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- [00:01]
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- [00:55]
Narrator
Its Monday, May 14, 1945 we're in Bleiburg, a small town in southern Austria, just two miles from the border with Slovenia. It's a picture postcard community of whitewashed buildings, red tiled roofs and hand painted window shutters. Beyond it is a land of rolling hills and pine forests. In the spring sunshine, the countryside is strikingly green, stunningly beautiful. A week after the armistice, it's also a land theoretically at peace. In this corner of Europe, however, it's not the case. Not yet. Out there, across the Draba Valley, the war rumbles on Tito's partisans. Now the Yugoslav People's army are pushing northward, closing in, tightening the noose on the last vestige of their enemies. The Germans may have gone, the Italians too, but there are others on their hit list, the ragtag remnants of the pro Axis militia groups, as well as those hated friends turned foe the Chetniks. It's not just combatants on the move. The conflict is causing massive civilian displacement. It's an exodus on a biblical scale, part of a wholesale movement of people right across Europe. Refugees have been streaming across Austria's frontier for days, cramming the roads, spilling into the fields. Fields around towns like Bleiburg. Whether civilian or soldier, they all seek the same the sanctuary and protection of the West. Those fearing the sharp end of allied justice, like the Croatian fascists, the ustae, have cast off their uniforms, blending into the human flotsam. A condition of the armistice was that all combatants were supposed to stay put, protected by the Geneva Convention. On the ground, the reality is different, and it's giving the occupying forces a headache. Here in Austria's British zone, providing food and shelter. And on such a scale is a task for which its troops are ill equipped. The next day, the 15th, an order comes through relayed by an army brigadier. All surrendered personnel of established Yugoslav nationality who were serving in German forces should be disarmed and handed over to Yugoslav forces. It's okay. Their country's new leader, Marshal Tito, has assured their safety. In an uncomfortable echo of Nazi policy, the surrendering soldiers are herded to the nearby railway station and into cattle trucks. Some take the order on trust, others protest. Amid the babble of languages and general confusion, some assume they're traveling into the Austrian interior. It's not the case for the repatriated of Blyburg. The only route is south. The massacres are about to begin. From the Noiser podcast network, this is part four of the Tito story and this is real dictators. In October 1944, Marshal Tito and his victorious partisans had entered Belgrade. With the assistance of the Soviet Red army, they've driven the Germans out of the Yugoslav capital. In May 1945, when the rival independent state of Croatia collapses, it's pretty much, though not completely, game over. It has been a hard won victory. By war's end, over 1 million Yugoslavs will be dead, a tenth of the population. In the grisly league table of European war losses, Yugoslavia comes in third after the USSR and Poland. Many, probably the majority, have perished at the hands of their own countrymen. This was never just a war of liberation. It was also a civil war, a revolution. And it's not yet over. Tito, with the backing of the allies, is the new provisional head of the Yugoslav state. His position has been secured by promises of the inclusivity of his new government and of a post war Yugoslavia's independence free from interference by Moscow, something of which the western allies remain paranoid as the months wear on, Stalin seems intent on bringing anywhere that the Red Army's boots have trodden under Soviet control. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, the Baltic states, the eastern portion of Germany. The Soviets had been invited into Yugoslavia by Tito to help take Belgrade. To outsiders it seemed unlikely they would leave. But to sighs of relief, in April 1945 they sling their rifles and go home, just like Tito had promised. Tito was in a unique position for a resistance leader. Professor Christopher Catherwood Framework Tito is that
- [07:27]
Professor Christopher Catherwood
Tito actually helped liberate Yugoslava himself. I mean that's the absolute key thing. So he was the national hero to all Yugoslavs.
- [07:36]
Narrator
It's a remarkable achievement. As a general he's beaten both Hitler and Mussolini. As a diplomat, he's held his own with Stalin and Churchill, Roosevelt too.
- [07:48]
Neil Barnett
Neil Barnett it gave Tito a real legitimacy and it gave Evisavia a high degree of autonomy, both from the Soviets and from the west, because he actually had street cred.
- [08:02]
Professor Christopher Catherwood
I mean, he was a communist and was popular, whereas all the other people were imposed by the Red Army.
- [08:11]
Narrator
Tito has been true to his word. Elsewhere. On March 7, 1945, he convenes the first session of Yugoslavia's provisional government. It features politicians from across the spectrum. He himself is the prime minister of the latest rebrand of the state, Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, while old pal Edvard Kardelsz becomes one of two deputy prime ministers. The other is Milan Grohl, a Serbian literary critic and historian. A recommendation of the regime in exile the King's voice of reason Ivan Subacic gets foreign Minister. Tito's government has Orthodox members, Catholics, Muslims, atheists. It's made up of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians, Montenegrins and Macedonians, the six core nationalities. Despite the traditional Serbian power base, it should never be forgotten that Tito is a Croat, born to a Slovene mother and who was brought up a Catholic.
