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2001BBFAcoverv05b.jpg

Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the Early Cold War

This book provides a comprehensive insight into one of the key episodes of the Cold War the process of reconciliation between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. At the time, this process shocked the world as much as the violent break up of their relations did in 1948. This book provides an explanation for the collapse of the process of normalization of Yugoslav Soviet relations that occurred at the end of 1956 and the renewal of their ideological confrontation. It also explains the motives that guided the two main protagonists, Josip Broz Tito of Yugosla-via and the Soviet leader Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. Based on Yugoslav and Soviet archival documents, this book establishes several innovative theories about this period. First, that the significance of the YugoslavSoviet reconciliation went beyond their bilateral relationship. It had ramifications for relations in the Eastern Bloc, the global Communist movement, and on the dynamics of the Cold War world at a crucial juncture. Second, that the YugoslavSoviet reconciliation brought forward the process of de- Stalinization in the USSR and in the Peoples Democracies. Third, it enabled Khrushchev to win the post- Stalin leadership contest. Lastly, the book argues that the process of YugoslavSoviet reconciliation permitted Tito to embark, together with Nehru of India and Nasser of Egypt, upon creating a new entity in the bipolar Cold War world the Non- Aligned Movement. This book will be of interest to students of Cold War History, diplomatic history, European history and International Relations in general.

Svetozar Rajak is a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the Academic Director of LSE IDEAS, Centre for the Study of International Affairs, Diplomacy and Strategy at LSE, and is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Cold War History.

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In the new history of the Cold War that has been forming since 1989, many of the established truths about the international conflict that shaped the latter half of the twentieth century have come up for revision. The present series is an attempt to make available interpretations and materials that will help further the develop-ment of this new history, and it will concentrate in particular on publishing expo-sitions of key historical issues and critical surveys of newly available sources.

1 Reviewing the Cold War Approaches, interpretations, and theory Edited by Odd Arne Westad

2 Rethinking Theory and History in the Cold War Richard Saull

3 British and American Anticommunism before the Cold War Marrku Ruotsila

4 Europe, Cold War and Co- existence, 19531965 Edited by Wilfred Loth

5 The Last Decade of the Cold War From conflict escalation to conflict transformation Edited by Olav Njlstad

6 Reinterpreting the End of the Cold War Issues, interpretations, periodizations Edited by Silvio Pons and Federico Romero

7 Across the Blocs Cold War cultural and social history Edited by Rana Mitter and Patrick Major

8 US Paramilitary Assistance to South Vietnam Insurgency, subversion and public order William Rosenau

Cold War History SeriesSeries Editors: Odd Arne Westad and Michael CoxISSN: 14713829

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9 The European Community and the Crises of the 1960s Negotiating the Gaullist challenge N. Piers Ludlow

10 SovietVietnam Relations and the Role of China 194964 Changing alliances Mari Olsen

11 The Third Indochina War Conflict between China, Vietnam and Cambodia, 197279 Edited by Odd Arne Westad and Sophie Quinn- Judge

12 Greece and the Cold War Front Line State, 19521967 Evanthis Hatzivassiliou

13 Economic Statecraft during the Cold War European responses to the US trade embargo Frank Cain

14 Macmillan, Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis, 19581960 Kitty Newman

15 The Emergence of Dtente in Europe Brandt, Kennedy and the formation of Ostpolitik Arne Hofmann

16 European Integration and the Cold War Ostpolitik- Westpolitik, 19651973 N. Piers Ludlow

17 Britain, Germany and the Cold War The search for a European Dtente 19491967 R. Gerald Hughes

18 The Military Balance in the Cold War US perceptions and policy, 197685 David M. Walsh

19 The Cold War in the Middle East Regional conflict and the superpowers 196773 Nigel J. Ashton

20 The Making of Dtente Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, 196565 Edited by Wilfred Loth and Georges- Henri Soutou

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21 Europe and the End of the Cold War A reappraisal Edited by Frdric Bozo, Marie- Pierre Rey, N. Piers Ludlow, and Leopoldo Nuti

22 The Baltic Question During the Cold War Edited by John Hiden, Vahur Made, and David J. Smith

23 The Crisis of Dtente in Europe From Helsinki to Gorbachev, 197585 Edited by Leopoldo Nuti

24 Cold War in Southern Africa White power, black liberation Edited by Sue Onslow

25 The Globalisation of the Cold War From Helsinki to Gorbachev, 19751985 Edited by Max Guderzo and Bruna Bagnato

26 Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the Early Cold War Reconciliation, comradeship, confrontation, 19531957 Svetozar Rajak

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Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the Early Cold WarReconciliation, comradeship, confrontation, 19531957

Svetozar Rajak

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First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2011 Svetozar Rajak

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN13: 978-0-415-38074-4 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-84241-6 (ebk)

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledgescollection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

ISBN 0-203-84241-3 Master e-book ISBN

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To my mother Jelena and father Nikola

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Contents

Acknowledgements x Terms and abbreviations xii

Introduction 1

1 Overtures 16

2 Normalization 66

3 Comradeship 109

4 Contention 151

5 Confrontation 178

Conclusions 201

Notes 219 Select bibliography 257 Index 264

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Acknowledgements

I dedicate this book to my parents, my mother Jelena and my late father Nikola, who passed away while this book was in the making. The limitations of space will make it impossible for me to express adequately the debt of gratitude I owe to so many. Every name that I will fail to mention will sadden and shame me. My only consolation is that they will see this book for what it is as much their achievement, as it is mine. The book that is before you owes most to two people, mentors and colleagues whom I am proud to call friends. It would simply not have been written without them. Arne Westad, Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Co-director of the LSE IDEAS, has read and reread the manuscript, providing crucial guidance and commentary that helped create everything that is good in this book. Mistakes and failings that escaped his scrutiny are strictly mine. Moreover, he has helped me become a better historian. Anita Pramowska, Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science, my PhD Supervisor, is, first and foremost a true friend. The single most precious gift she had given me, as a historian, is the belief and devotion to integrity. Unselfishly there whenever I was in need, she was also my fiercest critic when I deserved it. I owe so much to her and her partner, Jan Toporowski, Reader of Economics at the SOAS, UCL, two uniquely gracious people. Special appreciation goes to Michael Cox, Professor of International Rela-tions at the LSE and Co-Director of LSE IDEAS, a friend and supporter, someone I have indeed, learned so much from. I am indebted to Professor Dominic Lieven, Head of the International History Department at LSE for his unyielding support. His kindness and willingness to read and comment on the manuscript, despite his heavy work load in the Department, have been invalua-ble. I am grateful to Dr Sue Onslow for reading early versions of the manuscript. Special thanks go to Mrs Tiha Franulovi and Dr Emilia Knight for the under-standing, patience and support, and to the wonderful people in the LSE IDEAS. I wish also to thank my colleagues in the Department of International History at the LSE for their assistance and support. A debt of gratitude is owed to a number of Serbian historians and social sci-entists, people I am proud to count among friends. I have benefited so much

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Acknowledgements xi

from the insight and long conversations with Dr Miroslav Perii, a true historian and Director of Archives of Serbia. This book would have suffered without the input from Ljubodrag Dimi, Professor of History at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. I am also grateful to wonderful colleagues at the University of Belgrade, namely Professor Radmila Nakarada, Professor Ljubinka Trgovevi, and Professor Milan Podunavac. It goes without saying that research for this book and unique insight into primary sources would have been impossible without the expertise and help of Mr Miladin Miloevi, Director of the Archives of Yugoslavia, Mrs Nada Panteli of the Archives of Josip Broz Tito and staff in the Archives of Yugoslavia and in the Archives of the Foreign Ministry of Serbia. I am also indebted to the staff of the RGANI Archives in Moscow, and of the Archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry. A big thank you is owed to Ms Jelena Jovanovi, research assistant in Moscow. My family was there for me, as always my sister Mirjana, Bogdan, Bojana, Dejan, Tanja, Bane, Ljiljana, Milan I am blessed with true friends and am forever grateful to them for being unselfish Pavle and Branka, Danica, Marija, Ilija and Milo, Gordana, Mira and Rasko, Majda and Zvone, Breda and Igor, Mana, Neboja and Olivera, Dana, Oza and Tina, Jovan, Ljiljana, Olga, Sonja, Arne and Karin And, to Jasminka so viel und noch viel mehr.

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Terms and abbreviations

Agitptop Agitacija propaganda. Yugoslav Party apparatus in charge of propaganda and ideology

() / AUCP (b) All Union Communist Party (bolsheviks). The official name of the Soviet Party before it changed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1952.

