Death and state funeral of Josip Broz Tito

By 1979, Tito's health had declined rapidly, mainly due to an arterial embolism in his left leg. In that year, he participated in the Havana Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement and spent New Year's Eve in his residence in Karađorđevo. Throughout the televised event, Tito remained seated while exchanging greetings, causing concern to the watching audience. During this time Vila Srna was built for his use near Morović in the event of his recovery.[4]

On January 3, 1980, Tito was admitted to the Ljubljana University Medical Centre for tests on blood vessels in his leg. Two days later, after the angiography, he was discharged to his residence in Brdo Castle near Kranj, with a recommendation for further intensive treatment. Angiography revealed that Tito's superficial femoral artery and Achilles tendon artery were clogged. The medical council consisted of eight Yugoslav doctors, Michael DeBakey from the United States and Marat Knyazev from the Soviet Union.[5]

Following the advice of DeBakey and Knyazev, the medical team attempted an arterial bypass. The first surgery was done in the night of January 12.[6] At first, the operation appeared to have been a success, but after few hours, it became clear that the operation was not successful. Due to severe damage to the arteries, which led to the interruption of blood flow and accelerated tissue devitalization of the left leg, Tito's left leg was amputated on January 20,[7] to prevent the spread of gangrene. When Tito was told about the required amputation, he resisted it as long as possible. Finally, after meeting with his sons, Žarko and Mišo, he agreed to the amputation. After the amputation, Tito's health improved and he began rehabilitation. On 28 January, he was transferred from the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery to the Department of Cardiology. In the first days of February his health had improved enough to allow him to perform some of his regular duties.

By the beginning of January 1980, however, it became clear that Tito's life was in grave danger and Yugoslav political leadership secretly began preparations for his funeral. Tito's wish was that he be buried in the House of Flowers on Dedinje hill, that overlooks Belgrade. Moma Martinovic, a director for Radio Television Belgrade, was summoned by Dragoljub Stavrev, a vice president in the federal government, to devise plans for broadcasting the funeral.

Tito's Blue Train (Plavi voz), train that carried Tito's coffin from Ljubljana to Belgrade.

Tito died in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at the University Medical Centre, Ljubljana on May 4, 1980 at 3:05 pm, three days before his 88th birthday. He died on the seventh floor, in a small room on the south-east corner. A commemorative inscription in the main hall later read "Pot do osvoboditve človeka bo še dolga, a bila bi daljša da ni živel Tito" ("The fight for peoples liberation will be a long one, but would have been longer if Tito never lived"). That inscription was later removed. Immediately upon learning of Tito's death, a full extraordinary session of both the Presidency of Yugoslavia and the Presidency of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia was held in Belgrade starting at 6:00 pm, at which Tito's death was formally declared via a joint statement:

The message from the CIA's FBIS Austria Bureau, regarding the Radio Bucharest announcement of Tito's death, filed on 4 May 1980.

To the working class, all the working people and citizens, and all the nations and nationalities of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia:

Comrade Tito has died.

On the day of May 4th, 1980 at 15:05 in Ljubljana, the great heart of the President of our Socialist Yugoslavia, the President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, the President of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, Marshal of Yugoslavia, and the Commander-in-chief of the Yugoslav armed forces, Josip Broz Tito, has stopped beating.

Great sorrow and pain is shaking up the working class, nations and nationalities of our country, our every citizen, worker, soldier, war veteran, farmer, intellectual, every creator, pioneer and youth, and every girl and mother.

For all his entire life, Tito was a fighter for interests and goals of working class, for the most humane ideals, and desires of our nations and nationalities. Tito is our dearest friend. Seven decades he was burning up in a workers movement. For six decades, he strengthened Yugoslav Communists. For more than four decades, he was the leader of our Party. He was a heroic leader in World War II and in the Socialist revolution. For three and a half decades he led our Socialist country, and he moved our country and our fight for fairer human society into the world history, proving that way to be our most important historic world personality.

During the most fateful times of our survival and development, Tito was bold and worthy of carrying the proletarian flag of our revolution, persistently and consistently linked to the fate of nations and man. He fought all throughout his life and work, lived the revolutionary humanism and fervor with enthusiasm and love for the country.

Tito was not only a visionary, critic and translator of the world. He reviewed the objective conditions and patterns of social movements, into the great ideals and thoughts into action with the million masses of the people that were with him at the helm, and made epochal progressive social transformations.

Thus, forever shall his revolutionary work remembered for all time in the history of the people and nationalities of Yugoslavia and in the history of the independence of all of humankind.

—Signed, The Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and the Presidency of Yugoslavia, Belgrade, May 4, 1980.

— [8]

After the declaration was read, Stevan Doronjski (President of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia) said, "Eternal glory be to the memory of our great leader and father of the revolution, President of Yugoslavia and General Secretary and President of the League, our comrade Josip Broz Tito."

At the same meeting, in accordance with the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution, as amended, it was decided that Lazar Koliševski, Vice President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, would temporarily take the office of the President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, and that Cvijetin Mijatović, former member of the Presidency of SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, would take Koliševski's place as state vice president. In accordance with the LCY Statute as amended, former chairman of Presidency of Central Committee of League of Communists of Yugoslavia Stevan Doronjski assumed the post of President of the Presidency of the Central Committee of League of Communists of Yugoslavia. Immediately afterwards the Federal Executive Council (government of Yugoslavia) decided to formally announce a week of national mourning across the country.

