Yugoslavia and Communism
This article is about the influence of the Yugoslav Communist party [1] on Croatian society. The party was the main driving force in all social matters within the former Yugoslavia. Its Stalinist policies from the 1940s to the 1960s and authoritarian rule have been mostly ignored in the Western media. There needs to be an historical reassessment. For example here is a statement made by Aleksandar Rankovic, the Interior Minister and the head of the military and secret police of Yugoslavia at a Belgrade Assembly (meeting):
| “ | Through our prisons has passed between 1945 and 1951, 3 777 776 prisoners, while we killed 586 000 enemies of the people. Taken from Politika, Belgrade/1 February 1951 (p.1) [2] | ” |
Another example is the "Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia". The commission's finding was that there were 100 000 victims in 581 mass graves within Slovenia a former republic of Yugoslavia. According to the Reports and Proceedings of the European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes" , the killings were committed by the Yugoslav Paritsian Army in 1945 and 1946. [3][4] The Communists of Yugoslavia were the main organisers of a large scale execution of POWs and people who were guilty by association only. Documents show that many of these people were refugees and amongst them were large numbers of women and children.[5] -See below-
- Note A. Vladimir Geiger of the Croatian Institute for History:
| “ | The list of German victims includes 26,000 women and 5,800 children who died in Yugoslav Camps- Geiger said.[6] | ” |
Ethnic cleansing of Germans [7][8][9] and Italians,[10][11][12][13][14] was carried out in Yugoslavia. Along the Dalmatian coast Italian (i.e Zadar) was spoken for a millennium, [15][16][17][18][19][20] this was no longer the case after 1945/46.
Post Berlin Wall and the former Communist Yugoslavia
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a lot of factual evidence has emerged that indicates the former Communist Yugoslavia was responsible for executing mass murders, arrests and torture. Most media have turned a blind eye to these tragic issues. Very little has been reported about these unearthed historic events. One event worth mentioning is Ian Cuthbertson's review of the documentary called Tito's Ghosts in the Australian newspaper The Australian called “Balkans hero with a Bloodthirsty Streak” (September 13, 2008). [21]
The Communist Party of Yugoslavia pursued a revolutionary policy that was at odds with many of it's peoples, it's Yugoslav Communist utopia only happened unless you belonged to the communist elite. The party did improve the standard of living in the late 1960s and 1970s and this was achieved through Western investment which ultimately turned out to be it's weakness. Economic problems started with the inflation crisis in 1978/79 which was mainly due to Communist mismanagement (it was down hill from there onwards) and then eventually civil war erupted.
It is very interesting to note that Yugostalgia and Titostalgia within Croatia is still very strong even though Josip Broz Tito and his fellow Communists organised the Way of the Cross (death marches) massacres, Bleiburg and Foibe massacres and the ethnic cleansing of the German and Italian population of the former Yugoslavia.
See also
- Titoism and Totalitarianism
- Korcula History 2
- Wikipedia's bias towards Dictator Josip Broz Tito and Communist Yugoslavia
References
- ^ The League of Communists of Yugoslavia
- ^ Communist Crime is not Antifascism Released on International Human Rights Day, 10 DECEMBER 2008. On behalf of the participants in public meetings Maja Runje, a member of the Steering Committee- Zagreb (p. 19). Article is in Croatian: KOMUNISTIČKI ZLOČINI NISU ANTIFAŠIZAM] POVODOM MEĐUNARODNOG DANA LJUDSKIH PRAVA,10. PROSINCA 2008. U ime sudionika javnog okupljanja Maja Runje, članica Koordinacijskog odbora Kruga za trg10 000 Zagreb, Jurjevska 47a (str. 19)
- ^ European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes" (p163-p164
- ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica - Slovenia (a former republic of Yugoslavia):
- "After the armistice the British repatriated more than 10,000 Slovene collaborators who had attempted to retreat with the Germans, and Tito had most of them massacred at the infamous Pits of Kocevje".
- ^ Identity Politics in the Age of Genocide: The Holocaust and Historical by David B. MacDonald. (p168).
- "The Partisans also carried out massacres, best known being at Bleiburg (Austria), where retreating Croatian and Slovenian forces and their families were massacred."
