The Incredible Tito: Man of the Hour (2 page)

To answer these questions, to tell the full story of Marshal Tito, we must go back to the morning of April 6, 1941. That day was Palm Sunday, and that morning, Yugoslavia was still at peace. In Belgrade, the country's capital, the church bells rang, calling the people to prayer.

It was a warm and lovely spring day. Yet if you had looked closely at the faces of the people, you would have seen behind the smiles and the calm, a shadow of an impending catastrophe. They went about their duties; they acted as if all was normal—because they were a proud people, and in a way, happy.

But all was not normal. Only a few days before, young officers of the Yugoslav Army had engineered a coup which threw out of the government the pro-Hitler crowd. A nation which had been prepared to collaborate with the hated Nazis, suddenly set its face against them, proclaimed its independence, its freedom, and its sympathy with beleaguered England.

But it was a nation unprepared for war. Though the people were proud and happy at the stand their nation had taken, they knew well enough what faced them. For one thing, Yugoslavia was a small country—fourteen million population. Its army held some of the best fighting men in Europe, but the weapons were out of date; they had only a handful of anti-tank guns, almost no tanks, little artillery, almost no motor vehicles, and a small, obsolete airforce. In addition, the leadership of the army, the older and high-ranking officers, were twenty years behind in their military thinking. Axis propaganda had divided the country; the Quislings and the Fifth Column were already preparing to betray their nation.

So on that Palm Sunday morning, the people of Belgrade knew that they faced disaster. For all of that, they were filled with a curious sense of power and pride. In the churches, their voices rang louder and more manfully than in many years before. And the priests smiled, half-happily, half-sorrowfully, as they gave the people their benediction.

And then, a few hours later, what they had been expecting came; and it came as it had come to Rotterdam, to Madrid, to London, and to Leningrad. It came in the form of wave after wave of Stukas, savagely and murderously smashing Yugoslavia's most beautiful and largest city to bits. It came against an unprotected people, against women and children who died in the streets that Palm Sunday

Let us say that in Yugoslavia there was this difference. The people chose that way; they knew what was coming. They knew they didn't have a ghost of a chance. They knew that their army was both brave and unarmed. When their proudly uniformed leaders surrendered at the first opportunity, the people cursed and wept, but fought on. They fought practically with their bare hands. As the panzers raced through their green valleys, they fought them with rifle and pistol, as futilely as the Poles had fought.

Nothing stopped the German advance. No minefields had been laid. The few anti-tank guns would not work. Artillery ammunition was defective. The fifth column had done its work thoroughly and effectively, and the German armies cut through the country like cheese.

In ten days, it was over. In ten days over one hundred of the one hundred and thirty odd generals of the Yugoslav Army had surrendered. In ten days, the chief of staff and the minister of war signed an order of capitulation. The government bolted for what planes were left, in a wild scramble to get out of the country. The people wept and cursed and fought on.

But organized resistance was over. Peasants came back to their farms, dug holes, wrapped their rifles in oily rags, and hid them. Divisions, cut to pieces, formed into small bands, and retreated into the woods. But nothing was coordinated, and no real resistance was left. For the moment, Yugoslavia was conquered. The world knew that yet another country, stunned, broken and bleeding, had surrendered to Hitler.

And then, where the fire had been so thoroughly extinguished, a small flame flickered up. Two weeks after the country had surrendered, in the capital, Belgrade, a poster appeared, plastered on a wall in the central square. The poster said:

GERMANS!
WE GIVE YOU SOLEMN
WARNING
LEAVE YUGOSLAVIA
DEATH TO ALL FASCISTS!
LIBERTY TO THE PEOPLE!

That was the poster, proud, defiant, almost pathetic, yet within an hour every Yugoslav in the city knew about it. They whispered the slogan to one another on the street, in the stores, in the shops, in the factories. They shouted it in their homes. It gave them courage just to hear it—just to repeat it. Men and women prayed and wept and laughed—for the first time in weeks.

And that same day, a messenger went into the mountains, contacted the first of the little bands of soldiers who had escaped after the surrender, and said:

“I bring you greetings from the People's Liberation Front, and from our commander, Tito!”

Tito! The name had a romantic and mysterious ring to it; it was the sort of name Yugoslavs liked. It was unafraid. It almost gave a man strength just to say the name—Tito!

WHO IS TITO?

T
ITO'S real name is Joseph Broz. What do we know about him? Not much, yet understandably so. All of his adult life, he fought for freedom; and in the Balkans a man who fought for freedom did not seek publicity.

He was born in Yugoslavia of peasant parents. The date of his birth was 1889, 1890 perhaps. Even of that we are not sure. He grew up on a small farm in Croatia, learned to read from the village priest, left the farm in his teens and went to one of the Croatian towns, where he found work as a metalsmith. Then, Croatia was under Austrian rule, and when the first World War broke out, Joseph Broz was drafted into the Austrian Army.

Broz was a Yugoslav; as a Yugoslav, he hated the Hapsburg Empire and admired the Russians against whom he was forced to fight. And at the first opportunity, he deserted to the Russian Army.

In Russia, a Yugoslav battalion was formed to fight the Germans; Broz joined it, and when the Russian Revolution came, he and most of his battalion cast their lot with the revolutionists. To him, the revolution meant freedom; freedom was almost the first word he had learned to read from the parish priest. A Yugoslav knew the value of such a word. And during the Russian Revolution, Joseph Broz became a Communist.

Broz stayed in Russia during the civil war. He fought in the Communist ranks, learned their methods of partisan warfare; and then, in the mid nineteen-twenties, he returned to Yugoslavia.

He went to work in the Zagreb railroad shops and organized the metal workers there. The Yugoslav government, terroristic at that time, imprisoned him. When Broz was released, the Communist Party had been forced underground by the Yugoslav dictatorship. For a while, Broz worked through the underground—then he left the country.

For a while now, there is a gap. Some years later, Joseph Broz, already known as Tito, turned up in Spain, as an anti-fascist, a member of the International Brigade. I spoke to a man who met him then, in Republican Headquarters at Madrid. This man remarked upon Tito's physical similarity to Abraham Lincoln, the same large jaw, the big, bony build, the lined face, the deep-set eyes, the large nose. In Spain, Tito organized Yugoslav antifascists. He helped them across the border from France and collaborated with French anti-fascists.

When the Franco Dictatorship, with the aid of Hitler and Mussolini, finally defeated the Spanish Republican Army, Tito was one of those who escaped across the border into France.

Somehow, he escaped the concentration camps and got to Paris. I spoke to people who knew him there, and they described a man more worn than the one in Madrid, leaner, more tired—but as purposeful and hopeful as ever. By now, he knew that his role in life would be a fighting anti-fascist. He saw Hitler's power increasing, and he realized that sooner or later it would be the turn of his native land, Yugoslavia. He decided to go home and organize for the fight against fascism that would come to Yugoslavia, sooner or later.

An agent of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee contacted Tito, and the Committee provided funds and means for Tito's return to Yugoslavia. How and where he worked in Yugoslavia in recent years is not clearly known—for obvious reasons. The Communist Party there was underground, and the corrupt, pro-axis Yugoslav government joined the Nazi-inspired Communist witch-hunt. But when that government was overthrown by the officers' coup and Yugoslavia threw in her lot with Britain, Tito knew that soon his organization would be vitally necessary.

At that time, Tito was in Slovenia, the northernmost section of Yugoslavia. There he consolidated his forces, drew tighter the strings of the local Communist Party, and, most of all, sought to make common purpose with every democratic and progressive organization.

Three days after the Yugoslav army had surrendered to the Axis, April Twentieth, 1941, Tito held a meeting with certain Slovenian leaders, Catholic Priests, Trade-Unionists, Peasant Leaders and Communists. They formed the Slovenian Liberation Front, and issued their first proclamation of defiance to Germany:

“Death to Fascism, liberty to the people!”

Tito was a Communist; he made no secret of that. But the United Front he organized was not Communist; it included anyone and everyone who hated fascism and was willing to fight the invader. Its purpose was to render all aid to the allies—and to drive the Germans and Italians from Yugoslavia.

The Liberation Front, or LF, as it came to be known, decided that Tito should go to Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, contact the Communist organization there, and start a movement that would embrace every democratic force in Yugoslavia—a movement that would unite the whole land against the Nazis. In civilian clothes, a revolver in one pocket, Tito left Slovenia for Belgrade.

There are a hundred stories told of how Tito began the Belgrade center of the Liberation Front. It is said that he sat in a cafe in Belgrade, his hand on the revolver in his pocket, while German armored cars cruised the streets, looking for him.

