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Titoism is asocialist political philosophy most closely associated withJosip Broz Tito and refers to the ideology and policies of theLeague of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) during theCold War.[1][2] It is characterized by a broadYugoslav identity,socialist workers' self-management, apolitical separation from theSoviet Union, and leadership in theNon-Aligned Movement.[3][4]
Tito led the communistYugoslav Partisans duringWorld War II in Yugoslavia.[5][6] After the war, tensions arose betweenYugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Although these issues alleviated over time, Yugoslavia still remained largely independent in ideology and policy[7] due to the leadership of Tito,[8] who led Yugoslavia untilhis death in 1980.[9]
Tito himself claimed he was not a Titoist; "Titoism as a separate ideological line does not exist. [...] Should Titoism become an ideological line, we would become revisionists; we would have renounced Marxism. We are Marxists; I am a Marxist, and therefore I cannot be a Titoist."[10] Today, the term "Titoism" is sometimes used to refer toYugo-nostalgia across political spectrum, a longing for reestablishment ofYugoslavia or revival of Yugoslavism by the citizens ofYugoslavia's successor states.[citation needed]
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Initially apersonal favourite of the USSR, Tito led the national liberation war to theNazi occupation during World War II, where theYugoslav Partisans liberated Yugoslavia with only limited help from theRed Army.[11][12][13] Tito met with the Soviet leadership several times immediately after the war to negotiate the future of Yugoslavia. Initially aligned with Soviet policy, over time, these negotiations became less cordial because Tito had the intention neither of handing overexecutive power nor of accepting foreign intervention or influence (a position Tito later continued within the Non-Aligned Movement).[14]
The Yugoslav regime first pledged allegiance, from 1945 to 1948, to Stalinism. But according to theTrotskyist (henceanti-Stalinist) historian Jean-Jacques Marie,[15] Stalin had planned toliquidate Tito as early as the end of the 1930s, and again after the Spanish Civil War, during which Tito participated in the recruitment and to the organization of the Dimitrov Battalion, a Balkan unit of the International Brigades, some of whose ex-combatants would be assassinated by the Soviets.
Tito's agreement withBulgarian leaderGeorgi Dimitrov onGreater Yugoslavia projects, which meant to merge the two Balkan countries into aBalkan Federation, made Stalin anxious. This led to the 1947cooperation agreement signed inBled (Dimitrov also pressuredRomania to join such a federation, expressing his beliefs during a visit toBucharest in early 1948).[6] The Bled agreement, also referred to as the "Tito–Dimitrov treaty", was signed 1 August 1947 in Bled,Slovenia. It foresaw also unification betweenVardar Macedonia andPirin Macedonia and return ofWestern Outlands to Bulgaria. The integrationist policies resulting from the agreement were terminated after theTito–Stalin split in June 1948, when Bulgaria was being subordinated to the interests of the Soviet Union and took a stance against Yugoslavia.[6]
The policy of regional blocs had been the norm inComintern policies, displaying Soviet resentment of thenation states inEastern Europe and of the consequences ofParis Peace Conference. With the 1943 dissolution of Comintern and the subsequent advent of theCominform came Stalin's dismissal of the previous ideology, and adaptation to the conditions created for Soviethegemony during theCold War.
