The Search for a Cold War Legitimacy

Balkan Studies Library

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Radmila Gorup (Columbia University)
Robert M. Hayden (University of Pittsburgh)
Robert Hodel (Hamburg University)
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Maria Todorova (University of Illinois)
Christian Voss (Humboldt University, Berlin)
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VOLUME 22

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The Search for a Cold War
Legitimacy
Foreign Policy and Tito’s Yugoslavia

By

Robert Niebuhr

LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: Josip Broz Tito (right) with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (left) and Indian Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, pictured during an international conference in 1956. Copyright ANP/AFP.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Niebuhr, Robert, author.

Title: The search for a Cold War legitimacy : foreign policy and Tito’s
 Yugoslavia / by Robert Niebuhr.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2018. | Series: Balkan studies library,
 ISSN 1877-6272 ; 22 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017053516 (print) | LCCN 2017058905 (ebook) | ISBN
 9789004358997 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004358874 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN
 9789004358997 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Yugoslavia—Foreign relations—1945–1980. | Tito, Josip Broz,
 1892–1980—Influence.
Classification: LCC DR1310 (ebook) | LCC DR1310 .N54 2018 (print) | DDC
 327.497009/045—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017053516

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issn 1877-6272
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isbn 978-90-04-35899-7 (e-book)

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Contents

Acknowledgments vii
List of Illustrations ix
List of Abbreviations x
Note on Translations and Terms xi
Sources xiv
Illustrations xvi

Introduction 1

1 Tito’s Early Expansion: A Strongman of the Balkans 20

2 Yugoslavia’s Ideological Shift: From Strongman to Revisionist 53

3 Nonalignment: Yugoslavia’s Foreign Policy Climax 87

4 The Tito Doctrine 131

5 Tito’s Twilight: A Post Nonalignment European Focus 171

6 Conclusions: Yugoslavia and the Legacy of the Cold War 208

Epilogue: The Triumph of Fear and Loss of Legitimacy 217

Appendix A: List of Key LCY Officials, 1958 225

Appendix B: Ethnicity in the JNA, 1963 226
Bibliography 227
Index 244
Acknowledgments

First, as this manuscript is a revised version of my doctoral dissertation at

Boston College, I would like to thank my supervisor, Larry Wolff. His analy-
sis over the years was most helpful and his encouraging attitude made such
a large project bearable. James Cronin and Timothy Crawford also served
as wonderful advisors and work in their seminars led to presentations and
the publication of journal articles. I should also like to thank the Graduate
Student Association at BC for funding my archival research in Hungary and
Serbia during the summer of 2007. The Fulbright program deserves apprecia-
tion for funding my original research for my Master’s Thesis at Arizona State
University, a work that was inspirational for this project. As a Fulbrighter in
Croatia, I not only gained tremendous insight into life in former Yugoslavia,
but also made lasting friendships. Mike Chapman at Boston College also was
a great colleague whose dedication, academic rigor, and friendship made this
work possible. I should like to mention some of the people over the years who
have worked with me and mentored this and other projects, including, but
surely not limited to: Stephen Batalden, who generously helped me to recraft
my introduction, Danko Šipka and the late Dr. Thomas Butler who taught me
a great deal about culture and language of former Yugoslavia, and, of course,
my wife, Ligia Gómez-Franco, who listened to my ideas and spent a summer
with me in Belgrade in the archives. Additionally, a warm thanks to some col-
leagues at Arizona State University—including Laurie Stoff, Brooks Simpson,
and Eric Oberle—who helped me to refocus my ideas into the present work.
A great many thanks goes to the folks at Brill, including Ivo Romein, series
editor Zoran Milutinović, and the reviewers. Some pieces of this work ap-
peared as conference papers at annual meetings of the Association for Slavic,
East European, & Eurasian Studies, the Western Social Science Association,
and regional meetings such as the New England Historical Association; addi-
tionally, aspects of this monograph appeared in various forms in journal ar-
ticles, including the Journal of Cold War Studies, European History Quarterly,
Connections: Annual European History Review, and Hindsight; a big thanks to
the editors for permission to reprint those pieces as part of this larger man-
uscript.1 At each of those earlier junctures—as conference papers, graduate

1  Bibliographical information on these stand-alone, revised versions of pieces of this mono-

graph, from most recent to oldest is: “Enlarging Yugoslavia: Tito’s Quest for Expansion, 1945–
48,” European History Quarterly 47:2 (April 2017), pp. 284–310; “Nonalignment: Yugoslavia’s
Answer to Bloc Politics,” Journal of Cold War Studies 13:1 (Winter 2011), pp. 146–69; “A Struggle
viii Acknowledgments

colloquia, informal writing-group sessions, and journal articles—scholars and

colleagues gave feedback and pushed my thinking forward. Despite all of the
good advice throughout my academic career, no one but me is responsible for
the flaws of my work.

for the Hearts and Minds: Ideology and Yugoslavia’s Third Way to Paradise,” Connections:
Annual European History Review, 4 (2008), pp. 18–30; “The Dynamics of Constitutionalism
and Legality in Titoist Yugoslavia,” Hindsight, 1:1 (Spring 2007), pp. 69–93.
List of Illustrations

Map

1 Political map of Yugoslavia during the Cold War. Courtesy of the

University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin xvi

Figures

1 Visit to Belgrade by Ghana’s President Kwame Nkrumah for Belgrade

Conference, 1961. © Historical Archives of Belgrade / Wikimedia
Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 / GFDL / No changes made xvii
2 Josip Broz Tito with Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Koča Popović at Brioni,
1959. © Historical Archives of Belgrade / Wikimedia Commons /
CC-BY-SA-3.0 / GFDL / No changes made xvii
3 Josip Broz Tito with Nikita Khrushchev, Koper, Slovenia, 1963. Courtesy
of Danilo Škofič / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain xviii
4 Josip Broz Tito with German Chancellor Willy Brandt, Röttgen
Castle, Cologne, West Germany, 1970. Courtesy of Bundesarchiv, B 145
Bild-F032669-0029 / Wegmann, Ludwig / CC-BY-SA 3.0 xviii
5 Tito’s visit to Velenje, Slovenia, 1969. Courtesy of Volbenk Pajk /
Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain xix
List of Abbreviations

LCY* League of Communists of Yugoslavia

JNA/YPA Yugoslav People’s Army
TDF Territorial Defense Forces
UDB-a Uprava državne bezbednosti (Office of State Security)
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
EU European Union
EEC European Economic Community
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
COMINFORM Communist Information Bureau
COMINTERN Communist International
CSCE Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe

* In 1952, the official name of Yugoslavia’s Communist Party (then, the Communist Party of
Yugoslavia, CPY) changed to the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY). Unless other-
wise specified, any mention of a communist party in Yugoslavia refers to the post-1952 LCY.
Note on Translations and Terms

In his recent translation of Dante’s renowned classic, Inferno, John Ciardi has
noted that language is like a musical instrument; as such, each language enjoys
its own specific logic. Ciardi stated that to unveil the rich language of Dante for
English readers he rejected the notion of word-for-word translation. Instead,
“transposition” replaced the conception of directly correlating words exactly
from the original language.1 I agree wholeheartedly with this concept of bring-
ing alive the original text as part of a broader understanding in order to cap-
ture better the spirit of the speaker’s language and I have translated text into
English for use in this work with Ciardi’s technique in mind. Therefore, to make
the text more readable in English, some readers might find fault with how the
text is presented in comparison to the original but I maintain that the spirit
and meaning remain true.
I was fortunate to have learned Serbo–Croatian—or, today, Bosnian,
Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin—from native speakers in the United
States and in former Yugoslavia; but, in addition, I have been able to share my
skills with other language learners. In 2009, I published with coauthor Aida
Vidan two beginner-level books on Croatian and Serbian for English speakers.2
Thanks to insightful commentary by linguists including Wayles Browne at
Cornell University and Danko Šipka at Arizona State University, these books
represent thorough and user-friendly guides to developing reliable competen-
cy in either Croatian or Serbian. Moreover, I am thankful to Patricia Chaput—
language director of the Slavic Department at Harvard—for having invited me
to teach Bosnian–Croatian–Serbian (BCS) for a semester in 2007 at the intro-
ductory and intermediate levels. My students gave great feedback on the lan-
guage books (then in draft form) and helped me to develop further my own
language and teaching skills. I am indebted to all of them.
A language as complex as BCS defies easy translation into English if, for no
other reason, than the absolute density of Slavic sentence structure. What I
have done throughout this book was to focus on transposing as Ciardi had with
Dante, rather than having created blocky and awkward English from otherwise
sophisticated BCS. Moreover, despite certain criticism, my style relies on a
rich-text method that emphasizes the words of the speakers of the time, but I
have attempted at all times to maintain a distance between my argument and

1  Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, trans. John Ciardi, (New York: Signet Classics, 2003), ix.
2  Aida Vidan and Robert Niebuhr, Beginner’s Serbian: With 2 Audio CDs, (New York: Hippocrene
Press, 2009). Also, Beginner’s Croatian: With 2 Audio CDs.
xii Note on Translations and Terms

the evidence that I am presenting. The only archival materials not presented in
the original language appeared in certain boxes at the Open Society Archives
in Budapest; there, some papers were in original form, while professionals at
institutions such as Radio Free Europe directly recorded or translated other
resources into English. Additionally, some New York Times articles presented
names with Americanized spellings. In both cases, I have kept the spellings
as presented, without an addition of diacritical marks to names of people or
places but tried to include a BCS version in the notes. Otherwise, throughout
the text, the English equivalency—from BCS, German, or Slovenian—is solely
my responsibility. Last, I have provided the original language in the footnote if
I deemed that a fuller examination might prove useful for the reader.
I have tried at every point in this monograph to be as precise and deliber-
ate as possible; to that end, I have attempted to follow stylistic conventions as
much as possible, but, as sources sometimes paint only a partial picture, an
occasional actor lacks a complete name or an appropriate political title. I have
chosen not to use quotation marks for cynicism nor for emphasis expect when
appropriate formatting helps point the reader more directly to my argument.
For references, I have tried to follow what the respective archivists have sug-
gested, but I have elected to describe fully the documents in the notes so that
they can be readily found; as a result, despite a standardized system of abbre-
viation and citation, some references are a tad lengthy.
Finally, debate exits over how to express certain terms; for instance,
the terms “Non-aligned Movement,” “Non-Aligned Movement,” or simply
“N[n]onalignment.” I will employ “Non-aligned Movement” when I am refer-
ring to the proper noun and its policies, and I will use “nonalignment” when
I am discussing the broader concept of Cold War neutrality or when I use
the term as a collective. To clarify here, Tito’s worldview is best described as
Marxist-Leninist but for simplicity the manuscript at times will refer to it as
Marxism. This is not deliberate as part of an intention to say that Tito dropped
his Leninist credentials but rather it is meant to simplify the prose. Despite
the suggestion in a recent Chicago Manual of Style, I also capitalize the Cold
War. This is also on purpose, since I think that the capitalization differentiates
this grand American–Soviet standoff from other cold wars. Since much of my
evidence come from archival work that includes transcripts of party meetings,
I use terms like “party managers” or “politicians” and “comrades” to encom-
pass a range of people. At each juncture, though, these are folks who were in
various positions of power at the time when the documents were recorded.
Debates raged within the party for most of its history and when necessary such
information comes through in the narrative outlined in this history. For names,
Note on Translations and Terms xiii

I have tried to remain true to the original language, when possible. As a result,
I have chosen Đilas instead of Djilas, for example. If these and other names
appeared differently in quoted material, I left the spellings as they were. It was
my intention throughout this monograph to deliver the most accurate material
without leaving the reader confused as to conventions or style.
Sources

One of the challenges in writing history lies in the ability to present material
without assigning contemporary values or ideology to historical actors. When
the Cold War ended by the beginning of the 1990s, the Communist ideology as
refined and espoused by Vladimir Lenin had largely eroded as a viable world-
view across the globe, especially as a post-Maoist China embarked on serious
economic reforms that deemphasized central economic planning. We cannot
assume, though, that Marxists during the period under consideration were cyn-
ics or that their policies would not have persisted for many more years to come.
In this regard, I agree with James Cronin, who writes that “taking ideology and
the contest of social systems seriously therefore means recognizing differences
and choice without acceding to the definitions proffered by partisans.”1 As a
result, because political leaders in Yugoslav had no idea that their state would
collapse in 1991, I think that we do them a disservice by examining everything
through the lens of destruction, ethnic hatreds, personality cults, and the like.
Because this monograph focuses on the people within the Yugoslav re-
gime, it relies primarily on archival sources that illuminate what party mem-
bers said—both to each other and to the public. The Open Society Archive
in Budapest has compiled a wealth of sources from the Cold War, which gov-
ernments published, collected, and used in an effort to understand what lay
on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Radio Free Europe played a critical role
during this time in bringing together data from Eastern Europe and using it
in research reports and government communications. Included also in the
Open Society Archive are transcripts from news reports on radio, television,
and original newspaper and journal clippings. Such sources have helped me
understand how some regular Yugoslavs interacted with the policies of the
regime (if only passively), alongside what types of things the government en-
couraged for general consumption. Not all newspapers carried patriotic stories
about how great the Yugoslav People’s Army was or how ready the Yugoslavs
were to defend their country against outside aggression; some articles instead
spoke about the concerns the government had with respect to its ability to

