Blackwell Reference Online

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Josip Broz Tito was leader of the communist antifascist movement in Yugoslavia during World War II that, like Albanian and Greek partisans, liberated the Balkans from Nazi occupation without assistance from foreign powers. Subsequently, Tito developed a form of socialism independent of Moscow through the establishment of “Workers' Self-management.” As founder of the Non-Alignment Movement , Tito achieved widespread international respect as a statesman in the global South in the 1950s and 1960s. Tito was born to a Slovenian mother and Croatian father on May 7, 1892 in Kumrovec, a village in Croatia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The seventh of 15 children, Tito grew up poor and began work as a waiter at 16. He then was a locksmith apprentice in the Croatian city of Sisak, where he was educated by a fellow worker in socialist ideals. In 1910 Tito became a machinist in Zagreb, joining the Metal Workers Union and Social Democratic Party. In 1911 and 1912 Tito migrated to Slovenia, Czechoslovakia, and Germany for employment, joining a successful strike in Bohemia and strengthening his socialist and labor sympathies. Drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army in 1913, World War I was decisive to Tito's political future. He was sent to Vojvodina to fight Serb forces and then transferred to the Eastern Front against the Russians. In March 1915 Tito was wounded, captured by ... log in or subscribe to read full text