It takes a tough skin to be a leader of a
Country, even more so of a Country that basically did not exist until a few years before you
took power, even more so if that Country is torn between two cold-warring blocks, locked
in an arm-wrestling contest that will result in total destruction … and yet you manage
to give the middle-finger to both factions and do your own thing. This is the story of the leader of post-war
Yugoslavia. He kept together a federation made up of six
nationalities for 35 years; he led the non-aligned movement during the Cold war years; and he
survived the assassination attempts of the most dangerous men on the planet, including
Mr Josef Stalin. Please welcome today’s protagonist: Josip
Broz, better known as “Tito”, the man who could not be killed. The Young Sergeant
Josip Broz was born on the 7th of May 1892 in the town of Kumrovec, near Zagreb, modern
day Croatia, into a large peasant family. Croatia at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, a patchwork of nationalities in Central Europe which had recently expanded into the
Balkans. Josip was a perfect example of this multi-nationalism,
being born of a Croat father and a Slovene mother. Very little is known about Josip’s parents
and his early schooling. Actually, even his birth date and his real
name are disputed[TA2] . This is the extent to which the man’s life was shrouded in
mystery. That is why we will skip straight to his teenage
years, and trying to navigate as much as possible the certain facts of his life. Aged 15, Josip was apprenticed to a locksmith
in 1907 and in 1910 he completed his training and started working as an itinerant metal
worker in Austria and Germany. It was around this time that he joined the
Social Democratic Party of Croatia-Slavonia in Zagreb, his first sign of political engagement. Josip’s life changed for good in 1913, when
he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army. He clearly had a talent for soldiering as
he was singled out for non-commissioned officer training, and by summer 1914 he had become
the youngest Sergeant-Major in that army. Of course, the summer of 1914 was not a good
time to be a soldier – let alone an NCO – in the Austro-Hungarian army, or any other
army for that matter. As the first shots of WWI rung out, Josip
and his unit were sent to invade Serbia, facing an unexpectedly stiff resistance. But Josip was a good squad leader and in early
1915 he was transferred to Austria-Hungary’s most important front in the East, to face
Russia. This was an even tougher opponent and Vienna’s
armies did not do well. In general, Josip’s experience with the
Austro-Hungarian Army strengthened his belief that it was not much of an armed force, ineffective
in a real war, but used merely as an instrument of oppression against Slavic nationalities
and the lower echelons of society. On the 4th of April 1915 Josip’s unit was
overrun by a cavalry charge. This was the first documented occasion in
which young Sergeant Broz proved that he was a tough cookie and would not go down easily. One of the Russian cavalry men charged straight
at him, but Josip, being a good fencer, was able to deflect his two-metre lance and fight
him off. Another Czarist soldier, though, attacked
him from behind and pierced him close to the heart. That could have been the end of this story,
but Josip survived, albeit severely wounded and was captured by the Russians. Over the following two years of hospitalisation
and captivity, the once social-democrat became acquainted with a much more radical ideology:
Bolshevism.[TA3] Becoming a Communist
By 1917 he had been completely bought over by the majority Communist faction and had
renounced any affiliation with Vienna’s armies. In February 1917 the Czar had been ousted
by Kerenskij’s moderate government, which did not sit well with the Bolsheviks, nor
with Josip, who actively participated in the July Days demonstrations in Petrograd and
in the October Revolution which eventually brought Lenin to power. When the new Soviet government signed the
Brest-Litovsk agreement with the Central Powers, which left Russia out of the war, Josip could
have easily returned home. But it tells something about the steely character
of the young activist that he decided to join instead a Red Guard unit in Omsk, Siberia,
to continue the fight in the Russian Civil War against the reactionary ‘White’ armies. Following a White counteroffensive Josip fled
to modern day Kyrgyzstan, but was able to return to Omsk and join the newly formed South
Slav section of the Bolshevik party – whilst getting married along the way. Finally, in October 1920 he returned to his
