Yugoslavia's partisan leader who chose non-alignment
The 1948 Cominform split showed that a socialist state could pursue an independent line beyond Soviet control.
He led the partisan struggle in the Second World War and built postwar Yugoslavia. After breaking with Stalin in 1948, he led the socialist federation and became a central figure of non-alignment.
Career Timeline
- 1941–1945Leader of the Yugoslav Partisans and national liberation struggle
- 1945–1980Leader of socialist Yugoslavia
- 1948Break with Stalin and the Cominform
Related historical events
- 1941–1945The Yugoslav Partisan WarCommunist Party leaderAs general secretary of the underground Communist Party before the invasion, he directed its organization and preparations for resistance, later becoming the Partisans' supreme leader.
- 1947–1948The Marshall Plan and the Cold War1948 break with Stalin and Cominform, symbol of Cold War bloc fracture
- 1948–1955The Tito-Stalin SplitExpelled Yugoslav leaderRefused the demand for submission and took a separate road
Founding the Non-Aligned Movement
The roots of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) trace back to the Brioni Declaration of July 19, 1956, signed by Tito, India's Jawaharlal Nehru, and Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser on the island of Brioni, affirming a joint anti-bloc policy. Tito then extensively engaged newly independent African and Asian states, building a decolonization solidarity network. On September 1–6, 1961, the First Non-Aligned Summit convened in Belgrade, and Tito was elected the movement's first Secretary-General (1961–1964). Twenty-five heads of state attended, with Indonesia's Sukarno and Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah joining Tito, Nehru, and Nasser as co-founders. The Belgrade Conference was a direct response to Cold War bipolarity, institutionalizing a 'third way' in international politics, whereby nations outside the great-power military alliances asserted collective self-determination and peaceful coexistence. Tito steered the NAM not as passive neutrality but as a forum of active peaceful coexistence, remaining its central leader through the 1970s. Until his death in 1980, Yugoslavia served as the diplomatic hub of the non-aligned world.