Tito and Yougoslavian Partisans

Upon our members request I have posted relevant Tito postings here and opened a special thread for this topic.

 

All of my family has respect for Tito. Most of the people from ex Yugoslavia respect Tito even today because he liberated the country from Nazis and stood up to Stalin and to the west. Yugoslavia was a strong country because he was a great leader and a great statesman. He was decorated by all European countries that existed then except Monaco and Vatican. By most of the African, Asian and South American countries. He was awarded a total number of 119 orders and medals from which 21 were Yugoslavian. How can you not respect that man? I'll tell you how. The only people in ex Yugoslavia who hate him are pro-nazis or nationalists who destroyed the country after his death.

His funeral was the biggest state funeral in the history based on the number of attending state delegations and politicians. Check this link for more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_and_state_funeral_of_Josip_Broz_Tito

 

Must say I have a very different opinion of Yugoslav partisans, but then one branch of my family had lived in Dalmatia for generations before WW2, most ended up running away with just the clothes in their back and some were not that lucky. But I do have respect for Tito as a very capable leader, just as I have for Franco though I don't share either's idea of what a state should be, putting a nation back together after a civil war is one of the hardest challenges a leader can face.
The "fascists" played the "divide and conquer" card to the full in Yougoslavia, as far as I know it had little to do with ideology and a lot with ethnicity and religion, subjects that are almost guaranteed to bring out the worst of people, especially in the Balkans.

 

I'm curious why do you have a different opinion of Yugoslav partisans?
Franco was a capable leader but he was a fascist so I can't have a good opinion about him. Tito was a man who knew how to keep all of us together. When he died nationalists and pro-nazis destroyed the country.

 

For me Tito's partisans and "ethnic cleansers" are undistinguishable, and I have an obvious reason to dislike the cleansers. The best I can say is the war in Yugoslavia was brutal, as resistance guerrilla wars tend to be, and nobody comes out clean of that sort of conflict.

I tend to judge leaders more by personal morals and overall results than by labels like "communist" or "fascist".

Franco was a successful rebellious military commander that then managed to resist pressure by Hitler to join the axis, not vey differently from Tito resisting Stalin post WW2, and led his country along a path that peacefully transitioned to a liberal democracy upon his death, no easy feat.

Tito was a successful guerrilla leader (that is a lot more acceptable to me than a traitorous general), he successfully limited Soviet influence post war but failed to create the ground for a stable country and it fell apart upon his death.

Both are important figures in European XX century history but neither is all black or all white, they are partly responsible for atrocities committed by troops nominally under their command, though limiting excesses from "irregular" troops is something very few leaders managed in all human history.

 

Partisans did kill German Nazi, Ustasha and Chetnik soldiers for revenge of the crimes which they did during the war. That is the bad side of the partisan movement but none of the sides are "clean" in any war.
The people from ex Yugoslavia who hate partisans and Tito are descendants from Ustashas and Chetniks and they tend to rehabilitate them as anti-fascists and winners of the WWII which they clearly weren't. They tend to stitch their crimes to partisans because they won't peace with what their ancestors were.

Tito did not fail to create the ground for a stable country. The only reason that the country fell apart after his death was the rise of nationalism and reviving of Ustashas and Chetniks which Tito held under control. Most of the Yugoslav wars were stupid and needless. We could separate peacefully like Czechoslovakia but the nationalism and reviving of nazism costed us more attrocities and pain.

 

First, I have saluted a post of YugoslavPartisan with great pleasure. Finally the right words at the right place. Salute!

I don't know how else one could fight for freedom against murderous aggressors except by fighting untill the last enemy falls or you fall in a combat. That's how it should be and that's exactly how that was - then. The only side here who fought a just war, a war against the Axis were Tito's partisans. They fought for the right cause. The most of partisans had a »safer« choice – to collaborate and yet they opted to fight hard or die hard. They were the side who suffered the most but ended the war as victors and that's what counts in the end.

Elsewhere at this forum I have said a story how my father decided to escape into forests to fight against the aggressors and also I told a story how he was involved in capturing a war criminal, a member of SS Handzar Division in Bosnia. They caught him at his home during his leave in his own bed. My father had duty to bring that criminal to justice and partisan tribunal declared the SS scum guilty very swiftly and execution followed the very same day. Well deserved. Partisan justice was swift and bitter, but still justice.

There is no reason for excuses or explanations – partisans just did their honorable duty to defend the country. Moaning that they were harsh is ridiculous - once you start a conflict you cannot expect your opponent to behave like sheep or to treat you too gently. Period.

 

Tito was also a Communist. I'd give the nod to Franco's Fascism over Communism. Spain transitioned into a relatively stable state after Franco died the same can't be said of Tito's Yugoslavia. Both played major powers off against each other and managed not to get crushed in the mix.

 

I totally agree with all what you said.

