Who Was Josip Broz Tito

Josip Broz Tito (Kumrovec, 7 May 1892 – Ljubljana, 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary, military leader and statesman. From 1943 until his death in 1980 he stood at the head of the Yugoslav state and its Communist Party. During the Second World War he led the Partisan resistance movement, and after the war he served as prime minister and then as president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY).

He was born into a peasant family in the Hrvatsko Zagorje region and trained as a locksmith. He took shape politically in the labour movement, in the First World War and in Russia during the revolution. He received the title of marshal in 1943, and from 1974 he held the status of lifelong president.

The date of his birth is a point that most biographies note. Most sources give 7 May 1892, while in socialist Yugoslavia his birthday was celebrated on 25 May, as Youth Day. For that reason both versions often appear in biographical accounts.

Tito’s legacy still divides opinion today. Some remember him as the leader of the antifascist struggle, the builder of a state and a co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement. Others point to the one-party system, the political reckoning with opponents and the consequences of the constitutional order of 1974. This biography follows the facts of his life and of the final decades of his rule.

Origins and Childhood

Josip Broz was born in the village of Kumrovec in Hrvatsko Zagorje, which then belonged to Austria-Hungary. He was the seventh child in the family. His father, Franjo Broz (1860–1936), was a Croat, and his mother, Marija, née Javeršek (1864–1918), was a Slovene. Some sources state that the family had fifteen children, while other biographies mention a smaller number. The exact number of his siblings therefore differs from source to source.

He spent part of his early childhood with his maternal grandfather, Martin Javeršek, in the Slovene village of Podsreda. That stay left a mark on the boy. According to his biographers, he spoke Slovene better than Croatian when he returned to Kumrovec, and he also learned to play the piano. Despite his mixed parentage, Broz identified as a Croat, like his father and neighbours.

The family lived modestly, from the land and from the father’s work. Franjo Broz could not afford costly schooling for his children. As a result, Josip had to help at home and earn his own living from a very early age.

Education and Trade

In July 1900, at the age of eight, he enrolled in the primary school in Kumrovec. Learning was hard for him at first, because he had spent a large part of his early childhood among Slovene speakers. He therefore repeated one grade (sources differ on whether it was the first or the second). He finished primary school in 1905.

Further schooling was out of the question. Around 1907, as a fifteen-year-old, he went to Sisak, where his cousin Jurica Broz was doing military service. His cousin helped him find a job in a restaurant, but the work did not appeal to him. He therefore began an apprenticeship with a locksmith and trained as a machine locksmith.

In Sisak he first came into contact with the labour movement. There he celebrated 1 May, Labour Day, for the first time and began to take an interest in trade union organising. He completed his apprenticeship in September 1910. That same year he joined the Social Democratic Party of Croatia and Slavonia.

Years on the Road and Military Service

After finishing his apprenticeship, Broz looked for work in Zagreb, and then travelled in search of earnings to Ljubljana, Trieste and Kamnik. In Zagreb he spent some time repairing bicycles. He also worked outside the borders of the monarchy, briefly staying in Plzeň, where he was employed at the Škoda factory, and later in Germany and near Vienna, where his brother lived.

These wanderings gave him work experience and further strengthened his ties to the labour movement. As a skilled metalworker he worked in factories and came to know the living conditions of industrial workers, which later influenced his political outlook.

In 1913 he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army. He advanced quickly and became a non-commissioned officer, and he remained in service until the outbreak of the First World War.

The First World War and the Russian Revolution

When the First World War broke out, Broz was sent to the front as a non-commissioned officer of the Austro-Hungarian army. According to biographers, Tito later admitted that in the first months of the war he also fought against the Serbian army. According to one encyclopaedic biography, he officially acknowledged this only in 1977.

In 1915 he was captured by the Russian army. After a stay in hospital, in the autumn of 1916 he was sent to a labour camp in the Urals. The revolutions of 1917 found him in Russia, where he came close to Bolshevik circles. He took part in events of the Civil War, and in the spring of 1918 he applied for membership in the Russian Communist Party.

In Russia he met Pelagija Belousova (Russian: Пелагея Белоусова), who became his first wife. According to various sources, she was very young when they met. In January 1920 he set off for home together with his wife. The journey was long and hard, and he reached Yugoslavia only in September of that year.

Return to Yugoslavia and Rise in the Communist Party

On returning to the newly founded Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), Broz joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ). In the 1920 elections the Communists won 59 seats in parliament and became the third strongest party. The party was soon banned, however, and went underground.

He worked as a metalworker and trade union organiser, and in illegal party work he used several pseudonyms. He adopted the name “Tito” later as a party pseudonym. It is also an old, less common Croatian name, and the reason for his choice has not been reliably established. Because of his political activity he was arrested in 1928 and spent some time in prison.

