You should look at this from the point of view of a simple citizen.
The old government (king and families) capitulated and some fled. So the country was left on the mercy of the fascists. The people self-organized and self-liberated their country. Those who were the true leaders of this fight, got to lead the newly freed country in 1945. This is why people trusted all these leaders until they died. Tito was one of them but you have to have in mind it was a federation of several independent countries and each had their own local leadership, close to the people.
Unfortunately many of those who succeeded this initial leaders, and this occured during late 80ies and 90ies, in the end become too corrupt.
As for the socialism? All factories were owned by the people. All companies were owned by the people. Try to imagine that all workers in Google jointly owned Google and all major decisions (such as a new CEO, new politics, acquisitions etc) must be agreed upon by all workers (with a vote).
So, when someone preached that capitalism was better and more productive, he was essentially preaching to the workers that they should give away their own company to a single person that would benefit from their effort, or that their own company is stolen from them in the interest of a single person (or a handful of persons).
This system had many flaws and was not sufficently eficient to gain enough to support itself, but people were free. Had guaranteed jobs. Had guaranteed appartments when they formed their own families. Had guaranteed health care. Had guaranteed right of opinion (until they preached stealing other's property).
Yes, it was a system that benefited the ordinary citizens, and all the people loved it. All decent people, anyway. If someone came up to criticize it, obviously they were a criminal, and the benevolent Tito, in his love and mercy, would have them locked away so as to prevent them from further damaging glorious Yugoslavian society and harming the people with their corruptive influence, and rehabilitate them into a better person. It was all for their own benefit, you see.
Communism always ends up the same way -- Soviet ties or not.
Yes. Yugoslavia was different from the mainline communist countries in that it didn't lock its people away behind its borders. They could (and did) visit Western nations and for the most part didn't run away and defect the way the East Germans and Soviets feared their people would given the chance.
> If someone came up to criticize it, obviously they were a criminal, and the benevolent Tito, in his love and mercy, would have them locked away so as to prevent them from further damaging glorious Yugoslavian society
Do you have any examples of such people "locked away"? I don't believe you'd find any as soon as the years of breaking up with Stalin passed.
The politics of the country was such that it was really between NATO countries and Soviet-Union countries, and people from there were able to travel freely in both directions, so it was opposite of needing to "lock away" anybody for something.
Only Stalin's sympathizers were "locked away" at these post WW-II break up times, around 1948. There is enough material about that. But for some other ideas?
One of the most interesting story from these times and these places was "Purloined Yak":
"Tito believed that survival of his government depended upon getting the support of Western powers, particularly the United States. The US saw an opportunity to use a split in the communist bloc to its advantage, including gaining a foothold in the Balkans to help defuse the communist problem facing NATO member Greece.
Starting in 1949, Western nations began limited economic support to Yugoslavia. Two years later, the US began shipping weapons to Tito. Some unofficial sources claim that US military personnel were also sent to Yugoslavia in the early 1950s to help train the Yugoslav Air Force.
In October 1953, the opportunity to provide the US with a Soviet-built fighter aircraft—even temporarily—would have seemed a ready-made way to further cement US-Yugoslav relations."
It is not.
> compared to the countries behind the so called “iron curtain” that land was indeed different.
Different, yes. Anti-authorian? A dictatorship? No.