1  James Cronin, The World the Cold War Made: Order, Chaos, and the Return of History,
(Routledge, 1994), p. 7. This notion of treating the ideology at the time as a serious item has
regained attention among scholars. Most recently Stephen Kotkin’s new multi-volume biog-
raphy on Stalin takes this approach. Kotkin articulated this stance at a talk at Arizona State
University entitled “Stalin: Ideas, Power, Geopolitics,” 6 February 2015.
Sources xv

rule. What is included and excluded lends tremendous insight about how lead-
ers saw public participation as a force of strength and change.
Certain specific pieces of my argument rely on how foreign politicians—
chiefly in the United States and the Soviet Union—reacted to Yugoslavs during
the Cold War. For the American perspective, I have been fortunate to discover
that the U.S. government has declassified a wealth of documents and made
them available in a mostly uncensored format. Regarding insights into the
Soviet perspective, and indeed, directly from the Yugoslav perspective, I have
relied on my major research endeavor for this project, which took place at the
Archive of Yugoslavia, during summer 2007. I was able to collect a prodigious
amount of materials there and owe a great debt to the archivists who helped
me to acquire key documents from the Yugoslav Communist Party, such as
minutes from central committee meetings and other important committees,
including propaganda, constitutional reform, and foreign policy. Having pho-
tographed and read thousands of individual pages from this, the former Federal
Archive of Yugoslavia, I have been able to get a sense of official ideology directly
from Yugoslav Communist Party members because of the closed-door nature
of these gatherings. Admittedly, while some of the meetings would have been
published for public consumption in venues such as Borba or Politika, we can
assume that the stenographic recordings of closed-door proceedings represent
important insights into the reality at the top and represent an uncensored view
into high-level deliberations.
Western researchers have only recently begun to view these Communist
Party documents in breadth; some of this information gives us additional
perspectives that can help to expand our understanding of broader Cold War
historiography, by both confirming and challenging other scholarship on is-
sues described in this manuscript. Since the governments of Russia and the
Commonwealth of Independent States have made research by foreign schol-
ars exceedingly difficult in virtually all of the former Soviet archives, assump-
tions and arguments about the Cold War must once again work around an
increasingly diminishing stock of hard evidence. My research at the archive
in Belgrade, though, has revealed a small treasure in not only Yugoslav–Soviet
relations from both perspectives, but also lent significant insight into distinctly
Yugoslav topics.
Finally, with the addition of newspaper accounts of the events—major
Yugoslav papers such as Borba, Komunist, Vjesnik, NIN, and Mladost, as well as
important Western periodicals such as the New York Times—I will try to bring
to the forefront of this work the many Yugoslav voices of the time to better
understand how the Cold War presented challenges for leaders to construct a
successful society and forge a unique ideology.
Illustrations

MAP 1 Political map of Yugoslavia during the Cold War.

Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University
of Texas at Austin.
Illustrations xvii

figure 1 Visit to Belgrade by Ghana’s President Kwame Nkrumah

for Belgrade Conference, 1961.
© Historical Archives of Belgrade /
Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 / GFDL /
No changes made.

figure 2 Josip Broz Tito with Ernesto “Che” Guevara and

Koča Popović at Brioni, 1959.
© Historical Archives of Belgrade /
Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 /
GFDL / No changes made.
xviii Illustrations

figure 3 Josip Broz Tito with Nikita Khrushchev, Koper, Slovenia, 1963.
Courtesy of Danilo Škofič / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain.

figure 4 Josip Broz Tito with German Chancellor Willy Brandt,

Röttgen Castle, Cologne, West Germany, 1970.
Courtesy of Bundesarchiv, B 145
Bild-F032669-0029 / Wegmann, Ludwig /
CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Illustrations xix

figure 5 Tito’s visit to Velenje, Slovenia, 1969.

Courtesy of Volbenk Pajk / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain.
Introduction

In the first place, Churchill fears; Churchill, the old wolf. And Eisenhower
fears because he still understands. Yes, they are afraid.1
Nikita Khrushchev to Josip Broz Tito, 1955

∵
Titoist Yugoslavia—the multiethnic state rising out of the chaos of World
War II—is a particularly interesting setting to examine the integrity of the
modern nation-state and, more specifically, the viability of a distinctly multi-
ethnic nation-building project. Much scholarly literature has been devoted to
the brutal civil wars that destroyed Yugoslavia during the 1990s with emphases
on divisive nationalism and dysfunctional politics. One of the more contro-
versial books that emerged during the wars of dissolution, Robert D. Kaplan’s
Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History, argued how Yugoslavia was a coun-
try rooted in ethnic tensions and violence.2 Indeed, primordial hatreds be-
tween the peoples of Yugoslavia seemed such a compelling thesis that popular
news stories argued as much years before Tito’s death. Anatole Shub of the
New York Times wrote in 1972 that the region of Yugoslavia “was undermined
by the conflicts among the various ‘nations’” and that the “even more bitter
nationalist conflict” between Serbs and Croats had “swept away the interwar
Yugoslav monarchy,” and instigated the “fratricidal chaos of World War II.”3

1  “Materijali o poseti delegacije Vlade CCCP Jugoslaviji, 27. maja do 2. juna 1955. godine,” Arhiv
Jugoslavije [formerly Arhiv Srbije i Crne Gore] [AJ] Savez Komunista Jugoslavije [CKJ] IX K.2
I-56, p. 43.
2  One of the more controversial books emerged early during the wars of dissolution was Robert
D. Kaplan’s Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History, (New York: Vintage Books, 1994). This
was representative of certain language though both before and after the wars of secession
that argued how Yugoslavia was a country rooted in ethnic tensions and violence.
3  For examples of these representations see Anatole Shub, “After Tito—Who Can Keep Together
the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Bosnian Moslems, Albanians, Hungarians, and
Montenegrins?” New York Times, 6 January 1972, p. SM38. “The empire [Habsburg, to which
both Croatia and parts of Serbia fell under] was undermined by the conflicts among the
various ‘nations’ … Even more bitter nationalist conflict—especially between the Croats and
Serbs—swept away the interwar Yugoslav monarchy, too, in the fratricidal chaos of World
War II.”

