Tito defeated Nazis, faced down Stalin
Tito has received surprisingly little attention from English-language biographers despite his stature as a leader in the Second World War, in the Communist world and the Non-Aligned Movement.
Whatever your feelings about Communism, Tito’s achievements are undeniable: successfully leading the partisan resistance against the occupying Nazis, defying Stalin and living to tell the tale, and helping establish the Non-Aligned Movement. But his principal success – or so it seemed during his lifetime – was building a Communist state with an unprecedented level of prosperity and personal freedom.
Iron fist
Tito was admired even by his enemies, as a quote at the beginning of Neil Barnett’s book illustrates. Whilst Tito was masterfully leading the guerrilla war of his partisans in the face of vicious reprisals by occupying German forces, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, said of him: “I wish we had a dozen Titos in
Inevitably, he had his dark side, which Barnett skilfully reveals. For all his relatively liberal image, he used typically nasty Communist methods to rule, ordered the assassination of dissidents living in the west, and was implicated in extensive massacres of opponents after the war, which the author argues would now be viewed as war crimes. Tito, the proletarian leader, commandeered numerous palaces for his personal use and wore ever more self-aggrandising uniforms. This list of his sins is far from exhaustive.
Mr. Personality
But Tito got away with it all because he had the one thing that so many cloned Communist leaders so conspicuously lacked: charisma. He used it to great effect in the war leading the partisans, and in persuading the Allies to begin supporting them and not the previously favoured royalist Chetniks, who all too often preferred drinking to fighting Germans. He also made use of it in his prodigious womanising. A book of this length could easily have been written on his many relationships and numerous children.
Fearless
Despite the independent line that Tito followed for
Unravelled after death
While he was alive, Tito kept
Unfinished work
Unfortunately, the book does have its flaws. There are numerous typos and the repeated misspelling of Hitler’s title as Fürher instead of the correct spelling Führer grates. At the price of GBP 10.99 (EUR 16) for the paperback edition, readers are entitled to expect rather more assiduous work from the publisher.
The book is part of Haus Publishing’s Life&Times series, short biographies (under 160 pages) which tell the stories of key historical and cultural figures who have shaped our lives. Other titles include biographies of Nasser, Churchill, Trotsky and De Gaulle.
Tito by Neil Barnett
Haus Publishing (
GBP 10.99

