeed while being a Nazi state Croatia was actually called NDH - "nezavisna država Hrvatska" translated to Independent state of Croatia.

The partisan resistance grew everyday, and Tito soon became the established leader of the resistance. What differentiated him from may other military leaders was the fact that he was personally involved in all

major operations and was wounded several times.
In many cases partisans had to fight up to 4 enemies at the time - Germans, Italians, Croats (Ustashe) and Serbs (Chetniks).
Haven't mentioned Chetniks before - these were the Serbian royalists, loyal to the monarchy.

The number of battled being fought during the war is to large to go through all of them. But the most famous were Battle at the river Neretva and Sutjeska Battle.
Especially fierce was Battle at Sutjeska (1943), which was the Axis mass engagement operation to finish off the Partisans, kill Tito and destroy partisan HQ.
200,000 Axis men against 18,000 partisans and Axis failed.
This was the greatest victory for the partisans, soon their achievement could not go without being acknowledged by the big 3 of the alliance (Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin). Help was delivered in arms and supplies and probabbly the most helping element was the division of RAF aka Balkan Air Force.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Tito_and_Ivan_Ribar_in_1943.jpg
Tito wounded during the battle of Sutjeska

Be aware that I am skipping a lot of great info here, but let's keep down to most important things related to the topic.
By 1944 partisans were no more "resistance from the woods fighting with improvised weapons", by this time they numbered 800,000 men and women.

Let us not forget the women. Women formed a large part of the partisan movement and they had to be treated as equals - as a resistance soldiers. All "sexual" contacts with the ladies was strongly forbidden, any potential advancements in that field would get you serious punishment, even death !
The partisan movement thus created a great force that liberated women from the very traditional way of life that was practised before.

As war was coming to an end, Hitler's army was loosing all over. While the final fall of the German Reich was in sight, these were also the times when ally forces were already plotting how to divide Europe.

Both, Americans and Soviets rushed towards Berlin in order to establish their new zones.
Stalin had plans to include Yugoslavia in soviet union from the start. Having very found thoughts about Tito, and thinking that Tito was actually a "student of the Russian revolution."

On the other hand Tito was very aware of Stalin's aspirations and plans, but was reluctant to hand over the territory to the Soviets.
Yugoslavia had a great strategic position, it is set along the "route of the world", between East and West and it also has an huge access to the Mediterranean (mainly Croatian coast).

The advantage Tito had at the end of the war was that his partisans finally liberated the entire area of Yugoslavia, without the help of the Red Army.
There was actually great efforts being made to reach Belgrade (capital of Serbia) before the Red Army does.
If the Red Army reached Belgrade, no doubt they would've taken the control over the whole Yugoslavia (Belgrade is the largest city).

On 7 March 1945, the provisional government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (Demokratska Federativna Jugoslavija, DFY) was assembled in Belgrade by Tito, while the provisional name allowed for either a

republic or monarchy. This government was headed by Tito as provisional Yugoslav Prime Minister and included representatives from the royalist government-in-exile. In accordance with the agreement between

resistance leaders and the government-in-exile, post-war elections were held to determine the form of government. In November 1945, Tito's pro-republican People's Front, led by the Communist Party of

Yugoslavia, won the elections with an overwhelming majority.

This doesn't make Tito just the liberator, but also makes him the leader chosen by the people.

From the huge partisan movement was organized Yugoslav People's Army, considered as the fourth military power on the globe.
The country was described as unconquerable by many military annalists, not just because of the number of military ready men and women, but because a special military doctrine was enforced by Tito called Total national defence.
The core idea of Total national defence was that every citizen had to be ready for a potential warfare in his/her neighbourhood, by knowing surrounding buildings, area and being well trained they made for

perfect soldiers to defend their own turf against the enemy. Military drills were performed regularly and everyone had to be involved.


At the very end of war came a rather disputed chapter because of which many will today call Tito a war criminal. This is a story of the Bleiburg Massacre..
When it was evident that partisans are to conquer Croatia, many citizen - loyal to Nazi government (and by some sources there were also ignorant ones, but I couldn't agree) fled the country in fear. They

basically escaped on foot and went towards Austria. Once they reached Austria they had the plan to surrender to the British troops as war prisoners. However the British were not interested in any such

actions and they basically turned these people back - towards the partisans.
When they finally met, partisans executed them. All 12,000 to 60,000 of them.
You can imagine how this event is used today in a nationalist state.
Were they just unarmed citizens or were they to be considered as the enemy? This is very disputed today.

It serves to mention that Ustashe leaders, especially the main leader - Ante Pavelic, was not there. He escaped from Croatia via vatican (duh), to South America.
This criminal mastermind however did not find peace, he was chased for years by secret services from Yugoslavia and was finally found and gunned down in Buenos Aries.
Unfortunately many members of Ustashe Nazi cells survived and fled to US, Argentine, Chile and mostly Canada.
These still operate today and are somewhat in power as we speak, but this is all very controversial info.

In the first post war years Tito was widely considered a communist leader very loyal to Moscow, indeed, he was often viewed as second only to Stalin in the Eastern Bloc. In fact, Stalin and Tito had an uneasy alliance from the start, with Stalin considering Tito too independent.

http://www.educa.fmf.uni-lj.si/izodel/sola/2005/ura/zakosek/stran/ostalo/tito_in_stalin.jpg
From let to right: Molotov, Stalin, Tito - "the Moscow days"

Unlike the other new communist states in east-central Europe, Yugoslavia liberated itself from Axis domination, without any direct support from the Red Army as the others.

Tito's leading role in liberating Yugoslavia not only greatly strengthened his position in his party and among the Yugoslav people, but also caused him to be more insistent that Yugoslavia gets more room to follow its own interests than other Bloc leaders who had more reasons (and pressures) to recognize Soviet efforts in helping them liberate their own countries from Axis control.

This had already led to some friction between the two countries before World War II was even over. Although Tito was formally an ally of Stalin after World War II, the Soviets had set up a spy ring in the Yugoslav party as early as 1945, giving way to an uneasy alliance.

Tito was openly supportive of the Communist side in the Greek Civil War, while Stalin kept his distance, having agreed with Churchill not to pursue Soviet interests there. In 1948, motivated by the desire to create a strong independent economy, Tito modelled his economic development plan independently from Moscow, which resulted in a diplomatic escalation followed by a bitter exchange of letters in which Tito
affirmed that:
"We study and take as an example the Soviet system, but we are developing socialism in our country in somewhat different forms. (...) No matter how much each of us loves the land of socialism, the USSR, he can in no case love his own country less."

The Soviet answer on May 4 admonished Tito and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) for failing to admit and correct its mistakes, and went on to accuse them of being too proud of their successes against the Germans, maintaining that the Red Army had saved them from destruction. Tito's response on May 17 suggested that the matter be settled at the meeting of the Cominform to be held that June.

However, Tito did not attend the second meeting of the Cominform, fearing that Yugoslavia was to be openly attacked. At this point the crisis nearly escalated into an armed conflict, as Hungarian and Soviet forces were massing on the northern Yugoslav frontier.

On June 28, the other member countries expelled Yugoslavia, citing "nationalist elements" that had "managed in the course of the past five or six months to reach a dominant position in the leadership" of the CPY. The expulsion effectively banished Yugoslavia from the international association of socialist states, while other socialist states of Eastern Europe subsequently underwent purges of alleged "Titoists".

Stalin took the matter personally – for once, and attempted, unsuccessfully, to assassinate Tito on several occasions. In a correspondence between the two leaders, Tito openly wrote:
"Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle (...) If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send a second."

Here we can see perhaps most clearly as to why Tito and Yugoslavia was probabbly the only socialist country that ever existed and had a strong friendly relationship with the government of the US.
Tito and his close advisers were very well educated on the principles of socialism and Marxism, he noticed many mistakes the USSR was making and did not want to conform to their rule.

At this time this was basically the meaning of being Titoist, especially amongst the Soviet satellites - resisting to follow blindly directives from Moscow.

