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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Josip Broz Tito |
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| Political Biography: Josip Broz Tito |
(b. Kumrovec, Croatia, 7 May 1892; d. Ljubljana, Slovenia, 4 May 1980) Croatian; Yugoslav Prime Minister and Defence Minister 1945 – 53, President 1953 – 80 Born into a peasant family, Josip Broz trained as a locksmith and became an itinerant worker in central Europe. Conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army in the First World War he rose to the rank of sergeant, was wounded, and captured by the Russians. Released after the Revolution he joined the Red Army, fought in the Russian Civil War, and married a Russian woman. Returning to Croatia in 1920 he worked as a metalworker and joined the Communist Party. He became a trade union leader and strike organizer and secretary of the Zagreb Communists. In 1928 he was arrested and, after a trial at which he became famous for his outspoken defence of Communism and revolution, was imprisoned for five years. In 1934 he was co-opted onto the Central Committee and Politbureau of the decimated Yugoslav Communist Party and adopted the underground name Tito. After the party was liquidated by Stalin Tito worked for the Comintern in Moscow. He was sent back to Yugoslavia to reorganize the party as its General Secretary in 1937. He soon transformed it into an effective pan-Yugoslav revolutionary organization, which was to form the basis of the partisan army when the Germans invaded in April 1941.
In his July Declaration Tito called for national unity on the basis of equality of all ethnic groups; he advocated immediate resistance and downplayed socialist revolution. These appeals gained the Partisans much cross-national support. After the Italian surrender in September 1943 the Partisans acquired a considerable quantity of arms and were able to defeat the forces of Mihailovic decisively and gain control of a large area of central Yugoslavia. In November Tito formed a provisional government and declared the creation of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. From this time he also gained the crucial support of Churchill, who persuaded the government-in-exile to back him and drop Mihailovic. In 1944 Tito formed a provisional government with the royalist Subasic as Foreign Minister, but after the victorious Partisans entered Belgrade in 1945 the November elections ushered in a monolithic Communist government in which Tito was both premier and Foreign Minister and the monarchy was abolished.
Tito now established a tough Stalinist regime with harsh purges conducted by Rankovic's secret police. But the fact that his revolution had not been dependent on Soviet support encouraged him to take a more independent line from the USSR, as was seen in the negotiations on the Balkan Federation project. Disagreements with Stalin came to a head in 1948 when Tito refused to accept the total subservience now expected of the East European satellites in the new Cold War era and in February 1948 Yugoslavia was expelled from the Cominform. Massive US aid enabled Yugoslavia to survive the immediate trade embargo, but once Tito had accepted the break was final (which he did reluctantly) it was clear that Yugoslav strategy would have to be rethought if they were not to slip back into capitalism. With the help of Kardelj and Djilas he developed the alternative ideology of "self-management" which he started to implement in 1950. In 1952 the name of the party was altered to the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and in 1953 a new constitution based on self-management was introduced. At the same time Djilas was arrested for criticisms of the leadership. After the death of Stalin in 1953 Khrushchev attempted to bring Yugoslavia back into the Communist fold but Tito remained wary and instead developed a new foreign policy role as leader of the Non-Aligned Movement. In the 1960s tensions in the country increased under the impact of the 1965 market-oriented reforms. In 1966 Tito was forced to sack security chief Rankovic because of his unpopularity with the other nationalities. In 1967 unrest developed in several republics which was resolved by devolutionary constitutional amendments, but nationalist pressure increased, especially in Croatia, coming to a head in the "Croatian Spring" of 1971, when Tito replaced the Croatian party leadership. In 1974 a new constitution was introduced giving virtually confederal powers to the republics and provinces, nominally balanced by a reassertion of "democratic centralism" in the party as a binding force, but this failed to stop the drift towards national particularism.
Tito's great achievements were as a resistance leader and a statesman who held his diverse country together for thirty-five years of peace and relative stability. On the other hand he had an inordinate vanity and love of luxury which ill accorded with his role as the socialist alternative to Stalinism.
| Military History Companion: Marshal Josip Broz Tito |
Tito, Marshal Josip Broz (1892-1980), leader of the Yugoslav partisans and subsequently president; a revolutionary activist inspired, trained, and funded during the inter-war period by Moscow. According to Fitzroy Maclean, head of Britain's military mission to the Partisans during 1943-5, Broz was known from his early revolutionary days as a dominant leader, always ordering his subordinates to ‘do this’, or ‘do that’, which translates as tito. Always on the move, and taking several pseudonyms or nicknames, ‘Tito’ eventually stuck and was adopted as his permanent name.
Having already served the cause of communism in the Spanish civil war, Tito was fully committed to clandestine life even before the German invasion of April 1941 (see Yugoslavia in WW II), but he refrained from overt resistance activity while the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact was in force. Nonetheless he anticipated the German invasion of the USSR and had already taken to the hills with a small band of followers to combat Mihailović's Chetniks as well as the Germans and their allies the Ustashe.
Tito collected disaffected Catholic Croats, Muslim Bosnians, and Orthodox Serbs into his force, and created a broader base of support than Mihailović, though the latter was in receipt of British arms, and was recognized by the Yugoslav government-in-exile. Tito also sought to indoctrinate his Partisans (a title, not a description) with communism, which (to a degree) successfully overcame the ethnic and religious divisions that had traditionally dogged Yugoslav politics and would do so again after his death.
The Partisans survived several campaigns against them by the German-Ustashe forces in 1942-3, keeping on the move and losing a quarter of their troops and half their equipment. By this time Tito was portraying himself as general of a national liberation army, rather than leader of a communist resistance group, and had initiated a Pan-Yugoslav Council of Unity in Bihac (November 1942) as a means of appealing for more support. The decision in 1943 to divert all support to Tito, at the behest of Fitzroy Maclean, and confirmed by the ‘Big Three’ at Tehran, enhanced his status considerably. A second Council of Unity at Jajce in central Bosnia gave him the rank of marshal and it was also agreed that the post-war future lay not with a monarchy, but with communism, which was very much what Stalin wanted to hear. But the war was a long way from over, a fact underlined in May 1944 by the German special forces assault on Tito's new HQ in Drvar. Though many of his staff perished, he escaped and was brought by the British to Vis, one of the western chain of islands off the Croatian coast in their possession. Thereafter he commanded from Vis, aided considerably by the RAF in the form of the Balkan Air Force, which engaged in a systematic campaign of aerial interdiction against German ground and sea forces, as well as the supply of the Partisan columns. Tito also paid a secret visit to Moscow to arrange for Soviet military assistance and to co-ordinate his plan to take over the country with the arrival of the Red Army on Yugoslavia's eastern frontier.
Thanks to these arrangements Belgrade fell to Tito on 20 October 1944, and thereafter he consolidated his control over the country he had won, the only resistance leader to liberate his own country without the significant intervention of foreign troops. In some ways what he did thereafter was even more remarkable. He defied Stalin in June 1948, and then became a leader of the non-aligned nations. One may speculate whether he might have used his benign dictatorship to achieve greater integration among the heterogenous and mutually antagonistic peoples of Yugoslavia, but the fact remains that while he lived there was inter-communal peace and relative prosperity. The wheel turns, and in 1999 as in 1914 the Russians recovered their traditional role as the protectors of the Serbs amid the ruins of Tito's federation.
— Peter Caddick-Adams
| Biography: Marshal Tito |
The Yugoslav statesman Marshal Tito (born 1892) became president of Yugoslavia in 1953. He directed the rebuilding of a Yugoslavia devastated in World War II and the welding of Yugoslavia's different peoples into unity until his death in 1980.
From its creation in 1918 until is dissolution in the early 1990s, Yugoslavia was a multinational state composed of numerous ethnic and religious groups. It was made up of historical provinces which were first united into a single state in 1918. The building of a state proved a difficult task. The various ethnic groups were dissatisfied with their status in the new state, resented Serbian domination, and clamored for greater national and political rights. The national and religious groups were suspicious of each other. The country's economy was unstable throughout the interwar period, and the country was surrounded by enemy states dedicated to its destruction. Because of these conditions, Communist and fascist groups found fertile ground for their activities and sought to destroy established order. Among the Communists who advocated a revolutionary change was Josip Broz, who is commonly known as Marshal Tito.
Tito was born on May 25, 1892, the seventh of 15 children of a peasant family of Kumrovec, a village near Zagreb, Croatia. After apprenticeship to a locksmith, he worked in Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, and Germany as a mechanic. In World War I he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army, was wounded and captured by the Russians, and spent time in a prisoner-of-war camp. Already a Social Democrat in Vienna in 1910, he joined the Red Army after the Russian Revolution of October 1917 and identified himself with the Bolshevik forces in the Russian civil war.
In 1920 Tito returned to Croatia and joined the Communist party of Yugoslavia, rising to the party's committee in Zagreb, and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in 1928 for Communist activity. Thereafter he spent several years in the Soviet Union, in 1934 being elected to the Central Committee and Politburo of the Yugoslav party. In the Stalinist purges, all other members of the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party had been liquidated, and in 1937 the Comintern appointed him secretary general of the Yugoslav party as its only remaining trustworthy leader.
World War II
Tito was able to revive the Yugoslav party and to make of it a highly disciplined organization. He purged the ranks of members of dubious loyalty and gave the party a clear-cut and realistic policy with regard to nationality. For the first time, the party was firmly in support of the preservation rather than the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. As a loyal Stalinist, passionate revolutionary, and strong personality, Tito was able to develop the Yugoslav Communist party into a powerful political and military organization during World War II.
After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 and Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in June, Tito, responding to the call of the Comintern, ordered the Communist party to initiate guerrilla activity against Axis forces. At the same time, a royalist resistance movement headed by Col. (later Gen.) Draža Mihajlović gained the support of the royalist government-in-exile under King Peter II (reigned 1934-1945) in London. Initially, Tito's forces received no outside assistance, but Mihajlović's inactivity, combined with the success of Tito's partisans, led to a change in Allied policy. Allied liaison officers with Tito reported that his movement was more nationalist than Communist, and Allied liaison officers with Mihajlović reported that his forces, in fear of a Communist take-over in Yugoslavia, had found it expedient to collaborate with Axis troops. The conflict between the two resistance leaders led to a bloody civil war.
Communist Revolution in Yugoslavia
Tito's greatest accomplishment during World War II was the organization of perhaps the most effective resistance movement in the history of Communism. While engaging the Axis occupation forces, he simultaneously embarked upon a Communist revolution. His forces proceeded to destroy the class structure, undermine the old social and economic order, and lay the foundations for a postwar Communist state system. From a few poorly armed and clad guerrillas (partisans) in 1941, the Communist military force was expanded by Tito into a large army (National Liberation Army) by the end of the war.
Basic policies of the Communist party regarding the new Yugoslav state, such as federal organization of the country, were announced and partially implemented during the war. As a result of the two Anti-fascist Councils held in 1942 and 1943 under the most difficult conditions, Tito provided the country with a system of provisional revolutionary government - the Committee for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia. Skillfully and masterfully he exploited every social, economic, political, geographical, psychological, and ethnic opportunity in pursuance of Communist political and military objectives. Neither his domestic rivals nor powerful German, Italian, Bulgarian, and Hungarian occupation forces were able to cope with the widespread activities of Tito's followers.
In December 1943 the Allies, ignoring King Peter in London, declared Tito's partisans the Allied liberation force in Yugoslavia. Allied pressure forced King Peter to appoint Dr. Ivan Šubašić prime minister, a man acceptable to Tito. After meeting Tito early in June 1944, Šbašić agreed to delay deciding the form of Yugoslavia's postwar government until the war's end. This proved a fatal blow to King Peter's cause. Tito's forces and those of the U.S.S.R. entered Belgrade on Oct. 20, 1944. The partisans, however, drove the Germans from the country essentially by their own efforts, an event of the greatest importance in the future history of Yugoslavia. Unlike Communist leaders of other East European countries, Tito himself had commanded the forces defeating the Axis troops and had not entered his country with the victorious Red Army. The Communist-style single-list elections in August 1945 led to the proclamation of a republic on Nov. 29, 1944, and the creation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Postwar Years
From 1945 to 1953 Tito acted as prime minister and minister of defense in the government, whose most dramatic political action was the capture, trial, and execution of Gen. Mihajlović in 1946. Between 1945 and 1948 Tito led his country through an extreme and ruthless form of dictatorship in order to mold Yugoslavia into a socialist state modeled after the Soviet Union. In January 1953, he was named first president of Yugoslavia and president of the Federal Executive Council; the 1963 Constitution named him president for life.
By 1953 Tito had changed Yugoslavia's relationship with the Soviet Union. He refused to approve Stalin's plans for integrating Yugoslavia into the East European Communist bloc and thereby reducing the country to a Soviet satellite. For this reason Tito was expelled from the Cominform. He now embarked on his own socialist policies, which involved considerable economic decentralization and the relaxing of central control over many areas of national life. These policies also involved liberalization of Communist laws and courts. Although a formal reconciliation between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia occurred when Khrushchev visited Belgrade after Stalin's death in 1955, Yugoslavia's relations with the Soviet Union never returned to what they were before 1948. Tito gave his country a "socialist democracy, " a form of government more tolerable and more democratic than the socialist regimes of other Communist countries.
Tito attempted to build a bloc of "nonaligned" countries after Stalin's death. He traveled to India, Indonesia, Ethiopia, the United Arab Republic, Ghana, and Morocco and sponsored a conference of nonaligned countries in Belgrade in 1961. Under his leadership, Yugoslavia maintained friendly ties with the Arab states and vehemently denounced Israeli aggression in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. His relations with East European states were more variable than those with nonaligned countries. He protested the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 and maintained friendly relations with Romania after Nicolae Ceausescu became its leader in 1965. Under Tito's leadership Yugoslavia was a staunch supporter and very active member of the United Nations.
