Artie Mead: ‘Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode on a fascinating figure in history—Josip Broz Tito. For this episode, which will be a discussion, I am joined by Igor Radulovic, a fellow history buff, who is a historian and history teacher from Montenegro, living and working in the Netherlands. Igor is passionate about contemporary history, especially the breakup of Yugoslavia, which is very relevant to this episode. He even collaborates with the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals on a project related to facts established by the ICTY and the Mechanism regarding the crimes committed in the 1990s conflicts in Yugoslavia. I will add the link to this project in the show notes, so please do take a look at this. Right, so welcome, Igor.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Thank you, Arthur, and thank you for inviting me and, of course, mentioning the project that I’m working on, but also my interest in similar topics, such as, of course, the topic of Josip Broz Tito and his importance in former Yugoslavia especially, I would say.’
Artie Mead: ‘Wonderful. Great to have you on here. So, I guess let’s go back to the beginning. So, Josip Broz, as he was born then, because he was just born Josip Broz, wasn’t he?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yes, yes, that’s correct. He was born to a Croatian Slovene peasant family in Kumrovec—am I butchering that?’
Artie Mead: ‘Kumrovec, that’s how we say it.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Right, okay, thank you. A village in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, which was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time. And so, yes, his name was originally just Josip Broz, and I’m right in thinking the name Tito was a pseudonym that he started using during his revolutionary activities. Would you like to tell us a little bit about his early life, please, Igor?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yeah, absolutely. So, as you said, he was born as Josip Broz, and he was born in 1892. Kumrovec is a small village, which I actually visited, I think, five or six years ago. And basically, although it’s in today’s Croatia, it was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time. It was a poor family in, I would say, an undeveloped part of Austro-Hungarian Hungary, so definitely his childhood was not an easy one. We don’t have enough, I would say, information about that period of time, but what we know is that he attended the primary school in his village and finished his primary school somewhere around 1905, which is obviously when he was around the age of 13. So, usually in those places, the kids would go into a trade afterwards, but because of the difficult situation he had in his family, instead of doing that, he went to work with his uncle in Slovenia. So, as you said, his mother was from Slovenia. His dad was from Croatia—today’s Slovenia and Croatia, of course. Therefore, he actually had to, I would even say, work at that early age for a couple of years. I think that he even spent like three or four years with his uncle, and then he came back to Croatia, and he even visited Zagreb for the first time in 1910. So, when he was around 18, already at the time, he even joined one of the political parties that existed in Croatia. It was, well, I think the proper translation would be the Social Democratic Party of Croatia and Slavonia. It’s a long name. Even at the time, he started participating in some of the demonstrations, like labour demonstrations in that region. Then afterwards, because of his financial situation, I would say mostly, he had to move, and he even worked across the Austro-Hungarian Empire.’
Artie Mead: ‘And what was he mostly working as?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘It was a locksmith. He’s mostly known as a locksmith, but he was doing different types of jobs. I know that, for example—’
Artie Mead: ‘Jack of all trades, we would say in English.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that even in Germany, he was working for a while as a test driver for one of the companies. I’m not sure which one exactly, honestly, but as I said, as he was travelling and working across the Austro-Hungarian Empire in general, he was even able to learn different languages. For example, he was pretty fluent in German. You will see later that, of course, he even learned Russian, and it’s interesting that a lot of, I wouldn’t say historians, but a lot of people in general talk about Tito as a spy, mostly because he spoke so many languages, and people would say, “Oh, actually, he was not Yugoslav or Croatian or Slovenian or whatever. He was actually a German or even a British or Austro-Hungarian intelligence officer.”’
Artie Mead: ‘Right, okay. And so, obviously, his sort of socialist background comes about from, you know, obviously being a worker, working obviously in these different fields. So that’s what, you know, when he starts to become engaged with the worker and labour movements. As you say, joining the Social Democratic Party, and obviously it’s important to stress to everyone listening at the moment that the state of Yugoslavia does not exist by this point.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Absolutely, and thank you for mentioning that, because at the time, most of the Yugoslavs lived under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So most of the people in today’s, let’s say, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, even part of today’s Montenegro—those were all parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.’
Artie Mead: ‘Serbia, am I right in thinking, was the only one that was its own country?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Serbia and Montenegro as well.’
Artie Mead: ‘And Montenegro, right. Yeah. Okay, and then Tito’s military career then obviously begins in 1913, so he enlists in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which obviously rules over what would become most of Yugoslavia. I think his decision to join the military was partly influenced by the economic hardship faced by his family. Is that right?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yeah, because he basically joined the army, which is interesting—a year before World War One started. So he joined the army in 1913, right? So he was, what, 21 at the time. And as you said, he didn’t have many choices, so he decided to join the army. But of course, what he could not predict, obviously, is that a war would start in less than a year. So, when the war started, right after the assassination and all the things that happened in June and July of 1914, he was, of course, enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian Army, and he was even sent to the front practically at the beginning of the war. But during these struggles, I would say, during the war on the campaigns, he was even wounded.’
Artie Mead: ‘So in May of 1915, during the Brusilov Offensive, wasn’t it?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘I think so. I’m not sure, but I think so, because it’s 1915, so it’s kind of logical. What’s important to stress out now is that he was wounded and captured by the Russians at the time. He was even sent to a Russian hospital, where he spent the next 13 months. During that time, he learned a lot about the ideas of revolution because he was in Russia during 1917, which of course is important to mention because we have both the February and October Revolutions. So, even after he left the hospital, even afterwards, as I said, he stayed in Russia and became familiar with the ideas of revolution and, I would say, of communism as well, which were aligned already with some of his attitudes. But we definitely must stress now that he definitely developed those ideas furthermore.’
Artie Mead: ‘Okay. So then, uh, after the October Revolution in 1917, Tito is released as part of a general amnesty for prisoners of war. Um, and he returns to what is by that point, Yugoslavia, or well, it’s the Kingdom of… what is it called?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yeah. So that’s interesting. Officially, the name of the country was the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.’
Artie Mead: ‘Exactly that. Yes, exactly. So we’re not quite at Yugoslavia just yet. Apologies. So basically, he goes back to his homeland. So after the war ends in November 1918, the Kingdom of Serbia, the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, and the Kingdom of Montenegro… Is it Montenegro?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yeah. Yeah. So that was formed on the 1st of December 1918 with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.’