However, Tito used the estrangement from the USSR to attain US aid via the Marshall Plan, as well as to involve Yugoslavia in the Non-Aligned Movement, in which he assured a leading position for Yugoslavia.

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is an international organization of states considering themselves not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. The movement is largely the brainchild of the first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Josip Broz Tito.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/NonAlignedMovement.jpg
The founding leaders of the Non-Aligned states meet in New York City,
October 1960. Left to right: Jawaharlal Nehru, (India),
Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt); Sukarno (Indonesia),
and Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia).

It was founded in April 1955; as of 2007, it has 118 members. The purpose of the organization as stated in the Havana Declaration of 1979 is to ensure "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries" in their "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics."

The "Titoist" ideology made such an organization possible.
The event was significant not only for Yugoslavia and Tito, but also for the global development of socialism, since it was the first major split between Communist states, casting doubt on Comintern's claims for socialism to be a unified force that would eventually control the whole world, as Tito became the first (and the only successful) socialist leader to defy Stalin's leadership in the COMINFORM.

This rift with the Soviet Union brought Tito much international recognition, but also triggered a period of instability often referred to as the Informbiro period. Tito's form of communism was labelled "Titoism" by Moscow, which encouraged purges against suspected "Titoites'" throughout the Eastern bloc.

The Tito-Stalin split had dark moments in Yugoslavia as well. As a result of cold war with USSR Yugoslavian government founded brutal prison camp on Croatian island of Goli Otok for suspected pro-Soviet

enemies of Tito and regime of CPY.

It's called Goli Otok, as it means "naked island", nothing grows on it, its just like one huge rock in the middle of the sea. Way driving by it a year ago, you can see it from the mainland, looks creepy indeed.

In 1949, the entire island was officially made into a high-security, top secret prison and labour camp run by the authorities of SFR Yugoslavia. Until 1956, throughout the Informbiro period, it was used to incarcerate political prisoners.

They included known and alleged Stalinists, but also other Communist Party members or even regular citizens accused of exhibiting any sort of sympathy or leanings towards the Soviet Union. Some 10.000 people went through the camp. There are a lot testimonies on brutalities of prison guards, officers an principals.

In the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, Titoist Yugoslavia advocated a socialist version of autogestion - called the Worker's self management, which practised central planning and state ownership of industry. The economy of Yugoslavia was organized according to the theories of Tito.

The country's economy prospered under Titoist Socialism. Unemployment was low, the education level of the work force steadily increased. The life expectancy (which was about 72 years) and living standards of Yugoslav citizens was nearly equal to the life expectancy and living standards of citizens of “western” capitalist countries such as the United States.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Marshal_Tito_Greeting_President_John_Kennedy.jpg
Tito and Kennedy, a visit to the White house

Due to Yugoslavia's neutrality and its leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement, Yugoslav companies exported to both Western and Eastern markets. Yugoslav companies carried out construction of numerous major infrastructural and industrial projects in Africa, Europe and Asia.

After Stalin's death Tito rejected the USSR's invitation for a visit to discuss normalization of relations between two nations. Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin visited Tito in Belgrade in 1955 and apologized for wrongdoings by Stalin's administration.

Tito visited the USSR in 1956, which signalled to the world that animosity between Yugoslavia and USSR was easing. However, the relationship between the USSR and Yugoslavia would reach another low in the late 1960s. Commenting on the crisis, Tito concluded that:

"To say the least - it was a disloyal, non-objective attitude towards our Party and our country. It's a consequence of a terrible delusion that has been blown up to monstrous dimensions in order to

destroy the reputation of our Party and its leadership, to take away the glory of the Yugoslavian people and their struggle. To trample everything great that our nation achieved with great sacrifices and

blood loss - in order to break the unity of our Party, which represents a guarantee for successful development of socialism in our country and for the establishment of happiness of our people."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Nikita_consulting_Tito.jpg
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev consulting with Josip Broz Tito
in New York at the XV. Session of the UN General Assembly.


Tito's greatest strength, in the eyes of the western communists, had been in suppressing nationalist insurrections and maintaining unity throughout the country. It was Tito's call for unity, and related methods, that held together the people of Yugoslavia.

This ability was put to a test several times during his reign, notably during the so-called Croatian Spring (also referred to as the "mass movement") when the government had to suppress both public demonstrations and dissenting opinions within the Communist Party.

Tito was notable for pursuing a foreign policy of neutrality during the Cold War and for establishing close ties with developing countries. Tito's strong belief in self-determination caused early rift with Stalin and consequently, the Eastern Bloc.

His public speeches often reiterated that policy of neutrality and cooperation with all countries is natural as long as these countries are not using their influence to pressure Yugoslavia to take sides. Relations with the United States and Western European nations were generally cordial.

Yugoslavia had a liberal travel policy permitting foreigners to freely travel through the country and its citizens to travel worldwide. This was limited by most Communist countries. A number of Yugoslav citizens worked throughout Western Europe.

After the constitutional changes of 1974, Tito increasingly took the role of senior statesman. His direct involvement in domestic policy and governing was somewhat diminishing.

On January 7 & again on January 11, 1980, Tito was admitted to the clinical center in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He died there on 4 May 1980.


His funeral drew many world statesmen. Based on the number of attending politicians and state delegations, at the time it was the largest statesman funeral in history. They included four kings, thirty-one presidents, six princes, twenty-two prime ministers and forty-seven ministers of foreign affairs. They came from both sides of the Cold War, from 128 different countries.

Another thing that must be stated about Tito and his death is that he left NOTHING to his family, by his will all of his possessions were given to the people. Something that hasn't been seen on these territories, not before, not after.

At the time of his death, speculation began about whether his successors could continue to hold Yugoslavia together.
Soon (in 1991) bitter wars broke out on many fronts, with hundreds of thousands dead, some of the worst examples of ethnic cleansing and genocide took place.

And today Yugoslavia is no more, it consists of several republic that are very nationalist in their ideology and religion plays a strong part in it.

Without nostalgia, and being objective about what I say, I can say that while I lived in Yugoslavia it was nearly perfect. Especially for the working class. The unemployment was almost non existent and as a member of the working class you were sure that your future is safe - Once you got the job and started working, you'd get an apartment to live in - no mortgages, no debts.

The difference between "lower" and "upper" class was minimal. There was no grand scale corruption as today. There just weren't possibilities for it.
There was no hunger and no social problems, unlike in many socialist countries at the time.

There were no attempts to lock people away, as stated before. We travelled a lot, really a lot :lol:
One example, if company managed to produce or export more then was planned by the yearly plan - extra profit was divided directly to the workers and they were granted extra free days and paid vacations, including hotels, transport etc, around the globe.
There were no owners.

I'd say we lived very modern lives. It was praised to be in touch with current developments, music, computers, cinema, art...
It was a great step towards communism, there is little doubt about it.

So what happened you ask me? ... guys, I'm trying to figure it for almost 20 years..
nationalism happened. religions fundamentalism happened.
There are several clues that Yugoslavia was torn apart by the West, when they enforced Milosevic into the command.

I've seen some posts around REVLEFT claiming that Milosevic was actually a good guy, demonized by the west. One of such apparently ignorant people is Michael Parenti, which really surprises me..
Milosevic was the locomotive of nationalism, an ubbernationalist if you will. His propaganda brought back all the nationalist memories to people, his speeches influenced the Serbian uprising in Croatia that eventually started the war.

The worst thing about this man is that he managed to die before being convicted as one of the biggest criminals in 20th century. He was the catalyst of destruction in Yugoslavia, he fooled Serbs into extreme nationalism and promised them what was to be "Greater Serbia", which would cover almost all of Yugoslavia.

Fire brought fire. Evil brought evil. Soon after Milosevic came to power, many extreme nationalists and ustashe came flooding back to Croatia from Americas. They took power and fed some more hate. The ending result ? Slaughter on mass scale.

Same thing happened in Bosnia, Muslim radicals came charging by - many Mujahideens from the middle East etc.

