Josip Broz Tito, Titoism and Wikipedia
Wikipedia’s article on Dictator Josip Broz Tito and Titoism is mostly Communist propaganda of the now defunct Communist Party of the former Yugoslavia. As it turns out Jimmy Wales has provided a perfect vehicle for propaganda of this type. The articles are mainly written by Editors from Croatia and supported by other Editors who have communist leanings. It is written in a totally non-encyclopaedic fashion and does not represent contemporary views. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the former Yugoslavia , factual evidence has emerged that Josip Broz and his regime was responsible for executing mass murders, arrests and torture. The worst of these events are Bleiburg,[1][2][3] Way of the Cross[4] and Foibe massacres.[5] Additionally there is the ethnic cleansing of ethnic Germans, Hungarians and Italians of the former Yugoslavia.[6] One only has to mention Goli Otok , a notorious prison on the Croatian coast (former Yugoslavia’s Evil Island-Gulag). The terror campaign lasted for about twenty years until the regime introduced reforms in the 1960's.
Government of the Slovenia
Government of the Republic of Slovenia (a former republic of Yugoslavia) has commission a report study of communist crimes in the immediate post-war period. There work was completed in October 2009. Below is a Croatian Newspaper Jutarnji report on the matter:[7]
Jutarnji writes on the 01/10/2009 - 100 000 Victims In 581 Mass Graves
- "In Slovenia, three basic books came out needed for the study of communist crimes in the immediate post-war period. It specifies graves where liquidation and execution of prisoners of war were carried out in its territory.
- This is a report by the Commission of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia for testing grave sites under the leadership of Joze Dezman and the historian Mitja Ferenc's (author of the"Hidden in his Father Zakrito" and "“Prikrita Grobišča 60 let po Koncu Druge Svetovne Vojne”). 'The report of the Commission of the Government specifies the number of mass graves and victims and their nationality.
- In this collection, in Slovenia, there was discovered and detected 581 mass graves in which, the author estimates about 100 000 victims in total. According to the research of Slovenian and Croatian historians, Partisans in Slovenia liquidated most of the Ustasa and home guard units. The Croats accounted for between 50 to 80 thousands casualties."'
The factual evidence (above) has cast a very different light on Josip Broz (the Commander of all Yugoslav Partisans/Communists during WW2). He and his comrades were responsible for these Communist Crimes. Wikipedia's article on this individual, just seems to gloss over the all above mentioned events, or just not mention at all.
Note: Joze Dezman is a Slovenian historian. He is currently the director of the National Museum of Contemporary History in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The usage of Wikipedia as a tool for promoting this type of propaganda is second only to Google itself. It is quite possible that this came about due to the fact that other editors and Admin are simply uneducated in these matters. This exposes a major flaw in Wikipedia which is that “a group of editors can learn to work the system so they can promote their own point of view, so that the article will become a stated Wiki fact, and itself a piece of history".
Is Wikipedia taking on a darker tone? Where are the ethical & moral issues involved in creating a feel good story about Dictator Josip Broz- Tito.
Additional: The article doesn't even mention his Cult of Personality [8] or that Josip Broz's and his fellow communist were committing economic suicide in the 1960's and 70's.
Factual statements on economic realities of Josip Broz and his fellow Communists:
- Encyclopaedia Britannica states: "At his death, the state treasury was empty"
- BBC UK/History by Tim Judah: "The economy was built on the shaky foundations of massive western loans."
- Ivo Goldstein 'Croatia A History': "People could obtain so much free or for less than the market price (e.g. apartments) that they could be obtain without work."
The above states the economic management of Josip Broz and his fellow Communists of the former of Yugoslavia.
Note: Ivo Goldstein is a Professor at the University of Zagreb & former Director of the Institute for Croatian History of the University of Zagreb. Zagreb is the capital city of Croatia.
Testimony-Eye Witness
- Mitja Ribicic - Internal Security of the Former Yugoslavia: BBC 4
- Janez Stanovnik - Slovenian Politician & Economist/Former Yugoslav Partizan Commander.