Artie Mead: ‘Cool. So then that leads to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and it starts out life as a constitutional monarchy.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yes, it does start its life as a constitutional monarchy, but that was only in theory. We can actually see from historical documents and, in general, from public opinion, that the country was definitely not following the path that was established after World War I ended and after the country was proclaimed. So, the role of the monarch was extremely high.’
Artie Mead: ‘And also, so it had political power?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And he was supported by the strongest political parties in the country. Usually, you had like two major political parties in the country that would form a coalition that would form a government. And of course, that would align with the King’s attitude. Therefore, everyone who was against it, including the communists, as we will see, were neglected or even forcibly removed from the political life of the country.’
Artie Mead: ‘Ah, okay, so it was essentially a sort of monarchical dictatorship.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Absolutely. So, as we know, between World War I and World War II, there were too many authoritarian regimes seen in Europe, and one of them at the time definitely was the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.’
Artie Mead: ‘Right. Okay. Obviously, in the early kingdom, efforts were made to sort of centralise power, but it faced resistance from certain groups. And as we said, it was basically a royal dictatorship. So, the first king was King Peter I. And then you had—correct me—you actually had Alexander, his son.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Alexander. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.’
Artie Mead: ‘So King Peter wasn’t actually King at any point?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘No, no, he was King of Serbia during the war.’
Artie Mead: ‘That’s it. But when the country was unified, he actually kind of gave that role to his son when he was younger and everything.’
Artie Mead: ‘When exactly was it unified?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘So officially December the 1st, 1918. That’s when everything was proclaimed as such.’
Artie Mead: ‘Okay, so it’s held together. It’s fairly fractious. And all during this time, this kind of fairly fractious dictatorial monarchy—royal dictatorship—was trying to hold this diverse state together. You have Tito, who is back in his homeland. And he, was he a founding member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘He joined the party.’
Artie Mead: ‘Right. It was already established.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yeah.’
Artie Mead: ‘Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, he joins the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. So, as you can see, the idea of Yugoslavia is already there.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Absolutely.’
Artie Mead: ‘Okay. And how long did it take for Tito to rise through the ranks?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘I would say, I mean, he kind of needed time, but it was influenced by the political situation because the Communist Party was repressed by the political regime.’
Artie Mead: ‘Yes, yes, yes. But let’s just have in mind that in 1920, there were elections in the country. Were they free and fair?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yes and no. I cannot say that they were fully free, but at least people had a chance to express their view mostly. I would say the biggest problem for those elections was that the majority of the population was illiterate. Therefore, there was a lot of space for manipulation.’
Artie Mead: ‘Yeah, made it hard to engage.’
Artie Mead: ‘So, the CPY, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, during this time, engages with the Yugoslav national question, which in itself addresses the issues of ethnic and religious diversity within the kingdom. Which I think obviously shows that it was always the Communist Party’s or Tito’s—I don’t know how far you can separate the two, really—it was always their intention to try and make these differences as small as possible because they knew that that was the only way they were going to unify the state.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Absolutely. Absolutely. And as you asked me before about Tito’s role and everything, in the 1920s, his role was not that big because after, as we said, after the party was banned and everything, he even moved out of Zagreb, where he was living since 1920. But he came back there in 1927, which is important because he started kind of propagating the ideas of communism once again. But because of that, he ended up in prison because the party was, of course, as we said, banned. You cannot make any propaganda related to communism in the country, and that’s why he was arrested in 1928, and he even had to spend five years in prison.’
Artie Mead: ‘Yes, and he, well, he was building a united front against the monarchy, against fascism, and basically sort of portraying it as a common struggle of the southern Slavic peoples.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Absolutely. And I think that’s partly why he was imprisoned—because it was becoming quite effective.’
Artie Mead: ‘Yeah, at the time, definitely.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yeah. Yeah. Also, with the economic situation in the country and many other things as well. Definitely.’
Artie Mead: ‘Yeah, exactly. So, however, during the interwar period, the CPY faced internal divisions. So, there were obviously debates within the Comintern, which is the Communist International, over the best approach to revolutionary activities in Yugoslavia. I mean, we’ll talk a little bit later about the actual form of communism that Tito implements in Yugoslavia. Obviously, the one that people most know about in the Eastern Bloc states is Marxism-Leninism, which was the ideas of Marx as interpreted by Lenin, but we’ll talk more about that a little bit later.’
Artie Mead: ‘So, yeah, in 1929, King Alexander I establishes a royal dictatorship to centralise power and curb ethnic divisions, but this move is obviously met with a lot of resistance. And so, at this point, Tito and other leaders are engaged in acts of resistance against the royal dictatorship, which obviously then leads to increased repression at the time.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yeah, definitely. And then we even had a lot of examples where members of, or supporters of, communists—let’s say it like that—were, as we said, imprisoned, as in the example of Tito. So, in a way, luckily for Tito, he was in prison at the time until 1934. So, he wasn’t that much involved in these things. And I would say that he probably would have been in danger—his life would have been in danger—if he had to participate in those things. But after he got out in 1934, I would say that his role in the party became way bigger. Of course, although we said the Communist Party did not officially exist—although it was banned—they were still functioning kind of underground. So they were still trying, of course, to develop their ideas further. And even Tito himself was so important at the time that, in 1937, he even became the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.’
Artie Mead: ‘Which, in the Communist Party, is the Communist Party.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘That’s it. Yeah. That’s it. That’s the top.’
Artie Mead: ‘Okay. So, he reached that in 1937. And then, obviously, two years later, the Second World War starts. So, would you like to just give us a brief bit of context on what happened to Yugoslavia during the Second World War?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yeah, yeah. So, I think it’s also important to mention that, although World War II started in 1939, of course, with the things that happened in Poland, etc., Yugoslavia was not officially involved in the war until 1941. Right. So, of course, at the time, there were a lot of debates in Yugoslavia about what the official political stance should be towards not only World War II but also towards the whole situation. Of course, Tito, at the time, as a member of the Communist Party, even travelled to the Soviet Union, even before the war—so even in 1938 and 1939 especially—but the situation in Yugoslavia was not great. And because, as we know, Nazi Germany was spreading, especially in 1941, the Yugoslavian government was challenged by the Nazis, and literally they had to either…’
Artie Mead: ‘But wait, hang on a minute. When you say Yugoslavia, you still mean the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and…?’
