Tito was the chief architect of the second Yugoslavia, a socialist federation that lasted from 1943 to 1991–92. Despite being one of the founders of Cominform, soon he became the first Cominform member to defy Soviet hegemony and the only one to manage to leave Cominform and begin with its own socialist program. Tito was a backer of independent roads to socialism (sometimes referred to as "national communism"). In 1951 he implemented a self-management system that differentiated Yugoslavia from other socialist countries. A turn towards a model of market socialism brought economic expansion in the 1950s and 1960s and a decline during the 1970s. His internal policies included the suppression of nationalist sentiment and the promotion of the "brotherhood and unity" of the six Yugoslav nations. After Tito's death in 1980, tensions between the Yugoslav republics emerged and in 1991 the country disintegrated and went into a series of wars and unrest that lasted the rest of the decade, and which continue to impact most of the former Yugoslav republics. He remains a very controversial figure in the Balkans.

When did the second Yugoslavia start?