I could write you down 5 times a longer post about the war in the 90's, but lets stick to Tito this time : ))


When I talk about Tito, I try to resist the obvious sympathy I have for him. Maybe not entirely for him, but for the country where I lived. It's just incredible that today more criminal acts take place in one night, then it did in Yugoslavia in a month.. all in all, its a very sad story.

Especially seeing how people act today, their whole heads have been shaken upside down by the war. Almost everyone had some tragedies, it left a huge scar and majority of nation is suffering from some kind of mass PTSP. This is breading swamp for nationalist, skinheads, nazis, fascist and similar human trash.

Croatia is probabbly the worst from the leftist state of view, unlike in Serbia, here everything that even remotely resembles Tito and Yugoslavia is denounced and demonized.
Hey, get this: organization of communist party - illegal by the law. Wearing a communist emblem, such as the red star - illegal by the law !
I've said enough, although other republics are very nationalist indeed.

Anyway, hoped you enjoyed the read :)
Please ask away if anything specifically you'd like to know. I tried to give this as the broader intro, according to the posters original question.

[Raúl Duke]

Interesting, this story about Tito. Especially the partisan/WWII era part.

[LOLseph Stalin]

It's late right now, but i'll definitely read this when I have more time. It looks interesting!

[Rjevan]

That's is a great post, thank you, punisa! This is really interesting.

[punisa]

Glad you enjoyed the read as much as I enjoyed writing and compiling it down :)

Just a small graphic add-on that does a great job in showing the position of Yugoslavia during the cold war, unaligned with either NATO or Warsaw pact:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Iron_Curtain_Final.svg/574px-Iron_Curtain_Final.svg.png
Another thing that this map shows is the status of Albania (with stripes, right under Yugoslavia). Albania was aligned with the USSR, but eventually broke away and aligned itself with China.

[Pogue]

Ok, I see that some people here would like to learn more of Tito. I am surprised as well that there is not more resources available on the internet.
Perhaps this could be blamed on us Yugoslavs for being lazy : )
I'll write down from several perspectives, know facts (I'll CP some important ones to avoid too long narration), personal observations and personal experiences of living in Yugoslavia.

Tito was not nationalistic, he have spent his entire life fighting against nationalism.. And for practising socialism in one nation alone? Well read on comrades, maybe you'll find some interesting bits as to

why this chapter of history played out like it did.

Let me fill you in with what I've learned so far. When I say "learn", I actually mean a very tedious process, because Tito and his legacy is something very controversial in today's ex-Yugoslavia.

He was born in a small village Kumrovec on 7th May 1892. This is the area of today's Croatia, but in those days it was still a part of a large Austro-Hungarian empire.
He only had 4 years of primary education, but that was something considered "enough" for a rural area where he came from.

In his late teens, he was already working all around. He was apprentice locksmith, mechanic... even a test driver for some car company in Germany

It was during these years he was first introduced to socialist ideas, he joined a union and a socialist-democrats party.

Soon enough he was drafted to Austro-Hungarian army, just one year before WW1 started.
During the Great war, his first position was on the territory of Serbia. There he got arrested for handing out anti-war propaganda. Obviously he was already well connected to numerous leftists cells

operating on the territory.
For this "crime" he got a year in prison.
As soon as he was released he was sent to the Eastern front to fight against Russians.
Although he was praised as a skilled soldier, he eventually got badly wounded and captured by Russians.

This is where Tito's adventures really start.
After spending about a year in hospital recovering, he was sent to work in Ural mountains.

Prisoners selected him for their camp leader. In February 1917, revolting workers broke into the prison and freed the prisoners. Broz subsequently joined a Bolshevik group. In April 1917, he was arrested

again but managed to escape and participate in the July Days demonstrations in Saint Petersburg.
On his way to Finland, Broz was caught and imprisoned in the Petropavlovsk fortress for three weeks. He was again sent to back, but escaped from running train.
He hid out with a Russian family in Omsk, Siberia where he met his future wife Pelagija Belousova.

After the 1917 revolution he joined Red Guard unit and the Russian Communist Party, during his years in Russia he also fought against the white army.
Soon he travelled, along with his new family, back to Yugoslavia.

Yes, its already Yugoslavia now.
But this is not the Yugoslavia we usually refer about here .
This is Kingdom of Yugoslavia that got established right after the WW1, the fall of Austro-Hungary.
The terriotory was (as far as I recall) exact as the future Yugoslavia will be, but - obviously - now it was monarchy and ruled by the king.

So lets take a break and do some chronological ordering:
Austro Hungary - till 1918
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs - briefly for a few months
Kingdom of Yugoslavia- from 1918 - 1941
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1941 - 1992
After 1992 you have several years of bloodshed, ethnic cleansing, genocide and all wraps up nicely with a bunch of new nationalistic states

Anyway, back to Tito. once he came back from what was now already USSR, he immediately joined the communist party in Yugoslavia. Soon they were gaining votes and became the third strongest party in the Kingdom.

South Slavic nations that formed the kingdom are essentially the same tribe of Slavs and there are very very few differences - if any !
BUT there was, and still is one huge stupid difference - religion.

This is a strange spot where three historic religions met, mostly due to various conquests that for 1000 years always ended up here. The very heart of this mix is the republic in middle - Bosnia. Here you have equal numbers of Muslims, Chatolics and Ortodox Christians.
And because each had a slightly different "god", they soon adopted the "hate thy neighbour" way of life.

The escalation of extreme nationalism happened on 9 October 1934, when the king was assassinated in Marseilles, France. He was gunned down by organization that involved Croatian (Ustashe) and Macedonian nationalists.

Those same Ustashe will soon become the most ruthless Nazis in Europe.
Soon WW2 broke out and Germany invaded, putting the end to the kingdom. Countries were occupied, but Croatia rose as a direct German ally, and the Ustashe were put to power.
Soon concentration camps were set up around the land where hundreds, some claim even millions, were executed. Mostly Serbs, Jews, Communists, Atheists and other minorities.

These were the years when anything that remotely smelled like communism was hunted down immediately.

You can still find footage of people in Zagreb (capital of Croatia) welcoming Nazi tanks and soldiers with flowers and salutes, but don't be mistaken, this was not the feel of the entire nation.
Hitler himself visited Croatia on several occasion and was very content with the Ustashe rule.

This was also the time when some great and inspiring things happened. For example, one time Ustahe came to the Zagreb university and called for all students to rally at the courtyard. Then a military officer gave a speech how Croats were the Aryan race and that Jews must be separated from the pure Croats. After delivering the speech he ordered that all Jewish students step forward and go to the left side of the courtyard.

This indeed happened, but ALL students stepped up and moved on to the left. This pissed authorities greatly :che:

Soon Jews were ordered to be labelled on their shoulders and taken away to concentration camps were they were killed. The news couldn't be held under the rug for long, when the truth came out, many students and middle class citizens, truly Croats, decided to rather take their chances in the woods then to be a part of an evil empire.

These details were well know, especially after the war.
When I say "into the woods" I'm referring to the partisan movement. A resistance that started very small, with only a handful of men and women. They retried to the woods around Croatia and planned attacks on the Germans, Italians and Ustashe from there.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Josip_broz_tito_1.jpg
Tito during the partisan resistance

Their lives could be somewhat compared to the lives of Fidel Castro, Che Guevera and other revolutionaries during the Cuba Revolutionary struggle.
What always amazed me about this movement was the honesty and humanism that was a part of it. Indeed many upper class citizens, students, poets, writers abandoned their cosy homes, their comfty lives, to get

out of their houses, even mansions - to join a movement that nobody could possibly predict it would eventually succeeded.

These were considered as worst traitors of the country.
To understand why many Croats still remained faithful to Nazis, you should probabbly know the story of the nation. The Croats occupied these territories during the 7th century AD, but since then they almost

never enjoyed independence. Historically they were always either occupied or in war, Romans, French, Turks, Austrians, Hungarians, Serbs... These historic facts were used as a leverage to sell Nazi propaganda to people by also granting them the "long wished independence", indeed while being a Nazi state Croatia was actually called NDH - "nezavisna država Hrvatska" translated to Independent state of Croatia.

