Results for Josip Broz Tito
On this page:
 
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).

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Josip Broz Tito

(born May 7, 1892, Kumrovec, near Zagreb, Croatia, Austria-Hungary — died May 4, 1980, Ljubljana, Yugos.) Yugoslav politician, premier (1945 – 53), and president (1953 – 80). Born to a peasant family, he fought in the Austro-Hungarian army in World War I and was captured by the Russians in 1915. While in Russia, he took part in the July Days demonstrations (1917) and joined the Bolsheviks. In 1920 he returned to Croatia, where he became a local leader of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. He rose in the party hierarchy, interrupted by a prison term (1928 – 34), to become its secretary-general in 1939. In World War II, Tito (a pseudonym he adopted about 1935) proved an effective leader of Yugoslav Partisans. As marshal from 1943, he strengthened communist control of Yugoslavia. As premier and president, he developed an independent form of socialist rule in defiance of the Soviet Union, pursued a policy of nonalignment, built ties with other nonaligned states, and improved relations with the Western powers. Within Yugoslavia, he established a system of "symmetrical federalism" (1974) that created equality among the six republics and Serbia's autonomous provinces (including Kosovo), while maintaining tight control to prevent separatist movements. After his death, resentment of Serbian domination led gradually to a dissolution of the federal system.

For more information on Josip Broz Tito, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Tito, Josip Broz
(yô'sĭp brôz tē'tō) , 1892–1980, Yugoslav Communist leader, marshal of Yugoslavia. He was originally Josip Broz.

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
(tee-toh)

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
"Tito" redirects here. For other uses, see Tito (disambiguation).
Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito

Josip Broz Tito
In office
January 14, 1953 – May 4, 1980
Preceded by Ivan Ribar
Succeeded by Lazar Koliševski
In office
November 29, 1945 – January 14, 1953
Succeeded by Petar Stambolić
Born May 25 1892(1892--)
Kumrovec, Croatia, Austria-Hungary Flag of Austria-Hungary
Died May 4 1980 (aged 87)
Ljubljana, Slovenia, Yugoslavia Flag of Yugoslavia
Political party Communist Party of Yugoslavia
Spouse Pelagija Broz
Hertha Haas
Davorjanka Paunović Zdenka
Jovanka Broz
Religion Christian
Stamp of the Soviet Union, Josip Broz Tito, 1982 (Michel № 5151, Scott № 5019)
Enlarge
Stamp of the Soviet Union, Josip Broz Tito, 1982 (Michel № 5151, Scott № 5019)

Josip Broz Tito (Cyrillic: Јосип Броз Тито, Sound listen?, May 7, 1892 [May 25th according to official birth certificate] – May 4, 1980) was the leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1945 until his death. During World War II, Tito organized the anti-fascist resistance movement known as the Yugoslav Partisans. Later he was a founding member of Cominform[1] but resisted Soviet influence (see Titoism), and became one of the founders and promoters the Non-Aligned Movement. He died on May 4, 1980 in Ljubljana.

Early years

Josip Broz was born in Kumrovec, Croatia, then part of Austria-Hungary, in an area called Zagorje. 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 Slovenian. After spending part of his childhood years with his maternal grandfather in Podsreda, he entered the primary school in Kumrovec, and failed the second grade. He left school 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 May 1 - 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 (Slovenia), Cenkovo (Bohemia), Munich and Mannheim (Germany), where he worked for Benz automobile factory; he then went to Wiener Neustadt, Austria, where he worked at Daimler as a test driver.

In the army

In May 1912, Broz won a silver medal at an army fencing competition in Budapest. In the autumn of 1913, Broz was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army and at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he was sent to Ruma. 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. On Easter March 25, 1915, while in Bukovina, he was seriously wounded and captured by Russians.

Prisoner and revolutionary in Russia

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 joined a Bolshevik group. In April, 1917, he was arrested again but managed to escape and join the demonstrations in Saint Petersburg on July 16-17, 1917. On his way to Poland, Broz was caught and imprisoned in the Petropavlovsk fortress for three weeks. He was again sent to Kungur, but he escaped from the train. He hid out with a Russian family where he met and married Pelagija Belousova. Broz then enlisted with the Red Guards in Omsk. In the spring of 1918, he applied for membership in the Russian Communist Party. In June 1918 Broz left Omsk to find work and support his family. He was employed as a mechanic near Omsk for a year. In January 1920 he and his wife made a long and difficult journey home where he arrived in September.

Return to Yugoslavia

Broz immediately 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 and became the third strongest party. The king's regime would not tolerate the CPY and declared it illegal. In 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 machinist.