- [09:22]
Professor Christopher Catherwood
And so there's this weird feeling in western Croatia. Well, he's a dictator, but at least he's got a Croat father. He's not a Serb and he kept the Russians out. So you know, we have freedom which other peoples don't have.
- [09:35]
Narrator
Under Tito, as we know, ethnic and national identity is incidental. Loyalty is only to the Yugoslav state and those who have not been will be made to suffer. Tito's chief antagonists have wisely gone to ground. Croat leader Ante Pavelic, it will transpire, has availed himself of the underground Nazi escape route and will turn up in South America. His fascist Ustasha movement had murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, many in its state run death camps.
- [10:14]
Professor Christopher Catherwood
The Kurds created atrocities that shock even the ss and that is quite something. And of course we discovered later that Kurt of Altheim knew all this because he was deeply involved with the Germans. It all got slightly awkward, of course, when he became UN Secretary General.
- [10:29]
Narrator
least say some. The Ustasha are not godless, not like the Commies. Many fleeing paramilitaries find safe havens within the Catholic world in Italy and elsewhere. And as for Tito's other bete noir, the leader of the Chetniks, the whereabouts of Draza Mihailovi are currently unknown. In the post war chaos, nearly half a million Yugoslavs remain scattered across Europe. Some are refugees, others are released from German POW camps For Tito, business won't be wound up by a quaint bureaucratic notion like VE Day, May 8, 1945. His war will continue well into June, by which time his People's army has advanced beyond Yugoslavia's frontiers. It now occupies the Italian borderlands, the Istrian Peninsula and its key Adriatic port, Trieste, as well as a chunk of Austrian Carinthi. Meanwhile, for the Blyberg returnees, whom we encountered in the opening scene, there will be no clemency. Once the wagons have trundled south, it will be a case of forced route marches to remote locations and a grisly end. Professor Nicholas o' Shaughnessy the Blyberg turnaround
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Professor Nicholas O'Shaughnessy
incident is very grim. What you have is the war continues in Yugoslavia. All these Chetniks, Slovenes, Germans, fascist sympathizers. Natasha, all of them, this great army, are going towards the Allies and Austria, but they're still fighting the partisans. And what Tito does is he tries to persuade the column to surrender by offering amnesty, but they ignore him. They head towards Austria, thinking that whoever is there will admit them and take care of them. The British, I think, sometimes can be quite naive. It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that this polyglot army which has suddenly arrived on their doorstep, will all be slaughtered. If you turn it back to sender,
- [12:57]
Narrator
it will take years for the truth to come out. But from sites across Slovenia and northern Croatia, hundreds of mass graves will be identified. Professor Jeffrey Swain
- [13:13]
Historian
during the Nazi occupation, there were terrible massacres. The Croatian USTAE killed an awful lot of Serbs. Cause remember, in Croatia there was always a Serbian minority. Many of the early partisans during the Second World War were Serbs from Croatia. It's only later in the war that the Croatians rallied to the partisan call in equal numbers. So there's always been that tension there. And there were horrible massacres of Bosnian Muslims during the Second World War as well. Some horrible things happened in 1945, 46, so there's no point pretending.
- [13:55]
Narrator
An estimated 15,000 Croat POWs and civilians are executed at Tesno near Maribor. At Kojevsky Rogue south of Ljubljana, the remains of 12,000 Slovene Home Guardsmen will be dug up alongside further Croats and Chetniks. Yet more skeletons, military and civilian, will be uncovered at Huda Sharma, in an abandoned coal mine at Macelch and other locations, there will be countless more bodies unearthed. The exact total can only be guessed at. Reputable estimates range up to 100,000. The killings are conducted in secret, but are almost certainly overseen by osna, the acronym for The Department of the Protection of the People, or as anyone else would call them, the Yugoslav State Secret Police. Tito has modeled it on the Soviet nkvd. It's run by the iron hand of his old partisan comrade, Alexander Rankovich. In Russia in the 1930s, Tito had witnessed Stalin's purges firsthand. He learned and he learned well. Franco Burkic.
- [15:19]
Commentator
Look, look, I have only one word. Let's say Britain, Dresden and Americans firebombing of Tokyo. You know, those were also murders. Let's be honest. I think that with every war there's a dose of absolute reprehensible behavior. It is a dark, dark moment. There's no doubt, sadly enough, is that it's just one of countless dark moments in Balkans. There is something, there's something about that space that, you know, begets violence and it never stops, unfortunately.
- [15:55]
Professor Nicholas O'Shaughnessy
As for Tito's complicity in this, I think we can debate that a lot of it was done by local Slovene partisans. And when you consider the costs of the German occupation and the price exacted by the UTA and so forth, there's so much bitterness. They've lost a million people that their feelings towards these prisoners are simply murderous. I'm just not sure how much control he had of the situation. I don't think he wanted it to happen. He certainly stopped it and the British certainly stopped returning prisoners. But it cast a shadow over the beginning of his regime. It was not forgotten.
- [16:42]
Narrator
With a free hand, the Marshall, Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, can now concentrate power, concentrate it in himself. Over the coming months, his opponents will be sidelined, removed, disgraced or hounded out of office, denounced in the state run media. And as for the king, talks with the wartime government in exile had paved the way for the return of Peter ii, affording him some role within the new constitutional framework. Tito has been clever. That innocuous name, Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, suggests he's playing ball. But the King will Never return. On November 11, 1945, national elections are held amid a monarchist boycott alleging intimidation from Osna and non secrecy of the voting Tito's opponents claim they rigged. Whatever the case, the poll yields a landslide victory for the the Communist Party, or rather as they stand on the ballot, the People's Front, an extension of the victorious People's Army. With women fully enfranchised, the party wins 90% of the popular vote and every parliamentary seat, effectively ushering in one party rule. On the 29th, Tito introduces the official new iteration of the country, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. The monarchy is duly abolished. Tito moves into The White palace once inhabited by Prince Paul,
- [18:33]
Commentator
yet understand what kind of pressure he must have been. The country is essentially starving. He's trying to rebuild the country after but recital war which killed more than a million people. The country is badly wounded, needs to be put together. And just let me remind you, democracy in those days was not exactly a norm, you know. So Tito was doing the best he could in those days just how to survive, how to keep the country together and how to literally not become Soviet Union's 16th state.
- [19:04]
Narrator
Later in 1953, with a constitutional tweak, Tito will make himself president as well as retaining the post of Prime Minister. Given that Yugoslavia has now conducted the world's second communist revolution, it's all looking very familiar and all very Stalinist. Even more so given that Yugoslavia is fully signed up to the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers Parties or COM in form, this successor body to Comintern ensures that all Marxist states bend to the will of the Kremlin.
- [19:45]
Doctor Richard Mills
Doctor Richard Mills and that new communist Yugoslavia is one of the most loyal allies of the Soviet Union. It's a country which looks to Moscow for advice, for guidance. The first constitution is very closely based on the first Soviet constitution. And everything looks as though Yugoslavia is going to become a core member of the newly emerging Eastern bloc.
- [20:18]
Narrator
Tito's Yugoslavia will be a Soviet style federated state. As he puts it, I am the leader of one country which has two alphabets, three languages, four religions, five nationalities, six republics surrounded by seven neighbors. Amid this there is one group that remains politically homeless. Yugoslavia's substantial Albanian population. They reside primarily in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo, the place where that landmark battle was fought back in 1389. The nervous Kosovo Albanians would prefer union with the separate Albanian state next door than be bolted onto the Serbs. Tito does entertain the notion of annexing Albania, which had until its own communist takeover been run as a colonial plaything by Mussolini. There is talk too of folding Bulgaria into a greater Balkan socialist federation.
- [21:24]
Historian
Should the various Balkan states form a federation of communist powers? Bulgaria was communist, Albania was communist. Yugoslavia was communist. Ever since the 19th century Socialists had first suggested a Balkan federation, this had been going around in left wing thought. The British were made it very clear that they didn't think Borg Confederation was a good idea. And so when Tito raised the idea back in 1945, 46 Stalin said no, no, no, too complicated.
- [22:02]
Narrator
Stalin it seems, is unwilling to rock the boat for the moment. So Kosovo instead becomes an autonomous region of Serbia, as does the old Habsburg province of Vojvodina. North of the Danube, with its substantial Hungarian minority, There is one outstanding item of business. In the mountains of western Serbia, near the village of Trudovo, a band of Chetniks has been hiding out. They are growing concerned for the man they've been sheltering, their fugitive leader, Traza Mihailovic. The years of roughing it have taken a huge toll on his health. Mihailovic has since contracted typhus, in need of urgent medical care. On March 13, 1946, an Allied plane flies over. It drops leaflets appealing to these Chetnik bitter enders to give themselves up. No harm will come to them. Taking the invitation on trust, a detachment of Mihailovi's men emerge from the forest. They are met by three unspecified allied intelligence officers. Learning that Mihailovic is in their care, the officers urge that he's transported to a nearby airstrip. From there, he can be spirited away to a hospital in Italy. But please, they must hurry. It is, in fact, a trap. These are Tito's men. The Chetniks are ambushed and the now unconscious Mihailovic is kidnapped, to be flown not to Italy, but to Sarajevo, then on to Belgrade. On June 10, in the capital, at the infantry training school, a makeshift courtroom has been set up. Mihailovi is one of several shackled defendants who come shuffling in, paraded as alleged enemies of the people. They're being tried. They're in fortune. By the Military Council of the Supreme Court of the Federal People's Republic, Mihailovi is presented with 47 counts of high treason and war crimes. In his cheap suit and no tie, desperately ill, he cuts a forlorn figure. He squints through broken wire rimmed spectacles barely strong enough to stand. If observers whisper privately that this is a show trial straight out of the Soviet playbook, Tito does not concur. It is of a peace, is it not? With the allied judgments at Nuremberg. Mihailovi's defense is more like a plea for mercy than a legal rebuttal. He already knows which way the verdict is going to go. In muted, despondent tones, he points to his stellar record in the Serbian army and his appointment as Minister for War by the exiled royal government outside of Yugoslavia. There are voices speaking up for him. Among other things, his Chetniks had saved the lives of dozens of downed allied airmen, smuggling them out of the country. But any point in mitigation is met with orchestrated echoes. Mihailovi just sits there, head in hands, resigned to his predetermined fate. On 15 June, the panel of judges reaches its verdict. Mihailovi and 10 others are sentenced to death. Two days later, the condemned are led into the grounds of the old Royal palace to take their place before a people's firing squad. Mihailovi's body is covered with quicklime and dumped in an unmarked grave. The watching Western world is unimpressed, sickened even by Tito's antics.
