What do you think of Josip Broz Tito?

[Kan Yuvigi Asparukh]

I want to start a discussion about that remarkable person. What is your opinion about him as a political and military leader? I was wondering whether that discussion is for the history section, but I think that the consequences of his reign still could be felt in every part of former Yugoslavia and 27 years are not enough time for unprejudiced historical appreciation. My opinion about him is not completely set up so I want to see what you think of Josip Broz.
Here’s the common biographical information about Josip Broz:






Born May 7, 1892 in the village of Kumrovec, Austria-Hungary, Josip Broz was the seventh of fifteen children born to Roman Catholic peasant parents. He only attended school from the age of seven to twelve. After his apprenticeship to a locksmith, he wandered throughout the Empire as a journeyman, even working as a test driver for Daimler Benz near Vienna in 1913. At the age of 18 he joined the Croatian Social Democratic Party. In 1913 he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Army and the following year, when World War I broke out, he fought on the Russian front against the Serbs. Captured there (1915), he was imprisoned in a Russian hospital, became fluent in Russian and was released when Russian Czar Nicholas II abdicated in 1917. Broz, who supported the Bolsheviks, took a train to Petrograd to fight in the streets with Lenin's revolutionaries where he was again captured then imprisoned. When the Comunists took power in October 1917, he was released and joined the Red Guard to fight in the Russian Civil War.
In 1920 he returned to Croatia, (now part of the newly established Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), and joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY). The CPY was outlawed after a young Bosinian communist assasinated the Minister of the Interior and Broz was arrested several times. His arrests and detentions did not prevent him from continuing his underground communist activities and in April 1927 he joined the CPY's Zagreb Committee. His positions within the CPY brought him positive attention from Moscow: he was named a deputy of the Politburo of the CPY Central committee and leader of the Croatian and Slovenian committees. His rapid rise in the party was interrupted when he was again arrested. By the time he was released in 1934, the parlimentary regime had collapsed and had been replaced by the royal Yugoslav dictatorship which retained the ban on the communist party. Shortly after his release, Broz was named a full member of the CPY Politburo and Central committee. It was at this time that he adopted the pseudonym "Tito" to use in his underground party work.
In 1935, Tito travelled to the Soviet Union, working for a year in the Balkan section of Comintern. He returned to Yugoslavia after being named the Secretary -General of the still outlawed CPY by Comintern and proceeded to replenish the ranks of CPY (which had been severely reduced by Stalin's purges) with his hand-picked replacements - including men like Milovan Djilas, Aleksandar Rankvic and Edward Kardelj. In 1940, Tito's position was officially ratified by 105 of the 6,000 members of the CPY at a secret meeting in Zagreb.
Tito did not initially respond to Germay's invasion of Yugoslavia on Stalin's orders because Stalin had signed the Nazi -Soviet non-aggression pact. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union (June 1941), Tito called a Central committee meeting, was named Military Commander and issued a call to arms with the slogan, "Death to Fascism, Freedom to the People!" Tito's Partisans, due to their prior organization in underground communist cells, were well-organized and aimed not only to liberate Yugoslavia from the Axis powers, but to seize power for the Communist party. To this end Tito created a revolutionary government for the areas that the Partisans freed from Axis control. This government prefigured the administrative structure of the new Yugoslavia. 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 (January to June 1943), Allied leaders switched their support to the Partisans and 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. Although Churchill had hoped that Tito would cooperate with the government-in-exile, this proved not to be the case. Tito consolidated power after the Yalta Conference (February 1945) by purging his government of non-communists. In November (1945), a new constitution was proclaimed and Tito organized a strong army and a strong secret police force (the UDBA) loyal to him. The UDBA methodically found, imprisoned and even executed a large number of Nazi collaborators, Catholic priests, those who had opposed the communist-led war effort, and even communists who did not agree with Tito. Tito then proceeded to centralize the economy and society in Stalinist fashion although agriculture was not successfully collectivized.
Stalin disliked Tito's attempt to ignore his suggestions as to how the new Yugoslav government and economy would be run. He was also very unhappy with Tito's foreign-policy decisions taken independently of Moscow: first to try to form a Balkan federation with Bulgarian leader Dimitrov, second with Yugoslavia's relations with Albania and finally with Tito's decision to support the communists in the Greek Civil War. Tito, angered by Stalin's interferences in Yugoslav affairs as well as with Stalin's attempt to depose him denounced the Soviet policy of "...unconditional subordination of small socialist countries to one large socialist country." Stalin's responsed in June 1948 by expelling the "Tito clique" from Cominform, in essence, kicking Yugoslvia out of the "socialist camp" to go it alone. Stalin imposed economic boycotts and sanctions but stopped short of physically invading Yugoslavia.
Tito then used the UDBA to purge the party and to "reeducate" Stalinist communists within the party. He also began a decentralization of the economy, supporting the idea of workers councils and workers self-management, an idea which he revised over the coming years. He also turned to the West at the same time that the West perceived an opportunity to utilize the first split in the Communist East bloc to its own advantage. Western aid to Yugoslavia came in both the form of dollars and tacit military cooperation with NATO. In return, Tito sealed off the border between Yugoslavia and Greece, effectively ending the Greek Civil War.
When Stalin died (1953), Tito was faced with the choice to continue his western orientation and reforms or to try to reconcile with the Soviet union. Tito chose to try to reconcile, meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev in Belgrade in 1955. The resulting Belgrade Declaration affirmed equality in relations between communist-ruled countries, although the limits of that equality became obvious in the case of other communist countries - Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Tito also began to conceive more broadly of a foreign policy in which countries could be actively neutral between the two blocs. With Nasser of Egypt and Nehru of India, Tito convened a meeting of 25 actively neutral states on his island in the Adriatic in 1956. His policy of "nonengagement" led to his policy of "nonalignment" which created a third, alternative neutral bloc under his leadership. During the 1960's and 1970's he traveled widely in the third World to promote non-alignment.
Domestically, Tito tried to create a balance among the nationalities of the country that would ensure stability as well as his control of the country. He created a system of "symetrical federalism" that was suppose to ensure equality among the six republics and two autonomous provinces (Kosovo and Vojvodina) although in practice it frequently played the nationalities off against each other. He also decreased the power of the UDBA, was made President for life in 1974 and ousted his opponents while trying, ultimately to ensure stability in the succession to power. Tito allowed a freer exchange of people and ideas than most of the countries in the bloc. Many Yugoslavs worked in Western Europe, and Western Europeans visited and vacationed regularly in Yugoslavia. Tito also promoted scientific exchanges between his country and the West. Tito died on May 4 1980, after being gravely ill for almost four months, in a hospital in Lubljana.

