Josip Broz Tito | |
|---|---|
| Јосип Броз Тито | |
 Official portrait, 1962 | |
| President of Yugoslavia | |
| In office 14 January 1953 – 4 May 1980 | |
| Prime Minister | See list
|
| Vice President | See list
|
| Preceded by | Ivan Ribar[a] |
| Succeeded by | Lazar Koliševski[b] |
| Prime Minister of Yugoslavia | |
| In office 29 November 1945 – 29 June 1963 | |
| President | Ivan Ribar Himself (from 1953) |
| Preceded by | Ivan Šubašić |
| Succeeded by | Petar Stambolić |
| Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement | |
| In office 1 September 1961 – 5 October 1964 | |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Gamal Abdel Nasser |
| President of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia | |
| In office 5 January 1939 – 4 May 1980 | |
| Preceded by | Milan Gorkić |
| Succeeded by | Stevan Doronjski |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Josip Broz 7 May 1892 Kumrovec, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 4 May 1980 (aged 87) Ljubljana, Yugoslavia |
| Resting place | House of Flowers, Belgrade, Serbia 44°47′12″N 20°27′06″E / 44.78667°N 20.45167°E |
| Political party | League of Communists of Yugoslavia (joined in 1920) |
| Spouses | |
| Domestic partner(s) | Davorjanka Paunović (1943–1946) |
| Children | 5, including Mišo |
| Awards | Full list |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |
|
| Branch/service | Austro-Hungarian Army Red Army Yugoslav People's Army |
| Years of service | 1913–1915 1918–1920 1941–1980 |
| Rank | Marshal |
| Commands | National Liberation Army Yugoslav People's Army (supreme commander) |
| Battles/wars | World War I Russian Civil War World War II |
Central institution membership | |
Josip Broz (Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: Јосип Броз, pronounced [jǒsip brôːz] ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (/ˈtiːtoʊ/;[1] Тито, pronounced [tîto]), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and politician who served in various positions of national leadership from 1943 until his death in 1980.[2] During World War II, he led the Yugoslav Partisans, often regarded as the most effective resistance movement in German-occupied Europe.[3][4] Following Yugoslavia's liberation in 1945, he served as its prime minister from 29 November 1945 to 29 June 1963 and president from 14 January 1953 until his death in 1980. The political ideology and policies promulgated by Tito are known as Titoism.
Tito was born to a Croat father and a Slovene mother in Kumrovec in what was then Austria-Hungary. Drafted into military service, he distinguished himself, becoming the youngest sergeant major in the Austro-Hungarian Army of that time. After being seriously wounded and captured by the Russians during World War I, he was sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains. Tito participated in some events of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the subsequent Russian Civil War. Upon his return to the Balkans in 1920, he entered the newly established Kingdom of Yugoslavia, where he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Having assumed de facto control over the party by 1937, Tito was formally elected its general secretary in 1939 and later its president, the title he held until his death. During World War II, after the Nazi invasion of the area, he led the Yugoslav guerrilla movement, the Partisans (1941–1945).[5] By the end of the war, the Partisans, with the Allies' backing since mid-1943, took power in Yugoslavia.
After the war, Tito served as the prime minister (1945–1963), president (1953–1980; from 1974 president for life), and marshal of Yugoslavia, the highest rank of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). In 1945, under his leadership, Yugoslavia became a communist state, which was eventually renamed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Despite being one of the founders of the Cominform, he became the first Cominform member and the only leader in Joseph Stalin's lifetime to defy Soviet hegemony in the Eastern Bloc, leading to Yugoslavia's expulsion from the organisation in 1948 in what was known as the Tito–Stalin split. In the following years, alongside other political leaders and Marxist theorists such as Edvard Kardelj and Milovan Đilas, he initiated the idiosyncratic model of socialist self-management in which firms were managed by workers' councils and all workers were entitled to workplace democracy and equal share of profits. Tito wavered between supporting a centralised or more decentralised federation and ended up favouring the latter to keep ethnic tensions under control; thus, the constitution was gradually developed to delegate as much power as possible to each republic in keeping with the Marxist theory of withering away of the state. He envisaged the SFR of Yugoslavia as a "federal republic of equal nations and nationalities, freely united on the principle of brotherhood and unity in achieving specific and common interest." A very powerful cult of personality arose around him, which the League of Communists of Yugoslavia maintained even after his death. After Tito's death, Yugoslavia's leadership was transformed into an annually rotating presidency to give representation to all of its nationalities and prevent the emergence of an authoritarian leader. Twelve years later, as communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and ethnic tensions escalated, Yugoslavia dissolved and descended into a series of interethnic wars.
