REVOLUTION CREATED HIM

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 248, 24 March 1944, Page 4

REVOLUTION CREATED HIM

Josip Bros. Working Man, Becomes **Marshal Tito"

Ss F OR a long time past I have taken a particular interest in General Tito’s movement, and I am trying by every means to bring him help," said Mr. Churchill in his _ recent statement to the House of Commons. There have been many rumourg and surmises about the identity and background of the leader of the Partisan forces in Yugoslavia: this "profile" of him, from a recent issue of the London "Observer," has the ring of authenticity.

CERTAIN monumental A anonymity surrounds the life and personality of Josip Broz, the working man from Croatia, who now, as "Marshal Tito," commands a revolutionary army of 200,000 men, defies the might of Germany, and acts with the Powers of Britain and Russia as an independent Ally. He is now 53. His ’twenties were spent in war, in prison camps, in civil war; his ’thirties in conspiracy and in prison; the Spanish war consumed a large part of his ‘forties; in his ‘fifties he has become one of the great figures of the Second World War. Each station of his life is a station of European history; and all through his life he seems to have acted as part of a super-personal; collective force, almost blotting out his private- personality. No anecdotes are known about him. No word of his has become public property. His private life? He is a married man and has. two young sons. Nothing could be more commonplace. Even in his public life-the life of a revolutionary fighter and martyr-there is no single episode’ which he does not share with thousands; but, while thousands fall to his right and left, he survives. Here is a man, one feels, who has put himself at History’s disposal; and History has burned and battered him into greatness. Deserted to the Russians Josip Broz was born.in a poor man’s home in the. Zagorje, a mountainous district near Zagreb, in 1890. His father was a Croat, his mother a Czech. The boy grew up,amid the national and social discontent of the Slavonic provinces of old Austria-Hungary. When in 1914 he was sent to the Russian front as a private in the K. and K. army, his heart was on the other side; the defeat of Austria meant for him the freedom, equality and progress of his people. the southern Slavs. Accordingly, in 1915, he, like so many thousands of Slavonic Austrian soldiers, deserted to the Russians. Two years~in Russian prison camps followed. The revolution of 1917 set him free, only to engulf him again like so many other former prisoners-of-war, in the ensuing civil war. He fought three years in the Red Army. In 1921 he returned to his transformed country. With what feelings he went back we can only judge from his deeds. But we can hardly be far wrong if we assume that his strongest feeling was disappointment. Broz’s outlook had been formed by two revolutions, which had eaten up his youth: the nationalist revolution of the peoples of old Austria-Hungary with its ideals of national -equality, of the same dignities and liberties for Croats, Slovenes, Czechs and Slovaks as for Germans and Magyars; and’the Socialist revolution of Russia, with its early aims of "the land for the peasants" and "the industries for the workers." Nationalism

and Socialism, for him, had merged into one equalitarian, — libertarian, Jadobin ideal. Five Years’ Hard Labour For this ideal he had become used to dare, to suffer, and to fight. This was bound to bring him into conflict with the new Yugoslav State, of which he now found himself a citizen. As a Croat, he found he had only exchanged Magyar for Serb masters; as a worker he was still labouring under that capitalist system which he had helped to overthrow in Russia. He became a Croat labour leader. His trade union, the metal workers, was soon one of the most radical ones. Labour disputes were fierce and embittered by politics. They took place in a borderland between legitimate opposition and. illegality. In 1923, Broz was accused of Communist conspiracy, and sentenced to five years’ hard labour. Balkan prisons are not pleasant. Five years in one of them might break any

man. It did not break Broz, but taught him caution. He ceased to be the ardent, daring young revolutionary. He became the hard-bitten, circumspect underground worker. His release from prison almost coincided with the establishment of open dictatorship in Yugoslavia. For the next seven years he disappeared from sight. It is said that during that time he assumed the name of Tito to hide his identity. Whatever he did during that time, he must have gained a considerable standing in the revolutionary underground. For in the next great crisis, the Spanish war, he emerges for the first time as a leader. A Miracle for Spain The -history of the International Brigade is still unwritten. When it is, Tito will be seen as one of the men who organised the improvised revolutionary corps of ardent volunteers from all countries, which for two years sustained the Spanish Republic. During the crisis of the defence of Madrid, in November, 1936, thousands of men from Eastern and Central Europe suddenly streamed into Spain, and almost overnight formed themselves into effective fighting units, which for a time, turned the tide of the war. It seemed a miracle. Tito was one of the men who worked that miracle. He was in charge of the underground traffic through Italy, Austria, Switzerland and France, by which thousands of volunteers went to the Spanish front. All this he did in secrecy,’ from changing headquarters. His name never appeared in the newspapers. To this day, reports are conflicting as to his part in the actual fighting. Only his prominent role in the secret general staff of the International Brigade is certain. Spain was Tito’s high school for the part he was to play in this war. In some respects it may even be said that the Partisan struggle in Yugoslavia, which he leads, is a direct continuation of the struggle of the International Brigade in Spain. Tito’s army, though first and foremost concerned in the national liberation of Yugoslavia, fights with a super-national slogan; "Freedom for All Peoples! Death to Fascism!" Some of its leaders, like Tito’s right-hand .man, Kosta Nagy, were among the officers of the old International Brigade. The international appeal of ‘Tito’s forces has from the first been remarkable. Not only did they never ask whether a man was Serb, Croat or Slovene; they comprised from the first, Czech and Italian battalions; they soon gathered to themselves Russians who came over from the German-raised force of General Vlassov; recently the movement spread far into Northern Italy, as well as into Hungary and Bulgaria. Secret of His Success Internationalism is one of ‘Tito’s principles; the second is a broad political approach. Tito’s army ranges from the extreme Left, far beyond the political centre of Yugolsav opinion. The political administration, which Tito has now set up in the territories he controls, contains even some definitely Right wing elements. He can afford it, for he (Continued on next page)

(Continued trom previous page) knows the secret which holds together an improvised army of various nationalities and varying political tendencies: fight. The regular army of a national State can be kept together and saved up as an army in being. An irregular army can only be held together, disciplined and extended by continuous fighting. This Tito has learned in two civil wars, and here is the real secret of his almost miraculous success. Still half-dimmed by the _ secrecy which inevitably surrounds much cf his career, Tito nevertheless to-day stands out as a great European figure in his own right. He is the most striking present-day representative of that European revolution which, hailing from 1789, destroyed the three Eastern empires, 25 years ago, which since shook Spain and France, and which now, only half-connected with the present war, is uneasily smouldering close to the surface in many countries. An uncompromising figure, hunted, hardened, cast without doubt in a heroic mould, a military improviser of genius, Tito has now risen to a rank where his statesmanship will be tested. On this will depend whether he will go into history as a great creative revolutionary or only into legend as a heroic rebel and guerilla leader, Whatever the outcome, the historic force which has created men like him is far from spent.