Igor Radulovic: ‘No, no, it’s the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1929.’
Artie Mead: ‘Oh, okay. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Officially, it’s the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yeah.’
Artie Mead: ‘Okay. Right. Cool. Thanks.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘And it’s interesting that even the government that was established in 1939—that was the dictatorship that was established by King Alexander.’
Artie Mead: ‘King Alexander.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yeah. Yeah.’
Artie Mead: ‘Okay. Cool.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘But later, he introduced some constitution. He kind of gave the constitution to the country. The dictatorship was not so strong anymore. And Alexander also died in the meantime. That’s important to stress. He died in 1934 in Marseille, in France. He was murdered by an extreme terrorist group from Yugoslavia. So, it was kind of a bond between Ustashas from Croatia and the Macedonian terrorists. So, they killed him because they were not satisfied with how the country was governed. And after his death, usually what happened was that, because his son was young, he was underage, we had the establishment of these governments. Then Uncle Pavle—that was his name—was kind of regent, but I wouldn’t say that his influence was so huge. So, the country, to put it lightly, was in a mess.’
Artie Mead: ‘And obviously Tito comes to the forefront here by playing a key role in organising the partisans.’
Igor Radulovic: ‘Yeah. So, that’s a resistance movement. Even organising the demonstrations—the communists were actually the ones who organised the demonstrations against the signing of the pact with the Nazis and the others. So, that’s why they were even forced to repeal that document, to remove it.’
Artie Mead: And so Tito convenes the first session of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia, abbreviated the A-V-N-O-J. Yep. And so that lays the groundwork, uh, for a united front against fascism. So, uh, this obviously then basically forms the basis of Tito’s, what Tito will be doing over the course of the war. So would you like to tell us a little bit about what he was actually doing during the war?
Igor Radulovic: Yeah, absolutely. I think that that’s really important and interesting to mention. So when the war started, when the war in Yugoslavia started in 1941, he was in Zagreb, but he decided soon to move to Belgrade because he knew that that’s the place where he should start the preparation for the uprising. And bear in mind that, uh, the uprising in Yugoslavia was actually the biggest one in whole Europe. So it can be only compared later to, I don’t know, the Polish one and the resistance in France. But there is another pretty complicated story in here is that at the beginning of the war, you basically had two major fractions in the country who were resisting the occupation of the Axis powers.
So on one side, of course, you had partisans, as you said, that were led by Josip Broz Tito. And on the other side, you had the royalists, who were kind of pro heavily, who were heavily pro-Serbs. And they were led by Draža Mihailović. And they’re mostly known, I would say, around the world as Chetniks. Because the word comes from the word that means armed band. So, at the beginning, let’s say, so May, June 1941, both movements were fighting against the Axis. And they even tried to resist the occupying German forces together. And they even had a meeting. They had a meeting, uh, which also happened in 1941. And the point of the meeting was to unite forces, but that failed.
And it failed mostly because the leader of Chetniks, Draža Mihailović, was not supportive of Tito’s ideas. So obviously because Tito had this whole idea of Yugoslav unity, right, and everyone was—
Artie Mead: —emphasising, right? He wanted to emphasise the unity among ethnic and political groups. And so, yeah, really this kind of actually forms the foundations of what would later become his politic.
Igor Radulovic: Absolutely.
Artie Mead: Absolutely.
Igor Radulovic: And that’s, I think, eventually why so many people during the war supported him. Not only the people who were communists, right? Through their ideals, but also the people who realised and who noticed that the fight that Tito and the communists are leading, the partisans actually, is the real fight against the Axis powers. Why I’m saying this? Because Chetniks, later on during the war, actually started collaborating, especially with the Germans. Because for them, in one moment, it was more important to fight against the partisans, to remove them as internal opponents, than to fight against the Germans. And that’s what the Allies also realised.
So at the beginning of the war, Allies, especially Great Britain, supported Chetniks, supported Draža Mihailović, especially because the Yugoslav government with the king was in exile in London.
Artie Mead: It’s important to stress that also, yeah, he had, he was the leader at this time, the leader of the partisans. But I think fair to say that he was a pretty effective leader because his leadership was instrumental in the Battle of Sutjeska, that’s how we pronounce it.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah.
Artie Mead: Yeah.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah.
Artie Mead: In 1943. And he had a successful evacuation of partisan forces, including wounded soldiers and civilians through difficult mountain terrain. And so that was very, very well. That’s after the Battle of Neretva, one of the biggest battles of World War II in Yugoslavia.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah.
Artie Mead: And, uh, also Tito had a narrow escape during a German air raid.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, uh, that obviously shows, you know, the constant threat he faced. So he was obviously incredibly good under pressure. He had to be, unfortunately. I mean, that’s, that was the case.
Artie Mead: Yeah.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah.
Artie Mead: And, um, he, uh, obviously then, yeah, as you say, eventually received Allied support, but, um, as you say, it became, it came quite late towards the end of the war. So, um, towards the end of the war, 1944, you have the, uh, Belgrade offensive. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
Igor Radulovic: Yeah. I mean, well, in the second half of 1944, most of the country was liberated, including, as you said, Belgrade. It is interesting to say, of course, that it was, uh, mostly the effort of the partisans. Who, as I said, fought against the Germans in 1941. And they even started liberating small portions of territory, even during ’41, ’42, and of course, ’43. So for example, in ’41, a small part in today’s Serbia around the city of Užice was liberated. They even managed to establish the so-called Republic of Užice. Later, they mostly moved to Bosnia. And that’s why you mentioned AVNOJ. That’s how we say it. That’s where most of these important sessions were held, where they’ve decided what the future of the country should be after the war.
Artie Mead: And so Tito convenes the first session of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia, abbreviated the A-V-N-O-J. Yep. And so that lays the groundwork, uh, for a united front against fascism. So, uh, this obviously then basically forms the basis of Tito’s, what Tito will be doing over the course of the war.