It is unbelieveable that there was a memorial mass for Ante Pavelić in the middle of Zagreb a few days ago. A memorial mass for a war criminal responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousand men, women and children. Not to mention that Alojzije Stepinac, a bishop of Croatia during the WWII was blessed by the Catholic church. He was blessed just because he was imprisoned by the communist regime of Yugoslavia for treason. He "protested" against Ustasha regime but he did nothing about it.

Can you please post a link to a topic about your father? I'd really like to read more about his war path.

 

Of course he was a communist. Because of him Yugoslavia was a stable and respected country. Everyone had a job, free schooling, free health insurance, low interest rate loans, payed vacations, public property and most important we were all equal and there was no hate amongst us.

Today young generations as myself can't find a job, schooling isn't free, health insurance isn't cheap, loans are like slavery, we have private property and your bosses can torment you, we hate our neighbors, other nations and religions. The only thing which is good are paid vacations (if you have a job). The average month salary is 3500 kunas which is approximately 500$. It is not enough to pay up loans and basic needs like food and water. More than a 150 000 young educated people left the country last year. Capitalism destroyed our country because our capitalist government sold factories and many people lost their jobs. They even sold our national oil company to Hungary.

Maybe you will disagree with me and I will sound like a Communist but it was A LOT better during the Tito's commuist regime than in this capitalism slavery. You may hate communism but neither did you nor your family live in a communist regime so you've probably heard only the bad sides of it which your capitalist government has been telling you for 70 years. Let me emphasize that I'm talking about Tito's communism which was way more liberal than the Soviet one's.

 

@YugoslavPartisan - You rock mate!

That's absolutely correct and that's what is happening here in Slovenia and in all "new" democracies formed after the fall of the Goebbels' invention - Iron Curtain. Global Masters want weak, obedient, dependent, corrupt countries to rule the world. That is why they have exported Democratic Revolutions. That's just another Riscmen's Trick. Colonies are too expensive and too difficult to rule - new middle and east European "Democrats" are just affordable executors of the New World Order. They don't give a stuff for well-being and prosperity of new "Democracies" - they care just to extract profits from newly acquired possessions.

 

I would like your post 10 times if I could.

 

Tito was a communist. However it's easy to sit in say the US in this period of time and denounce that.

People looking in the rear view mirror often make mistakes in Re to ideology.

Many of the communists in the USSR were simply thieves and wolves who used that to exploit to gain money and power. Others joined simply to improve their lot in life. One of my best friends was a former party member. His family got him to join. He did believe a lot of it, but he used it to better himself (he's one of the honest ones). Andri would fit quite well into any US corporation. I"m also very good friends with a number of former Colonel's in the Red Army. One of them was the lead engineer to change Tan Son Nhut to Soviet standards.

Most communists in the USSR were like gangsters. Today's Russia is no accident. The system produced mass paranoia, even in leadership. Reagan did not understand this at all. They became paranoid of Reagan which created some dangerous moments.

When the Soviet collapse happened, most of the new oligarch's and in Ukraine Govt leaders were communists. Even Yushenko had some pretty "good" communist experience. Many of the more rich were communist collective managers who basically stole collective assets when chaos ensued. This is why change has been so difficult.

Was Ho Chi Minh a communist or more like Franco, a nationalist though using an ideology? Franco was from privilege. Ho Chi Minh not so much. Did Tito really make all ethnic areas 'happy" or did his policies lead to later atrocities (not to diminish such under Tito.

In his personal life Tito was a scoundrel. Bill Clinton on steroids. Was Bill a great leader? I'll let you all decide that for yourself.

 

@Ilhawk

Great post, an expert opinion. But I would like to focus to precisely one point in the past: the moment when aggressors came. At that time there were just few "Communists" here and nobody knew nothing about Marxism and other ideological stuff that developed later, after the war. People were caught by sudden shock where decisions had to be made instantly. I don't think a single partisan has ever fought an ideological struggle - they have been forced into the struggle for bare survival. And now, with hindsight, they are stigmatized as "Communists", whatever that ideological term means.

People were faced with questions of existence, not the ideology as TOS and LWD suggest. The matter they bring up belongs to the "Stump" not here, where we talk about brave, honorable people who fought against aggressors, against perpetrators of the largest genocide in the entire world history.

Let me conclude this with partisan salute:
Smrt fašizmu - Sloboda narodu (literal translation is: Death to Fascism - Freedom to people!)

Eternal Glory to the partisans who fell for freedom.

 

I agree with IIhawk but let's stay on the topic please. We were already off topic so that's why Skipper transfered some of our posts here.

Tamino mentioned Smrt fašizmu - Sloboda narodu (Death to Fascism - Freedom to people).

Here's an interesting story of how it was made.

The slogan became popular after the death of Croatian Partisan Stjepan Filipović. As the rope was put around his neck on 22 May 1942, Filipović defiantly thrust his hands out and denounced the Germans and their Axis allies as murderers, shouting "Death to fascism, freedom to the people!". At this moment, a subsequently-famous photograph was taken from which a statue was cast.
The August 1941 edition of the Croatian daily newspaper Vjesnik, then the primary media publication of the Partisan resistance movement, featured the statement "Smrt fašizmu, sloboda narodu".
Filipović was declared a People's Hero of Yugoslavia on 14 December 1949.