Tito was married twice and had two sons. His first wife was Russian. After World War II he married Jovanka, a Serbian woman from Croatia many years his junior and a former partisan fighter. His wife often accompanied him on his travels. President for life, Tito ruled with vigor until his death in Ljubljana on May 4, 1980, maintaining several homes, where he entertained an array of international visitors and celebrities.
The breakup of the Yugoslav republics lead to ethnic unrest in the late 1980s, and ultimately escalated into war in 1992. Tito left behind one ethnic legacy in particular: a disagreement over the ethnic identity of the citizens of the nation which today calls itself Macedonia. Macedonia has a history which dates back some 4, 000 years, and is closely linked to Greece. However, during the Tito era, a policy of disinformation was conducted, such that now a dispute has arisen between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In World Affairs, Chris Parkas wrote, "Since 1944, when Tito created the Socialist Republic of Macedonia as a new republic in the Yugoslav Federation, a revisionist history of Macedonian studies has been developed promoting the concept of a non-Greek Macedonian nation that encompasses all aspects of Macedonian civilization." Tito conducted this disinformation campaign against Greece during the Greek Civil War of 1944-1949. Tito's legacy erupted into a diplomatic conflict between Macedonia and Greece, because Macedonia sought United Nations recognition. Macedonia was officially admitted to the United Nations as an independent country in 1993.
Further Reading
Tito's official biography is Vladimir Dedijer, Tito (1953). Dedijer worked with Tito for years, and much of the book is taken from interviews with Tito and his friends. Dedijer recounted the Tito-Stalin break, which he witnessed first-hand, in The Battle Stalin Lost: Memoirs of Yugoslavia, 1948-53 (1970). A full-length biography is Phyllis Auty, Tito: A Biography (1970). Still useful is Fitzroy Maclean, The Heretic: The Life and Times of Josip Broz-Tito (1957). A more specialized study is John C. Campbell, Tito's Separate Road: America and Yugoslavia in World Politics (1967). Additional material on Tito and Yugoslavia is in Wayne S. Vucinich, ed., Contemporary Yugoslavia: Twenty Years of Socialist Experiment (1969). More recent biographies include Milovan Djilas' Tito: The Story from the Inside (1980), Ruth Schiffman's Josip Broz Tito (1987), and Duncan Wilson's Tito's Yugoslavia (1979).
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Josip Broz Tito |
Rise to Power
The son of a blacksmith in a Croatian village, Tito fought in Russia with the Austro-Hungarian army in World War I and was captured by the Russians. He served with distinction in the Red Army during the Russian civil war of 1918 to 1920. Several years later Broz returned to Croatia and, while a metalworker, became a prominent union organizer. He was (1929-34) imprisoned as a political agitator. In 1937 the Comintern assigned to him the reorganization of the Yugoslav Communist party, and in 1941 he emerged as a leader of Yugoslav partisan resistance forces after the defeat and occupation of Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers. It was then that he adopted the name Tito.
Although the core of his partisan army was Communist, Tito's rapidly growing forces included many non-Communists. Despite the opposition of the Yugoslav government in exile, which supported the Serbian resistance leader Draža Mihajlović, Tito's army and its successes soon eclipsed those of Mihajlović and his chetniks. Among the causes of his success were his swift guerrilla tactics, his own magnetic personality, and the appeal of his political program-a federated Yugoslavia-to the non-Serbian elements of the population. Although they cooperated at first, Tito and Mihajlović soon clashed.
By 1943, Tito headed a large army and controlled a sizable part of Yugoslavia, centered in Bosnia. Tito was supported from the first by the USSR, but in 1944 he also received the full support of Britain and the United States. In Nov., 1944, after the liberation of Belgrade, he negotiated a merger of the royal Yugoslav government and his own council of national liberation, and in Mar., 1945, he became head of the new federal Yugoslav government.
Already the virtual dictator of Yugoslavia, he won a major electoral victory in Nov., 1945, at the head of the Communist-dominated National Liberation Front, whose candidates were the only ones permitted to run in the election. With the opposition abstaining, Tito won almost 80% of the vote. King Peter II was deposed, and a republic was proclaimed (see Yugoslavia).
Tito's Dictatorship
As premier and minister of defense from 1945, Marshal Tito ruled Yugoslavia dictatorially. He suppressed internal opposition by such measures as the execution of Mihajlović and the jailing (1946) of Archbishop Stepinac of Zagreb, and he nationalized Yugoslav industry and undertook a planned economy. He did not attempt to collectivize the land of the Yugoslav small farmers, but he forced them, under threat of severe penalties, to furnish large portions of their produce to the state.
Although Yugoslavia was closely associated with the USSR and was a leading member of the Cominform, Tito often pursued independent policies and did not hesitate to curtail the activities of Soviet agents. In 1948 the Cominform accused Tito of having deviated from the correct Communist line. Tito denied the charges and refused to submit to the Cominform, from which Yugoslavia was then expelled.
Having already transformed Yugoslavia into an armed camp, built up a highly efficient secret police, and purged dissident elements in the Communist party, Tito succeeded in maintaining his position despite the hostility of the USSR and his neighbors. Although he accepted loans from the Western powers, he initially did not alter his internal program. In later years, however, he relaxed many of the regime's strict controls, particularly those affecting the small farmers. As a result, Yugoslavia became the most liberal Communist country of Europe.
On close terms with President Nasser of Egypt and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Tito unsuccessfully tried to develop common policies among nonaligned nations. Relations with the USSR were alternately friendly and hostile. In 1968, together with the Romanian party chief, Nicolae Ceauşescu, Tito led the opposition to the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia.
Tito was repeatedly reelected president from his first term in 1953, and in 1963 his term was made unlimited. In an effort to provide for succession to the leadership after his death, Tito established (1971) a 22-member collective presidency composed of the presidents of the 6 republican and 2 autonomous provincial assemblies and 14 members chosen from the republican and provincial assemblies for 5-year terms. In July, 1971, Tito was elected chairman of the new presidency.
During the 1970s the economy began to weaken under the weight of foreign debt, high inflation, and inefficient industry. Also, he was under increasing pressure from nationalist forces within Yugoslavia, especially Croatian secessionists who threatened to break up the federation. Following their repression, Tito tightened control of intellectual life. After his death in 1980, the ethnic tensions resurfaced, helping to bring about the eventual violent breakup of the federation in the early 1990s.
