Josip Broz Tito: Encyclopedia II - Josip Broz Tito - Early years

Josip Broz Tito - Early years

Tito was born Josip Broz in Kumrovec, northwestern Croatia, in an area called Zagorje, which was then part of Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was the seventh child in the family of Franjo and Marija Broz. His father Franjo Broz was a Croat, while his mother Marija (née Javeršek) was Slovenian. After spending part of his childhood years with his maternal grandfather in Podsreda, he entered the primary school in Kumrovec, and failed the first grade. He left school in 1905.

In 1907, moving out of the rural environment, Broz started working as a machinist's apprentice in Sisak. There he became aware of the labor movement and celebrated May 1 - Labor Day for the first time. In 1910 he joined the union of metallurgy workers and at the same time the Social-Democratic Party of Croatia and Slavonia. Between 1911 and 1913, Broz worked for shorter periods in Kamnik, Slovenia; Cenkovo, Bohemia; Munich and Mannheim, Germany, where he worked for Benz automobile factory; then went to Vienna, Austria, where he worked at Daimler as a test driver.

From autumn 1913, Broz was conscripted and served in the Austro-Hungarian Army; in May 1914 he won a silver medal at a fencing competition of the Austro-Hungarian Army in Budapest. At the outbreak of the First World War, he was sent to Ruma. He was arrested for anti-war propaganda and imprisoned in the Petrovaradin fortress. In 1915, he was sent to the Eastern Front in Galicia to fight against Russia. In Bukovina he was seriously injured by a howitzer shell. In April, the whole battalion fell into Russian captivity.

After spending several months at the hospital, Broz was sent to a work camp in the Ural mountains in autumn of 1916. In April, 1917, he was arrested for organizing demonstrations of prisoners of war but later he escaped and joined the demonstrations in Saint Petersburg on July 16-17, 1917. He fled to Finland to avoid the police, but was arrested and locked in the Petropavlovsk fortress for three weeks. After being imprisoned in a camp in Kungur, he escaped from the train. In November, he enlisted in the Red Army in Omsk, Siberia. In the spring of 1918, he applied for membership in the Russian Communist Party.

In 1936 the Comintern sent comrade Walter (i.e. Tito) back to Yugoslavia from Moscow to purge the Communist Party there. In 1937 he became secretary general of the Yugoslav Communist Party. During this period he faithfully followed Comintern policy, criticizing Serbian domination of other Yugoslav nationalities and agitating for the breakup of the Yugoslav state.

Josip Broz Tito - Origin of the name Tito

In 1920, he became a member of the soon to be banned Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Their influence on the political life of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was minor at the time. In 1934, he became a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Party, then located in Vienna, Austria, and adopted the code name "Tito".

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Early years", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki