75th Anniversary: Life In Socialist Yugoslavia

Thousands of people gather to celebrate victory over Nazi Germany in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, in 1945. On November 29 of that year exiled Yugoslav King Peter II was deposed and a communist government announced the creation of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia.

An Italian man is pulled by his ox out of territory to be handed over to Yugoslavia in 1947. The Treaty of Peace with Italy saw several islands and regions handed over to Yugoslavia following the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II.

Yugoslavia’s new leader, Josip Broz Tito, at his desk in 1947. The authoritarian ruler initially followed the political lead of Josef Stalin’s U.S.S.R., but the two communists soon became bitter enemies. After Stalin sent assassins to Yugoslavia, Tito wrote in a letter: “Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle.… If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send a second.”
 
 

A Belgrade market in 1950, when tensions with the Soviet Union led to a trade blockade, food shortages, and fears of a military invasion. Tito at the time carried out ruthless repressions against those deemed sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Hundreds were killed in the political crackdown and thousands more sent to forced-labor camps.
 

Locals in Belgrade line up outside a "U.S. Information Center" to read newspapers reporting the death of Stalin in 1953.
 
 

People enjoying a summer day in Zagreb in 1955.
 
After the death of Stalin, Yugoslavia was able to play the West off against the Soviet Union as each side was vying for influence over the country.

Children playing on a lazy day on the Adriatic Sea near the village of Lovran, in Croatia, in 1955.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (left) and Tito (right) dance with locals in Cetinje, Montenegro, in 1963. Yugoslavia at the time was about to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from both Western countries and the Soviet Union. The massive loans would provide a noticeable but short-lived jump in the quality of life in Yugoslavia.
 

Girls in a communist youth “labor camp” work at an unknown location in 1963. Such camps were used to help build infrastructure while also serving a propaganda role. Child workers were taught slogans such as “Comrade Tito, you white violet, all of the youth love you!” and “In the tunnel, in the darkness, shines a five-point [communist] star!” 
 
 

Summer in Omis, Croatia, in 1965

People walking the streets in Split, Croatia, in 1965.

People enjoying an outdoor restaurant in Rovinj, Croatia, in 1969.

Locals chat at a market in Tetovo, Macedonia, in 1971. The slogan of “brotherhood and unity” was a guiding principle of multiethnic Yugoslavia. Despite secret-police repression, cracks were beginning to grow along ethnic lines in Yugoslavia.
 
 

A member of the “volunteer youth squad” on duty in Rijeka, Croatia, as he “monitors public order” in 1975.

Lines lead into Belgrade’s parliament building in May 1980, where Tito’s body lay in state after his death on May 4.

The opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo in 1984.

Work at a factory at an unknown location in Yugoslavia. When this 1985 photo was taken, Yugoslavia was facing a dire economic crisis partly as a result of workers having “self-management” of their factories. The unusual economic model tended to result in profits being handed out to workers rather than invested in businesses. Yugoslav products rapidly fell behind on the international market.
 
 

A crowded tram in Sarajevo in 1987

An official at a farm in Croatia in 1988. By the 1980s, Yugoslavia’s economic problems were compounded by huge debts from the massive foreign loans taken out during the Tito era.
 
 
 

A couple striding through central Belgrade in 1988.
 

Serbian communist leader Slobodan Milosevic addresses workers inside Belgrade’s parliament in 1988.

In 1987, with ethnic tensions heating up amid economic turmoil, Milosevic openly sided with nationalist Serbs in Kosovo complaining of persecution by the majority ethnic Albanians. Many saw Milosevic’s decision to bring historical ethnic grievances into Yugoslav politics as the breaking of a taboo. Kosovo was a dangerously sensitive region partly due to its history of interethnic clashes. It was the beginning of the end for Yugoslavia.
 

The Croatian town of Dubrovnik burns after bombardment from the Yugoslav Navy in 1991.
 
From 1991 until 2001, the former Yugoslavia was wracked by a series of interethnic wars and insurgencies which ended in the deaths of an estimated 130,000 people and the formation of several independent successor states to Yugoslavia.