- ^ Newcomers Network: German Mass Grave Sheds New Light on Close of World War Two.
- ^ Ethnic Conflict: Causes, Consequences, and Responses by Karl Cordell & Stefan Wolff (p181)
- ^ Taken: A Lament for a Lost Ethnicity by Kathryn Schaeffer Pabst & Douglas Schaeffer Pabst (p16)
- ^ Genocide of the ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia, 1944-1948 by Herbert Prokle Web site
- ^ The Frontiers of Europe by Malcolm Anderson & Eberhard Bort (p77)
- ^ History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans by Pamela Ballinger (p155)
- ^ Refugees in the Age of Total War by Anna Bramwell (p136, read Zara-p137)
- ^ A Tragedy Revealed The Story of the Italian Population of Istria & Dalmatia by Arrigo Petacco. (p12 & read page 81 Zadar/Zara)
- ^ Where the Balkans Begin (The Slovenes in Triest-The Foiba Story) by Bernard Meares:
- "During the early Communist occupation in Trieste, Gorizia and the Littoral, and the 40 days of Communist rule in Trieste city, some 6000 arrests were made and the prisoners carried off to Communist-controlled areas. When the Allies finally imposed their rule they found out about the Yugoslav execution squads. The more objective Italian historians and statisticians such as Galliano Fogar and Raoul Pupo point to between 1000 and 1800 Italians and Slovene victims. The Red Cross estimates that 2,250 failed to return, in rough agreement with Bogdan Novak who said in 1971 that 4200 Italians returned out of 6000 arrested."
- ^ The Italians of Dalmatia: From Italian unification to World War I by Luciano Monzali (p17)
- ^ Dalmatia and Montenegro: With a journey to Mostar in Herzegovina.Volume 1 by Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (p4).
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (1797 – 1875) was an English traveller, writer and pioneer Egyptologist of the 19th century. He is often referred to as "the Father of British Egyptology".
- Italian is spoken in all the seaports of Dalmatia (editors note: today part of Croatia), but the language of the country is a dialect of the Slavonic, which alone is used by peasants in the interior."
- ^ Dalmatia and Montenegro: With a journey to Mostar in Herzegovina.Volume 1 by Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (p362)
- "Their language though gradually falling into Venetianisms of the other Dalmatians towns, still retains some of that pure Italian idiom, for which was always noted."
- ^ Researches on the Danube and the Adriatic, Volume 1 by Andrew Archibald Paton (1811 - 1874)
Andrew Archibald Paton was a British diplomat and writer from the 19 century. In 1861 he wrote in ; Researches on the Danube and the Adriatic: Or, Contributions to the Modern. This is his statement (p167):
- "...the islands of Dalmatia owe much of their culture to the near vicinity of Venice and the more extensive use of the Italian language..."
- ^ Penny cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Volume 8 by Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (Great Britain).
- "The language of the country is the Herzogovine dialect of the Sclavonian, but Italian is the prevalent tongue among the well-educated classes, and is used in the public offices and courts. The remainder of the population is composed of Italians (about 40 000) who are spread through the maritime towns and the sea coast"
- ^ Dalmatia: The Land Where East Meets West by Maude Holbach (p121)
- "DALMATIA: The Land Where East Meets West is MAUDE M. HOLBACH's second book of travel in Eastern Europe. First published in 1910, this is an anthropological travel journal of an often-overlooked kingdom" Web site: www.cosimobooks.com
- "Two hundred years later that, is, early in the tenth century you might have heard Slavish and Latin spoken had you walked in the streets of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), just as you hear Slavish and Italian today; for as times of peace followed times of war, the Greek and Roman inhabitants of Rausium intermarried with the surrounding Slavs, and so a mixed race sprang up, a people apart from the rest of Dalmatia"
- ^ The Australian: Balkans Hero with a Bloodthirsty Streak by Ian Cuthbertson
External links
- European EU's press releases concerning: European Public Hearing on: Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes/Brussels - Link
- Genocide Carried out by the Tito Partisans 1944-1948: Trail of Tears Leidensweg: Genocide & Atrocities Against the Donauscwhwaben
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| This article is a work in progress. |
Croatia Titoism Titoism and Totalitarianism Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz Tito Yugoslavia Yugoslavia Stalinist policies Aleksandar Rankovic