- [26:36]
Historian
He's undisputed leader and he's ruthless. The charge of collaboration was used to make sure that almost any body that Tito felt was an enemy was dealt with.
- [26:49]
Professor Nicholas O'Shaughnessy
Remember, even Marshal Petain was put on trial and Vichy collaborators were executed. So we can't say that's out of the norm, even for Western Europe. There were good grounds for executing, even though the standards of liberal democracy were probably not adhered to.
- [27:18]
Narrator
It's August 19, 1946, late morning. The skies over Slovenia are dense with cloud, the ceiling thick and gray with its wipers beating from frantically. An American military transport aircraft, a C47A Dakota, struggles along at 15,000ft. These are testing conditions for the pilot and for the Navigator. At around 1100 hours, responding to a scramble signal, two fighters of the JRV, the Yugoslav Air Force, climbed to meet it. They shadowed the Dakota from a distance of 3 miles. The American plane is on a scheduled flight, running cargo and personnel from Vienna to Udina in northeast Italy. But in the appalling weather, it's drifted into Yugoslav airspace. Where the actual frontier lies is yet to be determined. This region, the borderlands between Yugoslavia and Italy, is currently split into two sectors, one Anglo American, the other Yugoslav. The allies will not budge, they say, until a fixed border is established under international law. And with the strategic port of Trieste safely in Western hands, Deputy Prime Minister Edvard Kardelcz howls at what he calls the West's bad attitude. From now on, any overflights of Yugoslavian territory, ones not strictly approved by Tito's government, are to be considered encroachments, violations of sovereignty. There have since February been 233 such incidents. He adds, more than a suggestion that the allied military government is not taking Yugoslavia seriously. On August 9, with tensions running high, a stray C47 has shots fired at it by JRV fighters. It's forced to make an emergency landing at Ljubljana, its crew and passengers interned. Amid the summoning of ambassadors and heated exchanges, there's a danger things could get out of hand. But 10 days later, on August 19th, Tito doubles down. On instructions from the ground, the two fighters climb to the east, then dive. They rake the american plane with bursts of machine gunfire slow and unarmed, the dakota has no chance. Engines aflame, it spins out of control. Control. It enters its death spiral, plummeting towards the earth. All five crew are killed. In Washington there is outrage. President Harry S. Truman and his war secretary Robert Patterson, convene an emergency meeting at the White House. According to US intelligence, their pilot responding to Yugoslav's signals, had cooperated fully. He had already begun an emergency descent when his plane was fired upon without warning. It is a violation of Article 51 of the new United Nations Charter. Yugoslavia has disregarded the rules of engagement. It is an act of war. Just as flabbergasting is the Yugoslav excuse that its pilots had offered the C47 a friendly wave at which it had spontaneously burst into flames. America legitimately is entitled to retaliate as the sole atomic power. There are hawkish mumblings about dropping the bomb.
- [31:23]
Neil Barnett
Stalin is trying to keep everything calm in order that he can buy some time until he has a nuclear weapon. Tito, meanwhile, is really on the front foot and being aggressive and this incident was the high point of it, shooting down these American planes. And it really wound Stalin up. He felt that Tito was threatening his entire strategic position and that Tito's actions could be read as his actions as a proxy.
- [31:51]
Narrator
But no one seriously wants conflict. It's an unnecessary sideshow. Tito escapes with a slap on the wrist. Though Yugoslav American relations will remain at a low point for some while. Time magazine, summing it up, features Tito on the COVID with a headline. Fanaticism knows no frontier.
