Some people are so thick and ignorant. Why do people like Nox and IronFelix have an urge to post such stupid crap?
Ok, now... one by one. Firstly I’ll answer to OP and then to really good post by PolskiLenin.
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The SFRY was the greatest socialist country to have ever existed. Under Tito's rule, its accomplishments were outstanding:
I'm very fond of Yugoslavia and it represents field of my academic interest. All of you could notice that in quite a few occasions when Yugoslavia or post-Yugoslav countries were discussed. Also, as a person who know quite a lot about history of Yugoslav nations I could agree with this statement that
“under Tito’s rule, its accomplishments were outstanding”. This is true. Yugoslavia was turned into big industrialized country from semi-feudal
ancien regime. Accomplishments were not just economical, but also political; for example: right of women to vote and participate in political life etc. Still, those accomplishments can not hide true state capitalist nature of Yugoslavia. In
Communist Manifesto you could find a lot of places where Marx & Engels praise capitalism and praise economical and political accomplishments of capitalism and liberalism, but still they say that this is not enough and we need a socialist revolution. My position towards Yugoslavia is almost the same.
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-Tito was the leader of the non-aligned movement, never becoming a pawn of the imperialist or Soviet spheres.
This is still open question. I’m still trying to learn more about non-aligned movement. So, I won’t answer on this question, but I’ll give you nice book to read on this subject: Tvrtko Jakovina:
Treća strana hladnog rata. You said that you understand our language. This book is based on documentation of foreign ministers of Yugoslavia.
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-People could travel freely. The Yugoslav passport was one of the best in the world.
This is true, but I can’t see how that is important. With Croatian passport you can travel freely. I can see only one good argument here and it’s against Eastern Bock, but those countries were in stage of constant siege and paranoia.
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-Tito managed to bring together all of the different nationalities of Yugoslavia under the banner of brotherhood and unity immediately following a bloody ethnic war.
This was success, I agree, but only short termed because it was based on few myths which were closely related to Tito’s person. I wrote some time ago about this, so I’ll just quote myself.
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Originally Posted by Kontrrazvedka
Yugoslavian state ideology was based on a few myths. I don’t use this term “myth” to refer something which is not true or which is fabricated, but I use it to name something that is almost transcendental, something which is giving sort of an identity to this community. In the case of Yugoslavia these myths were (i) National Liberation Struggle (cro. Narodno oslobodilačka borba – NOB), (ii) socialist self-management, (iii) “brotherhood and unity” (cro. “bratstvo i jedinstvo”) and (iv) cult of marshal Tito. These myths were never questioned. First, myth is saying that all nations of Yugoslavia liberated themselves using their own power, without Allied intervention (there was a small Soviet intervention in Serbia, but that’s quite irrelevant when we analyze whole struggle), and that they defeated Germans, Italians and their collaborators (Croatian Ustaše, Serbian Četnik’s and Nedić’s forces, Albanian Balije’s, Russian Čerkez’s, Slovenian White Army etc.). Yugoslav post-war propaganda always empathies great sacrifices of Yugoslav partisans, brutality of enemy etc. You can see this myth by watching Yugoslav partisan movies (which are great!). Second myth is based on struggle against Stalin and creation of specific Yugoslav socialist path – workers self-management. It’s also important to emphasize that ideology of workers self-management claimed that in order to reach communism it’s important to dissolve the Party and to let worker councils to run the factories and economy, but also neighborhoods etc. In order to dissolve Party Tito changed name of Communist Party of Yugoslavia (and all its national branches) into Union of Communists. There was no real difference in practice, but ideological idea was to include more and more people in managing the society. Of course, Yugoslav self-management was nice on paper (which is really true, it’s really interesting experiment and if you are interested you should really read about that), but, as we say here in Croatia, paper can take everything, or in other words ideology was far from reality. State never dissolved, but it grew stronger, so did Party (even Tito retired centralists – note: he didn’t killed them, he really retired them) etc., and workers never self-manage their work places, but instead of them that job was done by beurocrats – new ruling class. I won’t write much here about economy and “market socialism” since it’s not topic, but it’s important to know that this form of state capitalism was more liberal comparing to Russian (Soviet), so some forms of private property existed. Third myth was “brotherhood and unity” which is maybe most important myth in order to understand collapse of Yugoslavia. Tito and his right hand Kardelj were aware of history of nationalism of south Slavs and idea of Yugoslavia etc. Since state ideology was to dissolve the state Tito never tried to turn all people in Yugoslavs. That was idea of Aleksandar Ranković who was centralist, but he was retired in 70’s. Kardelj said that Yugoslavia is consisted of “nations” and “nationalities”. Nations were: Slovenians, Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, Montenegrins