Artie Mead: And sorry, also, before we go any further, we, just to make it clear, they’re liberating themselves from the Nazis, right?
Igor Radulovic: Yes, yes. So, so Yugoslavia had been fully occupied by the Nazis since when? Since May of 1941.
Artie Mead: Okay.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah. Yeah. Of course, part of the country was under the Italian regime, I would say, until 1943, of course, when they capitulated. But I’m just mentioning this with a reason. So the communist partisans practically fought on their own until 1944. We know that the situation in general in Europe has changed after the D-Day and after, of course, all major campaigns that both the Anglo-American but also, of course, the Soviet troops started in 1943 and 1944, as we mentioned, and that, of course, made the, in a way, the partisan fight in Yugoslavia a bit easier in 1944.
But they liberated themselves. They didn’t really have much. Most of the territory. Yeah. Well, with Belgrade, for example, it’s a bit different because at the time the Soviets were already there. So the Soviets helped in that phase, but I definitely must stress out that kind of the Yugoslav partisans already kind of cleared the path. Definitely for them. And it was much easier to finish that kind of whole episode and that whole part of the war.
Artie Mead: Okay. And so then once suddenly the, once the Nazis are vanquished and have been pushed out of Yugoslavia, you have a victory parade in Belgrade on the 15th of May, 1945. And that’s obviously led by Tito. And that obviously marks the official end of the Second World War in Yugoslavia. And celebrated the triumph of forces and obviously by extension Tito. So Tito is obviously in prime position to take control in Yugoslavia, obviously. So. First thing that happens, obviously, is a general election. So do you want to talk us through a bit of a background about the 1945 general election?
Igor Radulovic: Yeah, I will just make also kind of a short introduction related to the situation in Yugoslavia before the elections. So let’s just bear in mind that Yugoslavia was one of the countries that was literally devastated during the war. So millions of people died, the whole infrastructure was destroyed. And therefore, of course, like, well, let’s say the rest of Europe, they faced huge difficulties in reconstructing the country in general, and it was a chaos, and it was really hard to kind of establish anything.
How the country would look like after 1945, after the war, if we want to answer that question, we can basically use one name, and that’s Tito. He was the one that basically dictated everything and he was the one who made all the important choices. But is he the one who called the election? Among the other things.
Artie Mead: Yeah.
Igor Radulovic: So the first thing is that during the war, there were even some agreements that were made with the Royalists in London with the government that was there to do certain things together. But of course, when the war ended and when the partisans contributed the most to the victory, the teams have changed.
So the first elections were held right after the war. So just a couple of months after the war ended, although everyone was allowed to vote, there were some restrictions, especially those restrictions were applied to those who were compromised during the war, who were compromising the national liberation struggle and the principles of revolution. So let’s say that the supporters of Chetniks were discouraged from voting or in a way they were even disabled.
So the law was there, it was enacted, it was introduced, but there were some limitations, which at the time, taking the situation into account, was, I would say, even normal, right? Because, well, let’s bear in mind that the war ended just a half a year ago. The million point something, 0.3 or 0.2, depending on the, on the data, people died. That partisans kind of did everything practically on their own. So that’s how kind of everything was organised. And it’s interesting that there was another list, like the opposition, which had no formal name. Because it was also hard to make an opposition to the People’s Front, to the people who obviously fought in the war, who contributed the most to the victory.
And it was hard to say, okay, they are the People’s Front and we are what? What is our kind of status? What is our opinion on stuff? So they participated in the elections, but of course, as you can imagine, the People’s Front won most of the, uh, of the votes, if I recall correctly, 90.48 or something like that. So definitely more than 90 percent of the voters, while the opposition had less than 10 percent.
Artie Mead: Okay, so the general election took place on the 11th of November 1945. And I mean, personally, I think I can see why the leftist forces won so much. And it’s because they were there, they were there during the war. They were the ones fighting, whereas, you know, obviously the royalists and people who wanted the previous regime, they were in exile in London, sitting comfortably in London. So I, you know, I totally, to be honest, understand why they’ve got so such a landslide. Is that sort of, um, people who question whether it was free and fair?
Igor Radulovic: Well, yes, but of course those who questioned it didn’t end up well. Most of them, of course, were in prisons or were even removed in a different way. So it was not easy to be in opposition to the People’s Front at the time, definitely.
Artie Mead: Okay. So by this point, Tito is prime minister.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah, let’s say from today’s perspective, he can be regarded as a prime minister, because in AVNOJ, in, uh, 1943 on the second session, he was proclaimed as the leader. So yeah.
Artie Mead: Head of the presidium of something.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah. It’s really complex to explain it.
Artie Mead: Yeah. Communist leaders were always multiple titles and multiple different things. It was always basically just leader.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah.
Artie Mead: So yeah, the CPY obviously emerges victorious in the election.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah.
Artie Mead: And, you know, even though it was, you know, a multi-party election, the political landscape was characterised by the dominance of the People’s Front and the CPY. So, following the election, the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was officially proclaimed on the 29th of November 1945. So, I mean, I’m guessing that’s what they campaigned on, um, saying, if you vote for us, we are going to form this state. And so this marked the beginning of socialist rule under Tito.
Igor Radulovic: So yeah, let’s for now say that he is prime minister and later becomes president of the Presidium of the National Assembly.
Artie Mead: That’s it.
Igor Radulovic: Yes. On the 13th of January 1953. So consolidating his power as the country’s leader. So the political system established was a one-party system dominated by the CPY, which became the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the LCY in 1952. In the years following the election, Tito and the communist leadership initiated a process of socialist transformation. And so that obviously involved nationalisation of industry, land reforms, and the establishment of a planned economy. However, it’s important to remember, as I alluded to earlier, Tito’s brand of communism wasn’t quite the same as the communism implemented in the Eastern Bloc states.
Artie Mead: Absolutely. For example, I don’t think that there was quite as much land reform, for example. Did they have collectivisation of agriculture?
Igor Radulovic: I would kind of like to elaborate on that a bit more because it’s interesting to compare it to definitely, first of all, with the Soviet Union, but also to explain certain things that you, you mentioned right now. So later on, we will reflect on how, with Stalin, how he didn’t align with him, how he even had a, I would say a quarrel with him. But we cannot say that he, that he broke with the principles or the methods of communist rule.
