Tito’s Death and His Political Legacy, 1980 435
the mountain.”^5 Vladimir Nazor, the Croat writer, added in a more colloquial
manner: “With Tito and Stalin / two heroic sons / even hell cannot devour us.”^6
As prominent Slovene communist Lado Kozak explained, the cult of Tito had
been institutionalized by the Second AVNOJ: “Glowing uniform, applause,
raucous cheers, pomp, attitude like a monarch.”^7 He became a “total” leader, as
Djilas had wanted.^8
The arrival of the Soviet mission in Drvar in spring 1944 gave addi-
tional momentum to the cult of personality. Its members suggested that Tito
should take the Soviet archetype as a model. The Russians affirmed that Tito
should be addressed with vi (second person plural, the formal form) and not
with ti (second personal singular, or informal) as had been usual until then.
This was immediately approved by Ranković, who sent instructions to the
commanders of all the army corps on how to communicate with the head of
the Supreme Staff in their dealings with him. The Soviet mission also encour-
aged the abolition of Partisan egalitarianism with regard to food and clothing,
a step accepted gladly by the chiefs, starting with Tito, who already enjoyed
such privileges.^9 In June 1944, when he arrived on the island of Vis, his cult was
already so rooted in the consciousness of the masses that when the group of
exiles disembarked from the British ship several hundred people on the quay
were dumbstruck when someone said that this was Tito. As Louis Adamic tells
it: “Then, after a minute’s complete silence, some of the crowd broke into wild
cheering, others wept for joy, embraced one another, and fell on their knees in
thanksgiving.”^10
After the war, Tito’s photo appeared in all barracks, offices, factories, busi-
nesses, banks, and even in restaurants, coffee shops, and pubs. This became a
constant of Yugoslav daily life. The name TITO was also inscribed on all pos-
sible surfaces: walls, airplane wings, mountain slopes. When Adamic returned
from the Unites States to the “old country” in 1949, he was assured that “Tito is
everything to us. Everything!”^11 At the Second Congress of the Serb CP, in
which the writer took part, the ovations at the inaugural session would not stop:
rhythmic applause, thunderous shouts of “Hero Tito! Hero Tito! Hero Tito!
Hero Tito!” And so on.^12
After the split with Stalin, the cult of Tito, “our chief and teacher,” acquired
new dimensions, since he no longer had a competitor in Yugoslavia atop the
communist Olympus. When the illusion dissipated that the Muscovite Boss
would recognize the injustice done to the CPY, photos of Stalin disappeared
from the empty shop windows of Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana, and other more
or less important centers, replaced by burnished plaster busts of the marshal.^13
Djilas said: “The cult of Tito, which in some aspects aped that of Stalin, gave
Yugoslavia the opportunity to rebel and defend its independence. Only with