We love former Yugoslavia!
We just took a short trip down through Croatia and Bosnia to Montenegro and back.
Its more than just bombed-out buildings, like many might think!
Palm trees, ancient walled cities, Turkish mosques and bridges, and lots of greasy chevapi, burek, and baklava does the body good.
Oh, and our favorite Communist dictator of the 20th century would have to be Josip Broz Tito (Gorbachev is a close second, but he disqualified himself from the #1 position because of that whole arms race thing; Nagy Imre {nem az egri polgármester} is biztos jó lett volna, csak nem volt esélye...).
You could argue over how good of a guy Tito was, but as far as dictators go, I don't think you could find a better one. Who else could keep such a diverse and mixed up group of people in total peace (and prosperity, compared to the rest of the Communist world) for 35 yrs?
It was only after Tito's death that things got all crazy down there - which I guess shows Tito's greatest failure as a leader: that he failed to raise up people who would successfully continue what he had started.
In fact, Tito did more than just keep the peace in Yugoslavia, he actually unified the people. To this day, in all the countries of former Yugoslavia (especially Bosnia), you find streets and squares and memorials commemorating Marshall Tito.The real shame is that in the West, the name "Tito" will only be remembered by most people as the name of Michael Jackson's unsuccessful older brother.
