Titoism

Titoism is a term given to the politics of Socialist Yugoslavia, which was marked by policies and practices based on the principle that in each country, the means of attaining ultimate communist goals must be dictated by the conditions of that particular country, rather than by a pattern set in another country. In other words, the communist goal should be pursued independently of (and often in opposition to) U.S.S.R. policies.

The term is named after Josip Broz Tito, leader of Yugoslavia. The term was meant as a pejorative and was labelled by Moscow as a heresy during the period of tensions between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia known as the Informbiro period from 1948 to 1955.

Unlike the rest of East Europe which fell under the iron rule of Stalin post World-War II, Yugoslavia, due to the strong leadership of Marshall Tito, became the only country to resist presure from Moscow to join the Warsaw Pact and remained "socialist, but independant" rightup until the collapse of Soviet communism in the late 1980's. Throughout his time in office Tito prided himself on Yugoslavia's independence from Russia, with Yugoslavia never accepting full membership of COMECON and Tito's open rejection of many aspects of Stalinism as the most obvious manifestations of this.

A personal favourite of Stalin at first, Tito had led the left-wing oppositon to the Nazi ocupation during the war, and had met Stalin several times immediately after the war as they negotiated over the future of post-Nazi Yugoslavia. Over time, however, these negotiations became increasingly less cordial as it became clear to the Russians that Tito had no intention of handing over executive power in the form of a "puppet government" as had happened elsewhere in Eastern Europe – cf. Rakosi's dictatorship of Hungary.