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Gale Virtual Reference Library ­ Document ­ Tito, Josip Broz
Tito, Josip Broz
Cold War Reference Library
Ed. Richard C. Hanes, Sharon M. Hanes, and Lawrence W. Baker. Vol. 4: Biographies Volume 2. Detroit: UXL, 2004.
p444­451. COPYRIGHT 2004 U*X*L, COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale
Full Text: Page 444
Josip Broz Tito
Born May 7, 1892 Kumrovec, Croatia, Austria­Hungary Died May 4, 1980 Ljubljana, Yugoslavia
President of Yugoslavia and revolutionary
"Any movement in history which attempts to perpetuate itself, becomes reactionary." Josip Broz Tito. Josip Broz Tito established a communist government in the country then known as Yugoslavia. Fiercely
independent, Tito managed to successfully distance himself and his country from Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
(1879–1953; see entry) and Soviet control. During the entire Cold War period, Tito took his country down a liberalized
path in agriculture, management of workers, trade with Western nations, art, education, and travel between Western
nations and Yugoslavia. The Cold War was an intense political and economic rivalry from 1945 to 1991 between the
United States and the Soviet Union falling just short of military conflict. Tito stressed nonalignment, the right of
nations to be neutral and not align with either superpower, the United States or the Soviet Union.
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Early years
Josip Broz was born the seventh child in a large peasant family of fifteen children (he acquired the name Tito in
1934). His hometown of Kumrovec was located northwest of Zagreb, the capital of the province of Croatia. Broz
attended school for five years from ages seven to twelve, then was apprenticed to a locksmith. He completed his
Page 445 | training in 1910 and joined the Social Democratic Party (Communist Party) of Croatia­Slavonia the same year.
After traveling and working around the region, Broz was drafted into the Austro­Hungarian Imperial Army. He was
assigned to fight on the Russian front in 1914 when World War I (1914–18) broke out. Seriously wounded and
captured by the Russians in 1915, he was treated at a Russian hospital then detained at a prisoner of war camp.
Broz became fluent in the Russian language and also studied the Marxist ideas of the Bolshevik, or communist,
revolutionaries. Marxist philosophy was based on the teachings of German philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883),
considered the father of communism. Communism is a system of government in which a single party, the Communist
Party, controls all aspects of people's lives. In economic theory, it prohibits private ownership of property and
business so that all goods produced and wealth accumulated are shared relatively equally by all. The term
"Bolshevik" was later replaced with the term communist.
Broz decided to join the Bolshevik cause and headed for Petrograd, formerly Saint Petersburg, to demonstrate in the
streets. He was arrested and imprisoned for a short time until the October Revolution of 1917. In the October
Revolution, Bolsheviks overthrew the tsar, or royalty, and put themselves in power in Russia. The Russian Civil War
followed, and Broz joined a Red Guard unit. "Red" is a term that often refers to communists, and the Red Army was
indeed communist. In 1920, Broz married a Russian woman, Pelege ja Beloussaowa, and they returned to Croatia.
Rise in the Communist Party
A confirmed communist revolutionary, Broz joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY). He steadily rose
through the ranks, holding several leadership positions and organizing trade unions. In 1928, Broz's revolutionary
activities again led to his arrest and imprisonment, this time for five years. Upon his release in 1934, Broz adopted
the pseudonym "Tito." He would use the name Tito to work under­ground in the CPY, since it was banned by the
royal Yugoslav dictatorship in power at the time.
Page 446 | In 1935, Tito went back to Russia to work for the Comintern, a Soviet­sponsored organization to promote
communism internationally. By 1937, Tito returned to the CPY. As a result of Stalin's purges, many CPY leaders were
murdered or disappeared. Tito handpicked new leaders and rebuilt the party. Tito's CPY was ready when World War
II (1939–45) started.
World War II—Partisans
In 1941, when the German army invaded the Soviet Union, Tito formed the Partisans to fight German and Italian
armies as they moved into Yugoslav territories. Tito named himself military commander about this time and also
became known as Marshal. For the rest of his life, he would frequently be called Marshal Tito.