native Croatia. In the meanwhile, the Austro-Hungarian Empire
had dissolved, giving birth to several new Countries in Central and Eastern Europe, one
of these being the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes – later better known as Yugoslavia. Upon returning, Josip had joined straight
away the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY). He must have jinxed it, because the Yugoslav
government immediately banned all communist activities. For the next three years, the CPY went quiet,
and so did Josip, resuming work at a metal mill near Zagreb. But in 1923 Josip made contact again with
the CPY, which had by now gone underground. It seems like clandestine activity suited
well the young metal worker, as he thrived in the communist organisation. He first acted as a party functionary and
trade union organizer in Croatia and Serbia until 1927, when he was promoted organisational
secretary for the Zagreb CPY committee. His tenure in this office attracted the attention
of Moscow and of the Comintern, the Soviet-sponsored organization of international communism. The Comintern rewarded him with an appointment
as Zagreb’s political secretary in April 1928. After the assassination of a Croat member
of parliament in June 1928, Josip took the occasion to take the CPY out of the shadows,
by staging street demonstrations against the authorities. But they reacted swiftly: Josip’s apartment
was raided by the police which found explosive material, proving his adherence to the insurrectionary
hardline of the Comintern. Broz was arrested in August and sentenced
to a five-year term, but the trial gave him a stage to voice his convictions and gain
credit with the party authorities. While Josip was in prison, Yugoslavia was
in turmoil, forever torn by the two opposite tensions of centralization versus autonomy
of its constituent nations and autonomous provinces; which by the way are Slovenia,
Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo and Vojvodina. During this period the King Alexander I established
a dictatorship to stem the nationalistic aspirations of non-Serbian populations. The regime also cracked down on the Communist
party by ordering the arrest of most of its leadership. The cadres of the party needed to be replenished. That is why, when Broz was released in March
1934, the leader in exile of the CPY, Milan Gorkić, summoned him to his Vienna headquarters
to give him a position in the party’s Politburo. This was Josip Broz taking his political career
to the next level, from local representative to one of the national leaders. It was also the occasion in which he assumed
his distinctive pseudonym: Tito Tito Begins
From February 1935 to October 1936, Tito moved to the Soviet Union to work more closely with
the Comintern and develop ties with Bolshevik leadership which would prove useful in his
climb to power. In 1937 and 38, Joseph Stalin launched his
campaign of purges against political and military leaders in the USSR, which, through the Comintern,
extended to other Communist parties across Europe. The CPY was not exempt, and Gorkić, among
others, was executed. According to Serbian journalist Pero Simic,
[TA4] Tito actively profited from the Stalinist repression. He took the occasion to spy or even actively
betray some of his comrades and friends, thus painting himself in a good light with the
Comintern. He was rewarded with a mandate to re-build
the CPY’s Politburo with his hand-picked lieutenants — among them one Milovan Djilas,
whom we’ll encounter again later. And of course, the natural next step was for
Moscow to appoint him new secretary-general of the CPY. By 1939, Tito’s grip over Yugoslavian Communist
was undisputed and he started laying plans for the future of the Country. At a clandestine conference in Zagreb in October
1940 Tito revealed his strategy: first, leverage the 24000 members of the party to launch an
armed insurrection against Alexander I’s reign; second, establish a federal state,
USSR-style, to address the ongoing issue of Yugoslavia’s multiple nationalities. Dangerous Times, Dangerous Men
The big occasion for armed insurgency presented itself in Yugoslavia’s darkest hour. In April 1941, the Kingdom was occupied and
partitioned by the Axis powers, mainly Germany and Italy, but also Romania and Bulgaria. The Yugoslavian theatre during WWII was – to
put it mildly – a confusing mess, which contributed to sowing the seeds of enmity
amongst its building blocks. But I’ll do my best to explain it. After the occupation, the main resistance
force were the Serbian Chetniks of Dragoljub Mihailović, loyal to the government in exile
