Titoism

This article is about Titoism, the former Yugoslavia and its relationship with Totalitarianism. Titoism and Totalitarianism are political ideologies that dominated the history of communist Yugoslavia. Titoism as a ideology emerged after the Tito and Stalin (Soviet Union) split and was named after Josip Broz Tito. A single party, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and its leader Josip Broz Tito, ruled the country. It was a Totalitarian political system. Josip Broz was a member of the infamous Soviet Police-NKVD and the Soviet Communist Party. The NKVD executed the rule of terror and political repression in and out of the Soviet Union. Tito and his comrades set up KGB style police units in the former Yugoslavia (UDBA and OZNA). These organisations conducted political repression on a grand scale. The regime relaxed its authoritarian rule from the 1960s onwards, although the former Yugoslavia always remained a totalitarian dictatorship and a single-party state.

Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy by Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski:

“

Characteristics of a totalitarian regime; a total ideology, a single mass party, a terrorist secret police, a monopoly of mass communication, all instruments to wage combat are in the control of the same hands, and a centrally directed planned economy. Totalitarian dictatorships emerge after the seizure of power by the leaders of a movement who have developed support for an ideology. The point when the government becomes totalitarian is when the leadership uses open and legal violence to maintain its control. The dictator demands unanimous devotion from the people and often uses a real or imaginary enemy to create a threat so the people rally around him.

”

File:438px-Josip Broz Tito Légion d'honneur.jpg

DictatorJosip Broz Tito

Communist Propaganda & Josip Broz Tito's Cult of Personality within Yugoslavia

The Yugoslav Communist state propaganda machine shared much with the Soviet Union. The Soviet format was imposed and then slightly modified. Tito's cult of personality was no different. The Yugoslav Communist state used youth indoctrination (Union of Pioneers of Yugoslavia), which were all too similar to the Soviet Union (Young Pioneer of the Soviet Union) and the People's Republic of China.

Communist political, historical and philosophical courses were all part of general education. They can be found in any Yugoslav primary school textbook from the 1970s. Encyclopaedias were written in the same style as the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. They were used as a propaganda weapon to show the superiority of Titoism and the Socialist Yugoslavia to other societies and political systems.

Media and arts were used as a powerful means of propaganda and were all placed under heavy censorship. Josip Broz Tito was the main subject. Images, monuments, towns, street names, endless awards were given and a never ending production of books, films and poetry were created. Financially a huge amount of resources were used to keep the Communist propaganda and political activities running on a daily basis.

Josip Broz’s images, monuments, town names and street names are being removed. This started after the fall of the Berlin Wall and after the break up of Yugoslavia.

Ethnic cleansing, Post-World War Two Camps & Communist Concentration Camps in Yugoslavia

The Foibe Memorial at Basovizza near Trieste.

Ethnic cleansing of Germans and Italians (Foibe massacres), were carried out in Yugoslavia. Along the Dalmatian coast Italian (i.e Zadar) was spoken for a millennium, this was no longer the case after 1945/46. In 1946 the Yugoslav Camps held 117 485 folksdojcera (58 821 women, 32 214 men & 24 422 children).

-See below-

• Note A. Vladimir Geiger of the Croatian Institute for History:

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The list of German victims includes 26,000 women and 5,800 children who died in Yugoslav Camps- Geiger said.

”

• Note B. Information from the Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity-Yugoslavia by Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Gale Cengage, 2005:

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The killing continued after the war, as Tito's victorious forces took revenge on their real and perceived enemies. British forces in Austria turned back tens of thousands of fleeing Yugoslavs. Estimates range from 30,000 to 55,000 killed between spring and autumn 1945. Native German and Hungarian communities, seen as complicit with wartime occupation, were brutally treated; tantamount in some cases to ethnic cleansing. The Volksdeutsch settlements of Vojvodina and Slavonia largely disappeared. Perhaps 100,000 people—half the ethnic German population in Yugoslavia—fled in 1945, and many who remained were compelled to do forced labour, murdered, or later ransomed by West Germany. Some 20,000 Hungarians of Vojvodina were killed in reprisals. Albanian rebellions in Kosovo were suppressed, with prisoners sent on death marches towards the coast. An estimated 170,000 ethnic Italians fled to Italy in the late 1940s and 1950s. (All of these figures are highly approximate.)