Comecon Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. Soviet Bloc economic organization akin to the Organization for European Economic Co-operation

Cominform Communist Information Bureau or Informbiro, as it was popu-larly known in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Bloc. An association of the Communist parties of Peoples Democracies and other Com-munist parties, created in September 1947 under Soviet auspices, a successor to the Comintern. Dissolved in 1956

Comintern Communist International. An international association of Com-munist Parties, set up by Lenin in March 1919, as a successor to Marxs International and as the counterbalance to the Second International, controlled by the European Social-Democratic Par-ties. Disbanded by Stalin in 1943

CPY Communist Party of Yugoslavia (changed its name to the League of Communist of Yugoslavia at its Sixth Congress, November 1952)

CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet UnionCC (of CPSU or CPY/LCY) Central Committee of the Communist Party of

the Soviet Union or the Communist Party of Yugoslavia/League of Communists of Yugoslavia; by statute, the highest Party organ between Congresses

DSIP Dravni Sekretarijat za Inostrane Poslove. State Secretariat for Foreign Affairs, Yugoslav Foreign Affairs Ministry

EDC European Defence CommunityExecutive Committee of the LCY CC Yugoslav equivalent of the Communist

Party PolitburoFNRJ Federativna Narodna Republika Jugoslavija. Federative Peoples

Republic of Yugoslavia. Official name for Yugoslavia from 1946

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Terms and abbreviations xiii

LCY League of Communists of Yugoslavia (new name for the Com-munist Party of Yugoslavia, adopted at its Sixth Congress in November 1952

MID . Soviet Ministry for Foreign Affairs

Partisans Popular name for the fighters of the Yugoslav National Liberation Movement during the Second World War, organised by the Com-munist Party of Yugoslavia and led by Tito

Plenums Meetings of the Communist Party Central CommitteePostanovlenie Resolution or decree (Rus.)TANJUG Official Yugoslav News AgencyTASS Official Soviet News Agency USSR Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Vozhd . Russian for leader, often referred to Joseph StalinYugoslav War of Liberation Official Yugoslav term for the armed resistance

organised by the CPY and led by Tito, against the German occu-pation and Quis lings during the Second World War

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Introduction

When researching Yugoslav documents from the early 1950s, which for the most part have received very little attention from historians of the Cold War, I was immediately drawn to the subject of the normalization of YugoslavSoviet rela-tions between 1953 and 1957. The wealth of documental evidence revealed the significance of this process for wider regional and global developments of the early Cold War. The YugoslavSoviet normalization had a profound impact on the process of de- Stalinization in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, on the relations within the international Communist movement, and on the creation of the Non- Aligned Movement. As much as the 1948 TitoStalin break up did receive considerable attention, the subsequent period of YugoslavSoviet rela-tions remained largely outside historiographical focus. The precious little that has been written on the subject is found either in the studies on the general history of post- 1945 Yugoslavia or in several articles addressing Yugoslavias role in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 written by ex- Yugoslav historians, such as Branko Petranovi, Ljubodrag Dimi, Miroslav Perii, Dragan Bogeti, Darko Beki and Djoko Tripkovi.1 Among non- Yugoslav historians, Leonid Gibianskii and Johana Granville wrote on aspects of Yugoslavias involvement in the Hungarian events of 1956.2 More recently, two books by a Czech, Jan Pelikn,3 and a Russian historian, A. Edemskii,4 addressed the issue of YugoslavSoviet relations after 1953. Although a welcome and valuable contribution to the understanding of the subject, both studies, however, are focused on the early phase of the process of normalization, up to Titos June 1956 trip to the USSR. Pelikns attention is centred on rela-tions between Yugoslavia and the Eastern European countries in the early 1950s. Furthermore, both authors obviously lacked access to a number of important Yugoslav documents, in particular those found in the Archives of President Tito, which are crucial for the understanding of YugoslavSoviet relations during this period. Edemskiis presentation ends before Titos visit to the USSR in June 1956. In my opinion, it is impossible to understand the multifaceted aspects of the process of the normalization between Moscow and Belgrade without under-standing the reasons behind its breakdown, in particular the impact and con-sequences of Titos visit and the dramatic deterioration of YugoslavSoviet relations after November 1956.

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2 Introduction

Among the biographies and memoirs of the Yugoslav and the Soviet leaders, this work has benefited most from the Russian language edition of Khrushchevs autobiographical Reminiscences, and the Serbo- Croat edition of Dedijers seminal The New Supplements to the Biography of Josip Broz Tito, Volume 3. A special mention should be made of the Serbo- Croat edition of Veljko Miunovis Moscow Years, 19561958. It remains the best first- hand account of this phase in YugoslavSoviet relationship. Having had access to original Yugoslav documents from this period, I became convinced that when writing his memoirs, Miunovi fully consulted Yugoslav archival documents, retracing the events he had witnessed. This reaffirms his integrity as a witness and as a historian. The particular contribution of the book before you to the scholarship of the early Cold War lies in the fact that it is almost exclusively based on the Yugo-slav and Soviet archival documents. Among the Yugoslav sources, of particular importance were the collections in the Archive of Josip Broz Tito, the Yugoslav Archives, and the Archives of the Foreign Ministry of Serbia. Among the Russian sources, this work has benefited most from the collections in the Russian State Archive of Recent History ( ), and in the Archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry ( ).5 Despite limited access to the Soviet archives, my unprecedented access to the Yugoslav archives allowed for the comprehensive analysis of YugoslavSoviet relations during the period in focus. The most revealing among Yugoslav documents were Yugoslav Ambassador Miunovis reports on his meetings with Khrushchev; the transcripts of talks held between Tito and the Yugoslav leadership, and Khrushchev and the Soviet leadership; and transcripts of the League of Commu-nists of Yugoslavia (LCY) Central Committee Plenums and the meetings of its Executive Committee.6 Much of the archival material referenced in this book has been researched for the first time and has never before been presented in the English language historiography. Thus, this volume fulfils another of its goals to contribute to the integration of the wealth of Yugoslav and, to a much lesser extent, Russian archival sources into the global scholarship of the Cold War. Very useful among primary sources were public speeches by Yugoslav and Soviet leaders and officials, in particular those of Tito, published in the Yugo-slav and the Soviet party organs, Borba and Pravda. Editorials in these publica-tions were another important source, in particular during the polemics between Moscow and Belgrade. With regard to witness accounts the time distance proved to be an insurmountable obstacle. I was, unfortunately, able to interview only one of the protagonists, Svetozar Vukmanovi-Tempo, a member of the highest Yugoslav leadership at the time. Sadly, the interview was conducted only months before his death. A number of published documental collections have proven invaluable, namely Documents on 1948 by Vladimir Dedijer, the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS, Volumes VIII, 19521954, and XXVI, 19551957), Documents on the Foreign Policy of FNRJ (19451950), and the Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents by Csaba Bks et al.7

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Introduction 3

Although no effort has been spared to ensure a balanced presentation of YugoslavSoviet relations, I am painfully aware that the focus, at times, is dependant on the Yugoslav perceptions and interpretations. If and when this most unfortunate and always unintentional imbalance did occur, it should be attributed to the accessibility of the Yugoslav compared to the Russian archival sources. For this reason, the term YugoslavSoviet rather than SovietYugoslav has been used throughout to depict the relations between the two countries. This book emphasizes the extraordinary contribution of two leaders, Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev and Josip Broz Tito. The Yugoslav leader was the sole arbiter of Yugoslavias foreign policy strategies. He maintained absolute control and held the firmest grip over Belgrades relations with Moscow. For his part, Khrushchev was behind the initiative for the normalization of relations with Yugoslavia. He was also seen by Tito and the Yugoslav leadership as the main force behind the process of de- Stalinization in the Soviet Union. They perceived the dismantling of Stalins legacy as the sine qua non of true normalization of relations with Moscow and of the elimination of threat to Yugoslav national security. Unfortunately, due to space limitations, only very brief references to their personal traits are made in this book. It has been impossible to offer a proper insight into these truly formidable personalities who had important and, in the case of Khrushchev, decisive impacts on the early Cold War. However, it is my hope that the book adequately presents their critical role in YugoslavSoviet relations. Another consolation is the abundance of excellent recent literat-ure on Khrushchev, namely William Taubmans seminal biography and Alexandar Fursenko and Timothy Naftalis book on Khrushchevs Cold War.8 As for the definitive biography of Tito, it remains to be written. I hope that this book will be a worthy contribution. Washingtons influence on Yugoslavias relations with the Soviet Union played an important part prior to Khrushchevs visit to Yugoslavia in 1955 and is awarded due attention. In the later phases of the YugoslavSoviet normaliza-tion and, in particular during their renewed confrontation, as this volume shows, the US did not exercise much influence on the course of events. An excellent book by Lorraine Lees provides detailed insight into USYugoslav relations during the 1950s.9 Limitations of space have also determined the format of the presentation of Yugoslavias and, in particular, Titos role in the conceptualization and institu-tionalization of the Non- Aligned Movement. Nonetheless, the book provides insight into Belgrades increasing focus on non- alignment after 1955. By the end of the decade, the emerging Non- Aligned Movement took absolute priority in Titos foreign policy activities. In conceptualizing and writing this book, I have benefited enormously from the knowledge and profound insight of many impressive historians who have written on the early Cold War. Sadly, it is impossible here to award credit to all of those to whom I feel deeply indebted. The impact they have had on my under-standing of the phenomena of this period of the Cold War humbles my effort. Unfortunately, the fact remains that very little has been written on the history of