- [32:15]
Professor Nicholas O'Shaughnessy
Very interesting that the Americans don't just do this, but they don't create a great stink that they kind of bury the dead without shouting. It just shows what subtleties lie behind the scenes at this point in the. Should we say. I think the word seduction is wrong, but the beguilement, the enchantment of Tito by the West. They realize that they must retrieve this man whatever it costs.
- [32:50]
Narrator
There is a lingering question for some Yugoslavs, this new leader of theirs is all well and good, but who the hell is he? In the newsreels and on the radio, it's the first time most people have had the chance to see Tito as a political actor. He spent most of his life underground as a partisan fighter. There was a mystery as to his identity. He had assumed a superhero status. And now his revelation as an ordinary looking 50 something man is not necessarily a surprise, but it does raise some questions. As discussed in the previous episode, there's that peculiar accent of his. But it's not just that. During the War when negotiating with some German officers. The man now presenting himself as Tito is not the Tito with whom they had engaged. Or so the Germans claim. Within British military intelligence, there had even been suspicion that Tito the Partisan might actually be a woman. Mihailovic himself was never entirely convinced that Tito wasn't a Russian or a Pole. One of the reasons behind his fears of a foreign led revolution. Even if one takes on face value that Tito is the Josip Broz he claims to be, there is another inconvenient detail. In 1955, according to a declassified FBI file, a man named Marian Marco, a Yugoslav expedition patriot, will walk into a police station in Los Angeles. This man, who claims to be the president of Yugoslavia, is an imposter. He protests, and he knows it from personal experience. He had first met Tito as a youth. He'd even served time in jail with him. Two years back, he'd met him again. He was shorter than he remembered. Plus, the formerly uncultured Tito had really made something of himself, even becoming a proficient pianist, which is an interesting development given that the Josip Bros he knew, when toiling as a humble locksmith, had lost the middle and index fingers of his left hand in a workplace accident, somehow refused. Mysteriously, the digits have grown back. The suggestion by Markle is that Tito is a Russian plant, someone who had been assigned Broz's identity during his Moscow days.
- [35:41]
Professor Christopher Catherwood
I tend to think he was Tito, that he really was Joseph Bros. People know the village he was brought up in. They knew people knew his brother, you know, his father. And there's all sorts of conspiracy theories. They're all fascinating, but they all contradict each other. I just tend to think enough people knew Tito to say that he was Josef Bros. I think it would have been very difficult for him to have been somebody else.
- [36:01]
Neil Barnett
I could see that using the identities of prisoners of war who may be deceased to send back agents into target countries is something that the NKVD would have considered, or maybe did, the fact that so little is known really about his early life. There are people from former Yugoslavia who will tell you that they don't believe he was a native speaker, but plenty who say that's nonsense. I think it's extremely unlikely that he wasn't the boy who was born in Kumrawec in the late 19th century.
- [36:37]
Narrator
These fake Tito conspiracies will run and run and they will be enough for the U.S. national Security Agency to look into them. But given the general state of chaos in Yugoslavia at the time, such things do not merit too Much attention. All people want is peace, bread and order. There should be no underestimating the scale of the task. It's not just the 1 million Yugoslav dead. Out of a population of 15 million, 3 1/2 million people are also home homeless, around a quarter of the total. Pretty much the entire Yugoslav economic infrastructure has been destroyed to the tune of $50 billion. Unemployment is off the scale. On April 28, 1947, in a rally broadcast to the nation, Tito outlines his vision for the new Yugoslavia. The same thing that any self respecting socialist would do do. He announces a five year plan. It's a question of our country's survival, he tells his people. We don't want to be a backward country since such countries are easy prey. With advanced technology and the socialist system we will be powerful enough to resist any attack. To Stalin, Tito is becoming a loose cannon. It's not just the incident with the Americans. It's unconscionable that he should be devising his own economic policy. There is also, one might venture, a little bit of jealousy.
- [38:24]
Neil Barnett
I suspect that Stalin was afraid of Tito for another reason, which is that he could come to be seen as the paramount and more legitimate communist leader. That he actually felt that he was a threat to his leadership. That Tito had the consent of the Yugoslav people. While there was repression, Tito didn't rule through fear. And I guess Stalin understood that and it made him feel inadequate.
- [38:51]
Narrator
Stalin coins a new word. From now on, any Eastern bloc leader who might have ideas above his station is denounced as a tetoist. Another sticking point for Stalin is Greece, where a civil war is raging. Stalin had agreed to step back from meddling there according to what had been set out by the war's victorious powers.
- [39:16]
Historian
Churchill had been hoping with the percentages agreement about spheres of influence after the war, Greece would be be western, most of Eastern Europe would be Soviet, but Yugoslavia would be 50 50. The Serbian bit would be pro Western, the Croat, but maybe not, but it would be 50 50.