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004358997_002

2 Introduction

Richard Burt, also of the New York Times, restated much the same in 1977 when
he wrote that “predictably, few of these groups [Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes]
have a history of happy co-existence.”4 Scholarship in the early 1990s found
it difficult to look past ethnic hatreds. Raymond Duncan and G. Paul Holman
argued in Ethnic Nationalism and Regional Conflict that the wars of the 1990s
resulted from a “combination of economic and political forces [that] intensi-
fied ancient ethnic antagonism.”5 Such a position on the breakup of Yugoslavia
understands that inflation, unemployment, and an increasingly inward-
looking and dysfunctional political system were not enough to cause dis-
tress in Yugoslavia; instead, those aspects only intensified the ancient hatreds
between peoples, who were searching for an excuse to kill.6
In contrast to this line of reasoning, Robert Hayden noted that “it is tempt-
ing to see the breakdown of federal Yugoslavia as the inevitable result of those
national tensions, once the overarching structure of the one-party state, which
had served to bind them together, was removed.” Yet Hayden added that to
“stress only those nationalisms is to distort the reality of political, social, and
economic life in Yugoslavia in the critical years of 1989–91.”7 That still leaves
the larger question unanswered—was it Tito’s charisma, ideological reform of
Tito’s Marxist-Leninist system, or the state’s approach to quelling nationalism
that kept it successful for so long?8
Richard Betts and Samuel P. Huntington theorized that “countries ruled for
extended periods of time by authoritarian leaders degenerate into chaos when
those rulers die and their special personal status no longer holds the lid on their
countries’ tensions.” Regarding Yugoslavia in particular, Betts and Huntington
noted the “severe unrest in the province of Kosovo” but the contention that a

4  Richard Burt, “Tito is Taken Seriously, and His Succession Even More So,” New York Times,
16 October 1977, p. 172. He added that “The best known and most volatile situation exists in
Croatia, where as recently as 1971 local citizens rioted in protest against ‘Serbian rule.’”
5  Raymond Duncan, and G. Paul Holman, Ethnic Nationalism and Regional Conflict, (Oxford:
Westview Press, 1994), p. 28.
6  This line of reasoning runs parallel to the controversial work by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen,
Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, (New York: Vintage Books,
1997).
7  Robert Hayden, Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav
Conflicts, (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999), p. 27.
8  Regarding the idea of charisma, Jean C. Robinson suggested that a framework for analyzing
the succession of leaders in Communist China rested on the notion of “charismatic authority
and the efforts of successor regimes to retain charisma as a source of legitimacy.” See Jean C.
Robinson, “Mao and Death: Charisma and Political Legitimacy,” Asian Survey 28:3 (1988),
p. 353.
Introduction 3

strong Tito kept Yugoslavia together gives Tito too much credibility—he was
critically important but he and his party had built a system that had weathered
severe unrest before and could do it again.9 Simply put, Tito’s state had grown
into a powerful institution since the late 1940s and while Tito was an over-
whelmingly dominant character he had built the party into an organization
that reached deep into society.10 Similarly, Nicholas Riasanovsky could declare
that Nicholas I of Russia “dominated his collaborators,” and in fact, “domi-
nated Russia.” It was his “imperial will” that “drove the government and the
country” down the path of “orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality.”11 Tito con-
structed a party-state that developed sophisticated machinery bent on reform
in Yugoslavia alongside the propagation of a complementary foreign policy.
Indeed, Tito’s image was so powerful that few Yugoslavs would have imagined
a country where his spirit would have remained absent. After all, the notion set
forth during the end of the 1970s was “After Tito—Tito.”12
The starting point of this book is the assumption that the destruction of
Yugoslavia at the end of the Cold War was not inevitable. In an attempt to un-
derstand better what united the stable, multiethnic, and successful Yugoslavia
that existed before 1991, this book illuminates the pervasive issue of legitimacy
within this larger history.13 Specifically, this study takes the opportunity to move
beyond works that focus simply on military reform, legal reform, nationalism,

9  See Richard Betts and Samuel P. Huntington, “Dead Dictators and Rioting Mobs: Does the
Demise of Authoritarian Rulers Lead to Political Instability?” International Security, 10:3
(Winter 1985–86), p. 112.
10  This book takes for granted an idea presented by Vaclav Havel, which is that “Western
Sovietologists often exaggerate the role of individuals in the post-totalitarian system and
overlook the fact that the ruling figures, despite the immense power they possess through
the centralized structure of power, are often no more than blind executors of the sys-
tem’s own internal laws—laws they themselves never can, and never do, reflect upon.
See Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern
Europe, ed. John Keane, (London: Hutchinson, 1985), p. 34.
11  Nicholas Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationalist in Russia, 1825–1855, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1961), p. 51.
12  This slogan emerged at the time of Tito’s death to symbolize that the country would
not veer from his directives. For more, see Rajko Muršič, “The Yugoslav Dark Side of
Humanity: A View from a Slovene Blind Spot,” in Neighbors at War: Anthropological
Perspectives on Yugoslav Ethnicity, eds. Joel Halpern and David A. Kideckel, (University
Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), pp. 56–81. Havel also wrote about
how ideology was the bonding agent that would enable easy succession from one leader
to another. See, Havel, The Power of the Powerless, p. 29.
13  For some inspiration on how I employ legitimacy this work benefits from Sabina P. Ramet,
Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918–2005, (Bloomington, IN: Woodrow
Wilson Center Press, 2006).
4 Introduction

or ideology and instead highlights the important role of the Communist Party’s
stewardship of the state. In short, this book argues that the Titoist state and
the Yugoslav Communist Party effectively used foreign policy alongside a re-
visionist Marxist ideology as critically important tools to construct and main-
tain legitimacy. These instruments served to offset powerful centrifugal forces
of constituent nationalist movements and worked successfully to surmount
all separatist challenges—intellectual, economic, and political—until the
final days of the Cold War. Finally, the larger global framework that the Cold
War standoff created was itself a prominent factor that gave legitimacy in the
fields of foreign policy, the ideology of Titoism, and the concept of a unified
Yugoslav state.
Vaclav Havel’s famous 1978 essay, The Power of the Powerless, focused on the
role of dissent and in so doing honed in on some of the greatest challenges that
the Cold War superpowers faced—including the nature of ideology. Havel’s
use of the greengrocer placing a popular Marxist slogan in his shop’s window
served to set up how important ritual had become for the maintenance of
the system within the Soviet bloc. He contrasted the early years during the
dramatic construction of the totalitarian party-states in the Soviet Union and
across Eastern Europe with what he termed the “post-totalitarian dictatorship.”14
This post-totalitarian system benefitted from an “incomparably more precise,
logically structured, generally comprehensible and, in essence, extremely flex-
ible ideology,” that resembled a “secularized religion.”15 This description fit the
Titoist state as well, not least because Yugoslav leaders recognized the need for
the state apparatus to shift from the use of compelling force to one ruled by a
legitimate ideology.
Ideology, as Havel saw it, offered people “the illusion of an identity, of dig-
nity, and of morality,” which enabled people to “deceive their conscience and
conceal their true position.” Ideology is on the one hand, “pragmatic” while on
the other it exists as a way of “legitimizing what is above, below, and on either
side.”16 Such a formulation of the power of ideology—particular to states in the
Soviet bloc or inspired by the Soviet revolution—helps to understand how a
state like Yugoslavia stayed together for so long and was so successful. Ideology
in Yugoslavia—under the guise of socialist self-management—manifested it-
self in virtually every aspect of life, including in classically hierarchical insti-
tutions like the armed forces. The reformist platform that Tito directed after
1948 fused together the historical legacy of scientific Marxism with the shared

14  Havel, Power of the Powerless, p. 27.

15  Havel, Power of the Powerless, p. 25.
16  Havel, Power of the Powerless, p. 29.
Introduction 5

experience of the national liberation struggle under Tito’s custodianship. For

Titoist Yugoslavia, the party leaders adapted a Soviet ideology to their own situ-
ation and continued to tinker with fitting it to the changes in the Yugoslav case.
This was evident in the seemingly unceasing refashioning of constitutions to
best reflect in legal terms the mission of the state. But, where Tito took his inter-
nal reform a step further was by integrating his reformist ideology with foreign
affairs. Thus, he was able to take the domestic legality and norms and put it on
a global platform, where Tito’s ambassadors and foreign ministers could make
his creation an important piece of the Cold War world, which supported Tito’s
assertion that his was the legitimate regime.
Legitimacy is quite compelling, especially combined with the highly ideo-
logical nature of politics in the twentieth century. Max Weber’s early socio-
logical definition focused on validity of power within a “legitimate order.” He
premised much of his idea of legitimacy on the monopoly of deadly physical
force by the government and the manner that people obey or disobey. Karl
Marx remarked, in the spirit of this definition, “This man for instance believed
that he is obeyed because he is king. In fact, he is only king because and as
long as he is obeyed.”17 Similarly, Seymour M. Lipset defined legitimacy as the
“capacity of the system to create and maintain the belief that existing politi-
cal institutions and procedures are the most appropriate ones for society.”18 In
brief, a legitimate government then is the one best suited for the people under
its sway and Tito, like so many postwar leaders, faced the enormous task of
convincing others that he was the man for the job. This is relevant because as
Craig Matheson has argued, “power-holders have an interest in securing obedi-
ence motivated by a belief in legitimacy,” because it is much “less ‘costly’” to
rely on legitimate authority than one that is coercive.19
Each chapter attempts to focus the regime’s movements—in the domestic
and international spheres—as building upon Tito’s construction of a success-
ful state over time. An early Yugoslav scholar, Dennison Rusinow, wrote that
for Tito’s experiment to work, party managers needed to secure four sources
of legitimacy: power; international recognition and legal continuity; Partisan
wartime legacy of brotherhood and unity; and last, what Rusinow termed
as “relevant only for Marxists”—namely, the legitimacy of their ideology

17  See Richard Lowenthal, “Political Legitimacy and Cultural Change in West and East,”
Social Research 46:3 (1979), p. 402.
18  Seymore M. Lipset as cited in William P. Avery, “Political Legitimacy and Crisis in Poland,”
Political Science Quarterly 103:1 (1988), p. 111.
19  See Craig Matheson, “Weber and the Classification of Forms of Legitimacy,” The British
Journal of Sociology 38:2 (1987), p. 200.
6 Introduction

reinforced by the reach for popularity in the “promise of rapid economic de-
velopment,” and the high standard of living that accompanies it.20 These four
markers will appear to some extent later as part of this work’s effort to explain
why Tito and the Communist Party made the decisions that they did.
Longtime Yugoslav specialist Sabrina P. Ramet has also done much to fur-
ther the notion of legitimacy in Yugoslav politics and recognized it as para-
mount in understanding the modern history of that state. Much of her insight
has proven inspiring for this work; indeed, in order to clarify just how perva-
sive the issue of legitimacy was, my argument will draw from two aspects of
Ramet’s analysis. First, I want to emphasize her point on how system legitima-
cy works in politics to incorporate “political, economic, and moral factors,” that
when infected with illegitimacy in any one of those spheres, can ultimately
erode any authority in the others.21 This is perhaps most apparent in the back
and forth between domestic reforms and foreign policy victories or setbacks.
Second, regarding the ever-important concept of change in politics, Ramet has
concluded, “crisis is associated with vulnerability to and openness to whole-
sale change.”22 For Ramet, a “permanent crisis” plagued party managers who
failed “to resolve the dual challenges of state-building and legitimation.”23
Elaborated further, Ramet recognized that this effectively meant that a change
equaled a legitimacy crisis for Tito. As it developed over time, though, Tito’s
Marxist-Leninist system premised its existence on flexibility and change; pre-
cisely by rejecting rigid dogma, Tito’s system foreshadowed that change was a
normative feature of his state and would allow for corrective measures through
victories like that of forging the Non-aligned Movement in 1961. Tito had the
power to drum up interest in foreign relations as a way to deflect vulnerability
or manage a crisis precisely because of the tense and, at times, dynamic Cold
War standoff.
Vaclav Havel understood precisely how the Cold War rivalry produced an
“unprecedented degree of external stability,” at least in Europe, and allowed
the “many local crises” to be “resolved through direct intervention by the armed
forces of the rest of the bloc.”24 Legitimacy as a concept presented special prob-
lems during the Cold War precisely because of the overwhelming power of