In 1935 he travelled to the Soviet Union, where he worked for a year in the Balkan secretariat of the Comintern. Under his leadership the party was reorganised. According to the sources, by 1937 he had taken control of the party, and in 1939 he became its general secretary. He kept that post until the end of his life.

In Paris in 1937 he met Herta Haas (German: Herta Haas), his future wife. At that time he was preparing the party for great challenges, as Europe was drawing closer to war.

The Partisan Movement in the Second World War

After the collapse of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in April 1941, the Axis powers divided the country. On 4 July 1941 in Belgrade, the Communist Party decided to begin a general popular uprising. Tito took over military command, and the central committee appointed him supreme commander of the Partisan forces.

Over time the Yugoslav Partisans became one of the strongest resistance movements in occupied Europe. The units were multi-ethnic, and fighting took place across the country. Among the decisive battles are those at Kozara, on the Neretva, on the Sutjeska and at Drvar.

In May 1943 German, Italian, Bulgarian and Croatian forces launched the fifth major offensive in south-eastern Bosnia, near the Sutjeska river. In December 1943 Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin decided to support the Partisans. In August 1944 Tito met Winston Churchill for the first time, in Naples.

In May 1944 German airborne forces attacked Tito’s headquarters in Drvar (Operation Rösselsprung, also known as the Raid on Drvar). Tito and his staff, as well as the Allied personnel, managed to escape thanks to fierce Partisan resistance. The headquarters was then moved via Italy (Bari) to the island of Vis. In October 1944 Belgrade was liberated by the Red Army and the Partisans.

AVNOJ and the Creation of a New Yugoslavia

The political foundation of the new state was laid in the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ). The first session was held on 26–27 November 1942 in Bihać, and the second, decisive one on 29–30 November 1943 in Jajce. At that session the creation of a federal Yugoslavia, based on the right of peoples to self-determination, was proclaimed.

AVNOJ elected the National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia (NKOJ) as a provisional government. Tito was appointed prime minister and received the rank of marshal. The Yugoslav government-in-exile was revoked, and King Peter II was barred from returning. According to the sources, Stalin was angry that he had not been informed in advance of the decisions taken in Jajce.

In late 1944 the Tito–Šubašić agreement was signed with Ivan Šubašić, a representative of the government-in-exile. The provisional government of Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was formed on 7 March 1945 in Belgrade under Tito’s leadership. After the elections in November 1945, Tito became prime minister and minister of foreign affairs.

The postwar years were marked by the reconstruction of a devastated country, but also by a political reckoning with opponents of the new order. According to the sources, security services, among them UDBA, carried out arrests and trials of real and alleged enemies of the regime.

The Conflict with Stalin and the Informbiro Period

After the war, Yugoslavia under Tito pursued a foreign policy that was not fully aligned with the interests of the Eastern Bloc. Tension with Moscow emerged, including over support for the communists in Greece. In the spring of 1948, letters were exchanged between the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the Soviet leadership.

On 28 June 1948 the Informbiro (Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties) published a resolution on the situation in the KPJ and thereby openly broke with Belgrade. The Soviet Union soon annulled its treaty with Yugoslavia, and the country entered a period of economic pressure and fear of a possible intervention.

Inside the country, a reckoning with Stalin’s supporters, the so-called Informbiro supporters, followed. In the period 1948–1951, 55,663 KPJ members were registered as Cominformists, about 19.5 percent of the 1948 membership. Many ended up in camps and prisons, among them the islands of Goli Otok and Sveti Grgur. Goli Otok was established in 1949.

At the same time, Yugoslavia opened up to the West and concluded the Balkan Pact with Greece and Turkey. A partial reconciliation with the Soviet Union followed in 1955 with the Belgrade Declaration, and relations improved further after Khrushchev came to power.

The Non-Aligned Movement and Foreign Policy

After the break with Stalin, Tito sought a new foreign-policy footing. In the winter of 1954–1955 he travelled widely through India and Burma. He was the first head of a European state to visit India after its independence. That visit strengthened his bond with Jawaharlal Nehru.

On 18–19 July 1956 Tito hosted Nehru and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser on the Brioni islands. The three leaders signed the Brioni Declaration, which ties peace to collective security rather than to the division of the world into blocs. That meeting is regarded as the start of the process that led to the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement.

The first conference of non-aligned countries was held in Belgrade from 1 to 6 September 1961. It brought together representatives of 25 countries. Alongside Tito, the leaders included Nehru, Nasser and Indonesian President Sukarno. Tito was the movement’s first secretary-general and remained its most prominent figure for the rest of his life.

