[Lord_Tito]

The war years were a nightmare of inter-ethnic bloodletting, fighting and wars within wars. While Yugoslavia was occupied and resistance was directed against the occupiers, in fact the majority of those who died, did so in fighting between nationalists of various stripes - royalists, communists, quislings and so on.

'By 1945 Tito's forces were victorious...'
Tito's forces, however, soon gained the recognition and help of the Allies. They also offered an ideal - a dream of 'brotherhood and unity' - that would link the nations or peoples of Yugoslavia. By 1945 Tito's forces were victorious, and crucially, although the Soviet Red Army had helped in the struggle, it had now moved on to central Europe. So Tito, not Moscow, would shape the new state.

But Tito was a communist, loyal to Stalin. He wanted to model his country on the Soviet Union, so a federal state of six republics was proclaimed (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia). Stalin was wary of Tito, however, and in 1948 the two fell out. Yugoslavia was expelled from the communist bloc but Tito did not fall from power, as many had expected. He survived, and began to chart an independent course for the nation he ruled.

Over the next 40 years Yugoslavia changed beyond recognition. It developed its own brand of socialism, and a society far more open than that of its communist neighbours. For them, and for many communists around the world, Yugoslavia seemed to be a paradise on earth. At home the federation appeared to have solved the bitter national questions of the past, living standards were high and, unlike in other communist countries, citizens were free to travel to the west, either to work or to take holidays.

Tito's Yugoslavia also gained enormous prestige as a founder of the non-aligned movement, which aimed to find a place in world politics for countries that did not want to stand foursquare behind either of the two superpowers.

'Even liberal communism had its limits...'
Despite all this, and although there was much substance to Tito's Yugoslavia, much was illusion too. The economy was built on the shaky foundations of massive western loans. Even liberal communism had its limits, as did the very nature of the federation. Stirrings of nationalist dissent in Croatia and Kosovo were crushed. The federation worked because in reality the voice of only one man counted - that of Tito himself.

Let us remember him today.