20  See Dennison Rusinow, The Yugoslav Experiment: 1948–1974, (London: C. Hurst &
Company, 1977), p. 13.
21  Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, p. 30.
22  Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, p. 32. Ramet also quoted Lipset, “A crisis of legitimacy is a
crisis of change.”
23  Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias, p. 13.
24  Havel, Power of the Powerless, p. 24.
Introduction 7

force. This was a time when widespread uncertainty worried political leaders
across the globe. Paul Kennedy defined the Cold War as the “bipolar world”
whereby the United States and the Soviet Union were irresistible superpowers
because the rest of the world was “either exhausted by the war or still in a stage
of colonial ‘underdevelopment.’ ”25 Kennedy also recognized that the Cold War
was marked by a “heightened role of ideology.”26 Within this intense rivalry
between Moscow and Washington—East and West—was a genuine effort on
the part of the Yugoslavs to reconcile the fragile external political environment
with the need for Tito’s state to play an important role in foreign politics.
Soon after World War II, Tito employed a harassing foreign policy that
marked some of the earliest rivalries between East and West, which Leonid
Gibianskii has argued brought about a deep appreciation in Moscow for the
“domestic and foreign policy of the Yugoslav Communist regime.”27 When his
brinkmanship policies were impossible after the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, Tito
stood down and focused on ideological reform as the basis for his rule. He soon
found a complementary avenue for this ideological restructuring when he
latched onto what leaders throughout the Third World were up to on the eve
of decolonization. Indeed, Tito’s role in the Non-aligned Movement showed
that a mature foreign policy had developed, one that brought Tito internation-
al prestige and the bragging rights that came with it. Tito’s crafting of foreign
policy intersected with domestic reforms and stood as a testament to the so-
lidification of his regime against domestic opponents or criticisms. This helps
us to understand Yugoslavia’s survival as tied up with an active foreign policy
precisely because as Tvrtko Jakovina has recently argued, “foreign policy could
create a foothold for solving internal political problems.”28 The larger frame-
work of the Cold War and its insistence on ideology in fact determined that
foreign and domestic policy would be highly interconnected.
After 1945, the Soviet leadership had to reallocate resources from the do-
mestic economy to the military and maintain a foreign policy that would help
ensure security.29 Part of that happened with a series of purges that included

25  Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict
from 1500 to 2000, (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), p. 357.
26  Kennedy, Rise and Fall, p. 371.
27  Leonid Gibianskii, “The Soviet-Yugoslav Split and the Cominform,” in The Establishment
of the Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe, 1944–49, eds. Norman Naimark and Leonid
Gibianskii, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), p. 291.
28  Tvrtko Jakovina, Treća strana Hladnog rata, (Zagreb: Fraktura, 2011), p. 650.
29  See Kennedy, Rise and Fall, p. 363. Kennedy declared that “Stalin was clearly intent upon
maintaining a high level of military security in the postwar world.”
8 Introduction

“national deviationists” in Eastern Europe where regimes were forced to adopt

a strict Soviet model and observe hierarchy because that was the best way to
survive conflict with the West. James Cronin argues that this renewed Stalinism
lasted until the death of Stalin in 1953 and would help explain why Tito found
himself cast aside—not only did his brinkmanship endanger the security of
the Eastern bloc but his independence threatened to curtail Moscow’s author-
ity abroad.30 In subsequent chapters, I will employ three basic assumptions
about state-building specific to the Cold War to clarify my argument: the sig-
nificant role that external pressures played in eliciting notions of unity and co-
hesion; the intersections of ideological reform and foreign policy in the quest
for popularity and stability; and, the dynamic nature of what it meant for party
leaders to establish and secure a strong state.
One of the most interesting aspects of Tito’s foreign policy is how he
became the center of a budding movement that began in Asia and focused
political debates on overcoming the legacy of colonialism. In the summer of
1945, though, one could hardly imagine that any Yugoslavs would be a part of a
movement rooted in the Third World; instead, Tito’s domestic and foreign pol-
icy aimed for the solidification and vindication of his tenure as head of state
and party. Historiography on Bleiburg, for instance, has analyzed how Tito’s
use of repression and violence served an important tool in his state-building
program but while Bleiburg might have been a more concentrated act by the
regime to ensure the nullification of political enemies, Tito’s Partisans eagerly
sought all sorts of domestic competitors for power, estimated by the Yugoslav
People’s Army to be in the range of 300,000 people.31 Furthermore, as Tito

30  James Cronin, The World the Cold War Made: Order, Chaos, and the Return of History, (New
York: Routledge, 1996), p. 5.
31  See, Đorđo Novosel et al., Savezni sekretarijat za narodnu odbranu I, vol. 7.1, Razvoj
oružanih snaga SFRJ, 1945–1985, (Beograd: Vojnoizdavačka i novinski centar, 1990), p. 27.
 Broader historiography on Bleiburg, for instance, takes on how Tito’s use of repres-
sion and violence served an important tool in his state-building program. In addition,
other works look at Bleiburg in terms of more recent Croatian national identity construc-
tion. Kolsto makes three points to explain this: the Titoist regime suppressed information
about Bleiburg; survivors and sympathizers abroad kept a memory of Titoist oppres-
sion alive unchecked by historical discussion; and Tito’s state-building program created
its own myths about the war that exaggerated the death toll. See Pal Kolsto, “Bleiburg:
The Creation of a National Martyrology,” Europe-Asia Studies 62:7, p. 1154. Another re-
cent work includes Josip Jurčević, Bleiburg: Jugoslavenski poratni zločini nad Hrvatima,
(Zagreb: Dokumentijsko informatijsko središte, 2005). For a good review of the larger
Bleiburg massacre see Martina Grahek-Ravančić, “Controversies about the Croatian
Victims at Bleiburg and in ‘Death Marches,’” Review of Croatian History 2:1 (2006),
Introduction 9

reached beyond the borders of interwar Yugoslavia he engaged with hostility

and used armed force as the primary tool to solidify gains. How was it that Tito
moved away from aggressive policies?
The “original principles of nonalignment” were in fact critical components
of a “Yugoslav ideology” and functioned as a statement or image of what
Belgrade leaders wanted.32 Indeed, when interviewed in Egypt about taking
the principles of Bandung further through the sponsorship of meetings among
international leaders, Tito responded, “In Belgrade? Well then, so be it! It will
be beneficial for our journalists to have something to write about.”33 Whether
Tito would solve the world’s problems was of secondary importance. That he
would take the opportunity to govern without relying on violence was para-
mount, not the least of which included the added bargaining power Tito would
gain with each of the superpowers.34 Nonalignment—when it functioned—
served as a perfect pivot point for Tito’s regime to benefit from not committing
to either the Americans or the Soviets. Scholars only recently have begun to
revisit the important role that the Bandung Conference and the Non-aligned
Movement played for a host of actors during the Cold War but most largely
ignore Yugoslavia’s profound leadership role in the early years.35

