User talk:Peter Z./Wikipedia & Political Agendas

Is Wikipedia taking on a darker tone? Where are the ethical and moral issues involved in creating articles with old communist propaganda rhetoric. This part of Wikipedia is not encyclopaedic work, pure and simple. The Wikipedia Point of View-History

Research on Wikipedia’s Communist Propaganda Articles (former Yugoslavia)

The Balkan World According to Wikipedia: According to Wikipedia if a Commander happens to lose 100 000 POWs after WW2, it is not that important. Sixty years latter it was established that they were murdered and place in old mine shafts, caves and forests. The information is not to be mention in his biography as it is irrelevant.

On the 23rd of April in 1948, in a speech Harry Truman (the President of USA) stated:

"I am told that Tito murdered more than 400 000 of the opposition in Yugoslavia before he got himself established there as a dictator"

Reference from: Keeping Tito Afloat by Lorraine M. Lees & Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman: Mission and Power in American Foreign Policy by Anne R. Pierce (declassified documents from the 1990s)

• R. H. Markham: Tito's Imperial Communism
• Christopher Bennett: Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse: Causes, Course and Consequences-

"Tito was a Stalinist in his own right" . Bennett, a British journalist who has the good fortune to speak both Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian, a skill that has enabled him to draw heavily on literature of the region that would be unavailable to most American or British journalists.

• Vladimir Tismaneanu: The Crisis of Marxist Ideology in Eastern Europe: The Poverty of Utopia. "Tito was a season Stalinist"
• Adam Bruno Ulam: Ideologies and Illusions: Revolutionary Thought from Herzen to Solzhenitsyn-Titoisam
• Vesna Pusic-Croatia at the Crossroads/Journal of Democracy - Volume 9, Number 1, January 1998, pp. 111-124 "Tito, a Croat and a Moscow-trained communist, ...... While his was a single-party, totalitarian regime, Tito was more a shrewd pragmatist than an ideologue. "

Notes on References

Contemporary views of Josip Broz that are clealy referenced:

• Lorraine M. Lees is an associate professor of history at Old Dominion University in Virginia, USA.
• Anne R. Pierce Ph. D. Political Science from the University of Chicago. Independent Scholar & Author/USA Author's Web Site*

• BBC.UK/History Partisans: War in the Balkans 1941 - 1945 By Dr Stephen A Hart

The article is written in the post Berlin Wall world. The Wiki article does not have the BBC as it's source. This encyclopaedic articles clearly state the dark truth about Tito and his Army-Partisans: War in the Balkans 1941-1945

• Dr Stephen A Hart is senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He is the author of The Road to Falaise: Operations "Totalize" & "Tractable" (Alan Sutton, 2004), "Montgomery " and "Colossal Cracks": The 21st Army Group in Northwest Europe, 1944-45 (Praeger, 2000).

• Zdravko Dizdar [1]: In Mr Dizdar's Scientific Journal-An Addition to the Research of the Problem of Bleiburg & Way of the Cross -Hrcak Portal of Scientific Journals of Croatia states that Tito asked the "Croatian Home Guard" to surrender or face the consequences of not surrendering. After the war ended POWs who did not surrender were slaughter on mass, estimates are about 100 000 victims in total.

• Encyclopaedia Britannica -The article is written post Berlin Wall but it's thin in terms of information, but does not hold back on economic realities: "At his death, the state treasury was empty."

The Wiki article has Encyclopaedia Britannica under its Notes section as it's source, it might be just cosmetic.

• BBC UK/History by Tim Judah: "The economy was built on the shaky foundations of massive western loans." The article is also written in the post Berlin Wall world. The Wiki article does not have the BBC as it's source.

• Tim Judah is a front line reporter for The Economist and author. A graduate of the London School of Economics and of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University he worked for the BBC before becoming the Balkans correspondent for The Times and The Economist. Judah is also the author of the prize-winning The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, published in 1997 by Yale University Press.

• Michael Portamm: 2003-2005 Fellow of the ZEIT Foundation in Hamburg, doctoral studies at the University of Vienna (Dr. phil.). Author Profile

Professional activities: Since 2006, staff at the Historical Commission of the Academy, since 2008 Lecturer at the Universities of Vienna and Bern.[2]

• Genocide & Ethnic Cleansing: Genocide Carried out by the Tito Partisans: Hungarians & Italians [3]

Ref from: Communist Retaliation and Persecution on Yugoslav Territory During and After WWII . by Dr. phil. Michael Portmann

Other Genocide & Ethnic Cleansing: Genocide Carried out by the Tito Partisans/Danube Swabian History (former Yugoslavia) 1944-1948 [4]

• David W. Del Testa has a Ph.D. in History from the University of California at Davis.