and supported by the Allies. The CPY had organised its own parallel Partisan
network, led by Tito, with the multiple agenda of kicking out the Axis, defeating the Chetniks
and taking over Yugoslavia to install a Communist regime. Other factions, on the other hand, had started
collaborating with the Axis, mainly the Croatian fascist party, or Ustasha. In 1942, Italian General Mario Roatta, also
known as “The Black Beast” was charged with quashing the Communist insurgents. To this end he sought – and obtained – an
alliance with the Chetniks, ideologically opposed to Tito’s men. Roatta’s Italian 2nd Army and his Chetniks
auxiliaries launched a violent repression not only against the Partisans, but also civilian
populations in Slovenia and Croatia, especially in areas bordering Italy. An interesting aside: while Roatta was a total
dick to Yugoslavs, he was actively helping Jews escape from the Ustasha and the Gestapo,
facilitating their relocation to neutral countries. But the result of the Chetnik’s changing
sides? The Allies shifted their support from Mihailovic
to Tito, who was able to increase the scale of his operations. Leading a successful guerrilla campaign, the
Communist leader was able to control most of Bosnia by November 1943, even establishing
an independent Government. [TA5]
Tito had by now become such a nuisance to the Axis that Hitler took direct interest. He charged his most effective henchman with
the secret mission to locate and assassinate Tito and the Partisan leadership. This henchman was legendary SS Commando Otto
Skorzeny, already known by then as ‘the Most Dangerous Man in Europe’. In February 1944 Skorzeny launched a two-pronged
offensive: ground forces were to surround the identified location of Tito’s headquarters,
a cave on the Bosnian mountains. While the regular troops would distract the
Partisan forces, Skorzeny would attack the headquarters with his signature move, a combination
of gliders and paratroopers. But the Germans had underestimated the CPY
fighters: they put up a stiff and prolonged resistance, pushing back both prongs of the
attack and allowing Tito to escape to safety. [TA6]
Both the Black Beast and the Most Dangerous Man in Europe had failed to catch or kill
Tito. The government in exile by now had to admit
that they had to negotiate with this man. In June 1944 the royal Prime Minister in exile,
Ivan Šubašić, met with Tito and agreed to coordinate their activities to complete
the liberation of the Country. But any hopes of restoring the monarchy were
quashed by the Soviet army: aided by Tito’s Partisans, in October 1944 they liberated
Serbia, the last monarchist stronghold. As Germany retreated and the Fascist state
in Northern Italy collapsed in April 1945, Tito’s Communist forces extended their control
of the whole of Yugoslavia, achieving total victory by May 1945. But Tito’s Partisans did not stop there. Taking advantage of the Axis’ powers collapse,
they extended the national frontiers by taking the Istrian peninsula and portions of the
Julian Alps, territories disputed with Italy since the end of WWI. The occupation gave way to brutal reprisals
which struck retreating Axis soldiers, Croat and Slovene collaborationist, as well as Italian
civilians. It is estimated that up to 15,000 were killed,
many thrown still alive into the natural wells typical of the region, known as ‘foibas’.[TA7]
A Tale of Two Islands As the War ended, Yugoslavia was still a Monarchy,
albeit with Tito as Prime Minister. But after a major election victory in November
1945 – 80% of the vote! – Tito took full control of the Country,
exiled King Peter II and declared the Republic … although it would be fairer to describe
it as a dictatorship. His first years in power were particularly
brutal. In order to consolidate his power, Tito started
purging in pure Stalin-style. Mihajlovic, leader of the Chetniks, and other
opposition leaders were executed. The Archbishop of Zagreb and other members
of the Catholic clergy were incarcerated. Tito then moved to nationalize industry and
undertake a planned economy, a plan which included forcing small farmers to give up
large portions of their produce to the state.[TA8] So far, so good, as Tito was fashioning himself
as a bargain Stalin of the Balkans. But Tito and the Big Man in Moscow clashed
when the Yugoslav leader intended “exporting” his brand of communism to Albania and Greece,
at a time in which the official Comintern line was very cautious. In the spring of 1948, Stalin started planning
for a purge of the CPY, but Tito was able to maintain control over his party, the army,
and the secret police. Over in Moscow Stalin, who would not have
a ‘niet’ for an answer, disowned his old comrade. He publicly condemned Tito, expelled the CPY
from the Comintern and economically boycotted Yugoslavia. Tito, who was above all a pragmatist, did
not shed tears over the rift with his BFFs in Moscow and initiated a gradual shift towards
the West, maintaining nonetheless a political doctrine equidistant from both Nato and the
Warsaw Pact. Inside his borders, Tito tightened the grip
on power aided by a very effective secret police. These guys started by cracking down on filo-Stalinist
and later on other dissenters, many of whom (up to 600 over the years) would be tortured
to death in Tito’s high security political prison, Goli Otok, also known as “Devil’s
Island”.[TA9] As it befits such a contradictory character,
Tito also enjoyed the natural beauty of a “paradise island”, the isle of Vanga in
the Brijuni archipelago, northern Adriatic. This island was home to one of his many presidential
residences and the one he used to entertain many political leaders, from Fidel Castro
to Queen Elisabeth and Persian Shah Reza Pahlavi. But Tito had a soft spot for film stars, too
– and Elizabeth Taylor and Sofia Loren, to mention just two, were among the many actresses
to pay regular visits.[TA10] A Note to Stalin[TA11]
Before we continue with the story of Tito’s rule in Yugoslavia, let me tell you about
some juicy details of the rivalry between Tito and Stalin. As you may have guessed, Tito’s move for
independence from Moscow had not made Stalin very happy. It was not only that. It seems like Stalin was also fearful and
even jealous of the Yugoslav leader, which made him consider the serious possibility
of having him killed. Now, that’s enemy you don’t want to have. Otto Skorzeny may have been the Most Dangerous
Man in Europe, but he was the Cookie Monster compared to Josef Stalin. Soon, Lavrenti Berija, head of the NKVD, was
put on the case. Stalin’s spymaster orchestrated no less
than 22 assassination attempts against Tito. These included increasingly outlandish methods,
ranging from your standard weapons such as a rifle, or a bomb, and then going into James
Bond territory. One attempt for example involved an ornate
jewellery box, which would release a cloud of toxic nerve gas when opened. But my personal best involved ‘Max’, real
name Iosif Grigulevich, the Soviet agent responsible for the brutal murder of Stalin’s other
big rival, Leon Trostky. According to a secret memo, Max was instructed
to infiltrate a diplomatic reception in Belgrade, posing as the Costa Rican diplomat, Teodoro
Castro. Once there, Max was to release Berija’s
most secret weapon: a lethal plague bacteria. “The death of Tito and every other person
in the room would be guaranteed,” the memo said. “Max himself would not know anything about
the nature of the substance. To save his life, Max would be immunised against
plague beforehand.” Now, that’s what I call real, pure hatred. But luckily for Tito, and indeed for the whole
population of Belgrade, Stalin’s death in March 1953 meant the hit was called off and
Grigulevich was recalled to Moscow.[TA12] Speaking of Stalin’s death … it was a
stroke, right? Well, according to Slovenian historian Joze
Pirjavec, there may be something else behind it – or rather someone else. Pirjavec claims that Stalin may have been
poisoned with potassium cyanide and that the poisoning had been ordered by none other than
Tito, in retaliation for the attempted assassinations against him. If this is true, it would be the fulfilment
of a famous note sent by Tito to Stalin, one which may well be the most bad-ass letter
ever written: “Stalin:
Stop sending people to kill me! We’ve already captured five of them, one
with a bomb and another with a rifle… If you don’t stop sending killers, I’ll
send one to Moscow. And I won’t have to send another”[TA13]
Leader of the Non-Aligned And … let’s get back to politics! As he moved Westwards, also Tito’s internal
policy started to thaw towards a more liberal stance. This was mainly thanks to his deputy and chief
advisor, Milovan Djilas[TA14] , an old chum from the early days of the clandestine CPY. Together they shaped a type of socialism that
allowed workers to manage industrial enterprises and even share profits, which was a pretty
liberal idea by Communist standards. Tito also relaxed many of the regime's strict
controls, particularly those affecting small farmers. As a result, Yugoslavia became the most liberal
Communist country of Europe.[TA15] The West reacted positively by offering financial