- [39:38]
Professor Christopher Catherwood
Stalin didn't want Peter to mess things up by helping the communists in Greece because he'd agreed that Greece could be part of the western. So in return for Britain basically surrendering the whole of Eastern Europe to Stalin,
- [39:51]
Commentator
Tito was not going to be ordered by Stalin what to do. And also Tito had his own politics. He was supporting the Greek partisans which were causing quite a bit of chaos in Greece. And that was causing Stalin a lot of grief because Churchill was complaining to Stalin, saying that he needs to put Tito under control. And Tito of course would not be controlled.
- [40:12]
Narrator
British And American soldiers are already on the ground in Greece, acting as of the part, peacekeepers trying to uphold the rule of the legitimate government against the communist insurgency, one now backed wholeheartedly by Tito.
- [40:32]
Neil Barnett
The crucial fact here, which I think is the key to all of Central Europe actually after the Second World War, is this very odd situation where from 45, the Allies had the bomb and Stalin does not. And of course, in Stalin's mind, then he's completely at the mercy of the Allies. And to his surprise, they don't push him about at all. They don't push him out of Central and Eastern Europe. They just want to make friends with him. I mean, we sold the Poles, our allies and the Czechs to Stalin for nothing. I mean, I think it's. It's just a terrible story.
- [41:09]
Narrator
An exasperated Stalin is wound up again by a resurrection of Tito's old pet project.
- [41:16]
Historian
He quickly signed an economic agreement with Romania. He went on a visit to Hungary. He did an economic deal with Bulgaria. And he started talking again about a Bol Confederation and also made it clear that in his vision, the Bol Confederation would include Greece.
- [41:39]
Narrator
To focus Tito's mind, Stalin concentrates troops along Yugoslavia's border.
- [41:45]
Professor Nicholas O'Shaughnessy
But you see, Tito is just a big man. He's not going to be anybody's lapdog. That is his core Persona. He's not going to be a lickspittle. What he's doing is defying Stalin's orders. Tito is not tying the party line, and we know what happens to people who don't tow the party line. Nikrotsky forgot the party line and ended up with an ice pick in his head in Mexico.
- [42:13]
Historian
And the final straw that broke the camel's back was when Tito placed troops in Albania without clearing it first with Moscow. And at that point, Stalin took. This man is getting out of control. Something's got to be done.
- [42:37]
Narrator
The assassination plots against Tito begin in earnest. There will be 22 in total, an active five of which Tito's security people foil, including one assassin caught with a bomb, another with a sniper rifle.
- [42:53]
Professor Nicholas O'Shaughnessy
Everyone wants to kill Tito. Hitler dances, the Italians, Natalie Stalin dances. We shall see. But killing Tito, it's. The man is indestructible.
- [43:06]
Narrator
Tito responds by tightening his security and dealing with his opponents. On the barren Adriatic isle of Goli Otok, or Naked Island, a labor camp is set up by Rankovich, now Minister of the Interior. It hosts around 12,000 dissidents. Between 1949 and 1952,
- [43:33]
Commentator
the people that they sent to the Naked island camp were the people who would not accept Tito's response to study. So, look, Tito is not stupid. He knows that these people are all potential plotters. Stalin sent them because he was a bloodthirsty tyrant. He sent them there to protect himself and protect the regime, you know, so it's really important to understand because at that moment you had 200,000 Hungarian and Soviet troops camping on the northern border.
- [44:00]
Neil Barnett
There was a repression which was nothing compared to what you saw in the Stalin in the Soviet Union, but it was repression, a sort of miniature gulag on the island of Goliath. And they had this euphemism in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia for people who were on the wrong end of things. So if you were going to be sent to Goliathop, you were going to be removed from the social community, and if you're going to be killed, you're going to be removed from the physical community.
- [44:27]
Professor Nicholas O'Shaughnessy
He actually has his own little despotic sand pit. He has a political prison. And in the early days, it's pretty vicious. The Yugoslav government admitted in the mid-60s that about 600 people had died there. A lot of these were communist furies
- [44:46]
Doctor Richard Mills
with the way that Tito had deviated
- [44:49]
Professor Nicholas O'Shaughnessy
from the party line. But then, yes, you do have the ethnonationalists. So it could only be held together by a strong man prepared to be ruthless. It's very difficult to think how a liberal Tito could have actually held the whole thing together.
- [45:08]
Narrator
With the failure of his hitmen. Meanwhile, Stalin resorts to bureaucracy. In June 1948, a motion is put before Common form charging Tito with the heretical crime of, quote, abandoning Marxist theory. It's a move, Stalin believes, that will bring Yugoslavia to its senses.
- [45:33]
Doctor Richard Mills
And it becomes clear to the Yugoslav leadership that it is now faced with an existential crisis. The Soviet Union is calling for the party as a whole in Yugoslavia to remove its leadership and to move back towards the Soviet position.
