Tito’s Political School, a Yugoslav Socialist Relic for Sale

The modernist building is appreciated by many architects and lovers of brutalism, but it is now surrounded by unkept grass, with broken windows and a damaged roof, while its once impressive interior is full of dust, dirt and rubbish. Grass is even growing inside the building.

Many locals blame the state, the owner of the building, for its ramshackle condition. Some suggest that state officials are uncomfortable with this symbol of Yugoslav socialism.

"The school is in such a state mainly because it was a socialist political school, and the state is distancing itself from that. They probably do not want to have anything to do with it, that's my opinion," said Domagoj Pecnik, a 24-year-old student from Kumrovec.

Former centre of Marxist thought

The Josip Broz Tito Political School was founded in 1975 as the central educational institution for the staff of the Communist Union of Yugoslavia. It was originally based in another building in Kumrovec, which is now known as the Memorial House of the Fighters and Youth of Yugoslavia.

Tito said that the school was needed to give party members a stronger theoretical education.

"You see, we have a huge number of people who are good communists, but in terms of theory, [they are] weak. It must - must - be fixed. The basics of Marxism must be known," Tito told school officials in July 1976.

Branko Pratengrazer, a teacher at Kumrovec Primary School, told BIRN that he was a student at the political school 1976-77, when the school was at its previous location.

"I did not learn anything wrong there. Brotherhood and unity of all peoples and nationalities - is that bad?" he asked.

Josip Mihaljevic from the Croatian Institute of History told BIRN that during the 15...