Imagine having the nickname “the man (or woman) who cannot be killed”?
You’d have to be a total legend. Or just incredibly lucky.
In the case of Josip Broz Tito - who was president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1953 to 1980 - both things were probably true.
Josip Broz was born into a large peasant family in what is now known as Croatia. At the time, Croatia was part of the empire of Austria-Hungary. His actual birth date and his real name are unclear. In fact, we don’t know much about his upbringing except that as a child he served as an altar boy in his local Catholic church.
On one day, the young Broz was slapped and shouted at by a priest when he had difficulty assisting the priest to remove his vestments. As a result, Broz became an atheist and stayed one for the rest of his life.
By the time he was a teenager, Broz was...pretty unremarkable actually. He was just another regular lower-class youth, working odd jobs and hustling to make a buck for his family.
While Broz was occupied as a metal worker in 1913, the army came round; recruiting unemployed and under-employed young men for military service. Lugging guns around and shooting “bad guys” in the mountains of Caucasia definitely beat working in a glorified junkyard so Broz signed up expeditiously.
It turned out that the kid had a talent for soldiering. By 1914, Broz had been promoted and was the youngest sergeant major in the Austro-Hungarian army. Sadly for him, this was also, like, the worst possible time to be in the army. The extended family feud that was World War I, and its attendant horrific body count, were just about to get started.
It's really a story for another day but the context of it all was that beef had been brewing between Austria and Serbia for a hot minute. In 1914, the heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was capped while visiting Bosnia. His shooters were believed (a little conveniently) to be Serbs.
Taking vigilante justice to a whole new level, Austria invaded Serbia to punish it for supporting the assassins. Because of vested interests, military alliances, and fragile male egos, most of the Big Powers at the time got involved and gifted us with what Western historians call the Great War.
But back to Broz.
During the war, he was part of the Devils Division of the Austro-Hungarian army. These dudes were obviously not called that because of their cheerful attitudes and pleasant dispositions, or because they enjoyed petting puppies and frolicking in meadows of dandelions in their free time.
Suffice to say these guys were lean, mean, Serbian-slaughtering machines.
Trouble was, Serbia had a bigger, meaner big brother in the form of Russia. Russia didn’t take too kindly to Austria-Hungary’s aggression. But the Austrian’s folly provided an opportunity for the Russians to assert their strength, steal some territory, and generally display that cold-as-steel spirit we’ve come to know and love from them.
Soon after the war was underway, Broz’s unit was transferred to the East to face Russia. Their butts were comprehensively handed to them. Broz was seriously wounded and captured by the Russian Red Army. He and his compatriots were transferred to prison where they had to endure the torture of eating unseasoned broth and wet cabbage with shots of vodka. Oh, and physical beatings and hard labour. But I think we can all agree which aspect of this experience was worse.
During one of the beatdowns, Broz had an epiphany: maybe Communism wasn’t such a bad thing after all. How much of this realisation was from a well-considered thought process rather than the influence of metal rods being forcefully applied to his rear end is unclear.
Whatever, the reason, Broz was now officially a Communist. So committed was he to the cause, that in 1917, he participated in the Russian Revolution which basically helped bring the absolute unit of communist dictatorship, Vladimir Lenin, into power. Once again, that's a story for another day.
World War I ended in 1918, clearing the way for Broz to return to Yugoslavia. Before doing that though, he met and married a local Russian girl named Pelagija "Polka" Belousova. She was 15. He was 27.
By 1920, Broz was back in Croatia with his new wife and their even newer baby. True to the cause, Broz joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (the CPY). The CPY had been growing in popularity, as you’d imagine an organisation that welcomes pissed off farmers and workers who’ve pretty much had their livelihoods decimated by a stupid war that they really had nothing to do with causing, would.
Broz must have jinxed it though, because almost as soon as he joined, the party was banned.
However, much like trying to keep the grubby fingers of government officials in a southern-African country out of state coffers, getting rid of the CPY outright proved to be an impossible task. They just wouldn’t go away. Which is the nature of communists, I guess.
In 1924, Broz, now a member of the district committee of the CPY, gave a speech at a communist comrade's Catholic funeral. He must have said some things that were a bit too Communist-y because the officiating priest snitched and Broz was promptly arrested. Broz was paraded through the streets in chains and was detained for 8 days before being charged with the crime of creating a public disturbance.
