On a less off-topic note, checkout Bulgaria's wildly successful clone of the Apple II in 1979: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers
Just a simple comparison to western democraties. In a typical democracy the parties list candidates and you vote for them.
Here candidates for representatives were proposed by interested members of the public on larger gatherings, by simple shouting someones name.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain
“Soviet-installed governments ruled the Eastern Bloc countries, with the exception of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which retained its independence and changed its orientation away from the Soviet Union in the late 1940s to a progressively independent worldview.”
From the article:
“Along with Egypt, Ghana, India, and Indonesia, the country founded the “non-aligned movement,” a patchwork of developing nations aspiring to chart a decolonial “third option” of formal neutrality during the Cold War. This constituted one of the few genuine anti-authoritarian, anti-imperial international alliances of the twentieth century.”
That doesn’t mean that the leader wasn’t treated as the “unique and only.”
While Yugoslavia was east of the iron curtain, it was never actually behind the iron curtain. It was never an eastern soviet bloc state, and it was never a part of the USSR. This whole page deserves a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cominform#Expulsion_of_Yugosla...
There were inherent flaws in the soviet system from the beginning, that would ultimately be Achilles heels. For example, the Yugoslavian passport allowed you to effectively travel freely (without visas, usually) back and forth on both sides of the iron curtain.
Also, while Americans refer to Yugoslavia's government system as communism, it was technically socialism. Yes, it was effectively a form of communism, and Tito was recognized as "benevolent dictator", but there were differences compared to the soviet bloc states. I am not excusing the horrors and the suffering that went on in Yugoslavia or the soviet bloc states either.
It should be noted that the US would give funds to Yugoslavia to stir up conflict east of the iron curtain. The Yugoslavian system was no more economically successful than the soviet bloc states. It was inherently flawed.
There are also wild stories that come out of the Balkans too: After Tito refused to align with the soviet bloc, Stalin ultimately tried to assassinate Tito 22 times (that we know of). Tito sends Stalin a letter and tells him to stop sending people to Yugoslavia to assassinate him. Because if Stalin does it again, Tito will personally send an assassin to Moscow to kill him (Stalin), and it will only take 1 try.
I only don't understand why "east of the iron curtain" when the country is on the west of the countries behind the iron curtain, as per Wikipedia link I've given?
It...didn't, though. It wasn't anti-authoritarian at all. Not was the NAM much of an alliance. Nor, as a number of countries closely aligned with the superpowers joined, was it even particularly even a group of non-aligned countries.
It is not.
> compared to the countries behind the so called “iron curtain” that land was indeed different.
Different, yes. Anti-authorian? A dictatorship? No.
The old government (king and families) capitulated and some fled. So the country was left on the mercy of the fascists. The people self-organized and self-liberated their country. Those who were the true leaders of this fight, got to lead the newly freed country in 1945. This is why people trusted all these leaders until they died. Tito was one of them but you have to have in mind it was a federation of several independent countries and each had their own local leadership, close to the people.
Unfortunately many of those who succeeded this initial leaders, and this occured during late 80ies and 90ies, in the end become too corrupt.
As for the socialism? All factories were owned by the people. All companies were owned by the people. Try to imagine that all workers in Google jointly owned Google and all major decisions (such as a new CEO, new politics, acquisitions etc) must be agreed upon by all workers (with a vote).
So, when someone preached that capitalism was better and more productive, he was essentially preaching to the workers that they should give away their own company to a single person that would benefit from their effort, or that their own company is stolen from them in the interest of a single person (or a handful of persons).
This system had many flaws and was not sufficently eficient to gain enough to support itself, but people were free. Had guaranteed jobs. Had guaranteed appartments when they formed their own families. Had guaranteed health care. Had guaranteed right of opinion (until they preached stealing other's property).
Communism always ends up the same way -- Soviet ties or not.
Do you have any examples of such people "locked away"? I don't believe you'd find any as soon as the years of breaking up with Stalin passed.
The politics of the country was such that it was really between NATO countries and Soviet-Union countries, and people from there were able to travel freely in both directions, so it was opposite of needing to "lock away" anybody for something.
Only Stalin's sympathizers were "locked away" at these post WW-II break up times, around 1948. There is enough material about that. But for some other ideas?
One of the most interesting story from these times and these places was "Purloined Yak":
https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0604yak/
"Tito believed that survival of his government depended upon getting the support of Western powers, particularly the United States. The US saw an opportunity to use a split in the communist bloc to its advantage, including gaining a foothold in the Balkans to help defuse the communist problem facing NATO member Greece.
Starting in 1949, Western nations began limited economic support to Yugoslavia. Two years later, the US began shipping weapons to Tito. Some unofficial sources claim that US military personnel were also sent to Yugoslavia in the early 1950s to help train the Yugoslav Air Force.
In October 1953, the opportunity to provide the US with a Soviet-built fighter aircraft—even temporarily—would have seemed a ready-made way to further cement US-Yugoslav relations."