”

• Note C. Information below is referenced from the Hrcak Portal of Scientific Journals of Croatia. The Scientific Journal in question is: "An Addition to the Research of the Problem of Bleiburg and Way of the Cross" written by Zravko Dizdar. Zdravko Dizdar is a Croatian Historian from the Croatian Institute for History in Zagreb. Statement in Croatian from Mr Dizdar's Scientific Journal: "Tako je 18. I. 1946. u jugoslavenskimlogorima bilo 117.485 folksdojcera (58.821 žena, 34.214 muškaraca i 24.422 djece)" (Document page 182/pdf page 66.) Transated: ......

“

In 18/1/1946 in Yugoslav Camps there were 117.485 folksdojcera (58 821 women, 32 214 men & 24 422 children).

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Information on the journal:

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The paper is dedicated to the 60th anniversary of these tragic events represents a small step towards the elaboration of known data and brings a list of yet unknown and unpublished original documents, mostly belonging to the Yugoslavian Military and Political Government from 1945-1947. Amongst those documents are those mostly relating to Croatian territory although a majority of concentration camps and execution sites were outside of Croatia, in other parts of Yugoslavia. The author hopes that the readers will receive a complete picture about events related to Bleiburg and the Way of The Cross and the suffering of numerous Croats, which is confirmed directly in many documents and is related to the execution of a person or a whole group of people and sometimes non-stop for days.

”

(More info on Mr Dizdar's Scientific Journal in English: Hrcak Portal of Scientific Journals of Croatia - Link by Mr Zdravko Dizdar - Link)

The Communist regime of Yugoslavia after Second World War engaged in moving large ethnic populations from its territory (a similar policy was being executed by the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe). This would explain the women and children in the camps.

In Dizdar's Scientific Journal it further states that 10,621 POWs died in the camps. He claims to have referenced this information from government documents of the day (Dizdar's Scientific Journal:page 183/pdf page 67).

Barbara Rov-Slovenia. One of the many massacre sites post World War Two.

• Note D. Below referenced information (Survey of concentration camps in Yugoslavia-Slovenia in 1945) from European Public Hearing on: “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes". The European Public Hearing was organised by the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June 2008) and the European Commission.

Survey of concentration camps in Yugoslavia (Slovenia) in 1945

Concentration camps for members of the German national minority:

• Strnisce near Ptuj
• Hrastovec near Sv. Lenart in Slovenske Gorice
• Studenci near Maribor
• Brestrnica near Maribor
• Kamnica near Maribor
• Tezno near Maribor
• Teharje near Celje

Concentration camps for members of the Hungarians national minority:

• Filovci in Prekmurje
• Hrastovec near Sv. Lenart in Slovenske Gorice
• Strnisce near Ptuj

Concentration camps for members of the Slovenian Home-Guard:

• Teharje near Celje
• Skofovi zavodi in St. Vid nad Ljubljano
• Skofja Loka (p.154)

Quotes from the document itself:

“

In this paper, the author deals with concentration and labour camps established in Slovenia (a former republic of Yugoslavia) under Communist rule after the end of the war in Slovenia in 1945. Concentration camps were established already in May 1945 and were filled with members of the German and Hungarian national minorities, captured members of the Slovenian Home-guard (“domobranstvo”) and members of military units from other Yugoslav regions who fought against the partisans. The treatment of internees in these camps was as cruel as in the Nazi concentration camps. In certain Communist concentration camps, for example, such as the camp in Teharje and at the Bishop’s institutes (Skofovi zavodi) in St. Vid nad Ljubljano, the great majority of internees were killed without any trial. In the autumn of 1945, concentration camps in Slovenia were abolished. Communist labour camps in Slovenia were established already in 1945. These were camps for forced labour and were called penal camps. In 1949, correctional camps and camps for socially beneficial labour called working groups were established. All these labour camps were abolished in the beginning of 1951, when new criminal legislation, free of the concept of forced, correctional and socially beneficial labour was adopted. (pages 145 & 146)

