The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online IX

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The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online 16/2003 23 Great Britain and the Soviet−Yugoslav Conflict (Djoko Tripkovi_) Great Britain played a leading role in Western policy regarding Yugoslavia during World War Two. The British statesmen Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden sought to maintain Western positions and influence in Yugoslavia and to counter the increasing Soviet penetration in Eastern Europe. Their efforts appeared, however, to have little effect. The ascendance to power of the communist regime headed by Tito immediately after the war signified Yugoslavia’s complete turn towards Moscow. Soviet influence became absolute, since the Yugoslav communists thoroughly applied the Soviet model of government as the most faithful allies of Stalin and the USSR. Soviet predominance lasted until 1948 and the break between Tito and Stalin, which soon evolved into a severe political conflict. The British government saw the breach as a chance to restore Western positions in Yugoslavia and, together with the American administration, hastened to formulate a new political strategy for Yugoslavia. Initially the new policy, figuratively referred to as »keeping Tito afloat«, offered guarded support to Tito’s regime. Following Tito’s promise of denying further assistance to Markos’ partisans in Greece, the West intensified the economic and subsequent military aid offered to Yugoslavia, through the program of Tripartite Aid. Yugoslav relations with the West reached their highest point in this period, as demonstrated by Tito’s visit to Britain in March 1953, his first trip to a Western country since the end of the war. Stalin’s death, however, which coincided with Tito’s return from London, caused an abrupt turn in the situation, leading to Yugoslavia’s speedy reconciliation with the Kremlin. The process of normalization in the relations between Yugoslavia and the USSR was concluded in 1955/56. At the same time, Tito formed a long-term foreign policy based on Yugoslavia’s non aligned position between the East and West. Great Britain and the US could not but accept Tito’s position, and continued their program of cooperation and aid as the price that had to be paid to prevent him from returning into the Soviet orbit. Western Economic and Military Aid at the Time of Yugoslavia’s Conflict with the Cominform (Dragan Bogeti_) Yugoslavia’s cooperation with the West in the early 50s represented a novelty in international relations and a precedent difficult to accept at the time of the world’s severe polarization. Economic relations with the West were the basis for Yugoslavia’s new foreign policy directed at overcoming the isolation from the international community, and the main factor of its political regime’s internal consolidation. Needless to say, these relations were not founded on the principles of true economic cooperation between equal partners, but rather took the form of unilateral aid to Yugoslavia, almost exclusively motivated by Western military and political interests. The aid offered to Yugoslavia, however, was also used to direct Yugoslavia toward Western principles of economy, which would serve as a basis for subsequent credit relations between the two sides and for the introduction of more realistic economic programs in Yugoslavia. Albania in the Cominform Campaign against Yugoslavia 1948-1950 (Djordje Borozan)
The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online 16/2003 24 The contribution, based on information obtained from archival sources and relevant literature, deals with the exceptionally strong Albanian propaganda employed in supporting the accusations against the Yugoslav leaders contained in the Cominform Resolution of 28 June 1948. Albania’s radical break of political, economic, and military ties with Yugoslavia confirmed Yugoslav misgivings regarding Enver Hoxha’s regime. Hoxha’s swift to affiliation with the Soviet Union and the countries of the Eastern bloc showed him to be an unreliable economic and political ally, and revealed his underlying hopes of using the new alliance to achieve the forcible annexation of Kosovo and Metohia to Albania. The failure of the Cominform campaign against Yugoslavia marked the beginning of Albania’s definite alienation from Yugoslavia. The Balkan Federation and the Comintern (Slavoljub Cvetkovi_) The author considers this subject from the point of view of the mutual collaboration of liberation movements in the Balkans in the course of the Second World War, and the attempts at forming a Balkan Communist Federation based on new principles. The question of the Balkan Federation is also viewed from the perspective of Soviet and Western allies’ solutions to the problem of the Balkans. The idea of the Balkan Federation, conceived by Tito and Dimitrov and effectuated in the period 1946-1948, embodied the old communist concepts of internationalism. These ideas challenged the Soviet policy of expansionism, which in the Balkans was reflected in the beginning of the Greek civil war in March 1946, and the attempts at constituting a Macedonian socialist republic as part of the Soviet Union. If the ideological and political implications of the Truman Doctrine were set aside, the situation in the Balkans should be viewed in terms of this policy of 1946, in which case the conflict between the USSR and Yugoslavia in 1948 can be seen as the Balkan manifestation of opposing Soviet and Western global interests. The Cominform and Yugoslav−Bulgarian Relations 1945-1953 (Novica Veljanovski) Relations between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria represented a constant and important factor in the comprehensive relations of Balkan countries, which became particularly evident at the time of Yugoslavia’s conflict with the Cominform. During the period 1945 to 1947 the relations between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria went through several phases. Josip Broz made use of the opportunity presented by Bulgaria’s isolation from the international community to form relations with this country, and to build his own authority as statesman and military commander. A military alliance between the two countries was established at a meeting in Pehchev on 23 September 1944, in addition to which the Yugoslav side requested Bulgaria’s definitive attitude regarding the decisions of the ASNOM (Antifascist League of National Liberation of Macedonia) and the proclamation of the Macedonian republic. The conclusions reached at Pehchev included the demobilization of Macedonians from the Bulgarian army, whose implementation required a second meeting between Josip Broz and the Bulgarian delegation in Kraiowa. The latter meeting marked the beginning of closer relations between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria still marred, however, by the Macedonian question, as it became evident at the Paris Peace Conference
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