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215-592: 1942 1943 1944 1945 The Partisan Long March was the redeployment of Josip Broz Tito 's Partisan Supreme Headquarters and the major fighting elements of the Yugoslav Partisans across the Independent State of Croatia ( Serbo-Croatian : Nezavisna Država Hrvatska , NDH), from south-eastern to north-western Bosnia that commenced in late June 1942. The march followed the first large-scale joint German - Italian counter-insurgency operation in

430-517: A Greater Croatia that would include territories inhabited by Bosniaks , Serbs , and Slovenes , considering Bosniaks and Serbs to be Croats who had been converted to Islam and Orthodox Christianity , and considered the Slovenes "mountain Croats". Starčević argued that the large Serb presence in territories claimed by a Greater Croatia was the result of recent settlement, encouraged by Habsburg rulers, and

645-681: A communist state , which was eventually renamed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . Despite being one of the founders of the Cominform , he became the first Cominform member and the only leader in Joseph Stalin 's lifetime to defy Soviet hegemony in the Eastern Bloc , leading to Yugoslavia's expulsion from the organisation in 1948 in what was known as the Tito–Stalin split . In

860-514: A terrorist organization before World War II. After the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, the Ustaše came to power when they were appointed to rule a part of Axis -occupied Yugoslavia as the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a quasi - protectorate puppet state established by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany . The Ustaše Militia ( Croatian : Ustaška vojnica ) became its military wing in

1075-479: A 3,200-kilometre (2,000 mi) journey. At one point, police searched the train looking for an escaped POW, but were deceived by Broz's fluent Russian. In Omsk, local Bolsheviks stopped the train and told Broz that Vladimir Lenin had seized control of Petrograd. They recruited him into an International Red Guard that guarded the Trans-Siberian Railway during the winter of 1917 and 1918. In May 1918,

1290-517: A Bulgarian revolutionary, Vlado Chernozemski , was killed by French police. Three Ustaše members who had been waiting at different locations for the king— Mijo Kralj , Zvonimir Pospišil and Milan Rajić—were captured and sentenced to life imprisonment by a French court. Following the German invasion of France , the men were released from prison. Ante Pavelić, along with Eugen Kvaternik and Ivan Perčević, were subsequently sentenced to death in absentia by

1505-484: A French court, as the real organizers of the deed. The Ustaše believed that the assassination of King Alexander had effectively "broken the backbone of Yugoslavia" and that it was their "most important achievement." Soon after the assassination, all organizations related to the Ustaše as well as the Hrvatski Domobran , which continued as a civil organization, were banned throughout Europe. Under pressure from France,

1720-483: A Russian attack near Bukovina . In his account of his capture, Broz wrote: "suddenly the right flank yielded and through the gap poured cavalry of the Circassians, from Asiatic Russia. Before we knew it they were thundering through our positions, leaping from their horses and throwing themselves into our trenches with lances lowered. One of them rammed his two-yard, iron-tipped, double-pronged lance into my back just below

1935-693: A Slovene mother in Kumrovec in what was then Austria-Hungary . Drafted into military service, he distinguished himself, becoming the youngest sergeant major in the Austro-Hungarian Army of that time. After being seriously wounded and captured by the Russians during World War I , he was sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains . Tito participated in some events of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and

2150-682: A battle against the occupation. On 27 June 1941, the Central Committee appointed Tito commander-in-chief of all national liberation military forces. On 1 July 1941, the Comintern sent precise instructions calling for immediate action. Tito stayed in Belgrade until 16 September 1941, when he, together with all members of the CPY, left Belgrade to travel to rebel-controlled territory. To leave Belgrade Tito used documents given to him by Dragoljub Milutinović, who

2365-462: 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. One significant consequence of the tension arising between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union was Tito's decision to begin large-scale repression against enemies of the government. This repression was not limited to known and alleged Stalinists but also included members of

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2580-572: A deal. On 12 September 1944, King Peter II called on all Yugoslavs to come together under Tito's leadership and stated that those who did not were "traitors", by which time Tito was recognised by all Allied authorities (including the government-in-exile) as the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia , in addition to the commander-in-chief of the Yugoslav forces. On 28 September 1944, the Telegraph Agency of

2795-610: A disorderly surrender. On 14 May he dispatched a telegram to the supreme headquarters of the Slovene Partisan Army prohibiting the execution of prisoners of war and commanding the transfer of the possible suspects to a military court. On 7 March 1945, the provisional government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (DFY) was assembled in Belgrade by Josip Broz Tito, while the provisional name allowed for either

3010-690: A fondness for luxury, taking over the royal palaces that had belonged to the House of Karađorđević together with the former palaces used by the House of Habsburg in Yugoslavia. His tours across Yugoslavia in his luxury Blue Train closely resembled the royal tours of the Karađorđević kings and Habsburg emperors and in Serbia. He also adopted the traditional royal custom of being a godfather to every 9th son, although he modified it to include daughters as well after criticism

3225-666: A forged Czech passport, where he joined Gorkić and the rest of the Politburo of the CPY. It was decided that the Austrian government was too hostile to communism, so the Politburo travelled to Brno in Czechoslovakia , and Tito accompanied them. On Christmas Day 1934, a secret meeting of the Central Committee of the CPY was held in Ljubljana, and Tito was elected as a member of the Politburo for

3440-622: A gendarme outpost at Brušani in the Lika / Velebit area, in an apparent attempt to intimidate the Yugoslav authorities. The incident has sometimes been termed the " Velebit uprising ". The Ustaše's most infamous terrorist act was carried out on 9 October 1934, when working with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), they assassinated King Alexander I of Yugoslavia in Marseille, France. The perpetrator,

3655-430: A half years at Lepoglava, Broz was accused of attempting to escape and was transferred to Maribor prison, where he was held in solitary confinement for several months. After completing the full term of his sentence, he was released, only to be arrested outside the prison gates and taken to Ogulin to serve the four-month sentence he had avoided in 1927. He was finally released from prison on 16 March 1934, but even then, he

3870-515: A large following in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was praised by the Ustaše as the religion that "keeps true the blood of Croats." The Ustaše viewed the Bosniaks as " Muslim Croats ", and as a result, they were not persecuted on the basis of race. That being said, Muslims were not free from persecution and atrocities by the Ustaše, even if not on the basis of religion or ethnicity. The majority of Muslims preferred

4085-775: A little of Trotsky, and "as for Stalin, during the time I stayed in Russia, I never once heard his name". Tito joined the Communist Party in 1920 in Omsk. In the autumn of 1920, he and his pregnant wife returned to his homeland, by train to Narva , by ship to Stettin , then by train to Vienna, where they arrived on 20 September. In early October, Broz returned to Kumrovec in what was then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to find that his mother had died and his father had moved to Jastrebarsko , near Zagreb. Sources differ over whether Broz joined

4300-485: A loss of the support they had gained by creating a Croatian national state. With the German surrender , end of World War II in Europe , and the establishment of socialist Yugoslavia in 1945, the Ustaše movement and their state totally collapsed. Many members of the Ustaše militia and Croatian Home Guard who subsequently fled the country were taken as prisoners of war and subjected to forced marches and executions during

4515-531: A melee outside the venue, police arrested him. They failed to identify him, charging him under his false name for a breach of the peace. He was imprisoned for 14 days and then released, returning to his previous activities. The police eventually tracked him down with the help of a police informer. He was ill-treated and held for three months before being tried in court in November 1928 for his illegal communist activities, which included allegations that police had planted

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4730-463: A mill mechanic. After the arrest of the CPY leadership in January 1922, Stevo Sabić took over control of its operations. Sabić contacted Broz, who agreed to work illegally for the party, distributing leaflets and agitating among factory workers. In the contest of ideas between those that wanted to pursue moderate policies and those that advocated violent revolution, Broz sided with the latter. In 1924, Broz

4945-650: A more favorable situation. After managing to break up the Ustasha forces around the Treskavica mountain, on 3 July 1942, partisan brigades carried out a surprise attack on the Sarajevo- Konjic railway between Hadžići and Konjic. During the night, the brigades defeated the enemy crews at the stations, destroyed important station facilities, destroyed the railway in several places, as well as all important bridges. Dozens of wagons and several locomotives were destroyed. After

5160-460: A much lower educational level were viewed as violent, ignorant and fanatical by the "home" Ustaše while the "home" Ustaše were dismissed as "soft" by the "emigres" who saw themselves as a "warrior-elite". After March 1937, when Italy and Yugoslavia signed a pact of friendship, Ustaše and their activities had been banned, which attracted the attention of young Croats, especially university students, who would become sympathizers or members. In 1936,

5375-457: A name it kept until World War II. In English, Ustasha, Ustashe, Ustashas and Ustashi are used for the movement or its members. One of the major ideological influences on the Croatian nationalism of the Ustaše was 19th century Croatian activist Ante Starčević , an advocate of Croatian unity and independence, who was both anti- Habsburg and anti-Serbian in outlook. He envisioned the creation of

5590-506: A professional revolutionary. The CPY concentrated its revolutionary efforts on factory workers in the more industrialised areas of Croatia and Slovenia, encouraging strikes and similar action. In 1925, the now unemployed Broz moved to Kraljevica on the Adriatic coast, where he started working at a shipyard to further the aims of the CPY. During his time in Kraljevica, he acquired a love of

5805-456: A protest against the neutrality policy of the Stojadinović government. It was eventually broken up by the police. In March 1938, Tito returned to Yugoslavia from Paris. Hearing a rumour that his opponents within the CPY had tipped off the police, he travelled to Belgrade rather than Zagreb and used a different passport. While in Belgrade, he stayed with a young intellectual, Vladimir Dedijer , who

6020-414: A republic or monarchy. This government was headed by Tito as provisional Yugoslav Prime Minister and included representatives from the royalist government-in-exile, among others Ivan Šubašić . In accordance with the agreement between resistance leaders and the government-in-exile, post-war elections were held to determine the form of government. In November 1945, Tito's pro-republican People's Front , led by

6235-545: A result of his limited schooling, throughout his life, Tito was poor at spelling. After leaving school, he initially worked for a maternal uncle and then on his parents' family farm. In 1907, his father wanted him to emigrate to the United States but could not raise the money for the voyage. Instead, aged 15 years, Broz left Kumrovec and travelled about 97 kilometres (60 mi) south to Sisak , where his cousin Jurica Broz

6450-465: A retreat beyond Yugoslav borders. After the Partisan victory and the end of hostilities in Europe, all external forces were ordered off Yugoslav territory. In the autumn of 1944, the communist leadership adopted a political decision on the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Yugoslavia . On 21 November, a special decree was issued on the confiscation and nationalisation of ethnic German property. To implement

6665-670: A return to autonomy under Habsburg rule . Most Muslims were reportedly either neutral or opposed to the Ustaše regime. Despite Pavelić’s promises of equality between Catholics and Muslims, many Muslims became dissatisfied with Croat rule. Muslims (Bosniaks) comprised approximately 12% of the civil service and armed forces of the NDH. Economically, the Ustaše supported the creation of a corporatist economy. The movement believed that natural rights existed to private property and ownership over small-scale means of production free from state control. Armed struggle, revenge and terrorism were glorified by

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6880-533: A secret conference of the CPY in Slovenia. The conference was held at the summer palace of the Roman Catholic bishop of Ljubljana , whose brother was a communist sympathiser. It was at this conference that Broz first met Edvard Kardelj , a young Slovene communist who had recently been released from prison. Broz and Kardelj subsequently became good friends, with Tito later regarding him as his most reliable deputy. As he

7095-483: A series of diversions on the railway, 1st Proletarian Brigade broke up the enemy garrison in Konjic on the night between July 7 and 8, defending a battalion of Croatian Home Guard and two Ustasha companies, liberated the city and destroyed the railway station and furnace with about 25 locomotives. This was a major blow to the occupying forces and the NDH, because ties with Herzegovina were severed for more than two months and

7310-421: A series of interethnic wars . Historians critical of Tito view his presidency as authoritarian and see him as a dictator , while others characterise him as a benevolent dictator . He was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, and remains popular in the former countries of Yugoslavia. Tito was viewed as a unifying symbol, with his internal policies maintaining the peaceful coexistence of

7525-656: A series of moves in search of work, first in Ljubljana , then Trieste , Kumrovec and Zagreb, where he worked repairing bicycles. He joined his first strike action on May Day 1911. After a brief period of work in Ljubljana, between May 1911 and May 1912, he worked in a factory in Kamnik in the Kamnik–Savinja Alps . After it closed, he was offered redeployment to Čenkov in Bohemia . On arriving at his new workplace, he discovered that

7740-460: A smuggler but pressed on across the border and was detained by the local Heimwehr , a paramilitary Home Guard. He used the Austrian accent he had developed during his war service to convince them that he was a wayward Austrian mountaineer, and they allowed him to proceed to Vienna. Once there, he contacted the General Secretary of the CPY, Milan Gorkić , who sent him to Ljubljana to arrange

7955-503: A strong Ustashe stronghold, near Kalinovik, was liberated. With the liberation of Kalinovik, the liberated territory of eastern Bosnia was connected with the liberated territory in Herzegovina and Montenegro. In western Bosnia, partisan detachments grew, consolidating free territory and liberating new areas. The insurgent forces in Grmeč and Kozara increased especially, and on May 16, 1942,

8170-654: A strong independent economy, Tito modelled his economic development plan independently from Moscow, which resulted in a diplomatic escalation followed by a bitter exchange of letters in which Tito wrote that "We study and take as an example the Soviet system, but we are developing socialism in our country in somewhat different forms". The Soviet answer on 4 May admonished Tito and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) for failing to admit and correct its mistakes and went on to accuse them of being too proud of their successes against

8385-627: A success of farming. Josip spent a significant proportion of his pre-school years living with his maternal grandparents at Podsreda, where he became a favourite of his grandfather Martin Javeršek. By the time he returned to Kumrovec to begin school, he spoke Slovene better than Croatian , and had learned to play the piano. Despite his mixed parentage, Broz identified as a Croat like his father and neighbours. In July 1900, at age eight, Broz entered primary school at Kumrovec. He completed four years of school, failing 2nd grade and graduating in 1905. As

8600-644: A system of civilian government in those areas in the form of national liberation committees, and they confirmed themselves politically by convening an assembly in newly liberated Bihać, which was constituted as the Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia ( AVNOJ ). It was obvious that they were now able to intensify their activity against the Axis and the Croatian Quisling forces, as well as against

8815-585: A total loss. The U.S. was outraged and sent an ultimatum to the Yugoslav government, demanding the release of the Americans in custody, U.S. access to the downed planes, and full investigation of the incidents. Stalin was opposed to what he felt were such provocations, as he believed the USSR unready to face the West in open war so soon after the losses of World War II and at the time when U.S. had operational nuclear weapons whereas

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9030-456: Is in Jewish hands. This became possible only through the support of the state, which thereby seeks, on one hand, to strengthen the pro-Serbian Jews, and on the other, to weaken Croat national strength. The Jews celebrated the establishment of the so-called Yugoslav state with great joy, because a national Croatia could never be as useful to them as a multi-national Yugoslavia; for in national chaos lies

9245-587: The 25th Croatian Home Guard Regiment garrisoned in Zagreb. After learning to ski during the winter of 1913 and 1914, Broz was sent to a school for non-commissioned officers (NCO) in Budapest , after which he was promoted to sergeant major . At age 22, he was the youngest of that rank in his regiment. At least one source states that he was the youngest sergeant major in the Austro-Hungarian Army. After winning

9460-693: The Balkans , the Axis began to divert more resources to the destruction of the Partisans main force and its high command. This meant, among other things, a concerted German effort to capture Josip Broz Tito personally. On 25 May 1944, he managed to evade the Germans after the Raid on Drvar ( Operation Rösselsprung ), an airborne assault outside his Drvar headquarters in Bosnia . After

9675-538: The Bay of Kotor . However, a few days after the declaration of independence, the Ustaše were forced to sign the Treaty of Rome where they surrendered part of Dalmatia and Krk , Rab , Korčula , Biograd , Šibenik , Split , Čiovo , Šolta , Mljet and part of Konavle and the Bay of Kotor to Italy . De facto control over this territory varied for the majority of the war, as the Yugoslav Partisans grew more successful, while

9890-585: The Bleiburg repatriations . Various underground and exile successor organisations created by former Ustaše members, such as the Crusaders and the Croatian Liberation Movement , tried to continue the movement to little success. The word ustaša (plural: ustaše ) is derived from the intransitive verb ustati (Croatian for rise up ). " Pučki-ustaša " ( German : Landsturm ) was a military rank in

10105-551: The Comintern executives , Tito was by October 1938 reassured that the party would not be disestablished; he was then tasked to compile two resolutions on plans of future CPY activities. Hoping to return to Yugoslavia before the 1938 Yugoslavian parliamentary election in December, Tito requested permission to do so from Comintern's Georgi Dimitrov several times, saying that his stay in Moscow

10320-483: The Communist Party of Yugoslavia , won the elections with an overwhelming majority, the vote having been boycotted by monarchists . During the period, Tito evidently enjoyed massive popular support due to being generally viewed by the populace as the liberator of Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav administration in the immediate post-war period managed to unite a country that had been severely affected by ultra-nationalist upheavals and war devastation, while successfully suppressing

10535-404: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union while in Russia, but he said that the first time he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) was in Zagreb after he returned to his homeland. Upon his return home, Broz was unable to gain employment as a metalworker in Kumrovec, so he and his wife moved briefly to Zagreb, where he worked as a waiter and took part in a waiter's strike. He also joined

10750-490: The Croatian Orthodox Church was founded, as a further means to destroy the Serbian Orthodox Church, but this new Church gained very few followers. While initial focus was against Serbs, as the Ustaše grew closer to the Nazis they adopted antisemitism. In 1936, in "The Croat Question", Ante Pavelić placed Jews third among "the Enemies of the Croats" (after Serbs and Freemasons , but before Communists): writing: ″Today, practically all finance and nearly all commerce in Croatia

10965-527: The Croatian Party of Rights contributed to the writing of the Domobran , until around Christmas 1928 when the newspaper was banned by authorities of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . In January 1929 the king banned all national parties, and the radical wing of the Party of Rights was exiled, including Pavelić, Jelić and Gustav Perčec. This group was later joined by several other Croatian exiles. On 22 March 1929, Zvonimir Pospišil , Mijo Babić , Marko Hranilović , and Matija Soldin murdered Toni Šlegel,

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11180-456: The Domobran tried to engage with and radicalize moderate Croats, using Radić's assassination to stir up emotions within the divided country. By 1929 two divergent Croatian political streams had formed: those who supported Pavelić's view that only violence could secure Croatia's national interests, and the Croatian Peasant Party, led then by Vladko Maček , successor to Stjepan Radić, which had much greater support among Croats. Various members of

11395-457: The Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), the same U.S. aid institution that administered the Marshall Plan . Still, Tito did not agree to align with the West, which was a common consequence of accepting American aid at the time. After Stalin's death in 1953, relations with the USSR were relaxed, and Tito began to receive aid from the Comecon as well. In this way, Tito played East–West antagonism to his advantage. Instead of choosing sides, he

11610-406: The Imperial Croatian Home Guard (1868–1918). The same term was the name of Croatian third-class infantry regiments ( German : Landsturm regiments ) during World War I (1914–1918). Another variation of the word ustati is ustanik (plural: ustanici ) which means an insurgent , or a rebel. The name ustaša did not have fascist connotations during the early years of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as

11825-409: The Order of the Bath . Josip Broz was born on 7 May 1892 in Kumrovec , a village in the northern Croatian region of Zagorje . At the time it was part of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia within the Austro-Hungarian Empire . He was the seventh or eighth child of Franjo Broz (1860–1936) and Marija née Javeršek (1864–1918). His parents had already had a number of children die in early infancy. Broz

12040-528: The Pure Party of Rights , which became the main pool of members of the subsequent Ustaše movement. Historian John Paul Newman stated that Austro-Hungarian officers' "unfaltering opposition to Yugoslavia provided a blueprint for the Croatian radical right, the Ustaše". The Ustaše promoted the theories of Milan Šufflay , who is believed to have claimed that Croatia had been "one of the strongest ramparts of Western civilization for many centuries", which he claimed had been lost through its union with Serbia when

12255-447: The Red Army . Tito's leading role in liberating Yugoslavia not only greatly strengthened his position in his party and among the Yugoslav people but also caused him to be more insistent that Yugoslavia had more room to follow its own interests than other Bloc leaders who had more reasons to recognise Soviet efforts in helping them liberate their own countries from Axis control. Although Tito was formally an ally of Stalin after World War II,

12470-523: The Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in July and August 1935, where he briefly saw Joseph Stalin for the first time. After the congress, he toured the Soviet Union and then returned to Moscow to continue his work. He contacted Polka and Žarko, but soon fell in love with an Austrian woman who worked at the Hotel Lux, Johanna Koenig, known within communist ranks as Lucia Bauer. When she became aware of this liaison, Polka divorced Tito in April 1936. Tito married Bauer on 13 October of that year. After

12685-421: The Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement ( Croatian : Ustaša – Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret ). From its inception and before the Second World War , the organization engaged in a series of terrorist activities against the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , including collaborating with IMRO to assassinate King Alexander I of Yugoslavia in 1934. During World War II in Yugoslavia , the Ustaše went on to perpetrate

12900-410: The Yugoslav Partisans , often regarded as the most effective resistance movement in German-occupied Europe . Following Yugoslavia's liberation in 1945, he served as its prime minister from 29 November 1945 to 29 June 1963 and president from 14 January 1953 until his death in 1980. The political ideology and policies promulgated by Tito are known as Titoism . Tito was born to a Croat father and

13115-481: The "Bader" battle group was formed. The goal of this operation was to destroy partisan units in the area of Rogatica -Kalinovik- Foča . Due to the delays of the Italian divisions, which were held back by partisan forces in Herzegovina, as well as the successful resistance of the 1st and 2nd Proletarian Brigades and other partisan forces, the enemy's plan failed. 1st and 2nd Proletarian Brigades managed to move to Sandžak and Montenegro, and partly to Herzegovina, to help

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13330-430: The "Legal Provision on the Nationalization of the Property of Jews and Jewish Companies", on 10 October 1941, and with it they confiscated all Jewish property. Already on their first day, 10–11 April 1941, Ustaše arrested a group of prominent Zagreb Jews and held them for ransom. On 13 April the same was done in Osijek , where Ustaše and Volksdeutscher mobs also destroyed the synagogue and Jewish graveyard. This process

13545-458: The "unwanted" being all Jews, Serbs and Yugoslav-oriented Croats who were all thrown out except for some deemed specifically needed by the government. This would leave a multitude of jobs to be filled by Ustašes and pro-Ustaše adherents and would lead to government jobs being filled by people with no professional qualifications. During the 1920s, Ante Pavelić, lawyer, politician and one of the followers of Josip Frank's Pure Party of Rights , became

13760-418: The 1st and 2nd Krajina detachments liberated Prijedor , which was defended by about 2,000 enemy soldiers. In order to prevent the further spread of the uprising, Germans and Italians, on 3 March 1942, in Opatija , signed an agreement which reached a plan for a general offensive against the partisans. According to that plan, the first operations began on 15 April 1942 in eastern Bosnia, for the purpose of which

13975-428: The 1st and 2nd Proletarian, 3rd Sandžak and 4 Montenegrin Brigades, together the Supreme Headquarters, moved from the Zelengora region on 24 June 1942 to western Bosnia in the general direction Kalinovik-Prozor-Kupres. 5th Proletarian Montenegrin Brigade and the Herzegovinian Detachment with a partisan hospital were left on the border of Herzegovina, Montenegro and Bosnia, in order to penetrate Montenegro and Herzegovina in

14190-408: The 21-year-old Jelić into the organization as a junior member. A related movement, the Domobranski Pokret—which had been the name of the legal Croatian army in Austria-Hungary—began publication of Hrvatski Domobran , a newspaper dedicated to Croatian national matters. The Ustaše sent Hrvatski Domobran to the United States to garner support for them from Croatian-Americans . The organization around

14405-410: The Austrian Army records showed that he was a brave soldier, which contradicted his later claim to have opposed the Habsburg monarchy and his self-portrait of himself as an unwilling conscript fighting in a war he opposed. Broz's fellow soldiers regarded him as kaisertreu ("true to the Emperor"). On 25 March 1915, Broz was wounded in the back by a Circassian cavalryman's lance and captured during

14620-520: The Axis and Chetnik forces in the wider region of Zelengora, they were forced to move in this direction. Particularly difficult battles were fought group of partisan brigades, composed of 2nd Proleterian and 4th Montenegrin Brigades, parts of 3rd Sandžak and 10th Herzegovinian Brigades (formed on August 10 by the Herzegovinian Detachment and the Konjic Partisan Battalion), together with 1st Krajina Brigade and 3rd Krajina Detachment for Kupres from 11 to 14 August. In further battles, Proleterian brigades with

14835-416: The CPY . He later explained that he survived the Purge by staying out of Spain, where the NKVD was active, and also by avoiding visiting the Soviet Union as much as possible. When first appointed as general secretary, he avoided travelling to Moscow by insisting that he needed to deal with some disciplinary issues in the CPY in Paris. He also promoted the idea that the upper echelons of the CPY should be sharing

15050-426: The CPY's most prominent leaders, including over 20 members of the Central Committee. Both Tito's ex-wife Polka and his wife Koenig/Bauer were arrested as "imperialist spies". Both were eventually released, Polka after 27 months in prison. Tito therefore needed to make arrangements for the care of Žarko, who was 14. He placed him in a boarding school outside Kharkov , then at a school at Penza , but he ran away twice and

15265-574: The CPY. The CPY's influence on the political life of Yugoslavia was growing rapidly. In the 1920 elections, it won 59 seats and became the third-strongest party. In light of difficult economic and social circumstances, the regime viewed the CPY as the main threat to the system of government. On 30 December, the government issued a Proclamation ( Obznana ) outlawing communist activities, which included bans on propaganda, assembly halls, stripping of civil service for servants and scholarships for students found to be communist. Its author, Milorad Drašković ,

15480-450: The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia. The Croatian branch of the CPY was in disarray, a situation exacerbated by the escape of the executive committee of the CPY to Vienna in Austria, from which they were directing activities. Over the next six months, Broz travelled several times between Zagreb, Ljubljana and Vienna, using false passports. In July 1934, he was blackmailed by

15695-500: The Chetniks. Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic : Јосип Броз , pronounced [jǒsip brôːz] ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito ( / ˈ t iː t oʊ / ; Тито , pronounced [tîto] ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and politician who served in various positions of national leadership from 1943 until his death in 1980. During World War II , he led

15910-472: The Communist Party or anyone exhibiting sympathy towards the Soviet Union. Prominent partisans, such as Vlado Dapčević and Dragoljub Mićunović , were victims of this period of strong repression, which lasted until 1956 and was marked by significant violations of human rights. Tens of thousands of political opponents served in forced labour camps, such as Goli Otok (meaning Barren Island), and hundreds died. An often disputed but relatively feasible number that

16125-591: The Croatian People", and the "Legal Provision on Citizenship". These decrees defined who was a Jew, and took away the citizenship rights of all non-Aryans, i.e. Jews and Roma. By the end of April 1941, months before the Nazis implemented similar measures in Germany and over a year after they were implemented in occupied Poland, the Ustaše required all Jews to wear insignia, typically a yellow Star of David . The Ustaše declared

16340-550: The Croatian people always despised the Jews and felt towards them natural revulsion". In May 1941, the Ustaše rounded up 165 Jewish youth in Zagreb, members of the Jewish sports club Makabi, and sent them to the Danica concentration camp . All but three were later killed by the Ustaše. The Ustaše sent most Jews to Ustaše and Nazi concentration camps—including the notorious, Ustaše-run Jasenovac concentration camp —where nearly 32,000, or 80% of

16555-460: The Eastern Bloc. In fact, Stalin and Tito had an uneasy alliance from the start, with Stalin considering Tito too independent. From 1946 to 1948, Tito actively engaged in building an alliance with neighbouring communist Albania , with the intent of incorporating Albania into Yugoslavia. According to Enver Hoxha , the then communist ruler of Albania, in the summer of 1946 Tito promised Hoxha that

16770-632: The First Proletarian Brigade (commanded by Koča Popović ) and on 1 March 1942, Tito created the Second Proletarian Brigade. In liberated territories, the Partisans organised People's Committees to act as a civilian government. The Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) convened in Bihać on 26–27 November 1942 and in Jajce on 29 November 1943. In the two sessions,

16985-461: The Germans and Italians increasingly exercised direct control over areas of interest. The Germans and Italians split the NDH into two zones of influence, one in the southwest controlled by the Italians and the other in the northeast controlled by the Germans. As a result, the NDH has been described as "an Italian-German quasi-protectorate". In September 1943, after Italian capitulation, the NDH re-occupied

17200-521: The Germans, maintaining that the Red Army had saved them from destruction. Tito's response on 17 May suggested that the matter be settled at the meeting of the Cominform to be held that June. However, Tito did not attend the second meeting of the Cominform , fearing that Yugoslavia was to be openly attacked. In 1949 the crisis nearly escalated into an armed conflict, as Hungarian and Soviet forces were massing on

17415-517: The Griedl Works before getting a job at Wiener Neustadt . There he worked for Austro-Daimler and was often asked to drive and test the cars. During this time, he spent considerable time fencing and dancing, and during his training and early work life, he also learned German and passable Czech . In May 1913, Broz was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army for his compulsory two years of service. He successfully requested to serve with

17630-499: The Herzegovina Detachment. Decision of Partisan Supreme HQ to move west proved to be very prudent for a number of reasons, the most important of which was the fact that the Italians, on the basis of the Zagreb agreement concluded on June 19, withdrew a large part of their troops from zones II and III. Ustashe regime had neither the time nor the strength to adequately protect these areas. Group of brigades, which consisted of:

17845-513: The Holocaust and genocide against its Jewish , Serb and Roma populations, killing hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma, as well as Muslim and Croat political dissidents. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism , Roman Catholicism and Croatian ultranationalism . The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span the Drina River and extend to

18060-600: The Italian police arrested Pavelić and several Ustaše emigrants in October 1934. Pavelić was imprisoned in Turin and released in March 1936. After he met with Eugen Dido Kvaternik, he stated that assassination was "the only language Serbs understand". While in prison, Pavelić was informed of the 1935 election in Yugoslavia, when the coalition led by Croat Vladko Maček won. He stated that his victory

18275-532: The Jews in the Independent State of Croatia, were killed. In October 1941, the Ustaše mayor of Zagreb ordered the demolition of the Zagreb Synagogue , which was completely demolished by April 1942. The Ustaše persecuted Jews who practiced Judaism but authorized Jewish converts to Catholicism to be recognized as Croatian citizens and be given honorary Aryan citizenship that allowed them to be reinstated at

18490-466: The Jews, as the Ustaše permitted Jews who converted to Catholicism to be recognized as "honorary Croats", thus putatively exempt from persecution. In 1932, an editorial in the first issue of the Ustaše newspaper, signed by the Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić, proclaimed that violence and terror would be the main means for the Ustaše to attain their goals: The KNIFE, REVOLVER, MACHINE GUN and TIME BOMB; these are

18705-613: The Krajina and Dalmatian units liberated: Aržano , Mrkonjić Grad and Jajce. This created the conditions for the development of the partisan movement in the areas that had been under the influence of the Ustashas until then, and the newly liberated territory was connected with the liberated territory in the Bosnian Krajina via Livno and Mrkonjić Grad. At the end of August, partisan brigades reached Bosanski Petrovac via Drvar . Preparations for

18920-515: The League of Communists of Yugoslavia maintained even after his death. After Tito's death, Yugoslavia's leadership was transformed into an annually rotating presidency to give representation to all of its nationalities and prevent the emergence of an authoritarian leader. Twelve years later, as communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and ethnic tensions escalated, Yugoslavia dissolved and descended into

19135-734: The NDH, Operation Trio , and the combined Italian- Montenegrin Chetnik offensive in Montenegro and eastern Herzegovina . The majority of the units of the National Liberation Army ( 1st and 2nd Proletarian , 3rd Sandžak and 4th Montenegrin Brigades ) and the Supreme Headquarters of the NOV and POJ set out from the territory of Mt Zelengora on June 24, 1942, for western Bosnia . Along

19350-818: The Partisans at the Tehran Conference . This resulted in Allied aid being parachuted behind Axis lines to assist the Partisans. On 17 June 1944 on the Dalmatian island of Vis , the Treaty of Vis ( Viški sporazum ) was signed in an attempt to merge Tito's government (the AVNOJ ) with the government in exile of King Peter II. The Balkan Air Force was formed in June 1944 to control operations that were mainly aimed at aiding his forces. On 12 August 1944, Winston Churchill met Tito in Naples for

19565-459: The Partisans managed to endure and avoid these intense Axis attacks between January and June 1943, and the extent of Chetnik collaboration became evident, Allied leaders switched their support from Draža Mihailović to Tito. King Peter II , American President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill joined Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in officially recognising Tito and

19780-533: The Rhineland and with the rise of a quasi-fascist government in Yugoslavia under Milan Stojadinović , Mussolini abandoned support for the Ustaše from 1937 to 1939 and sought to improve relations with Yugoslavia, fearing that continued hostility towards Yugoslavia would result in Yugoslavia entering Germany's sphere of influence. The collapse of the quasi-fascist Stojadinović regime resulted in Italy restoring its support for

19995-747: The Russian side but also claiming that the whole matter arose from a clerical error. A third version was that he had been overheard saying that he hoped the Austro-Hungarian Empire would be defeated. After his acquittal and release, his regiment served briefly on the Serbian Front before being deployed to the Eastern Front in Galicia in early 1915 to fight against Russia . In his account of his military service, Broz did not mention that he participated in

20210-543: The Soviet Union (TASS) reported that Tito signed an agreement with the Soviet Union allowing "temporary entry" of Soviet troops into Yugoslav territory, which allowed the Red Army to assist in operations in the northeastern areas of Yugoslavia. With their strategic right flank secured by the Allied advance, the Partisans prepared and executed a massive general offensive that succeeded in breaking through German lines and forcing

20425-519: The Soviets had set up a spy ring in the Yugoslav party as early as 1945, giving way to an uneasy alliance. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, several armed incidents occurred between Yugoslavia and the Western Allies . Following the war, Yugoslavia acquired the Italian territory of Istria as well as the cities of Zadar and Rijeka . Yugoslav leadership was looking to incorporate Trieste into

20640-535: The Supreme Headquarters sent the 1st and 2nd Proletarian Brigades to eastern Bosnia, where they overwhelmed Chetnik forces and liberated the region, thus providing significant assistance to the partisan forces there. In the first months of 1942, Montenegrin partisans kept most of Montenegro in their hands, despite increased pressure from Italians and Chetniks. By the joint action of the 2nd Proletarian Brigade, Herzegovinian and Montenegrin partisans, Borač ,

20855-624: The USSR had yet to conduct its first test. In addition, Tito was openly supportive of the Communist side in the Greek Civil War , while Stalin kept his distance, having agreed with Churchill not to pursue Soviet interests there, although he did support the Greek communist struggle politically, as demonstrated in several assemblies of the UN Security Council. In 1948, motivated by the desire to create

21070-758: The United States but was stopped at the border. He was arrested along with other suspected Bolsheviks during the subsequent crackdown by the Russian Provisional Government led by Alexander Kerensky . He was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress for three weeks, during which he claimed to be an innocent citizen of Perm. When he finally admitted to being an escaped POW, he was to be returned by train to Kungur, but escaped at Yekaterinburg , then caught another train that reached Omsk in Siberia on 8 November after

21285-576: The Ustaše banned contraception and tightened laws against blasphemy . The Ustaše accepted that Croats are part of the Dinaric race , but rejected the idea that Croats are primarily Slavic, claiming they primarily come from Germanic roots with the Goths . The Ustaše believed that a government must naturally be strong and authoritarian. The movement opposed parliamentary democracy for being "corrupt" and Marxism and Bolshevism for interfering in family life and

21500-413: The Ustaše for two aims. One, in order to weaken Yugoslavia, Little Entente , in order to ultimately regain some of its lost territories. The other, Hungary also wished to establish later in the future a strong alliance with the Independent State of Croatia and possibly enter a personal union. Nazi Germany initially didn't support an independent Croatia, nor did it support the Ustaše, with Hitler stressing

21715-615: The Ustaše were outlawed. The HSS was banned on 11 June 1941, in an attempt by the Ustaše to take their place as the primary representative of the Croatian peasantry. Vladko Maček was sent to the Jasenovac concentration camp, but later released to serve a house arrest sentence due to his popularity among the people. Maček was later again called upon by foreigners to take a stand and oppose the Pavelić government, but refused. In early 1941 Jews and Serbs were ordered to leave certain areas of Zagreb. In

21930-521: The Ustaše, whose aim was to create an independent Croatia in personal union with Italy. However, distrust of the Ustaše grew. Mussolini's son-in-law and Italian foreign minister Count Galeazzo Ciano noted in his diary that "The Duce is indignant with Pavelić, because he claims that the Croats are descendants of the Goths. This will have the effect of bringing them into the German orbit". Hungary strongly supported

22145-602: The Ustaše. The Ustaše introduced widespread measures, to which many Croats themselves fell victim. Jozo Tomasevich in his book War and Revolution in Yugoslavia: 1941–1945 , states that "never before in history had Croats been exposed to such legalized administrative, police and judicial brutality and abuse as during the Ustaša regime." Decrees enacted by the regime formed the basis that allowed it to get rid of all unwanted employees in state and local government and in state enterprises,

22360-477: The World Congress, Tito worked to promote the new Comintern line on Yugoslavia, which was that it would no longer work to break up the country and would instead defend the integrity of Yugoslavia against Nazism and Fascism. From a distance, Tito also worked to organise strikes at the shipyards at Kraljevica and the coal mines at Trbovlje near Ljubljana. He tried to convince the Comintern that it would be better if

22575-627: The Yugoslav Minister of the Interior, was assassinated by a young communist, Alija Alijagić , on 2 August 1921. The CPY was then declared illegal under the Yugoslav State Security Act of 1921, and the regime proceeded to prosecute party members and sympathisers as political prisoners . Due to his overt communist links, Broz was fired from his employment. He and his wife then moved to the village of Veliko Trojstvo where he worked as

22790-642: The Yugoslav government offered amnesty to those Ustaše abroad provided they promised to renounce violence; many of the "emigres" accepted the amnesty.  In the late 1930s, the Ustaše started to infiltrate the para-military organizations of the Croat Peasant Party, the Croatian Defense Force and the Peasant Civil Party. At the University of Zagreb, an Ustaše -linked student group become

23005-582: The Yugoslav province of Kosovo would be ceded to Albania. Despite the decision of unification being agreed upon by Yugoslav communists during the Bujan Conference , the plan never materialised. In the first post-war years in Kosovo, Tito enacted the policy of banning the return of Serb colonists to Kosovo, in addition to enacting the first large-scale primary education program of the Albanian language . During

23220-514: The anti-Bolshevik Czechoslovak Legion wrested control of parts of Siberia from Bolshevik forces, the Provisional Siberian Government established itself in Omsk, and Broz and his comrades went into hiding. At this time, Broz met a 14-year-old local girl, Pelagija "Polka" Belousova  [ sh ] , who hid him and then helped him escape to a Kazakh village 64 kilometres (40 mi) from Omsk. Broz again worked maintaining

23435-601: The area , he led the Yugoslav guerrilla movement, the Partisans (1941–1945). By the end of the war, the Partisans, with the Allies' backing since mid-1943, took power in Yugoslavia. After the war, Tito served as the prime minister (1945–1963), president (1953–1980; from 1974 president for life ), and marshal of Yugoslavia , the highest rank of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). In 1945, under his leadership, Yugoslavia became