Artie Mead: Yeah. So certainly starting after the war, he had a good relationship with him.
Igor Radulovic: Absolutely.
Artie Mead: Yeah.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah.
Artie Mead: Yeah.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah.
Artie Mead: So there was a huge difference between Yugoslavia as a communist state and the Soviet Union and any other communist state in Europe at the time because Yugoslavia was ruled through a policy that they called, they referred to as self-management.
Artie Mead: What is that?
Igor Radulovic: It meant that decision-making in the country could be taken away from the political centre, from the centralised government, right? And it can be given to the workers’ councils, which in a way is similar to what we had in the Soviet Union after the October Revolution, when we had those original Soviets, right?
Artie Mead: Right.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah.
Artie Mead: The socialist revolutionaries.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah. So basically, yeah, the country was controlled by the Communist Party, of course, but there was still some autonomy. So the workers’ councils were the ones who were making certain decisions in their company, who were kind of, of course, supporting the rise of industry, the development of the economy, and the development of the country as well. And also bear in mind that the country was formed after World War II. Sorry, Yugoslavia, the new Yugoslavia, the Second Yugoslavia, as we call it as well, was actually a federation of six republics.
Artie Mead: Yes.
Igor Radulovic: So, and all those republics, so just to mention them: Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Macedonia, they were equal. So they were regarded as equal. Of course, there were certain differences in terms of size, in terms of population, etc., but all of these republics, they had kind of also an individual role in that self-management process.
Artie Mead: Okay, so it wasn’t hyper-centralised.
Igor Radulovic: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It was definitely more, I would even say, liberal.
Artie Mead: And the capital was Belgrade?
Igor Radulovic: The capital was Belgrade, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Artie Mead: Okay, that’s very interesting to know. So, obviously, yeah, we’re talking about the good points of Tito here because, so obviously the first good point has got to be that Tito was, you know, he led the charge against fascism. And, you know, head of the partisans, you know, head of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious resistance movement and, you know, resisting Axis occupation and playing a crucial role in the liberation of Yugoslavia. So, I mean, I think in many people’s eyes, he’s got to be, you know, a hero, at least just for that.
Igor Radulovic: But then, of course, what we’ve just been alluding to, he was really the unifying force of Yugoslavia. So he played a key role in the establishment of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, unifying various ethnic groups and regions under a federal structure, as we’ve just alluded to after the Second World War. And he wanted to make sure that people focus more on Yugoslavia, not their regional identities.
Artie Mead: Yeah. I think what we could say he is most known for is his very clever non-alignment policy. So, do you want to sort of give us a little bit of background about his non-alignment policy?
Igor Radulovic: Yeah, so I think it’s important to mention first of all that, as we all, I assume, know, after World War II, we basically have two blocs in the world, right?
Artie Mead: So, the Warsaw Pact and NATO.
Igor Radulovic: Or to be even more precise, the communist states.
Artie Mead: Yes.
Igor Radulovic: And of course on the other side, the more liberal states, the capitalist states, yeah, led by the United States, of course. Definitely, Tito had a clever policy after the war, and he didn’t officially align with either of them.
Artie Mead: So, he didn’t align. Obviously, Yugoslavia being a communist state, people probably expected him—well, no more so than the Soviets and Stalin himself—expected him to align with them.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. But it’s important to mention that although Yugoslavia was a communist state, right? He also, like Tito and the country, had a lot of economic support from the West. And he knew that if he fully supported the Eastern Bloc, as you said, he would lose that, first of all, economic support from the United States and from the Western countries in general. And that’s why he officially never supported them.
Artie Mead: And he wanted to make—
Igor Radulovic: That’s why he was so clever.
Artie Mead: Absolutely. He basically used each side for his own advantage.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah.
Artie Mead: By not aligning with either side, which is genius, I think.
Igor Radulovic: As we call it here, he decided to go with the third way.
Artie Mead: But what’s crazy is that, you know, you have so many pictures of him being the sort of statesman, you know, meeting with Churchill, meeting with Queen Elizabeth, meeting all of these American presidents, you know, and also Soviet leaders. So, you know, that shows very much just how much he was, you know, in the middle, this third way as you’re talking about. But obviously his third way leads to tension with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who obviously thinks that, you know, probably from the help that the Soviets gave Yugoslavia, the fact that it’s a communist country, that it belongs in the Eastern Bloc and belongs in Moscow’s—wants it to be in Moscow’s sphere of influence. So this actually leads to no fewer than five attempts on Tito’s life.
Igor Radulovic: At least five.
Artie Mead: At least five.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah. I think there might be more. As always, there are different, yeah, versions. Some are saying even about more than 20 of them, which is crazy.
Artie Mead: Yeah, exactly. So, uh, five official that we know of attempts, um, on Tito’s life ordered by Stalin, all of which fail. And Tito gets so fed up with this that he writes Stalin a letter, and he says, “Stop sending people to kill me. We’ve already captured five of them, one of them 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.”
Igor Radulovic: Yeah. That was history’s greatest mic drop moment.
Artie Mead: Absolutely.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah. And that’s, you know, a lot of people are doubting whether this happened or not, whether this is a real version, but actually it is. He literally has sent that letter to him because he obviously was fed up with all of these attempts. And he literally just said, “Stop it. You cannot kill me, obviously. So let’s not move on with this, and let’s pretend as it didn’t happen because I will react in my own way.” And I’m pretty much sure that maybe he would even try it. So, like, knowing Tito from a historical perspective, knowing all the things that he has done. And just, I will add, for example, you mentioned him meeting the American presidents. I don’t know whether you’re aware of it, but he’s the only person that ever had a cigar in the White House. And there is even a photo of him sitting with the American president. He actually had a Cuban cigar. And just imagine Tito smoking a Cuban cigar in the White House during the Cold War.
Artie Mead: I know, right after the Cuban Crisis.
Igor Radulovic: I mean, it’s crazy. So I would also kind of encourage other people to look for it and just take a look at that photo because it also, as you said, from a micro-historical perspective, it shows a lot.
