Tito: a biography

Swain, G. (2011) Tito: a biography. Series: Communist lives, 5. I.B. Tauris: London. ISBN 9781845117276

Abstract

Josip Broz Tito was a remarkable figure in the history of Communism, the Second World War, the Balkans and post-war Eastern Europe. He was the only European besides Lenin to lead a successful Communist revolution and became one of the most renowned Communist leaders of all times. For a certain generation, he was remembered as someone who stood up to both Hitler and Stalin and won. Tito was above all else a communist, and was devoted to the communist cause until the day he died. What made him different to other communist leaders was that his early experience of Soviet Russia had given him sufficient knowledge of the Soviet experience not to be bound by its spell. Throughout his life he sought to distinguish between Leninism and Stalinism, while never abandoning the internationalism that he maintained stood at the heart of the Marxist message. In his new Yugoslavia, he developed a system of socialist self-administration which appeared able to compete with the West and provided his people with the consumer benefits associated with capitalism. However, within a decade of his death the edifice he had constructed imploded into the most brutal of ethnic conflicts - in essence, Tito was responsible for both the success and the failure of post-war Yugoslavia. In this, the first post-communist biography of Tito, the renowned historian, Geoffrey Swain, paints a new picture of this famous figure. Swain explores not only Tito's relationship with Stalin, but also his early relationship with the Comintern and his long engagement with Khrushchev and the de-Stalinisation process.

• Item Type: Books
• Additional Information: 'This is a fair account of Tito's political life which works well as a histroy of Yugoslavia since its foundation from the Second World War to the death of Tito ....the book has the great merit of being judicious and balanced'. Donald Sassoon, Professor of Comparative European History at Queen Mary College, University of London.
• Keywords: Tito, communism, Yugoslavia
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Swain, Professor Geoffrey
• Authors: Swain, G.
• Subjects: D History General and Old World > DK Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Central and East European Studies
• Research Group: History, Memory and Legacy
• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• ISBN: 9781845117276

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