Luckily, the CPY knew a guy. Specifically, a state prosecutor who hated Catholics. With his help, Broz was let go. Even still, this brush with the law put a target the size of Rihanna’s forehead on his back. Broz was now labelled by the state as a “communist agitator”. In search of the proverbial “button stick”, cops would raid and search the Broz home almost every week.
State persecution didn’t deter our Broz. Or indeed the CPY in general. In 1928, Broz was arrested for his illegal communist activities, which included allegations that he was keeping bombs - yes, actual bombs - in his house.
Funny enough, there WERE actually bombs at his house.
These, Broz claimed, had been planted there by the police or other nefarious state agents. Regardless of the truth - whatever it happened to be - Broz was convicted and sentenced to 5 years in prison.
After the sentencing, Broz's wife, realizing that Yugoslavia had nothing for them, got her and her son on the first train back to the Soviet Union. Once back home, she would meet, fall in love with and marry another man. Her son Žarko probably reminded her too much of her incarcerated ex-husband so she ditched him, leaving him to the care of the Russian foster care system, which was absolutely as awful as it sounds.
Fast forward to 1934 when Broz was finally released from prison.
The world had changed considerably in half a decade. For one thing, there was a lunatic in power in Germany: Adolf Hitler. For another thing, there was still a lunatic in power in Russia: Josef Stalin.
Added to this was the fact that Broz was sort of placed on parole after coming out of prison. This basically meant that he wasn't allowed to leave his town of Kumrovec and was required to report to the police daily. But with a wife who'd unceremoniously disappeared, a child being passed through Russian homes like a shisha pipe in a seedy downtown party establishment and a CPY that needed his steely leadership across the country, our mans really had no time for such rules.
Inevitably, Broz found himself on the run from the police. To evade capture, he used various pseudonyms, including "Rudi", “Walter” and "Tito". The last one stuck evidently. And while there’s no good reason to name anyone Tito, unless you’re the physically and emotionally abusive patriarch of a musically inclined family, it turns out this was a common nickname for men from the district where he grew up. Using the name was a pretty good way of blending in.
Eventually, the block just became too hot, forcing Tito to hightail it to Moscow in August 1936. And you know that the proverbial fecal matter must have hit the air conditioning unit if he was taking refuge in RUSSIA!
In a testament to his luck and sense of timing, Broz (now “Tito”) arrived in Russia just as Stalin’s Great Purge was getting underway. Stalin had lost his marbles (not that he had many to start with but that's beside the point) and was killing the heck out of anyone within the broader communist party who didn’t agree with his version of it. Both Tito’s ex-wife Polka and his current wife (oh yeah, somehow in between ducking and diving from the Yugoslav cops, he’d found love) were arrested on the grounds of being "imperialist spies".
In June 1937, Milan Gorkić who was the head of the CPY, was summoned to Moscow. He was arrested, interrogated by Stalin's goons, and eventually filled with enough bullet lead to service a medium-sized pencil factory. Gorkic's death paved the way for our boy Tito to take up the post as the head of the CPY. A job that was, quite literally, to die for.
Tito didn't die though. We're not really sure why he survived Stalin's purges. It may have been because he was, at heart, a regular working-class dude whose interest in pontificating on communist theory was something close to the interest Will and Jada Smith have in traditional monogamous marriages. Tito was also a really charismatic guy who made influential friends quite easily. And he just had a lot of plain dumb luck.
Besides all that, there were bigger fish to fry for Stalin. In September 1939, Hitler threw up the peace sign to human decency and effectively started the Second World War. Hitler’s activities kind of put a pause button on the purges. Temporarily at least.
In 1941, German forces teamed up with nationalist Serbs and invaded Yugoslavia. Now the Nazis, by themselves, were hella mean. But the Nazis collaborating with guys who already had a bone to pick with the Yugoslav government made for a potent cocktail of cruel sadism that even Hannibal Lecter would frown at.
These dudes would take groups of prisoners, their hands tied with wire, to the edge of mine shafts or pits, and then shoot them in the head. Or if they wanted to save bullets, hit each over the head with hammers or blunt pickaxes. In some cases, prisoners were tossed into a mine shaft followed by hand grenades for a more laid back execution. Others were simply thrown in alive, and then the pits or mine shafts would be sealed by concrete or wooden barriers leaving them to slowly and painfully suffocate.
These cats even had death camps specifically for kids; like a really twisted version of Disneyland where you never make it out.
Attacked from all sides by forces who had no issues committing atrocious war crimes, the armed forces of Yugoslavia quickly crumbled. The Yugoslav government eventually made way for German forces to occupy and settle in Yugoslav territory. Really, what other choice did they have?
By this time, Tito was back in Yugoslavia. It would be a reasonable assumption to make that his antics from before were now forgiven. Or at the very least, his past indiscretions weren’t all that important anymore. And honestly, any government that persecutes its own citizens during a global crisis is obviously not very serious about governing (wink wink).
Anyway, Tito wasn’t a fan of the government’s surrender plan. And he wasn’t a quitter either. He published a pamphlet calling on the people to unite against German occupation. United by communism and a mutual hatred of the Nazis, people from all walks of life heeded the call and joined Tito’s rag-a-tag army called the Partisans.
They actually succeeded in vanquishing the Germans and freeing Yugoslavia.
In 1945, the provisional government of the new Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was assembled in Belgrade by Josip Broz Tito, with him as its provisional Prime Minister. Tito enjoyed massive popular support because the people viewed him as the guy who had liberated the country. Of course, there was a whole movement with him that had done that, but that's neither here nor there.
Under Tito, Yugoslavia developed rapidly. Sure, there was a 1 party system, and Tito, still a hardened atheist, suppressed religious freedom and stifled free media and tortured or killed anyone who uttered even a negative word about him but if you were okay with this, you'd love the guy.
Early on, Tito was extremely loyal to Moscow - the power center of Communism. He used many of the same tactics in leading Yugoslavia as Stalin did in Russia. Indeed, for a brief while, he was viewed as second only to Stalin in the Eastern Bloc.
Although he was of working-class origins, being the leader of Yugoslavia awakened Tito's taste for the finer things in life. As unfettered power does. He had multiple palaces; some for living in and others for taking selfies for the 'gram in front of. Add to this a luxury yacht (is there any other kind?), a private plane (as well as the presidential airplane), and basically his own train, and it's clear Tito was living good.
To check whether his people were also living good, Tito would conduct tours across the country in his royal train. He eventually adopted the custom of being the godfather of every 9th child born in a family. Like Casper, Tito would randomly show up whenever a 9th child was born to congratulate the parents and give them a gift of cash, which doesn't exactly encourage responsible family planning, does it?
Speaking of parents and family, Tito was reputed to be a wild playboy. He carried on numerous affairs and was married several times. His best-known wife - after the two already mentioned before - was Jovanka Broz who he married just before his 60th birthday. She was 27.
Moving on.
In 1948, Tito decided to chart an economic path for Yugoslavia that was different from that prescribed by Moscow. Mainly because he didn't see the traditional Marxist way as being the best path to a strong independent economy.
Stalin was furious.
In an early version of the "twars" we know and love today, letters were sent back and forth between Stalin and Tito. Sick of Tito's recalcitrance, Stalin booted Yugoslavia out of the Communist Information Bureau - the central organisation of the communist movement. Or the League of Extraordinary Buttholes, as it was otherwise known.
After Yugoslavia’s expulsion, other socialist states in Eastern Europe were purged of alleged "Titoists" - people who thought that maybe Tito sort of, kind of, maybe had a point.
Like Michael Jordan, Stalin took the whole matter personally. He even went to the great and insane lengths of arranging several assassination attempts on Tito. All of them failed but prompted this stone-cold gangster response from Tito in an open letter:
“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 a second.”
Goosebumps.
Below the surface, however, Tito became increasingly paranoid which is understandable when a psychotic dictator desperately wants to hang your bludgeoned head as a hunting trophy on his living room wall.
So this meant that there was increased repression against any of Tito’s real or alleged opponents. This was a non-discriminating free for all and included members of his inner circle and really anyone who thought that maybe Stalin sort of, kind of, maybe had a point.
