z00mz00m wrote:
I grew up in Tito's Yugoslavia, and I know it was not any kind of perfect society. But it was arguably on the way to becoming a functional one. Fascists and Nationalists and Theocrats (of all types) were actively suppressed early on. It was: "Treat everyone like your brother... or ELSE."
From hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP…stashi%2C%20and%20critics
> The Croatians alone may have murdered some 655,000 people, the greater majority Serbs.
> The Tito regime itself killed in cold blood some 500,000 people, mainly "collaborators," "anti-communists,"
> rival guerrillas, Ustashi, and critics.
and
> Some estimates of the number killed in Croatian concentration camps are also listed (lines 240 to 242),
> but these dead are surely included in the estimates for the Jews, Gypsies, and Serb deaths, and therefore
> not consolidated. I conclude that the total democide by the Croatians is 242,000 to 1,088,000 people (line 245).
Without Tito, the most likely outcome of the war is a Serbian state on the side of the Allies defeating a Croatian state on the side of the Nazis. The best case for the Croats are war reparations. The worst case is mass revenge, and the end of an independent Croatian state.
With Tito, Croatia didn't even have to apologize for exterminating all those people, much less pay reparations or suffer any consequences. Croatia had equal rights in the federal government, and proceeded to benefit greatly from its position as the #1 tourist destination in the country, with all the cash and development tourism brought. Other parts of the country didn't do nearly as well. Except Slovenia, which interestingly is another pro-German state.
Any Croatian who understands history should wake up every morning and pray to Tito's memory.
Tito saved Croatia from any kind of punishment, but unfortunately he also allowed the Croatian state and education system to "forget" its bloody roots.
I also grew up in Tito's Yugoslavia (in Dubrovnik) and I can tell you for a fact that the communist regime plucked people off the streets, raided entire neighborhoods, and would do everything possible to exterminate anyone who so much as hinted at any anti-Tito ideals! My grandparents were alive during this time and saw these massacres with their own eyes. Several of their friends were taken away, never to be seen again.
Don't give Tito credit for knowing his backside from his elbow. He knew damn well that if he made the Ustashi pay reparations or some other kind of punishment, they would not comply easily, and then full-out conflict would break loose between Ustashi and other fascist groups, and Serbian/Croatian antifascists. If such a conflict started, there would be little Tito could do about it. It's sad that fascism has such a strong following in the pan-Yugoslav community.
"Without Tito, the most likely outcome of the war is a Serbian state on the side of the Allies defeating a Croatian state on the side of the Nazis ... the worst case is mass revenge ..." Apparently you fail to remember that Serbia was also on the side of the Nazis in WW2 (Serbia was the second Jew-free country in Europe while Croatia still had about 140,000 Jews by 1945) and caused more deaths than the Ustashi, if you add up crimes commited by both Nedic's Serbia and Tito's partisans (which is not even mentioned in that pro-Serb source you referenced). And the Serbs did get "revenge", in the Yugoslav wars/Bosnian genocide in the 1990s.
Also, those casualty numbers committed by "Croatians" (why not Ustashi?) are oddly high, considering Yugoslavia's total amount of casualties in WW2 (approximately 1.5 million). The Berlioz Institute, as well as Wikipedia list the total deaths caused by the Ustashi at closer to 300,000, less than the casualty number of Tito's Yugoslavia.
Your whole response attempts to portray all Croatians as Ustashi or fascist, while in reality, less than 3 percent of Croatia's WW2 population were members of the Ustashi. You also fail to acknowledge the Croatian antifascist resistance movement and how many Jews and other persecuted people they saved from being captured by the Nazis/Ustashi.
Do not judge people only based on ONE thing. Every coin has TWO sides.