Assisted by the British in the Adriatic and the Soviet Red Army in the east, the communist Partisans were left in control of the whole country at the end of World War II. Communist leader Josip Broz Tito set about establishing a one-party state modelled on the Soviet Union, dividing the country into six equal republics - of which the Republic of Croatia was one.
Tito’s ambitious foreign policy, extending his influence over Albania and northern Greece, made Soviet leader Stalin suspicious of his colleague - and Tito’s Yugoslavia was expelled from an increasingly rigid Soviet bloc in 1948. Stalin expected Tito to be deposed by his colleagues, but the leader held on - becoming a symbol of resistance to Moscow’s increasingly imperialist reach.

Titoist communism

Under Tito, Yugoslav communism mellowed over the years - largely because the country was in need of western loans, and the unspoken (but always understood) belief that western military help might be needed if the Soviet Union ever tried to invade. A system of “workers’ self-management” was developed that made the Yugoslav system look more innovative than the Soviet model, while western banks helped pay for a consumer boom.