Yugoslavia.
He went to work in the Zagreb railroad shops and organized the metal workers there. The Yugoslav government, terroristic at that time, imprisoned him. When Broz was released, the Communist Party had been forced underground by the Yugoslav dictatorship. For a while, Broz worked through the undergroundâthen he left the country.
For a while now, there is a gap. Some years later, Joseph Broz, already known as Tito, turned up in Spain, as an anti-fascist, a member of the International Brigade. I spoke to a man who met him then, in Republican Headquarters at Madrid. This man remarked upon Titoâs physical similarity to Abraham Lincoln, the same large jaw, the big, bony build, the lined face, the deep-set eyes, the large nose. In Spain, Tito organized Yugoslav antifascists. He helped them across the border from France and collaborated with French anti-fascists.
When the Franco Dictatorship, with the aid of Hitler and Mussolini, finally defeated the Spanish Republican Army, Tito was one of those who escaped across the border into France.
Somehow, he escaped the concentration camps and got to Paris. I spoke to people who knew him there, and they described a man more worn than the one in Madrid, leaner, more tiredâbut as purposeful and hopeful as ever. By now, he knew that his role in life would be a fighting anti-fascist. He saw Hitlerâs power increasing, and he realized that sooner or later it would be the turn of his native land, Yugoslavia. He decided to go home and organize for the fight against fascism that would come to Yugoslavia, sooner or later.
An agent of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee contacted Tito, and the Committee provided funds and means for Titoâs return to Yugoslavia. How and where he worked in Yugoslavia in recent years is not clearly knownâfor obvious reasons. The Communist Party there was underground, and the corrupt, pro-axis Yugoslav government joined the Nazi-inspired Communist witch-hunt. But when that government was overthrown by the officersâ coup and Yugoslavia threw in her lot with Britain, Tito knew that soon his organization would be vitally necessary.
At that time, Tito was in Slovenia, the northernmost section of Yugoslavia. There he consolidated his forces, drew tighter the strings of the local Communist Party, and, most of all, sought to make common purpose with every democratic and progressive organization.
Three days after the Yugoslav army had surrendered to the Axis, April Twentieth, 1941, Tito held a meeting with certain Slovenian leaders, Catholic Priests, Trade-Unionists, Peasant Leaders and Communists. They formed the Slovenian Liberation Front, and issued their first proclamation of defiance to Germany:
âDeath to Fascism, liberty to the people!â
Tito was a Communist; he made no secret of that. But the United Front he organized was not Communist; it included anyone and everyone who hated fascism and was willing to fight the invader. Its purpose was to render all aid to the alliesâand to drive the Germans and Italians from Yugoslavia.
The Liberation Front, or LF, as it came to be known, decided that Tito should go to Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, contact the Communist organization there, and start a movement that would embrace every democratic force in Yugoslaviaâa movement that would unite the whole land against the Nazis. In civilian clothes, a revolver in one pocket, Tito left Slovenia for Belgrade.
There are a hundred stories told of how Tito began the Belgrade center of the Liberation Front. It is said that he sat in a cafe in Belgrade, his hand on the revolver in his pocket, while German armored cars cruised the streets, looking for him.
Actually, Tito did not start the Liberation Front in Belgrade. When he arrived at Belgrade, a United Front underground organization, formed originally by the Communist Party, but already including progressive Yugoslavs of every political shade, was functioning.