23650-710: The attack on Bihać and the establishment of the Bihać Republic will follow. Although in autumn 1942 Partisans would be forced to leave Prozor to the Italians, Livno to the Croatian quisling forces, and Jajce to the Germans, the partisans nevertheless controlled the area from the western approaches to the Neretva in the south to Karlovac in the north, an area of 250 km in length and 40 – 70 km in width. The crisis of partisan war fortunes seemed to have passed: they now had nine divisions and many independent partisan detachments, their military organization strengthened, they built

23865-637: The bishops' conference released a letter condemning alleged Partisan war crimes in September 1945. The next year, Stepinac was arrested and put on trial , which some saw as a show trial. In October 1946, in its first special session for 75 years, the Vatican excommunicated Tito and the Yugoslav government for sentencing Stepinac to 16 years in prison on charges of assisting Ustaše terror and of supporting forced conversions of Serbs to Catholicism. Stepinac received preferential treatment in recognition of his status and

24080-409: The bombs found at his address. He was convicted and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. After Broz's sentencing, his wife and son returned to Kumrovec, where sympathetic locals looked after them, but then one day, they suddenly left without explanation and returned to the Soviet Union. She fell in love with another man, and Žarko grew up in institutions. After arriving at Lepoglava prison , Broz

24295-464: The border of Belgrade . The movement advocated a racially "pure" Croatia and promoted genocide against Serbs—due to the Ustaše's anti-Serb sentiment —and Holocaust against Jews and Roma via Nazi racial theory , and persecution of anti-fascist or dissident Croats and Bosniaks. The Ustaše viewed the Bosniaks as " Muslim Croats ", and as a result, Bosniaks were not persecuted on the basis of race. The Ustaše espoused Roman Catholicism and Islam as

24510-409: The central government used some 6,000 gendarmes and some 45,000 newly recruited members of regular "Domobranstvo" forces. Pavelić first met with Adolf Hitler on 6 June 1941. Mile Budak, then a minister in Pavelić's government, publicly proclaimed the violent racial policy of the state on 22 July 1941. Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić , a chief of the secret police, started building concentration camps in

24725-529: The chief editor of newspaper Novosti from Zagreb and president of Jugoštampa , which was the beginning of the terrorist actions of Ustaše. Hranilović and Soldin were both arrested and executed for the murder. On 20 April 1929 Pavelić and others co-signed a declaration in Sofia, Bulgaria , with members of the Macedonian National Committee, asserting that they would pursue "their legal activities for

24940-582: The city through clearings, high wire barriers and between masonry-concrete bunkers, destroyed the enemy forces it encountered, severed ties and disrupted the enemy's command, and cooperated with other battalions attacking the city. The Ustasha garrison had losses of about 200 dead (including those executed), with its own losses of 5 dead and 20 wounded. Partisans seized all weapons and ammunition, including 6 tons of explosives. About 300 captured members of Home Guard were disarmed and released, and 12 Germans were captured, who were employees of Organization Todt , that

25155-468: The country as well, which was opposed by the Western Allies. This led to several armed incidents, notably attacks by Yugoslav fighter planes on U.S. transport aircraft, causing bitter criticism from the West. In 1946 alone, Yugoslav air-force shot down two U.S. transport aircraft. The passengers and crew of the first plane were secretly interned by the Yugoslav government. The second plane and its crew were

25370-515: The creation of a new economic system that would be neither capitalist nor communist and which would emphasize the importance of the Roman Catholic Church and the patriarchial family as means to maintain social order and morality. (The name given by modern historians to this particular aspect of Ustaše ideology varies; " national Catholicism ", " political Catholicism " and "Catholic Croatism" have been proposed among others.) In power,

25585-675: The dangers of underground resistance within the country. He developed a new, younger leadership team that was loyal to him, including the Slovene Edvard Kardelj, the Serb, Aleksandar Ranković , and the Montenegrin, Milovan Đilas . In December 1937, Tito arranged for a demonstration to greet the French foreign minister when he visited Belgrade, expressing solidarity with the French against Nazi Germany. The protest march numbered 30,000 and turned into

25800-450: The decision, 70 camps were established in Yugoslav territory. In the final days of World War II in Yugoslavia, units of the Partisans were responsible for atrocities during Bleiburg repatriations , and accusations of culpability were later raised at the Yugoslav leadership under Tito. At the time, according to some scholars, Josip Broz Tito repeatedly issued calls for surrender to the retreating column, offering amnesty and attempting to avoid

26015-502: The direction of Prozor-Livno. After the capture of Gornji Vakuf , the right column fought fierce battles around Bugojno and Donji Vakuf , while the left column liberated Prozor, Šujica and Duvno , and in cooperation with the Dalmatian and Krajina partisans liberated Livno on August 5. The liberation of Livno was a great success of the NOVJ. 2nd Battalion of the 1st Proletarian Brigade invaded

26230-446: The duties of imprisoned communists and on trade unions. He was in Ljubljana when Vlado Chernozemski , an assassin for the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and instructor for the Croatian ultranationalist organisation Ustaše , assassinated King Alexander in Marseilles on 9 October 1934. In the crackdown on dissidents that followed his death, it was decided that Tito should leave Yugoslavia. He travelled to Vienna on

26445-419: The economy and for their materialism . The Ustaše considered competing political parties and elected parliaments to be harmful to its own interests. The Ustaše recognized both Roman Catholicism and Islam as national religions of the Croatian people but initially rejected Orthodox Christianity as being incompatible with their objectives. Although the Ustaše emphasized religious themes, it stressed that duty to

26660-523: The employer was trying to bring in cheaper labour to replace the local Czech workers, and he and others joined successful strike action to force the employer to back down. Driven by curiosity, Broz moved to Plzeň , where he was briefly employed at the Škoda Works . He next travelled to Munich in Bavaria . He also worked at the Benz car factory in Mannheim and visited the Ruhr industrial region. By October 1912, he had reached Vienna . He stayed with his older brother Martin and his family and worked at

26875-489: The end of 1939 and start of 1940, Rade Končar and Ivan Milutinović . On 6 April 1941, Axis forces invaded Yugoslavia . On 10 April 1941, Slavko Kvaternik proclaimed the Independent State of Croatia , and Tito responded by forming a Military Committee within the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY). Attacked from all sides, the armed forces of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia quickly crumbled. On 17 April 1941, after King Peter II and other members of

27090-417: The enemy, expand free territory in western Bosnia and create favorable conditions for further development of the uprising in the western parts of Yugoslavia, so it was planned to be carried out gradually, in stages. In the first stage, a sudden attack was to break and destroy enemy crews and destroy the Sarajevo - Mostar railway, and then, in the next stage, continue to advance to the northwest, take control of

27305-803: The establishment of human and national rights, political freedom and complete independence for both Croatia and Macedonia". The Court for the Preservation of the State in Belgrade sentenced Pavelić and Perčec to death on 17 July 1929. The exiles started organizing support for their cause among the Croatian diaspora in Europe, as well as North and South America. In January 1932 they named their revolutionary organization " Ustaša" . The Ustaše carried out terrorist acts, to cause as much damage as possible to Yugoslavia. From their training camps in fascist Italy and Hungary, they planted time bombs on international trains bound for Yugoslavia, causing deaths and material damage. In November 1932 ten Ustaše, led by Andrija Artuković and supported by four local sympathizers, attacked

27520-610: The failed Austrian invasion of Serbia, instead giving the misleading impression that he fought only in Galicia, as it would have offended Serbian opinion to know that he fought in 1914 for the Habsburgs against them. On one occasion, the scout platoon he commanded went behind the enemy lines and captured 80 Russian soldiers, bringing them back to their own lines alive. In 1980 it was discovered that Broz had been recommended for an award for gallantry and initiative in reconnaissance and capturing prisoners. Tito's biographer Richard West wrote that Tito actually downplayed his military record as

27735-421: The first time. The Politburo decided to send him to Moscow to report on the situation in Yugoslavia, and in early February 1935, he arrived there as a full-time official of the Comintern. He lodged at the main Comintern residence, the Hotel Lux on Tverskaya Street and was quickly in contact with Vladimir Ćopić , one of the leading Yugoslavs with the Comintern. He was soon introduced to the main personalities in

27950-428: The following years, alongside other political leaders and Marxist theorists such as Edvard Kardelj and Milovan Đilas , he initiated the idiosyncratic model of socialist self-management in which firms were managed by workers' councils and all workers were entitled to workplace democracy and equal share of profits . Tito wavered between supporting a centralised or more decentralised federation and ended up favouring

28165-403: The formation of a nationalist insurgency group. In October 1928, after the assassination of leading Croatian politician Stjepan Radić , ( Croatian Peasant Party President in the Yugoslav Assembly ) by radical Montenegrin politician Puniša Račić , a youth group named the Croat Youth Movement was founded by Branimir Jelić at the University of Zagreb . A year later Ante Pavelić was invited by

28380-399: The government fled the country , the remaining representatives of the government and military met with German officials in Belgrade . They quickly agreed to end military resistance. Prominent communist leaders, including Tito, held the May consultations to discuss the course of action to take in the face of the invasion. On 1 May 1941, Tito issued a pamphlet calling on the people to unite in

28595-412: The help of two schoolgirls who brought him Russian classics by such authors as Tolstoy and Turgenev . After recuperating, in mid-1916, Broz was transferred to the Ardatov POW camp in the Samara Governorate , where he used his skills to maintain the nearby village grain mill. At the end of the year, he was transferred to the Kungur POW camp near Perm where the POWs were used as labour to maintain

28810-527: The idols, these are bells that will announce the dawning and THE RESURRECTION OF THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA. In 1933, the Ustaše presented "The Seventeen Principles" that formed the official ideology of the movement. The Principles stated the uniqueness of the Croatian nation, promoted collective rights over individual rights and declared that people who were not Croat by " blood " would be excluded from political life. Those considered "undesirables" were subjected to mass murder. These principles called for