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4 Introduction

YugoslavSoviet relations in the early 1950s and on their wider relevance. In my opinion, this is disproportional to the significance of these relations to the history of the early Cold War. What little has been written suffers, to a large extent, from inaccuracies of interpretations caused by inadequate research of Yugoslav and Soviet/Russian archival material. Being fortunate to have acquired unique access to Yugoslav archives, as well as, for a limited period, to the Russian sources, I have decided to place emphasis on primary sources. The wealth of Yugoslav archival material represented continuous inspiration and has provided unique new insight into the developments of the early Cold War. Hope-fully, more substantive access to the Russian archival material will award us with a more comprehensive understanding of this period. Although focused on the process of normalization of YugoslavSoviet rela-tions between 1953 and 1957, the book offers insight into a decade of their rela-tions, between 1948 and 1958. During this period, the character and many fluctuations of the relations between Moscow and Belgrade had a significant impact on the dynamics of the early Cold War. In particular, the process of nor-malization of their relations, the central theme of this volume, influenced the process of de- Stalinization in the Soviet Union, the reformist upheaval and revo-lutions in Eastern Europe in 1956, the dynamics within the international Com-munist movement, and the creation of the Third World alternative to the bipolarity of the Cold War international system the Non- Aligned Movement. To date, this correlation has not received the attention it deserves. The book before you aims to correct this and, in doing so, to contribute to the understand-ing of the history of the early Cold War. The normalization of YugoslavSoviet relations after 1953 dramatically influenced the beginning and the pace of the process of de- Stalinization in the Soviet Union. Contrary to prevailing historical interpretations, which attribute the start of this process to Khrushchevs secret speech in February 1956, this book proposes that the deconstruction of Stalins legacy began eight months earlier and was triggered by the Yugoslav question. As it will be demon-strated, the first open criticism of Stalin outside the confines of the CPSU CC Presidiums walls occurred at the July 1955 Plenum of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Committee (CPSU CC). It was provoked by the discussion on the roots of the 1948 break up with Yugoslavia and Khrush-chevs report on his visit to Yugoslavia a month earlier. This debate brought into the open Stalins responsibility for the 1948 conflict with Tito. The revela-tion of machinations and fabrications laid bare the character and the destruc-tiveness of his rule. The acrimonious polemic that erupted at the Plenum also served as platform for the first open confrontation between the leader of the hard- liners in the Presidium, Molotov, and the person who spearheaded reformist initiatives, Khrushchev. Without successfully sidelining Molotov on this occasion, it would probably have been impossible for Khrushchev to secure the Presidiums support for the re- assessment of Stalins personality and policies and, eventually, to deliver the secret speech at the Twentieth Congress in February 1956.

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Introduction 5

Second, the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Moscow allowed the public in Eastern Europe to learn of Yugoslavias road to social-ism. The attractiveness of Titos socialism, founded on primacy of national identity and interest, would prove corrosive for the Stalinist- type unity of the socialist camp.10 Moreover, Yugoslavias independence from Soviet tutelage, while still retaining its socialist orientation, would encourage the 1956 upheavals in Eastern Europe, in particular in Poland and Hungary. Of particular importance for the liberalization wave that shook the Soviet Bloc, as the book argues, were the two documents produced by the YugoslavSoviet normalization, namely the Belgrade Declaration, signed at the end of Khrushchevs visit to Belgrade on 2 June 1955, and the Moscow Declaration, singed at the end of Titos visit to the USSR, a year later. Furthermore, the questions raised by the YugoslavSoviet break up in 1948 and the normalization of their relations after 1953, for the first time since Lenins death, forced the Soviet leadership to address and even ques-tion Moscows hegemony in relations with Peoples Democracies and other Communist parties. This was officially and publicly recognised in the Resolution promulgated at the July 1955 Plenum of the CPSU CC. The impact of the Yugo-slavSoviet normalization on relations in the Soviet Bloc prior to Khrushchevs secret speech, and the fact that it inspired Moscow to re- examine its hegemonic position in the Bloc has not been adequately highlighted in the historiography. Third, the book will suggest that the tumultuous course of the normalization of YugoslavSoviet relations had an important impact on the power dynamics within the international Communist movement. The YugoslavSoviet ideo-logical confrontation that followed the Soviet military intervention in Hungary in November 1956, and was reinvigorated after the Yugoslav refusal to sign the joint Declaration at the end of the Moscow Conference of the Communist parties a year later, encouraged dissent within the wider Communist community. In par-ticular, it offered the Chinese Communist Party a golden opportunity to assume the role of the ideological arbiter. The Soviet leadership perceived ideological polemics with the Yugoslavs as means to reaffirm its leadership of the interna-tional Communist movement. Seriously weakened by events in Poland and Hungary, Moscow solicited Chinese support, allowing Mao and the CCP to reaf-firm themselves in the new role of ideological authority. Within several years, the Chinese would be in a position to challenge the Soviet leadership. The exist-ing Cold War scholarship fails to acknowledge the role that the YugoslavSoviet ideological confrontation in late 1956 and in 1958 played in the development of the Sino- Soviet split. Fourth, the process of the YugoslavSoviet normalization, as the book will argue, enabled Tito to pursue non- alignment. Following the 1948 break up with the Soviet Bloc, he and the Yugoslav leadership have found themselves in com-plete international isolation. Although US and Western aid and assistance secured the regimes survival in the face of the Soviet threat, Belgrade harboured no illusions regarding the Wests long- term affection. Thus, as the book sug-gests, from the very early stage of their conflict with the Soviets, Tito and his aides searched for an alternative an equidistant position from either Bloc. The

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6 Introduction

real and very present danger of Soviet aggression, however, kept these aspira-tions on the backburner. Only once the normalization of relations with Moscow had eliminated the physical threat to its existence was the Yugoslav regime free to pursue strategic reorientation. Several- month long trips to Asia and Africa between 1954 and 1959 enabled Tito to identify allies and, together with a number of Third World leaders, in particular Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, and Abdul Gamaal Nasser, the young and energetic Egyptian leader, to conceptualise non- alignment and create a movement. This book pro-vides unique, albeit brief insight into the political and philosophical origins of Yugoslavias non- aligned orientation and into its role in the creation of the Movement. Much of what will be presented here is new to the existing Cold War scholarship. The narrative of the book is presented chronologically, through five chapters. The focus is clearly on the process of YugoslavSoviet normalization between 1953 and 1957. Events and developments preceding the normalization or follow-ing its collapse in February 1957, as well as the Yugoslav role in the genesis of the Non- Aligned Movement are presented in the briefest possible form, to the extent to which they help with the understanding of the central theme. This volume represents the first comprehensive attempt at providing insight into the YugoslavSoviet reconciliation in its entirety. The years 1953 and 1957 encap-sulate the full circle of this process from the state of hostile confrontation, through first tentative overtures towards improvement of relations in 1953, to subsequent normalization of state relations and full reconciliation after the re- establishment of relations between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) in June 1956, to renewed confrontation and the collapse of normalization in early 1957, which threatened a repeat of the 1948 rupture. The chronological approach offers the best understanding of the dynamics of the relations between the two countries during this period. The reconciliation between Moscow and Belgrade was an evolutionary process and the causality of the motives that guided the two leader-ships is best demonstrated through progression in time. This approach also enables better understanding of how Moscow and Belgrades changing positions in the international system and in the international Communist movement influ-enced their bilateral relations. Lastly, the ideological tenets and perceptions held by Tito and Khrushchev, the architects of their countries foreign policies, evolved in time. Chapter 1, entitled Overtures, presents the first tentative steps taken by the Soviet leadership in the year after Stalins death to overcome the state of open hostility that existed in relations with the Yugoslav regime since 1948. On the one hand, the chapter attempts to explain the true motives that prompted the Soviet leadership to contemplate such a major departure from one of the corner-stones of Stalins foreign policy, so soon after his death, as well as account for the deep disagreements within the Kremlin as to how to proceed with the policy shift towards Yugoslavia. On the other hand, an attempt has been made to explain the Yugoslav leaderships reluctance to respond to Soviet overtures. To