”

European EU's press releases concerning: European Public Hearing on: Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes/Brussels - Link

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A chapel commemorating the killing of Slovene Home Guard at Kocevski Rog after World War Two.

Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia

The Government of the Republic of Slovenia (a former republic of Yugoslavia) created "Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia" in 2005. In October 2009 they issued their report to the Government of Slovenia. Significant factual statements came to light, concerning Yugoslavia in the aftermath of Second World War. The Jutarnji newspaper reported on the 01/10/2009 commissions find, in all it is estimated that there are 100 000 victims in 581 mass graves. According to the Reports and Proceedings of the 8th of April European public hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes" the killings were executed by the Yugoslav Paritsian Army in 1945 and 1946. There was a large scale execution of people that were, guilty by association only and no trials.

Barbarin Rov is one of the many sites. Investigation of the site began August 2008. They found around 350 unidentified bodies. The victims, among were also women who were stripped naked before being killed. By November 2009, 726 bodies where removed from the site. In Tezno, a district of Slovenia's city Maribor, the remains of thousands of victims of purges were found. Kocevski Rog and Huda Jama are other sites where thousands of people were executed.

Encyclopaedia Britannica:

“

After the armistice the British repatriated more than 10,000 Slovene collaborators who had attempted to retreat with the Germans, and Tito had most of them massacred at the infamous Pits of Kocevje.

”

The British author John Corsellis, who served in Austria with the British Army (Red Cross), has written a historic book of these events, called "Slovenia 1945: Memories of Death and Survival after World War II".

In neighbouring Croatia (a former republic of Yugoslavia) there are similar sites where mass murder was committed by Yugoslav Partisans.

Encyclopaedia Britannica:

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British commanders refused to accept their surrender and handed them over to the Partisans, who took a merciless revenge. Tens of thousands, including many civilians, were subsequently slaughtered on forced marches and in death camps.

”

Jazovka is a pit that was rediscovered in 1990, after the fall of communism in Croatia. The pit is located in Zumberak and was already locally known. The bodies of of civilians and Croatian soldiers were dumped their during and after the Second World War.

In Mr Dizdar's Scientific Journal he stated, that Josip Broz Tito asked the "Croatian Home Guard" to surrender or face the consequences of not surrendering. After the war ended POWs who did not surrender were slaughter on mass, estimates are about 100 000 victims in total. These were the victims of the notorious Bleiburg massacres and Way of the Cross massacres (Death marches).

On the right Janez Jansa the Prime Minister of Slovenia who was sentenced to prison for his political activities in the former Yugoslavia.

Goli Otok-Prison Gulag of Yugoslavia

Goli Otok (Barren Island), a notorious prison gulag on the Croatian coast (former Yugoslavia’s Gulag). Austro-Hungarian government set up the prison during World War One.

The communist authorities of Yugoslavia in 1949 made into a high-security, top secret prison and labour camp. Until 1956 it was used to incarcerate political prisoners. They included alleged enemies of the communist state, other Communist Party members, regular citizens accused of exhibiting any democratic, anti-communist behaviour and Stalinists. Inmates were regularly beaten and humiliated. The prison inmates were forced to do heavy labour in a stone quarry. Other camps that were used by the regime are KPH Zenica, Stare Gradiska and Sveti Grgur.