- Ivan Supek - Croatian Physicist, Philosopher, Writer, Playwright, Peace Activist Humanist & former Yugoslav Partizan: BBC 4
- Simo Dubajic- Link Former Yugoslav Partizan Commander - "Life Sin and Remorse"
- Josip Zoretic -Political prisoner of the former Yugoslavia's most notorious prison, Goli Otok:Yugoslavia’s Evil Island-Gulag
- Vera Winter – Economist/Political prisoner of the former Yugoslavia's most notorious prison, Goli Otok: BBC 4
- Alfred Pal - Artist/Political prisoner of the former Yugoslavia's most notorious prison, Goli Otok: BBC 4
- "Frank Waddams, a British representative who had lived outside of Belgrade, said he knew first hand of ten “concentration camps” and had talked with inmates from nearly all of them. “ The tale is always the same, he said “ Starvation, overcrowding, brutality and death condition, which make Dachau and Buchenwald mild by comparison. Many Slovenes who were released from Dachau at the end of the war came home only to find themselves in a Slovene camp within a few days. It is from these people that the news has come that the camps are worse than Dachau.” Out of a Slovene population of 1,200,000, Waddams believes that 20,000 to 30,000 were imprisoned."
Media
- New York Times: Evolution in Europe; Piles of Bones in Yugoslavia Point to Partisan Massacres.
- BBC News: Italy-Croatia WWII Massacre Spat
- Mail Online-Word News: Gassed to Death: 300 victims of Yugoslavia's Communist Regime Found in Mass Grave
- Bernard Meares: The Foiba Story
- Croatia's-: Index Net Victims of Communist Regimes get Monument in Vodice
- Slovenia Times Link Post-war Killings Enter the Bloody History
- Croatia's-Javno: Mass Grave Massacre Ordered By Josip Broz Tito
- Croatia's-Moje Vjest: Link On the Island Daksa Exhumed 48 Victims of Communism
- Slovenian Press Agency Link Columnist Says Silence on Post-War Killings Needs to End (interview)
See also
- Top 10 Reasons Not to Donate to Wikipedia
- Criticism of Jimmy Wales
- Nationalistic Editing on Wikipedia
- Bleiburg Massacre and Wikipedia
- The Wikipedia Point of View
- History of the Balkan states
- The Wikipedia Point of View/Wikipedia & Political Agendas
- Titoism and Totalitarianism
Notes
- ^ Webster's Quotations, Facts and Phrases by Inc Icon Group International
- ^ Identity Politics in the Age of Genocide: The Holocaust and Historical by David B. MacDonald. Page 168.
- The Partisans also carried out massacres, best known being at Bleiburg (Austria), where retreating Croatian and Slovenian forces and thier families were massacred.
- ^ Bleiburg Massacre "Among the Croats were real or alleged members or collaborators of the fascist regime. Killings were done presumably with the full knowledge of their supreme commander Josip Broz Tito" to "The majority of the Croats were members or collaborators of the fascist regime, although there were many frightened innocent people, however, these two were inextricably mixed and the pursuing partisans appear to have unfortunately labelled them all as traitors since they were fleeing with the fascist units that were attempting to surrender to British forces in Austria. Apart from Croats, present in the fleeing military columns were remaining units of the Serbian Chetniks and the Slovenian Bela Garda, the vast majority of both were killed as well. The British forces refused to accept the Ustasa's surrender as per the Allied agreement and they were prevented from entering the British occupied areas."
- ^ Hrcak Portal of Scientific Journals of Croatia by Mr Dizdar's Scientific Journal:
- An Addition to the Research of the Problem of Bleiburg & Way of the Cross. This paper dedicated to the 60th anniversary of these tragic events represents a small step towards the elaboration of known data and brings a list of yet unknown and unpublished original documents, mostly belonging to the Yugoslavian Military and Political Government 1945-1947. Amongst those documents are those mostly relating to Croatian territory although a majority of concentration camps and execution sites were outside of Croatia, in other parts of Yugoslavia. The author hopes that the readers will receive a complete picture about events related to Bleiburg and the Way of The Cross and the suffering of numerous Croats, which is confirmed directly in many documents and is related to the execution of a person or a whole group of people and sometimes non-stop for days.