The below referenced information is from 'Government Leaders, Military Rulers and Political Activists: An Encyclopaedia of People Who Changed the World (Lives & Legacies Series)’ by David W. Del Testa.

Yugoslavia under Tito was a curious combination of relative economic and cultural freedom and total political repression and control. The lack of political freedom made debate on the role of ethnic identity in Yugoslavia impossible. Tito’s regime had created temporary stability in a historically unstable region. Treated almost as a mythic hero in his lifetime, Tito’s image began to decay in the years following his death, undermining the legitimacy of the regime so connected to his cult of personality.'

David W. Del Testa’s statement succinctly sums up Josip Broz and his political life. One could say it is well balanced in the objective sense.

• Ivo Goldstein:

“Self-management as system was only slightly more efficient than the Soviet model. It was bureaucratised and cumbersome and could not compete with Western economies. People could obtain so much free or for less than the market price (e.g. apartments) that they could be obtain without work. All this made the settling of accounts in the 1980s and in the post-socialist age more difficult.”

“In Tito’s system no interest or ideas could be expressed in a truly democratic way. This did most harm where feelings of ethnic identity were concerned because their suppression led to growth of extreme nationalism. Furthermore, the economic failure of Tito’s system, most clearly expressed in the protracted crisis of the 1980s, left people who even if they were not poor, were disillusioned and open to manipulation by demagogues. Finally Tito’s practical solutions ensured that he would retain unlimited power during his life time, but foreshadowed the problems would come after his death.”

This is a factual statement, written in Ivo Goldstein: 'Croatia A History'. Josip Broz and his fellow communist were committing economic management suicide. The Wiki article does not have Ivo Goldstein as it's source.

The articles clearly state:

1. Josip Broz Tito’s failure in addressing ethnic tensions of the former Yugoslavia;

2. Failure in the economic management of the former of Yugoslavia;

Note: Ivo Goldstein is a Professor at the University of Zagreb. The university is the oldest (1669) and biggest in South-Eastern Europe. The university has 29 faculties, three art academies and the Centre for Croatian Studies. With its comprehensive programmes and over 50,000 full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students. The University is the strongest teaching institution in Croatia. It offers a wide range of academic degree courses leading to Bachelor's, Master's and Doctoral degrees in the following fields: Arts, Biomedicine, Biotechnology, Engineering, Humanities, Natural and Social Sciences.

• Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia-created by Government of the Republic of Slovenia.

Academics involved:

• Joze Dezman: Slovenian Historian-Director of the National Museum of Contemporary History-Ljubljana (Slovenian) National Museum of Contemporary History- Slovenia
• Mitja Ferenc: Slovenian Historian-University of Ljubljana

(Identification of Skeletal Remains of Communist Armed Forces Victims During and After World War II Croatian Medical Journal)

• Council of the European Union (January–June 2008) and the European Commission:

Reports and proceedings of the 8 April European public hearing on “Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes”, organised by the Slovenian Presidency.

• Joachim Friedrich & Zbigniew Brzezinski (Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy): Characteristics of a totalitarian regime; a total ideology, a single mass party, a terroristic secret police, a monopoly of mass communication, all instruments to wage combat are in the control of the same hands, and a centrally directed planned economy. Totalitarian dictatorships emerge after the seizure of power by the leaders of a movement who have developed support for an ideology. The point when the government becomes totalitarian is when the leadership uses open and legal violence to maintain its control. The dictator demands unanimous devotion from the people and often uses a real or imaginary enemy to create a threat so the people rally around him.

Titoism & Totalitarianism:

• Abuse of national sentiment to carry out racial and class revolutionary projects;
• Cult of a great leader, who permits his fanatics to murder, steal and lie;
• Dictatorship of one party;
• Militarisation of society, police state – almighty secret political police;
• Collectivism, subjection of the citizen to the totalitarian state;
• State terrorism with systematic abuses of basic human rights;
• Aggressive assumption of power and struggle for territory.

Ref: Joze Dezman CRIMES COMMITTED BY TOTALITARIAN REGIMES page 197 Slovenian Presidency of the-EU 2008 European Commission

Mass killings without court trials:

The Main Headquarters of the Yugoslav Army had already called attention to respecting the Geneva Convention on 3 May in its order on the treatment of prisoners of war. However, despite this injunction, both prisoners of war and civilians were killed massively at the end of May and in the first half of June 1945 in Slovenia. Tito’s telegram on respecting the Geneva Convention was later revoked; however, it could only be revoked by the person who issued it in the first place, i.e. Tito himself.