- [45:49]
Narrator
By unanimous vote, Common form agrees to expel Yugoslavia. It's ejected from the Communist bloc. There is an added detail. The pronouncement comes on June 28, a date that has significant and recurring relevance in Balkan history.
- [46:09]
Doctor Richard Mills
And there are all kinds of order, incursions, there are incidents and various threats. And the Yugoslav Central Korean Committee are by no means confident that they won't face a major intervention from the Soviet Union at the this stage. But they start to think on their feet. What's come to be known as the Tito Stalin split is an opportunity for Yugoslavia. It's forced to look for alternatives, for different ways to do things. And actually that Common form expulsion in 1948 lays the groundwork for Yugoslavia to move off in all kinds of exciting new directions.
- [46:50]
Narrator
Professor Susan L. Woodward.
- [46:53]
Professor Susan L. Woodward
So Yugoslavia is excluded from all relations with the rest of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, most importantly trade, but also the emerging military alliance in reaction to the creation of NATO, namely the Warsaw Pact. So they're excluded. And what's really important to know about that is when they choose to reinforce their own path, if you will. The first nine months, the Americans come to their aid not out of any support for Tito itself, but seeing this as a way of reinforcing independence against the Soviet Union.
- [47:30]
Professor Christopher Catherwood
A lot of people say, what happened in 1940? Well, I think the interpretation I gave was that Tito wanted to run his own show. There always were slight, obliterated differences anyway, but the real thing was that he was his own boss and he wasn't going to be told what to do by Stalin.
- [47:49]
Narrator
Amid the newfound freedoms, Tito even finds time to get married for a fourth time to a lady called Iovanka Budisabyevich. She was a servant on his staff, hailing from a lowly Serb family and who also happens to be 32 years his junior. Priceline negotiator.
- [48:11]
Priceline Negotiator
It's me, the Priceline negotiator. We don't need the jingle twice.
- [48:16]
Narrator
What about a third time?
- [48:17]
Priceline Negotiator
Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights and rental cars.
- [48:24]
Narrator
Seems like they decided.
- [48:26]
Priceline Negotiator
Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app.
- [48:30]
Narrator
Time to read the timeline.
- [48:32]
Priceline Negotiator
Fine. No one deals more deals than Priceline. Please stop Priceline. Touche.
- [48:37]
Rachel
Priceline.
- [48:38]
Priceline Negotiator
Priceline.
- [48:39]
Rachel
One crunchy bite of a Hershey's cookies and cream bar and I'm taken right back to college. Move in. Day I was a little overwhelmed by the newness of it all. Boxes were everywhere. I needed a break from unpacking. But just as I was able to take a breath and open my Hershey's Cookies and Cream bar, my new roommate, Rachel, walked in. I offered her a piece, but she said no. Then after a beat, she said, actually,
- [49:00]
Progressive Insurance Advertiser
those are my favorite ones.
- [49:02]
Rachel
We left. The ice was broken, and we've been friends ever since.
- [49:06]
Progressive Insurance Advertiser
Hershey's. It's your happy place.
- [49:12]
Narrator
An enraged Stalin, failing to get a reaction from Tito, steps up the assassination attempts, decreeing that he only has to wag his little finger to rid himself of this seemingly turbulent priest. An NKVD agent codenamed Max is to infiltrate a reception in Belgrade posing as A Costa Rican diplomat, he is to present Tito with a gift. An ornate jewelry box which contains a lethal bacteria, not dissimilar, it should be noted, to that which was used by Russian agents in Salisbury, England in 2018. But Tito, as ever, is too well practiced in his personal security to fall for this clumsy ruse. On March 1, 1953, Tito goes to Britain to visit the re elected Winston Churchill. He opts to travel by Yugoslav naval warship. It's while at sea that he receives some stunning news. At his dasha near Moscow, Stalin has collapsed, purportedly from a massive hunt attack or stroke, though no one really knows for sure. Such is the climate of fear, there is a reluctance to touch, let alone examine, the body. Not until four days later will Stalin be officially pronounced dead. A near comedic round of his deputies plotting against each other begins. But a small detail is often overlooked. That Stalin's end may have come about by way of sipping from a mysterious glass of fruit juice that had appeared by his side, its origin unknown. His death too is consistent with coming from a similar strain of toxic matter that Agent Max had been trying to foist upon the Yugoslav leader. On Stalin's desk, a note is found. It's from Tito. Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them. If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow and I won't have to send a second.
- [51:28]
Neil Barnett
He sends assassins to kill me. They failed. When I send an assassin to kill you, he'll succeed. Quite impressive.
