So fucking mayo
And here I thought Red Vienna was the only cool thing about Austria
All I’ve heard about is croatian nazi sympathizers having their annual Bleiberg March in Austria for the people marched into the pits by Tito.
Didn’t realize there was this in Austria too.
6 points
Remember reading the wiki for Tito years ago and being enthralled all the way through - his life was pretty much an adventure movie.
Cliff notes:
- 18 years old: Joins a union and his first labour protest.
- 19: Engages in first strike action.
- 20: Learns German, Czech, fencing & dancing.
- 21: Conscripted into Austro-Hungarian army; learns to ski.
- 22: Promoted to sergeant major - the youngest of that rank in the army; gets arrested for sedition but is acquitted.
- 23: Deployed to fight Russia in Galicia, gets poked in the back by a lance and is captured; learns Russian by reading Tolstoy in prison.
- 24: Transferred to POW camp in Samara; works on the Trans-Siberian railway. complains about Red Cross parcels being stolen and is beaten and imprisoned.
- 25: (Big year) February revolution occurs; rioters return him to the POW camp. He walks out of the unguarded POW camp and goes to live with the family of a Bolshevik he met in the camp.
After arriving in Petrograd, July Days breaks out and he joins in. Is arrested along with other Bolsheviks and kept in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Was transferred by train but escapes at Yekaterinburg and catches a train to Siberia.
Evades arrest by speaking fluent Russian. Arriving in Omsk, Siberia, discovers that Lenin has seized Petrograd and he is enlisted as a Red Guard to defend the railway. - 26: Czechoslovak Legion seize Siberia; Tito goes into hiding, meets future wife who shelters him.
- 27: Omsk recaptured by the Red Army, Tito returns there and marries wife.
- 28: He and pregnant wife return to his homeland, where he joins the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
- 29: Is fired from his job for being a Communist. He and his wife move and he gets another job.
- 30-31: After a change in leadership of the CPY, Tito agrees to work illegally for it by distributing leaflets and agitating factory workers.
- 32: Elected to CPY district committee, but is arrested after a priest complains about the speech he gave at a comrade’s funeral. Evades prosecution, but wife suffers three cot-deaths and they lose a 2 year old daughter which affects him deeply. They have a son who survives.
- 33: Tito’s employer dies; the new boss instructs him to give up being a communist or lose his job - Tito chooses to become a professional revolutionary. Moves to the Adriatic to work in a shipyard in conjunction with the CPY.
Starts a trade union at the shipyard and is elected representative. Leads a strike and is fired. - 34: Gets a job in a railway works near Belgrade.
- 35: Writes an article complaining about the exploitation of workers in the factory and is fired. Appointed Secretary of the Zagreb branch of the Metal Worker’s Union, and soon after the Secretary for the whole Croatian branch.
Is arrested along with other workers, goes on hunger strike. Found guilty of being a member of the illegal CPY, is released pending appeal. Did not report to court for the appeal, instead going into hiding in Zagreb. - 36: Is one of 32 delegates to the Croatian branch conference of the CPY. Argues against factionalism and proposes the executive committee of the Comintern purge the branch, which it does. Tito is elected as secretary of the new central committee.
Gets into a brawl with members of the Social Democratic Party on May Day; is arrested but police fail to identify him and he is released. Eventually an informant helps them to track him down and imprison him, where he is sentenced to five years imprisonment. - 37-42: While in prison, coordinates with other communist inmates to contact and organise further communists. When finally released, Fascism and right-wing parties have emerged in Germany, France and Austria.
He returns to his hometown and is instructed by the CPY to return to revolutionary duty. Leaves for Zagreb and re-joins the central committee of the Communist Party of Croatia. Travels between Zagreb, Ljubliana & Vienna and is blackmailed by a smuggler and detained by the Heimwehr.
Uses the Austrian accent from his war service to deceive them and is allowed to proceed to Vienna. Meets long-time friend and deputy Edvard Kardelj and adopts the penname “Tito”. Austria is considered to hostile to communists, so Tito leaves for Yugoslavia. He is elected as member of the Politburo. - 43: Is sent to Moscow to report on the situation in Yugoslavia, and is appointed to the secretariat of the Balkan section. Tito lectures on trade unions to foreign communists, attends a course on military tactics, and attends as a delegate to the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern, where he meets Stalin for the first time. Tito’s wife and son had left him while he was in prison, so here he meets his new wife.
- 44: The Great Purge is underway, and Tito and other foreign Politburo members are under scrutiny. Tito evades potential arrest or execution by being sent to recruit Yugoslav volunteers for the International Brigades, but ultimately ends up recruiting over a thousand anti-fascists from Yugoslavia, France, Belgium and the U.S. & Canada.
- 45-46: Tito manages to further avoid the purge by avoiding the NKVD in Spain and avoiding being in Moscow entirely. He develops a younger, loyal leadership team including Kardelj. Arranges a protest of 30,000 in Belgrade. Finally returns to Moscow near the end of 1937.
Continues to avoid persecution by making influential friends and avoiding intellectual arguments. - 47+: Appointed General Secretary of the CPY. Organises the Yugoslav partisan resistance in WW2, and the rest is history (or a separate movie entirely).
5 points
My band would play this fest