NationStates Jolt Archive

This isnt homework, im 20 for christs sake but...

I'm just looking into this guys life and trying to find out what the whole deal was with him, however, I've come across two different opinoins they are :-
1) Tito, Communist Leader who lead the former Yugoslavia out of the grip of Stalin into more peaceful times. A great leader
2) Tito, Communist Dicator who tore the country apart. Terrible leader

All I know for deff now is that he orignally split the country into 6 parts (i wont name them) and decentralised the government

anyone know anything about him? Or any decent websites which will help?

This isnt homework, im 20 for christs sake but...

I'm just looking into this guys life and trying to find out what the whole deal was with him, however, I've come across two different opinoins they are :-
1) Tito, Communist Leader who lead the former Yugoslavia out of the grip of Stalin into more peaceful times. A great leader
2) Tito, Communist Dicator who tore the country apart. Terrible leader

All I know for deff now is that he orignally split the country into 6 parts (i wont name them) and decentralised the government

anyone know anything about him? Or any decent websites which will help?
I can go on and on about Tito, if you want me to (not that much about what he did durin WW2, though).

Try this for starters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito (notice that it's disputed, but if you go to talk page you'll what it is that is disputed, and if you go to history, you'll see past edits and compare).

I can go on and on about Tito, if you want me to (not that much about what he did durin WW2, though).

Try this for starters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito (notice that it's disputed, but if you go to talk page you'll what it is that is disputed, and if you go to history, you'll see past edits and compare).

wow they get heated on that website, angry people

wow they get heated on that website, angry people
It's a heavy subject, I guess. Bosnia and Kosovo served to make it worse.

wow they get heated on that website, angry people

I've been to the Balkans several times...trust me, they get heated talking about practically everything!:-)

I've been to the Balkans several times...trust me, they get heated talking about practically everything!:-)
I'll fight you over this statement!

heated. heated! I'll give you fucking heated in a minute

This isnt homework, im 20 for christs sake but...

I'm just looking into this guys life and trying to find out what the whole deal was with him, however, I've come across two different opinoins they are :-
1) Tito, Communist Leader who lead the former Yugoslavia out of the grip of Stalin into more peaceful times. A great leader
2) Tito, Communist Dicator who tore the country apart. Terrible leader

All I know for deff now is that he orignally split the country into 6 parts (i wont name them) and decentralised the government

anyone know anything about him? Or any decent websites which will help?

Hmmmm. My mother-in-law (and her entire family) were deported from Yugoslavia in the early 50s, so you may want to filter what I'm about to say through that...

But I'm not sure the positions you take are phrased appropriately.

Point 1: Yugoslavia and Tito were never really under the grip of Stalin in the first place. Yugoslavia presents arguably the only example of a local WWII communist insurgency ridding the country of Axis occupation more or less by itself. Yes, Tito had personal links to Stalin, but Soviet troops never occupied Yugoslavia (quite unlike the Warsaw Pact nations, which were essentially those nations which the Red Army entered as the Nazis were pushed back) and Tito had broken with Stalin by the end of '48.
[nb: I'm fully aware that Tito had help from allied intelligence officers, and that Soviet troops were allowed to transit Yugoslav territory]

Point 2: Tito certainly didn't tear the country apart - as events later proved, he was arguably the only person holding the country together. He didn't split Yugoslavia so much as he split Serbia. Perhaps because he was a Croat who cynically wanted to counterbalance Serb influence, perhaps he genuinely believed in national minorities rights to self-determination (though I tend towards the former). But Tito's federal entities weren't wholly artificial - some of them look very dodgy in retrospect, but they weren't all figments of a fevered communist imagination. Take three examples:
Bosnia: While the modern 'state' is an ethnic jigsaw puzzle, the borders established by Tito in 1943 match those of the province ruled by the Hapsburg Empire (initially on behalf of the Ottomans, then annexed by Vienna) from 1878 - 1919 (but not necessarily those of the medieval kingdom of Bosnia).
Montenegro: While the population are arguably ethnically Serbs (apologies to Montenegrans who disagree), and thus one might wonder what Titio was thinking of here, Montenegro has a longer continuous history as an independent state than any other component of Yugoslavia, dating back to at least the 16th century (love those Prince-Bishops). In fact, you could argue that Montenegro was the only allied nation to lose its independence after WW I (it was annexed to Serbia in November 1918).
Macedonia: Even this oft-disputed republic isn't a complete figment of Tito's imagination - it's essentially the Ottoman province captured by Serbia in the Balkan war of 1912 (also claimed at the time by the Bulgarians, who apparently only placed their capital in Sofia on the basis that it would be central once Bulgaria had taken control of the territory in question). The name of the modern state, however, does seem to have been a calculated attempt to give the Greeks the metaphorical finger.

The real problem with Tito is that his historical legacy is so complicated. Everything I've written above can be disputed - and probably will be. Many admire him for keeping a diplomatic and economic balance between Soviet communism and western capitalism, as well as for his role as a founder of the non-aligned movement. Others consider him a communist dictator who laid the foundations for the disintegration of his nation by reifying ethnic divisions. For every person who considers him a hero who liberated his country from the Nazis - and kept it out of the clutches of Moscow - you'll probably find someone who considers him a traitor to the Royalist cause who destroyed the true foundations of Yugoslavia.

So I'll certainly agree that he's fascinating, but I wouldn't expect to get a consensus opinion on him either, whether on NS or anywhere else.

A friend of mine in my Discovering Democracy class (yes its an elective, sort of like a precursor to yr. 11 Politics I spose) is a direct descendant of Tito, grandson or great grandson or something.

Believe me, the irony was lost on none of us.