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View Full Version : Dissecting Titoism (Examining and Evaluating the Successes and Failures of Tito's Socialist System)



poiuytrewq0987
03-04-2010, 05:05 PM
Firstly, we need to ask ourselves what is Socialism and what does it stand for? If we use dictionary.com, we can find a couple different definitions.


1.a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

2.procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.

3.(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
The first definition seem to advocate for complete governmental control over industry, land, et cetera. Which is very similar to communism where it has complete control over productivity and determining needs over wants.

The third definition describes socialism as the bridge to communism but this is obviously not always the case (see Nazi Germany, it was staunchly anti-communist).

Socialism in Yugoslavia was markedly different from other communist countries such as Bulgaria or the USSR. It had freer conditions such as freedom of travel, options, flexible living conditions, et cetera.

Yugoslavia had a free market, essentially but industries in Yugoslavia was practically state-owned like every other Socialist countries including Nazi Germany. Here is an excerpt from Wiki that outlines on how economy worked in Yugoslavia:


His economic views remained steady, amounting to the high standard of living enjoyed by the country - slowly, Yugoslavia became a virtual free market, neatly separated from other Socialist regimes in Eastern Europe (and marked by a permissive attitude towards seasonal labor of Yugoslav citizens in Western Europe). At the same time, the leadership did put a stop to overt capitalist attempts (such as Stjepan Mesić's experiment with privatization in Orahovica), and crushed the dissidence of liberal thinkers such as former leader Milovan Đilas; it also clamped down on centrifugal attempts, promoting a Yugoslav patriotism.As you can read, Tito supported the idea of a free market but at the same time he didn't support privatization of the economy. This helped Yugoslavia differ itself from other socialist countries because other socialist countries such as Bulgaria or the USSR had a restricted market and what you could buy were very limited. The industries may have been state-owned but they were largely independent in terms of management and productivity.

I've noticed several similarities in policies between NG and Yugoslavia. Nazi Germany (NG) often advocated the unification of the German people spread all over Central Europe, promoted the advancement of her own people but often at the expense of others, etc.

In Yugoslavia, it wasn't very much different, Yugoslavia had policies that helped encourage ethnic groups to see beyond ethnic lines and have them recognize that they're a part of the greater Yugoslav people like the Germans have.

Propaganda was pretty heavy during the SFRJ era the motto "Brotherhood and Unity" for one. Yugoslavia even contemplated about including Bulgaria as the seventh federal republic but that never happened due to the Tito-Stalin Split which made the possibility impossible since Bulgaria was largely within Moscow's sphere of influence.

It may be odd of me to compare and contrast Nazi Germany's policies with SFRJ's but I've found some interesting similarities which I thought was worth mentioning.

Titoism today isn't very well-defined, even dictionary.com doesn't have a clear definition of what policies Titoism would uphold. D.com only mentions that Titoism is a way of opposing Soviet control. That's certainly one of its features but what about its policies, its goals, etc? What is Titoism, exactly? If a government was subjugated to a Titoist-style government, what policies would it carry out to follow Titoism to the letter?

Of course the only way to define Titoism accurately would be to observe what policies Tito has upheld, supported and carried out. From what I've seen, Tito supported a greater Yugoslav people, similar to National Socialism. His economy theories are interesting, he supports the idea of free market but at the same time companies have to be state-owned however independently run and managed. Tito's foreign policy focused on neutrality, yet he considered it important to have a strong military force (as evidenced by its status as one of the world powers before its collapse in the 90s'). I'm not exactly sure how to describe Titoism in a nutshell, I'd call such policies Tito carried out Titoism but if you were to describe it differently what would you describe it?

Titoism could be considered National Socialism reincarnated since Tito followed through policies which focused on the betterment of his own people, encouraged productivity, and Yugoslavia being much more flexible than other Socialist countries.

Moving beyond how to define Titoism. The policies Tito carried out, some of them were successes and some of them were failures. I can't quite name them all but I feel one of them were the failure of Tito to build a large industry capable of producing quality products timely (the notorious Yugo car for example was often noted for its poor quality and prone to breaking down). Yugoslavia had a sizable military industry, it produced its own firearms, artillery, ships, planes, tanks, etc but he failed to capitalize on selling Yugoslavia's military hardware to the world which upon that Yugoslavia would've largely profited from such venue. Yugoslavia also failed to maintain fiscal discipline since one of the core reasons SFRJ collapsed because it was heavily indebted to the IMF. I'll leave the rest for others to point out and discuss.