- ^ Where the Balkans Begin (The Slovenes in Triest-The Foiba Story) by Bernard Meares:
- During the early Communist occupation in Trieste, Gorizia and the Littoral, and the 40 days of Communist rule in Trieste city, some 6000 arrests were made and the prisoners carried off to Communist-controlled areas. When the Allies finally imposed their rule they found out about the Yugoslav execution squads. The more objective Italian historians and statisticians such as Galliano Fogar and Raoul Pupo point to between 1000 and 1800 Italians and Slovene victims. The Red Cross estimates that 2,250 failed to return , in rough agreement with Bogdan Novak who said in 1971 that 4200 Italians returned out of 6000 arrested.
- ^ Communist Retaliation and Persecution on Yugoslav Territory During and After WWII by Dr. Ph. Michael Portmann:
- The following article deals with repressive measures undertaken by communist-dominated Partisan forces during and especially after WWII in order to take revenge on former enemies, to punish collaborators, and “people’s enemies“ and to decimate and eliminate the potential of opponents to a new, socialist Yugoslavia. The text represents a summary of a master thesis referring to the above-mentioned topic written and accepted at Vienna University in 2002
- ^ www.jutarnji.hr U 581 Grobnici je 100.000 žrtava. English version-The Jutarnji newspaper reported on the 01/10/2009 commissions find, in all it is estimated that there are 100 000 victims in 581 mass graves
- ^ ‘Discontents: Post-modern and Post-communist’ by Paul Hollander:
- “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”
- ^ European Commission/Slovenian Presidency of the-EU 2008 Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes Appendices/Appendix A: Foreign office documents on the 1947 show trial:
- From Foreign Office to Belgrade, 15 August 1947 Waddams, vice-consul Ljubljana 1945, considers he may be the diplomatic representative referred to in the trial, as both Furlan and Sirc were the only people who helped him to get the Ljubljana consulate going when he first opened it. He considers this the probable reason for their sentence.
- British Consulate, Ljubljana to British Ambassador Belgrade, 22 August 1947:
- ^ Frank Waddams, a British representative in the former Yugoslavia Death by Government by R. J. Rummel.Page 354.
References
- Encyclopaedia Britannica
- BBC-History
- BBC UK/History by Tim Judah
- BBC 4. 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).
- Australia's Four Corners: Tito's UDBA Activities in Australia from the 1960's
- Paul Hollander: Discontents: Post-modern and Post-communist
- Great leaders, Great Tyrants Contemporary Views of World Rulers by Arnold Blumberg
- Communist Retaliation and Persecution on Yugoslav Territory During and After WWII by Dr. ph. Michael Portmann (Fellow of the ZEIT Foundation in Hamburg, doctoral studies at the University of Vienna (Dr. phil.)
- Identity politics in the age of genocide: the Holocaust and historical by David B. MacDonald
- Yalta and The Bleiburg Tragedy by C Michael McAdams
- Where The Balkans Begin (The Slovenes in Triest-The Foiba Story) by Bernard Meares
- Ivo Goldstein: 'Croatia A History', a Mc Gill Queen’s University Press Publication
- Zdravko Dizdar (Croatian Historian/Croatian Institute for History in Zagreb): Partisan and Communist Repression and Atrocities in Croatia, 1944th-1946th - Documents/Hrcak Portal of Scientific Journals of Croatia.
- R. J. Rummel: Death by Government
External links
- National Museum of Contemporary History (Ljubljana)-Slovenia
- Davis Center-USA: Davis Centre: Paul Hollander-Bio
- New York Times
- ABC Australia- Four Corners
- BBC 4 (Interviews: Directed by Mira Erdevicki. Combining stunning archive with incisive interviews this documentary charts how every stage of Tito's life has left its mark on the former Yugoslavia/BBC 4:Tito's Ghosts)
- Croatian Government: Deputy PM and with Representatives of the Croatian society of Political Prisoners-Victims of Communism
- Government of the Republic of Slovenia: Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia [1]
- Croatian Centre for Research of Crimes of Communism
- University of Zagreb
- Wikipedia