The killings without a trial were most massive in the first months after the war in 1945 and continued until the beginning of 1946. How extensive these killings were is illustrated by the fact that 581 hidden graves of victims of post-war killings without a court trial have thus far been found in the territory of Slovenia.

Ref: Milko Mikola CRIMES COMMITTED BY TOTALITARIAN REGIMES page 163 Slovenian Presidency of the-EU 2008 European Commission

Note: Natasa Kandic [5] Call for Cross-border War Crimes ‘Truth Commission’ By Pedja Obradovic-30 November 2009

A broad regional coalition of civil society associations from the countries of the former Yugoslavia is planning to strongly pressure the succession countries into forming regional commissions to establish the facts on war crimes and other severe violations of human rights.

Natasa Kandic: Founder and Director, Humanitarian Law Center, Serbia and Montenegro.

• Serbia to Uncover Mass Graves-Belgrade 13 August 2009 [6]

The Serbian Justice Ministry has announced that a state commission will be formed by September to mark out uncovered mass graves from 1944-46, daily Danas reported Thursday. The graves are thought to contain victims of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito's Partisans.

• Croatian Law: The first online newspaper of the party in Croatia -Recognition Regime Victims of the Totalitarian Communism, Fascism and Nazism in Europe!

• Dr. Zoran Bozic: Tito ordered massacre of the Croatian population in May and June 1945

The purpose of this presentation is to contribute to the formulation and established chain of command and composition of the genocide perpetrators of one sixth of the entire Croatian population in May and June 1945. In this preparation partisan sources were used exclusively.

Dr. Zoran Bozic an official of the Croatian Association of Victims of Communism.

(Mr Bozic is a Doctor from Zagreb -Croatia, Master of Medical Science and has done 20 years intensive research into partisan communists in the former Yugoslavia)

Mr Dizdar's Scientific Journal Study Notes

• Item A-An Addition to the Research of the Problem of Bleiburg & Way of the Cross

Translated: Josip Broz Tito, the supreme commander of the NOV and PO-Yugoslavia and President of the National Committee of Liberation of Yugoslavia, sent on 30 August. 1944:

"Last call to all deluded servants of the occupiers and to all Domobrani Croatian, Slovenian Domobrancima and seduced Chetniks to leave the occupier and surrender to the National Liberation Army by September 15, 1944, with a threat to all those who do not, will be brought before a war court, judged as traitors and punished by the strictest punishment and concerning on the issue of the Allies, they will not interfere in our internal matters and that no one will not stop to punish the traitors of the people and servants occupying forces." (See: N. BARIC, 2003, 496. / faksimil letka/) page 121

• Item B- Z. Dizdar: An Addition to the Research of the Problem of Bleiburg & Way of the Cross

According to the research of Z.Dizdar, Partisan General Aleksandar Rankovic [7] [8] was only answerable to Tito (page 128). Aleksandar Rankovic play a major role in these executions and the only person that could to give Rankovic such an order, was Tito. The report also states that there were huge Camps housing POWs, amongst them were women and children. On page 183 it states that there were 24 000 children in the camps.

Communist Propaganda & Cult of Personality Within the Former Yugoslavia

The Yugoslav Communist state propaganda machine shared much with the Soviet Union. The Soviet format was imposed and then slightly modified. Tito's cult of personality was no different. The Yugoslav Communist state used youth indoctrination (Union of Pioneers of Yugoslavia[9]), which were all too similar to the Soviet Union (Young Pioneer of the Soviet Union [10]) and the People's Republic of China [11]. Communist political, historical and philosophical courses were all part of general education . They can be found in any Yugoslav primary school textbook from the 1970s. Media and arts were used as a powerful means of propaganda and were all placed under heavy censorship. Josip Broz Tito was the main subject. Images, monuments, towns, street names, endless awards were given and a never ending production of books, films and poetry were created. Financially a huge amount of resources were used to keep the Communist propaganda and political activities running on a daily basis. Glorification and hero worship of the charismatic figure, Josip Broz were a constant diet for the former peoples of Yugoslavia.

Most of Josip Broz’s images, monuments, town names and street names are now being removed. This started after the fall of the Berlin Wall and after the break up of Yugoslavia.