Bibliography
See the official biography by V. Dedijer (1953, repr. 1972); the biography by I. Ormcanin (1984); studies by W. R. Roberts (1973, repr. 1987) and N. Beloff (1986).
| History Dictionary: Tito, Marshal |
A Yugoslav military and political leader of the twentieth century. Tito, whose real name was Josip Broz, led the resistance in Yugoslavia to the German invaders during World War II and later established communist rule in Yugoslavia. In 1948 Tito broke with the Soviet premier, Joseph Stalin, and led Yugoslavia onto a course of foreign policy independent of the Soviet Union.
| Wikipedia: Josip Broz Tito |
| Marshal Josip Broz Tito |
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| In office 1 September 1961 – 10 October 1964 |
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| Preceded by | Position created |
| Succeeded by | Gamal Abdel Nasser |
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| In office 14 January 1953 – 4 May 1980 |
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| Prime Minister | Himself (1953–1963) Petar Stambolić (1963–1967) Mika Špiljak (1967–1969) Mitja Ribičič (1969–1971) Džemal Bijedić (1971–1977) Veselin Đuranović (1977–1982) |
| Preceded by | Ivan Ribar (as President of the Presidency of the People's Assembly) |
| Succeeded by | Lazar Koliševski (as President of the Presidency of SFR Yugoslavia) |
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1st Prime Minister of SFR Yugoslavia
President of the Federal Executive Council |
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| In office 29 November 1945 – 29 June 1963 |
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| President | Ivan Ribar (1945–1953) Himself (1953–1963) |
| Preceded by | Position created |
| Succeeded by | Petar Stambolić |
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| In office 29 November 1945 – 14 January 1953 |
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| Prime Minister | Himself |
| Preceded by | Position created |
| Succeeded by | Ivan Gošnjak |
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| In office November 1936 – 4 May 1980 |
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| Preceded by | Milan Gorkić |
| Succeeded by | Branko Mikulić |
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| Born | 7 or 25 May 1892 Kumrovec, Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 4 May 1980 (aged 87) Ljubljana, SR Slovenia, SFR Yugoslavia |
| Nationality | Yugoslav |
| Political party | League of Communists of Yugoslavia (SKJ) |
| Spouse(s) | Pelagija Broz (1919-1939), div. Jovanka Broz (1952-1980) |
| Domestic partner | Herta Hass Davorijanka Paunović Zdenka |
| Children | Zlatica Broz, Hinko Broz, Žarko Broz and Aleksandar Broz |
| Occupation | Machinist, revolutionary, resistance commander, statesman |
| Religion | None (Atheist) |
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| Service/branch | All (supreme commander) |
| Years of service | 1914 1941–1980 |
| Rank | Marshal of Yugoslavia |
| Commands | Yugoslav Partisans Yugoslav People's Army |
| Battles/wars | World War I Spanish Civil War World War II |
| Awards | 119 awards, among others: (short list below, full list in the separate article) |
Josip Broz Tito (Cyrillic script: Јосип Броз Тито, (7 or 25 May 1892 – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman.[1] He was Secretary-General (later President) of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (1939–80), and went on to lead the World War II Yugoslav resistance movement, the Yugoslav Partisans (1941–45).[2] After the war, he was the Prime Minister (1945–63) and later President (1953–80) of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). From 1943 to his death in 1980, he held the rank of Marshal of Yugoslavia, serving as the supreme commander of the Yugoslav military, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA).
Tito was the chief architect of the "second Yugoslavia", a socialist federation that lasted from World War II until 1991. Despite being one of the founders of Cominform, he was also the first (and the only successful) Cominform member to defy Soviet hegemony. A backer of independent roads to socialism (sometimes referred to as "national communism" or "Titoism"), he was one of the main founders and promoters of the Non-Aligned Movement, and its first Secretary-General. As such, he supported the policy of nonalignment between the two hostile blocs in the Cold War.
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Josip Broz was born in Kumrovec in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.[3] He was the seventh child of Franjo and Marija Broz. His father, Franjo Broz, was a Croat, while his mother Marija (born Javeršek) was a Slovene. After spending part of his childhood years with his maternal grandfather in village of Podsreda, in 1900 he entered the primary school (four classes) in Kumrovec, he failed the 2nd grade and graduated in 1905. In 1907, moving out of the rural environment, Broz started working as a machinist's apprentice in Sisak. There, he became aware of the labor movement and celebrated 1 May - Labour Day for the first time. In 1910, he joined the union of metallurgy workers and at the same time the Social-Democratic Party of Croatia and Slavonia. Between 1911 and 1913, Broz worked for shorter periods in Kamnik, Cenkovo, Munich, and Mannheim, where he worked for the Benz automobile factory; he then went to Wiener Neustadt, Austria, and worked as a test driver for Daimler.
In the autumn of 1913, he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army. He was sent to a school for non-commissioned officers and became a sergeant, serving in the 25th Croatian Regiment based in Zagreb.[4] In May 1914, Broz won a silver medal at an army fencing competition in Budapest. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he was sent to Ruma, where he was arrested for anti-war propaganda and imprisoned in the Petrovaradin fortress. In January 1915, he was sent to the Eastern Front in Galicia to fight against Russia. He distinguished himself as a capable soldier and was recommended for military decoration, becoming the youngest Sergeant Major in the Austro-Hungarian Army. On Easter 25 March 1915, while in Bukovina, he was seriously wounded and captured by the Russians.[5]
After thirteen months at the hospital, Broz was sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains where 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 Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) on 16-17 July 1917. On his way to Finland, Broz was caught and imprisoned in the Petropavlovsk fortress for three weeks. He was again sent to Kungur, but escaped from the train. He hid out with a Russian family in Omsk, Siberia where he met his future wife Pelagija Belousova.[5] After the October Revolution, he joined a Red Guard unit in Omsk. Following a White counteroffensive, he fled to Kirgiziya and subsequently returned to Omsk, where he married Belousova. In the spring of 1918, he joined the Yugoslav section of the Russian Communist Party. By June of the same year, Broz left Omsk to find work and support his family, and was employed as a mechanic near Omsk for a year. In January 1920, he and his wife made a long and difficult journey home to Yugoslavia where he arrived in September.[5]
Upon his return, Broz joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. The CPY's influence on the political life of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was growing rapidly. In the 1920 elections the Communists won 59 seats in the parliament and became the third strongest party. Winning numerous local elections, they even gained a stronghold in the second-largest city of Zagreb, electing Svetozar Delić for mayor. The King's regime, however, would not tolerate the CPY and declared it illegal. During 1920 and 1921 all Communist-won mandates were nullified. Broz continued his work underground despite pressure on Communists from the government. As 1921 began he moved to Veliko Trojstvo near Bjelovar and found work as a machinist. In 1925, Broz moved to Kraljevica where he started working at a shipyard. He was elected as a union leader and a year later he led a shipyard strike. He was fired and moved to Belgrade, where he worked in a train coach factory in Smederevska Palanka. He was elected as Workers Commissary but was fired as soon as his CPY membership was revealed. Broz then moved to Zagreb, where he was appointed secretary of Metal Workers Union of Croatia. In 1928, he became the Zagreb Branch Secretary of the CPY. In the same year he was arrested, tried in court for his illegal communist activities, and sent to jail.[6] During his five years at Lepoglava prison he met Moša Pijade who became his ideological mentor.[6] After his release, he lived incognito and assumed a number of noms de guerre, among them "Walter" and "Tito".[5]
In 1934 the Zagreb Provincial Committee sent Tito to Vienna where the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had sought refuge. He was appointed to the Committee and started to appoint allies to him, among them Edvard Kardelj, Milovan Djilas, Aleksandar Rankovic, and Boris Kidric. In 1935, Tito traveled to the Soviet Union, working for a year in the Balkan section of Comintern. He was a member of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet secret police (NKVD). In 1936, the Comintern sent "Comrade Walter" (i.e. Tito) back to Yugoslavia to purge the Communist Party there. In 1937, Stalin had the Secretary-General of the CPY, Milan Gorkić, murdered in Moscow. Subsequently Tito was appointed Secretary-General of the still-outlawed CPY.