Thanks to non-alignment, Yugoslavia enjoyed greater standing in international relations than its size would suggest. Tito built relations with the countries of Asia and Africa, but also kept ties with both East and West.

Domestic Policy and the 1974 Constitution

Tito was prime minister (1943/1944–1963) and president of the Republic from 14 January 1953, and after the two functions were separated in 1954, he remained president of the Republic until his death. In addition, he headed the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. He is known for the development of self-management and for leading the country along a different path from those of the Eastern Bloc countries.

On the question of the state’s structure, Tito wavered between a more centralised and a more decentralised federation. In the end he favoured decentralisation in order to ease ethnic tensions. Among the politically sensitive events are the unrest in Kosovo in 1968 and the so-called Croatian Spring of 1971.

The 1974 Constitution further expanded the powers of the republics and provinces. The historian Ivo Goldstein stresses that Tito’s rule is hard to judge in a single verdict and that positive and negative elements are mixed in it. Some regard the 1974 Constitution as a great achievement, while others see it as one of the causes of the country’s later breakup. Critics of Tito’s presidency point to the authoritarian features of his rule and the cult of personality.

Supporters of his policy argue that he maintained peaceful coexistence of peoples within the federation and that the welfare state in Yugoslavia was his legacy. Both assessments remain a subject of debate among historians.

Private Life

Much has been published about Tito’s private life, but not all of it is reliable. This biography gives only details that recur in several sources. According to various sources he was married more than once, and the women officially recognised as wives or companions were Pelagija Belousova, Herta Haas, Davorjanka Paunović and Jovanka Broz.

Pelagija Belousova, known as “Polka”, was his first wife. They had several children, but only their son Žarko Leon Broz (1924–1995) survived. Sources differ on the number of children: some give three, others four. After the divorce Pelagija remained in the Soviet Union.

Herta Haas met Tito in Paris in 1937. They married in 1940, and in May 1941 their son Aleksandar Mišo Broz, later a Croatian diplomat, was born. Tito was already in Belgrade at that time, while Herta stayed in Zagreb. They separated in 1943 in Jajce, during the second session of AVNOJ. Herta Haas died on 5 March 2010 in Belgrade. During that period his personal secretary, Davorjanka Paunović, code-named “Zdenka”, was part of his inner circle.

Jovanka Budisavljević, later Jovanka Broz (1924–2013), met him during the Raid on Drvar in 1944. She first appeared publicly as Tito’s wife in September 1952, at a reception for the British foreign secretary Anthony Eden. For decades she was the first lady of Yugoslavia. From 1977 the relationship between them was broken, and afterwards Jovanka lived in seclusion.

Tito’s grandchildren include Joška Broz, Svetlana Broz and Saša Broz. He was buried in the House of Flowers in Belgrade, where Jovanka Broz was later buried as well.

Final Years and Death

During 1979 Tito’s health deteriorated. On 7 and 11 January 1980 he was admitted to the Clinical Centre in Ljubljana because of circulation problems in his legs. Due to blocked arteries, his left leg was soon amputated. The public followed the daily bulletins of the medical council.

Josip Broz Tito died on 4 May 1980 at 3:05 p.m. in Ljubljana, three days before his 88th birthday. The cause of death is given as post-operative complications and gangrene. The news was announced by Belgrade Television newsreader Miodrag Zdravković with the sentence “Comrade Tito has died.” The country declared seven days of mourning.

Tito’s death closed an era. In the years that followed, the political situation in the country worsened, and nationalist parties gained strength. Yugoslavia broke apart in the early 1990s.

The Funeral and the House of Flowers

The coffin with Tito’s body was carried by the so-called Blue Train from Ljubljana via Zagreb to Belgrade. The body lay in state in the building of the Yugoslav Assembly. The funeral was held on 8 May 1980 in Belgrade and is considered one of the largest state funerals of the 20th century.

Figures for the delegations differ between sources. According to most accounts, more than 200 state delegations attended. Among the guests, according to media reports, were Leonid Brezhnev, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi and Nicolae Ceaușescu, while US President Jimmy Carter sent Vice President Walter Mondale.

At his own wish, Tito was buried in the House of Flowers in Dedinje. It was a winter garden next to his residence, built in 1975. The building was not called a tomb or mausoleum, because that was considered inappropriate at the time, so it received the name House of Flowers. An honour guard of the Yugoslav People’s Army watched over the grave until 4 May 1992.

Today the House of Flowers is part of the Museum of Yugoslavia and one of the most visited places in Belgrade. According to unofficial estimates, between 18 and 20 million people have visited the grave so far.