In 1925, Broz moved to Kraljevica where he started working at a shipyard. He was elected for a syndicate commissioner 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 1934, he became a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, then located in Vienna, Austria, and adopted the code name "Tito".

In 1935, Tito travelled 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 Gorkic murdered in Moscow. The same year, Tito returned from the Soviet Union to Yugoslavia after being named there by Stalin as Secretary-General of the still-outlawed CPY. During this period, he faithfully followed Comintern policy, supporting Stalin's policies and criticizing Western democracies, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

World War II

Main article: Yugoslav People's Liberation War

On April 6, 1941, German, Italian and Hungarian forces attacked Yugoslavia. The Luftwaffe bombed Belgrade and other major Yugoslav cities. On April 17, representatives of Yugoslavia's various regions signed an armistice with Germany at Belgrade, ending eleven days of resistance against the invading German Wehrmacht.

The Independent State of Croatia was established as a Nazi puppet-state, ruled by the Ustaša, a militant wing of the Croatian Party of Rights, from which it split off in 1929. Until 1941, it was in exile in Italy, and was therefore limited in its activities. German troops occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as part of Serbia and Slovenia, while other parts of the country were occupied by Bulgaria, Hungary and Italy.

Tito did not initially respond to the German invasion because of Stalin's non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany [citation needed]. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Tito called a Central committee meeting on July 4, 1941, which named him Military Commander and issued a call to arms.

However, on June 22 (the day of the invasion) in the Brezovica forest near the city of Sisak, Croatia, the Partisans formed the famous First Sisak Partisan Brigade (mostly consisting of Croats from the nearby city). This shows that Tito, in fact, took advantage of the Pact to prepare as best he could for the inevitable, so that his men could rise up on the very first day of Operation Barbarossa.[citation needed] Despite this slight delay in response created by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, this was, nevertheless, the first anti-fascist unit in Europe. The Partisans soon began a widespread and successful guerrilla campaign and started liberating chunks of territory. The activities provoked Germans into "retaliation" against civilians that resulted in mass murders (for each killed German soldier, 100 civilians were to be killed and for each wounded, 50). In the liberated territories, the partisans organized people's committees to act as civilian government. Tito was the most prominent leader of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia - AVNOJ, which convened in Bihac on November 26, 1942 and in Jajce on November 29, 1943. In these two sessions, they established the basis for post-war organisation of the country, making it a federation. In Jajce, Tito was named President of the National Committee of Liberation.[2] On December 4, 1943, while most of the country was still occupied by the Axis, Tito proclaimed a provisional democratic Yugoslav government.

Tito's partisans faced competition from the largely Serbian Chetniks, who were long supported by the British and the royal government in exile. After the partisans stood up to intense Axis attacks between January and June 1943, Allied leaders switched their support to them. American President Roosevelt, British Premier Churchill and Soviet leader Stalin officially recognized the partisans at the Tehran Conference. This resulted in Allied aid being parachuted behind Axis lines to assist the partisans. As the leader of the communist resistance, Tito was a target for the Axis forces in occupied Yugoslavia. The Germans came close to capturing or killing Tito on at least three occasions: in the 1943 Fall Weiss offensive; in the subsequent Schwarz offensive, in which he was wounded on June 9, being saved only because his loyal dog sacrificed himself; and on May 25, 1944, when he barely managed to evade the Germans after their Operation Rösselsprung airdrop outside his Drvar headquarters.

The partisans were supported directly by Allied airdrops to their headquarters, with Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean playing a significant role in the liaison missions. The Balkan Air Force was formed in June 1944 to control operations that were mainly aimed at helping his forces. Due to his close ties to Stalin, Tito often quarreled with the British and American staff officers attached to his headquarters.

On April 5, 1945, Tito signed an agreement with the USSR allowing "temporary entry of Soviet troops into Yugoslav territory". Aided by the Red Army, the partisans won the war for liberation in 1945. At the end of the war, all external forces were ordered off Yugoslav soil after the end of hostilities in Europe.

Post-war Yugoslavia

After the Tito-Šubašić Agreement in late 1944, the provisional government of Democratic Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was assembled on March 7, 1945 in Belgrade, headed by Tito. After the elections in November 1945, Tito became the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was at this time that Tito's forces, in loose conjunction with the Red Army, were involved in deportations of Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans). The entire Danube Swabians minority was labeled as Nazi collaborators since many had fought in the notorious 7th SS Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen", a unit comprised mostly of volunteers from the ranks of that minority.

