Josip Broz... - Otherwise known as Tito. What do you think o

[commie kg]

From what I've read about Tito, he seemed to be a prettey moderate dictator when compared to Stalin or Hitler. He never purged, although he did create labor camps for political dissenters. They weren't like concentration camps, though.
All in all, he seemed like an OK dictator. He preached policies of nonalignment during the cold war, and was very critical of Stalin. After being expelled from the Comintern, he opened up trade with the West, enriching Yugoslavia culturally.

What do you think?

[Dirty Commie]

I have heard that he was a good leader, but I know very little about him.
A guy I know was named after Tito.

[Aleksander Nordby]

he was ha great leader, but he made a stupid socalist state.

[Cassius Clay]

Typhical because the west sais Tito is a 'good' guy that he means he is. It was under Tito that people like Milosevich and Tudjman became prominent. Under Tito Yugoslavia would of sided with NATO against the Soviet Union, under Tito thousands were jailed and murdered in concentration camps simply for voicing a Marxist-Leninist line. Under Tito Yugoslavia threatened to annex Albania.

That's your 'good dictator' for you.

[commie kg]

Alright, after more research, he was a bit brutal in his earlier years. Toward the end of his reign he became much more liberal.

Just because he opposed the USSR doesn't make him bad, he wasn't a super good guy, but NO dictator is.


under Tito thousands were jailed and murdered in concentration camps simply for voicing a Marxist-Leninist line

Well, compare that to the millions killed in the USSR during Stalin's reign. If I had to choose one it would be Tito.
I admire the Yugoslav state for rejecting Stalin's USSR.

[Sensitive]

Didn't Krushchev restore USSR relations with Tito and Yugoslavia?

[commie kg]

Quote: from Sensitive on 6:35 pm on May 7, 2003
Didn't Krushchev restore USSR relations with Tito and Yugoslavia?

Yes he did. :)

The only communist countries that held a grudge against Yugoslavia were Albania and China. They thought Yugoslavia had deviated from Marxism-Leninism's true path.

[Uhuru na Umoja]

Quote: from Sensitive on 2:35 am on May 8, 2003
Didn't Krushchev restore USSR relations with Tito and Yugoslavia?

Initially, but they fell apart again. Yugoslavia never entered the Warsaw Pact, or Comecon, and was expelled in 1948 from Cominform - by the commie kg, Comintern was abolished during WWII.

And Cassius Clay... you claim that it was wrong for Tito to put pressure on Albania. What about Stalin's actions regarding Tito? He went so far as to plan an invasion of Yugoslavia, and was only stoppped from doing so by the Korean War. What kind of respect for Yugoslav sovreignty is that?

As for your claims that Tito deviated from Marxist Lenninism, I have a quote for you from A. Ross Johnson's book The Transformation of Communist Ideology: The Yugoslav Case, 1945-53: 'the CPY stressed the relevance of Soviet experience far more than any other Eastern European Communist Party at the time.' In terms of ideology Poland, Czechoslovakia and many other nations deviated far more from the Russian line than Tito, it was just that they were weaker and posed no real threat to Stalin. Almost all recent scholarship on the topic of the Tito-Stalin split emphasises how both sides fabricated the ideological differences after 1948 to hide the fact that the break was caused by a struggle for Balkan hegemony. Tito himself once said to a friend that the talk of ideological differences was 'nonsense'. Also, your attempts to blame the split entirely on Tito are entertaining, but hardly supported by fact. Tito actively sought reconciliation with Stalin and only turned to NATO when he realised he had no other alternative. Indeed he concluded his speech at the Fifth Congress of the CPY in July 1948 - he was expelled from Cominform on the 28th of June - with the lines, 'Long live the Soviet Union! Long live comrade Stalin!'

As for your claims about Milosevich and similar characters, these cannot be blamed on Tito. There has been almost constant ethnic conflict in the Blankans for the last five hundred years. Tito's rule was a respite from such conflict and, although he could not eliminate tensions, his charisma held the nation together. Note that the problems began in earnest AFTER his death. He was one of the few people who could bring peace to the region.