[Ricardo Reis]

He's rensponsible for the Yugoslavian wars as well as the Slavomacedonian - puppet state - mess.

[Monolith]

My overall opinion about him is not so great. His regime was responsible for the deaths of numerous Croatian patriots and intellectuals in the country and abroad. Nationalism was prohibited, with the only exception of artificial "Yugoslav" nationalism. Tito introduced "brotherhood and unity" brain washing technique, the ideology which was condemned to doom in the first place. The main reason for that was the fact that people of Yugoslavia didn't like each other to say the least. The hostilities and animosity were mostly expressed between Croats and Serbs, but other nations participated too.
So basically, he tried to create the unnatural Yugoslav identity, in order to eliminate national barriers between the people of the former state, and destroyed the lives of those who opposed that process.

Originally Posted by Milfiades

He's rensponsible for the Yugoslavian wars as well as the Slavomacedonian - puppet state - mess.

Please explain. What do you propose in order to fix that "mess"?

[dime]

although he is responsible for the death of many Macedonian patriots
he did recognize the macedonian people republic and language
he also created a great country to live in
he was way better than the person before him

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by dime

he was way better than the person before him

As far as I know, he was the first Yugo president.
Who was before him?

[Gavril]

Originally Posted by dime

he also created a great country to live in

Canada?

[dime]

^ha ha funny

Originally Posted by Bardyllis

As far as I know, he was the first Yugo president.
Who was before him?

what about Kralska Yugoslavia

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by dime

^ha ha funny


what about Kralska Yugoslavia

Hmmm. OK, I thought you were speaking about NDH and Nedić's Serbia.