Assassinations and purges were organised to eliminate individuals who were deemed anti-Yugoslavian or who were publicly critical of communism in Yugoslavia. Noted victims are Bruno Busic, Stjepan Djurekovic and Andrija Hebrang. Additionally historian Kerubin Segvic was executed mainly for proposing a different historic model than that of Communist Yugoslav state policies of Croatians arriving in the Western Balkans.

Franjo Tudman who was the first President of Croatia, was sentenced to prison for his political activities in the former Yugoslavia. Janez Jansa the Prime Minister of Slovenia was sentenced to prison for his political activities in the former Yugoslavia. Milovan Djilas a prominent Yugoslav Communist politician, latter theorist and author was imprisoned by the Yugoslav Government for being critical of the regime.

Aleksandar Rankovic

Aleksandar Rankovic, the Interior Minister and the head of the military and secret police of Yugoslavia at a Belgrade Assembly (meeting) stated:

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Through our prisons has passed between 1945 and 1951, 3 777 776 prisoners, while we killed 586 000 enemies of the people. Taken from Politika, Belgrade/1 February 1951 (p.1)

”

British Government representatives and Yugoslavia

• Frank Waddams a British Government representative who had lived outside of Belgrade, said:

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He knew first hand of ten concentration camps and had talked with inmates from nearly all of them. “ The tale is always the same, he said “ Starvation, overcrowding, brutality and death condition, which make Dachau and Buchenwald mild by comparison. Many Slovenes who were released from Dachau at the end of the war came home only to find themselves in a Slovene camp within a few days. It is from these people that the news has come that the camps are worse than Dachau.” Out of a Slovene population of 1,200,000, Waddams believes that 20,000 to 30,000 were imprisoned.

”

• British Consulate, Ljubljana to British Ambassador Belgrade, 22 August 1947:

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A brief reading of the newspaper reports, however, will suffice to make it clear that the trial was first and foremost a gigantic political propaganda stunt whose double aim was first to show Britain and America as the irreconcilable enemies of the new Yugoslavia, and second, finally to frighten off anyone who might still think that it is possible to associate with officials of the Western countries and get away with it.

”

European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes" and Yugoslavia

Reports and proceedings of the 8th of April European public hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes”, organised by the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June 2008) and the European Commission, stated the following:

“

(a) Totalitarian machines: Let us mention briefly Fascism, National Socialism and Titoism in Italy, Austria and Slovenia. Three Christian nations, with nationalist tendencies, were infected with totalitarianism. The descent into barbarism has comparable structural elements: Abuse of national sentiment to carry out racial and class revolutionary projects; Cult of a great leader, who permits his fanatics to murder, steal and lie; Dictatorship of one party; Militarisation of society, police state – almighty secret political police; Collectivism, subjection of the citizen to the totalitarian state; State terrorism with systematic abuses of basic human rights; Aggressive assumption of power and struggle for territory. (page 197)

”

“

(b) Mass killings without court trials: The Main Headquarters of the Yugoslav Army had already called attention to respecting the Geneva Convention on 3rd of May in its order on the treatment of prisoners of war. However, despite this injunction, both prisoners of war and civilians were killed on mass at the end of May and in the first half of June 1945 in Slovenia. Tito’s telegram on respecting the Geneva Convention was later revoked; however, it could only be revoked by the person who issued it in the first place, i.e. Tito himself. (page 163.)

”

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(c) Mystifying the crimes of the occupiers, Titoism covered its own crimes. The taboo to hide the crimes of Titoism was meant to conceal the War-time and post-War murders of civilians and prisoners of war without trials. Their graves were levelled and in Slovenia it was forbidden to talk about their fate. Repressive organs controlled the burials sites and the living were strictly forbidden to mention the victims or the graves. The so-called system of preserving and developing revolutionary heritage was used by the Communist Party to implement a monopoly on the truth. (page 201.)

”

Harry Truman 33rd President of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Harry Truman speaking about Josip Broz Tito

On the 23rd of April in 1948, in a speech Harry S. Truman (the President of USA) stated:

“

I am told that Tito murdered more than 400 000 of the opposition in Yugoslavia before he got himself established there as a dictator.