Moreover, Stalin did not have free rein in Yugoslavia as he did in other countries of theFourth Moscow Conference on the partition of Europe; the USSR had not obtained preponderance there, as it was agreed in thePercentages agreement that he would retain only 50% influence over Yugoslavia. Tito therefore benefited from a margin of maneuver far greater than that of the other Southeast European leaders.[16]
When the rest ofEastern Europe becamesatellite states of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia refused to accept the 1948Resolution of theCominform[17][18][6] which condemned the leaders of theLeague of Communists of Yugoslavia[19] for allegedly abandoningMarxism-Leninism,[20] and any communists who sympathised with Yugoslavia.[21] The period from 1948 to 1955, known as theInformbiro, was marked by severe repression of opponents and many others accused of pro-Stalin attitudes being sent to thepenal camp onGoli Otok in Yugoslavia.[22][23] Likewise, real and accused Titoists or 'Titoites' were met with similar treatment in Eastern Bloc countries,[24] which furthermore served to publicize the dangers of challenging subservience to Moscow, as well as to purge 'unwanted' individuals from their Communist parties.[25]
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Elements of Titoism are characterized by policies and practices based on the principle that in each country the means of attaining ultimate communist goals must be dictated by the conditions of that particular country, rather than by a pattern set in another country.[26] During Josip Broz Tito's era, this specifically meant that the communist goal should be pursued independently of and often in opposition to the policies of the Soviet Union.[27][28]
In contrast toJoseph Stalin's policy of "socialism in one country", Tito advocated cooperation between developing nations in the world through theNon-Aligned Movement while at the same time pursuing socialism in whatever ways best suited particular nations. During Tito's era, his ideas specifically meant that the communist goal should be pursued independently of (and often in opposition to) what he referred to as theStalinist andimperialist policies of the Soviet Union.[6] Through this split and subsequent policies some commentators have grouped Titoism withEurocommunism orreformist socialism.[29] It was also meant to demonstrate the viability of a third way between the capitalistUnited States and the socialistSoviet Union.[30]
In fact, on the economic level, Tito simply took note of the inability of the Stalinist-type centralized bureaucratic economy to meet human needs and expanded the number and power ofcooperatives andworkers' councils, several years before theLiberman reform andMikhail Gorbachev in the USSR, beforeImre Nagy andJános Kádár inHungary,Alexander Dubcek in Czechoslovakia, andDeng Xiaoping in China.[31]
Throughout his time in office, Tito prided himself on Yugoslavia's independence from the Soviet Union, with Yugoslavia never accepting full membership inComecon and Tito's open rejection of many aspects of Stalinism as the most obvious manifestations of this. The Soviets and their satellite states often accused Yugoslavia ofTrotskyism andsocial democracy, charges loosely based on Tito'ssocialist self-management,[32][33] attempts at greater democratization in the workplace, and the theory of associated labor (profit sharing policies and worker-owned industries initiated by him,Milovan Đilas andEdvard Kardelj in 1950).[34] It was in these things that the Soviet leadership accused of harboring the seeds ofcouncil communism or evencorporatism. Despite Tito's numerous disagreements with the USSR, Yugoslavia restored relations with the USSR in 1956 with theBelgrade declaration and it became an associated member of the Comecon in 1964. Therefore, Yugoslavia once again strengthened its economic and political ties with the USSR.[35]
Additionally, Yugoslavia joined the US-sponsoredBalkan Pact in July 1953, a military alliance with two NATO member states — Greece and Turkey. The pact had been signed a few days before Stalin died, and the new Soviet government failed to develop any response. However, it was continually met with opposition by Albanian leaderEnver Hoxha, who accused Tito and Yugoslavia for being agents of American imperialism.[36] Tito signed this pact to bolster the defense of Yugoslavia against a potential Soviet military invasion. It also made the option of Yugoslavia's NATO membership more plausible at its time. Under this pact, any potential Soviet invasion of Yugoslavia could also lead to NATO intervention to help defend Yugoslavia due to the NATO memberships of Greece and Turkey. However, the foreign policy disagreements between the three countries in the pact eventually crippled the alliance itself, thus ending the possibility of Yugoslavia's NATO membership.[37]
Some Trotskyists considered Tito to be an 'unconscious Trotskyist' because of the split with Stalin.[38][39] However, other Trotskyists claimed that there were no fundamental differences in principles between Stalin and Tito, despite significant evidence suggesting the contrary. Most notably, Trotskyist writerTed Grant published several articles criticizing both leaders in the British Trotskyist newspaper, of which he was the editor.[40]
The "Titoist" regime adopted a policy of economic "self-management", generalized from 1950, wishing to put themeans of production undersocial ownership of direct producers, thus excluding the formation of abureaucracy as was the case in other communist regimes.[41]
Thepropaganda attacks centered on thecaricature of "Tito the Butcher" of theworking class, aimed to pinpoint him as a covert agent of Western imperialism, pointing to Tito's partial cooperation with western and imperialist nations.[42] Tito and Yugoslavia were seen by Western powers as a strategic ally with the possibility to "[drive] a wedge into the Communist monolith".[43]
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From 1949 the central government began to cede power to communal local governments, seeking to decentralise the government[28][44] and work towards awithering away of the state.[30][45] In the system of local self-government, higher-level bodies could supervise compliance with the law by lower-level bodies, but could not issue orders to them.[46]Edvard Kardelj declared in theAssembly of Yugoslavia "that no perfect bureaucratic apparatus, however brilliant the people at the top, can build socialism. Socialism can grow only from the initiatives of the masses of the people."[47]Rankovićism disagreed with this decentralisation, viewing it as a threat to the stability of Yugoslavia.[48] Other socialist states also criticised this move for deviating fromMarxism-Leninism with declarations that it "is an outright denial of the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and the universal laws on the construction of socialism."[36]
TheLeague of Communists of Yugoslavia retained solid power; the legislature did little more than rubber stamp decisions already made by the LCY's Politburo. Thesecret police, theState Security Administration (UDBA), while operating with considerably more restraint than its counterparts in the rest of Eastern Europe, was nonetheless a feared tool of government control. UDBA was particularly notorious for assassinating suspected "enemies of the state" who lived in exile overseas.[49] The media remained under restrictions that were onerous by Western standards, but still had more latitude than their counterparts in other Communist countries. Nationalist groups were a particular target of the authorities, with numerous arrests and prison sentences handed down over the years for separatist activities. Although the Soviets revised their attitudes under Nikita Khrushchev during the process ofde-Stalinization and sought to normalize relations with the Yugoslavs while obtaining influence in the Non-Aligned Movement,[50] the answer they got was never enthusiastic and the Soviet Union never gained a proper outlet to theMediterranean Sea. At the same time, the Non-Aligned states failed to form a third Bloc, especially after the split at the outcome of the1973 oil crisis.