Awards and Honours

During his lifetime Tito received about 98 foreign decorations, among them the French Legion of Honour and the British Order of the Bath. His standing on both sides of the Cold War made him one of the most respected leaders of his time.

In 1943 he received the rank of Marshal of Yugoslavia. In January 1974, during a visit to New Delhi, he received the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding. His likeness appeared on the cover of the American magazine Time in 1944.

A list of all his domestic decorations has not been reliably confirmed in the sources used for this biography, so it is not given here.

Interesting Facts

• His birthday was celebrated on 25 May as Youth Day, although most sources give 7 May as the actual date of birth.
• As a boy he spoke Slovene better than Croatian, and he also learned to play the piano.
• According to the sources, he was the first head of a European state to visit India after its independence.
• The House of Flowers was not called a tomb or mausoleum, because that was considered inappropriate.
• For several years after his death, sirens sounded on 4 May at 3:05 p.m., and citizens stood in silence.
• During the Raid on Drvar in 1944, the main headquarters was housed in a cave above the town.
• His funeral brought together delegations from more than 100 countries of the world.

Legacy and Influence

Tito was the chief architect of the second Yugoslavia, which lasted from 1943 to 1991. His policy of non-alignment gave a small European state a role on the world stage. The Non-Aligned Movement today has around 120 members, although its influence is considerably weaker than in the second half of the 20th century.

Assessments of his legacy remain contradictory. Historians such as Ivo Banac and Ivo Goldstein point out that the break with Stalin in 1948 was his most significant decision, but also that alongside his achievements there were an authoritarian system and a cult of personality. Those who criticise him stress the fate of the prisoners on Goli Otok and the limits on political freedoms.

Tito’s name is still mentioned in debates across the former Yugoslavia. Every year thousands of people gather in Kumrovec on his birthday and at the House of Flowers on the anniversary of his death. For some he is a symbol of a better life, for others a symbol of a system that did not allow free political thought.

Biography – Frequently Asked Questions

When and where was Josip Broz Tito born?

Josip Broz Tito was born on 7 May 1892 in the village of Kumrovec in Hrvatsko Zagorje, which was then part of Austria-Hungary and is now in Croatia. Some sources give 25 May, which was his official birthday in the SFRY.

Why was 25 May celebrated as Tito’s birthday?

In socialist Yugoslavia, 25 May was celebrated as Youth Day and as Tito’s birthday. Most biographers state that the actual date of birth is 7 May, which is why the two dates are often mentioned together.

Where does the name Tito come from?

Tito was a party pseudonym that Josip Broz adopted in his illegal work. It is also an old, less common Croatian name. Reliable sources do not explain exactly why he chose that name.

How long did Tito lead Yugoslavia?

Tito stood at the head of the Yugoslav state from 1943 until his death in 1980. He was prime minister (1943/1944–1963) and president of the Republic from 1953 to 1980. He headed the Communist Party from 1939 until his death.

Why did the conflict between Tito and Stalin break out in 1948?

Tito pursued a policy that was not fully aligned with the Eastern Bloc, with tension over Greece and Soviet influence in Yugoslavia. On 28 June 1948 the Informbiro published a resolution against the KPJ, which led to an open break.

What is the Non-Aligned Movement and what was Tito’s role in it?

The Non-Aligned Movement is a group of states that did not want to join either of the two bloc alliances in the Cold War. Tito is one of its founders, together with Nehru and Nasser. The first conference was held in Belgrade in 1961, and Tito was the first secretary-general.

How many times was Tito married?

Sources differ on the number of marriages. The best-known wives were Pelagija Belousova, Herta Haas and Jovanka Broz. A shorter marriage in Moscow in 1936 is also mentioned, but less is known about it.

When and of what did Tito die?

Tito died on 4 May 1980 at 3:05 p.m. at the Clinical Centre in Ljubljana, three days before his 88th birthday. The cause of death is given as complications and gangrene following circulation problems and the amputation of his left leg.

Where is Tito buried?

Tito was buried on 8 May 1980 in the House of Flowers in Dedinje, Belgrade. The House of Flowers is a winter garden next to his residence and is today part of the Museum of Yugoslavia. Jovanka Broz was later buried there as well.

Conclusion

Josip Broz Tito travelled the road from a village boy in Kumrovec to one of the best-known statesmen of the 20th century. He was a locksmith, a soldier, a prisoner of war, a trade union organiser and a communist revolutionary. In the Second World War he led the Partisans, and after the war he led Yugoslavia for a long time.

His break with Stalin in 1948 and the policy of non-alignment gave Yugoslavia a special position in the world. At the same time, his rule remained marked by a one-party system, a cult of personality and political reckonings. That is why historians and the public still assess his legacy differently today.