Josip Broz Tito (7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980) was Prime Minister of Yugoslavia from 2 November 1944 to 29 June 1963, succeeding Ivan Subasic and preceding Petar Stambolic and President of Yugoslavia from 14 January 1953 to 4 May 1980, succeeding Ivan Ribar and preceding Lazar Kolisevski.
Biography[]
Josip Broz was born on 7 May 1892 in Kumrovec, Croatia-Slavonia, Austria-Hungary to a Croat father and a Slovene mother. He became the youngest Sergeant-Major in the Austro-Hungarian Army after distinguishing himself in World War I, but he was captured by the Imperial Russian Army. In 1917, he took part in the Russian Revolution after the Red Army liberated him from prison in the Urals, and he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia on his return to Yugoslavia.
When World War II broke out in Yugoslavia in 1941 and Nazi Germany and Italy occupied Yugoslavia, Josip Broz took on the alias of "Tito" and became the leader of the Yugoslav Partisans, a resistance movement that fought against the Wehrmacht and Royal Italian Army in an insurgency against the Axis Powers. Tito gained the support of the Allied Powers after his communist partisans proved to be stronger than Draza Mihailovic's Chetniks, and Tito liberated Belgrade and several other Balkan cities in 1944 as the Germans withdrew from the region. At the end of the war, Tito's Army of National Liberation had made it up to Trieste in Friuli, Italy, and the Yugoslavs helped the Red Army in pushing back the Axis Powers. After the war, Tito served as Prime Minister and was then elected President of Yugoslavia, having complete control of the country from 1953 to 1963, when he resigned from the office of Prime Minister and remained President. During his tenure as head of state of Yugoslavia, he helped Indian head-of-state Jawaharlal Nehru in forming the Non-Aligned Movement, as he was opposed to the Soviets' attempts to exert their domination over the Balkans. Yugoslavia remained a neutral country, and Tito died in 1980. Unfortunately, his death led to the country weakening, and by 1989 ethnic groups were fighting for their independence.