[Kan Yuvigi Asparukh]

Originally Posted by dime

although he is responsible for the death of many Macedonian patriots
he did recognize the macedonian people republic and language
he also created a great country to live in
he was way better than the person before him

I don't want to argue with you but can you tell me the names of these "macedonian patriots". Did they consider themselves as Macedonians, successors of Alexander the Great, or just Bulgarians If you read some authentic documents, you'll see that the macedonian nation was an idea of the Comintern and was applied by Tito. If it hasn't been Tito, you should be West Bulgarians now. And about the "person before him" - King Alexander Karadjordjevic - I suppose you know who killed him and which interests did the killer defended.

[Marcus Marulus]

What do I think? I think nothing of him since I usually don't consecrate much of my precious time thinking about dead Communist dictators.

Better question would be: what opinion do I have of him, as a historical personality? In this context I see him as an oppressor of my nation, leading an artificial state that denied self-determination to my people (although it was formally written in the Yugoslav constitution). He is not so much important as personality to me, as much is important the state that he was the head of. The country he led ultimately fell apart, with Titoist generals wanting to preserve the Serbian-centered Yugoslavia with the force of arms nad through mass-killings.

This whole setting in which the tragic break-up of Yugoslavia happened was largely created and upheld by him. So my opionion of him is extremely negative.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by Plethon

In this context I see him as an oppressor of my nation, leading an artificial state that denied self-determination to my people (although it was formally written in the Yugoslav constitution).

I didn't know that Tito was an oppressor of Antarctica...
Did he deny self-determination of penguins ?

Originally Posted by Plethon

Land: Antarctica

[dime]

Originally Posted by Kan Yuvigi Asparukh

I don't want to argue with you but can you tell me the names of these "macedonian patriots". Did they consider themselves as Macedonians, successors of Alexander the Great, or just Bulgarians If you read some authentic documents, you'll see that the macedonian nation was an idea of the Comintern and was applied by Tito. If it hasn't been Tito, you should be West Bulgarians now. And about the "person before him" - King Alexander Karadjordjevic - I suppose you know who killed him and which interests did the killer defended.

Панко Брашнаров fought aginst bulgarians
he died in Goli Otok

[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by Salaün

I didn't know that Tito was an oppressor of Antarctica...
Did he deny self-determination of penguins ?

Of course, he oppressed Antarctica. There were even plans to deport en masse all penguins to the Arctic

Now seriously: I am not penguin. I am talking about Croatia.

[Kan Yuvigi Asparukh]

Originally Posted by dime

Панко Брашнаров fought aginst bulgarians
he died in Goli Otok

The English wikipedia's article about Панко Брашнаров:
Panko Brashnarov (1883, Veles, present day Republic of Macedonia - 1951, Goli Otok), present day Croatia, was a Bulgarian revolutionary, member of the left wing of the Macedonian-Adrianople revolutionary movement.

He was born in Veles where he graduated the Bulgarian Exarchate's school.

After that Brashnarov learned in Skopie's pedagogical school and worked as Bulgarian teacher to the beginning of Balkan Wars.

In the beginning of the Bulgarian intervention in Vardar Banovina in 1941 he was one of the founders of the Bulgarian Action Committees.

In 1948 fully disappointed from the policy of the new Macedonian authorities he complained of it in letters to Stalin and to Georgi Dimitrov. As a result Brashnarov was arrested in 1950 and in 1951 imprisoned in Goli Otok concentration camp where he died."

He was a communist and he was fighting against the Bulgarian authorities just as all the partizans, both in Bulgaria and Macedonia.

And if you think that a communist could be an example for Macedonian or any other country's patriot it's not good.

So do not always believe the things which are written in the FYROMian books. I also do not always believe the Bulgarian ones. Manipulation is always possible.

[Hegumen]

Originally Posted by Monolith

As far as I know, he was the first Yugo president.
Who was before him?

The Croat Ivan Ribar was the first.

I take it you didn't grow up in the times of "brotherhood and unity".

Originally Posted by dime

he is responsible for the death of many Macedonian patriots

Petre Piruze and Vladimir Poležinoski were among those imprisoned, but didn't die as a result of this.

Originally Posted by Kan Yuvigi Asparukh

The English wikipedia's article about Панко Брашнаров

Originally Posted by Kan Yuvigi Asparukh

So do not always believe the things which are written in the FYROMian books.

I wouldn't believe everything written in Wikipedia either.

Back on topic...

Originally Posted by Kan Yuvigi Asparukh

What is your opinion about him as a political and military leader?

Speaking strictly in terms of his wartime accomplishments, my personal opinion is that he was a excellent military strategist.