[Cassius Clay]

''Well, compare that to the millions killed in the USSR during Stalin's reign. If I had to choose one it would be Tito.
I admire the Yugoslav state for rejecting Stalin's USSR.''

Sigh, 'millions' weren't 'killed' under Stalin (anyway that's off topic). So what if he opposed the USSR or 'Stalin's USSR' so did Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Does that mean you support him? Ofcourse it doesn't.


''And Cassius Clay... you claim that it was wrong for Tito to put pressure on Albania. What about Stalin's actions regarding Tito? He went so far as to plan an invasion of Yugoslavia, and was only stoppped from doing so by the Korean War. What kind of respect for Yugoslav sovreignty is that?''

So two wrongs make a right now do they? Anyway that's hardly the point since Stalin did no such thing (plan invasion). The split with Tito occured in 1948, the Korean confilict began in 1950. Your logic is wrong here. And precisly what 'actions' are you reffering to? All Stalin and the Comintern did was point out the mistakes being made by Tito and supported the genuine Marxist-Leninist forces in their struggle for socialism. It was precisly because Stalin and the USSR respected Yugoslavian soveignty that they didn't even consider invading. And the 'Stalinists' allways did respect Yugoslavian soveignty, in 1980 when tensions with the USSR increased again Enver Hoxha said the Albanian people and government stood fully by the Yugoslav people.


''As for your claims that Tito deviated from Marxist Lenninism, I have a quote for you from A. Ross Johnson's book The Transformation of Communist Ideology: The Yugoslav Case, 1945-53: 'the CPY stressed the relevance of Soviet experience far more than any other Eastern European Communist Party at the time.' In terms of ideology Poland, Czechoslovakia and many other nations deviated far more from the Russian line than Tito, it was just that they were weaker and posed no real threat to Stalin. Almost all recent scholarship on the topic of the Tito-Stalin split emphasises how both sides fabricated the ideological differences after 1948 to hide the fact that the break was caused by a struggle for Balkan hegemony. Tito himself once said to a friend that the talk of ideological differences was 'nonsense'. Also, your attempts to blame the split entirely on Tito are entertaining, but hardly supported by fact. Tito actively sought reconciliation with Stalin and only turned to NATO when he realised he had no other alternative. Indeed he concluded his speech at the Fifth Congress of the CPY in July 1948 - he was expelled from Cominform on the 28th of June - with the lines, 'Long live the Soviet Union! Long live comrade Stalin!' ''

First of all it sounds like this book/author is from the west. If so that hardly makes it reliable. On that last part, it was people like Khruschev who built up a 'Cult' by making such speeches. Czechslovakia for one didn't have a Communist goverment until 1948, so they are not really going to be 'talking about the Soviet experience' are they (not to mention this is only your opinion)? As for saying that the 'Ideological' stuff was just for show. The opposite is true. Stalin, Molotov, Dmitrov were all very concerned about where Yugoslavia was heading. Molotov for one predicted where it would all end.

Now on the part about NATO.

''Tito declared to the New York Herald Tribune that `in the event of a Soviet attack anywhere in Europe, even if the thrust should be miles away from Yugoslavia's own borders', he would `instantly do battle on the side of the West ... Yugoslavia considers itself part of the collective security wall being built against Soviet imperialism.'

So how was Yugoslavia not Socialist and infact Capitalist even in the 40's and 50's? It's not just because Stalin said so. Reality speaks for itself.

''In the economic field, the socialist measures that Yugoslavia had taken before 1948 were liquidated. Alexander Clifford, the Daily Mail correspondent, wrote about the economic reforms adopted in 1951:

`If it comes off, Yugoslavia looks like ending up a good deal less socialised than Britain': `price of goods ... determined by the market --- that is, by supply and demand'; `wages and salaries ... fixed on the basis of the income or profits of the enterprise'; economic enterprises that `decide independently what to produce and in what quantities'; `there isn't much classical Marxism in all of that'.''