Historians critical of Tito view his presidency as authoritarian[6][7] and see him as a dictator,[8][9] while others characterise him as a benevolent dictator.[10] He was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad,[11][12] and remains popular in the former countries of Yugoslavia.[13] Tito was viewed as a unifying symbol,[14] with his internal policies maintaining the peaceful coexistence of the nations of the Yugoslav federation. He gained further international attention as the founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, alongside Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, and Sukarno of Indonesia.[15] With a highly favourable reputation abroad in both Cold War blocs, he received a total of 98 foreign decorations, including the Legion of Honour and the Order of the Bath.
- ^ "Definition of Tito". www.dictionary.com. Retrieved 10 March 2023.
- ^ "Josip Broz Tito". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 27 April 2010.
Tito was faced with a choice: either continue the Westward course and give up one-party dictatorship (an idea promoted by Milovan Djilas but rejected by Tito in January 1954) ...
- ^ Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri (2013). In Spies We Trust: The Story of Western Intelligence. OUP Oxford. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-19-958097-2.
- ^ Batinić, Jelena (2015). Women and Yugoslav Partisans: A History of World War II Resistance. Cambridge University Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-1107091078.
- ^ Bremmer, Ian (2007). The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall. Simon & Schuster. p. 175. ISBN 978-0-7432-7472-2.
- ^ Andjelic, Neven (2003). Bosnia-Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy. Frank Cass. p. 36. ISBN 978-0-7146-5485-0.
- ^ McGoldrick 2000, p. 17.
- ^ Roberts, Walter R. (1973). Tito, Mihailović, and the Allies 1941–1945. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. p. 309.
Churchill, who said that Tito was a dictator ...
- ^ Pavlowitch, Stevan K. (1992). Tito – Yugoslavia's Great Dictator: A Reassessment. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.
- ^ Shapiro, Susan G.; Shapiro, Ronald (2004). The Curtain Rises: Oral Histories of the Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-1672-1.
...All Yugoslavs had educational opportunities, jobs, food, and housing regardless of nationality. Tito, seen by most as a benevolent dictator, brought peaceful co-existence to the Balkan region, a region historically synonymous with factionalism.
- ^ Dobbs, Michael (26 May 1977). "At 85, Tito Looks Healthy and Wealthy, Is Called Wise". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
- ^ Bokovoy, Melissa Katherine; Irvine, Jill A.; Lilly, Carol S. (1997). State-society Relations in Yugoslavia, 1945–1992. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 36. ISBN 0-312-12690-5.
...Of course, Tito was a popular figure, both in Yugoslavia and outside it, and he was respected internationally, including by the leadership of both superpowers.
- ^ Pantovic, Milivoje (16 November 2016). "Vucic Rivals Tito as Serbia's Best Leader, Poll Shows". BalkanInsight. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
- ^ Cottam, Martha L.; Dietz-Uhler, Beth; Mastors, Elena; Preston, Thomas (2009). Introduction to political psychology. Psychology Press. p. 243. ISBN 978-1-84872-881-3.
...Tito himself became a unifying symbol. He was charismatic and very popular among the citizens of Yugoslavia.
- ^ Willetts, Peter (1978). The Non-aligned Movement: The Origins of a Third World Alliance. p. xiv.