and Macedonians. Each nation had its republic. Serbia was special, because it also had two autonomous regions: Vojvodina and Kosovo. Nationalities were something which we would now, in liberal democracy, called minorities. Biggest were, of course, Albanians on Kosovo, but there were also Germans, Italians, Czechs, Slovaks, Russians, Hungarians etc. Each nation had its own communist party (union of communists) and after Tito died each nation gave their representative into new formed body called “predsjedništvo” which ruled Yugoslavia. Also, it’s important to say that Bosnian and Macedonian nations did formally exist before Yugoslavia. We could also say something similar regarding Montenegrins. Yugoslav paradigm regarding national question in Yugoslavia is that there were no majorities and minorities. That is really important! This is what “brotherhood and unity” was all about. This principle of inclusion was everywhere. Yugoslav authorities were always trying to keep balance, so that in every important position in the country is one representative of each nation. For example in Yugoslav National Army there were 6 generals and one was Croat, one was Serbian etc. You get the picture? Problem was with some nationalities, such as Albanians who were huge in numbers but were not represented as nations were. At the end of 80’s Albanians wanted to have status of nation which was a spark for a Serbian nationalism, at least for an excuse... Forth myth was Tito’s cult... and we all know what that was about. He was hero of WW2 (he’s only Allied leader who was wounded in a war, because he was always with his troops), founder of Non-aligned movement, he showed Stalin middle finger etc. etc. In the end, his cult was glue of Yugoslav unity, and that’s why shits started to happen when he died. (
Source: http://www.revleft.com/vb/serbia-bla...06#post2250406 )
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-Unlike Stalin, Tito was the true successor of Marx and Lenin, attempting to create a socialist state that was actually led by the proletariat through his system of self-management.
This is just about rhetorical ideological games. Although, Tito was maybe closer to Marx and Lenin because he said that state must fade away, this was only rhetoric and in practice Yugoslavia had really a lot of similar with USSR. Self-management way also only about rhetoric, but I’ll come to that later.
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-The Yugoslav partisans defeated the Nazis with little help from the Red Army.
This should never been forgotten.
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-Unlike in the Soviet Union, there was little censorship of art, allowing Yugoslav cultural production to flourish.
This is true. Yugoslavia didn’t have blockade of art or pop culture from West like Soviet Union used to have. You could buy for example 2 Tone records in Yugoslavia or The Clash’s LP’s.
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-Tito rejected Stalin's perversion of Marxism-Leninism. Marx advocated the liberation of man, while Stalinist policies were aimed at man's repression.
You should not forget that Yugoslav system was also repressive state capitalist regime. There were no gulags but there was Goli otok for Stalinists and numerous jails for political enemies.
PolskiLenin your answer is like an answer of real Trotskyite :) Yeah, it’s true that Tito “purged” CPY from Trotskyites and social democrats when he gain power. He was very “ruthless” and as an NKVD’s agent he participated in Spanish Civil war, where he was staioned on a border with France where he used to execute anarchists and anti-Stalinists who were running to France after 1937.
It’s true that during the WW2 Tito was as Stalinist as you can be. Communist Party of Yugoslavia was one of most loyal parties to Soviet Union and to Stalin. CPY followed all Comintern directives and policies – such as
People’s front. That is why their politics was conservative and cautious and just like all Stalinists – they collaborated with bourgeoisie. For example, it’s well known fact that CPY tried to reach as much as possible members of Croatian Peasants Party (HSS) – leading Croatian party from Kingdom of Yugoslavia. They succeed in that, even trough many of HSS’s members remained loyal to “London government” and to ban Ivan Šubašić. At the beginning of a war Tito even tried to make an alliance with Četnik’s, because they were against Germans back then, but Draža Mihajlović and his scum decided that it’s more important to defeat “inner enemy” and relay on victory of Allies, so that they can establish Great Serbia. Also, it’s a fact that after WW2 elections were held on which CPY won their power and Šubašić was defeated. That’s how socialist regime was established.
So, after all of this it’s clearly that during the WW2 Tito was really good Stalinist. Now, regarding spilt with Stalin I would like to quote myself again, but I wrote that replay in Zapadni Balkan forum on Croatian so fuck it.
Tito and Stalin spit came because Yugoslav elites opposed to Soviet imperialism. It’s well known fact that Soviet Union, in order to recover its economy after WW2, created certain amount of enterprises in its satellite countries. Those enterprises where created by Soviet and satellite capital, but all surplus values went straight to Soviet Union. That left satellite countries in deep shit. Yugoslavia opposed creation of such enterprises. Also, Yugoslavia and Soviet Union were in fight because of “Trieste crisis” and because CPY gave money, food and weapons to Greek partisans, even Soviet Union agreed that Greece should be British after WW2 ends.
What was Titoism and did it worked? I answered on that question here:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...08&postcount=2