The partisan resistance grew everyday, and Tito soon became the established leader of the resistance. What differentiated him from may other military leaders was the fact that he was personally involved in all

major operations and was wounded several times.
In many cases partisans had to fight up to 4 enemies at the time - Germans, Italians, Croats (Ustashe) and Serbs (Chetniks).
Haven't mentioned Chetniks before - these were the Serbian royalists, loyal to the monarchy.

The number of battled being fought during the war is to large to go through all of them. But the most famous were Battle at the river Neretva and Sutjeska Battle.
Especially fierce was Battle at Sutjeska (1943), which was the Axis mass engagement operation to finish off the Partisans, kill Tito and destroy partisan HQ.
200,000 Axis men against 18,000 partisans and Axis failed.
This was the greatest victory for the partisans, soon their achievement could not go without being acknowledged by the big 3 of the alliance (Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin). Help was delivered in arms and supplies and probabbly the most helping element was the division of RAF aka Balkan Air Force.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Tito_and_Ivan_Ribar_in_1943.jpg
Tito wounded during the battle of Sutjeska

Be aware that I am skipping a lot of great info here, but let's keep down to most important things related to the topic.
By 1944 partisans were no more "resistance from the woods fighting with improvised weapons", by this time they numbered 800,000 men and women.

Let us not forget the women. Women formed a large part of the partisan movement and they had to be treated as equals - as a resistance soldiers. All "sexual" contacts with the ladies was strongly forbidden, any potential advancements in that field would get you serious punishment, even death !
The partisan movement thus created a great force that liberated women from the very traditional way of life that was practised before.

As war was coming to an end, Hitler's army was loosing all over. While the final fall of the German Reich was in sight, these were also the times when ally forces were already plotting how to divide Europe.

Both, Americans and Soviets rushed towards Berlin in order to establish their new zones.
Stalin had plans to include Yugoslavia in soviet union from the start. Having very found thoughts about Tito, and thinking that Tito was actually a "student of the Russian revolution."

On the other hand Tito was very aware of Stalin's aspirations and plans, but was reluctant to hand over the territory to the Soviets.
Yugoslavia had a great strategic position, it is set along the "route of the world", between East and West and it also has an huge access to the Mediterranean (mainly Croatian coast).

The advantage Tito had at the end of the war was that his partisans finally liberated the entire area of Yugoslavia, without the help of the Red Army.
There was actually great efforts being made to reach Belgrade (capital of Serbia) before the Red Army does.
If the Red Army reached Belgrade, no doubt they would've taken the control over the whole Yugoslavia (Belgrade is the largest city).

On 7 March 1945, the provisional government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (Demokratska Federativna Jugoslavija, DFY) was assembled in Belgrade by Tito, while the provisional name allowed for either a

republic or monarchy. This government was headed by Tito as provisional Yugoslav Prime Minister and included representatives from the royalist government-in-exile. In accordance with the agreement between

resistance leaders and the government-in-exile, post-war elections were held to determine the form of government. In November 1945, Tito's pro-republican People's Front, led by the Communist Party of

Yugoslavia, won the elections with an overwhelming majority.

This doesn't make Tito just the liberator, but also makes him the leader chosen by the people.

From the huge partisan movement was organized Yugoslav People's Army, considered as the fourth military power on the globe.
The country was described as unconquerable by many military annalists, not just because of the number of military ready men and women, but because a special military doctrine was enforced by Tito called Total national defence.
The core idea of Total national defence was that every citizen had to be ready for a potential warfare in his/her neighbourhood, by knowing surrounding buildings, area and being well trained they made for

perfect soldiers to defend their own turf against the enemy. Military drills were performed regularly and everyone had to be involved.


At the very end of war came a rather disputed chapter because of which many will today call Tito a war criminal. This is a story of the Bleiburg Massacre..
When it was evident that partisans are to conquer Croatia, many citizen - loyal to Nazi government (and by some sources there were also ignorant ones, but I couldn't agree) fled the country in fear. They

basically escaped on foot and went towards Austria. Once they reached Austria they had the plan to surrender to the British troops as war prisoners. However the British were not interested in any such

actions and they basically turned these people back - towards the partisans.
When they finally met, partisans executed them. All 12,000 to 60,000 of them.
You can imagine how this event is used today in a nationalist state.
Were they just unarmed citizens or were they to be considered as the enemy? This is very disputed today.

It serves to mention that Ustashe leaders, especially the main leader - Ante Pavelic, was not there. He escaped from Croatia via vatican (duh), to South America.
This criminal mastermind however did not find peace, he was chased for years by secret services from Yugoslavia and was finally found and gunned down in Buenos Aries.
Unfortunately many members of Ustashe Nazi cells survived and fled to US, Argentine, Chile and mostly Canada.
These still operate today and are somewhat in power as we speak, but this is all very controversial info.

In the first post war years Tito was widely considered a communist leader very loyal to Moscow, indeed, he was often viewed as second only to Stalin in the Eastern Bloc. In fact, Stalin and Tito had an uneasy alliance from the start, with Stalin considering Tito too independent.

http://www.educa.fmf.uni-lj.si/izodel/sola/2005/ura/zakosek/stran/ostalo/tito_in_stalin.jpg
From let to right: Molotov, Stalin, Tito - "the Moscow days"

Unlike the other new communist states in east-central Europe, Yugoslavia liberated itself from Axis domination, without any direct support from the Red Army as the others.

Tito's leading role in liberating Yugoslavia not only greatly strengthened his position in his party and among the Yugoslav people, but also caused him to be more insistent that Yugoslavia gets more room to follow its own interests than other Bloc leaders who had more reasons (and pressures) to recognize Soviet efforts in helping them liberate their own countries from Axis control.

This had already led to some friction between the two countries before World War II was even over. Although Tito was formally an ally of Stalin after World War II, the Soviets had set up a spy ring in the Yugoslav party as early as 1945, giving way to an uneasy alliance.

Tito was openly supportive of the Communist side in the Greek Civil War, while Stalin kept his distance, having agreed with Churchill not to pursue Soviet interests there. In 1948, motivated by the desire to create a strong independent economy, Tito modelled his economic development plan independently from Moscow, which resulted in a diplomatic escalation followed by a bitter exchange of letters in which Tito
affirmed that:
"We study and take as an example the Soviet system, but we are developing socialism in our country in somewhat different forms. (...) No matter how much each of us loves the land of socialism, the USSR, he can in no case love his own country less."

The Soviet answer on May 4 admonished Tito and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) for failing to admit and correct its mistakes, and went on to accuse them of being too proud of their successes against the Germans, maintaining that the Red Army had saved them from destruction. Tito's response on May 17 suggested that the matter be settled at the meeting of the Cominform to be held that June.

However, Tito did not attend the second meeting of the Cominform, fearing that Yugoslavia was to be openly attacked. At this point the crisis nearly escalated into an armed conflict, as Hungarian and Soviet forces were massing on the northern Yugoslav frontier.

On June 28, the other member countries expelled Yugoslavia, citing "nationalist elements" that had "managed in the course of the past five or six months to reach a dominant position in the leadership" of the CPY. The expulsion effectively banished Yugoslavia from the international association of socialist states, while other socialist states of Eastern Europe subsequently underwent purges of alleged "Titoists".

Stalin took the matter personally – for once, and attempted, unsuccessfully, to assassinate Tito on several occasions. In a correspondence between the two leaders, Tito openly wrote:
"Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle (...) If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send a second."

Here we can see perhaps most clearly as to why Tito and Yugoslavia was probabbly the only socialist country that ever existed and had a strong friendly relationship with the government of the US.
Tito and his close advisers were very well educated on the principles of socialism and Marxism, he noticed many mistakes the USSR was making and did not want to conform to their rule.

At this time this was basically the meaning of being Titoist, especially amongst the Soviet satellites - resisting to follow blindly directives from Moscow.

However, Tito used the estrangement from the USSR to attain US aid via the Marshall Plan, as well as to involve Yugoslavia in the Non-Aligned Movement, in which he assured a leading position for Yugoslavia.