The Partisans came from the well­organized under­ground cells of the CPY. They staunchly withstood the German
army attacks in the first half of 1943 and defeated their rivals, the Serbian Chetniks. The big three Allied powers—the
United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union—met in Tehran, Iran, in 1943 and officially recognized the
Partisans. As a result, Allied aid was parachuted in to support the victorious and continuously strengthening
Partisans. Tito consolidated his power at the end of World War II by purging, just as Stalin had done, those who
opposed him. From his many loyalists, he formed a large army and secret police. By late 1945, the Communist Party
was firmly in control of all of the Yugoslav territories. Tito proclaimed the area as the Federal People's Republic of
Yugoslavia in November 1945.
Stalin versus Titoism
Immediately after World War II, the Soviets continued to occupy the countries of Eastern Europe, where communist
parties had taken control of several governments. Some officials were local communists and some were appointed
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by Stalin. Then in 1948, a new, more centralized Sovietization of Eastern Europe began. Each nation was to be
controlled by its Communist Party but subject to absolute control from Moscow. Tito immediately balked. Those in
Belgrade, the capital
Page 447 | Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito (far right) stands with other men in the mountains of Yugoslavia during
World War II in 1944. Reproduced by permission of Getty Images. of Yugoslavia, would not seek prior approval from Moscow for their policies and activities. Tito had ignored Stalin's
suggestions on how to run the government and the economy. Stalin was enraged, and was also angry at Tito for his
support of communists in the Greek Civil War, a war in which Stalin did not want to be involved. Stalin was further
displeased with Tito's relations with Bulgaria and Albania.
Page 448 | For its continuing rebellious attitude, Stalin expelled Yugoslavia from the Cominform. He imposed an economic
blockade that negatively impacted Yugoslavia but not its government or people's lives. Stalin even considered
military action but refrained. The independent stance taken by Tito came to be known as Titoism. Titoism became the
reason Stalin used to further crack down on communist parties in other Eastern European countries. Between 1948
and 1953, the year of Stalin's death, Soviet­styled communism was imposed on the Eastern Bloc. Collectivization of
agriculture and development of heavy manufacturing while ignoring consumer goods became the rule.
Collectivization meant elimination of all privately owned farms and grouping farmers together to work state­owned
land, returning most food produced to the state.
Meanwhile, Tito used his secret police for another purge and a "reeducation" of communists who still supported
Stalin. While the economy of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries remained highly centralized, Tito
began a program of decentralization. He began experimenting with allowing worker self­management in local areas.
He allowed workers to form councils, and though he did not collectivize smaller farms, he did require them to supply
the state with large portions of their goods. Tito also turned to the Western countries for loans and offered some
cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a peacetime alliance of the United States and eleven
other nations, and a key factor in the attempt to contain communism. He signed a trade agreement with the United
States in 1949 and eventually received $150 million in aid from the United States. Tito withstood hostility from the
Soviet Union and maintained his independent communist state.
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Reconciliation
When Stalin died in 1953, Tito decided to explore a somewhat reconciled relationship with the new Soviet leadership.
In May 1955, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971; see entry) surprised other communist leaders when he
went to Yugoslavia and visited with Tito. Khrushchev said it was time to "bury the hatchet" and reestablish the Soviet
Union's relationship with Tito and Yugoslavia.
Page 449 | Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito (left) meets with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at a United Nations
General Assembly in September 1960. Reproduced by permission of the Corbis Corporation. Nevertheless, Tito's and the Soviet Union's relationship would run hot and cold. It was particularly cold one year later
with the Soviet intervention in Hungary to suppress unrest among the population. The Soviets blamed the Yugoslavs
for encouraging and supporting Hungarian rebels. Again, twelve years later in 1968, Tito was infuriated with and
opposed to the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. He had supported Czech leader Alexander Dubcek (1921–
1992) as he attempted to reform and modernize communist policies.
