Titoism and Totalitarianism
Titoism and Totalitarianism was a political system (single-party state) that was part of the former Yugoslavia.[1][2][3] A single party, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and its leader Josip Broz Tito, ruled the country.[4][5] The regime relaxed its power from the 1960s onwards. Josip Broz Tito was a member of the Soviet Police-NKVD and the Soviet Communist Party. The NKVD executed the rule of terror and political repression in and out of the Soviet Union.[6] Tito and his comrades set up KGB/NKVD style police units in the former Yugoslavia (UDBA and OZNA). These organisations conducted political repression [7] on a grand scale. [8]
European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes"
Reports and proceedings of the 8th of April European public hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes”,[9] organised by the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June 2008) and the European Commission, stated the following:
(a) Titoism and Totalitarianism was involved in:
- 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;
- Militarization 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.
(b) Mass killings without court trials:
“The Main Headquarters of the Yugoslav Army had already called attention to respecting the Geneva Convention on 3rd of May in its order on the treatment of prisoners of war. However, despite this injunction, both prisoners of war and civilians were killed on mass 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.[10][11]
The post-war killings without a trial were on a massive scale and were executed in 1945 and 1946. Hidden graves that numbered 581, were found on the territory of Slovenia.
Dr Joze Dezman described the fundamental characteristics of the post-Second World War crimes:
"Killing civilians and prisoners of was after Second World War is the greatest massacre of unarmed people of all times in Slovenian territory. Compared to Europe, the Yugoslav communist massacres after the Second World War are probably right after the Stalinist purges and the Great Famine in the Ukraine. The number of those killed in Slovenia in spring of 1945 can now be estimated at more than 100,000, Slovenia was the biggest post- War killing site in Europe. It was a mixture of events, when in Slovenia there are retreating German units, collaborator units, units of Independent State of Croatia, Chetniks and Balkan civilians; more than 15,000 Slovenia inhabitants were murdered as well. Because of its brevity, number of casualties, way of execution and massiveness, it is an event that can be compared to the greatest crimes of communism and National Socialism."
(Joze Dezman, Communist Repression and Transitional Justice in Slovenia, in Peter Jambrek (ed.):Slovenian Presidency of the Concil of the EUROPEAN UNION, BRUXELLES, Ljubljana, 2008. At p. 204.)
In Mr Dizdar's Scientific Journal he stated, 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. These were the victims of the notorious Bleiburg and Way of the Cross massacres.[12][13][14]
References
- ^ Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy by Carl Joachim Friedrich & Zbigniew Brzezinski: Characteristics of a totalitarian regime; a total ideology, a single mass party, a terrorist 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.
- ^ Tito's Imperial Communism by R. H. Markham
- ^ Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse: Causes, Course and Consequences by Christopher Bennett
- ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica: History & Society-Josip Broz Tito
- ^ BBC-History
- ^ The Florida State University FSU professor's 'Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler' sheds new light on three of the 20th century's bloodiest rulers by historian Robert Gellately
- ^ Australia's Four Corners: Tito's UDBA activities in Australia from the 1960's
- ^ Great leaders, Great Tyrants Contemporary Views of World Rulers by Arnold Blumberg-Biographical profiles of 52 major world leaders throughout history, written by subject specialists, feature pro/con essays reflecting contemporary views of the creative and tyrannical aspects of their record. They provide librarians, students, and researchers with critical insights into the figure's beliefs, a better understanding of his or her actions, and a more complete reflection on his or her place in history. Coverage is global, from Indira Gandhi to Fidel Castro, and spans history from the Egyptian king Akhenaton to Mikhail Gorbachev. Among the leaders profiled are Otto von Bismarck, Oliver Cromwell, Charles de Gaulle, Elizabeth I, Ho Chi Minh, Lenin, Louis XIV, Mao Zedong, Napoleon I, Kwame Nkrumah, Juan Peron, and Tito.
- ^ International Law Observer Responding to post-Second World War totalitarian crimes in Slovenia Posted on June 22, 2009 by Jernej Letnar Cernic
- ^ European Commission/Slovenian Presidency of the-EU 2008 Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes- Reports and proceedings of the 8 April European public hearing on “Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes”, organised by the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June 2008) and the European Commission. Page 197. Joze Dezman: COMMUNIST REPRESSION AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE IN SLOVENIA
- ^ European Commission/Slovenian Presidency of the-EU 2008 Ref: Milko Mikola Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes. page 163.
- ^ BBC-History Partisans: War in the Balkans 1941-1945
- ^ 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.
- ^ Yalta and The Bleiburg Tragedy by C Michael McAdams/University of San Francisco, California-USA. Presented at the International Symposium for Investigation of the Bleiburg Tragedy Zagreb, Croatia and Bleiburg, Austria May 17 and 18, 1994.