The paper deals with the issue of the Yugoslav dissidents with regard to the system of communist governance and the functioning of the state led by Josip Broz Tito. In the wider context the role of critical intelligentsia – a culture of dissent – is analyzed within distinctive Yugoslav frameworks. The paper includes a shorter overview of the particularity of the Yugoslav dissidents, above all the differences in their perceptions, type of criticism, their mutual relations – as the opponents to the regime, and different destinies of individuals. Special emphasis was put on the West’s position of Yugoslav dissidents which differed considerably in comparison with dissidents from the Soviet Union and other states of real socialism.