- [51:36]
Professor Nicholas O'Shaughnessy
It's a common rumor that Tito actually had Stalin knocked off. I wouldn't put it past him, but how will we ever know? In other words, the Holjain's bond thing. Although we joke and jest about these things, it is very, very real. There's an awful lot of cloak and dagger stuff. It's not just on the roof. It's quite possible that could have happened. It's quite possible he could have actually poisoned Stalin. As we know, Stalin corpse lay there for some time because no one dared touch it. Not his doctors, not nobody. As if he were some kind of vampire who'd resurrect. He was that terrifying. I think it is a credible rumor.
- [52:23]
Narrator
Relations between east and west have been deteriorating too, enhanced by the fact that in 1949 the Soviet Union conducts its first nuclear bomb test. The gloves are off. The Cold War escalates. There's the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War.
- [52:44]
Professor Nicholas O'Shaughnessy
I mean, this is a terrifying world. It's the immediate post world order. The Soviets are getting the bomb The Iron Curtain. There's a new communist empire covering most of East Europe and East Germany. It's become terrifying. It's a kind of dark night. A war fought for democracy and liberation has turned in on itself, in a sense. And Quito is the shining relic, the shining example that that isn't necessarily so.
- [53:17]
Narrator
To Yugoslavia, the Western aid floods in a 550 million dollar loan from the United States, another 420 million dollars from the UN in 1951 will come an IMF loan of 35 million dollars. These are massive sums.
- [53:38]
Professor Nicholas O'Shaughnessy
The Americans start giving them support. It's not formally part of the Marshall Plan, but in effect it is.
- [53:54]
Narrator
About a third of Yugoslavia's national budget is invested in heavy industry, iron, steel, coal manufacturing, the shipyards. Not just rebooting the economy, but providing over 2 million new jobs. In light of the external threats, and in particular the Soviet one, a substantial part of Yugoslavia's financial dividend is allocated to arms manufacture. Aiming for self sufficiency with regard to defence, massive armaments works are opened in Bosnia and Serbia, well away from the eastern borders. Yugoslavia will no longer be beholden to foreign supply.
- [54:35]
Professor Susan L. Woodward
And this highly sophisticated national army having that capacity meant that it could offer to NATO a bulwark against the movement. If the scenario of the Soviet Union invading Western Europe. Europe went not through the north but through the south. So Yugoslavia's independent defense, that was an important part of Yugoslav neutrality.
- [55:01]
Narrator
Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, is wise to Tito's Western flirtations. In late May 1955, the new Soviet premier flies the Belgrade with a proverbial bunch of flowers. Come on back into the fold. As the cameras roll at the airport, the public see two men laughing, slapping each other's backs and horsing around together. They sign on June 2nd the Belgrade Declaration, a sort of diplomatic prenup.
- [55:35]
Professor Christopher Catherwood
He got on quite well with Khrushchev, and Khrushchev was different. But they were still loyal Communists when Khrushchev was hoping for better reconciliation than he had. But then Tito sort of played both sides against the middle because he was very nice to us and he was also very nice to Khrustov.
- [55:49]
Narrator
But if Khrushchev hopes to return to Moscow with Tito's ring on his finger, he's misinterpreted the extent of their bromance. When the Hungarian Revolution of October 1956 is brutally suppressed by Soviet troops, it vindicates Tito's independence. Than the Hungarian leader Imrei Nagi had even been provided sanctuary in Budapest's Yugoslav Embassy till lured out by the Soviets under false pretences. No way is Tito going to sign up to the Warsaw Pact. Not now. Neither would he join NATO, nor for that matter, any superpower grouping. Besides, a brand new power block is emerging. One that has taken his interests and one that is about to change everything. It's July 19, 1956. We're in the Briuni Islands, a string of small idyllic pearls just off the coast of the Istrian Peninsula. It's a gorgeous day, the sky as an azure blue, the sea calm as a mill pond. On the jetty of the main island's old Venetian harbor stands Marshal Tito. He's dressed in a white suit, striped tie and Panama hat. He sports a pair of aviator sunglasses. He watches out to sea as two motor launches cut through the waves, bossing over his guests for the weekend. They are distinguished individuals, VIPs, and they've come from afar. The first has traveled all the way from Cairo. President Gamal Abdel Nasser. The other has come from even further afield. New Delhi. He is Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India. What Tito has in mind is a brand new grouping of nations. A rejection of both east and West. A third way. Tito is no mere Balkan leader, not even a European one anymore. His vision extends way beyond that. Josip Broz. Marshal Tito is about to position himself as a world statesman. In the next episode. In the final part of the Tito story. Through his Non Aligned movement, Tito becomes an international celebrity fated by the jet set, his hybrid Coca Cola. Socialism sees Yugoslavia booming. But the good times have been built on shaky foundations. And as Tito ails and ethnic tensions simmer again, it seems his Balkan miracle will prove short lived. That's next time. You can listen to the final part of the Tito story right now, without waiting and without ads, by joining Noiser plus click the link in the episode description.