On 6 April 1941, German, Italian, and Hungarian forces launched an invasion of Yugoslavia. Nazi Germany initiated a three-pronged drive on the Yugoslavian capital, Belgrade. Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe bombed Belgrade (Operation Punishment) and other major Yugoslavian cities. Attacked from all sides, the armed forces of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia quickly crumbled. Subsequently, on 17 April, after King Peter II and other members of the government fled the country, the remaining representatives of the government and military met with the German officials in Belgrade. They quickly agreed to end military resistance.
The terms of the armistice were extremely severe, and the Axis proceeded to dismember Yugoslavia. Germany occupied northern Slovenia, while retaining direct military administration over a rump Serbia and considerable influence over its newly created puppet state,[7] the Independent State of Croatia, which extended over much of today's Croatia and contained all of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mussolini's Italy gained the remainder of Slovenia, Kosovo, and large chunks of the coastal Dalmatia region (along with nearly all its Adriatic islands). It also gained control over the newly created Montenegrin puppet state, and was granted the kingship in the Independent State of Croatia, though wielding little real power within it. Hungary dispatched the Hungarian Third Army to occupy Vojvodina in northern Serbia, and later forcibly annexed sections of Baranja, Bačka, Međimurje, and Prekmurje.[8] Bulgaria, meanwhile, annexed nearly all of the modern-day Republic of Macedonia.
Tito's first responses to the German invasion of Yugoslavia were the founding of a Military Committee within the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party 10 April 1941 and issuing a pamphlet on 1 May 1941 calling on the people to unite in a battle against occupation.[9] On 4 July 1941, after Germany launched the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa),[10] Tito called a Central committee meeting which named him military commander and issued a call to arms. On the same day, Yugoslav Partisans formed the 1st Sisak Partisan Detachment, the first armed resistance unit in Europe (mostly consisting of Croats from the nearby city). Founded in the Brezovica forest near Sisak, Croatia, its creation marked the beginning of armed anti-Axis resistance in occupied Yugoslavia.
In the first period, Tito and the Partisans (promoting a pan-Yugoslav policy of tolerance) faced competition from the Serb-dominated Chetnik movement. Led by Draža Mihailović, the latter increasingly collaborated with the Axis occupation and lost its international recognition as a resistance force.[11] After a brief initial period of cooperation, the two factions quickly started fighting against each other. Gradually, the Chetniks ended up primarily fighting the Partisans[12] instead of the occupation forces, and started cooperating with the Axis in their struggle to destroy Tito's forces, receiving increasing amounts of logistical assistance (in particular, from Italy).[13] The Partisans soon began a widespread and successful guerrilla campaign and started liberating areas of Yugoslav territory. Partisan activities provoked the Germans into "retaliation" against civilians. These retaliations resulted in mass murders (for each killed German soldier, 100 civilians were to be killed and for each wounded, 50). Despite this, liberated territories such as the "Republic of Užice" were formed and fiercely defended.
In these liberated territories, the Partisans organized People's Committees to act as civilian government. The Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ), which convened in Bihać on 26 November 1942 and in Jajce on 29 November 1943, was a representative body established by the resistance in which Tito played a leading role. In the two sessions, the resistance representatives established the basis for post-war organization of the country, deciding on a federation of the Yugoslav nations. In Jajce, Tito was named President of the National Committee of Liberation.[14] On 4 December 1943, while most of the country was still occupied by the Axis, Tito proclaimed a provisional democratic Yugoslav government.
However, with the growing possibility of an Allied invasion in the Balkans, the Axis began to divert more resources to the destruction of the Partisans. More specifically, the Germans planned and executed several massive anti-Partisan offensives with the aim of destroying the Partisan headquarters and mobile field hospital. The largest of these offensives were the Battle of Neretva (which included the Chetniks fighting alongside the Germans) and the Battle of Sutjeska (the Fourth and Fifth anti-Partisan offensives), involving nearly 200,000 troops. The Battle of Sutjeska in particular came very close to encircling and eliminating the resistance, however, the highly mobile Partisan formations managed to retreat beyond the reach of the Axis each time. The Germans therefore came close to capturing or killing Tito on at least three occasions: during the 1943 Battle of Neretva (Fall Weiss); during the subsequent Battle of Sutjeska (Fall Schwarz), in which he was wounded on 9 June, and on 25 May 1944, when he barely managed to evade the Germans after the Raid on Drvar (Operation Rösselsprung), an airborne assault outside his Drvar headquarters in Bosnia.
After Tito's Partisans stood up to these intense Axis attacks between January and June 1943, and the extent of Chetnik collaboration became evident, Allied leaders switched their support from them to the Partisans. King Peter II of Yugoslavia, American President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill joined Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in officially recognizing Tito and the Partisans at the Tehran Conference. This resulted in Allied aid being parachuted behind Axis lines to assist the Partisans. On 17 June 1944 on the Dalmatian island of Vis, the Treaty of Vis (Viški sporazum) was signed in an attempt to merge Tito's government (the AVNOJ) with the government in exile of King Peter II. This treaty was also known as the Tito-Šubašić Agreement. As the leader of the Yugoslav forces, Tito was now personally a target for the Axis forces in occupied Yugoslavia. The Partisans were supported directly by Allied airdrops to their headquarters, with Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean playing a significant role in the liaison missions. The RAF Balkan Air Force was formed in June 1944 to control operations that were mainly aimed at aiding his forces.
On 28 September 1944,[15] the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) reported that Tito signed an agreement with the USSR allowing "temporary entry of Soviet troops into Yugoslav territory" which allowed the Red Army to assist in operations in the northeastern areas of Yugoslavia. With their strategic right flank secured by the Allied advance, the Partisans prepared and executed a massive general offensive which succeeded in breaking through German lines and forcing a retreat beyond Yugoslav borders. After the Partisan victory and the end of hostilities in Europe, all external forces were ordered off Yugoslav territory.
On 7 March 1945, the provisional government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (Demokratska Federativna Jugoslavija, DFY) was assembled in Belgrade by Josip Broz 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, among others Ivan Šubašić. 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. During the period, Tito evidently enjoyed massive popular support due to being generally viewed by the populace as the liberator of Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav administration in the immediate post-war period managed to unite a country that had been severely affected by ultra-nationalist upheavals and war devastation, while successfully suppressing the nationalist sentiments of the various nations in favor of tolerance, and the common Yugoslav goal. After the overwhelming electoral victory, Tito was confirmed as the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DFY. The country was soon renamed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (FPRY) (later finally renamed into Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, SFRY). On 29 November 1945, King Peter II was formally deposed by the Yugoslav Constituent Assembly. The Assembly drafted a new republican constitution soon afterwards.