Artie Mead: Yes, so he was a statesman. He was very good at playing both sides of the Cold War—the West and the Eastern Blocs—off against each other for his own advantage. And obviously he didn’t have to worry about Stalin for that long because in 1953, Stalin dies. And I’m guessing after that he has a slightly better relationship with Khrushchev.
Igor Radulovic: Absolutely, yeah. Even Khrushchev visited Belgrade, and Tito also visited Moscow, I think like a year later afterwards. But it was also symbolic that actually, if I recall correctly, Khrushchev was the first one that actually visited Tito, and then Tito kind of returned the favour, if you can say it like that.
Artie Mead: Wow, okay. So, well, he obviously becomes a fairly respected figure. But domestically in Yugoslavia, so Yugoslavia experiences periods of economic growth, industrialisation, improving standards of living, and the country’s self-management system allowed workers a degree of decision-making, as we were talking about earlier with the workers’ councils. And Tito implemented policies aimed at fostering national unity that we’ve talked about a lot. So, the brotherhood of unity and, you know, sought to create, above any region, a Yugoslav identity, essentially. It’s sort of because of this that during the Cold War, Yugoslavia maintained relative stability. And, you know, I guess that was, you know, a direct consequence of, you know, the non-alignment.
Igor Radulovic: But also referring back to what we were saying earlier about Tito’s more liberal brand of socialism or communism, this involved a couple of things. So we’re going to come on to Tito’s negative points soon because obviously, at the end of the day, he was a dictator, and that, you know, being a dictator comes with a lot of very big downsides, and a lot of people didn’t like him. It’s important to stress that. But he did allow a degree of press freedom. So there was a diversity of media outlets. Yugoslavia had a more diverse media landscape compared to the Eastern Blocs. So there were multiple newspapers, magazines, and broadcast outlets that represented different political and cultural perspectives.
Artie Mead: Also what he allowed was cultural and artistic freedom.
Igor Radulovic: Absolutely.
Artie Mead: Yeah.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah. That’s really important to stress out. And as I said before, although there were some bands kind of promoting this idea of brotherhood and unity, especially the band that I’ve mentioned, we actually need to mention that Yugoslavia was also a country where some Western forms of art kind of influenced the population even at the time when they’d happened. So, let’s say, like, yeah, rock and roll as an idea, right, that started in Britain and spread in the United States—or vice versa, it doesn’t matter—was already there in Yugoslavia in the 1960s. We have the whole punk movement in the 1970s, like post-punk movement in the 1980s. I know that Deep Purple was playing in Yugoslavia in the 1970s, and some bands that definitely were not known, let’s say, in the Soviet Union.
Artie Mead: It’s important to stress it wasn’t a totally free press.
Igor Radulovic: Absolutely not, and it’s impossible, come on, even in the liberal societies at the time you didn’t have it.
Artie Mead: But he also, you know, he had a cautious approach to repression. So, you know, he’s definitely not in the same league as Stalin and Hitler.
Igor Radulovic: Doesn’t always not to be compared.
Artie Mead: Yeah, yeah. It doesn’t obviously excuse the fact that he was a dictator who, you know, did still repress dissent, which we will talk about in just a sec. But also, you were allowed to leave Yugoslavia as well. You know, you weren’t a prisoner within the borders like you were in most Eastern Bloc states. So, you know, that obviously is a major difference to, let’s say, the Marxist-Leninist states. So, you know, these are all reasons why I think Tito is remembered fondly. Because, you know, he did communism in his own way, in a more liberal way, and in a way that, you know, fostered economic growth. You know, a Yugoslav identity, which I think a lot of people really identified with, and indeed today, I think, still sort of identify with.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah, as you said, there are even still regions in ex-Yugoslavia where people are nourishing this idea of brotherhood and unity. And it’s been, what, 40 something years since Tito died, 30 years since the breakup of Yugoslavia, but there are some people who still believe in those ideals and who are still talking about those great times when they were able to earn way more to, of course, express themselves in a certain way, maybe not as liberal as today, but they do appreciate way more what was happening in, let’s say, the 1970s than what’s happening now in the places they are living in.
Artie Mead: And also, because, you know, you didn’t, like in the Eastern Bloc states, you didn’t have to worry about your rent payment month to month, you know, you didn’t have to worry about your utility bills. You didn’t, you know, the food was cheap. I mean, there wasn’t a whole range of food, but the food that was available—maybe that was in Yugoslavia—but in the Eastern Bloc states, there wasn’t a huge range of food.
Igor Radulovic: Exactly. And I mean, you know, at the end of the day, if you had a good experience under a regime, you’re likely to be nostalgic about it. You know, that’s obvious really.
Artie Mead: But it’s also normal, as you said, to stress out the negatives, and we are not here only to say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Artie Mead: So, okay, first of all, at the end of the day, it was an authoritarian rule. So while Tito maintained a sort of facade of collective leadership, you know, he held a dominant and authoritarian position within the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. And, you know, dissent was suppressed and political opposition was not really tolerated. So people who actually wanted Tito to be more, you know, Marxist-Leninist, be more like the Eastern Bloc states—more Stalinist, essentially—so I guess you could say more hardliners, really, wanted Tito to be more hardline, they were suppressed.
Igor Radulovic: Yes, and not only them, which is the saddest thing of them all, is that you had a lot of people who did nothing, who weren’t supporting Stalin, his ideas, or anything, but because they were accused by the members of the Communist Party, they were sent to jail. It was, you know, literally my word against yours. I’m accusing you of being a Stalinist supporter, you’re trying to defend yourself, but you’re not influential enough, and therefore you would be sent to the prison. And unfortunately, most of those prisons were on the islands in the Adriatic Sea, where, as I said, you know, the methods that they were using against those people were extremely cruel. And even some writers, some historians, were referring to them as Mediterranean gulags. And the most infamous one was on the island of Goli Otok.
It’s like a bare island because there is nothing on it, like only rocks and nothing, and a lot of people actually were sent there. And unfortunately, a lot of them and even most of them, when you look at the percentages, were from Montenegro, from the country that I’m coming from. And like around 5,000 of them were sent there. And the conditions of people who were imprisoned there and who had to work as well, were terrible. Just mentioning the fact that they had to extract sand from the sea in extreme cold was one of the common ways of how they were punishing prisoners. Or they would just beat them up without a reason, or they would send them to a hole on the island where they would have to spend days or something like that. So that was both physical and psychological torture because they wanted to make them say that they actually supported Stalin, that they supported the Soviet Union, that they supported those, as you said, hardline ideas. Right? So, yeah, that’s definitely one of the darkest episodes that should be mentioned.