29025-400: The immediate post-war period, Tito's Yugoslavia had a strong commitment to orthodox Marxist ideas. Harsh repressive measures against dissidents and " enemies of the state " were common from government agents, although not known to be under Tito's orders, including "arrests, show trials, forced collectivisation, suppression of churches and religion". As the leader of Yugoslavia, Tito displayed

29240-433: The importance of a "strong and united Yugoslavia". Nazi officials, including Hermann Göring , wanted Yugoslavia stable and officially neutral during the war so Germany could continue to securely gain Yugoslavia's raw material exports. The Nazis grew irritated with the Ustaše, among them Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler , who was dissatisfied with the lack of full compliance by the NDH to the Nazis' agenda of extermination of

29455-680: The influx of groups like Vlachs who took up Orthodox Christianity and identified themselves as Serbs. Starčević admired Bosniaks because in his view they were Croats who had adopted Islam in order to preserve the economic and political autonomy of Bosnia and Croatia under the Ottoman occupation. The Ustaše used Starčević's theories to promote their own annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia and recognized Croatia as having two major ethnocultural components: Catholics and Muslims. The Ustaše sought to represent Starčević as being connected to their views. Josip Frank seceded his extreme fraction from Starčević's Party of Rights and formed his own,

29670-413: The international association of socialist states, while other socialist states of Eastern Europe subsequently underwent purges of alleged "Titoists". Stalin took the matter personally and arranged several assassination attempts on Tito's life, none of which succeeded. In one correspondence between them, Tito openly wrote: Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with

29885-463: The jobs from which they had previously been separated. After they stripped Jews of their citizenship rights, the Ustaše allowed some to apply for Aryan rights via bribes and/or through connections to prominent Ustaše. The whole process was highly arbitrary. Only 2% of Zagreb's Jews were granted Aryan rights, for example. Also, Aryan rights did not guarantee permanent protection from being sent to concentration camps or other persecution. Islam, which had

30100-436: The largest single student group by 1939. In February 1939 two returnees from detention, Mile Budak and Ivan Oršanić, became editors of the pro-Ustaše journal Hrvatski narod , known in English as The Croatian Nation . The Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941. Vladko Maček, the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), which was the most influential party in Croatia at the time, rejected German offers to lead

30315-480: The latter to keep ethnic tensions under control; thus, the constitution was gradually developed to delegate as much power as possible to each republic in keeping with the Marxist theory of withering away of the state . He envisaged the SFR of Yugoslavia as a "federal republic of equal nations and nationalities, freely united on the principle of brotherhood and unity in achieving specific and common interest." A very powerful cult of personality arose around him, which

30530-492: The law had marked him as a communist agitator, and his home was searched on an almost weekly basis. Since their arrival in Yugoslavia, Pelagija had lost three babies soon after their births and one daughter, Zlatica, at the age of two. Broz felt the loss of Zlatica deeply. In 1924, Pelagija gave birth to a boy, Žarko, who survived. In mid-1925, Broz's employer died, and the new mill owner gave him an ultimatum: give up his communist activities or lose his job. So, at age 33, Broz became

30745-412: The leading advocate of Croatian independence. In 1927, he secretly contacted Benito Mussolini , dictator of Italy and founder of fascism , and presented his separatist ideas to him. Pavelić proposed an independent Greater Croatia that should cover the entire historical and ethnic area of the Croats. Historian Rory Yeomans claimed that as early as 1928, there were signs that Pavelić was considering

30960-473: The left arm. I fainted. Then, as I learned, the Circassians began to butcher the wounded, even slashing them with their knives. Fortunately, Russian infantry reached the positions and put an end to the orgy". Now a prisoner of war (POW), Broz was transported east to a hospital established in an old monastery in the town of Sviyazhsk on the Volga river near Kazan . During his 13 months in hospital, he had bouts of pneumonia and typhus, and learned Russian with

31175-428: The local mill until November 1919, when the Red Army recaptured Omsk from White forces loyal to the Provisional All-Russian Government of Alexander Kolchak . He moved back to Omsk and married Belousova in January 1920. At the time of their marriage, Broz was 27 years old and Pelagia Belousova was 14. They divorced in the 1930s in Moscow. Broz later wrote that during his time in Russia, he heard much talk of Lenin,

31390-405: The months after Independent State of Croatia has been established, most of Ustaše groups were not under centralized control: besides 4,500 regular Ustaše Corps troops, there was some 25,000–30,0000 "Wild Ustaše" (hrv. "divlje ustaše"), boosted by government-controlled press as "peasant Ustaše" "begging" to be sent to fight enemies of the regime. After mass crimes against Serb populace committed during

31605-438: The movement of volunteers and creating a separate Communist Party of Croatia . The new party was inaugurated at a conference at Samobor on the outskirts of Zagreb on 1–2 August 1937. Tito played a crucial role in organizing the return of the Yugoslav volunteers from German concentration camps to Yugoslavia when the decision was made to mount an armed resistance in Yugoslavia, the 1941 Uprising in Serbia . In June 1937, Gorkić

31820-518: The nation of Yugoslavia was formed in 1918. Šufflay was killed in Zagreb in 1931 by government supporters. The Ustaše accepted the 1935 thesis of Krunoslav Draganović , a Catholic priest who claimed that many Catholics in southern Herzegovina had been converted to Orthodox Christianity in the 16th and 17th centuries, in order to justify their own policy of forcible conversion of Orthodox Christians to Catholicism . The Ustaše were heavily influenced by Nazism and fascism. Its leader, Ante Pavelić, held

32035-446: The nation took precedence over religious custom. In power, the Ustaše banned the use of the term "Serbian Orthodox faith", requiring "Greek-Eastern faith" in its place. The Ustaše forcefully converted many Orthodox to Catholicism, murdered and expelled 85% of Orthodox priests, and plundered and burnt many Orthodox Christian churches. The Ustaše also persecuted Old Catholics who did not recognize papal infallibility . On 2 July 1942

32250-429: The nationalist sentiments of the various nations in favour of tolerance, and the common Yugoslav goal. After the overwhelming electoral victory, Tito was confirmed as the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DFY. The country was soon renamed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (FPRY) (later finally renamed into Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, SFRY). On 29 November 1945, King Peter II

32465-407: The nations of the Yugoslav federation. He gained further international attention as the founder of the Non-Aligned Movement , alongside Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, and Sukarno of Indonesia. With a highly favourable reputation abroad in both Cold War blocs, he received a total of 98 foreign decorations , including the Legion of Honour and

32680-434: The new authorities. Meanwhile, Pavelić and several hundred Ustaše left their camps in Italy for Zagreb, where he declared a new government on 16 April 1941. He accorded himself the title of "Poglavnik"—a Croatian approximation to "Führer". The Independent State of Croatia was declared on Croatian "ethnic and historical territory", what is today Republic of Croatia (without Istria ), Bosnia and Herzegovina , Syrmia and

32895-425: The new government. On 10 April the most senior home-based Ustaše, Slavko Kvaternik , took control of the police in Zagreb and in a radio broadcast that day proclaimed the formation of the Independent State of Croatia ( Nezavisna Država Hrvatska , NDH). The name of the state was an attempt to capitalise on the Croat struggle for independence. Maček issued a statement that day, calling on all Croatians to cooperate with

33110-440: The new state. The Ustaše regime was militarily weak and failed to ever attain significant support among Croats. Therefore, terror was their means of controlling the "ethnically disparate" population. The Ustaše regime was initially backed by some parts of the Croat population that in the interwar period had felt oppressed by the Serb-led Yugoslavia, but their brutal policies quickly alienated many ordinary Croats and resulted in

33325-409: The newly completed Trans-Siberian Railway . Broz was appointed to be in charge of all the POWs in the camp. During this time, he became aware that camp staff were stealing the Red Cross parcels sent to the POWs. When he complained, he was beaten and imprisoned. During the February Revolution , a crowd broke into the prison and returned Broz to the POW camp. A Bolshevik he had met while working on

33540-402: The northern Yugoslav frontier. An invasion of Yugoslavia was planned to be carried out in 1949 via the combined forces of neighbouring Soviet satellite states of Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania, followed by the subsequent removal of Tito's government. On 28 June, the other member countries of the Cominform expelled Yugoslavia, citing "nationalist elements" that had "managed in the course of

33755-426: The organisation. Tito was appointed to the secretariat of the Balkan section, responsible for Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece. Kardelj was also in Moscow, as was the Bulgarian communist leader Georgi Dimitrov . Tito lectured on trade unions to foreign communists and attended a course on military tactics run by the Red Army, and occasionally attended the Bolshoi Theatre . He attended as one of 510 delegates to

33970-399: The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War . At the time, the Great Purge was underway, and foreign communists like Tito and his Yugoslav compatriots were particularly vulnerable. Despite a laudatory report written by Tito about the veteran Yugoslav communist Filip Filipović , Filipović was arrested and shot by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD . However, before the Purge really began to erode

34185-491: The partisan forces, to which the Italians, with a very strong force of about 9 divisions, launched an offensive in mid-1942, and managed to master these areas by the end of June. The Supreme Headquarters, which was in Foča until 10 May 1942, managed, with the help of the 1st and 2nd Proletarian Brigades, to withdraw part of the partisan forces from Montenegro and Herzegovina and form new units from them: 3rd Proletarian Sandžak Brigade, 4th and 5th Proletarian Montenegrin Brigade and

34400-426: The party leadership were located inside Yugoslavia. A compromise was arrived at, where Tito and others would work inside the country, and Gorkić and the Politburo would continue to work from abroad. Gorkić and the Politburo relocated to Paris, while Tito began to travel between Moscow, Paris and Zagreb in 1936 and 1937, using false passports. In 1936, his father died. Tito returned to Moscow in August 1936, soon after

34615-447: The past five or six months to reach a dominant position in the leadership" of the CPY. The Hungarian and Romanian armies were expanded in size and, together with Soviet ones, massed on the Yugoslav border. The assumption in Moscow was that once it was known that he had lost Soviet approval, Tito would collapse; "I will shake my little finger, and there will be no more Tito," Stalin remarked. The expulsion effectively banished Yugoslavia from