Citizen's usual activities were interrupted when TV screens went black for 30 seconds. After that, Miodrag Zdravković, newsreader of Radio Television Belgrade, read the following statement live with chroma key:

Comrade Tito has died. That was announced tonight by the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and the Presidency of Yugoslavia to the working class, all the working people and citizens and all the nations and nationalities of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.[8]

The same announcement was read out on the TV stations of each constituent republic in their respective languages.

On Sunday afternoons, Yugoslav Television often broadcast association football games of the Yugoslav First League. That day, there was a league match in Split between NK Hajduk Split and FK Crvena Zvezda.[8] When the match was in its 41st minute, three men entered the Poljud Stadium pitch, signaling the referee to stop the match. Ante Skataretiko, the president of Hajduk, took the microphone and announced Tito's death. What followed were sudden scenes of mass crying with some players such as Zlatko Vujović collapsing down to the ground and weeping. Players of both teams and referees aligned to stand in a moment of silence. Once the stadium announcer said "May he rest in peace", the entire stadium of 50,000 football fans spontaneously started to sing "Comrade Tito we swear to you, from your path we will never depart" (sr).[8][9] The match was halted, and replayed later in the month.

Grief for the statesman's death was largely based on his place in the Yugoslav political scene. He had lead the fight against Nazi German occupation in the Second World War and helped to create the second Yugoslavia. In addition he had again stood for Yugoslav independence by going against Joseph Stalin in 1948, securing for his country a self-determined path, unlike some Eastern Bloc states that were more dependent on Moscow.[10]

  Nations that sent state delegations.

  Nations that did not send state delegations, but organizations from those nations did.

  Nations that did not send state delegations

State funeral of Josip Broz Tito

The "Plavi voz" (Blue train, official presidential train) brought an empty coffin to the capital Belgrade, due to the bad condition of his deceased body. Tito's remains were instead transferred to Belgrade by a military helicopter.

Tito's funeral drew many statesmen to Belgrade. Two notably absent statesmen were Jimmy Carter and Fidel Castro. His death came just as the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had ended the American-Soviet détente. Yugoslavia, though a communist state, was non-aligned during the Cold War due to the Tito-Stalin split in 1948.

After learning that Chinese Premier Hua Guofeng would lead the Chinese delegation, the ailing Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev decided to lead his nation's delegation. In order to avoid meeting Brezhnev whilst in the middle of his campaign for the 1980 United States presidential election, Carter opted to send his mother Lilian Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale as heads of the US delegation. After realizing that leaders of all Warsaw Pact nations would attend the funeral, Carter's decision was criticized by presidential candidate George H. W. Bush as a sign that the United States "inferentially slams Yugoslavs at time that country has pulled away from Soviet Union".[11] Carter visited Yugoslavia later in June 1980 and made a visit to Tito's grave.[12][13]

Helmut Schmidt, chancellor of West Germany, was highly active at the funeral, meeting with Brezhnev, East Germany's Erich Honecker, and Poland's Edward Gierek. British prime minister Margaret Thatcher sought to rally world leaders in order to harshly condemn the Soviet invasion. While she was in Belgrade, she held talks with Kenneth Kaunda, Schmidt, Francesco Cossiga, and Nicolae Ceaușescu. Brezhnev met with Kim Il-sung and Honecker. James Callaghan, leader of the British Labour Party, explained his presence in Belgrade as an attempt to warm relations between his party and Yugoslav communists, which was severed more than a decade ago after dissident Milovan Đilas was welcomed by Jennie Lee, Minister for the Arts under Harold Wilson. Mondale avoided the Soviets, ignoring Brezhnev while passing close to him. Soviet and Chinese delegations also avoided each other.

The pomp and scale of the funeral had been widely documented and the event was a source of pride for the country for years to come. On the fifteenth anniversary of his death in 1995, the Croatian newspaper Arkzin noted that "turbulent times still do not allow for a truly historical assessment of his stature and achievements, but the appraisal which the world showed those days in May 1980, confirms that small nations and small states may produce world giants."[14]

Tito was interred twice on May 8. The first interment was for cameras and dignitaries. The grave was shallow with only a 200 kg (440 lb) replica of the sarcophagus. The second interment was held privately during the night. His coffin was removed, and the shallow grave was deepened. The coffin was enclosed with a copper mask and interred again into a much deeper grave which was sealed with cement and topped with a 9-ton sarcophagus. Communist officials were afraid that someone might steal the corpse, as had happened to Charlie Chaplin. However, the 9 ton sarcophagus had to be put in place with a crane, which would make the funeral unattractive.

In stark contrast to the pageantry of the funeral, Tito's tomb was constructed of marble with a simple inscription that states JOSIP BROZ - TITO 1892–1980. It did not incorporate a red star or any emblem linked to communism. Historians stated that the burial location, which was the garden of the place he lived during the postwar years more popularly known as the House of Flowers, was selected according to Tito's wishes.[15] The House of Flowers, together with the Museum of Yugoslavia, has since become a tourist destination and landmark of Belgrade visited by millions of people.