Artie Mead: And unfortunately, well—
Igor Radulovic: And it’s known as the Inform Bureau.
Artie Mead: Inform Bureau, yeah, yeah. Inform Bureau, which went from 1948 to 1955.
Igor Radulovic: Yes.
Artie Mead: And that was caused by the split with the Soviet Union.
Igor Radulovic: With the Soviet Union.
Artie Mead: And obviously then that is what led to Stalin trying to have him assassinated.
Igor Radulovic: Yes. Among the other things, of course, it’s interconnected, obviously.
Artie Mead: Okay, that’s, yeah, definitely very important for people to know. And also, we talked earlier about how he allowed press freedom to an extent, but still, you know, the regime still imposed strict censorship on, you know, limiting freedom of speech and of expression.
Igor Radulovic: Absolutely.
Artie Mead: I can imagine you probably weren’t allowed to deface pictures of Tito and, you know, demonstrate against the regime openly in sort of central squares in Zagreb or in Belgrade.
Igor Radulovic: There is an interesting thing, if I can mention it, sorry for interrupting you. But although, of course, you were not allowed to protest against Tito or something like that, in 1968, when, as we know, in the whole of Europe, there were huge student protests, we also had them in Yugoslavia. So, for example, just to mention, there was a huge student protest by the Albanian students who were living in Pristina, and studying in Pristina actually, sorry, which at the time was the provisional capital of Kosovo. Now it’s, of course, as we know, the capital of Kosovo, and that’s a totally different story that could be, of course, mentioned later on.
But actually these students who were protesting were actually rewarded by the establishment of a university in that city. And also with them being allowed to have the instructions in their own Albanian language. They could even, I don’t know, display their flag, etc., etc. So, unfortunately, some, of course, historians and some research in general see this as a downfall, as a decline of Tito’s authority in a way. But he actually wanted, as we said, kind of also to decentralise certain things a bit and to, of course, give more freedom and give more rights, even to the minorities in the state.
Artie Mead: Right. And so, well, I mean, that actually almost sounds like a good thing, really.
Igor Radulovic: Absolutely. So from the bad, still there’s a little bit of good. But sticking with some negative things, obviously he wanted to suppress ethnic tensions, but obviously they did still persist and obviously erupted after his death, which we’ll talk about in just a sec. So, you know, they did still persist, but they just weren’t very visible. And also, despite periods of economic growth, Yugoslavia also faced economic challenges, including growing foreign debt.
Artie Mead: And what’s quite funny is that Tito enjoyed wearing luxury suits, and he had very stylish sunglasses. If you look at him in pictures in the sort of 60s and 70s, he’s wearing very well-tailored suits and very stylish sunglasses. So that’s, um, you know, something that probably wasn’t very appropriate at a time when Yugoslavia was starting to decline economically.
Igor Radulovic: But also another interesting thing is that, I don’t know whether you’re aware of it, but he had a summer resort on an island called Brioni. It’s in Istria, in today’s Croatia, close to the city of Pula. So he had practically the whole island for himself, and I visited that island recently, and he even had his own personal zoo.
Artie Mead: I really hope that we have given a balanced view, because obviously there were extreme downsides to the fact that, you know, it was, at the end of the day, a communist dictatorship, you know, and people did still have freedom suppressed. However, I think on balance, really, personally, what I will say I will take away from it is that actually, he was a pretty liberal—he was a communist dictator, but a pretty liberal communist dictator. Certainly compared to Stalin, Brezhnev, Honecker, Ceausescu.
Igor Radulovic: Or anyone like Ceausescu, exactly. Yeah, definitely.
Artie Mead: Now let’s talk about the end of his life. Do you have anything else you want to add before we go to that?
Igor Radulovic: No, I think we have covered a lot of things, so yeah.
Artie Mead: Okay, so towards the end of the 1970s, he’s been in power now for almost 30 years. Because when did he actually come into power?
Igor Radulovic: Well, I mean, officially we can even say 1943, but let’s say 1945, when the war ended and after, like, yeah, the elections and the new constitution.
Artie Mead: Right. So officially, let’s say that he ruled Yugoslavia from 1945 to—
Igor Radulovic: In some capacity, in a certain capacity, he has ruled since 1945.
Artie Mead: Okay, yeah. So after 30 years of ruling Yugoslavia in the mid-1970s, his health starts to decline, and he’d undergone several major surgeries. And in the late 1970s, there were obviously increasing concerns about his ability to lead the country effectively. And if I’m right in thinking, that’s because he started to develop dementia.
Igor Radulovic: He was 80-something already.
Artie Mead: So he was, yeah, exactly. So around that time, obviously the leaders in the various regions of Yugoslavia were like, “Okay, right. We need to start thinking about life after Tito.” But then he suddenly dies on the 4th of May, 1980, at a medical centre in Ljubljana in Slovenia. So that obviously marks the end of an era in Yugoslav politics. Well, really the era of post-war Yugoslavia. So how does the nation react?
Igor Radulovic: So, I think it’s, first of all, important to mention that, as we said, the country was a federation of six republics, but with the constitution of 1974, we had also two kind of autonomous regions inside Serbia. And Tito, of course, was at the head of the state, but he never kind of permitted nor nominated an heir who would succeed him, like an individual who would continue his path, right? When he died, as you said—
Artie Mead: Which was probably a big mistake, really.
Igor Radulovic: I would say so, yeah. It’s interesting that when he died on, as you said, May the 4th in Ljubljana, there was a huge match that was played in Belgrade—the football match, like probably the biggest, one of the biggest matches and biggest derbies—on Marakana, that’s the name of the stadium. And it was played between Red Star from Belgrade and Hajduk from Split, from today’s Croatia. And when they announced that Tito died, literally everyone—it’s like 60,000 or 70,000 people because it’s a huge stadium—everyone started crying, even the players. They started embracing each other and, you know, obviously talking about the importance of Tito, etc. And I recall that on the top of one of the newspapers that I read before, when I was going through some archives, someone said, “We all cried, but we did not know we were also burying Yugoslavia.”