What you see down here is the memorial site dedicated to Filipović in his birth town called Opuzen. Unfortunatelly it was destroyed by Croatians during the Yugoslav Wars because it was "communist". The reconstruction of the memorial is planned by the Croatian ministry of culture.

 

very interesting and enjoyable thread...I agree about the survival aspect....but wasn't it group against group?? ethnicities, reliegions, etc against each other?? 'tribe' against ' tribe'?

 

There are two well known books in English about the Partisan war in Yugoslavia.

Fitzroy Maclean's Eastern Approaches is by the head of Tito's British Liaison Team. He went from Captain to Major General in three years and recommended that the British supported Tito rather than the Chetniks. Maclean was given a villa by a grateful Tito post war, but also ran a hotel in the highlands of Scotland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Approaches

The final book in Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour Trilogy is set in Yugoslavia. He takes a more jaundiced view of Tito's partisans and the betrayal of a train full of Jewish refugees is part of the climax to the book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_Surrender_(novel)

 

No it wasn't.

There were Croatian ustashas which were the Nazi puppets. Ironacally their country was called "Independent State of Croatia". Such an independance that was. They conducted the racial laws modeled by Germany but they were mostly against the Serbs and the Partisans of course. They were Catholics so their plan was to deport 1/3 of Croatian and Bosnian Serbs to Serbia, to Catholicize 1/3 and to exterminate the other 1/3. There were also Muslim Ustashas because Ustashas considered Yugoslav Muslims as Croatians since the Turks Islamized a lot of Catholic population during their rule of our lands. Not to mention that a lot of Serbs were also Islamized. Briefly they were butchers. Even in one of their songs they call themselves like that.

The other Nazi puppet group were Serbian Chetniks which were at some point of the war against the Germans. That's why some of the people in Serbia consider them as anti-fascists. They were against Germans by the end of the war as it was clear that the Allies would win. In the 1943 when the war was turned in the Ally benefit a lot of Chetniks transfered to partisans. Chetniks were war also butchers and many of them did some attrocities against civilians not only in the war but a few years later when they were fighting guerilla war against Tito's new Yugoslavia. They did some attrocities against Croatian people while they were in the Partisans too. That's why a lot of right-wing Croatians tend to rehabilitate Ustashas as anti-fascists and Partisans as traitors. I forgot to mention that there was also an ex Ustasha guerilla group named "Crusaders" which was fighting against Tito's Yugoslavia. They also did some attrocities from 1945-1950 when they were finally destroyed. One of it happend at my grandmas village. They butchered an old Serb man and his 14 year old grandson on the way to their vineyard. They took their eyes out and decapitated them, then threw their heads in the ditch. That shows what beasts they were.

And the last but not least there were Partisans which fought for the liberation of Yugoslavia. They were controlled by the communist party of Yugoslavia, but 90% of partisans weren't in fact communists. They just wanted to liberate their country and the people from the Nazis and traitors.

Here's some interesting fact about the uprising in Croatia.
On the 22nd of June, 1941 in the forest Brezovica near Sisak was established the 1st Sisak Partisan Unit. At the beginning of resistance in Croatia there were only 77 fighters. Imagine the courage or stupidity of those 77 people who stood up against thousands of Germans and thousands of Ustashas which were mobilesed then.

 

A stable country doesn't fall apart because of the death of its leader. Communist countries haven't been noted for their long term stability in any case nor the respect of the international community. Spain was and is more stable than Yugoslavia and at least as well respected. The hate that bloomed after his death is a clear indication that it wasn't lacking before that event just suppressed. Communism often promises much but the cost is in freedom and growth.

My high school government teacher was of the opinion that the best government was a benevolent dictatorship. To at least some extent Tito illustrated this (but then so did Franco). The big problem with it as he noted was succession. Tito's Yugoslavia clearly illustrated this fault as well. Communism/socialism can work quite well indeed some of the best illustrations of that are here in the US. The problem is it doesn't work well in large groups. Some of the Mennonite communities here are essentially Communist holding all property in common and all contributing to the greater good as well as taking care of each other. However when one of these communities gets above a certain size they split you can also freely leave such a community or get kicked out without suffering physical trauma at least.

All that's rather beside the point though. You were saying that you couldn't respect Franco because he was a "fascist" the same logic should hold true about respecting Tito because he was a Communist". After all Communist killed or were responsible for the deaths of a lot more people during the 20th century than fascist.

 

It was actually stable until the big foreign influence occured after Tito died. Russians supported Serbia and the "west" supported Croatia. The West and Russians always fight each other via others. Syria is the most fresh example.
I have to agree with you about the other stuff you wrote and especially about the succession. The best example is Stalin succeeding Lenin.

You have to understand that fascism brought my country nothing but a pain and suffering so that's why I can't respect Franco although I think of him as a capable leader. Communism had some negative sides like all of the systems and regimes but it brought much more good to my country. I guess I'll always look at that in a subjective way because of that.