As testament to Tito's vision, prime ministers from Britain and France stood alongside Eastern European dictators at his funeral. (Vice President Walter Mondale and Saddam Hussein were also present, which must have been weird.) Even when Communism collapsed, it seemed Yugoslavia would survive in some form, maybe minus a Slovenia or a Croatia, but still essentially whole. You probably know what happened next. In June 1991, tiny Slovenia declared independence, kicking off a ten-day war that killed fewer than 100 people but lit the spark for Balkan conflagration. Croatia then went to war, Bosnia collapsed into civil war, Kosovo split from Serbia in a bloody conflict, and Macedonia was rocked by an ethnic insurgency. By 2008, Yugoslavia was seven separate countries and over 133,000 were dead. Sadly, Tito's vision couldn't survive without Tito himself.
