>As an outsider I always appreciated Tito for his abilities to keep Yugoslavia independent. Residents of Yugoslavia may feel different towards him.

I think we're still amazed, specially given the current slide of practically all of the former members of the federation into semi-colonial status. Sure, he allowed free speech only as long as it wasn't against The Party, and the self-managing workers had full power over their enterprises as long as The Party didn't say anything against their decisions... so we had a sort of soft-socialism, with market economy. It's only that the players in the market weren't private enterprises, they were society-owned, worker-ruled enterprises. If only The Party could be removed out of the picture, and workers entitled with real ownership (not just stewardship), it could have been a nice system.

>It seems amazing how he united the various warring factions of his country to fight the Nazis. He knew how to play one side against the other and people within his country seemed to prosper with little pressure from external sources.
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>When Tito died things fell apart. Imagine how important one person can be? I am sure you have deep knowledge and understanding of what Tito meant to Yugoslavia. I would imagine that some people loved him, hated him or were somewhere in between.

We were taught to love him... and the nation was paralyzed for a few days when he died. But then, one by one, his bad sides were leaked to the public. A workers' leader with a passion toward whiskey, Cuban cigars, women, expensive cars, villas, hunting... you name it. And a really Stalin-style remover of potential candidates for the throne. We even had him as President in the Constitution of 1974, without any mention of his potential mortality. So in a way, nobody could remove him even after he died, so it was easier to replace the country altogether. Though, IMO, it wasn't worth the effort :).

>I judge a leader by his accomplishments and his attitude towards humanity. There have been a few good dictators in the world. No leader is perfect and some are not human. The United States did not like anyone who was communist, and that was our problem (phobia).

There are a few things which were done better then and there than now and here - social security, health, education come to mind. We also had good anti-West propaganda, but with about one million of our people working in the West and travelling freely back and forth, nobody really believed it (because everyone could see for themselves), and the propaganda wasn't so keen on convincing everyone. We've all met our share of people from the other system(s). Here, however, 90+% of people never saw a communist country, and may well believe we were cannibals there - how would they know? They never saw it, and I've seen how far can production of beliefs go.