Brotherhood, unity and boredom

Milovan Djilas' critical biography about Yugoslav Communist leader Josip Broz Tito is surprisingly uninteresting, especially so since Djilas was one of his closest collaborators for decades.

There is some gossip about Tito's hunting parties, women and inability to speak fluent Serbian (Tito was a Croat). We get to know that Tito was the de facto dictator of Yugoslavia (no surprise there), but also that the Titoist regime was periodically more liberal than the Soviet Union (also old hat). Some episodes from the partisan war against the Nazis are retold, etc.

With the exception of Tito's bad treatment of his last wife Jovanka, however, there is little of exceptional interest in this book. Indeed, Djilas even claims that Tito wasn't involved in the Stalinist purges in Moscow during the 1930's which destroyed the old leadership of the Yugoslav Communist Party, making Tito the new leader. Somehow, I found that very hard to believe. Tito was in Moscow at the time. He was obviously Stalin's choice. Is Djilas hiding something? If so, one wonders why, since he later had a fall out with Tito. (Just a thought. I'm not an expert on Tito's biography.)

On a more humorous note, I noticed that Djilas claimed that Tito wasn't a heavy drinker. This is interesting, since former Algerian leader Ahmed Ben Bella claims in a French book that Tito was an alcoholic, leading his doctor to exclaim: "I wish Ben Bella would visit us more often, since that's the only thing that keeps Tito from getting drunk" (or words to that effect). As a good Muslim, Ben Bella didn't drink alcohol, so on his frequent visits to Belgrade, the marshal of Yugoslavia was forced to play the absolutist! Who is right, Djilas or Ben Bella? No idea, but I almost suspect it might be Djilas, since Ben Bella spins some obvious tall tales about Khruschev's and Stalin's drinking habits in his book, as well (not available in English, by the way).

The Swedish edition of "Tito: The inside story" also contain interesting photos of Tito in various contexts, taken from the German edition. I'm not sure whether they are included in this English edition. Probably not. But then, who cares?

The inside story courtesy of Djilas is a boring one anyway.

We have Tito. Tito have us. Boredom-boredom-boredom.