Directory:Josip Broz Tito

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Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) was a Croatian politician. This article is about a contemporary view of the Balkan Dictator Josip Broz Tito. There is no cold war communist rhetoric here, rather a critical look at this historic individual.

Josip Broz was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Croatia (a former republic of Yugoslavia) and was the Commander of all Partisans and Communists during World War Two. He later became Yugoslavia's political leader and was the main decision maker in military and political matters. He was President for Life of Yugoslavia and played a crucial, if not the main role, in historical events of that country. He was considered by many to be, one of the prominent Eastern European Balkan Dictators of the Cold War era. He also was a member of the infamous Soviet Police-NKVD.

He is a controversial historical figure in the Balkans.

Following are some of his many roles;

  • The Prime Minister of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
  • Secretary-General of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (1939–80).
  • Marshal of Yugoslavia, serving as the supreme commander of the Yugoslav military, the Yugoslav People's Army.
  • One of the founders of Cominform. Cominform was the beginning of the Soviet communist block (Yugoslavia was expelled by Stalin in 1948).
  • One of the main founders and promoters of the Non-Aligned Movement, and its first Secretary-General.

Post Berlin Wall and the collapse of Yugoslavia

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Yugoslavia, factual evidence has emerged that Josip Broz and the Yugoslav regime were actually responsible for executing mass murders, arrests and torture. The worst of these events are the;

  • Way of the Cross massacres[1]
  • Bleiburg massacre[2]
  • Foibe massacres

During the Bleiburg & Way of the Cross massacres in 1945/46 the Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia commissioned by the government of the Republic of Slovenia, discovered and detected 581 mass graves in which the estimates detail about 100 000 victims in total. [3] The killings were executed by the Yugoslav Paritsian Army.[4] Additionally there is the ethnic cleansing of Germans, Hungarians and Italians of the former Yugoslavia.[5]

  • Information from Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Gale Cengage, 2005:
“ 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.)[6] ”

The Goli Otok (Barren Island), a notorious prison on the Croatian coast, (former Yugoslavia’s Evil Island-Gulag) is where the regime imprisoned their enemies. They included mainly alleged enemies of the communist state, other Communist Party members, regular citizens accused of exhibiting any democratic, anti-communist behaviour and Stalinists. It is estimated over 100 000 people where arrested on false allegations and imprisoned. Family members were told that they went on a business trip. Other camps that were used by the regime are KPH Zenica, Stare Gradiska and Sveti Grgur.

  • Information from European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes" [7], page 197:
“

Totalitarian machines:

Let us mention briefly Fascism, National Socialism and Titoism in Italy, Austria and Slovenia (a former republic of Yugoslavia) . 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.
 ”

Note: Titoism are political ideologies and government policies that dominated the history of the former Yugoslavia. Titoism as an ideology that emerged after the Tito and Stalin split and was named after Josip Broz Tito.

  • Information from European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes", page 161:
“
  • Property was confiscated, inhabitants were expelled from Slovenia/Yugoslavia and their residences, political and show trials were carried out, religion was repressed and the Catholic Church and its clergy were persecuted. At the beginning of the 1950s, Communist rule in Slovenia abandoned these forms of repression but was ready to reapply them if it felt threatened.
  • Thus the regime set up political show trials against certain more visible opponents. In the case of an “emergency situation”, even the establishment of concentration camps was planned in Slovenia in 1968, where around 1,000 persons, of whom 10 % were women, would be interned for political reasons.
 ”
  • Harry Truman (the President of USA) on the 23rd of April in 1948, in a speech 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.[8][9] ”
  • Christopher Bennett [10] on Tito's activity in the 1930's:
“ Foreign communists were far from immune to the purges and most leading Yugoslav communists perished in these years. However, the purges gave Tito his break and catapulted him to the top of the Yugoslav Communist Party in 1937. Only the most committed Stalinist could have prospered in the 1930’s in the way Tito did.[11] ”

Second Yugoslavia

Tito's greatest strength was acquiring money from the West. This made it possible for the creation of the "second Yugoslavia", a socialist, communist federation that lasted from 1945 until 1991. The West wanted to give support to Yugoslavia in opposition to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. More money was given to Yugoslavia during the Cold war years than to Africa.

  • Information from 'Keeping Tito Afloat' by Lorraine M. Lees:
“ After World War Two, the United States considered Yugoslavia to be a loyal Soviet satellite, but Tito surprised the West in 1948 by breaking with Stalin. Seizing this opportunity, the Truman administration sought to "keep Tito afloat" by giving him military and economic aid.[12] ”

Josip Broz was a backer of independent roads to socialism. As such, he supported the policy of non-alignment between the two hostile blocs in the Cold War. Such successful diplomacy allowed Tito to preside over the Yugoslav economic boom and the expansion of the 1960s and 70s however, it was all a short-term solution.[13][14] [15] His presidency and leadership were authoritarian and Dictatorial while his internal policies included the suppression of nationalist sentiment. He and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia promoted the "brotherhood and unity" of the six Yugoslav nations which was achieved by Communist Dictatorship policies (and propaganda).