pp. 27–46. Finally, the controversial Croat activist Bože Vukušić also published—with
text in English, German, and Croatian—a photographic collection of Bleiburg, entitled
Bleiburg Memento: fotomonografia, (Zagreb: Croatian Calvary Association, 2005).
 In addition to Bleiburg, other instances of Tito’s use of violence included actions
against Slovenes who were not part of the Partisan resistance. See for instance, John
Corsellis and Marcus Ferrar, Slovenia 1945: Memories of Death and Survival after World
War II, (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005), p. 87. Here, the author cites 800 domobranci killed and
the shallow graves or bodies that contaminated the water in Slovenian territory. He also
cites that Milovan Đilas acknowledged the deaths as a barrier to organizing the peasants
under the Communist Party.
32  See Jakovina, Treće strana Hladnog rata, p. 26.
33  As cited in Jakovina, Treće strana Hladnog rata, p. 42.
34  See Jakovina, Treće strana Hladnog rata, p. 44.
35  Some controversy has emerged over the role of Bandung as the “starting point of NAM.”
This work understands that Bandung laid out the principles in a public forum but that
when the Belgrade Conference officially launched the Non-aligned Movement it had taken
those principles and forged the institutional frameworks necessary to make it into a po-
litical force. See, for example: Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl, Sandra Bott, Jussi Hanhimäki
& Marco Wyss, “Non-Alignment, the Third Force, or Fence-Sitting: Independent Pathways
in the Cold War,” The International History Review, 37:5 (2015), p. 903. The article cites
the controversy as remaining recent: R. Vitalis, “The Midnight Ride of Kwame Nkrumah
and Other Fables of Bandung (Bandoong),” Humanity: An International Journal of Human
Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, iv (2013), pp. 261–88. For a good explanation
10 Introduction

Some more recent perspectives on Bandung’s legacy understand its uto-

pian ideals as having faced troubles from the very beginning. The “presumed
unity” of the Third World, with its shared the history of colonialism, was in fact
shaken early on by “broad schisms” according to a newly published article by
Bret Benjamin.36 For instance, the presence at Bandung of China’s Zhou En Lai
heightened Cold War concerns among certain delegates; at least according to
one Philippine newspaper, the Afro-Asian meeting was cast under the power-
ful shadow of China that had the potential to serve as a “point of departure
for the propaganda of the puppet Peiping [sic.] Regime.”37 Similarly, Marxist
literary theorist Aijaz Ahmad has analyzed the Bandung era and argued that
nation-states and the larger international system took priority as the primary
stakeholders. It was, as Ahmad put it, a “developmentalist project” where the
weaker states could collaborate with the more powerful states and thereby
gain more power.38 While economic cooperation became an important com-
ponent of the non-aligned experiment and Yugoslav leaders saw potential in
growing the economy through nonalignment, such an argument ignores the
very real political dilemmas that leaders such as Tito faced from the mid-1950s
until the end of the 1960s.
Ahmad’s claims do point to what Benjamin’s argument emphasized regard-
ing nonalignment; that is, the supposed unity was fragile thanks to “compet-
ing national, regional, and internationalist interests,” of the various adherents
of nonalignment.39 Benjamin correctly notes in this analysis that after se-
curing their nationalist victories, “Bandung’s state managers” had decided to
look “outward” to “mediate their national positions within a capitalist world

of recent work on the relationship between Bandung and NAM see Jeffrey James Byrne,
“Beyond Continents, Colours, and the Cold War: Yugoslavia, Algeria, and the Struggle for
Non-Alignment,” The International History Review, 37:5 (2015), p. 914.
36  Bret Benjamin, “Bookend to Bandung: The New International Economic Order and the
Antimonies of the Bandung Era,” Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights,
Humanitarianism, and Development 6:1 (Spring 2015), p. 35.
37  As cited in Benjamin, “Bookend to Bandung,” p. 35.
38  Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures (London: Verso, 1992), p. 293. Ahmad
was incorrect, though, when he noted that the Yugoslavs were not present at Bandung.
Ahmad argues that Tito was not there and that was correct but Tito sent delegates. He
also mentioned that Israel was not present and this discounts the Israeli presence at the
earlier Rangoon Meetings and thus leaves out important details about the range and sig-
nificance of the actors present at these foundational meetings to Third World coopera-
tion. See pp. 292–296.
39  Benjamin, “Bookend to Bandung,” p. 38.
Introduction 11

system.”40 Yet, Benjamin ignores Yugoslavia’s role in nonalignment, which

faced a myriad of economic and political problems, the answer to which was
to be found in precisely such an international organization. Tito’s state relied
on building domestic legitimacy on the back of a foreign policy that provided
a global leadership role for Yugoslavia.41
This desire for power and place in the world even manifested itself in how
the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade underwent redesign. Vladimir Kulić argues
convincingly that architects and city planners enacted “radical changes” in
New Belgrade that were “loosely tied to the state’s frequent political shifts.”42
In fact, Kulić argues that during the so-called late socialist period (early 1960s),
New Belgrade’s role as the “political heart of the federation” dwindled while at
the same time it emerged as a “locus of Yugoslavia’s ambition to play a leading
role in international relations.” The construction of New Belgrade with wide
avenues, grandiose buildings, spacious parks, and other facilities that could
host important international meetings began when Belgrade became seat of
the Cominform in 1947. But, New Belgrade took on a greater design and signifi-
cance for the Yugoslav capital when it hosted scores of foreign dignitaries and
later international meetings and events that included the 1977–8 Conference

40  Benjamin, “Bookend to Bandung,” p. 38.

41  In a similar vein as Ahmad and Benjamin, Guy Laron sees the rise and fall of Third World
unity between the years 1955 to 1965 as an unsuccessful attempt by so-called industrial-
ized Afro-Asian states to turn unindustrialized Afro-Asian states into their export mar-
kets. Laron also largely leaves out Yugoslavia from his argument to instead focus on trade
among actors in Africa and Asia. But, Laron does recognize the weaknesses inherent
with forging any sort of unity among such impoverished and weak states around the
world—it was, in his words, “always going to be an uphill battle.” Laron recognizes that
instead of seeing irreconcilable political and ideological differences, or poor leadership
by Third World statesmen, the economic argument is paramount. It was simply impos-
sible for any country in the Non-Aligned Movement to serve in the 1960s as an indus-
trial power that could sponsor growth yet several tried because they needed to avoid the
“debt-trap” that was part of their technological and industrial development. His argu-
ment looks at Egypt, Ghana, and China as potential industrial powers to feed the devel-
opment of the nonaligned and shows at the time how none of those states could deliver.
Another critical actor—Tito’s Yugoslavia—also tried on all fronts to serve as the leader of
this global movement but suffered the same fate as the three countries in Laron’s study.
Tito’s Yugoslavia had the desire and could benefit from the power and wealth associated
with global leadership but could not deliver. See Guy Laron, “Semi-peripheral coun-
tries and the invention of the ‘Third World’, 1955–65,” Third World Quarterly 35:9 (2014),
pp. 1547, 1549.
42  Vladimir Kulić, “National, supranational, international: New Belgrade and the symbolic
construction of a socialist capital,” Nationalities Papers, 41:1 (2013), p. 36.
12 Introduction

on Security and Co-operation in Europe, annual meetings of the World Bank,

International Monetary Fund, and UNESCO.43 What is significant about Kulić’s
argument here is that it helps to confirm Yugoslavia’s role in the world was
real and that Titoist politicians used the venue of the capital city to show
people just how influential Yugoslavia was through tangible symbols and spe-
cial design.

