Review of Barnett's Tito

My taxi driver in Dubrovnik, on seeing me read this book, said “you know we all say Tito Tito please wake up we need you!” Tito was by all accounts one of the coolest men in history. The inspiration for Bond, a revolutionary and the epitome of a political Leviathan. I love the Balkan joke of its states as members of a classroom held together by their teacher (Tito); without Tito the region plunged back into a chaos of nationalism and xenophobia and has not really recovered. There is a lot to learn from Yugoslavia and from the man.

One of my favourite parts of this book is its description of the personality traits of a laudable leader: strong-willed, pragmatic, charismatic and most importantly modest, with a “sense of adventure”. Tito was the only man to stand up to Stalin, to Churchill, to West and East, and fought only for the people of Yugoslavia.

This book is clearly written by an armchair Tory. His historiography toes the British party line (yes, I am being ironic here, as he critiques Stalinism so much while replicating the same uncritical dogmatism that was pervasive in the truthless times of the USSR), conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, communism with evil, third-world countries with the uncivilised, and continually attempts “gotcha” lines to paint Tito as an evil tyrant (they never land for the critical mind). If you dredge through the shit there is a lot of gold in this book, and lessons I will take to heart. So many cool stories of this incredible man.

Like, he was hunted by police everywhere, imprisoned many times, escaped more times, told Stalin he was going to kill him and lived (Stalin kept the letter and would admire it), organised strikes and counter-offensives against the Nazis, recited Edward Lear’s Nonsense poems to Churchill, and most importantly treated his staff and people kindly, always putting them first. This guy partied harder than any other leader (except maybe JFK) and had women falling at his feet his entire life.

Another Croatian man detailed how Fitzroy Maclean (a badass in his own right, and Ian Fleming’s friend) provided the royal and combat side of James Bond. However, Maclean and Fleming were notably ugly; it was only through the extensive time that Maclean and Tito spent together that Fleming got his inspiration for the Martini-drinking, smooth-talking, skiing/poker-playing figure that makes Bond so cool.

TLDR: Tito was fun and a kind-hearted man who found himself on the stage of history and shone.