aid and military assistance. By 1953, Tito had even signed a mutual defence
pact with Greece and Turkey, which equated to an informal association with NATO. After Stalin’s death in 1953 – by poison
or by stroke - Djilas proposed further reforms which would have accelerated the drift towards
the West, most importantly to give up the one-party system. Tito, however, rejected this proposal in January
1954, which led to a rift with his trusted vice-president, and his eventual exile. Tito preferred, instead, exploring a reconciliation
with the new Soviet leadership under Nikita Khrushchev, who visited Belgrade in May 1955. The two leaders agreed on the Belgrade declaration,
which committed Soviet leaders to equality in relations with the other communist countries,
a big step forward in formalising at least Yugoslavia’s independence from Moscow. But in the following years Khrushchev and
his successor Brezhnev happily wiped their backsides with the Belgrade declaration, by
crushing the Hungarian revolution in 1956 and the Prague Spring in 1968. In both cases, Moscow blamed Tito for inspiring
these dissident movements, which led again to frosty Soviet-Yugoslav relationships. Disillusioned with both the West and the Communist
bloc, Tito eventually sought like-minded statesmen elsewhere and he found them amongst the leaders
of the developing countries. Negotiations with Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt
and Jawaharlal Nehru of India in June 1956 led to a closer cooperation among states that
were “non-engaged” in the East-West confrontation. From non-engagement Tito developed the concept
of “active nonalignment”—that is, the promotion of alternatives to bloc politics,
as opposed to mere neutrality. The first meeting of nonaligned states took
place in Belgrade under Tito’s sponsorship and guidance in 1961. Keeping it together
Since the days of WWII and internal divisions exploited by the Axis powers, Tito’s big
preoccupation on the home front was to maintain the unity of Yugoslavia. This was the only way by which the federation
could maintain its independence from Moscow and increasingly limited reliance on the West. As Tito declared:
“We have spilt an ocean of blood for the brotherhood and unity of our peoples and we
shall not allow anyone to touch or destroy it from within. None of our republics would be anything if
we weren't all together; but we have to create our own history - history of United Yugoslavia,
also in the future.”[TA16] [TA17] But Tito’s concept of internal brotherhood
was to be increasingly threatened by demands of de-centralisation in the 1960s and 1970s. Ironically, it was his ‘big idea’ of workers’
self-management which gradually shifted the balance of power away from the central party
authority and from federal government. The resulting tensions for autonomy, first
in the factories, then in provincial centres, opened cracks within the CPY leadership between
1963 and 1972. During this period Tito launched a second
wave of purges, first addressing factions who wanted to increase centralisation of power
and later Croatian and Serbian liberals who were calling for more autonomy in their respective
nations. Tito’s response to the crises of the 1960s
and early ’70s was to fashion a system of “symmetrical federalism,” supposed to
formalize equality among the six republics and Serbia’s two autonomous provinces (Kosovo
and the Vojvodina). Unfortunately this system, while not providing
enough autonomy to the smaller republics, also annoyed the two largest, Serbia and Croatia,
that felt they were giving them too much autonomy! To put it simply: Tito tried to make everyone
happy … and he managed to piss them all off instead. Only Tito’s prestige and personal charisma
was now holding together a very fragile federation. Death and Legacy[TA18]
Everyone in former Yugoslavia now remembers where they were on the 4th of May 1980. This was the day in which Tito died of heart
failure, aged 88. During his remarkable life the leader always
aimed to find a balance, a third way, oscillating between East and West, Communism and Capitalism,
Peace and War, Devil’s Island and his own private paradise. His toughest balancing act, the one between
centralisation and local autonomy, eventually did not survive. Eleven years after Tito’s death, the former
federation disintegrated amid a series of bloody battles and ethnic hatred reminiscent
of the war already fought on those lands four decades earlier. But that’s another story, which I’m sure
we’ll tell one day or the other.
"Left Russia out of the war" Just like the fat kid that always gets picked last!