34830-538: The position of Poglavnik , which was based on the similar positions of Duce held by Benito Mussolini and Führer held by Adolf Hitler. The Ustaše, like fascists, promoted a corporatist economy. Pavelić and the Ustaše were allowed sanctuary in Italy by Mussolini after being exiled from Yugoslavia. Pavelić had been in negotiations with Fascist Italy since 1927 that included advocating a territory-for-sovereignty swap in which he would tolerate Italy annexing its claimed territory in Dalmatia in exchange for Italy supporting

35045-399: The power of the Jews... In fact, as the Jews had foreseen, Yugoslavia became, in consequence of the corruption of official life in Serbia, a true Eldorado of Jewry." Once in power, the Ustaše immediately introduced a series of Nazi-style racial laws. On 30 April 1941, the Ustaše proclaimed the "Legal Decree on Racial Origins", the "Legal Decree on the Protection of Aryan Blood and the Honor of

35260-420: The railway told Broz that his son was working in engineering works in Petrograd , so, in June 1917, Broz walked out of the unguarded POW camp and hid aboard a goods train bound for that city, where he stayed with his friend's son. The journalist Richard West has suggested that because Broz chose to remain in an unguarded POW camp rather than volunteer to serve with the Yugoslav legions of the Serbian Army , he

35475-417: The ranks of the Yugoslav communists in Moscow, Tito was sent back to Yugoslavia with a new mission, to recruit volunteers for the International Brigades being raised to fight on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Travelling via Vienna, he reached the coastal port city of Split in December 1936. According to the Croatian historian Ivo Banac , the reason the Comintern sent Tito back to Yugoslavia

35690-460: The regimental fencing competition, Broz came in second in the army fencing championships in Budapest in May 1914. Soon after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the 25th Croatian Home Guard Regiment marched toward the Serbian border. Broz was arrested for sedition and imprisoned in the Petrovaradin fortress in present-day Novi Sad . He later gave conflicting accounts of this arrest, telling one biographer that he had threatened to desert to

35905-441: The religions of the Croats and condemned Orthodox Christianity , which was the main religion of the Serbs. Roman Catholicism was identified with Croatian nationalism, while Islam, which had a large following in Bosnia and Herzegovina , was praised by the Ustaše as the religion that "keeps true the blood of Croats." It was founded as a nationalist organization that sought to create an independent Croatian state . It functioned as

36120-425: The resistance representatives established the basis for the post-war organisation of the country, deciding on a federation of the Yugoslav nations. In Jajce , a 67-member "presidency" was elected and established a nine-member National Committee of Liberation (NKOJ; five communist members) as a de facto provisional government . Tito was named President of NKOJ. With the growing possibility of an Allied invasion in

36335-399: The rest were expatriates in France, Belgium, the U.S. and Canada. Fewer than half were communists, and the rest were social-democrats and anti-fascists of various hues. Of the total, 671 were killed in the fighting, and 300 were wounded. Tito himself never went to Spain, despite speculation that he had. Between May and August 1937, he travelled several times between Paris and Zagreb, organising

36550-408: The rival monarchic Chetnik movement , Tito's Partisans succeeded in liberating territory, notably the " Republic of Užice ". During this period, Tito held talks with Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović on 19 September and 27 October 1941. It is said that Tito ordered his forces to assist escaping Jews, and that more than 2,000 Jews fought directly for Tito. On 21 December 1941, the Partisans created

36765-416: The sentence was soon shortened and reduced to house arrest, with the option of emigration open to the archbishop. At the conclusion of the " Informbiro period ", reforms rendered Yugoslavia considerably more religiously liberal than the Eastern Bloc states. In the first post-war years, Tito was widely considered a communist leader very loyal to Moscow; indeed, he was often viewed as second only to Stalin in

36980-426: The so-called Leftist errors , partisan activity in those areas almost died out, and the partisan position became critical. At the same time, the Chetniks became stronger in these areas, partly due to subversion in partisan detachments, partly due to collaboration with the Italians, and in some areas with the Croatian Quisling forces to some extent, and thus indirectly with the Germans . At the beginning of March 1942,

37195-453: The sovereignty of an independent Croatia. The Ustaše ideology has also been characterized as clerical fascism by several authors, who emphasize the importance the movement attached to Roman Catholicism. Mussolini's support of the Ustaše was based on pragmatic considerations, such as maximizing Italian influence in the Balkans and the Adriatic. After 1937, with the weakening of French influence in Europe following Germany's remilitarization of

37410-411: The subsequent Russian Civil War . Upon his return to the Balkans in 1920, he entered the newly established Kingdom of Yugoslavia , where he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia . Having assumed de facto control over the party by 1937, Tito was formally elected its general secretary in 1939 and later its president, the title he held until his death. During World War II , after the Nazi invasion of

37625-399: The summer months of 1941, the regime decided to blame all the atrocities to the irregular Ustaše—thoroughly undisciplined and paid for the service only with the booty; authorities even sentenced to death and executed publicly in August and September 1941 many of them for unauthorized use of extreme violence against Serbs and Gypsies. To put an end to Wild Ustaše uncontrolled looting and killing,

37840-621: The summer of the same year. Ustaše activities in villages across the Dinaric Alps led the Italians and the Germans to express their disquiet. According to writer/historian Srđa Trifković , as early as 10 July 1941 Wehrmacht Gen. Edmund Glaise von Horstenau reported the following to the German High Command, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW): Our troops have to be mute witnesses of such events; it does not reflect well on their otherwise high reputation. .. I am frequently told that German occupation troops would finally have to intervene against Ustaše crimes. This may happen eventually. Right now, with

38055-414: The term "ustat" was itself used in Herzegovina to denote the insurgents from the Herzegovinian rebellion of 1875. The full original name of the organization appeared in April 1931 as the Ustaša – Hrvatska revolucionarna organizacija or UHRO (Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Organization). In 1933 it was renamed the Ustaša – Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret (Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement),

38270-492: The territory on the right bank of the Neretva , in the upper Vrbas and Kupres, Livno, Imotski and connect with Krajina and Dalmatian units. During the first six months of 1942, the partisans suffered heavy losses in Second and Third Enemy Offensives in eastern Bosnia, Herzegovina, Sandžak and Montenegro. Because of these losses, as well as because of the successful Chetnik subversion in many partisan detachments, and to some extent also because of some serious mistakes in

38485-400: The transport of bauxite from the Mostar region was prevented. From the railway, partisan brigades Group continued its operations in two directions: the right column, composed of 2nd Proletarian and 4th Montenegrin Brigade, attacked the enemy garrisons in the upper course of the Vrbas via Bitovanje and Vranica ; the left column, made up of 1st Proletarian and 3rd Sandžak Brigades, headed in

38700-399: The volunteers were turned away, Tito claimed credit for the Yugoslav response, which worked in his favour. By this stage, Tito was well aware of the realities in the Soviet Union, later saying he "witnessed a great many injustices" but was too heavily invested in communism and too loyal to the Soviet Union to step back. After restoring the image of a decisive, coherent and non-fractional CPY to

38915-414: The warm, sunny Adriatic coastline that lasted for the rest of his life, and throughout his later time as leader, he spent as much time as possible living on his yacht while cruising the Adriatic. While at Kraljevica , he worked on Yugoslav torpedo boats and a pleasure yacht for the People's Radical Party politician, Milan Stojadinović . Broz built up the trade union organisation in the shipyards and

39130-408: The way, battles were fought with the enemy ( Konjic , Bugojno , Prozor , Livno , Kupres ) and a new liberated territory was created. At the end of July, the 5th Montenegrin Brigade joined these forces with the Herzegovinian NOP Detachment, from which the 10th Herzegovinian Proletarian Strike Brigade was then formed. The campaign in Bosnian Krajina was not intended as a march, but to strike at

39345-481: The whole territory which had been annexed by Italy according to Treaty of Rome. The decline in support for the Ustaše regime among ethnic Croats of those initially for the government began with the ceding of Dalmatia to Italy, considered as the heartland of the state and worsened with the internal lawlessness from Ustaše persecutions. The Army of the Independent State of Croatia was composed of enlistees who did not participate in Ustaše activities. The Ustaše Militia

39560-455: Was a voivode with the collaborationist Pećanac Chetniks . Since Pećanac was already fully co-operating with Germans by that time, this fact caused some to speculate that Tito left Belgrade with the blessing of the Germans because his task was to divide rebel forces, similar to Lenin's arrival in Russia. Tito travelled by train through Stalać and Čačak and arrived to the village of Robaje on 18 September 1941. Despite conflicts with

39775-567: Was a friend of Đilas. Arriving in Yugoslavia a few days ahead of the Anschluss between Nazi Germany and Austria, he made an appeal condemning it, in which the CPY was joined by the Social Democrats and trade unions. In June, Tito wrote to the Comintern, suggesting that he should visit Moscow. He waited in Paris for two months for his Soviet visa before travelling to Moscow via Copenhagen. He arrived in Moscow on 24 August. On his arrival in Moscow, Tito found that all Yugoslav communists were under suspicion. The NKVD arrested and executed nearly all of

39990-422: Was aided by the activity of Ustaše. By the mid-1930s, graffiti with the initials ŽAP meaning "Long live Ante Pavelić" ( Croatian : Živio Ante Pavelić ) had begun to appear on the streets of Zagreb. During the 1930s, a split developed between the "home" Ustaše members who stayed behind in Croatia and Bosnia to struggle against Yugoslavia and the "emigre" Ustaše who went abroad. The "emigre" Ustaše who had

40205-421: Was also formed as the new secret police, along with a security agency , the Department of People's Security ( Organ Zaštite Naroda (Armije) , OZNA). Yugoslav intelligence was charged with imprisoning and bringing to trial large numbers of Nazi collaborators; controversially, this included Catholic clergymen due to the widespread involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustaša regime . Draža Mihailović

40420-450: Was appointed secretary of the Zagreb branch of the Metal Workers' Union and, soon thereafter, the union's whole Croatian branch. In July 1927, Broz was arrested along with six other workers, and imprisoned at nearby Ogulin . After being held without trial for some time, he went on a hunger strike until a date was set. The trial was held in secret, and he was found guilty of being a member of the CPY. Sentenced to four months' imprisonment, he