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Introduction 7

achieve its goals, Chapter 1 provides an understanding of the deep political, cul-tural and social transformation of the Yugoslav regime and society in the years after the break up in 1948. This transformation would be responsible for the sub-sequent YugoslavSoviet ideological divisions that would determine the charac-ter, pace and eventual collapse of the normalization of their relations. The chapter also provides an account of the national security crisis into which the Yugoslav regime was plunged only months before Stalins death and how it set out to urgently solidify the Western security umbrella that had provided a crucial deterrent against aggressive Soviet appetites since 1948. Lastly, this chapter pro-vides insight into another major foreign policy crisis that the Yugoslav leader-ship faced in the autumn of 1953, the Trieste crisis, and the beginning of re- consideration of its strategy towards the Soviet overtures in October 1953. The true normalization of YugoslavSoviet relations was set in motion through secret correspondence between the Yugoslav and the Soviet leaderships, initiated by Khrushchev in June 1954. For the next two years and with increasing momen-tum, the relations between the two countries followed an upward trend. By early 1956, normalization evolved into comradeship. This ascendant road of hope and genuine reconciliation is the subject of Chapters 2 and 3, named Normalization and Comradeship, respectively. Chapter 2 focuses on the secret correspondence between the Soviet and the Yugoslav leaderships from late June 1954. It also dwells on dilemmas that emerged within the Kremlin during the autumn of that year with regard to the future course of this process. The impasse that followed was resolved with Khrushchevs victory in the leadership contest against Malenkov at the end of January 1954. The last part of this chapter provides insight into Titos first forays into non- alignment, a result of sufficiently improved relations with Moscow and the conceptualization of Yugoslavias new foreign policy orientation. It presents in more detail Titos first trip to India and Burma, during which he had fateful encounters with Nehru and Nasser. Khrushchevs historic visit to Belgrade in May 1955 and the Plenum of the CPSU CC a month later are the focus of Chapter 3. The two events had a deci-sive impact not only on further improvement of relations between Belgrade and Moscow but on the start of the process of de- Stalinization in the USSR. The talks between Tito and the Yugoslav leadership and the Soviet delegation, headed by Khrushchev, in Belgrade and Brioni, at the end of May and in the first days of June 1955, signalled the end of the seven- year conflict between the two states and facilitated accelerated improvement of their relations. The document signed at the end of Khrushchevs visit, the so- called Belgrade Declaration, promulgated principles that would reverberate throughout Eastern Europe. The Plenum of the CPSU CC held in early July, in particular the confrontation between Khrushchev and Molotov over normalization with Yugoslavia, repre-sented the first step in the process of the deconstruction of Stalins legacy. The end of the chapter focuses on the elation with which Khrushchevs secret speech at the Twentieth Congress was received in Belgrade and the enthusiasm with which the Yugoslav leadership anticipated Titos visit to USSR in June 1956, as the apex of true YugoslavSoviet reconciliation.

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8 Introduction

Titos visit to the USSR in June 1956 represented a threshold. The pomp and glitz that surrounded it were intended to promote the new era of comradeship between Moscow and Belgrade. Instead, the talks held in the Kremlin during Titos visit represented a true war of attrition. Under the shadow of gathering clouds over Poland and Hungary the Soviet leadership subjected Tito to the fiercest pressure to rejoin the camp. The proceedings of the four rounds of talks in the Kremlin constitute the core of Chapter 4, suitably named Contention. The chapter also provides insight into the strain under which YugoslavSoviet rela-tionship came following Titos USSR visit and developments in Poland and Hungary. It further addresses the delicate manoeuvring between the two sides during the months leading to the Soviet military intervention in Hungary. While the Kremlin was frantically trying to lure Tito back into the socialist camp, the Yugoslavs were doing much to ensure that reformists were installed in Hungary. This chapter finishes with a detailed account of the dramatic meeting between Tito and Khrushchev, in Brioni, on the eve of the second Soviet military inter-vention in Hungary, during which the Yugoslav leader performed a true volte face and gave support for the Soviet action. Chapter 5 begins with the unintended result of the TitoKhrushchev encoun-ter in Brioni, the asylum of the deposed Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy and his entourage in the Yugoslav Embassy in Budapest after the Soviet troops stormed Budapest on 4 November 1956. The chapter further addresses the impact of the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolution on the YugoslavSoviet normalization. The public dispute that ensued, in particular after Titos Pula speech a week after the Soviet intervention, evolved into the ideological confrontation that soon sucked in other Communist parties, in particular the Chinese. The renewed confrontation would, within months, cause the collapse of the process of YugoslavSoviet normalization. By February 1957, less than three years after the reconciliation between Belgrade and Moscow had started in earnest, the process entered a downward spiral. The Conclusion follows the impact of the renewed confrontation on YugoslavSoviet relations in the years until Khrushchevs demise. It also pro-vides insight into the cardinal role Tito and Yugoslavia, in particular his long trip to Africa and Asia in 1958, during the nadir in YugoslavSoviet relations, played in the process of the institutionalization of the Non- Aligned Movement. Most importantly, the Conclusion will re- emphasize the relevance of the nor-malization of YugoslavSoviet relations between 1953 and 1957 and its collapse for regional and global developments in the early Cold War. It is difficult to understand the course of the YugoslavSoviet normalization in the 1950s, much less the reasons behind its collapse, without reminding ourselves of the character and causes of the dramatic rupture of their relations in 1948. If the factual history of the so- called TitoStalin split has, to some extent, been covered in the English language historiography, it is surprising that the interpretations of its origins owe more to Stalins fabrications than to serious historical research. Tito and the Yugoslav Communist Party emerged from the Second World War as victors of the national- liberation struggle, with overwhelming popular support

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Introduction 9

behind them. Not least, they commanded the fourth- largest European army of 400,000 loyal fighters. Tito was admired and hailed throughout Europe as the great hero and leader of the most successful anti- Nazi resistance movement. The Euro-pean left worshipped him as the leader of a Communist Party that carried out the only successful indigenous revolution after October. Between 1945 and 1948, the Yugoslav regime was regarded as the most radical and most loyal among Mos-cows satellite parties and states in Eastern Europe. At the formative meeting of Cominform in September 1947, Yugoslav representatives were awarded the special honour of spearheading the critique of the French and Italian Communist Parties. Belgrade was further honoured by being appointed the seat of the new Communist organization. At home, true to its radical credentials, Titos regime blindly replicated the Soviet system. The only exception was the absence of col-lectivization, a concession to the peasant population, which comprised the back-bone of the partisan liberation movement during the war. Thus, when the conflict between Moscow and Belgrade erupted in public, it came as a bolt from the blue for everyone, politicians and public on both sides of the Iron Curtain alike. Yugoslavias expulsion from the Cominform was not a result of Titos national Communism or of his independent foreign policy. True, at times, his revolutionary enthusiasm contravened Stalins geopolitical considerations. Such was Titos standoff with the Anglo- American Allies over Trieste in May 1945. Contrary to conventional perceptions, however, this incon-gruence occurred rarely and more as a result of Titos revolutionary zeal than as a mark of opposition to the interests of the revolutionary forces. Whenever reproached by Stalin, the Yugoslav leader would subordinate his actions to Soviet foreign policy demands. Tito embarked upon his own road to socialism and independent foreign policy only after the break up with Stalin. For a year after June 1948, he was careful not to antagonise Stalin and hopeful of proving the falsity of the accusations against Belgrade. Eager to reaffirm his Marxist cre-dentials and endear himself to Stalin, Tito imposed collectivization in Yugosla-via after the break with Moscow, in 1949. The implementation of this measure against strong opposition in the countryside, at a time when his regime was fight-ing for survival against the most intense Soviet pressure and subversion, was a manifestation of Titos deep- rooted Communist internationalist loyalty and obe-dience to the Centre. The first worrying signals from Moscow were registered in Belgrade in January 1948. A top- ranking Yugoslav delegation headed by Titos closest aide, Milovan Djilas, was in Moscow to negotiate the new round of Soviet military and economic assistance. Unlike on previous occasions, however, weeks of idling produced no conclusion. Around the same time, at a press conference during his visit to Romania, Georgi Dimitrov, enthused by the fact that Eastern Europe was under Communist regimes, proposed a vision of a Balkan and a wider East European federation. On 29 January, however, in an unprecedented move, Moscow Pravda publicly denounced Dimitrov and dismissed the idea of a federation as problematic and a concoction.11 Ominously, Stalin urgently summoned both Tito and Dimitrov to Moscow. Instinctively cautious, Tito