As for oppression, read up on the life of Vladmir Vlado Dapcevic. He was arrested in 1948 for taking a pro-Soviet line and faced the worst torture in a concentration camp. He escaped and eventually found himself in western Europe by the 70's, when Yugoslav Police kidnapped him and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Sounds like the tactics of the CIA to me.


And then there is this example.


''Milichevich Predrag Chedomirovich was born in Belgrade, March 22,1926 to a family of teachers. From 13-years-old he went on the revolutionary path in Yugoslavia, taking the torch from his parents. He took part in the organizing of the uprising in 1941 against the fascist German occupiers, and from then on until the end of the Second World War he fought together with the Yugoslav partisans against fascist German occupiers 1941-1945. He was arrested twice by German Gestapo. Upon his eighteenth birthday he became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

After the end of the war, Predrag Milichevich became the leader of the Yugoslav komsomol organization. In spring of 1946 he studied at the Moscow Aviation Institute where he designed helicopters, rockets. In spring of 1948 he returned to Yugoslavia.

He was co-opted into the CC YCP and into the Belgrade University, he became an eyewitness of the repressions against Communists, who criticized the line of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia for breaking off relations with the USSR. He was convinced of the mistakes of the Yugoslav party and the harm that it would do to the Yugoslav people. Milichevich became a political immigrant at the end of 1948 and the editor of the newspaper "New Struggle'' being published in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

On the false accusation of the Czechoslovak leadership headed by Slansky, he was arrested by the Soviet state in 1950 as a spy for Tito, accused of terrorist plans and diversionist acts, meaning that he planned to assassinate the leadership of the international Communist parties. In the spring of 1953 he was absolved for wrongful arrest under false pretences. By a direct directive of the CC CPSU under Joseph Stalin, after investigation the revisionist activity in the Communist parties, he was again given a post in the Military Academy in Aeronautics and he graduated in 1957 and got his diploma in rocket launch cosmonautics.

He worked in the defence rocket industry until 1998. H was involved in the design of the latest rocket launchers, MIG fighters, helicopters, TU-144, Soviet cosmic system "Buran" and he was given 31 design registrations as the author of those inventions.

Predrag was a member of the CPSU since 1962. All those years Milichevich did research into the life in Yugoslavia and its departure from Marxism-Leninism, never giving up that Yugoslavia must have a socialist future and fighting against imperialism and revisionism both inside the USSR and Yugoslavia.

The central theme in the brochure is given for the first time in the V. Molotov to the Yugoslav leadership in 1948.

We must say that during the ten years after the death of Stalin the analyses and history of the Yugoslav leadership was not allowed by the policies of Khrushchev revisionism. Predrag points out the facts of how the road to taking over leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia by Tito, Kardely, Dzilas, Piade came about. When the two-faced policies of the Yugoslav leadership were exposed, they then quickly liquidated the party and started the liquidation and jailing of all true Communists, these same Communists who were in the front line in the partisans fighting German fascists and liberating Yugoslavia... they were arrested, fired from their jobs, killed or sent to concentration camps.

As an observer of that situation Milichevich wrote: "During the host spring of 1948 Tito came out with the plan to have a campaign in the party clubs discussions – who is for his position, and who is for the position of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union? In a move that had secret plans behind it, Tito allowed the publishing of the letters of Stalin and Molotov, saying that every member of the party had the "right to state his or her view point." After the party members made their point of view known, a majority of whom favoured relations with the USSR and of Marxism-Leninism, there followed expulsions from the party of all those that sided with the USSR, loss of jobs, arrests and being sent to concentration camps."

In this way, from 285,147 party members at the beginning of 1948, there was expelled, arrested and in concentration camps 218,379 members. Thousands suffered or died in the concentration camps, torture was exposed, thanks to the Soviet Union making all of these terrible details published.''


Yet despite all of this somehow Tito is a good guy and a hero because 'He was anti-Stalin'??????? Sigh.