In November 1945, a new constitution was proclaimed and Tito organized a strong army, the JNA (for a period the 5th strongest army in Europe), and a secret police force, the UDBA. The UDBA and the security agency, OZNA, were charged (among other things) with seeking out, imprisoning and bringing to trial large numbers of Nazi collaborators; sometimes this included Catholic priests due to the widespread involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustaša regime. Many innocent people and non-combatants were killed in the days immediately after the war since they were inextricably mixed with nazi collaborators, Chetniks, Ustaše (the NDH version of the SS) and a few Domobran units fleeing the victorious partisans, despite Tito's largely upheld promise for harmless surrender to the latter: this is referred to as the Bleiburg massacre.[3]

Tito's rule had several characteristics of a dictatorship, though it fell short on that common in other communist states after the Second World War. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia won the first post-war elections, in which "simplified" ballots allowed only for the alternatives of yes and no. Despite the controversial nature of these ballots, it must be noted that Tito evidently enjoyed massive popular support at the time. The Party immediately used its power to seek out remaining collaborators, nationalists and anti-Communists, partially using methods characteristic of Stalinist "People's Republic".[4]Tito's administration did, however, unite a country that had been severely affected by the war and successfully suppressed the nationalist sentiments of the peoples of Yugoslavia in favor of the common Yugoslav goal.[citation needed]

In October 1946, in its first special session for 75 years, the Vatican excommunicated Tito and the Yugoslav government for sentencing Catholic archbishop Stepinac to 16 years in prison on charges of helping terrorists and of forcing conversion of Serbs to Catholicism.[5] The sentence was later commuted. Later, Yugoslavia became by far the most religiously liberal among the socialist states[citation needed], since Tito believed that oppression only makes religion spread. Tito always considered religious agitation a great threat.[citation needed]

In 1948, motivated by the desire to create a strong independent economy, Tito became the first (and the only successful) socialist leader to defy Stalin's leadership in the COMINFORM; he was one of the few people to stand up to Stalin's demands for absolute loyalty. Stalin took it personally – for once, to no avail. "Stop sending people to kill me", Tito wrote. "If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send a second."[6] The Yugoslav Communist Party was expelled from the association on June 28, 1948. This rift with the Soviet Union brought Tito much international recognition, but also triggered a period of instability often referred to as the Informbiro period. Tito's form of communism was labelled Titoism by Moscow, which encouraged purges against suspected "Titoites'" throughout the Communist bloc. The crisis nearly escalated into an armed conflict.[7]

On June 26, 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 January 13, 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 January 14, 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.[8] Tito visited USSR in 1956, which signaled to the world that animosity between Yugoslavia and USSR was easing.[9] However, the relationship between the USSR and Yugoslavia would reach another low in the late 1960s.

Tito with Actress Sofia Loren
Enlarge
Tito with Actress Sofia Loren

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 April 7, 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.[10] In 1966 an agreement with the Vatican was signed according new freedom to the Yugoslav Roman Catholic Church, particularly to teach the catechism and open seminaries. Tito's new socialism met opposition from traditional communists culminating in conspiracy headed by Aleksandar Rankovic.[11] 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 January 1, 1967, Yugoslavia was the first communist country to open its borders to all foreign visitors and abolish visa requirements.[12] 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.[13] Arabs rejected his land for peace concept.

Tito meets with Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi in 1975.
Enlarge
Tito meets with Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi in 1975.

In 1967, Tito offered Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubček the chance to fly to Prague on three hours notice if Dubček needed help in facing down the Soviets.[14]

In 1971, Tito was re-elected as President of Yugoslavia for sixth time. In his speech in front of 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. Djemal Bijedic 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.[15]

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. Despite this suppression, much of maspok's demands were later realised with the new constitution.

On May 16, 1974, the new Constitution was passed, and Josip Broz Tito was named President for life.

Foreign policy

Tito was notable for pursuing a foreign policy of neutrality during the Cold War and for establishing close ties with developing countries. Tito's strong belief in self-determination caused early rift with Stalin and consequently, the Eastern Bloc. His public speeches often reiterated that policy of neutrality and cooperation with all countries is natural as long as these countries are not using their influence to pressure Yugoslavia to take sides. Relations with the United States and Western European nations were generally cordial.

1978, Josip Broz Tito and Jimmy Carter visit in the Oval Office.
Enlarge
1978, Josip Broz Tito and Jimmy Carter visit in the Oval Office.

Yugoslavia had a liberal travel policy permitting foreigners to freely travel through the country and its citizens to travel worldwide.[16] This basic right was limited by most Communist countries. A number of Yugoslav citizens worked throughout Western Europe.

