Most Powerful

• #1 Josip Broz Tito
  Yugoslavia MilitaryParty State ControlPolitical World Wars and Midcentury Military CommandState Power Power: 100
  Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) was the communist leader of Yugoslavia who rose through underground party organization, wartime resistance, and postwar consolidation to build one of the twentieth century’s most durable socialist states. His authority rested on a combination of partisan legitimacy, security control, federal management, and personal prestige. He ruled through a one-party system, yet his version of party-state control was distinctive for balancing internal national tensions while asserting independence from Soviet domination.
• #2 Slobodan Milošević
  SerbiaYugoslavia Party State ControlPolitical Cold War and Globalization State Power Power: 100
  Slobodan Milošević (20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician who served as president of Serbia from 1989 to 1997 and as president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. Rising within the League of Communists during the final years of socialist Yugoslavia, he became a dominant figure through a blend of party maneuvering, populist nationalism, and control over state media and security institutions. Milošević played a central role in the political crises that accompanied Yugoslavia’s breakup and is closely associated with the wars of the 1990s in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, as well as with sanctions and economic collapse in Serbia. After losing power following mass protests in 2000, he was extradited to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), where he faced charges including crimes against humanity. He died in detention in 2006 before a verdict was reached.