Industry was nationalized, agricultureforcibly collectivized, and a rigid industrialization program based on theSoviet model was adopted. Yugoslav and Soviet companies signed contracts for numerous joint ventures. According to the American historianAdam Ulam, in no other country in theEastern Bloc was Sovietization "as rapid and as ruthless as in Yugoslavia".[51]
Despite the initial thaw between the USSR and the Yugoslavian authorities following the signing of theBelgrade declaration, relations became tense again between the two countries after Yugoslavia shelteredImre Nagy following the invasion of Hungary. Tito initially approved the Soviet military intervention in his letter to Khrushchev due to fears ofHungarian Revolution provoking a similar anti-communist and nationalist movement in Yugoslavia. Still, Tito later sheltered Nagy to prove Yugoslavia's sovereign status and non-aligned foreign policy to gain sympathy from the international community. The abduction and the execution of Nagy by the Hungarian government underJános Kádár cooled the bilateral relationship between Yugoslavia and Hungary, despite Tito's initial support and recommendations of Kadar as the successor ofMátyás Rákosi and Nagy.[52]
Yugoslavia backedCzechoslovakia's leaderAlexander Dubček during the 1968Prague Spring and then cultivated a special (albeit incidental) relation with the maverick Romanian PresidentNicolae Ceaușescu. Titoism was similar to Dubček'ssocialism with a human face, while Ceaușescu attracted sympathies for his refusal to condone (and take part in) the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, which briefly seemed to constitute acasus belli betweenRomania and the Soviets.[citation needed] However, Ceaușescu was an unlikely member of the alliance[which?] since he profited from the events in order to push his authoritarian agenda inside Romania.
After a significant expansion of the private sector in the 1950s and 1960s and a shift towards a moremarket-oriented economy, the Yugoslavian leadership did put a halt to overt capitalist attempts (such asStjepan Mesić's experiment withprivatization inOrahovica) and crushed thedissidence of liberal or democratic socialist thinkers such as the former leaderMilovan Đilas, while it also clamped down on centrifugal attempts, promotingYugoslav patriotism.[citation needed] Although still claimed as official policies, nearly all aspects of Titoism went into rapid decline after Tito's death in 1980, being replaced by the rival policies of constituent republics. During the late 1980s, nationalism was again on the rise one decade after theCroatian Spring, and inter-republic ethnic tensions escalated.
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Titoism has been perceived very differently by international figures. During Stalin's lifetime, the Soviet Union andEastern Bloc countries reacted against Titoism with aggressive hostility. Participants in alleged Titoist conspiracies, such as the GDR historianWalter Markov, were subjected to reprisals, and some were put through stagedshow trials that ended with death sentences, such as theRajk trial in Budapest in 1949 or theSlánský trial in Prague in 1952.[53] About forty important trials against "Titoists" took place during the Informbiro period, in addition to persecution, arrest and deportation of thousands of less prominent individuals who were presumed to hold pro-Yugoslav sympathies.[54] In France, the Cominform ordered the central committee of theFrench Communist Party to condemn "Titoism" in 1948[55] With prominent members such asMarcel Servin [fr] writing of the need to hunt down "Titoist spies" within the party.[56][57] After Stalin's death, the Soviet conspiracy theories around Titoism subsided but continued. In the mid-1950s, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union temporarily reconciled. Nevertheless, Titoism was generally condemned as revisionism in the Eastern bloc.