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10 Introduction

dispatched his second- in-command, Edvard Kardelj. During the meeting in the Kremlin that took place on 10 February, Stalin viciously attacked the Bulgarians and the Yugoslavs for neglecting to consult Moscow on foreign policy issues. He singled out the question of the Balkan federation, the alleged deployment of two Yugoslav Army divisions in Albania, and Sofia and Belgrades continuing assistance to Greek Communists. The following night, Kardelj was unceremoni-ously awakened at two oclock in the morning and driven to Molotovs office to sign a formal agreement compelling Yugoslavs to consult Moscow on all foreign- policy issues. Needless to say, he had never before seen the document.12 The Soviet conduct infused Tito and his associates with deepest foreboding.Indeed, on 22 February, barely days after Kardeljs return from the meeting with Stalin, Moscow informed Belgrade of an indefinite postponement of trade nego-tiations. On 18 and 19 March, Tito received two demarches announcing with-drawal of all Soviet military and civil advisers from Yugoslavia.13 He immediately dispatched a letter to Molotov pleading for the reversal of the decision. Tito argued that the cited reason for the withdrawal, lack of Yugoslav cooperation, was nothing but a malicious fabrication.14 Moscows response came in a letter dated 27 March, signed by Stalin and Molotov. The speed of the response suggested that it was prepared well in advance. The letter accused the Yugoslav leadership, among other things, of initiating slanderous remarks against the USSR and of repudiating MarxismLeninism by abandoning the principles of the class struggle and of the commanding role of the Party.15 Soon afterwards, Belgrade received a resolution of the Hungarian Communist Party of 8 April fully backing Moscows accusations. Tito understood that Stalin had orchestrated and unleashed a campaign against him and his aides.16 On 12 April, Tito convoked a closed session of the Yugoslav Communist Party Central Committee. He acquainted members of the Yugoslav leadership with the Soviet letter and proposed a response, which he had drafted himself. All members of the Central Committee, apart from Andrija Hebrang and Sreten ujovi, promi-nent Croatian and Serbian party leaders, approved Titos draft. The Yugoslav response began with the statement that no matter how much one loved the first country of socialism, the USSR, one must not love less his own country. It further qualified Soviet accusations as monstrous and false, revealing complete absence of understanding of the real situation in the Yugoslav Party and the state. The letter also accused the Soviet intelligence agencies of recruiting Yugoslav officials, a practice Yugoslav leadership found incongruent with socialist fraternal rela-tions. In the end, it proposed that a Soviet party delegation visit Yugoslavia and confirm the absurdity of the accusations.17 The Yugoslav Central Committee, however, voted to strike off as too provocative a sentence Tito included in his initial draft, which stated that false accusations represented a veiled hegemonic assault of one state against the sovereignty of the other, hidden behind the ideo-logical veneer.18 He would adhere to this formulation in all his later explanations of the causes of the YugoslavSoviet break up. During the next two months, and in absolute secrecy, Moscow and Belgrade continued to exchange accusations, counter accusations and denials. As

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Introduction 11

expected, during April, all Eastern European Communist parties sent letters to Belgrade fully supporting and endlessly repeating Stalins accusations. Stalin and Molotovs reply to the Yugoslav letter of 13 April came dated 4 May. Com-pared to the first letter of 27 March, it was an even lengthier litany of Yugoslav sins and outright dismissal of every Yugoslav argument, adding even more pre-posterous and insulting accusations. The letter dismissed the Yugoslav proposal for a Soviet delegation to be sent to Belgrade and instead requested that the whole case be handed over to the next Cominform meeting. In his very curt response on 17 May, Tito rejected the invitation declaring it pointless for such a gathering to decide on the veracity of accusations against him and the Yugoslav Party leadership since all Parties that were to be present there had already fully supported Moscows claims.19 The Cominform meeting was held in Bucharest and the Resolution published upon its conclusion, on 28 June 1948, decreed the expulsion of the Yugoslav Communist Party from the organization. This was the first public acknowledge-ment of the YugoslavSoviet conflict and a first- rate world sensation. The Reso-lution was never officially presented to Belgrade and the Yugoslav leadership learned of its contents from agency reports. The document was drafted on accu-sations listed in Stalins letters, namely that Tito and the Yugoslav leadership were conducting policies aimed against the Soviet Union and the All Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and had abandoned MarxismLeninism. The Resolution openly exhorted healthy elements in the Communist Party of Yugo-slavia (CPY) to replace Tito and his closest associates with a new, internation-alist leadership.20 In response, Tito and the Yugoslav leadership mobilized the Yugoslav Communist Party membership and the Yugoslav public in support of their resistance to Stalins pressure. The Fifth Congress of the CPY, the first since 1940, which was convened in Belgrade between 21 and 28 July, approved the position of the Central Committee (CC) of the CPY and declared Soviet and Cominform accusations untrue, incorrect, and unjust.21 The fault lines of the YugoslavSoviet conflict were thus set. The break between Moscow- led Cominform and Belgrade was complete. Fol-lowing ideological disqualification, Yugoslavia was immediately subjected to concrete pressure from the Soviet Union and Peoples Democracies. Within days after the Cominform meeting, the USSR and its satellites began, one by one, to cancel existing agreements with Yugoslavia on economic, military or cultural cooperation.22 By the end of 1948, the Soviet Union and Peoples Democracies had imposed on Yugoslavia a total economic blockade, causing the de facto col-lapse of its economy. Famine appeared in the poorest regions of the country and remained a threat for several years after 1948. The gravity of the situation can be fully appreciated if one remembers that only three years earlier Yugoslavia had emerged from the Second World War in economic ruin and with a proportional loss of human life second only to that of Poland. Due to German occupation, heavy fighting, and frequent German and Allied carpet bombing, economic output was reduced to a fraction of that in 1939, with infrastructure almost com-pletely destroyed.23 The situation was further exacerbated by the fact that

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12 Introduction

between 1945 and 1948, blindly following doctrinarian Stalinist concepts, the Yugoslav leadership had subordinated their countrys economy to the division of labour within the socialist camp, making it fully dependant on Soviet assistance.24 Moscow and its satellites also unleashed a vicious propaganda war against the regime in Belgrade.25 On a daily basis, over the radio waves and through the press and thousands of printed books and brochures, they disseminated harangue and disinformation about Yugoslavia, openly exhorting Yugoslavs to liquidate Tito and his clique. Within a year after the Cominform Resolution, diplomatic relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union and its allies had effectively collapsed. Yugoslavias diplomatic missions in these countries were reduced to two to three people only, subjected to absurd restriction of movement and under constant and intimidating surveillance and harassment. In this respect, they were treated much worse than the Western diplomats. Between 1948 and 1953, 145 Yugoslav diplomats were expelled from the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries.26 Blindly obedient to the Kremlins demands to exert maximum pressure on Yugoslavia and in order to fulfil the task of Sovietizing Eastern Europe, the sat-ellite regimes staged show trials against Titoists. In 1949 alone, prominent political figures, such as Albanias Defence and Interior Minister Koci Xoxe, Hungarys Foreign Minister Lszl Rajk, and Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Traicho Kostov were tried, sentenced to death and executed. Between 1948 and 1955, forty high- profile anti- Yugoslav trials were organized in Peoples Demo-cracies. At the same time, thousands of ordinary Communists and citizens were tried on fabricated charges and interned or executed. Many, however, were liqui-dated outside the judicial process. In Albania alone, 142 people were executed without a trial.27 The prospect of Soviet and satellite military aggression, however, posed by far the biggest threat to the survival of Titos regime. Very soon after the Com-inform Resolution became public, Yugoslavia was subjected to daily border skir-mishes and infiltration of armed groups from the neighbouring satellite countries. Between 1948 and 1953, 7,877 such border incidents were recorded, of which 142 were characterized as substantive armed clashes. Military provocations continued unabated until 1955, well after Stalins death and the beginning of the SovietYugoslav normalization of relations.28 In August 1949, the Yugoslav leadership became convinced that Stalin was contemplating an attack on Yugoslavia. During the previous months, the Yugo-slav authorities had arrested a number of White Russian migrs, settled in Yugoslavia after the October Revolution who, following the June 1948 break up, were recruited by Soviet military intelligence for subversive activities in Yugo-slavia. At 3 am on 18 August 1949, a Soviet Embassy representative left a Soviet Government Note with the night porter of the Yugoslav Federal Secretariat for Foreign Relations (DSIP) in Belgrade. Using the arrest of White Russian migrs as pretext, the Note stipulated that the Soviet Government would be forced to adhere to other, more effective measures that it finds necessary in order to

