Josip Broz Tito died 45 years ago: His mysterious biography is still talked about

He came to the head of Yugoslavia after the victory in the Second World War, and after the Soviet Red Army liberated Belgrade from the German occupiers in October 1944, together with partisan units, i.e. NOVJ.

It is considered that the resistance movement led by Josip Broz Tito was the strongest on the ground in Europe west of the Soviet Union and that is why he emerged from the Second World War as a celebrated war commander.

Josip Broz was born in Kumrovac, in Zagorje, not far from the border with Styria, probably on May 7, 1892. His father was Croat and his mother Slovenian. After a messy elementary education in his hometown, he learned his trade in Sisak.

Allegedly, shortly after arriving in Zagreb in 1910, he became active in the labor movement, when he became a member of the local Social Democratic Party of Croatia and Slavonia.

In later years, he worked in Kamnik, Kranjska, Čenkovo, the Czech Republic, near Munich in Bavaria, Vienna's New Town, but he did not stay anywhere for long. Since 1913, he has been serving his military service, where he distinguished himself both by attaining the rank of non-commissioned officer and as the runner-up in a fencing competition in the Austrian army. The winner was one of the archdukes from the House of Habsburg.

Since Vienna started the First World War by attacking Serbia, it found itself at the front. At first he fought on the Serbian front. In his later official biographies, this information was neglected, it was only emphasized that due to indiscipline he was imprisoned in Petrovaradin.

Then he was sent to the Russian front, in Galicia. In May 1915, after being wounded, the Russians captured him. He spent the rest of the First World War in Russia. He refused to join the Yugoslav volunteer formation in Russia. In later biographies it was stated that he was a participant in the October Revolution, which is not true.

During his stay in Western Siberia, he marries the underage daughter of the man on whose farm he worked. In the fall of 1920, he and his wife came to the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Until 1925, he lived in Veliko Trojstvo, not far from Bjelovar, where he worked in a mill. Four children were born to him there, of whom only Žarko survived. Then he stayed in Zagreb, Kraljevica, Belgrade, Smederevska Palanka, before returning to Zagreb in 1927.

He was officially an industrial worker, but actually more dedicated to trade union party work. He was arrested in 1927 and 1928. Having been sentenced to five years in prison, he will be released from prison in March 1934. He then becomes a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and a professional communist official.

According to the testimony of Vasa Kazimirović, the latter's historian, who was then a member of the SKOJ family and transferred money as a party courier, high-ranking party officials of the Comintern were then paid at the same level as bank directors in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. During the second half of the 1930s, he managed to remove several prominent officials from leading positions in the party, starting with the previous leader of the KPJ, Milan Gorkić (Čižinski), i.e. competitors such as Labud Kusovac or Petko Miletić. From the end of 1937, he introduced himself as the general secretary of the CPJ Central Committee.

During the Civil War in Spain, according to certain, unverified, allegations, he decided the fate of certain prominent party officials. He managed to survive the period of the Great Purge in the Soviet Union, although he stayed there for a significant part of 1938/1939, while most of the champions of the KPJ were liquidated, or at best ended up in the GULAG camp system.

In October 1940, he formally became the head of the KPJ. Since Yugoslavia was occupied in April 1941, he left Zagreb for Belgrade, where, following the order from Moscow, which followed after the Soviet Union was attacked, he would begin the organization of the uprising in Serbia.

As supreme commander of NOPOJ, he led the resistance in occupied Yugoslavia, which was crowned with a great victory. Gradually, at the end of 1943, he managed to establish himself as the main force of resistance within Yugoslavia and in the eyes of official London. As the undisputed leader of socialist Yugoslavia, he led the country since its liberation in 1944/1945. until his death in May 1980.

Formally, from 1943 to 1963, he was the President of the Government of Yugoslavia, and then the President of the State. At the same time, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) has been leading the entire time, that is, since November 1952, the Union of Communists of Yugoslavia. He held the title of marshal from the Second AVNOJ session, at the end of November 1943. At first, Moscow's most loyal ally, since Stalin decided to get rid of him, which was disclosed at the end of June 1948.

According to the resolution of the Informburo, it is gradually relying on the West. In Washington, it was then decided to send him help, with the aim of collapsing the monolithic nature of the Communist International.

He then enjoyed considerable military, financial and other assistance from the US. In the conditions of the then so-called Cold War, and the parallel process of decolonization, he managed to gradually, at the end of the fifties and early sixties, establish himself as one of the leaders of the so-called Third World, i.e. the Non-Aligned Movement, of which he was the founder, together with Nehru and Nasser.

In internal politics, a specific Yugoslav path was devised at the time, called socialist self-management, which also entailed the introduction of market mechanisms, along with social property, in which there was success. In parallel, in addition to the formal federal arrangement, over time, decentralization has taken place, so that since the Constitution of 1963, and completely with the Constitution of 1974, all real power has been transferred to the level of federal units, that is, republican parties.

Defense, foreign and fiscal policy remained common, and not completely, whereby the so-called key was implemented everywhere, with the aim of so-called equal representation with a mandatory consensus of representatives of all republics and provinces.

It was, as it turned out, a dysfunctional, destructive organization that made Yugoslavia's survival impossible.