On Stability and Continuity V

In our last article we saw the accomplishments of Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain, a dictator, who achieved Stability by ruthless suppression and Continuity by restoring a Constitutional Monarchy. Not only was there a peaceful power transfer from him to his successor, Prince Juan Carlos, but Spain has also advanced to a great deal more of real democratic reforms, and it continues to flourish and prosper to this day.

We shall compare Franco with his contemporary, who in many ways came into a very similar set of circumstances, where it can even be argued were far less complicated. The final results, however, were diametrically opposed to those achieved by Franco in Spain.

Let us look at Josip Broz Tito. Just as Spain had a monarchy before Franco, so did Yugoslavia before Tito. And just as there were Right wing and Left wing extremists in Spain, so also were those who wanted to restore the monarchy (Cetniks) and those who wanted Marxist Socialism/Communism. It might have even been easier for Tito than for Franco since Yugoslavia did not have the kind of Civil War that Spain had undergone.

Tito joined the Soviet Communist Party Secret Police (NKVD) in Russia in1935. In 1937 Stalin named him Secretary General of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and sent him back home to lead the Partisan forces. When the Axis powers were defeated, Tito never held a referendum to find out if the people wanted the monarchy restored, or wanted to become a republic. He just went ahead and set up a one party Communist Dictatorship.

Though a true Communist, Tito broke away from the tight Marxist Soviet hold, and even stood up against Stalin, advocating Marxist humanism, giving workers a measure of self-management. That is what gave Yugoslavia better economic reforms than many Eastern European nations. He was more of an ideologue than Franco and became an international figure when he started The Nonalignment movement where many Third World nations joined in to declare their independence from both USA and the USSR.  Nonalignment enabled Tito to protest against the USSR’s invasion of Hungary in1956. Tito, an autocrat, ruled with an iron fist, and even had himself named “President for Life” in 1975.

Franco restored monarchy, but Tito set up a federation of six semi-independent Socialist Republics, and two Autonomous regions within the Socialist Serbian Republic, with an elaborate scheme of rotating the presidency between the republics. It was a recipe for disaster. Tito died in 1980, and within ten years the USSR collapsed, and nationalists in the Socialist Republics had taken over in Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, and Croatia, each declaring its independence. Without a strong figure to hold them together, several small dictators: Milosevic, Mladic, Karadzic... had replaced the big dictator, Tito.

The question then is: Will dictators ever learn? They Labor in Vain! The lifework of Tito is now in shambles. The Yugoslavia he once held together by force and suppression of various ethnicities, is shattered, and exists no more. So, what was it all for? Was it just for his personal ego? He left neither stability nor continuity behind. What a shame!

                                                                                                To be continued…

G. E. Gorfu