Actually, Tito did not start the Liberation Front in Belgrade. When he arrived at Belgrade, a United Front underground organization, formed originally by the Communist Party, but already including progressive Yugoslavs of every political shade, was functioning. Tito knew many key people in the Belgrade section of the Communist Party. He contacted them, and a meeting was arranged. At this meeting was the former Yugoslav Parliamentary President, Ribar, and other national non-Communist leaders. At this meeting, which lasted for hours, Tito constantly reiterated his purpose and the purpose of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia:

“To drive out the invader and liberate the land!”

Then and there, the Liberation Front for all of Yugoslavia was formed. Communists and non-Communists shook hands and pledged their lives to their country's freedom. The slogan, spoken first in Slovenia, was confirmed as a battle cry:

“Death to Fascism, liberty to the people!”

A few days later, just two weeks after the Germans had announced the complete conquest of Yugoslavia, the first defiant Liberation Front poster appeared in Belgrade:

DEATH TO ALL FASCISTS!
LIBERTY TO THE PEOPLE!

ORGANIZING PARTISAN BRIGADES

T
ITO was an old and experienced fighter. The better part of his life had been spent in the struggle for human freedom and dignity. He never made the mistake of underestimating the enemy. He had seen the German panzers tried out in Spain, called in by Franco to destroy Spanish Republicanism. He had seen those same panzers, somewhat more perfected, knife through Yugoslavia in ten days. He knew how futile and foolish it would be to send his few half-armed guerrillas against them immediately.

Instead, he set about perfecting his organization, arming it as well as he could, and enlarging it. Wherever they could be reached, local Yugoslav Communist organizations were contacted. They, in turn, reached out and made common purpose with all anti - axis people they could reach. Liaison was perfected. Disguised as travelling men, as peasants, as housewives, Communist organizers, men and women travelled back and forth through the country. Communist branches were strengthened, arms were apportioned in a way to have the most effect, ammunition stretched as far as it could go.

And then, when the Communists had done all they could do, they waited for the opportune moment to strike. They had hardly completed their preparations when it came. In June, 1941, two months after the defeat of Yugoslavia, the Nazi panzers poured over the Russian frontier. The Stukas smashed at the Russian cities.

In Yugoslavia, an immediate effect of the Russian invasion was apparent. Needing every German soldier he could lay hands on, and believing that Yugoslavia was completely conquered, Hitler withdrew most of his Nazi garrisons. He left a small but strong holding force—and against that force the Liberation Front struck.

And for the first time, people outside of the Balkans heard of the Partisan Brigades, and their leader, Marshal Tito.

WHAT IS A “PARTISAN”?

S
OMETHING should be said here of the origin of the term “Partisan,” and the Partisan method of warfare. Curiously enough, the first Partisan brigades were American, and both the word and the method came in-to being during our revolution.

Continental farmers, when the occasion arose, would take down their guns, leave their homes, and meet at an appointed spot. Then they would attack a British garrison, or an outpost or a marching column. They would appear suddenly, strike hard and quickly, and then melt away before the enemy could reorganize. When the enemy was in a position to strike back, the Partisans had disappeared, gone back to their homes, ceased to exist as an army.

That feature, the ability to assemble quickly, strike quickly, and then disappear if the need should arise, is the most striking quality of Partisan bands. You will see how, again and again in the history of Tito's struggle, this feature was used to full advantage.

THE PARTISAN BRIGADES STRIKE

W
HEN the news of the Nazi attack on Russia arrived, the Liberation Front acted quickly and skillfully. The first uprisings were led by Communists, and they acted as a signal to anti-Nazis everywhere. At Valjevo, in northern Serbia, the ground had been well prepared. Javonavich, a reporter, killed the first German in Valjevo on July 5th. His detachment swung into action and launched a fullscale attack, with rifles, pistols and grenades on the German guards. Simultaneously, Tito led the Belgrade uprising. A group of young Communists attacked and burned part of the German press. Other Communist groups attacked the telephone building and the station. In Zagreb, the telephone building was successfully stormed and destroyed. In Slovenia, an Italian garrison numbering more than two hundred was attacked and wiped out. In Serbia, eighty truckloads of oil and munitions belonging to the Germans were blown up. Other bands stormed German prisons, and carried off Yugoslav prisoners. One of the prisoners rescued at this time, Alexander Rankovich, is today a part of the Liberation Front government. Stores of precious rifles and grenades were looted; Partisans attacked and killed Germans, afterwards stripping them of uniforms and arms.