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is an international organization of states considering themselves not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. The movement is largely the brainchild of the first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Josip Broz Tito.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/NonAlignedMovement.jpg
The founding leaders of the Non-Aligned states meet in New York City,
October 1960. Left to right: Jawaharlal Nehru, (India),
Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt); Sukarno (Indonesia),
and Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia).

It was founded in April 1955; as of 2007, it has 118 members. The purpose of the organization as stated in the Havana Declaration of 1979 is to ensure "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries" in their "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics."

The "Titoist" ideology made such an organization possible.
The event was significant not only for Yugoslavia and Tito, but also for the global development of socialism, since it was the first major split between Communist states, casting doubt on Comintern's claims for socialism to be a unified force that would eventually control the whole world, as Tito became the first (and the only successful) socialist leader to defy Stalin's leadership in the COMINFORM.

This rift with the Soviet Union brought Tito much international recognition, but also triggered a period of instability often referred to as the Informbiro period. Tito's form of communism was labelled "Titoism" by Moscow, which encouraged purges against suspected "Titoites'" throughout the Eastern bloc.

The Tito-Stalin split had dark moments in Yugoslavia as well. As a result of cold war with USSR Yugoslavian government founded brutal prison camp on Croatian island of Goli Otok for suspected pro-Soviet

enemies of Tito and regime of CPY.

It's called Goli Otok, as it means "naked island", nothing grows on it, its just like one huge rock in the middle of the sea. Way driving by it a year ago, you can see it from the mainland, looks creepy indeed.

In 1949, the entire island was officially made into a high-security, top secret prison and labour camp run by the authorities of SFR Yugoslavia. Until 1956, throughout the Informbiro period, it was used to incarcerate political prisoners.

They included known and alleged Stalinists, but also other Communist Party members or even regular citizens accused of exhibiting any sort of sympathy or leanings towards the Soviet Union. Some 10.000 people went through the camp. There are a lot testimonies on brutalities of prison guards, officers an principals.

In the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, Titoist Yugoslavia advocated a socialist version of autogestion - called the Worker's self management, which practised central planning and state ownership of industry. The economy of Yugoslavia was organized according to the theories of Tito.

The country's economy prospered under Titoist Socialism. Unemployment was low, the education level of the work force steadily increased. The life expectancy (which was about 72 years) and living standards of Yugoslav citizens was nearly equal to the life expectancy and living standards of citizens of “western” capitalist countries such as the United States.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Marshal_Tito_Greeting_President_John_Kennedy.jpg
Tito and Kennedy, a visit to the White house

Due to Yugoslavia's neutrality and its leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement, Yugoslav companies exported to both Western and Eastern markets. Yugoslav companies carried out construction of numerous major infrastructural and industrial projects in Africa, Europe and Asia.

After Stalin's death Tito rejected the USSR's invitation for a visit to discuss normalization of relations between two nations. Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin visited Tito in Belgrade in 1955 and apologized for wrongdoings by Stalin's administration.

Tito visited the USSR in 1956, which signalled to the world that animosity between Yugoslavia and USSR was easing. However, the relationship between the USSR and Yugoslavia would reach another low in the late 1960s. Commenting on the crisis, Tito concluded that:

"To say the least - it was a disloyal, non-objective attitude towards our Party and our country. It's a consequence of a terrible delusion that has been blown up to monstrous dimensions in order to

destroy the reputation of our Party and its leadership, to take away the glory of the Yugoslavian people and their struggle. To trample everything great that our nation achieved with great sacrifices and

blood loss - in order to break the unity of our Party, which represents a guarantee for successful development of socialism in our country and for the establishment of happiness of our people."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Nikita_consulting_Tito.jpg
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev consulting with Josip Broz Tito
in New York at the XV. Session of the UN General Assembly.


Tito's greatest strength, in the eyes of the western communists, had been in suppressing nationalist insurrections and maintaining unity throughout the country. It was Tito's call for unity, and related methods, that held together the people of Yugoslavia.

This ability was put to a test several times during his reign, notably during the so-called Croatian Spring (also referred to as the "mass movement") when the government had to suppress both public demonstrations and dissenting opinions within the Communist Party.

Tito was notable for pursuing a foreign policy of neutrality during the Cold War and for establishing close ties with developing countries. Tito's strong belief in self-determination caused early rift with Stalin and consequently, the Eastern Bloc.

His public speeches often reiterated that policy of neutrality and cooperation with all countries is natural as long as these countries are not using their influence to pressure Yugoslavia to take sides. Relations with the United States and Western European nations were generally cordial.

Yugoslavia had a liberal travel policy permitting foreigners to freely travel through the country and its citizens to travel worldwide. This was limited by most Communist countries. A number of Yugoslav citizens worked throughout Western Europe.

After the constitutional changes of 1974, Tito increasingly took the role of senior statesman. His direct involvement in domestic policy and governing was somewhat diminishing.

On January 7 & again on January 11, 1980, Tito was admitted to the clinical center in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He died there on 4 May 1980.


His funeral drew many world statesmen. Based on the number of attending politicians and state delegations, at the time it was the largest statesman funeral in history. They included four kings, thirty-one presidents, six princes, twenty-two prime ministers and forty-seven ministers of foreign affairs. They came from both sides of the Cold War, from 128 different countries.

Another thing that must be stated about Tito and his death is that he left NOTHING to his family, by his will all of his possessions were given to the people. Something that hasn't been seen on these territories, not before, not after.

At the time of his death, speculation began about whether his successors could continue to hold Yugoslavia together.
Soon (in 1991) bitter wars broke out on many fronts, with hundreds of thousands dead, some of the worst examples of ethnic cleansing and genocide took place.

And today Yugoslavia is no more, it consists of several republic that are very nationalist in their ideology and religion plays a strong part in it.

Without nostalgia, and being objective about what I say, I can say that while I lived in Yugoslavia it was nearly perfect. Especially for the working class. The unemployment was almost non existent and as a member of the working class you were sure that your future is safe - Once you got the job and started working, you'd get an apartment to live in - no mortgages, no debts.

The difference between "lower" and "upper" class was minimal. There was no grand scale corruption as today. There just weren't possibilities for it.
There was no hunger and no social problems, unlike in many socialist countries at the time.

There were no attempts to lock people away, as stated before. We travelled a lot, really a lot :lol:
One example, if company managed to produce or export more then was planned by the yearly plan - extra profit was divided directly to the workers and they were granted extra free days and paid vacations, including hotels, transport etc, around the globe.
There were no owners.

I'd say we lived very modern lives. It was praised to be in touch with current developments, music, computers, cinema, art...
It was a great step towards communism, there is little doubt about it.

So what happened you ask me? ... guys, I'm trying to figure it for almost 20 years..
nationalism happened. religions fundamentalism happened.
There are several clues that Yugoslavia was torn apart by the West, when they enforced Milosevic into the command.

I've seen some posts around REVLEFT claiming that Milosevic was actually a good guy, demonized by the west. One of such apparently ignorant people is Michael Parenti, which really surprises me..
Milosevic was the locomotive of nationalism, an ubbernationalist if you will. His propaganda brought back all the nationalist memories to people, his speeches influenced the Serbian uprising in Croatia that eventually started the war.

The worst thing about this man is that he managed to die before being convicted as one of the biggest criminals in 20th century. He was the catalyst of destruction in Yugoslavia, he fooled Serbs into extreme nationalism and promised them what was to be "Greater Serbia", which would cover almost all of Yugoslavia.

Fire brought fire. Evil brought evil. Soon after Milosevic came to power, many extreme nationalists and ustashe came flooding back to Croatia from Americas. They took power and fed some more hate. The ending result ? Slaughter on mass scale.

Same thing happened in Bosnia, Muslim radicals came charging by - many Mujahideens from the middle East etc.

I could write you down 5 times a longer post about the war in the 90's, but lets stick to Tito this time : ))


When I talk about Tito, I try to resist the obvious sympathy I have for him. Maybe not entirely for him, but for the country where I lived. It's just incredible that today more criminal acts take place in one night, then it did in Yugoslavia in a month.. all in all, its a very sad story.

