The Incredible Tito: Man of the Hour

By Howard Fast

Fast’s fascinating biography of Joseph Broz, known to the world as Tito, including his rise to power and his remarkable stand against fascism

The world was mired in the Second World War when Howard Fast wrote The Incredible Tito. Upon the book’s publication in 1944, there was still no united Yugoslavia, the Axis controlled most of Europe, and D-Day was only in the planning stages. In the Balkans, Tito was a beacon of hope against the advancing Nazis. He led a force of resistance fighters that bedeviled the occupying German army throughout Slavic regions and empowered people’s committees to act as local government in all liberated areas. For observers on the political left, Tito seemed uniquely poised to unite the East and West against fascism—once and for all.   This ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Dec 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781453234884

Howard Fast

Howard Fast (1914–2003) was one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century. He was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. The son of immigrants, Fast grew up in New York City and published his first novel upon finishing high school in 1933. In 1950, his refusal to provide the United States Congress with a list of possible Communist associates earned him a three-month prison sentence. During his incarceration, Fast wrote one of his best-known novels, Spartacus (1951). Throughout his long career, Fast matched his commitment to championing social justice in his writing with a deft, lively storytelling style.

Book preview

UNCLE PETER

IN April, 1942, a year after the Nazi Panzers had raced through Yugoslavia, shattering the Yugoslavian army in ten days, a peasant approached the little town of Foca, in Bosnia. The peasant, a tall, thin man, skin burned brown from sun and weather, resembled a compact, small and mobile arsenal.

In his hands, he carried an Italian tommy gun. He wore a German automatic on one hip, a Hungarian revolver on the other. Three cartridge belts hung from his shoulders. A thin Italian bayonet, slung over his back, completed the international armament.

The peasant had come a long way. His own land was Slovenia, a part of Yugoslavia three hundred miles to the north. He had never seen the town of Foca before—or indeed any part of Bosnia. But it gave him a sense of comfort to know that he was still in Yugoslavia, that the numerous ridges of craggy mountains he had crossed on his way south were all in Yugoslavia. He was a man born and bred in mountains; and he knew that were it not for those same mountains he would not be alive here in Yugoslavia, a year after the German invasion.

As he approached the outskirts of Foca, a man rose from a clump of shrubbery and pointed a rifle at the peasant’s stomach.

Halt!

The peasant stopped, observed the man narrowly for a moment, and then lifted both arms, still holding the tommy gun. The man who had stopped him wore a grey uniform that had once adorned a German. Now the insignia were gone. A five-pointed red star was sewn onto the cap.

Where are you going, uncle? the man with the red star asked.

To Foca, if it’s any business of yours.

And where are you from, uncle?

Slovenia.

The sentry nodded. And how did you get here?

I walked, the peasant said sourly.

That was a long walk for a man your age, uncle, the sentry grinned. And what brings you to Foca?

I came to see a man.

What man?

For all of my age, the peasant observed, I would knock some politeness into your thick head—if not for that gun you’re holding at my stomach. I came to see Tito.

Now the sentry studied the peasant long and carefully, and then nodded. Come along, he said.

He followed the peasant into town. At the edge, there was a long slit trench, protected with sandbags. There was a machine gun there, a four man crew on the alert beside it. A little way beyond, there was a hut, from which an officer stepped as the two approached.

This one wants to see the marshal, the sentry said, after he had saluted.

The officer nodded. Your name, uncle?

Peter Narovich, the peasant said wearily. I’ve walked three hundred miles to see Tito, not to answer every empty-head’s questions.

I’m afraid you’ll answer a good many more questions. Come along with me. But you’ll have to leave your guns here, uncle.

My guns? I don’t part with my guns. I killed enough damned fascists to get them.

They’ll be held for you, the officer said patiently. As soon as you’re through, uncle.

It took ten minutes more of argument before the peasant would give up his guns. Then he followed the officer down the main street of the town—to a large house from which a red flag with a star hung. Two guards, armed with tommy guns, stood on either side the door. Indeed, the peasant couldn’t help noticing that the town was an armed camp, four tanks and a dozen field guns in the central square, covered over with camouflage, barbed wire, machine gun nests, trucks parked close to the eaves of the houses and under trees, and everywhere armed men—men in German uniforms, in Italian uniforms, in Yugoslav uniforms, but all with the insignia removed and the red star substituted.

They went into the large house. More men in uniform inside, girls at desks, typing and writing, three posters on the wall, portraits of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. The officer told the peasant to sit down and