”

Joze Dezman and Titoism

Joze Dezman (director of the National Museum of Contemporary History in Ljubljana, Slovenia) described the fundamental characteristics of the post-Second World War crimes:

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Killing civilians and prisoners of was after Second World War is the greatest massacre of unarmed people of all times in Slovenian territory. Compared to Europe, the Yugoslav communist massacres after the Second World War are probably right after the Stalinist purges and the Great Famine in the Ukraine. The number of those killed in Slovenia in spring of 1945 can now be estimated at more than 100,000, Slovenia was the biggest post- War killing site in Europe. It was a mixture of events, when in Slovenia there are retreating German units, collaborator units, units of Independent State of Croatia, Chetniks and Balkan civilians; more than 15,000 Slovenia inhabitants were murdered as well. Because of its brevity, number of casualties, way of execution and massiveness, it is an event that can be compared to the greatest crimes of communism and National Socialism. International Law Observer- Link

”

“

In reality, however, Titoism started with "the biggest murder of unarmed people after World War II" and collapsed with "the greatest slaughter in transitional Europe." "The system emerged on crime and it disappeared in crime." Moreover, Dezman says the Stalinist phase of Titoism, a ten-year period following World War II, was "probably the harshest regime in terms of the percentage of the population that was killed.

”

The Slovenia Times

Below is taken from The Slovenia Times article "Naming Street After Tito Unconstitutional":

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The name Tito does not only symbolise the liberation of the territory of present-day Slovenia from fascist occupation in WWII as claimed by the other party in the case, but also grave violations of human rights and basic freedoms, especially in the decade following WWII.

”

“

The Constitutional Court has ruled unanimously that the 2009 decision of the Ljubljana City Council to name a street in the capital after former communist leader Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980) is unconstitutional.

”

Paul Hollander

Paul Hollander (Paul Hollander is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies of Harvard University):

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Public attitudes in former communist countries have been conflicted because of the arguable complicity of many citizens in keeping the old system in power. A predominant attitude in Eastern Europe and Russia toward the former communist systems has been a mixture of oblivion, denial, and repression

”

Media

• New York Times: Evolution in Europe; Piles of Bones in Yugoslavia Point to Partisan Massacres.
• Independent.co.uk World/Europe.The Massacre That Haunts Slovenia
• BBC News: Italy-Croatia WWII Massacre Spat.
• Mail Online-Word News: Gassed to Death: 300 victims of Yugoslavia's Communist Regime Found in Mass Grave.
• The Australian: WWII-era mass grave found in Slovenia
• Ian Cuthbertson review of Tito's Ghosts on The Australian (Newspaper) -Balkans Hero with a Bloodthirsty Streak
• China View: Croatia calls for joint investigation of WWII-era mass grave.
• Slovenia Times: Post-war Killings Enter the Bloody History.
• Croatia's-Index Net: Victims of Communist Regimes get Monument in Vodice.
• Newcomers Network: German Mass Grave Sheds New Light on Close of World War Two:

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These victims were from the around 500,000 ethnic Germans who lived in former Yugoslavia who did not flee ahead of the Soviet Red Army advancing from the east. Of the 200,000 who came under the Communist authorities, just a few thousands survived. Thousands were killed and tens of thousands died of malnutrition and disease amid horrendous conditions in the camps between 1944 and 1948. After that, most survivors were driven out of the country.

”

• Croatia's-Javno: Mass Grave Massacre Ordered By Josip Broz Tito.
• Moje Vjest/Sarajevo: On the Island Daksa Exhumed 48 Victims of Communism.
• Press Agency: Columnist Says Silence on Post-War Killings Needs to End (Interview). Ljubljana, 1 April (STA)

Alenka Puhar, an author who has written extensively about Slovenia's Communist past, has told STA in an interview that post-WWII killings need to be examined and discussed."We need to talk about it and live with it, with this pain," she said.