Especially seeing how people act today, their whole heads have been shaken upside down by the war. Almost everyone had some tragedies, it left a huge scar and majority of nation is suffering from some kind of mass PTSP. This is breading swamp for nationalist, skinheads, nazis, fascist and similar human trash.

Croatia is probabbly the worst from the leftist state of view, unlike in Serbia, here everything that even remotely resembles Tito and Yugoslavia is denounced and demonized.
Hey, get this: organization of communist party - illegal by the law. Wearing a communist emblem, such as the red star - illegal by the law !
I've said enough, although other republics are very nationalist indeed.

Anyway, hoped you enjoyed the read :)
Please ask away if anything specifically you'd like to know. I tried to give this as the broader intro, according to the posters original question.

I've only just started reading this but it looks very good, thanks for posting it.

I'm an anarchist so I'd criticise his approach, but out of all the leaders of 'socialist' countries he was the best. He defied Stalin and he had good roots - as a Partisan and Socialist militant.

[Pogue]

I've only just started reading this but it looks very good, thanks for posting it.

I'm an anarchist so I'd criticise his approach, but out of all the leaders of 'socialist' countries he was the best. He defied Stalin and he had good roots - as a Partisan and Socialist militant.

[Saorsa]

He defied Stalin and he had good roots - as a Partisan and Socialist militant.

Mao fits into both those categories too, you going to adopt a similar attitude towards him?

[RedScare]

Just finished reading it, a very good post. My one question is why were Yugoslavian cars so bad?

[Pogue]

Mao fits into both those categories too, you going to adopt a similar attitude towards him?

Nah because Mao was more of a fuck up of a human being than Tito. I don't support either but I recognise Tito was less of a tosser than Mao.

I'm not really interested in hero-worshipping dictators anyway. Theres some individiuals I respect and take inspiration from, but I find it shifty that some would blindly follow the ideology of one person, and desperately try to defend that person and their acitons/ideology because they're so dogmatic they can't change their ideology even when it fails as badly as Maoism has.

[punisa]

Just finished reading it, a very good post. My one question is why were Yugoslavian cars so bad?

haha, were they ? :lol:
Comrade, Yugo (the car brand) was the proletariat vehicle :laugh:
Cheapest car on the market and it was quite enduring, many of these are still driven today in ex-Yugoslavia.
The only problem you'll have with a Yugo is if you crash or are planning to do some fast driving, and if a wheel doesn't fall off :laugh:

Just look at that price tag :thumbup1:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/Yugo-US-poster.jpg

[punisa]

Nah because Mao was more of a fuck up of a human being than Tito. I don't support either but I recognise Tito was less of a tosser than Mao.

I'm not really interested in hero-worshipping dictators anyway. Theres some individiuals I respect and take inspiration from, but I find it shifty that some would blindly follow the ideology of one person, and desperately try to defend that person and their acitons/ideology because they're so dogmatic they can't change their ideology even when it fails as badly as Maoism has.

You are totally right comrade, to glorify a person is a bad way to go.
Personally I can't understand people from ex-Yu who talk about Tito this way, not knowing anything that he actually stood for.

The reason why Tito was not member of the familiar dictatorship class, was the perception that he was one of us. A member and the leader of the working class.
The only episodes when he acted like a dictator was to suppress nationalism, and he really did suppress it, if you know what I mean.

Apart from that, I may give an example of a large student demonstrations that took place in the 68.
This started at the "Karl Marx" university in Belgrade, and soon spread to other large cities across Yu.
Unlike other protests around the world at the same year, in this case students demanded from the communist party to follow Marx's principles more closely and make clear steps in taking the socialism a step further (towards Communism).

Tito acknowledged this and spoke directly to the students and actions were taken to take their complaints into steering the country leadership.

For example, I doubt this would fly with old man Vissarionovich :lol:

[Pogue]

You are totally right comrade, to glorify a person is a bad way to go.
Personally I can't understand people from ex-Yu who talk about Tito this way, not knowing anything that he actually stood for.

The reason why Tito was not member of the familiar dictatorship class, was the perception that he was one of us. A member and the leader of the working class.
The only episodes when he acted like a dictator was to suppress nationalism, and he really did suppress it, if you know what I mean.

Apart from that, I may give an example of a large student demonstrations that took place in the 68.
This started at the "Karl Marx" university in Belgrade, and soon spread to other large cities across Yu.
Unlike other protests around the world at the same year, in this case students demanded from the communist party to follow Marx's principles more closely and make clear steps in taking the socialism a step further (towards Communism).

Tito acknowledged this and spoke directly to the students and actions were taken to take their complaints into steering the country leadership.

For example, I doubt this would fly with old man Vissarionovich :lol:

In Czechoslovakia and Poland the protests were calling for more genuine communism and in France they were for a more anarchistic form of communism so I don't know what you mean about them not being about being more communist.

The US protests were fundamentally broad based anti-war but were certainly left wing.

Do you have some problem with the protestors of 68 outside Yugolslavia or have I misunderstood you?

[communard resolution]

Cheapest car on the market and it was quite enduring, many of these are still driven today in ex-Yugoslavia.


Haven't seen many (any?) of them in Croatia, but a few more in Belgrade. And when I passed through a Serbian town called Nis (near the Bulgarian border), they seemed to be the dominant car brand there. Tells you something about the difference of wealth between the different ex-republics and even different cities within Serbia, I suppose.

I don't know much about cars so I can't rate the Yugo. But since we're celebrating cultural achievements of the SFRJ, we shouldn't forget my two favourite ones:

1) Yugoslavian punk rock and new wave music.
2) Cedevita instant lemonade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3m6c-I2P-I

[LOLseph Stalin]

Just finished reading it, a very good post. My one question is why were Yugoslavian cars so bad?

Yugoslavia made cars? :confused:

[punisa]

In Czechoslovakia and Poland the protests were calling for more genuine communism and in France they were for a more anarchistic form of communism so I don't know what you mean about them not being about being more communist.


As I clearly stated above:
"students demanded from the communist party to follow Marx's principles more closely and make clear steps in taking the socialism a step further (towards Communism)."

Where did I said anything that they were not communist in its nature??



The US protests were fundamentally broad based anti-war but were certainly left wing.
Do you have some problem with the protestors of 68 outside Yugolslavia or have I misunderstood you?

What in the world are you talking about here?? Me having problems with the protesters of 68 outside Yugoslavia?
I'd concur that English is not my first language, but still - comrade I see no signs as to how you actually found grounds for your question?

I simply clarified that "Unlike other protests around the world at the same year, in this case students demanded from the communist party to follow Marx's principles more closely and make clear steps in taking the socialism a step further (towards Communism)."

Its a crucial statement in understanding the nature of the protests that took place, "The Protests of 68" are usually related, as you said, with anti-war in US and much further leftists in France.

In Yugoslavia it was a pressure put on the communist party, the party that was in charge of a socialist country - my introductory phrase "Unlike other protests" is thus completely justified.

Czechoslovakia and Poland protests were mainly aimed against the total Soviet(Russian) rule.

If you want any further details or events that took place in 68' in Yugoslavia, I'd be glad to share with you all I know.
But for the sake of a good "Learning" conversation, please construct your question in a civil manner - "Do you have some problem with.." is obviously not a very good start.

[punisa]

Haven't seen many (any?) of them in Croatia, but a few more in Belgrade. And when I passed through a Serbian town called Nis (near the Bulgarian border), they seemed to be the dominant car brand there. Tells you something about the difference of wealth between the different ex-republics and even different cities within Serbia, I suppose.

I don't know much about cars so I can't rate the Yugo. But since we're celebrating cultural achievements of the SFRJ, we shouldn't forget my two favourite ones:

1) Yugoslavian punk rock and new wave music.
2) Cedevita instant lemonade.


I still drink Cedevita :lol:
How about Pipi ? Probably one of the favorite commercials for male audience :lol:

pasmUupWW20

[punisa]

In order not to make a thread completely pro-Tito, I'll use this opportunity to forward a piece of writings done by Enver Hoxha, leader of Albania which unfortunately was in very bad relationship with Yugoslav leadership.

