Josep tito - Q&A

[damn the capitalism]

why many peoples consider Josep Tito as a revisionist?

[redstar2000]

This question would probably get a better response in the History forum or even the Theory forum.

Tito (a Croat by descent) led the surprisingly tenacious resistance movement in Yugoslavia against the Nazi occupation.

After World War II, it was his desire to create a "Balkan federation" of communist countries (Bulgaria, Albania and I think Roumania). It is likely that he had in mind a "small" version of the USSR for the Balkan region.

The Russians did not receive this idea well. In addition, there was apparently an effort by the Russians to create a "pro-Russian" faction within the Yugoslav Communist Party...and Tito was less than happy about this.

How much of this was due to a personality conflict between Stalin and Tito is debatable. What is known is that tensions rose to the point where both sides appealed for support to communist revolutionaries in Greece. Greek communists were in the midst of fighting a civil war against the bourgeois regime, supported by British and American imperialism. The Greeks were receiving Russian military assistance...which had to pass through Yugoslav territory.

The Greeks decided to be "pro-Stalin" and, incredibly, Tito blocked further assistance from Russia to the Greeks...which resulted in catastrophic defeat for the Greek working class.

Stalin quite properly regarded this as treason to the communist movement...and essentially expelled Yugoslavia from the community of communist nations.

The Yugoslavs promptly formed a de facto alliance with NATO...never formally joining the capitalist camp but known to be "friendly" even though formally "neutral".

In the ideological realm, the distinguishing mark of Titoism was "market socialism" and direct worker "ownership" of the means of production.

The way this worked in practice is that all the workers in a particular work-place at a given point in time "owned" that enterprise and competed with other enterprises in the marketplace, sharing the profits more or less equally.

You can imagine what happened. The older generation of workers, "locked in" as owners, began to "hire" younger workers without ever giving them a share of the profits. One group of workers began to exploit other workers.

The normal random fluctuations of any free market simply made matters worse. Some "unprofitable" enterprises were "acquired" by more "profitable" enterprises...and those who were once "owners" now became "employees"--wage-slaves.

By the time Tito died, pretty much all of the features that we associate with a capitalist country had re-emerged. Tito's successors decided that ethnic hatreds were a useful road to complete abolition of the old quasi-socialist framework...and we know what happened after that.

So when you hear Tito referred to as a "revisionist", it refers to the fact that Tito "revised" the Leninist-Stalinist version of "socialism" to include cooperation with capitalist, imperialist countries abroad and the use of the "free market" at home.

A sad story, altogether.

:cool:

(Edited by redstar2000 at 10:31 pm on April 15, 2003)

[damn the capitalism]

thanx a lot for given me these information:-) so what i understand in conclusion that it was said that titi is a revisionist because he went in the side of the capitalist countries (despite that i think that he was neutral) and he opposed the ideas of Marx and lenin ,and he allowed the free market ! So i don't disagree with this, but my question is:
what about Lenin in the early of 20's ,did he make his economic policy called NEP and he brings the capitalist specialist from the usa and england and france to help him in his country and to help the industries and the land reform and he liked their ideas ,he also allowed a little of free marketing and the ownership of the land by peoples ,so why we don't called him a revisionist! so i think that this word of revisionism is not tottaly true and it's a way for accusing the others ,like stalin when he accused leon trotsky and he called him a revisionist,so trotsky got his own ideas ,and not because his ideas oppose stalin's ideas so he is a revisionist!i think that it's us that we use the word "revisionist" in a wrong way ,and not because that tito tried to develope communism so he is revisionist ,he got his own point of views and he is a human so he might made mistakes!so as u said he tried to to create another ussr and this idea wasn't accepted by comrade stalin so by his first mistake ,stalin accuse him as a revisionist and we beleived this!

[Invader Zim]

WOW RS2000, you live and learn as they say. I did not know half of that stuff.

DTC you seem to have a double post problem, there are two of these threads.

[redstar2000]

Yes, damn the capitalism, the word "revisionism" really has no precise meaning and is often used (and has been used) as rhetorical "bluster".

But it once did have a precise meaning. Around 1900, there was a theorist in the German Social Democratic Party who proclaimed himself a revisionist...he said he intended to "revise Marx" and "bring him up to date".

How? By stripping out all of the revolutionary content of Marx's work. Capitalism would continue into the indefinite future but workers would have (gradually) more and more to say about things until eventually we'd have socialism without anyone ever actually noticing the change-over.

So people in revolutionary politics back then, when they said "revisionism", it meant "forget working class revolution...it's not necessary".

The reason no one ever called Lenin a revisionist for the NEP is because his prestige was so high that no one dared speak of him in such terms.

Even today, to actually be critical of Lenin is to catch a lot of flak. I know; I speak from personal experience.

:cool:

[damn the capitalism]

so in conclusion, if we consider kruchev or tito as revisionist ,so we must be fair and consider lenin as them!
Anyway i don't accuse lenin for what he did, he did this because he was forced to do that and if he didn't do that ,maybe the ussr would collapse so early!
anyway i don't beleive in this word "revisionism" coz everyone got his own point of view about the definition of this word! i think what lenin did and what tito did too ,even khruchev, was for the love of their countries!
and we must have the courage and consider lenin as a revisionist if tito is a revisionist!
thanx a lot for replying about lenin,coz everytime i speak with someone about lenin asnd his NEP and my view to considering him as a revisionist, he escapes from me and don't reply!