Titoism is a socialist political philosophy most closely associated with Josip Broz Tito and refers to the ideology and policies of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) during the Cold War. It is characterized by a broad Yugoslav identity, socialist workers' self-management, a political separation from the Soviet Union, and leadership in the Non-Aligned Movement.

Tito led the communist Yugoslav Partisans during World War II in Yugoslavia. After the war, tensions arose between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Although these issues alleviated over time, Yugoslavia still remained largely independent in ideology and policy due to the leadership of Tito, who led Yugoslavia until his death in 1980.

Tito himself claimed he was not a Titoist; "Titoism as a separate ideological line does not exist. [...] Should Titoism become an ideological line, we would become revisionists; we would have renounced Marxism. We are Marxists; I am a Marxist, and therefore I cannot be a Titoist." Today, the term "Titoism" is sometimes used to refer to Yugo-nostalgia across political spectrum, a longing for reestablishment of Yugoslavia or revival of Yugoslavism by the citizens of Yugoslavia's successor states.^{[citation needed]}

Initially a personal favourite of the USSR, Tito led the national liberation war to the Nazi occupation during World War II, where the Yugoslav Partisans liberated Yugoslavia with only limited help from the Red Army. Tito met with the Soviet leadership several times immediately after the war to negotiate the future of Yugoslavia. Initially aligned with Soviet policy, over time, these negotiations became less cordial because Tito had the intention neither of handing over executive power nor of accepting foreign intervention or influence (a position Tito later continued within the Non-Aligned Movement).

The Yugoslav regime first pledged allegiance, from 1945 to 1948, to Stalinism. But according to the Trotskyist (hence anti-Stalinist) historian Jean-Jacques Marie, Stalin had planned to liquidate Tito as early as the end of the 1930s, and again after the Spanish Civil War, during which Tito participated in the recruitment and to the organization of the Dimitrov Battalion, a Balkan unit of the International Brigades, some of whose ex-combatants would be assassinated by the Soviets.

Tito's agreement with Bulgarian leader Georgi Dimitrov on Greater Yugoslavia projects, which meant to merge the two Balkan countries into a Balkan Federation, made Stalin anxious. This led to the 1947 cooperation agreement signed in Bled (Dimitrov also pressured Romania to join such a federation, expressing his beliefs during a visit to Bucharest in early 1948). The Bled agreement, also referred to as the "Tito–Dimitrov treaty", was signed 1 August 1947 in Bled, Slovenia. It foresaw also unification between Vardar Macedonia and Pirin Macedonia and return of Western Outlands to Bulgaria. The integrationist policies resulting from the agreement were terminated after the Tito–Stalin split in June 1948, when Bulgaria was being subordinated to the interests of the Soviet Union and took a stance against Yugoslavia.

The policy of regional blocs had been the norm in Comintern policies, displaying Soviet resentment of the nation states in Eastern Europe and of the consequences of Paris Peace Conference. With the 1943 dissolution of Comintern and the subsequent advent of the Cominform came Stalin's dismissal of the previous ideology, and adaptation to the conditions created for Soviet hegemony during the Cold War.

Moreover, Stalin did not have free rein in Yugoslavia as he did in other countries of the Fourth Moscow Conference on the partition of Europe; the USSR had not obtained preponderance there, as it was agreed in the Percentages agreement that he would retain only 50% influence over Yugoslavia. Tito therefore benefited from a margin of maneuver far greater than that of the other Southeast European leaders.