Before his death 40 years ago, Josip Broz Tito, the charismatic and controversial dictator of the former Yugoslavia, privately shared a “regret,” his grandson says.
Speaking by telephone, 72-year-old Joska Broz summons the words of an illustrious grandfather who took him in as a child.
In the twilight of his life, Tito confided that it was a “mistake” to allow the 1974 constitution that loosened Yugoslavia’s federal system, opening up fissures that later exploded into war.
Photo: AFP
While the man who embodied Yugoslavia did not live to witness its brutal shattering a decade after his death, he saw the seeds of discord had been planted, his grandson said.
“From one state, we created eight small ones ... we crumbled everything, that’s my biggest mistake”, Joska Broz remembers Tito saying — an admission the powerful leader would not have made in public.
With or without the 1974 constitution, many consider Tito’s passing six years later to be the true death knell for the nation he founded from the ashes of World War II.
Home to a patchwork of Serbians, Croatians, Slovenians, Albanians and other communities, the nation was held together by their lifelong dictator’s magnetic personality — and tools of suppression.
While Tito is praised for turning Yugoslavia into one of the most prosperous communist nations, critics highlight his jailing of political dissidents, and his repression of the historical grievances between communities that surged back with a vengeance in the 1990s.
One of six grandchildren, Joska Broz saw a different side of a man often viewed as larger-than-life.
Tito became a “father” to Joska Broz and his sister, Zlatica, after their parents divorced when he was four, he said. The children lived in Tito’s home in Dedinje, an affluent Belgrade neighborhood, until they were teenagers.
In spite of being a statesman known for his extravagant parties and a bon vivant lifestyle, Tito also “liked simple things,” Joska Broz said.
“He was relaxed with his family, he particularly liked fish and chicken, two dishes he could not enjoy at official meals” because “they are eaten with the fingers,” he said.
He “taught us that we had to live from our work without exploiting our family name,” said the grandson, who has been a police officer, restauranteur and politician.
It was as a police officer that Joska Broz helped manage the logistics of Tito’s enormous funeral, which brought together a who’s who of global leaders, a legacy of a shrewd diplomacy that crisscrossed Cold War divides.
He last saw his grandfather on his deathbed in Ljubljana, where he passed away on May 4, 1980, after battling a months-long illness.
“I left for Belgrade and when I arrived I heard the news” that he was gone, Joska Broz said.
While Tito’s legacy remains a topic of debate in the Balkans, Joska Broz staunchly defends it.
He describes the comfortable lifestyles that people afforded under socialism — even if Tito racked up huge loans to cover the costs.
“We had a real state, free school and health system, peace. Those of today can’t give us a 10th of what we had,” he said.
However, historian Cedomir Antic said that Tito’s political legacy has not stood the test of time.
Of the three pillars of Titoism, “fraternity” and the workers’ self-management economic model are relics of the past, while the third, the global non-alignment movement, has since faded from relevance, Antic said.
“Self-management collapsed when Tito was still alive, non-alignment makes little sense because the bipolar world has disappeared and fraternity evaporated in the bloody wars that marked the end of Yugoslavia,” he said.
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