Was communism really that bad??

Yep, sun is out here too ... I have the worst problems falling asleep lately, and then when I finally do sleep, I sleep away all my free Saturday - its a destructive lifestyle I'll admit. But hey, at least I'm not alone, then, apparently ;-)

Thanks for the update on the HDZ, HNS and the Serb party by the way, very interesting. And a great story from fbaezer again of course <smiles>.

Colleague of mine once spent the night in Tito's former residence, probably his very room ... Long story. Travelling (the safe parts of) Croatia and Slovenia just after the war began, one night she and her bf ended up quite lost and without a place to stay, and friendly folks guided her to a far-flung place of some grandeur where they were put up for the night, which the day after turned out to be Tito's former residence. They stayed the night in a room that was particularly large and beautiful, and had a discrete, hidden private elevator down ...

This is a bit creepy to learn that two participants on this thread has some kind of "relationship" to Tito. One is a distant one, but never-the-less creepy.

Hm, I wonder where they stayed...I suppose it was Kumrovec, Croatia - birhtplace of Josip Broz Tito, today his house is some kind of museum, but what is strange is that I really don't believe they would give someone to sleep there. But, you never know
However, I don't think Tito had any residences in Croatia, except Kumrovec and Vanga, small island in National Park Brijuni.

Once again, you are right about early years, but those years lasted only until 1948/49th, and most killings occured in 1945/46th.
Goli Otok was definitely place where people were held for no reason at all and therefore pure symbol of dictatorship, but not something like Gulag or Franco's torture camps. Simply, vast majority of prisoners lived and came home in few years.
And fbaezer is mostly right about fact that Tito's regime never jailed family members of those people and never touched intellectuals, artists or such groups...however, to be fair, it also must be said that family members of political prisoners in some cases were not able to get a job in those early years.

And, generally, you are completely right of course, slaughtering of thousands of soldiers that surrendered is crime, and my way of thinking can be completely wrong but I can't resist feeling that it's still much different when you slaughter tens of thousands of nazi soldiers that comitted terrible crimes and when you, as Franco, slaughter tens of thousands of mainly innocent people.
I am NOT saying that it's okay to slaughter Nazis that surrendered, just that it's not exactly the same as what Franco did.

Hmm, well I basically have no qualm with the distinction between the two (I've already indicated a few times that if anything, it's a welcome one to me), but I do think it's good to question exactly how far it applies ...

For example, and I'm now going to play advocate of the devil - Franco's troops also won power after a boody civil war. Their civil war started because they attempted a coup d'etat against the legitimate democratic government, so that alone puts the Franquistas in the camp of war criminals, compared to the Partisans who insurrected against fascist occupation and dictatorship. But, still, a civil war did ensue, in which the Fascists fought militias of anarchists and communists. Much has been written about the Spanish anarchist experiments, and much idealism was involved on their part. Nevertheless, the anarchists did have their own take-no-prisoners way. Priests and landowners were murdered on a large scale, there was real terror from that side too. And as the civil war proceeded to tear families apart in horror much like it has in Yugoslavia, it did become harder to easily distinguish the good and bad guys on a micro-level. On a macro-level, for sure, here you had the Republican resistance, fighting upcoming fascist dictatorship - no contest. But on a micro-level, there was bloody retaliation each way.

So when the civil war ended, and the Franquistas gathered all the enemy fighters in camps and murdered scores of them, were they - in their point of view - not merely engaging in the kind of post-war retaliation that you bring up as a relativation of sorts, for the murders in post-war Yugoslavia?

I mean, I understand what you're talking about. And furthermore, if in Spain the camps included thousands of people who were merely family of ..., and in Yugoslavia they didnt (which however I'm not sure about, considering the reference above to "functionaries and their families" who surrendered at Bleiburg), then thats also a real difference. Just trying to map the proportions here.

Of course, my original comparison between Tito and Franco was one on a slightly more macro-scale: the general development of their regimes show a parallel. From getting to power through a bloody civil war, to persecuting a ruthless post-war clampdown followed by a period of hushed, stagnant control - to establishing a dictatorship that yielded no political control and allowed no political structures besides its own, but through opening up the country to foreign imports and millions of tourists brought their countries a wealth and openness to outside cultural influence other dictatorships never allowed for. In both countries, it did bring a kind of modernity that transformed the country. (Not that I dont still think it would have come faster still in a democracy.)

OK, and with that, I guess - though I'm of course curious about both of your takes on the above - I am gonna leave this thought experiment for a while, before I offend anyone ... :wink:

Heh, and my father went to Yugoslavia as one of those international volunteers to help build the trans-Yugoslav Highway of the Brotherhood of Peoples or whatever it was called (something in that vein) ...


Well, it was a strange year, back then ... who knows, indeed?

OK, now to fan some Yugo nostalgia ...

Cyber Yugoslavia, the home of those who've felt they have no home anymore ever since Yugoslavia fell apart ...

I knew a girl like that, she moved here the year before the war began, and insisted on not being anything other than "Yugoslav" ... officially, I guess, according to the 'new' standards, she'd be a Bosnian Serb, but no way - her allegiance was only to a country that doesnt exist anymore. Lots of people like that, people of mixed heritage, people who emigrated back when it was one country, etc

In any case, all those can become a citizen of Cyber Yugoslavia. "When we have five million citizens, we plan to apply to the UN for member status. When this happens, we will ask 20 square meters of land anywhere on Earth to be our country. On this land, we'll keep our server."

And: Tito's Home Page, for when you want to listen to some of those speeches, songs or download a Tito screensaver ... :wink:

I've never lived under Communism either. One thing that has helped me understand what it was like to live under Soviet Communism was to read people's autobiographies who did actually live through it. Three that come to mind are "Nina's Journey", "Goodbye Tomorrow" and "The Ice Road".

A few hours reading might be time well spent.

no,you are right about Bleiburg, but that was not the camp, it was just slaughtering field at the end of WW2 - when I said that Tito hadn't jailed families of political opponents I was refering to Goli Otok - I said myself that on Bleiburg many innocent people were executed as well.

To be fair, the 'Communist Ideology' which has nothing to do with any of the historic, or existing governments espousing it, is ideologically a very wise, and progressive system, with many potential benefits for its adherents.

However it has a vital, and terminal flaw! - The human race.

Humanity, with its primitive programming pertaining to territory, violence, greed, and hierarchical structure, can not begin to entertain any egalitarian system.

Communism is anathema to human nature.

[ and the faults that have destroyed every attempt to institute it have come from the internal destructive effects of 'power', and 'greed'!]

Cyber Yugoslavia...yeah, many people are Yugo-nostalgic. Actually it's hard to explane...in that topic you gave link for, Relative said in one moment "we had beautiful childhood" or something like that...and that's truth. I really can't imagine better childhood. And better teenage years. I simply can't - anywhere in the world, including independent Croatia today.

Funny thing is that sometimes you have completely mixed emotions. I would NEVER like another Yugoslavia, but I am also Yugo-Nostalgic sometimes.

I live in a small town that is special by many things. It has four rivers and largest percentage of green areas in ex Yugoslavia. It's a beautiful town. But, the most special thing is unbeliavable, crazy, bizarre connection that inhabitants have with it. I want to travel, I want to visit every single spot on planet, but I never thought for a single moment about moving from Karlovac - and it's the same for at least 90% of people I know. One famous Croatian publicist said once "There's something magical in this town - I feel that if I stay here I will stay young forever". There are lot of bad things here and we are first that will say that. But, still, people are so incredibly attached to it.

And also...it's very multi-everything town. Before the war, about 25-30% of population were Serbs, biggest Orthodox and biggest Catholic church are some 50 meters away, Karlovac is also on the thinest part of Croatia, about 20 miles from Slovenia, and maybe 35-40 from Bosnia. It was always town with absolute croatian majority, but in the same time town with biggest percentage of Serbs (except Vukovar /talking only about towns with croatian majority - Knin had larger percentage too of course/), biggest percentage of Slovenes, and biggest percentage of Muslims in Croatia (or one of the biggest). Town with the nicest Jewish cemetary in Croatia. Town that was built by Habsburgs and where in local dialect people use enormous amount of German words. Town 50 miles from Alps and 50 miles from Adriatic Sea.

You know, things shade after a while. And sometimes I need those serbian villages around my town. Yeah, they were trying to kill me for four years, but it's kinda not the same - they should be there again. You simply feel that it's not how it suppose to be without it.

BoGoWo is quite right - not that I think that communism is some kind of great idea, but ideology itself is not bad at all - people are.

Good morning all. I also thought: "This is how nimh and MOU spend their crazy friday nights" (MOU has the journalists' alibi, but anyway)

The year I met Tito? February 1974.
You know by now I'm an anecdote teller. 3 more.
We were meeting in a restaurant with a group of the Communist League Youth and our hosts kept on standing up and going to the kitchen. We wondered why. Suddenly they came back with big smiles, chanting: Yugolavia had defeated Spain and had qualified for the Football World Cup in Germany.
Days later, we went to a meeting against Pinochet's coup d'Etat. It was in a closed auditorium full of bronze faces of Socialist heroes. Chilean socialist leader Carlos Altamirano showed up and us Mexicans chanted the slogans from the Chilean revolution we all knew by heart and were taken for Chileans.
We also went to the cinema, to watch a film by Costa-Gavras that was prohibited in Mexico. At one moment, the Yugoslav girl next to me exclaimed in astonishment: "Are they torturing him because he's a Communist?!!" That was totally natural for me, but it didn't fit in her mind... where, in any case, the Communist would be the torturer, not the victim.