Nonalignment and symmetrical federalism
The independent­minded Tito came to think of his foreign policy as "actively neutral"—neither favoring the communist
Eastern Bloc countries nor the democratic Western countries, but occupying a position in between. (A democratic
system of government allows multiple political parties; their members are elected to various government offices by
popular vote of the people.) Tito was particularly close to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) of India and
Page 450 | President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) of Egypt and tried to develop common policies for a group of nations he
hoped would form a nonaligned bloc, neither favoring the East nor the West. In 1956, he called together a meeting of
twenty­five neutral countries to his island in the Adriatic Sea. There, he proposed a neutral bloc or his policy of
"nonalignment." In the 1960s and 1970s, Tito traveled to many countries to promote nonalignment.
Between 1945 and 1953, Tito's title in Yugoslavia was premier. Beginning in 1953, he was known as president, which
remained his title until 1980, the year of his death. Tito was repeatedly elected president after 1953 and eventually
his term was made unlimited—or president for life. In 1971, Tito established a system, "symmetrical federalism," that
he hoped would lead to a systematic succession of power after his death. Symmetrical means having dissimilar or
different parts in a balanced fashion, while federalism means forming a political unity of different states under a
central power.
The United States, for example, operates under federalism with its fifty states and central government. Tito's
federalism consisted of six Yugoslav republics (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia,
and Slovenia) and two autonomous provinces (Kosovo and Vojvodina). He established a twenty­two member
collective presidency of the eight presidents from the republics and provinces and fourteen members chosen from
the assemblies in each of the eight regions. Tito, of course, was chairman of the collective presidency, and he purged
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any leaders who did not go along with his ideals or political agenda.
Page 451 | Federation breakup
Throughout the decades after World War II, Tito had relied on his strength of character, charisma, and continuing
popularity to hold power and to push Yugoslavia down its own independent path. He encouraged relatively broad
liberties in culture and education. He allowed Yugoslavs to work and travel in Western Europe. Likewise, the Adriatic
coast of Yugoslavia became a popular tourist destination for Westerners. He maintained a strong army, but as the
years passed, he lessened the powers of the secret police.
During the 1970s, the economy began to weaken under high inflation (rising cost of goods), inefficient industry, and a
heavy foreign debt. Despite his Yugoslav federation, nationalist issues between the republics and provinces
continued to surface in ever more radical tones. Croatians called for secession from the federation; Serbia also
agitated, or stirred up public debate on the issue, and pressed the federation leaders to give it a greater voice.
Croatia and Serbia, the two larger regions, were unhappy that smaller regions had almost as much representation as
they did. Tito tightened control, but after a four­month health decline, he died in May 1980. After his death, tensions
between the republics and provinces reared up with a vengeance, eventually leading to civil wars and a violent
federation breakup in the 1990s.
For More Information
Books
Auty, Phyllis. Tito: A Biography. New York: McGraw­Hill, 1970.
Djilas, Milovan. Tito: The Story from Inside. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980.
Maclean, Fitzroy. Josip Broz Tito: A Pictorial Biography. New York: McGraw­Hill, 1980.
Pavlowitch, Stevan K. Tito: Yugoslavia's Great Dictator, A Reassessment. Columbus: Ohio State University Press,
1992.
Ridley, Jasper G. Tito. London: Constable, 1994.
West, Richard. Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia. London: Sinclair­Stevenson, 1994.
Web Site
"Josip Broz Tito." CNN Cold War. (accessed on September 14, 2003).
Yugoslavia after Tito
The nation of Yugoslavia changed at least three times through the twentieth century. During Josip Broz Tito's reign as
president, Yugoslavia was a federation of six republics and two autonomous provinces he held tightly together. The
republics included Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The provinces
were Kosovo and Vojvodina.
Following the death of Tito in May 1980 and the failure of the communist economy, the political federation fell apart.
Most of the former republics and provinces wanted independence from the historically dominant Serbia and wished
to establish independent nations such as the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the beginning of the twenty­
first century, only Serbia and Montenegro were left as members of Yugoslavia, officially called the Federation
Republic of Yugoslavia.
Source Citation (MLA 7th Edition) "Tito, Josip Broz." Cold War Reference Library. Ed. Richard C. Hanes, Sharon M. Hanes, and Lawrence W. Baker.
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Vol. 4: Biographies Volume 2. Detroit: UXL, 2004. 444­451. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.
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