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Introduction 13

protect the rights and interests of Soviet citizens in Yugoslavia and to bring to account [Yugoslav] Fascist despots.29 The Yugoslav leadership immediately set into motion contingency military preparations for guerrilla warfare, namely the formation of partisan units and creation of secret caches of food and munitions throughout the country. Among other things, the Government began evacuating state archives to safe locations.30 During the following weeks and months, Stalin raised the prospect of an imminent attack on Yugoslavia. On 11 September, the Hungarian Foreign Minis-ter, Laszlo Rajk, was indicted as the chief American and Yugoslav spy. Thir-teen days later, it was officially announced that he had been sentenced to death. On 28 September, the Soviet Government unilaterally cancelled the accredita-tion of Karlo Mrazovi, the Yugoslav Ambassador in Moscow.31 On 29 Novem-ber 1949, at its session in Matra, Hungary, the Cominform issued the second Resolution on Yugoslavia, entitled The Yugoslav Communist Party in the Hands of Murderers and Spies. The document declared that the struggle against Titos clique paid spies and murderers, represents the internationalist duty of all Communist and Workers parties.32 Belgrade remained in constant fear of a Soviet attack until well after Stalins death in March 1953. The second and perhaps even bigger scare than that of autumn 1949 occurred in October 1950, after Chinese troops crossed the Yalu River and engaged with US troops in Korea. Tito and his aides were convinced that this was just a diversion concealing Stalins real intention to invade Yugo-slavia and destroy the thorn that had been troubling him for two years. This prompted Yugoslav leadership to seek Western military assistance for the first time since 1948. Secret YugoslavUS contacts and talks on procurement of US military aid started in December 1950.33 The first formal and public YugoslavUS military assistance agreement, signed on 14 November 1951, confirmed that Yugoslavia and its leadership, once the most loyal of Stalins disciples, had not only become one of the Wests most important propaganda assets in the ideo-logical war against the Soviets but a vital strategic component of the Western alliance as well.34 Between 1950 and 1955, Yugoslavia received approximately US$1.5 billion of Western aid, mainly American economic and military, more than many NATO member states.35 The YugoslavSoviet conflict impressed upon the Yugoslav leaders the belief that they were waging a life- and-death struggle against Stalin. Fearing a split among the members of the CPY and the creation of a Soviet fifth column, the Yugoslav regime often succumbed to brutal repressive methods. Between 1948 and 1953, approximately 200,000 people were arrested in Yugoslavia on charges of siding with the Cominform Resolution, of which about a third were indicted. The first and only concentration camp in Titos Yugoslavia was created in 1949 on the island of Goli Otok in the Adriatic. More than 32,000 political prisoners, most of them ex- partisans, and often co- combatants and war companions of the jailers, were imprisoned in the camp. Around 3,200 of the detainees died there.36 Historians have mistakenly attributed the SovietYugoslav break up either to Titos national Communism or to his foreign policy adventurism. As proof,

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14 Introduction

they cite his decision to deploy Yugoslav troops in Albania or the plan to create a Balkan federation with Dimitrov. Evidence that has become available since the end of the Cold War, both from Yugoslav and Russian archives, offers a differ-ent interpretation. Prior to 1948, Tito had always bowed to Stalins authority, even with regard to border settlement with Italy over Trieste and with Austria over Carinthia, issues over which he demonstrated an insatiable territorial appe-tite. At the July 1955 Plenum of the Soviet Party Central Committee, President of the Soviet Council of Ministers Nikolai Bulganin, echoed by Nikita Khrush-chev, confirmed that sins purportedly perpetrated by Tito had been Stalins fabrications.37 Titos alleged unauthorised deployment of two Yugoslav divi-sions in Albania was nothing more than Belgrades agreement in principle to consider the Albanian request for military assistance against possible attack from Greek government troops. After the expulsion from the Cominform, the Yugo-slav leadership became convinced that Hoxhas request was contrived in Moscow to substantiate later accusations against Tito.38 Likewise, the Balkan federation was an equally speculative proposition that was never close to imple-mentation. At the end of their meetings in Yugoslavia, in August 1947, and few months later in Bulgaria, Tito and Dimitrov officially dismissed the idea as pre-mature. Stalins harassment of Dimitrov and Kardelj during the February 1948 meeting can only be understood as part of a build- up against Tito. It is telling that at the end of the meeting, Stalin suddenly and completely reversed his posi-tion and insisted that the federation be created immediately.39 The YugoslavSoviet break up, in my opinion, was a result of a flawed exe-cution of Stalins plan to create a monolithic Communist camp. Not by acci-dent, the attacks on Tito coincided with the February 1948 coup in Czechoslovakia. Stalin embarked upon creating a Soviet Bloc after autumn 1947 and the Sovietization of Eastern Europe became the most expeditious way to accomplish it.40 The removal of Tito, as the enemy within was, most probably, part of a plan to trigger the process of witch- hunt throughout Eastern Europe and mobilize popular support behind satellite regimes.41 Moscow immediately por-trayed the conflict with Yugoslavia as an ideological confrontation with Tito, in order to stigmatize him as a traitor. Unfortunately for Stalin, the plot to remove the Yugoslav leader did not go according to plan and led to a complete rupture of YugoslavSoviet relations with a long- term eroding impact on the Soviet Bloc. Tito, on the other hand, embarked upon his own road to socialism and began to pursue independent foreign policy only after the break up with Stalin. The YugoslavSoviet rupture in 1948 had wider, geo- strategic implications. The Soviet invasion of Yugoslavia, in the heart of divided Europe, which remained a possibility throughout the YugoslavSoviet conflict, would have almost certainly escalated into a global confrontation between the two Blocs. Furthermore, the expulsion of Yugoslavia from Cominform and Belgrades sub-sequent request for Western military assistance enabled readjustment of NATO defence strategy. Tito rightly calculated that Stalin would not contemplate an invasion of Yugoslavia if convinced that it could trigger a war with the Western Bloc. As a result, between 1950 and 1955, Yugoslavia became effectively incor-

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Introduction 15

porated into NATOs South- East European flank through defence coordination, massive American arms deliveries and other military assistance. Thousands of US military advisors were attached to the Yugoslav Armys units.42 Tito, however, consistently repudiated Western pressure to formally join NATO. On the one hand, he was afraid that membership would forever destroy the chances of reconciliation with the international Communist movement; on the other hand, he feared, probably correctly, that it would help the United States to topple his regime. The YugoslavSoviet rupture in 1948 and the Yugoslav road to socialism that was created as a result destroyed the ideological uniformity of Stalinism. Moreover, it blurred the fault lines of the Cold War. Yugoslavias challenge to Stalins authority in 1948 would result in the first schism in the post- October 1917 history of the international Communist movement and destroy its mono-lithic cohesion. The excommunication of the Yugoslav Communist Party from the Cominform created a rupture in what looked to be an impermeable, mono-lithic Communist Bloc. The break up also inspired Tito to seek a third way between the two Blocs and play a crucial role in the creation of the Non- Aligned Movement. The SovietYugoslav confrontation, however, facilitated the process of Sovietization of Eastern Europe and plunged the Balkans into a period of grave instability. The daily rattling of sabres on Yugoslavias borders threatened the fragile stability of the nascent Cold War in Europe.