Yugoslavia organized an army from the Partisan movement, the Yugoslav People's Army (Jugoslavenska narodna armija, or JNA) which was, for a period, considered the fourth strongest in Europe. The State Security Administration (Uprava državne bezbednosti/sigurnosti/varnosti, UDBA) was also formed as the new secret police, along with a security agency, the Department of People's Security (Organ Zaštite Naroda (Armije), OZNA). Yugoslav intelligence was charged with imprisoning and bringing to trial large numbers of Nazi collaborators; controversially, this included Catholic clergymen due to the widespread involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustaša regime. Draža Mihailović was found guilty of collaboration, high treason and war crimes and was subsequently executed by firing squad in July 1946.
Prime Minister Josip Broz Tito met with the president of the Bishops' Conference of Yugoslavia, Aloysius Stepinac on 4 June 1945, two days after his release from imprisonment. The two could not reach an agreement on the state of the Catholic Church. Under Stepinac's leadership, the bishops' conference released a letter condemning alleged Partisan war crimes in September, 1945. The following year Stepinac was arrested and put on trial. In October 1946, in its first special session for 75 years, the Vatican excommunicated Tito and the Yugoslav government for sentencing Stepinac to 16 years in prison on charges of assisting Ustaše terror and of supporting forced conversions of Serbs to Catholicism.[16] Stepinac received preferential treatment in recognition of his status[17] and the sentence was soon shortened and reduced to house-imprisonment, with the option of emigration open to the archbishop. At the conclusion of the "Informbiro period", reforms rendered Yugoslavia considerably more religiously liberal than the Eastern Bloc states.
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. Yugoslav forces shot down American aircraft flying over Yugoslav territory, and relations with the West were strained. In fact, Stalin and Tito had an uneasy alliance from the start, with Stalin considering Tito too independent.
Unlike the other new communist states in east-central Europe, Yugoslavia liberated itself from Axis domination, without any direct support from the Red Army. 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 had 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.
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, there occurred several armed incidents between Yugoslavia and the Western Allies. Following the war, Yugoslavia recovered the territory of Istria, as well as the cities of Zadar and Rijeka that had been taken by Italy in the 1920s. Yugoslav leadership was looking to incorporate Trieste into the country as well, which was opposed by the Western Allies. This led to several armed incidents, notably air attacks of Yugoslav fighter planes on U.S. transport aircraft, causing bitter criticism from the west. From 1945 to 1948, at least four US aircraft were shot down.[18] Stalin was opposed to these provocations, as he felt the USSR unready to face the West in open war so soon after the losses of World War II. In addition, 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 modeled 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.—[19]
The Soviet answer on 4 May 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 17 May 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.[20] On 28 June, 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.—[21]
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 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 labeled "Titoism" by Moscow, which encouraged purges against suspected "Titoites'" throughout the Eastern bloc.
As a result of the split with the USSR the Yugoslavian government established a prison camp on the Croatian island of Goli Otok for suspected pro-Soviet enemies of Tito and the CPY regime. In 1949, the entire island was officially made into a high-security, top secret prison and labor camp. 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 many witness accounts of brutality by prison guards, officers and staff.
On 26 June 1950, the National Assembly supported a crucial bill written by Milovan Đilas and Tito about "self-management" (samoupravljanje): a type of independent socialism that experimented with profit sharing with workers in state-run enterprises. On 13 January 1953, they established that the law on self-management was the basis of the entire social order in Yugoslavia. Tito also succeeded Ivan Ribar as the President of Yugoslavia on 14 January 1953. 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.[22] Tito visited the USSR in 1956, which signaled to the world that animosity between Yugoslavia and USSR was easing.[23] 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.
Under Tito's leadership, Yugoslavia became a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement. In 1961, Tito co-founded the movement with Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, India's Jawaharlal Nehru, Indonesia's Sukarno and Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, in an action called The Initiative of Five (Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno, Nkrumah), thus establishing strong ties with third world countries. This move did much to improve Yugoslavia's diplomatic position. On 1 September 1961, Josip Broz Tito became the first Secretary General of the Non-Aligned Movement.
On 7 April 1963, the country changed its official name to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Reforms encouraged private enterprise and greatly relaxed restrictions on freedom of speech and religious expression.[24] Broz subsequently went on a tour of the Americas. In Chile, two government ministers resigned over his visit to that country.[25] Broz spoke at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, with his visit being protested by both Croat and Serb emigrants. US Senator Thomas Dodd subsequently said Broz had "bloodied hands". In 1966 an agreement with the Vatican, spawned by the death of Stepinac in 1960 and the decisions of the Second Vatican Council, was signed according new freedom to the Yugoslav Roman Catholic Church, particularly to teach the catechism and open seminaries. The agreement also eased tensions, which had prevented the naming of new bishops in Yugoslavia since 1945. Tito's new socialism met opposition from traditional communists culminating in conspiracy headed by Aleksandar Ranković.[26] In the same year Tito declared that Communists must henceforth chart Yugoslavia's course by the force of their arguments (implying a granting of freedom of discussion and an abandonment of dictatorship). The state security agency (UDBA) saw its power scaled back and its staff reduced to 5000.
On 1 January 1967, Yugoslavia was the first communist country to open its borders to all foreign visitors and abolish visa requirements.[27] In the same year Tito became active in promoting a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. His plan called for Arabs to recognize State of Israel in exchange for territories Israel gained.[28]
In 1967, Tito offered Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubček to fly to Prague on three hours notice if Dubček needed help in facing down the Soviets.[29]
In 1971, Tito was re-elected as President of Yugoslavia for the sixth time. In his speech in front of the Federal Assembly he introduced 20 sweeping constitutional amendments that would provide an updated framework on which the country would be based. The amendments provided for a collective presidency, a 22 member body consisting of elected representatives from six republics and two autonomous provinces. The body would have a single chairman of the presidency and chairmanship would rotate among six republics. When the Federal Assembly fails to agree on legislation, the collective presidency would have the power to rule by decree. Amendments also provided for stronger cabinet with considerable power to initiate and pursue legislature independently from the Communist Party. Džemal Bijedić was chosen as the Premier. The new amendments aimed to decentralize the country by granting greater autonomy to republics and provinces. The federal government would retain authority only over foreign affairs, defense, internal security, monetary affairs, free trade within Yugoslavia, and development loans to poorer regions. Control of education, healthcare, and housing would be exercised entirely by the governments of the republics and the autonomous provinces.[30]
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 masovni pokret, maspok, meaning "mass movement") when the government had to suppress both public demonstrations and dissenting opinions within the Communist Party. During the Spring, on 22 December 1971 in Rudo Broz allegedly said, "The Sava will flow upstream before the Croats get their own state".[31][32][33] Despite this suppression, much of maspok's demands were later realised with the new constitution.
On 16 May 1974, the new Constitution was passed, and Josip Broz Tito was named President for life.
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 would be natural as long as these countries did not use 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.[24] This was limited by most Communist countries. A number of Yugoslav citizens worked throughout Western Europe.