In Marxist circles in the West, Titoism was considered a form of Western socialism alongside Eurocommunism, which was appreciated by left-wing intellectuals who were breaking away from the Soviet line in the 1960s.[58] In the 1960s, political scientists understood Titoist state narrative as a form ofsocialist patriotism.[59][60] HistorianAdam Ulam was more critical of Titoism and writes that Titoism has always "retained its (albeit mild) totalitarian one-party character".[61]
Muammar Gaddafi'sThird International Theory, outlined in hisGreen Book which informed Libyan national policy from its formation in 1975 until Gaddafi's downfall in 2011, was heavily inspired by and shared many similarities with Titoism and Yugoslav workers' self-management.[62][63]
Titoism gained influence in the communist parties in the 1940s, including Poland (Władysław Gomułka), Hungary (László Rajk,[64]Imre Nagy), Bulgaria (Traicho Kostov[65]), Czechoslovakia[66] (Vladimír Clementis[67]), and Romania (Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu).
Titoism has sometimes been referred to as a form of "national communism", an attempt to reconcilenationalism withcommunism, traditionally considered incompatible by Marxist social philosophers.[59][60]Walker Connor posits that Titoism is more akin to "state communism", and that Tito advocated patriotism rather than nationalism, as the loyalty is to a state comprising multiple nations. Nationalism was, therefore a threat to Titoism.[68] Tito and the Yugoslav leadership firmly rejected existence of 'national communism', describing the accusations as "attempts to stigmatise recognition of the diversity of forms in socialist processes"[69] and asserted that Yugoslav communists too are proletarian internationalists, stating that:
... internationalism does not start where autonomy and independence end. Real revolutionary unity and socialist solidarity must be based on such a community of interests and views as arises from the full independence and responsibility of each party. Today, more than ever before, the international workers' movement needs such unity as does not conceal differences; but, on the contrary, recognized them. After all, total unity in the international workers' movement has never existed.
— Josip Broz Tito, (1965)[70]
Yugoslav interpretation of proletarian internationalism was outlined in "The Programme of the League of Yugoslav Communists": "Proletarian internationalism demands correct relationships, and support of and solidarity with every socialist country and every socialist movement genuinely fighting for socialism, peace, and active peaceful coexistence between peoples."[69] This posture was contrasted to Stalin's conception of proletarian internationalism "which required unity within the Communist Camp under the leadership of one party which was committed to the interest of one country, the Soviet Union."[71]
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{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)"Niedługo potem we wrześniu 1949 r. doszło do zerwania stosunków państwowych między ZSRR a Jugosławią. Inne państwa demokracji ludowej poszły tą samą drogą.
W kolejnej rezolucji Biura Informacyjnego nazwano jugosłowiańskie kierownictwo partyjne i rządowe "bandą szpiegów i zdrajców" (listopad 1949 r.).
Latem tego roku na Węgrzech i w Bułgarii (półtora roku później w Czechosłowacji) dokonano aresztowań wielu wybitnych i pełniących odpowiedziałoe funkcje partyjne i państwowe działaczy komunistycznych. W czerwcu 1949 roku znaleźli się w więzieniu Laszló Rajk (od 1946 roku minister spraw wewnętrznych, od 1948 r. minister spraw zagranicznych Węgier), Andrasz Szalay, Tibor Szónyi i wielu innych. Trzech wyżej wymienionych skazano pod koniec września 1949 roku w Budapeszcie za szpiegostwo i zdradę na karę śmierci, trzech innych oskarżonych w tym procesie na dożywocie lub długoletnie więzienie. Wszyscy oskarżeni pod wpływem tortur (a także "dla dobra sprawy") przyznali się do zarzuconych im przestępstw."
Another resolution of the Information Bureau called the Yugoslav party and government leadership "a gang of spies and traitors" (November 1949).
In the summer of that year, many prominent communist activists holding responsible party and state positions were arrested in Hungary and Bulgaria (a year and a half later in Czechoslovakia). In June 1949, László Rajk (from 1946 the Minister of Internal Affairs, from 1948 the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary), Andrasz Szalay, Tibor Szónyi and many others were imprisoned. The three above-mentioned people were sentenced to death in Budapest at the end of September 1949 for espionage and treason, while three other defendants in this trial were sentenced to life imprisonment or long-term imprisonment. All defendants confessed under torture (and "for the good of the cause") to the crimes they were accused of."]
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