Tens of thousands of political opponents were chucked into forced labour camps, such as Goli Otok. This joint was basically like Alcatraz or Robben Island - a barren, isolated island that moonlighted as a hell-hole for anyone unfortunate enough to be locked up there. Newcomers to the island would be greeted to loud jeers and by having rocks hurled at them by fellow prisoners.
Those who weren’t occupied with stoning other inmates would often be taken to mass killing fields. The activities in these places are fairly self-explanatory. Dead bodies were disposed of in caves, natural abysses, mines, tank ditches, or any hole big enough to cover up quickly and walk away from.
Stalin died in 1953. This was good news for a lot of people, including the citizens of Yugoslavia, as it enabled Tito to calm down just a little.
Tito became so chill that he allowed Yugoslav workers to go to western Europe, especially West Germany as guest workers. Sure, this was also for spying purposes but allowing citizens of a communist state to live and work in “the West” was virtually unheard of. In 1967, Yugoslavia was the first communist country to allow all foreign visitors to visit and even got rid of visa requirements.
And then the Cold War got underway.
The Cold War wasn’t a war in the traditional sense. It was more of a standoff between the USA and the Soviet Union - a West coast vs East coast kinda thing. While the two countries never got into direct armed conflict with each other, the battle was fought through frustrating the other’s interests in different parts of the world. This involved stuff like funding liberation movements in countries where the other wielded influence, providing firearms or tactical support to the opposing side in conflicts involving allies and just generally being that annoying thorn in the flesh of the other.
Tito didn't want any of that smoke. Yeah sure, on one hand, he should have sided with his Communist buddies but given the way he'd been treated during Stalin's reign, screw that. On the other hand, siding with the Western bloc would potentially alienate Yugoslavia from the communist states that she was surrounded by.
Serendipity (check your dictionary) conspired to give Tito and the leaders of Ghana, India, Indonesia, and others the idea to form a grouping of nations known as the Non-Aligned Movement. This would effectively be a way for countries who wanted to stay outside of the East-West divide to cooperate with each other. Eventually, over 100 countries were part of the NAM.
Off the back of this, Tito and indeed Yugoslavia became a well-respected part of the global community. Tito won friends because of his solid leadership and ability to unite a Yugoslavia that contained various ethnicities, who otherwise would have fought for independence and fractured the state.
Of course, it also helped that he pretty much made and doctored the laws at will. On 16 May 1974, a new Constitution was passed, naming the 82-year old Tito as President For Life. Incidentally, the new Constitution also paved the way for the republics to have more power. This partially explains why Yugoslavia is no longer a country today. Most of those regions broke off to become independent countries like Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia among others.
After the constitutional changes, Tito began reducing his role in the day-to-day running of the state and made far fewer public appearances. I guess you can do that when you know that you can't be voted out of office.
In January 1980, Tito was admitted to hospital with blood circulation problems in his legs. The doctors concluded that they’d need to amputate his left leg. But Tito was stubborn and refused the procedure. The man said he’d sooner kill himself than go through life with one leg.
After chatting with his sons, he finally agreed, and his leg was amputated. Sadly, it was too little too late. Tito died from a gangrene infection on 4 May 1980, three days before his 88th birthday.
His funeral 4 days later was, at the time, the largest state funeral in history. Among the guests were statesmen and stateswomen from both the non-aligned and the “aligned” camps. All told, 128 countries out of the 154 UN members at the time were represented in some capacity - a toast to his legacy of bringing people together.
Within Yugoslavia, rumours began to spread that the Tito they had known was actually a stunt double put in place by the Russians or Americans. The real Tito had apparently either died in World War 1, been killed by the Russians or made off to Cuba where he was to await the arrival of John F Kennedy, Tupac Shakur, and Osama Bin Laden decades later.
While we don’t know if any of that is true, what is clear is that among people who were citizens of the former Yugoslavia, Tito’s heritage is a bit complex. Yugoslavia, for a time, enjoyed decent living standards and the respect of the “international community”. But what does this mean in the face of violent acts of repression and the silencing of a litany of voices who were unhappy with the way things were?
I guess the moral of the story is that while unity is nice on the surface, real unity acknowledges differences and accepts and gives voice to those differences. Also, Stalin was a total maniac. But more on that another time.
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