Tito also developed warm relations with Burma under U Nu, traveling to the country in 1955 and again in 1959, though he didn't receive the same treatment in 1959 from the new leader, Ne Win.
Because of its neutrality, Yugoslavia would often be rare among Communist countries to have diplomatic relations with right-wing, anti-Communist governments. For example, Yugoslavia was the only communist country allowed to have an embassy in Alfredo Stroessner's Paraguay.[34] However, one notable exception to Yugoslavia's neutral stance toward anti-communist countries was Chile under Augusto Pinochet; Yugoslavia was one of many left-wing countries which severed diplomatic relations with Chile after Allende was overthrown.[35]
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 7 January and again on 11 January 1980, Tito was admitted to Klinični center Ljubljana (the clinical center in Ljubljana, Slovenia) with circulation problems in his legs. His left leg was amputated soon afterwards. He died there on 4 May 1980 at 3:05 pm. His funeral drew many world statesmen.[36] Based on the number of attending politicians and state delegations, at the time it was the largest state funeral in history.[37] 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.[38]
At the time of his death, speculation began about whether his successors could continue to hold Yugoslavia together. Ethnic divisions and conflict grew and eventually erupted in a series of Yugoslav wars a decade after his death. Tito was buried in a mausoleum in Belgrade, called Kuća Cveća (The House of Flowers) and numerous people visit the place as a shrine to "better times".
The gifts he received during his presidency are kept in the Museum of the History of Yugoslavia (whose old names were "Museum 25 May," and "Museum of the Revolution") in Belgrade. The collection includes works of many world-notable artists, including original prints of Los Caprichos by Francisco Goya, and many others.[39] The Government of Serbia has planned to merge the museum into the Museum of the History of Serbia.[40]
During his life and especially in the first year after his death, several places were named after Tito. Several of these places have since returned to their original names, such as Podgorica, formerly Titograd (though Podgorica's international airport is still identified by the code TGD), which reverted to its original name in 1992. Streets in Belgrade, the capital, have all reverted back to their original pre-World War II and pre-communist names as well. In 2004, Antun Augustinčić's statue of Broz in his birthplace of Kumrovec was decapitated in an explosion.[41] It was subsequently repaired. Twice in 2008, protests took place in Zagreb's Marshal Tito Square, with an aim to force the city government to rename it ("Krug za Trg" (eng. Circle for the Square), while a counter-protest ("Građanska inicijativa protiv ustaštva" eng. Citizens' Initiative Against Ustašism) accused the "Circle for the Square" of historical revisionism and neo-fascism.[42] Croatian president Stjepan Mesić criticized the demonstration.[43] In the Croatian coastal city of Opatija the main street (also its longest street) still bears the name of Marshal Tito. Marshal Tito Street in Sarajevo is shortened but it is still the main street.
Every federal unit had one town or city renamed to have Tito's name included. Following are:
Tito carried on numerous affairs and was married several times. In 1918 he was brought to Omsk, Russia as a prisoner of war. There he met Pelagija "Polka" Belousova who was then thirteen; he married her a year later, and she moved with him to Yugoslavia. Polka bore him five children but only their son Žarko (born 1924) survived.[44] When Tito was jailed in 1928, she returned to Russia. After the divorce in 1936 she later remarried.
In 1936, when Tito stayed at the Hotel Lux in Moscow, he met the Austrian comrade Lucia Bauer. They married in October 1936, but the records of this marriage were later erased.[45]
His next notable relationship was with Hertha Haas, whom he married. In May 1941, she bore him a son, Aleksandar nicknamed Miša. All throughout his relationship with Haas, Tito maintained a promiscuous life and had a parallel relationship with Davorjanka Paunović, codename Zdenka, a courier and his personal secretary. Hertha and Tito suddenly parted company in 1943 in Jajce during the second meeting of AVNOJ after she reportedly walked in on him and Davorjanka.[46] Paunović, by most accounts, was the love of his life. She died of tuberculosis in 1946 and Tito insisted that she be buried in the backyard of the Beli Dvor, his Belgrade residence.[47]
His best known wife was Jovanka Broz (née Budisavljević). Tito was just shy of his 59th birthday, while she was 27, when they finally married in April 1952, with state security chief Aleksandar Ranković as the best man. Their eventual marriage came about somewhat unexpectedly since Tito actually rejected her some years earlier when his confidante Ivan Krajacic brought her in originally. At that time, she was in her early 20s and Tito, objecting to her energetic personality, opted for the more mature opera singer Zinka Kunc instead. Not the one to be discouraged easily, Jovanka continued working at Beli Dvor, where she managed the staff of servants and eventually got another chance after Tito's strange relationship with Zinka failed. Since Jovanka was the only female companion he married while in power, she also went down in history as Yugoslavia's first lady. Their relationship was not a happy one, however. It had gone through many, often public, ups and downs with episodes of infidelities and even allegations of preparation for a coup d'état by the latter pair. Certain unofficial reports suggest Tito and Jovanka even formally divorced in the late 1970s, shortly before his death. However, during Tito's funeral she was officially present as Tito's wife, and later claimed rights for inheritance. The couple did not have any children.
Tito's notable grandchildren include Aleksandra Broz, a prominent theatre director in Croatia, Svetlana Broz, a cardiologist and writer in Bosnia and Josip "Joška" Broz and Eduard Broz.
Though Tito was most likely born on 7 May, he celebrated his birthday on 25 May, after he became president of Yugoslavia, to mark the occasion of an unsuccessful Nazi attempt at his life in 1944. The Germans found forged documents of Tito's, where 25 May was stated as his birthday. They attacked Tito on the day they believed was his birthday.[48]
As the leader of Yugoslavia Tito maintained a lavish lifestyle and kept several mansions. In Belgrade he resided in the official palace, Beli dvor, and maintained a separate private residence; he spent much time at his private island of Brijuni (Brioni), an official residence from 1949 on, and at his palace at the Bled lake. His grounds at Karadjordjevo were the site of "diplomatic hunts". By 1974 Tito had 32 official residences.[49]
As regards the knowledge of languages, Tito replied that he spoke "Yugoslav", German, Russian, and some English ("Yugoslav" meaning that he spoke the three Yugoslav languages, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovene).[50][51]
25 May was institutionalized as the Day of Youth (Dan Mladosti) in former Yugoslavia. The Relay of Youth started about two months earlier, each time from a different town of Yugoslavia. The baton passed through hundreds of hands of relay runners and typically visited all major cities of the country. On 25 May of each year, the baton finally passed into the hands of Marshal Tito at the end of festivities at Yugoslav People's Army Stadium (hosting FK Partizan) in Belgrade.
It's not certain, but a popular explanation of the sobriquet claims that it is a conjunction of two Serbo-Croatian words, "ti" (meaning "you") and "to" (meaning "that"). As the story goes, during the frantic times of his command, he would issue commands with those two words, by pointing to the person, and then task. This explanation for the name's origin is provided in Fitzroy Maclean's 1949 book, Eastern Approaches.