Artie Mead: Okay, interesting. So yeah, Tito’s death triggers, you know, obviously a period of national mourning in Yugoslavia. People are devastated. The country comes to a standstill, and you have a huge state funeral, obviously.
Igor Radulovic: Actually, it is the biggest public funeral in Yugoslavia of the state’s leader that was visited by hundreds and hundreds of politicians from all around the world—statesmen.
Artie Mead: Wow. And, I mean, you know, that shows you his reach and how well he was respected—both from the West and from the East.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah.
Artie Mead: Yeah. And that shows you how well he was respected. But, obviously, behind this sadness, the leaders in Yugoslavia are like, “Fuck, what do we do now?” So there is a very uncertain future. There’s a power vacuum and, yeah, they’re essentially not really sure what to do. And I guess you could say this was really the beginning of the end. The end of Tito was the beginning of the end of Yugoslavia.
Igor Radulovic: Absolutely. It was complete chaos. As we said, we didn’t have an individual that was to succeed him. So what they did, they created this kind of presidency where we had six representatives from all the republics. And, yeah, there was always a kind of head of presidency, but they were kind of taking turns. And, as you can imagine, there is a huge economic crisis in the 1980s. People were unsatisfied. There is also, I would say, a rise of nationalism.
Artie Mead: Right.
Igor Radulovic: A huge one, especially in the late 1980s.
Artie Mead: And also because the 1974 constitution granted a lot more autonomy to the various states. So I think that’s when they really started to enforce that.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah, yeah. Especially the situation with Kosovo and Vojvodina, which had an autonomous status inside the Republic of Serbia. And some historians would say that the Yugoslav crisis began in Kosovo and it will unfortunately end in Kosovo. Although we can actually say that the situation in that region is still pretty unstable, as we are all aware of it. So definitely the 80s and 90s—the last decades, I would say, of the whole century—kind of marked the huge downfall of Yugoslavia.
Artie Mead: So Tito dies in 1980. He’s really the linchpin that has been holding Yugoslavia together. That linchpin is gone. Everything starts falling apart over the 1980s. And, uh, and really by the early 90s, especially with the Croatian and Slovenian declarations of independence, that’s really when Yugoslavia is thought to have ceased to exist. And then of course, obviously you have the horrors over the course of the 90s. We’ll save that for another episode because it’s obviously very interesting and it’s tragic and it’s got a lot to delve into.
But now, finally, I want to turn to Tito’s legacy. As a Southern Slav, who, you know, lived—who is from a country that used to be part of Yugoslavia, of Tito’s Yugoslavia—how personally would you say he is remembered?
Igor Radulovic: Well, a complex question, definitely.
Artie Mead: Yeah, it’s definitely nuanced, like all of these things.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah, well, but this is really like, you know, the way how we are remembering someone, and the way how that specific figure—it doesn’t matter whether it’s Tito or someone else—is portrayed in media, in textbooks, etc., etc. In different, even decades, I would say, it’s a different story as well. I know that a couple of years ago, they tried to kind of evaluate in all the countries of former Yugoslavia—I know that was definitely the case in Montenegro—how important some historical figures are in general, and who, in the opinion of young people, for example, are the most important political figures in history. I know that in most of the republics, Tito was always somewhere at the top of the list. Right. Either number one, number two, or number three.
Artie Mead: Am I right in thinking that young people still look up to him?
Igor Radulovic: Mostly. Right. Unfortunately, it’s a black-and-white approach. So either you believe that—you either hate him or you love him.
Artie Mead: Yes.
Igor Radulovic: Right. And unfortunately, most of the people—not only regarding Tito, but most of these events that we have mentioned, including the wars in the 90s—have that black-and-white perspective. People are not like we were today, saying, “Okay, let’s talk about the good and the bad sides, and let’s try later on to see what the score is.” Like, are the good things beating the bad ones?
Artie Mead: It’s very much, “He was either this or he was either that.” A lot of people, I think, don’t really seem to be able to see the sort of nuance in between. I mean, I think, obviously, to wrap it up, I mean, his positive aspects, you know, unification and stability, resistance to fascism, the non-alignment movement, which I think was really his crowning achievement, really, economic development and, obviously, you know, various liberal, cultural, and social policies. But of course, you know, you still had negative aspects like the authoritarian rule, political repression, the, as you said, Inform Bureau period and purges from 1948 to 1953. You know, you did still have censorship and, you know, lack of political freedoms, economic issues, and the legacy of suppression.
So, you know, people experienced Tito’s rule in different ways. Obviously, there were plenty of people who experienced it in a very negative way. And it’s important to stress that, you know, we’re not trying to say that that is not valid because obviously people did have very negative experiences as well. But at the end of the day, Tito was human, you know, and that’s—you know, he is a human who had flaws. But, you know, I think what I just find fascinating about Tito is that, from what I can tell anyway, he’s really the only instance of a dictator that really, I would say, most people from that part of the world that I meet do talk about, if not actively supporting him, you know, think of him fondly, you know, almost like the sort of the father of the nation.
Igor Radulovic: Yeah, I would agree in a way, because I think that Titoism is a form of religion, or has become a form of religion in some parts of Yugoslavia, and people definitely, you know, are referring to him as a father, in a way, of that whole political doctrine and ideology that we have mentioned today.
Artie Mead: Yes, exactly. Well, anyway, Igor, that was a really, really fascinating discussion. Thank you so, so much for it. It was really enlightening. Tito is really a fascinating person, and I can’t really wait to read up more about him, really, because he really was, in my opinion, one of history’s most fascinating figures.
Igor Radulovic: Thank you so much.
Artie Mead: But yeah, we should probably wrap it up there. So, okay, Igor, well, thank you very much for listening. I hope you found this episode enlightening about Josip Broz Tito. And yes, join us again very soon. And yeah, thank you very much for listening. Goodbye.
Artie Mead (Outro): Hi, guys, just a quick heads-up. This episode was shortened to fit within the time limit. If you’d like to catch the full-length version and even watch the video, head over to the History Buff Patreon page. Your support means the world to me. Until next time, take care and stay tuned for more exclusive content on Patreon. Cheers.