---

BoGoWo took us back to basics,
He's right.
That's why Che Guevara wanted to create "a new man". He knew normal humans wouldn't stand the Communist system.

We all know what happens when people gain political power. It's a truism even in a democracy. It's the people, stupid!

CI - which is why our Founding Fathers deliberately gave us a Constitution that limited the power of the Government. It was nice while it lasted.

MOU, you a journalist? Trip out - I had you pegged as a student or something.
Fbaezer, its been some time since i last had "crazy friday nights" .. Been over a year since i last exited a club at 6 in the morning to slog my way cross town in the morning light, looking for some place with people still as fucked up as I was ... <grins>
Alas, alas ... all I'm left with is insomnia and a bad space to wanna escape from ... Hey, time to take care of my balcony while its still light. Bought some flowers and all.

MOU, Karlovac sounds wonderful, in many ways ... Good friend of mine moved near there, I think (kinda lost contact with her, but I think I remember it was Karlovac, could be wrong)

Okay, what was wrong with your friend??
See, that's another perfect example of Karlovac mind - we adore it for ourselves, but if someone from NETHERLANDS moves here we do think that this person has some....well...issues

Main problem in Karlovac is that it's definitely town that was put back most by the war in all Croatia. Some other towns were destroyed even worse, but most of those towns were either pretty boring before as well or are at sea so they developed again with tourism soon enough. Now I am talking only about fun, nightlife, etc...
So, now you have situation that Karlovac is certainly more interesting then any western european continental town of 60,000 inhabitants - but we are still pretty disappointed. I mean, I don't know that for sure, I am supposing that with experience from Scandinavia or Austria, maybe in some countries it's different. Before the war just between rivers Kupa and Korana (that's old center of town, actually huge fortress built as protection of Turkish attacks - so, yeah, old center of town is actually huge military fortress for about 10,000 people), and that's about half mile, was six discoclubs, dozens of terraces always filled with people, live music all around, and more days with open-air events then those without it - now it's quite opposite.

But, Karlovac always had some crazy spirit, here are few funniest examples:
1) in the middle of the war - 1992/93rd, German punk band played in town, so imagine the scene...old center destroyed and dark, almost no lights on the street, and they enter small club in the middle of that center, just next to completely destroyed building, and inside they see naked waiters - naked simply because they felt like it, and, among others, croatian basketball team player that just won silver medal at Olympics, drinking with us in the dark club in f***ing destroyed town.

2) Beach party - that's one of my favourite memories. Few days before town was under heavy bombing...middle of the summer, terribly hot, and nobody is out, people still bit scared...and then out of nothing, some gang starts to give flyers and stuff for "beach party" (all rivers are forbiden zones, nearest available beach 50 miles away) next night...and they just say "take water pistols with you". So, in the middle of town, again in surrounding of gray and destroyed buildings, few hundred people gather with water pistols and similar stuff and simply splash each other for no reason (that was NOT tradition or something, it simply came out of nothing), and few minutes later, older people come as well, from those buildings...50 year old houseviwes throwing bags full of water on people's heads, absolutely nadrealistic stuff - but it was one of the best nights in my life).

3) we are small croatian town, but we were extremely small yugoslavian town And yet, Karlovac was first ex-YU town with condom machine, second (before Zagreb, only after Ljubljana in Slovenia) with porno cinema, and as another funny fact - only town in the world with fans that in large numbers go to away games, but very few of them are supporting team on home games - they come but they sit and watch - explanation: "I don't know man, it's kinda stupid to yell here, it's better to sit and drink beers".


Yes, I'm journalist, although it would be better for me to be student as well I started Informatics College during war, and then during summer I used to work for local papers for extra money - they offered me a job, and later national daily paper called me, and, bye bye my college

Holy crap i'm gone for one day and the posts doubled on this forum. Anyway nimph this is for you, i don't know if anyone answered your question but saskatchewan along with alberta british columbia and a little of manitoba are mostly conservative. the NDP (formally CCF) is prominent in manitoba and the rest is scattered all over the country except Alberta(Conservative stronghold). Liberals in Ontario, eastern provences and the north, Block Quebecois obviously all in Quebec.




-Hans

Hey i got a question (a bit off topic though) I bought this canteen at a garage sale and on it, it has U.S.
LEYSE
1945
Does anyone know if this was used for military troops in WW2 and if it is of any value??





-Hans

no, no, no! (he said & laughed before he even read on): she was croatian! originally from the krajina ... i went to visit her a coupla years ago, stayed w/her in zagreb and kostajnica ...

Hans, Leyse was a manufacturer of appliances and kitchen items which made mess kits for the government during the Second World War. The date of manufacture appears on the items. You would want to consult a dealer in antiques about its value. Do you have the canvas cover? That would make it more valuable.