• EurActiv Network Croatian PM pays tribute to controversial war victims.
• The Telegraph-London UK: Mass grave of 700 people found in Slovenia

See also

• Human Rights
• European Public Hearing on Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes
• Labour Camps and Communist Concentration Camps in Slovenia (a former republic of Yugoslavia)
• Dictator Josip Broz Tito
• Josip Broz Tito, Bishop Alojzije Stepinac and Antonio Perajica
• Wikipedia's bias towards Dictator Josip Broz Tito and Communist Yugoslavia
• In Croatian: Jugoslavija i totalitarni komunizam

Notes

• The article is mainly based on the report of Reports and proceedings of the 8 April European public hearing on CRIMES COMMITTED BY TOTALITARIAN REGIMES, organised by the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June 2008) and the European Commission (2008 ; Bruxelles). Edited by Peter Jambrek. Published by Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The European public hearing addresses gross and large scale human rights violations committed during the reign of totalitarian regimes in Europe: cross- national survey of crimes committed and of their remembrance, recognition, redress, and reconciliation. Link
• Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Hrcak Portal of Scientific Journals of Croatia - An Addition to the Research of the Problem of Bleiburg & Way of the Cross by Zdravko Dizdar of the Croatian Institute of History

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• BBC 4: Internal Security of the Former Yugoslavia - Mitja Ribicic (interview):

“

If I read the reports, that I made from 1945, I would be embarrassed.

”

Notes and References

Marshal of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin. Josip Broz Tito's Cult of Personality was based on Comrade Stalin.

External links

• EUROPA EU. Press Releases-Brussels for CRIMES COMMITTED BY TOTALITARIAN REGIMES
• Croatian Medical Journal: Identification of Skeletal Remains of Communist Armed Forces Victims During and After World War II
• European Union: The European Commission Link
• Government of the Republic of Slovenia: Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia (a former republic of Yugoslavia) Link
• Slovenian Presidency of the EU Council
• National Museum of Contemporary History (Ljubljana) Link
• Croatian Institute of History Link
• BBC 4: Internal Security of the Former Yugoslavia - Mitja Ribicic (Interview).
• BBC 4: Croatian Physicist, Philosopher, Writer, Playwright, Peace Activist Humanist & former Yugoslav Partizan - Ivan Supek (Interview).

(Interviews: Directed by Mira Erdevicki. Combining stunning archive with incisive interviews this documentary charts how every stage of Tito's life has left its mark on the former Yugoslavia/BBC 4:Tito's Ghosts)

• Trail of Tears Leidensweg "the way of sorrows" Genocide & Atrocities Against The Donauscwhwaben "Genocide Carried out by the Tito Partisans 1944-1948"
• Forgotten Genocide FINAL TRAILER.divx
• Slovenia 1945 Book Official Site - Memories of Death and Survival:

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In May 1945, the British Army in Austria put 12,000 Slovene soldiers on board trains. The Slovenes thought they were on their way to freedom in Italy. Their true destination was Slovenia, and death. Slovenia 1945 follows the fate of Slovene anti-Communists who fled to Austria at the end of World War II. The British Army sent them back home, where their war-time enemies, Tito's Partisans, put them to death. Six thousand civilians narrowly escaped the same fate, after intervention by British Red Cross and Quaker aid workers. Based on moving interviews with survivors, the story follows the massacre of the soldiers, the survivors' tough years in refugee camps and triumph in making new lives in Argentina, the USA, Canada and Britain. The book recounts how deeply issues of wartime collaboration and the Communist domination of the Partisan movement divide Slovenes today.

”

Selected as "Book of the Year" 2005 in the Times Literary Supplement by John Bayley, literary critic, retired Oxford University Professor and widower of Iris Murdoch. The authors wrote to Prime Minister Tony Blair asking for Britain to make a gesture of regret to Slovenia for sending back the surrendered soldiers.

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