Tito died five years before I was born, but the whole country still screams "Tito did this, Tito did that" and he really left his mark on the history in this part of the world. Dictators of communist regime cannot be forgotten easily and that's because their reigns were long lasted. And, of course, they killed a lot of people for some stupid reasons. When you visit some countries in Eastern Europe, the most of the buildings that you see were built in the time of socialist dictators. You will not see any beauty in those buildings, only functionality and concrete. They managed to put people to live in beehives. So, these dictators left so many marks that are still here and we will probably never get rid of them. And Josip Broz Tito (1892 - 1980) left those marks in Croatia and in all rest countries of former Yugoslavia. Now I will explain you the background.

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Powder Keg

The Powder Keg (or the barrel of gunpowder) was a name that referred to Balkans Peninsula in the early 20th century. That's because it was always war in this region and, during the history, everybody wanted to conquer and claim countries in Balkans. Part of the peninsula was in Austro - Hungarian Empire, the second largest part was conquered by Ottoman Empire. My country, Croatia, was divided between Austro - Hungarian Empire, Republic of Venice and Ottoman Empire for five hundred years. But people here remained proud to be Croats and they kept their language and Christianity while dreaming about freedom.

At the start of 20th century, disorders in Balkans reached the top.

Even Word War I started here and important battlefields were located around here.
After the World War I, Croats, Serbs and Slovenians formed a kingdom together. It was firstly named Kingdom of SHS (Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca - Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians) and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Yugoslavia literally means "Land of Southern Slavs"). Nobody was happy in new formed country, especially because the dynasty of Karađorđević from Serbia which ruled new founded kingdom. It is very hard to put more different peoples in one kingdom only because they have similar languages. But there were big differences that caused bigotry between nations in the kingdom. Croats are completely Catholics, while Serbs are Orthodox Christians and there are more than 50% of Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was also the part of the kingdom. Views about politics were also very different. While Serbia preferred to cooperate with Russia and countries of Eastern Europe, Croatia wanted to turn to the west. So, before World War II, there were many rebellions and they were all destroyed. Many political parties wanted to make things better peacefully, but they were all imprisoned and many of them were executed. So, it all resulted with an assassination of the king in 1934. After that, the kingdom started to fall apart.

In Croatia, people that remained in old Croatian Party of Rights started to spread their influence on the people.

Their leader, Ante Pavelić preferred to deal with Adolf Hitler who helper him to form Independent State of Croatia in 1941, shortly after the beginning of World War II. I am not proud of it, but I can't escape to history of my people's leaders.
Nothing good happened here in next four years. There were many armies fighting here. The government of new founded state started to sell many properties to Italy for cheap. And this is where Tito comes in.

The rise of Tito

Tito was born in 1892 in little village of Kumrovec in Croatia in a very poor family. He was just an apprentice of a locksmith and nobody could even imagine him as a great ruler of six countries. So, he worked shortly as a locksmith and soon joined in army which will define his whole future. He was imprisoned in Serbia at the beginning of World War I. When he was released, he was send to fight the Russia. There he got sick by the typhus, he got seriously wounded and captured by Russians.

Next 13 months he was a prisoner of war in hospital where he learned to speak Russian language and read many Russian classics.

It can be said that he was re - educated at that time. When he was released, he participated in October Revolution in 1918. Probably there he got communist views. When he returned home (now part of Kingdom of Yugoslavia) in 1920, he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, but one year later, the party was declared illegal. So, Tito remained with his communist activities so, he couldn't keep any job. Then he took his very young Russian wife and went to live in the village. But of course that he continued to be a communist. So, he was imprisoned in 1928. In that time, his wife left him. He was in prison until 1934 and released after the assassination of the king of Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which I mentioned before in this post.

During his imprisonment, communist party spread all over the country.

So, when he got out, he was received as a hero and got important functions in the party. Very soon he became it's leader and supported peasants and working class. Whole time between two fires: supporters of dynasty of Karađorđević and supporters of Croatian Party of Rights.

When World War II started, there already was critical in these countries.

Axis forces invaded Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941. They established puppet states, the mentioned Independent State of Croatia, Serbian Government of National Salvation and Kingdom of Montenegro under rule of Italians. Germany took northern Slovenia and Italy took whole Dalmatia. Croatian fascists "ustaše" and Serbian royalists "chetniks" made genocide on each other and all national minorities.

But communist - led army of partisans was resistance on all sides.

And there were more and more of those who joined communist partisans in their mission to fight fascists, spreading communist idea of "brotherhood and unity" in all countries of southern Slavs. They won many battles and Western Allies acknowledged partisans as the most efficient army on the side of the Allies because they were winning the battles against Italians, Germans, "ustaše" and "chetniks". And on the top of those partisans was Josip Broz Tito.

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In 1944 German army had to retreat and those puppet states were left without support.

Tito used that opportunity and in 1945 he destroyed and banned "ustaše" and "chetniks" and defeated those puppet states. That was how communist party united six countries in one: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia. The state was called Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Tito was the absolute ruler for next 35 years. First, as Prime Minister, then as the President.

Many people were killed or tortured after the Republic was established. Time of communist regime came and that will show a bad side of all. To be continued...