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1 Overtures

Yugoslavias specific brand of socialism, often called in the literature Titos national Communism or Yugoslavias road to socialism, was conceived after the 1948 TitoStalin split. Clearly not the cause of the confrontation, it crucially pushed Moscow and Belgrade to drift apart ideologically in the subsequent years. The schism that was thus created preconditioned the course and the lim-itations of the YugoslavSoviet normalization between 1953 and 1957. In par-ticular and as will be shown, it determined the strength of opposition within the Kremlin to the change of policy towards Belgrade, as well as the Yugoslav caution in embracing Soviet overtures in 1953 and 1954. Neither was Titos independent foreign policy, another attribute used in the historiography to explain the split, responsible for Stalins excommunication of the Yugoslav leadership in 1948. Titos cooperation with the West and his later pursuit of non- alignment, the cornerstones of his independent foreign policy, came in response to the strategic isolation into which the conflict with the USSR and Cominform had plunged Yugoslavia. Belgrades strategic alignment with the West, prior to Stalins death, was in response to a very real Soviet threat and was equally responsible for Yugoslavias reluctance to accept Soviet initiatives towards the normalization of their relations prior to autumn 1954. Thus, the beginning and the course of the YugoslavSoviet normalization in 1953 and 1954 were a func-tion of the transformation of Yugoslavias political system and its ideological underpinning, and of its strategic realignment, both created in the period between the 1948 break up and Stalins death in March 1953. Between 1948 and 1953, the Yugoslav regime waged a life and death battle against the very authority that formatted its identity and legitimacy Stalin. During this period, Yugoslavias domestic political system and its foreign policy underwent changes of revolutionary magnitude. Remarkably, and seemingly par-adoxically, the regime had initiated a profound transformation of itself and society at the time of the gravest threat to its existence. The character of the transformation fostered an irrevocable break with Stalinism. Its wider, global effect was to create a heresy against the ruling Stalinist interpretation of Marxism, introducing new approaches to socialism. The sudden drama in Yugoslavias relations with the West that occurred at the end of 1952 triggered panic in Belgrade and would have a critical impact on

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Overtures 17

the dynamics of YugoslavSoviet relations in 1953. Tito1 and his aides2 inter-preted the inconclusive adjournment of the strategic planning discussions between Yugoslavia, the US, Britain and France, held in Belgrade in November 1952,3 as a grave threat to Yugoslavias national security. The concurrent resur-gence of the Trieste problem with Italy only exacerbated the Yugoslav leader-ships consternation. These two challenges shaped Yugoslav foreign policy priorities during the following year and a half. With utmost urgency, Yugoslavia set out to create a military alliance with its pro- Western Balkan neighbours, Greece and Turkey, both members of NATO. Belgrades predicaments during this period were augmented by a catastrophic economic situation. The second consecutive drought in 1952, coupled with the disastrous consequences of forced collectivisation resulted in widespread food shortages, even famine in some regions of the country, while the spiralling balance of payment deficit was depriving Yugoslav industry of badly needed raw materials. Life- saving depend-ence on Western economic aid and assistance underlined the importance of maintaining a strategic partnership with the West, particularly the US.4

Very soon after Vozhds death on 6 March 1953, the new post- Stalin leader-ship in the Kremlin initiated unprecedented, albeit very subtle, conciliatory over-tures towards Yugoslavia. Titos pursuit of a closer association with the West and the creation of the Balkan Alliance forced the new Soviet leadership to seek ways to normalize YugoslavSoviet relations. Yugoslavias foreign policy prior-ities, however, together with accumulated mistrust towards the Soviets, attrib-uted to Belgrades lack of responsiveness to the Kremlins overtures. Only after the escalation of the Trieste crisis in October 1953 did the Yugoslav leadership decide to slightly moderate its attitude to the Soviet approaches.

The genesis of the heresy: the Yugoslav road to socialismExcommunication of the Yugoslav Party and its Fascist leadership from the Cominform had stripped Titos regime of its socialist credentials within the international Communist movement. Stalin, the ultimate ideological authority, immediately presented the confrontation with the Yugoslavs as the struggle against their revisionism and betrayal of MarxismLeninism. The Yugoslav leaderships Communist legitimacy, in the eyes of the global proletarian move-ment, was further undermined when, fighting for survival, it committed the gravest sin and solicited support from the class enemy, the USA and the capi-talist Bloc. In spite of this, Tito and his aides never abandoned their Marxist con-victions and would remain determined to regain their previous standing within the international Communist movement, an aspect that would play an important role during the period of normalization. Restoration of ideological credibility became one of the key strategic and tactical goals for the Yugoslav leadership. On the one hand, they saw in this a way to weaken support within the Commu-nist movement for Stalins campaign against Yugoslavia, in particular for pos-sible military aggression. On the domestic front, the loss of Stalins seal of approval threatened Titos leadership of the Party. The regime in Belgrade was

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18 Overtures

forced to seek re- establishment of ideological legitimacy in order to fend off external and internal threat. This explains what many saw as paradoxical and too adventurous Titos decision to embark upon a political, socio- economic and cultural metamorphosis of the country almost immediately after the 1948 break up. Unquestionably laden with enormous risks, the gamble would, nevertheless, prove crucial for his survival. The revolution of the Yugoslav domestic political system in the early 1950s was unprecedented within the existing communist paradigm and established the Yugoslav concept of socialism as an alternative to Stalins model. The Yugoslav domestic metamorphosis was a case of a top- down revolu-tion the changes were initiated by the Yugoslav Party leadership. Available documents suggest that debates regarding new strategic options intensified within Titos innermost circle during 1949. A very rare occurrence in the pre-ceding years, seventeen Politburo meetings were held in 1949 and 1950, includ-ing two Central Committee plenums in 1949 alone.5 Of particular significance for the charting of the new course was the Third Plenum, held on 29 and 30 December 1949.6 The raising of the stakes and added pressure from Stalin after August 1949, as described in detail in the introduction, provided perhaps the crucial impetus for the Yugoslavs to embark on their own journey. It finally convinced the Yugoslav leadership to abandon, once and for ever, the notion of possible reconciliation with Stalin. Disillusioned with Moscow and Stalinism and faced with an imposed imperative to find new ideological identity and legit-imacy, Tito and his closest associates began contemplating in earnest a depar-ture from Stalinist dogmas, as the correct and only road to socialism. Additional encouragement came from a realization, perhaps more of a hope at the time, that existence outside the Soviet Bloc was feasible. Rather than posing a threat, the West was increasingly demonstrating willingness to buttress Yugo-slavias regime. To reclaim its own legitimacy and Communist credentials, however, Yugo-slavia had to redefine its own ideological identity in a manner that would posi-tion it as an alternative to that of Stalinism. This implied creating a new identity founded on true understanding of Marx and Lenin, as the only way to disqual-ify Stalins interpretations. In circumstances when every aspect of Yugoslavias social, political, economic and cultural life and organization was rigidly ideo-logical, implementation of a new ideological foundation inevitably led to a com-prehensive overhaul of the political system, leaving few aspects of the countrys socio- economic structure unchanged. Crucially, Tito and his comrades under-stood that the new legitimacy was possible only if founded on wider mass par-ticipation and inclusion. Popular support was critical if the regime was to fend off the overwhelming foreign threat and overcome its fundamental crisis of iden-tity. The Yugoslav leadership also realized that in addition to the political, the economic and cultural strata of social organization needed to be transformed. The most dramatic break with Stalinism occurred when the Yugoslav regime, hitherto considered the most radical within Cominform, accepted that wider inclusion and participation necessitated liberalization, democratization,

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decentralization and intellectual freedoms. The aim however, was to democra-tize socialism, not to replace it with a multi- party system. This is something Milovan Djilas, an unyielding radical always on the lookout for a new cause, clearly misunderstood. The new Yugoslav ideological identity was thus being constructed as an antithesis to Stalins ideological precepts and a negation of the Soviet model. Preserving the true spirit of socialism against the Soviet betrayal and Stalins falsifications became the justification for the introduction of Yugoslavias road to socialism. In his report to the Sixth Congress of the Yugoslav Communist Party in November 1952, Tito stressed that what gave him and his comrades strength to confront Stalin in 1948 was our revolutionary consciousness telling us that we are conducting ourselves as true Communist- revolutionaries and as such obliged to defend both the socialist principles and our own people.7 Time and again, the Yugoslavs would stress that their approach reflected adherence to scientific axioms of MarxismLeninism, as opposed to falsifications created to fit Stalins deviant system. In his speech before the First Extraordinary Session of the Yugoslav Parliament, in June 1950, which promulgated legislation intro-ducing self- management, Tito stressed that,

prior to the infamous Cominform Resolution, [the Yugoslav] Party nurtured too many illusions, uncritically accepting and implementing everything that was being done in the way it was being done in the USSR, even things that were not in accordance with [Yugoslavias] specific conditions or in the spirit of MarxismLeninism. . . . Today, however, we are building socialism in our country ourselves, without clichs and guided only by the science of Marxism . . .8

