Was Tito's Yugoslavia not totalitarian?

Abstract

This paper is a response to an article “Was Tito’s Yugoslavia totalitarian?” published in the journal Communist and Post-Communist Studies 47 (2014). The two authors indicate the inadequate theoretical framework and untenable interpretations made by Flere and Klanjšek, who provided a distorted picture of former Yugoslav society and the position of an individual in it. Their reduced theory of totalitarianism combined with their simplified interpretations served their aim of proving that the system established by the Yugoslav communists was not totalitarian nor did it strive to become one. Flere and Klanjšek’s main argument for the absence of totalitarianism is that of a federal state concept of Yugoslavia, which is not in correlation with contemporary understanding of totalitarianism. By deconstructing their arguments, this article argues for a more elaborated and up-to-date conceptual understanding of Tito’s Yugoslavia and its relation to the concept of totalitarianism.

Keywords

• totalitarianism
• yugoslavia
• communism
• federalism
• josip broz tito
• individual