On this day 45 years ago, on May 4, 1980, Josip Broz Tito (88), President of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LKJ), Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), and one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, died.
Tito was born in Kumrovec, a town on the Slovenian-Croatian border, in May 1892, and his birth date was marked on May 25, which was declared Youth Day and during which a relay team that had previously toured the entire Yugoslavia arrived in Belgrade at the JNA stadium.
He was at the head of the federal state, made up of six republics, for almost 35 years, from the liberation of the country after World War II in 1945 until his death.
He led Yugoslavia out of the Eastern (Soviet) bloc and implemented reforms, after which the devastated and poor country became a moderately developed one, with a modern educational and social system.
However, the confiscation and nationalization of almost all private property, as well as the absence of a democratic system, free media, and free elections, produced strict state and party control of all post-war life, and the ideological exclusivity of the government cost the freedom, and even the lives, of many who were unwilling or unable to adapt.
Regardless, he enjoyed enormous popularity among the people, which the lower leaders of the socialist system used to build a personality cult, with the hope that it would be useful for them to continue ruling after Tito's death.
The Non-Aligned Movement, in whose founding he played a huge role, strengthened his position on the international scene and brought Yugoslavia closer to the inhabitants and markets of countries in Africa and Asia, which had a positive political and economic effect.
As a statesman from a relatively small country with a population of 20 million, he became a disproportionately significant figure in world politics, influential, a welcome and welcome guest in almost all world centers, from London and Washington, to Moscow and New Delhi.
The self-management system in the economy, which was introduced in the mid-1970s, however, did not stand the test of time; the economy did not become sufficiently competitive, nor capable of employing an adequate portion of the population.
In the last years of his life, perhaps without his decisive influence on decision-making, the country's debt rose sharply, along with the strengthening of social and later national tensions, which ten years later, in 1990, would lead to the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia and the formation of small nation-states, weak influence, and miniature political power.
Tito died on May 4, 1980, at 15.05:XNUMX p.m., at the Clinical Center in Ljubljana, after complications following a leg amputation and other accumulated health problems.
His body was transported by the "Blue Train" to Belgrade, and along the way it was accompanied by flowers and tears from hundreds of thousands of citizens who visited the deceased leader, who was laid out on a bier in the parliament building, for the next few days.
The funeral of Josip Broz Tito was attended by more than 200 prominent figures from around the world, including presidents, prime ministers, kings, rulers and party leaders from 107 countries. Among them were Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Leonid Brezhnev and many others.
Almost half a century after his death, Tito remains a controversial and historically interesting figure. His grave, as well as the Museum of Yugoslavia nearby, are visited by thousands of people from the former Yugoslavia every year.
Bonus video:
