The era of Marshal Josip Broz, better known as Tito, which on January 13, 1953 became president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He took over from Ivan Ribar and remained in office for almost 30 years, until May 4, 1980, the day of his death.
Before coming to power, Tito had co-founded the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) in 1920, at the age of 28.
During World War II, the Communist leader led the partisan resistance against the German occupation, also counting on the support of the Allies.
After the war, Tito won the elections of November 11, 1945, in which he presented himself at the head of the National Front. He was then appointed prime minister and foreign minister.
During this period Yugoslav forces and the Red Army were involved in the deportation andmass killing of ethnic German populations, judged to be collaborationists. The Italian population of Istria, summarily considered as fascist, suffered the massacres of sinkholes.
Under the presidency of Tito, Yugoslavia was transformed into a federal state governed by a communist regime but very distant from the Soviet model, on the economic side - where it inaugurated the self-management of the factories - as on that of relations with the religious authorities and in politics foreign. The Balkan Republic broke with the USSR and withdrew from the Warsaw Pact, putting himself at the head of the so-called “non-aligned” countries, i.e. the states formally equidistant from the two opposing blocs during the Cold War.
The political figure of Marshal Tito can be judged as one wishes, but it must be recognized that he managed to keep a country of a thousand ethnic groups united: after him the flood.