[Uhuru na Umoja]

I don't have the time to respond to all your comments today, Cassius Clay, as I have my final IB English exam tomorrow (which is important as if I fuck it up then I won't make my conditional UCAS offers, but that is a different issue all together). Anyways, there are a couple of things which I can immediately refute, while I will have to consult my books for others.

First of all, yes A. Ross Jonhson is western. Does that make him wrong? I'm glad your so open minded. Other 'eastern' historians such as Zilliacus, Pavlovich and Bjelakovic agree with his assessment.

As for his planned invasion... there are copies of the plans he (or his subordinates) made. I suggest you read Király, Béla K., ‘The Aborted Soviet Military Plans Against Tito’s Yugoslavia’, in Wayne S. Vucinich (ed.) At the Brink of War and Peace: The Tito-Stalin Split in a Historic Perspective (Columbia University Press, New York: 1982).

As for your claim that ideology was important, please give me some specifics. How was it so important? Note that Stalin's attack on Tito immediately followed Tito's initiatives to create a Blakan Federation in late 1947. This seems like more than mere coincidence. Indeed he expressed his displease of such indepedent policies to Djilas and Kardelj in 1946. Also why, if ideology was such a central issue, woudl Tito express his solidarity to Stalin in July 1948? This hardly smacks of ideological deviation.

Finally I am not simply saying that Tito was good. I think he had good and bad sides; however, I do think he was better than Stalin (however, we should probably leave that discussion for the time being).

(Edited by Uhuru na Umoja at 6:39 pm on May 8, 2003)

[Cassius Clay]

He, he. Despite the fact that I disagree with most of what you have wrote I will wish you luck with soughting out your UCAS stuff and good luck with your exams. I should really be doing the same, but I've been doing coursework for weeks and have rewarded myself with a break (= being lazy).


Now then, you are right that just because Mr Johnson is western it doesn't make him wrong, or right for that matter. On what FACTS or evidence is his assertion that 'The CPY stressed the relavence of the Soviet Experience' more than other CP's, particularly in Eastern Europe based? Do you think that the Comintern suddenly decided to have a go at Tito because one fine day in 1948 they felt like it? No ofcourse they didn't.

On the point of 'Invasion plans'. In the 1920's America had war plans for invading Britain. Does this mean they were actually going to? Precisly why didn't the USSR invade if Stalin was such a evil guy? Afterall the Cold War had barely begun and your logic that somehow Korea ruined it is clearly wrong. And I've provided the evidence that Tito and Yugoslavia had become lackeys of NATO and the U$, were jailing and murdering communists and were establishing Capitalism. But even with all that and the added benefit of hignsight it would of been wrong to invade. It's not the job of one Socialist country to force Socialism onto another. Stalin understood this and that's why they didn't invade.


''As for your claim that ideology was important, please give me some specifics. How was it so important? Note that Stalin's attack on Tito immediately followed Tito's initiatives to create a Blakan Federation in late 1947. This seems like more than mere coincidence. Indeed he expressed his displease of such indepedent policies to Djilas and Kardelj in 1946. Also why, if ideology was such a central issue, woudl Tito express his solidarity to Stalin in July 1948? This hardly smacks of ideological deviation.''


In regards to all of this here is a extract from Dmitrov's report to the Bulgarian V Congress in 1948.


''V. South Slav Federation & The Macedonian Question

The treachery of Tito's group towards the USSR and the united democratic anti-imperialist camp, its anti-Marxist and nationalistic course, condemned by the Informburo, by all Communist parties and all genuine democratic organizations, found expression in its attitude toward the federation of the Southern Slavs and the Macedonian question.

With the overthrow of the Fascist dictatorship in Bulgaria on September 9th 1944, and the establishment in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia of a people's democratic regime under the leaders of the Communist parties, most propitious conditions were created for a consistent and democratic settlement of all outstanding issues between the two countries, including the Macedonian question.