Tito also developed warm relations with Myanmar under U Nu, travelling 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 one of the only 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.[17] However, one notable exception to Yugoslavia's neutral stance toward anti-communist countries was Chile under Augusto Pinochet; Yugoslavia was one of many communist countries which severed diplomatic relations with Chile after Allende was overthrown.[18]

Final years

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

In January 1980, Tito was admitted to Klinični center Ljubljana (the clinical centre in Ljubljana, Slovenia) with circulation problems in his legs. His left leg was amputated soon afterwards. He died there on May 4, 1980, three days before his 88th birthday. His funeral drew many world statesmen.[19] Based on the number of attending politicians and state delegations, it was the largest statesman funeral in history (Big Slavs, 2007)[citation needed], with even more attendees than at Kennedy's or Churchill's funerals. 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 nations [20].

Quotes

Tito was most admired for his speeches about brotherhood and unity, some of which are listed below.

"We have spilt an ocean of blood for brotherhood and unity of our peoples and we shall not allow anyone to touch or destroy it from within."

"No one questioned ' who is a Serb, who is a Croat, who is a Muslim (Bosniak) ', we were all one people, that's how it was back then, and I still think it is that way today."

"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."

"We study and take as an example the Soviet system, but we are developing socialism in our country in somewhat different forms."

"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 a lot."

Commenting on Stalin

"To say the least - this is 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."

Aftermath

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", although it no longer holds a guard of honour.

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 value of the collection is priceless: it includes works of many world-famous artists, including original prints of Los Caprichos by Francisco Goya, and many others.

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.

Family and personal life

Tito's first wife was Pelagija Broz (née Belousova), a Russian who bore him a son, Žarko. They were married in Omsk before moving to Yugoslavia. She was transported to Moscow by the communists when Tito was imprisoned in 1928.

His next notable relationship was with Hertha Haas, a woman of Jewish descent whom he met in Paris in 1937. They never married, although in May 1941, she bore him a son, Mišo. They parted company in 1943 in Jajce during the second meeting of AVNOJ. All throughout his relationship with Haas, Tito maintained a promiscuous life and had a parallel relationship with Davorjanka Paunovic, codename Zdenka, a courier and his personal secretary, who, by all 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.[21]

His best known wife was Jovanka Broz (born Budisavljevic). Tito was just shy of his 59th birthday, while she was 27, when they finally married in April 1952, with state security chief Aleksandar Rankovic 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'etat by the latter pair. Certain unofficial reports suggest Tito and Jovanka even formally divorced in the late 1970s, shortly before his death. 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.

Though Tito was most likely born on May 7, he celebrated his birthday on May 25, after he became president of Yugoslavia, to mark the occasion of an unsuccessful attempt at his life by the Nazis in 1944. Nazis found forged documents of Tito's, where May 25 was stated as his birthday. They attacked Tito on the day they believed was his birthday.[citation needed]

Tito spoke four languages in addition to his native Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian: Czech, German, Russian, and English.

May 25 was institutionalized as the Day of Youth 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 May 25 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.(May 25, 1977: Marica Lojen of Kumrovec passing the baton into Tito's hands: http://www.titoville.com/images/tito-in-stafeta.jpg)

Trivia

Broom_icon.svg
 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • Tito's attribute popular in former Yugoslavia's peoples was "The greatest son of our peoples".

Origin of the name "Tito"

A popular explanation of the sobriquet claims that it is a conjunction of two Serbo-Croatian words, ti (meaning "you") and to (meaning "this"). 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.[22] However, when Tito adopted the name, he was in no position to give orders because he was not the leader of the communist party, just a member.

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.

The newest theory is from Croatian journalist Denis Kuljiš. He got information from descendant of Comintern spy Baturin, operating in Istanbul in the thirties, about his code system. Josip Broz was one of his agents, and his secret nicks were always names of pistols (including “Valter”, confirmed by Tito himself). One of last nicknames was “TT” (TT-33, Soviet gun), and Broz after coming back to Yugoslavia even signed some communist party documents with that name. Kuljiš thinks that in a few years “TT” (pronouncing “te te”) became “Tito”.

Awards

Tito received many awards and decorations both from his own country and from other countries. Most notable of these are:

Award or decoration Country Date received Remarks Ref
People's Hero of Yugoslavia SFRY 6 November 1944, 15 May 1972, 16 May 1977 only person to receive it three times [23]
Order of Léopold Belgium 6 October 1970 highest military order of Belgium. [23]
Order of the Elephant Denmark 29 October 1974 highest order of Denmark. [24]
Médaille militaire France 5 May 1956 Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Eisenhower also received it. [25]