40635-602: Was arrested and executed. He worked on with a fellow surviving Yugoslav communist, but a Yugoslav communist of German ethnicity reported an inaccurate translation of a passage and claimed it showed Tito was a Trotskyist. Other influential communists vouched for him, and he was exonerated. A second Yugoslav communist denounced him, but the action backfired, and his accuser was arrested. Several factors were at play in his survival: his working-class origins, lack of interest in intellectual arguments about socialism, attractive personality, and capacity to make influential friends. While Tito

40850-414: Was asked about the Croatian communist leader Kamilo Horvatin, but wrote ambiguously, saying that he did not know whether he was a Trotskyist. Nevertheless, Horvatin was not heard of again. While in Moscow, he was given the task of assisting Ćopić to translate the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) into Serbo-Croatian , but they had only got to the second chapter when Ćopić too

41065-409: Was avoiding arrest in Moscow, Germany was placing pressure on Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland . In response to this threat, Tito organised a call for Yugoslav volunteers to fight for Czechoslovakia, and thousands of volunteers came to the Czechoslovak embassy in Belgrade to offer their services. Despite the eventual Munich Agreement and Czechoslovak acceptance of the annexation and the fact that

41280-417: Was christened and raised as a Roman Catholic . His father, Franjo, was a Croat whose family had lived in the village for three centuries, while his mother, Marija, was a Slovene from the village of Podsreda . The villages were 16 kilometres (10 mi) apart, and his parents had married on 21 January 1881. Franjo Broz had inherited a 4.0-hectare (10-acre) estate and a good house, but he was unable to make

41495-440: Was doing army service. Jurica helped him get a job in a restaurant, but Broz soon got tired of that work. He approached a Czech locksmith , Nikola Karas, for a three-year apprenticeship, which included training, food, and room and board . As his father could not afford to pay for his work clothing, Broz paid for it himself. Soon after, his younger brother Stjepan also became apprenticed to Karas. During his apprenticeship, Broz

41710-408: Was elected as a union representative . A year later, he led a shipyard strike and soon after was fired. In October 1926, he obtained work in a railway works in Smederevska Palanka near Belgrade . In March 1927, he wrote an article complaining about the exploitation of workers in the factory, and after speaking up for a worker, he was promptly sacked. Identified by the CPY as worthy of promotion, he

41925-403: Was elected to the CPY district committee, but after he gave a speech at a comrade's Catholic funeral, he was arrested when the priest complained. Paraded through the streets in chains, he was held for eight days and was eventually charged with creating a public disturbance. With the help of a Serbian Orthodox prosecutor who hated Catholics, Broz and his co-accused were acquitted. His brush with

42140-401: Was employed in maintaining the electrical system and chose as his assistant a middle-class Belgrade Jew, Moša Pijade , who had been given a 20-year sentence for his communist activities. Their work allowed Broz and Pijade to move around the prison, contacting and organising other communist prisoners. During their time together in Lepoglava, Pijade became Broz's ideological mentor. After two and

42355-474: Was encouraged to mark May Day in 1909, and he read and sold Slobodna Reč ( lit.   ' Free Word ' ), a socialist newspaper. After completing his apprenticeship in September 1910, Broz used his contacts to gain employment in Zagreb . At age 18, he joined the Metal Workers' Union and participated in his first labour protest. He also joined the Social Democratic Party of Croatia and Slavonia . He returned home in December 1910. In early 1911, he began

42570-444: Was engaged in the economic exploitation of the occupied areas. These Germans would be exchanged in September for captured partisans and arrested activists. This would the first exchange of prisoners between Partisan forces on the one hand, and the German authorities on the other. At the beginning of August, 5th Proletarian Montenegrin Brigade and the Herzegovinian Detachment arrived in the liberated Prozor, and after fierce fighting with

42785-440: Was eventually taken in by a friend's mother. In 1941, Žarko joined the Red Army to fight the invading Germans. Some of Tito's critics argue that his survival indicates he must have denounced his comrades as Trotskyists . He was asked for information on a number of his fellow Yugoslav communists, but according to his own statements and published documents, he never denounced anyone, usually saying he did not know them. In one case, he

43000-420: Was formally deposed by the Yugoslav Constituent Assembly. The Assembly drafted a new republican constitution soon afterwards. Yugoslavia organised the Yugoslav People's Army ( Jugoslavenska narodna armija , JNA) from the Partisan movement and became the fourth strongest army in Europe at the time, according to various estimates. The State Security Administration ( Uprava državne bezbednosti , UDBA)

43215-412: Was found guilty of collaboration , high treason and war crimes and was subsequently executed by firing squad in July 1946. Prime Minister Josip Broz Tito met with the president of the Bishops' Conference of Yugoslavia , Aloysius Stepinac on 4 June 1945, two days after his release from imprisonment. The two could not reach an agreement on the state of the Catholic Church. Under Stepinac's leadership,

43430-492: Was greatly prolonged, but to no avail. The Comintern formally ratified his resolutions on 5 January 1939, and he was appointed General Secretary of the CPY. After his appointment to the party's highest position of leadership, the newly formed Politburo of the Central Committee retained the old leadership team of Tito, Kardelj, Đilas, Aleksandar Ranković, and Ivo Lola Ribar (the representative of SKOJ ) and expanded it with Franc Leskošek , Miha Marinko and Josip Kraš , and by

43645-436: Was instrumental in kick-starting the Non-Aligned Movement , which would function as a "third way" for countries interested in staying outside of the East–West divide. Ustashe The Ustaše ( pronounced [ûstaʃe] ), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe , was a Croatian , fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as

43860-548: Was made that the practice was sexist. Just like a Serbian king, Tito would appear wherever a 9th child was born to a family to congratulate the parents and give them cash. Tito always spoke very harshly of the Karađorđević kings in both public and private (through in private, he sometimes had a kind word for the Habsburgs), but in many ways, he appeared to his people as sort of a king. Unlike other states in east-central Europe liberated by allied forces, Yugoslavia liberated itself from Axis domination with limited direct support from

44075-430: Was one of 32 delegates to the conference of the Croatian branch of the CPY. During the conference, he condemned factions within the party, including those that advocated a Greater Serbia agenda within Yugoslavia, like the long-term CPY leader Sima Marković . Broz proposed that the executive committee of the Communist International purge the branch of factionalism and was supported by a delegate sent from Moscow. After it

44290-437: Was organised in 1941 into five (later 15) 700-man battalions, two railway security battalions and the elite Black Legion and Poglavnik Bodyguard Battalion (later Brigade). They were predominantly recruited among uneducated population and working class. On 27 April 1941 a newly formed unit of the Ustaše army killed members of the largely Serbian community of Gudovac, near Bjelovar . Eventually all who opposed and/or threatened

44505-400: Was proposed that the Croatian branch's entire central committee be dismissed, a new central committee was elected, with Broz as its secretary. Marković was subsequently expelled from the CPY at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern , and the CPY adopted a policy of working for the breakup of Yugoslavia. Broz arranged to disrupt a meeting of the Social-Democratic Party on May Day that year; in

44720-449: Was put forth by the Yugoslav government itself in 1964 places the number of Goli Otok inmates incarcerated between 1948 and 1956 to be 16,554, with less than 600 having died during detention. The facilities at Goli Otok were abandoned in 1956, and jurisdiction of the now-defunct political prison was handed over to the government of the Socialist Republic of Croatia . Tito's estrangement from the USSR enabled Yugoslavia to obtain U.S. aid via

44935-407: Was released from prison pending an appeal. On the CPY's orders, Broz did not report to court for the hearing of the appeal, instead going into hiding in Zagreb. Wearing dark spectacles and carrying forged papers, Broz posed as a middle-class technician in the engineering industry, working undercover to contact other CPY members and coordinate their infiltration of trade unions. In February 1928, Broz

45150-432: Was repeated multiple times in 1941 with groups of Jews. Simultaneously, the Ustaše initiated extensive antisemitic propaganda, with Ustaše papers writing that Croatians must "be more alert than any other ethnic group to protect their racial purity, ... We need to keep our blood clean of the Jews". They also wrote that Jews are synonymous with "treachery, cheating, greed, immorality and foreigness", and therefore "wide swaths of

45365-452: Was still loyal to the Austro-Hungarian Empire , undermining his later claim that he and other Croat POWs were excited by the prospect of revolution and looked forward to the overthrow of the empire that ruled them. Less than a month after Broz arrived in Petrograd, the July Days demonstrations broke out, and Broz joined in, coming under fire from government troops. In the aftermath, he tried to flee to Finland in order to make his way to

45580-500: Was subject to orders that required him to live in Kumrovec and report to the police daily. During his imprisonment, the political situation in Europe had changed significantly, with the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany and the emergence of right-wing parties in France and neighbouring Austria. He returned to a warm welcome in Kumrovec but did not stay long. In early May, he received word from the CPY to return to his revolutionary activities and left his hometown for Zagreb, where he rejoined

45795-475: Was summoned to Moscow, where he was arrested, and after months of NKVD interrogation, he was shot. According to Banac, Gorkić was killed on Stalin's orders. West concludes that despite being in competition with men like Gorkić for the leadership of the CPY, it was not in Tito's character to have innocent people sent to their deaths. Tito then received a message from the Politburo of the CPY to join them in Paris. In August 1937, he became acting General Secretary of

46010-426: Was to purge the CPY. An initial attempt to send 500 volunteers to Spain by ship failed, with nearly all the volunteers arrested and imprisoned. Tito then travelled to Paris, where he arranged the volunteers' travel to France under the cover of attending the Paris Exhibition . Once in France, the volunteers crossed the Pyrenees to Spain. In all, he sent 1,192 men to fight in the war, but only 330 came from Yugoslavia;

46225-458: Was wanted by the police for failing to report to them in Kumrovec, Broz adopted various pseudonyms, including "Rudi" and "Tito". He used the latter as a pen name when he wrote articles for party journals in 1934, and it stuck. He gave no reason for choosing the name "Tito" except that it was a common nickname for men from the district where he grew up. Within the Comintern network, his nickname was "Walter". During this time, Tito wrote articles on

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