Tito is also an old, though uncommon, Croatian name, corresponding to Titus. Tito's biographer, Vladimir Dedijer, claimed that it came from the Croatian romantic writer, Tituš Brezovački, but the name is very well known in Zagorje. Josip Broz in a hand written note from 1958 (the note is kept in Archive of Communist Party of Yugoslavia) confirmed that this name was very common in his region, and it was the main reason for adopting it between 1934 and 1936. Previously he used names Rudi (for domestic activities ) and Walter (for international activities). However, Rodoljub Čolaković already used name Rudi too, so Josip Broz replaced it with Tito.[52] Tito himself confirmed that he used the nickname "Walter",[53] possibly after the German Walther PPK pistol.
The newest theory is from the Croatian journalist Denis Kuljiš. He got information from a descendant of the Comintern spy Baturin, operating in Istanbul in the thirties, about a code system that was used by the latter. Josip Broz was one of his agents, and his secret nicknames were allegedly always the names of pistols. According to Baturin, one of the last nicknames was "TT", after the Soviet TT-30 pistol, and Broz even signed a number of Communist Party documents with that name after returning to Yugoslavia. Kuljiš believes that after a few years "TT" (pronounced in Serbo-Croatian as "te te") became "Tito".[citation needed]
On Brotherhood and Unity:
We have spilt an ocean of blood for brotherhood and unity of our peoples and we shall not allow anyone to touch or to destroy it from within.
None of our republics would be anything if we weren't all together; but we have to create our own history - history of United Yugoslavia, also in the future.
Without a powerful and happy Yugoslavia, there cannot be a powerful and happy Croatia.
I will give everything from myself to make sure that Yugoslavia is great, not just geographically but great in spirit, and that it hold firmly to its neutrality and sovereignty that has been established through great sacrifice in the last battle (referring to the second World War).
A decade ago young people en masse began declaring themselves as Yugoslavs. It was a form of rising Yugoslav nationalism, which was a reaction to brotherhood and unity and a feeling of belonging to a single socialist self-managing society. This pleased me greatly.
Let that man be a Bosnian, Herzegovinian. Outside they don't call you by another name, except simply a Bosnian. Whether that be a Muslim , Serb or Croat. Everyone can be what they feel that they are, and no one has a right to force a nationality upon them.
Bosnia and Herzegovina was once a seed of division between the Croat and Serb people. Officials in Zagreb and Belgrade brought forth decisions on Bosnia-Herzegovina - decisions involving its wealth and decisions to exploit the country even more; but they didn't care about what their decisions would do to the people living in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They, for the sake of achieving their goals, pitted one people against the other.
During the war, a battle was fought here, not only for the creation of a new Yugoslavia, but also a battle for Bosnia and Herzegovina as a sovereign republic. To some generals and leaders their position on this was not quite clear. I never once doubted my stance on Bosnia. I always said that Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot belong to this or that, only to the people that lived there since the beginning of time.
Josip Broz Tito received a total of 119 awards and decorations from 60 countries around the world (59 countries and Yugoslavia). 21 decorations were from Yugoslavia itself, 18 having been awarded once, and the Order of the People's Hero on three occasions. Of the 98 international awards and decorations, 92 were received once, and three on two occasions (Order of the White Lion, Polonia Restituta, and Karl Marx). The most notable awards being the French Légion d'honneur and Ordre national du Mérite, the British Most Honourable Order of the Bath, the Soviet Order of Lenin, the Japanese Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum, the German Bundesverdienstkreuz, and the Italian Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana. His decorations were seldom displayed, however. After the Tito-Stalin of 1948 split and his inauguration as president in 1953, Tito rarely wore his uniform except when present in a military function, and then (with rare exception) only wore the his Yugoslav ribbons for obvious practical reasons. The awards were displayed in full number only at his funeral in 1980.[54]
Tito's reputation as one of the Allied leaders of World War II, along with his diplomatic position as the founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, was primarily the cause of the favorable international recognition.[54]
Here follows a short list including some of the most notable awards and decorations of Josip Broz Tito.
| Award or decoration | Country | Date | Place | Remarks | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Order of the People's Hero (Awarded three times) |
6 November 1944 15 May 1972 16 May 1977 |
Vis Belgrade Belgrade |
Highest decoration of Yugoslavia. Only person to receive it three times. | [54] | |
| Légion d'honneur (Grand'croix de la Légion d'honneur) |
7 May 1956 | Paris | Highest decoration of France, awarded to Josip Broz Tito for extraordinary contributions in the struggle for peace. | [54] | |
| Ordre national du Mérite (Grand'croix de l'Ordre national du Mérite) |
6 December 1976 | Belgrade | Order of Chivalry awarded by the President of the French Republic ("National Order of Merit"). | [54] | |
| Most Honourable Order of the Bath (Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath with Collar and Sash) |
17 October 1972 | Belgrade | British order of chivalry, awarded in Belgrade by Queen Elizabeth II. | [54] | |
| Bundesverdienstkreuz, Sonderstufe des Großkreuzes (Special class of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of Germany with Sash) |
24 June 1974 | Bonn | Highest possible class of the only general state decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). | [54] | |
| Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana (Cavaliere di Gran Croce Decorato di Gran Cordone Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana) |
2 October 1969 | Belgrade | Highest existing Italian order of merit, awarded to Josip Broz Tito in Belgrade. | [54] | |
| Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum (Grand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum) |
8 April 1968 | Tokyo | Highest Japanese decoration for living persons. | [54] | |
| Order of the Netherlands Lion (Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion) |
20 October 1970 | Amsterdam | Order of the Netherlands which was first created by the first King of the Netherlands, King William I. | [54] | |
| Order of Victory | 9 September 1945 | Belgrade | The highest military decoration in the Soviet Union, and one of the rarest orders in the world. Josip Broz Tito was one of only 5 foreigners to receive the Order, and the last person to receive it (without having it revoked). | [55] | |
| Order of Lenin | 5 June 1972 | Moscow | Highest National Order of the Soviet Union (highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union). | [54] | |
| Order of the Aztec Eagle (Collar of the Order of the Aztec Eagle) |
30 March 1963 | Belgrade | Highest decoration awarded to foreigners in Mexico. | [54] | |
| Royal Order of the Seraphim | 29 February 1959 | Stockholm | Swedish Royal order of chivalry, established by King Frederick I on 23 February 1748. | [54] | |
| Order of Saint James of the Sword (Grand Collar of the Order of Saint James of the Sword with Sash) |
23 October 1975 | Belgrade | Portuguese order of chivalry, founded in 1171. | [54] | |
| Order of the Redeemer (Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer with Sash) |
2 June 1954 | Athens | Highest royal decoration of Greece. | [54] | |
| Order of the Elephant Knight's Order of the Elephant with Sash |
29 October 1974 | Copenhagen | Highest order of Denmark. | [56] |
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Josip Broz Tito |
| Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Josip Broz Tito |
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Did you mean: Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslav politician, military leader & statesman/stateswoman), Biography: Josip Broz Tito (History Film), Josip Broz Tito: A Profile (Film)
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