Lifestyle

As the leader of Yugoslavia, Tito maintained a lavish playboy 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, an official residence from 1949 on, and at his palace at the Bled Lake. By 1974 Tito had 32 official residences.

According to Wikipedia, Josip Broz worked for the Benz auto mobile factory in Austria and worked as a test driver for Daimler.[16]

See also

Notes

  • Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • BBC-History by Tim Judah
  • 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.
  • Wikipedia: Josip Broz Tito



Interviews

  • Ivan Supek - Croatian Physicist, Philosopher, Writer, Playwright, Peace Activist Humanist & former Yugoslav Partizan. (Interview BBC 4/Tito's Ghosts)
  • Mitja Ribicic - Internal Security of the Former Yugoslavia. (Interview BBC 4/Tito's Ghosts)
“ Mitja Ribicic: If I read the reports, that I made from 1945, I would be embarrassed. ”


  • Info on the 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
  • Ian Cuthbertson review (below) of Tito's Ghosts on www.theaustralian.com.au
“ a. Josip Broz Tito, the hard man who managed to unite Yugoslavia after World War II, has long been regarded as somehow less awful than his fellow communist leaders. This French documentary makes it clear that even now, after Yugoslavia has disintegrated (mostly chaotically), Tito is still adored by some in the Balkans, with festivals commemorating his birthday and enthusiasts kissing his statue and declaring their love for him.

b. Turned back from Austria by the Allies and handed over to Tito's forces, they were executed in the woods without trial. Investigations in Slovenia have found evidence to suggest the dead were naked, or partly naked, and tied with wire when they were killed.The graves' existence was an open secret for decades, yet they were not documented and not commonly discussed.

c. Yet Tito, internationally feted unifier of Yugoslavia, wrought violence on many fronts. His purges were merciless, and his forces rounded up thousands of suspected opponents and sent them to a prison on Goli Otok (Barren Island) where they were beaten, tortured and killed.

”

References

  1. ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Hrcak Portal of Scientific Journals of Croatia:". Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help) An Addition to the Research of the Problem of Bleiburg & Way of the Cross. Scientific Journal by Zdravko Dizdar/ University of Zagreb.
    • "An Addition to the Research of the Problem of Bleiburg & Way of the Cross. This paper 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 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."
  2. ^ Identity Politics in the Age of Genocide: The Holocaust and Historical by David B. MacDonald. (p168)
    • "The Partisans also carried out massacres, the best known being at Bleiburg (Austria), where retreating Croatian and Slovenian forces and their families were massacred."
  3. ^ www.jutarnji.hr U 581 Grobnici je 100.000 žrtava. English version: 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
  4. ^ European Public Hearing on "Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes” Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June 2008) and the European Commission
  5. ^ Communist Retaliation and Persecution on Yugoslav Territory During and After World War Two by Dr. Ph. Michael Portmann:
    • "The following article deals with repressive measures undertaken by communist-dominated Partisan forces during and especially after World War Two. The text represents a summary of a master thesis referring to the above-mentioned topic written and accepted at Vienna University in 2002"
  6. ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"www.enotes.com "Yugoslavia." Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Gale Cengage, 2005. eNotes.com. 2006. 26 Jun, 2010". Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help) Yugoslavia: Genocide & Crimes Against Humanity (Mark Thompson).
    • "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 people killed between spring and autumn 1945."
  7. ^ European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes" 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. Page 197. Joze Dezman: COMMUNIST REPRESSION AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE IN SLOVENIA Chapter: COMMUNIST REPRESSION Of “INTERIOR ENEMIES” IN SLOVENIA
    • "In the greater part of this paper, the author deals with individual repressive measures that Communist rule imposed in Slovenia in the period from the end of the war in 1945 until the beginning of the 1950s. In this period, the Communist authorities in Slovenia implemented all the forms of repression that were typical of states with Stalinist regimes. In Slovenia, it was a time of mass killings without court trials and of concentration and labour camps."
  8. ^ "Keeping Tito Afloat".by Lorraine M. Lees.(p47)
  9. ^ "Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman: Mission and Power in American Foreign Policy".by Anne R. Pierce. (p219)
  10. ^ Christopher Bennett: A British journalist who has the good fortune to speak both Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian, a skill that has enabled him to draw heavily on literature of the region that would be unavailable to most American or British journalists.
  11. ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse: Causes, Course and Consequences". Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)by Christopher Bennett. (p57).
  12. ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Keeping Keeping Tito Afloat". by Lorraine M. Lees
    • "Keeping Tito Afloat draws upon newly declassified documents to show the critical role that Yugoslavia played in U.S. foreign policy with the communist world in the early years of the Cold War."
  13. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica-History & Society: Josip Broz Tito
    • "He promoted self-management but never gave up on the party’s monopoly of power. He permitted broad freedoms in science, art, and culture that were unheard of in the Soviet bloc, but he kept excoriating the West. He preached peaceful coexistence but built an army that, in 1991, delivered the coup de grace to the dying Yugoslav state. At his death, the state treasury was empty and political opportunists unchecked."
  14. ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"BBC-History by Tim Judah". Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  15. ^ Croatia: A History by Ivo Goldstein
  16. ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Wikipedia: Josip Broz Tito".

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