The Yugoslav leadership was also keen to promote Yugoslavias positive experi-ence in the pursuit of independence from Moscows tutelage, as an invaluable contribution to the theory and practice of socialism. They hoped that by award-ing their experience and their new ideological identity universal character and value, they could successfully challenge Stalins authority as the interpreter of the Marxist doctrine. As Tito emphasized,

successful implementation of Marxist science in [Yugoslavia] enabled us to successfully fight revisionism in this science . . . [Marxist science] does not need additional [to Marx, Engels, and Lenin] authorities, much less tutors or surrogates of the Marxist science who can only divert it from the correct socialist way into revisionism.9

The legitimacy of the new Yugoslav ideological concept was dependent on a successful challenge against the existing axiom that only one road to socialism, the Soviet one, existed. Tito addressed this at the First Extraordinary Session of the Yugoslav Parliament in June 1950, when he declared that different eco-nomic, cultural and other conditions in different countries demand different

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20 Overtures

forms [of construction of socialism], without prescriptions or clichs.10 He then defined points of demarcation between the Yugoslav and the Soviet models, as

a) the question of the role of the state in the transitional period, in its wither-ing stage; b) the role of the [Communist] party, in particular its relation to the state; c) the question of the lower phase of Communism or, as it is called these days socialism; and d) the question of the state vs. socialist ownership.11

Of these, the third point referring to the question of the lower phase of Commun-ism, or the character of transition from the lower phase, socialism, to true Com-munism was aimed at ridiculing the Soviet leaderships occasional statements proposing that the Soviet Union had already entered Communism. The points of demarcation with the Soviet system, as stipulated by Tito, defined the trans-formation of the Yugoslav political system and constituted the building blocks upon which the Yugoslav leadership constructed the new ideological foundation and their own road to socialism. The success of Yugoslavias challenge, as Tito had understood when drafting response to Stalins first letter of accusations of 27 March 1948, stood a much better chance if the 1948 break up was shown not to have been a result of Yugo-slavias betrayal of Marxism, Stalins main argument. For this reason, Tito vehe-mently denied the ideological character of 1948 and insisted that it came as a result of aggressive and hegemonic policy of the USSR towards Yugoslavia, of the [Soviet] effort to subjugate [Yugoslavia], economically and politically, to destroy [Yugoslavias] independence and transform the country into its colony. Moreover, according to him, this happened at the moment when [the USSR] had unambiguously abandoned socialist principles in its domestic policy, as well as in its foreign policy, and had openly embarked upon pursuit of imperialist expansionism.12

Addressing both domestic and international audiences from the pulpit of the Sixth Congress of the Yugoslav Communist Party in November 1952, Tito insisted that it was the Kremlin leadership who betrayed the cause of socialism. He accused Soviet imperialists and thieves of years of raiding and exploiting not only peoples of Eastern Europe but, also those in Austria and Germany under the Soviet occupation.13 Tito recalled that after Teheran, the Soviet Union began showing its true imperialist character and, as such has contributed most to the current tense international situation. Tito ascribed this to the fact that [the Soviet Union] had betrayed socialist principles and embarked upon the ways of the old Czarist Russia, pursuing Russian imperial goals through imperi-alist methods, while concealing them behind the revolutionary interest of the international proletariat. By subjugating Communist parties throughout the world, Tito explained, the Soviet Union had transformed them into mere instru-ments of its foreign policy. Reminding comrades that 1948 represented Stalins unsuccessful effort at subjugating Yugoslavia, he insisted that the [Soviet Union] aims to impose its will and incessant appetite for exploitation of other

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nations . . ., creating colonies in the centre of Europe out of hitherto independent states, such as Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, etc..14 Indeed, the anti- Stalin and anti- Soviet rhetoric of the Sixth Congress sounded more like something one might hear at Senator McCarthys rallies, rather than from the pulpit of a congress of a European Communist party. The new Yugoslav heresy, however, in one of its crucial departures from Sta-linism, offered, at least declaratively, a re- defined role of the Communist Party in society. A mere suggestion of a change in the commanding role of a Bolshe-vik Party was, at the time, regarded by Communists worldwide as the gravest sin a revision of one of Lenins crucial postulates and, as such, the betrayal of MarxismLeninism. The orthodoxy stipulated that the Party fulfils its historic task of expropriating the bourgeois class only by assuming the political mono-poly within a society and imposing the dictatorship of the proletariat, on behalf and in the name of the working class. Strict adherence to the principle of demo-cratic centralism in the Party, as the orthodoxy went, safeguards its organiza-tional unity and operational capability. To justify re- defining the Party role, Yugoslavs accused Stalin of transforming the Bolshevik Party into an instrument of rule over the people and over the proletariat. There was perhaps another good reason for Tito and his comrades to contemplate a less dictatorial role for the Party. On the eve of the Second World War, the Yugoslav industrial working class was small in number. In addition, Titos guerrilla warfare and resistance against the Germans and domestic quislings was conducted in the countryside. As a result, his partisans were overwhelmingly recruited among the peasantry. The Yugoslav Communists thus owed victory in the war of liberation and success of their social revolution more to peasants and young intellectuals, namely students, than to the traditional proletariat. Desperately needing the widest possible popular support at a time of dire threat in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Yugoslav regime could ill afford to alienate any part of society, in particular those who in the past had lent it decisive support the peasants. This demanded abandonment of ideological sectarianism and, if only declara-tively, abandonment of the proletarian dictatorship. Tito and others may also have heeded lessons of recent history, remembering how, when faced with Hit-lers troops on the outskirts of Moscow, Stalin appealed to the tradition and glory of the Russian Czarist army and Generals Kutuzov and Suvorov and suc-cessfully mobilized popular support behind the fight for the motherland and not for socialism. Between 2 and 7 November 1952, in Zagreb, the Yugoslav Communist Party held its Sixth Congress. One of the pivotal precepts of Yugoslavias new ideo-logical identity, the new role of the Party was validated at the Congress, together with its new name. Tito proposed that the current phase [of socialist construc-tion], as well as its future development demand that the Party be renamed the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. By pointing out that the term was, in fact coined by Marx, he underlined the organic link between the Yugoslav concept and scientific MarxismLeninism. As Tito insisted, the change in name asserted the new role that the Communists would in future play in Yugoslav

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society, one of greater accountability and responsibility. According to him, this would enable [the Yugoslav Party] to rid itself of harmful methods that derive from the Soviet experience and which brought the Communist Party in the Soviet Union into the role of an auxiliary gendarme of a bureaucratized regime.15 The new name was intended to re- define the Party as an association of conscientious communists, in the mould proposed by young Marx, in contrast with the caste of apparatchiks and bureaucrats that the Bolshevik Party grew into during the Russian Civil War, the form Stalin later embalmed. While the Soviet Party grew used to commanding, the League would lead by example. Only in this new role, Tito argued, would Communists be able to contribute towards decentralization and democratization of management and administration of the economy, a precondition of new relations in the sphere of production. This, in turn would finally and for the first time in history, enable appropriation of surplus value by workers themselves the crux of the new road to socialism that Yugoslavs were proposing.16

Tito also proposed and the Congress promulgated a change of name and structure of the Popular Front. In its new role, the Party was to relinquish tute-lage of mass political organizations; Communists were no longer to act as super-visors or policemen but, as conscientious members of the Popular Front who initiate action rather than issue guidelines. Between 1945 and 1948, in Yugosla-via, as indeed throughout the Soviet Bloc, former parliamentary parties were amalgamated into a single political organization the Popular Front. It was a framework for dissolving remnants of bourgeois political organizations. Control-led by Communists, Popular Fronts provided quasi- democratic legitimacy to the Communist political monopoly. The new organization that was to replace the Front, as envisioned by the new Yugoslav model, was to provide a formal frame-work for wider popular participation and for the decentralization of the economy and state administration. The new name and a looser association with the League of Communists of Yugoslavia were intended to transform the Front into a repre-sentative association for political engagement of all members of Yugoslav society, above all the non- communists. Four months after the Party Congress, in February 1953, at its Fourth Congress, the Popular Front changed its name to the Socialist Working Peoples Alliance of Yugoslavia. Of particular significance however, and something that has hitherto escaped historiographical scrutiny was that Tito, even at this early stage, associated trans-formation of the Front with the new foreign policy strategy of non- engagement that he and his colleagues were obviously conceptualizing by this time. At this stage, of course, he was very careful not to openly advocate such aspirations. At the Sixth Congress, however, Tito hinted that beside domestic considerations,

external reasons, in particular further cooperation with socialist and other progressive movements encourage us [to change the name and role of the Popular Front]. In order for this cooperation to happen, it is essential to make changes in the organization and role of the Front, as a factor of huge political im