• The below referenced information is from ‘Discontents: Post-modern and Post-communist’ by Paul Hollander [12][13].

“Virtually every communist system extinct or surviving at one point or another, had a supreme leader who was both extraordinarily powerful and surrounded by a bizarre cult, indeed worship. In the past (or in a more traditional contemporary societies) such as cults were reserved for deities and associated with conventional religious behaviour and institutions. These cults although apparently an intrinsic part of communist dictatorships (at any rate at a stage in their evolution) are largely forgotten today.”

“ Stalin, Maio, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Sung, Enver Hoxha, Ceascesu, Dimitrov, Ulbricht, Gottwald, Tito and others all were the object of such cults. The prototypical cult was that of Stalin which was duplicated elsewhere with minor variations”

Paul Hollander is an American scholar, journalist, and conservative political writer. (Ph.D in Sociology. Princeton University, 1963, B.A. London School of Economics, 1959 Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Centre Associate, Davis).

Communist Party of Yugoslavia, Tito & the Yugoslav Economy

Self -management as system was only slightly more efficient than the Soviet model. It was bureaucratised and cumbersome and could not compete with Western economies. People could obtain so much free or for less than the market price (e.g. apartments) that they could be obtain without work. All this made the settling of accounts in the 1980s and in the post-socialist age more difficult

In Tito’s system no interest or ideas could be expressed in a truly democratic way. This did most harm where feelings of ethnic identity were concerned because their suppression led to growth of extreme nationalism. Furthermore, the economic failure of Tito’s system, most clearly expressed in the protracted crisis of the 1980s, left people who even if they were not poor, were disillusioned and open to manipulation by demagogues. Finally Tito’s practical solutions ensured that he would retain unlimited power during his life time, but foreshadowed the problems would come after his death.

Professor Ivo Goldstein’s[14] work above proves that Josip Broz, put simply, was a bad economist and the Communists Party members were bad economists too. According to these and other references [15], this was one of the reasons that contributed to the break-up of Yugoslavia. As this was such an historical event, this information should be in the Wikipedia article in order to make it more encyclopaedic.

House of De Bona

• Age, Marriage, and Politics in Fifteenth Century Ragusa by David Rheubottom

Book overview: This book combines the insights of history and anthropology with innovative techniques such as computer simulation to investigate the relationships between politics, kinship, and marriage in the late-medieval city-state of Ragusa (present-day Dubrovnik). At its heart is a reconsideration of `office' and the ways in which ties of kinship and marriage were mobilized to build electoral success.

• Our Kingdom Come: The Counter-Reformation, the Republic of Dubrovnik by Zdenko Zlatar
• Dubrovnik’s Patrician Houses and Their Participation in Power (1440-1640) by Zdenko Zlatar/hrcak.srce.hr/ page 49

Zdenko Zlatar is Reader in Slavic History at The University of Sydney. Address: Department of History, The University of Sydney, Sydney, N.S.W. 2006, Australia

• Dubrovnik Under French Rule by Stjepan Cosic page 113 hrcak.srce.hr/file/12648.
• Dubrovnik‎ by Barisa Krekic
• Journal of Croatian Studies: Volume 20 by Croatian Academy of America
• Quattrocento Adriatico: Fifteenth-Century Art of the Adriatic by Charles Dempsey
• Helias and Blasius De Radoano: Ragusa Merchants in the Second Half of the 14th Century by Barisa Krekic.

" In February of 1378 Blasius and ser Lucas de Bona had appointed two Venetians and a Ragusan" page 408

Note: Reference writing is based on unpublished and published documents from the State Archives in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

• From Dubrovnik (Ragusa) Florence: Observations on the Recruiting of Domestic Servants in the 15 Century by Paola Pinelli - hrcak.srce.hr/file/50677.page 63

"for slave trade companies continued to be founded, like the one established in1445 between Marino di Bona of Ragusa and Benedetto Magrino for the trade of 12-15 male and female slaves."

Croatia:

• De Bona Consulting: Director: Mercy Bona Pavelic

E-mail: bona@de-bona.com, gsm: + 385 91 6374883, Zrinsko Frankopanska 5, Dubrovnik, Croatia fax: +385 20 311816 Pantovcak 8, Zagreb, Croatia, fax: +385 1 4821347 DeBona.com

(Debona.michel: "Basically, we are dealing with a small group of mostly young, very aggressive, (extreme) nationalist/jingoist/chauvinist, passionate (24/7), degree-less students who have decided that Wikipedia is their domain/soap box and a no one should get in their way." - 8 January 2010)