The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online IX

The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online 16/2003 20
Section II
Regional Communist Studies
Avgust Le_nik, Ljubljana:
1948 − Yugoslavia and the Cominform − Fifty Years Later. Petar Ka_avenda (ed.): The Yugoslav −
Soviet Conflict in 1948. Collection of Works from the Scientific Conference / Jugoslovensko-sovjetski sukob
1948. godine. Zbornik radova sa nau_nog skupa. Beograd: Institut za savremenu istoriju / The Institute of
Modern History, 1999, 326 pp.
This book represents a compilation of some works made on the basis of contributions presented at the
congress of historians, organized by the Institute of Modern History and held on rhe 15 th and 16 th of October,
1998, in Belgrade under the title »The Yugoslav - Soviet Conflict in 1948«. At the congress, eminent Yugoslav
and foreign historians presented thirty contributions. The congress was organized to mark fifty years since the
outbreak of the conflict between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, a crucial political event in the postwar
history of Yugoslavia, whose repercussions directly affected the fate of the Yugoslav state and the lives of its
inhabitants in the decades to come. The breach between the two leading communist parties and their
countries also had an important international aspect, particularly in regard to the relations between the Eastern
and Western military and political alliances on the eve of the Cold War. The Institute wished to provide, on the
occasion of this anniversary, an opportunity for historians and other experts dealing with this question to
present the results of their research, in view of the fact that archival material and historical distance offer a solid
basis for a more objective and thorough study of this complex matter.
The breach, which began in 1948 when the leaders of the Soviet Communist Party embarked on a period of
severe criticism directed at Yugoslav political and party leaders, soon developed into a conflict deeply affecting
not only the mutual relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union and their communist parties, but also
those between Yugoslavia and the communist parties and countries belonging to the group of the people’s
democracies and to the Cominform. Former studies have definitely demonstrated that the roots of the conflict
lay in the hegemony of the first country of socialism in international relations, in the monopolistic attitude of
the Soviet Communist Party and Josif Vissarionovich Stalin, in the mutual relations between certain parties and
leaders of socialist countries, and in the personal relations between Stalin and Tito, the greatest authorities of
the Eastern European countries, Stalin as the first figure of world communism, and Tito as a confirmed
opponent of fascism. The roots of the conflict between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, which broke out in
1948 after the Cominform Resolution and came as a surprise not only to the ordinary people and leaders of
Yugoslavia, but also to the international community, lay in Moscow’s reaction to the Yugoslav Communist Party