Under the newly created domestic and international conditions, the vital interests of the Bulgarian and Yugoslav peoples made it imperative that both nations seek the closest rapprochement which would quickly lead to their economic and political unification – to the establishment of a federation of South Slavs. Such a federation, resting firmly on friendship with the USSR and fraternal collaboration with the other new democracies, could have successfully defended the freedom and independence of its peoples and ensured their proper development toward socialism. Within the framework of such a federation would have been solved correctly, all the old unsolved problems legated by the bourgeois-monarchic regimes regarding the unification of the Macedonians from the Pirin district with the People's Republic of Macedonia, as well as the return to Bulgaria of the purely Bulgarian Western Border Region which the Yugoslavia of King Alexander had grabbed after World War I.

Our Party firmly chose that course, relying on the word of the Yugoslav Communists to whom we were tied by common work and association covering a period of many years. This is the present stand of our Party. But the nationalist leaders of Yugoslavia went off this only correct path. After the two Governments had agreed on a series of measures regarding the forthcoming establishment of the federation, the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party informed our Party in March 1948 that it had changed its mind on that question, that one should not rush the federation, and refused to discuss the matter any further. At the same time, the Yugoslav leaders set as the central task the transformation of the Pirin district into an autonomous region with a view to its inclusion in Yugoslavia, independently of the existing understanding on the creation of a federation''


Clearly Comrade you are mistaken that 'Stalin' attacked Tito for wanting to set up a 'Balkan Federation'. If anything the opposite is the truth. And what does it matter if Tito is praising Stalin at one point? Actions speak louder than words and Tito's actions from domestic, to ideolology and international leave something to be desired.

[commie kg]

by the commie kg, Comintern was abolished during WWII.

Sorry, Uhuru, I get them mixed up sometimes.


Sigh, 'millions' weren't 'killed' under Stalin (anyway that's off topic). So what if he opposed the USSR or 'Stalin's USSR' so did Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Does that mean you support him? Ofcourse it doesn't.

I don't consider myself a Marxist-Leninist (more of a Democratic Socialist), so I tend to shy away from most Pro-USSR views, I just don't believe in dictatorship. I have alot of Russian freinds who said it was pretty hellish in the USSR, even under Gorbachev.

I am trying to say that I admire the fact that Tito, a communist, was defiant of the "mother of all communist countries," the CCCP. My family came from Slovenia, and they claim that Tito wasn't a pleasure to live under, but he sure as hell was no Stalin.

[Cassius Clay]

Well that's fine KG.

I feel I have provided evidence or a perspective that Tito was far from a good guy and if you still believe your sources/accounts are more reliable there's nothing I can do.

So if people read this thread they can make up their own mind cant they?

[Uhuru na Umoja]

Quote: from Cassius Clay on 8:01 pm on May 8, 2003
He, he. Despite the fact that I disagree with most of what you have wrote I will wish you luck with soughting out your UCAS stuff and good luck with your exams. I should really be doing the same, but I've been doing coursework for weeks and have rewarded myself with a break (= being lazy).
Many thanks. The exam is over now, but there is history next Tuesday and Wednesday (my offer rests on history and English). Now, however, it is two in the morning and I have just had a fist fight with an American fuck who believes that Reagan was the best US president ever, so I don't quite feel up to responding on an intelligent level. I'll reply Saturday (later today) or Sunday. It's nice to know that you - unlike the American I was with earlier tonight - can keep political and personal disagreements seperate.

[commie kg]

Quote: from Cassius Clay on 1:25 am on May 9, 2003
Well that's fine KG.

I feel I have provided evidence or a perspective that Tito was far from a good guy and if you still believe your sources/accounts are more reliable there's nothing I can do.

So if people read this thread they can make up their own mind cant they?




I never said he was a good guy, I said that I would prefer him over Stalin.

[Kapitan Andrey]

Didn't Krushchev restore USSR relations with Tito and Yugoslavia?

Yes, but ~brejnev~ broke that friendship again!!!

Tito...to my mind - he was good man!