I like fair debate, and this looks as a very strong criticism of Tito. Unfortunately as of now I don't have enough free time to run down through the whole text, but many statements made are false and have little argumentative accuracy to back it up.

The criticism somewhat resembles many current Titoist critics, but still an interesting read.
(the writings were first posted by RevLeft member Prairie Fire, at 16th March 2008, 03:07, so I take no credits, but forwarding it)



Titoism is an old agency of capital, a favourite weapon of the imperialist bourgeoisie in its fight against socialism and the liberation movements.

The peoples of Yugoslavia fought self-sacrificingly against the nazi-fascist occupiers :for freedom democracy and socialism. They succeeded in liberating their country, but were not allowed to continue the revolution on the road to socialism. The Yugoslav revisionist leadership, with Tito at the head, which had long been worked on secretly by the Intelligence Service and which, during the period of the war, posed as preserving the features of a party of the Third International, in fact, had other aims, which were contrary to Marxism Leninism and the aspirations of the peoples of Yugoslavia for the construction of a true socialist society in Yugoslavia.

The Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which came to power, had inherited many mistakes of a deviationist nature. After the Second World War, it displayed pronounced national-chauvinist features, which had shown up as early as the time of the war. These features were apparent in its departure from the Marxist-Leninist ideology, in its attitude towards the Soviet Union and Stalin, in its chauvinist stands and actions towards Albania, etc.

The system of people's democracy, which was established in Yugoslavia, was temporary. It did not suit the clique in power, though this clique continued to call itself "Marxist". The Titoites were not for the construction of socialism, or f or the Communist Party of Yugoslavia to be guided by the Marxist-Leninist theory, and they did not accept the dictatorship of the proletariat. This was the source of the conflict that broke out between the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. This was an ideological conflict between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism, and not a conflict between persons over -domination, as the revisionists try to make out. Stalin defended the purity of the Marxist-Leninist theory, Tito defended the deviationist, revisionist, anti-Marxist trend of modern revisionism, following in the footstep of Browder and the other opportunists, who emerged on the eve of and during the Second World War.

In the early post-liberation years, the Yugoslav leadership pretended that it was taking the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union as an example and proclaimed that it was allegedly building socialism in Yugoslavia. This was done to deceive the peoples of Yugoslavia who had shed their blood and aspired to genuine socialism.

In fact, the Titoites were not, and could not be, for the socialist social order or the form of organization of the Soviet state, because Tito was for the capitalist system and for an essentially bourgeois-democratic state, in which his clique would hold power. This state was to serve to create the idea that socialism was being built in Yugoslavia, a "specific" socialism of a "more humane type", that is, precisely the kind of "socialism" which would serve as a fifth column in the other socialist countries. Everything was well calculated and co-ordinated by the Anglo-American imperialists and the group around Tito. Thus, by playing the game of imperialism and world capitalism, and coming to terms with them, the Yugoslav revisionists placed themselves in opposition to the Soviet Union.

From the time of the anti-fascist national liberation war, in pursuit of their old plans, British and, subsequently, US imperialism helped Tito not only to break away from the Soviet Union, but also to carry out acts of sabotage against it, and especially to work to detach other countries of people's democracy from the socialist camp, in order to isolate the Soviet Union from all these countries and unite them with the West. This was the policy of world capitalism and its agency, Titoism.

The rabid anti-communist, Churchill, took a direct and personal part in ensuring that Tito and his group were placed in the service of capitalism. During the war he sent his most trusted friends, as the British leader put it, and later his own son, to Tito's staff. Eventually, he himself met Tito in Naples of Italy in May 1944, in order to make quite sure that Tito would play no tricks. In his memoirs, Churchill wrote that, in his talks with Tito, the latter expressed his readiness to make a public statement later that "communism would not be established in Yugoslavia after the war".
Tito worked with such great energy to serve his masters that Churchill, appraising his great services, told him: "Now I understand that you were right, therefore I am with you, I like you even more than I did previously". A lover could make no warmer declarations to his love.

Almost before Yugoslavia had broken completely with the Soviet Union and the countries of people's democracy, the imperialists, the American imperialists in particular, sent it great economic, political, ideological and military aid, which became more frequent and constant later on.
This aid was supplied only on condition that the country would develop on the capitalist road. The imperialist bourgeoisie was not against Yugoslavia maintaining its outward socialist forms. On the contrary, it was greatly in its interest that Yugoslavia should keep its outward socialist colour, because in this way it would serve as a more effective weapon in the struggle against socialism and the liberation movements.

Not only would this kind of "socialism" be radically different from the socialism envisaged and realized by Lenin and Stalin, but it would even come out against it.
Within a relatively short time Yugoslavia became the "socialist" mouthpiece of US imperialism, a diversionist agency to assist world capital. From 1948 to this day, Titoism has been characterized by feverish activity against Marxism - Leninism to organize a propaganda campaign everywhere in the world to present the Yugoslav system as the form of a "genuine socialist" order, a "new society", a "non-aligned socialism", which is no longer like the socialism Lenin and Stalin built in the Soviet Union, but a socialist order "with a human face" which is being tried for the first time in the world and which is yielding "brilliant results". The aim of this propaganda has always been to lead the peoples and progressive forces fighting for freedom and independence everywhere in the world up a blind alley.

The Yugoslav revisionists adopted those forms of running their country that the Trotskyites and the other anarchist elements, encouraged by the capitalist bourgeoisie, tried to adopt in the Soviet Union in the time of Lenin, in order to sabotage the construction of socialism there. While he talked about building socialism, by adopting these forms, Tito completely distorted the MarxistLeninist principles on building up industry, agriculture, etc.

The Republics of Yugoslavia assumed such features of administration and organizational political leadership that democratic centralism was liquidated and the role of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia faded into insignificance. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia changed its name. It was transformed into the "League of Communists of Yugoslavia", which looks like a Marxist name, while in its content, norms, competences and aims it is anti-Marxist. The League became a spineless front, was stripped of the distinguishing features of a Marxist-Leninist party, preserved the old form, but no longer played the role of the vanguard of the working class, was no longer the political force which led the Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, but, according to the Titoite revisionists, allegedly performed only general "educational" functions.

The Titoite leadership placed the party under the control of the UDB, to Which it was subordinated, turned it into a fascist organization, and the state into a fascist (state). We know full well the great danger of these activities, for Koçi Xoxe, the agent in the pay of the Titoites, tried to achieve the same thing in Albania.

Tito, Rankovich and their agency entirely liquidated anything which might have had the true colour of socialism. Titoism waged a fierce fight against the attempts of those internal elements who sought to blow up this agency and this capitalist-revisionist organization, as well as against all the Marxist-Leninist propaganda which was conducted abroad to unmask thh regime which posed as socialist.

The Titoite leadership quickly abandoned the collectivization of agriculture which had begun in the early years, set up the capitalist state farms, encouraged the development of private property in the countryside, allowed land to be bought and sold freely, rehabilitated the kuIaks, left the field free for the private market to Flourish In town and country, and carried out the first reforms which strengthened the capitalist direction of the economy.

Meanwhile, the Titoite bourgeoisie was searching for a "new" form to camouflage the Yugoslav capitalist order, and this form was found. They called it Yugoslav "self-administration".
They dressed it up in a "Marxist - Leninist" cloak, claiming that this system was the most authentic socialism.
At first,"self-administration" emerged as an economic system, then it was extended to the field of state organization and all the other fields of life in that country.
The theory and practice of Yugoslav "self administration" are an open negation of the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and the universal laws of the construction of socialism. The economic and political system of "self-administration" is an anarcho-syndicalist form of the bourgeois dictatorship, which is ruling a Yugoslavia dependent on international capital.

