Kirkus Reviews QR Code
TITO by Vladimir Dedijer

TITO

By

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Confessedly sympathetic to Tito and the cause for which he lives, unequivocally a Communist, though concurring with the inevitability of his native Yugoslavia's split with Moscow, Vladimir Dedijer gives a closeup of Tito and of the role he has played in creating modern Yugoslavia, and does it so far as possible in Tito's own words. He serves as sort of commentator or Greek chorus, providing the connecting links, the explanatory interpolations, bits of historical background. It is in large part biographical- or should one say autobiographical, giving far more of Tito's boyhood and youth, his fourteen years' experience working among peasants and laborers, five years of which he spent in prison, his role in the Balkan secretariat, then as leader of the partisans against the German menace, finally as director of the path Yugoslavia has taken in world politics. The most interesting contribution the book makes is through the step by step analysis of the breach and final break with Stalin, and the efforts made by Moscow to circumvent and block each move. Much controversial material here in frank presentation of the Tito case against Mihailovic, the Tito side of the American airplanes, Tito's attitude toward Balkan unity, towards the West, and so on. Despite awkward phraseology (translation perhaps?) and lack of color- this is an important book.