The system of "self-administration", with all its characteristic features, such as the elimination of democratic centralism, the role of unified management by the state, anarchist federalism, the anti-state ideology in general, has brought about permanent economic, political and ideological chaos and confusion in Yugoslavia, weak and unequal development of its republics and regions, great social-class differentiations, national feuds and oppression, and the degeneration of spiritual life. It has brought about great fragmentation of the working class, by putting one detachment of it in competition with another, while fostering the bourgeois sectional, localist and individualist spirit. The working class in Yugoslavia not only does not play the hegemonic role in the state and society, but the system of "self-administration" places it in such conditions that it is unable even to defend its own general interests and to act as a unified and compact class.

From the capitalist world, particularly from us imperialism, large amounts of capital have poured into Yugoslavia in the f rm of investments, credits and loans. It is precisely this capital which constitutes the material basis of the "develop- of Yugoslav capitalist "self - administrative socialism". Its indebtedness alone amounts to over 11 billion dollars. Yugoslavia has received over 7 billion dollars in credits from the United States of America.
Despite the numerous credits the Titoite leadership receives from abroad, the peoples of Yugoslavia have not enjoyed, nor are they enjoying, the "brilliant results" of this specific "socialism". On the contrary, there is political and ideological chaos in Yugoslavia. A system which engenders large-scale unemployment at home and mass emigration of labour abroad prevails there, and this makes Yugoslavia completely dependent on the imperialist powers. The Yugoslav peoples are being exploited to the bone in the interests of the class in power and of all the imperialist powers which have made investments in that country. The Yugoslav state is not concerned that prices go up every day, that the poverty of the working masses is steadily increasing and that the country is not only up to its neck in debt, but is also deeply involved in the great crisis of the capitalist world.

Yugoslavia has only limited independence and sovereignty, because, apart from anything else, it has no economic potential completely its own. The greater part of it exists in joint ownership with various foreign capitalist firms and states, therefore it is bound to suffer the destructive effects of the crisis and foreign exploitation.
But it is not accidental that world capitalism gives Yugoslav "self - administration" such great political and financial support and sings in har- mony with the Titoite propaganda to pass this system off as "a new tested form of the construction of socialism" for all countries.
It does this because the form of Yugoslav "self administration" provides a way of ideological and political subversion and sabotage against the revolutionary liberation movements of the proletariat and the peoples, a way to open the road to the political and economic penetration of imperialism into the various countries of the world. Imperialism and the bourgeoisie want to keep "self-administration", as a reserve system for various circumstances and different countries, in order to prolong the life of capitalism, which does not give up the ghost easily, but is striving to find various forms of government at the expense of the peoples.

The Yugoslav theories and practices of "non alignment" render a great service to various imperialists, for they help them hoodwink the peoples. This is in the interest of the imperialists and social-imperialists alike, because it helps them to establish and strengthen their influence in the "non - aligned countries", to divert the freedom loving peoples from the road of national liberation and proletarian revolution. Therefore, both Carter and Brezhnev, as well as Hua Kuo-feng, lavish praise on the Titoite policy of "non-alignment" and try to exploit it for their own purposes.

Titoism has always been a weapon of the imperialist bourgeoisie, a fire-extinguisher to quell the flames of the revolution. It is of the same line and has the same aims as modern revisionism, in general, and its different variants, with which it is in ideological unity. The ways, forms and tactics they use in the struggle against Marxism-Leninism, the revolution and socialism may be different, but their counterrevolutionary aims are identical.

[maxham]

I wonder how if Yugoslavia still exist today...

BTW, I must confess that Tito is one of the true, real socialist-communist. along with Khruschev, Dubcek, they've enlighten the Left World which were still oftenly stereotyped as "inhumane". Socialism must leads us towards justice & liberation, indeed...

[AvanteRedGarde]

In Czechoslovakia and Poland the protests were calling for more genuine communism and in France they were for a more anarchistic form of communism so I don't know what you mean about them not being about being more communist.

Again, same thing in China

[BobKKKindle$]

The fact that Tito may have fought bravely against the Nazis during WW2, or that Yugoslavia may have been slightly less oppressive and dictatorial than neighboring countries that were formally part of the Soviet bloc such as Romania, does not mean that Tito's regime is an example that Marxists should aim to follow, and it certainly does not mean that Yugoslavia was a functioning socialist state. Yugoslavia was, like every other country that described itself as socialist, a state-capitalist regime, and Tito simply represented the political leader of the bureaucratic ruling class which exploited the proletariat and maintained its political dominance through repression and the promotion of a state of personality. The use of slave labour and camps by the Yugoslav government against opponents of the regime is well-documented and proof that Yugoslavia was a society divided into classes.

[bailey_187]

I dont have anything to offer other then some facts/notes about its economy, make of it what you will

-8% annual growth
-"strong" welfare system
-"sensitive to consumer needs"
-minimal unemployment
-wealthiest 5% earnings only twice as much as poorest 25%
-living standards roughly the same as western Europe

[Os Cangaceiros]

V3m6c-I2P-I

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

That made my day. :)

[Lamanov]

I see Puniša feels like a fish in an Ocean in this thread, but this is not giving actual answers to an original question: was this all socialist?

And giving some quote by the Maoist nut-job Hoxha doesn't quite cover it.

Yugoslavia was a state-capitalist society controlled by one party; bureaucracy controlled the economy and political life; sure, there were means of self-representation of the working class (so called "Yugoslav workers' self-management") and there was a high degree of personal, intellectual and artistic freedom, but most of these freedoms were co opted by the mechanisms of market economy which was in operation.


Haven't seen many (any?) of them in Croatia, but a few more in Belgrade. And when I passed through a Serbian town called Nis (near the Bulgarian border), they seemed to be the dominant car brand there.

Because everyone is poor there and Niš is literally falling apart. Yugo is a piece of crap, and no hard working person deserves to ride in something so un-safe and obsolete.

Hell, Yugo came out in 1980 with obsolete Fiat technology and into the crisis of the 1980s. It's like the bureaucrats were saying: here's a car that will suit your upcoming poverty.


Tito acknowledged this and spoke directly to the students and actions were taken to take their complaints into steering the country leadership.

And then nothing was done.

Students, just like workers, got fucked over.

[punisa]

I see Puniša feels like a fish in an Ocean in this thread, but this is not giving actual answers to an original question: was this all socialist?

And giving some quote by the Maoist nut-job Hoxha doesn't quite cover it.

Well comrade, the fact that you don't think much of Tito and his ways, doesn't mean that you can not contribute to this thread.

It would be nice if you lay down your criticism and tell us more about it. Seeing you come from Yu as well, I believe it would be interesting to hear more first-hand details about Titosim.

Remember this is not "I love comrade Tito" discussion, so your side of the story will blend nicely with overly positive stuff that was mentioned before.

BTW, I don't see the point in calling me a fish :lol:

[punisa]

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

That made my day. :)

Hahaha, yeah that was an awesome commercial, production is like a strange blend between North Korea and US :laugh:

[rednordman]

Hahaha, yeah that was an awesome commercial, production is like a strange blend between North Korea and US :laugh:
Yep, Literally:lol:. Is that an old or new commercial?

[punisa]

Yep, Literally:lol:. Is that an old or new commercial?
I'd say mid 80's, anyway it could not possible be "new"

[communard resolution]

the promotion of a state of personality.

What is a state of personality? A state with character?

[vid]

Antonin Novotny about Tito's personal side:


I never felt too good with him. He was nabob and very assumptive. He didn't have measures for polite behavior. He told me story which he found so funny he couldn't even speak because of laughter. Before my visit, Tito welcomed prime minister of Burma, U Nu. He wanted to boast with his collections, so he was showing him around on island, where he had unique items he collected all over the world, including buddhist pagoda. When he came to it, U Nu and other Burma delegates, as religious buddhists, started religious contemplation and did so until Tito opened doors of pagoda and invited them in. With surprise they discovered it is not a sanctuary, but modern wine cellar. Here, between thousands of bottles of wine from all over the world, Tito was usually spending time with his friends. Now he invited his guests to drink with him. U Nu considered this as an insult and immediately left Yugoslavia with his delegation. Political rift was started. Tito was complaining to me: "You Czechs can take a joke, but this sub-nation..." (Černý, Rudolf : Exprezident 2, Orego/Futura 1998, p. 198)