Yugoslavia and the Importance of Foreign Policy

When speaking about the influence of foreign policy, the classic debate in
German history necessarily rises to the forefront. Did German leaders prior
to World War I engage in increasingly aggressive behavior because they were
responding to domestic issues or because they were driven by foreign policy?
This classic debate between the primacy of domestic and foreign politics
not only relates to Titoist Yugoslavia but also benefits from recent scholar-
ship. Cornelius Torp understands the road to war in 1914 in Europe as driven
in part by globalization. He fuses together how German leaders adapted to
stresses caused by foreign policy—be it trade policy, colonial policy, or alliance
networks—with the domestic problems that included urbanization, industri-
alization, and an increasingly tense political atmosphere with competing trade
union, and center-left parties benefitting from increased suffrage and reforms.
Looking at how connected the domestic and foreign policies were takes into
account an explanation of the multifaceted problems that leaders faced.
Torp’s perspective on Imperial Germany relates well to Titoist Yugoslavia
because the Cold War tensions heavily influenced the options for a foreign
policy while the state also faced tremendous social issues like delivering eco-
nomic prosperity through its socio-political model and solving the national-
ist question. Indeed, while Torp argues that Germany’s basic integration into
international trade instigated internal conflicts and hindered the German
government’s ability to act freely in solving basic problems, Tito’s integration
into the Third World program vis-à-vis nonalignment premised success on
controlling a movement that was itself uncontrollable. Tito found himself in
a rapidly changing global political environment and while much of his reform
program and state-building policies meshed with the spirit of nonalignment,
he struggled to direct a complex movement like nonalignment. In a larger

43  See Kulić, “National, supranational, international,” pp. 52–3. The city of Sarajevo also
hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, which while not in Belgrade did serve to showcase
Yugoslavia’s achievements and international prestige.
Introduction 13

sense, seeing how Tito used foreign policy as a vehicle to broker legitimacy—
as a substitute and helpmeet in forging a durable domestic popularity—helps
us better situate the role of ethnic conflict in the modern world.44 Tito’s early
strongman tactics compelled people through force to accept the legitimacy of
his rule while his later internationalist policies of nonalignment and human
rights were Tito’s potentially long-lasting answers to the nationalist question.
Understanding why this change took place and what it meant for the regime
adds a new dimension to both Cold War history and our contemporary politi-
cal challenges.
Part of the significance of rethinking some of prior conceptions about how
historical events have influenced change in Yugoslavia and throughout the
world during the Cold War includes looking at issues of international relations
outside of simply the bipolar order. Literature on nonalignment, for instance,
is still lacking and in need of exploration. Issues such as how foreign politics
determined domestic state-building programs, whether or not significant and
durable alliances emerged out of nonalignment, and what kind of economic
development occurred as a result of nonalignment are but a few of the gaps in
the current literature. Furthermore, by 1955 it was clear to the Yugoslavs—as
well as the Soviets—that the potential of dealing with actors around the world
might yield forthcoming allies in the communist movement, which needs
greater exploration and can help understand better the complex challenges
that the Cold War politicians faced.45

Roadmap

Even before World War II ended, Josip Broz Tito raced to claim territory for
his new Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. Chapter One focuses on how Tito’s
Partisans were moving as quickly as possible in 1944 and 1945 to take over
Trieste, Austrian Carinthia, and incorporate Albania into a Yugoslav-controlled
polity. They did this in an attempt to seize the opportunity and score as many
victories as possible in order to help secure their rule. Tito’s directives point

44  See Cornelius Torp, Die Herausforderung der Globalisierung: Wirtschaft und Politik in
Deutschland 1860–1914, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2005).
45  “Until the 1970s at least, Moscow conceived of neutralism and non-alignment as tran-
sitional phenomena, as a movement by the Third World countries away from the West
in the short term, and in the long term as a process, which would lead these states to an
ever-closer association with the Eastern bloc.” See Schaufelbuehl, et al., “Non-Alignment,
the Third Force, or Fence-Sitting,” p. 908.
14 Introduction

to his acting like the strongman of the Balkans, seizing upon the chance in
the wake of the complete power realignment in Europe not only to make
Yugoslavia important but also more critically to immunize it from outside
intervention after centuries of foreign rule.46 Meanwhile, Tito faced the chal-
lenge of fusing together peoples who shared much in common—language,
culture, economy—but who had stood in opposition across political lines.
Interwar Europe’s Kingdom of Yugoslavia created more animosity between
peoples than it did to create a common identity as representative of South
Slavs.47 Adolf Hitler’s rearrangement of Yugoslavia during World War II only
exacerbated animosities between Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Macedonians, and
Albanians.48 Tito’s challenges were great but in 1945 it looked as if he could
make tremendous headway partly because the old order had been discredit-
ed and his charisma and confidence were invigorating and fresh. Moreover,
having learned from the Soviets since the Bolshevik Revolution, Tito and his
closest comrades understood that they could use Marxism-Leninism as the
guiding ideological framework for their new state as yet another basis for their
hold on power. These men were not cynics but rather they felt strongly that it
provided a scientific and rational approach to modernization that would likely
appeal to the masses of peoples, regardless of ethnicity.
Tito’s dreams of power after 1945 saw him rely heavily on brinkmanship and
power politics—whether he shot down U.S. planes in Yugoslav airspace, sup-
plied Greek Communists with aid, or agitated for territory from his neighbors.
These policies drew the ire of not only the West but also his ideological men-
tor, Joseph Stalin, in Moscow. Chapter Two will walk through the changes in
Yugoslavia as a result of Stalin’s actions that banished Tito from the Soviet bloc
in 1948. From that moment forward, it had become clear that Tito’s legitimacy
to rule Yugoslavia was in serious jeopardy.49 He could no longer rely on assis-
tance from Moscow for the rebuilding of his war-torn state nor could he obtain
diplomatic support for his foreign policy goals in the Balkans. Additionally,

46  For examples of influential works that understand a significance of Yugoslavia in the
early Cold War, see Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict, (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1960); John C. Campbell, Tito’s Separate Road: America
and Yugoslavia in World Politics, (New York: Harper Row, 1967); and Lorraine M. Lees,
Keeping Tito Afloat: The United States, Yugoslavia, and the Cold War, (University Park, PN:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).
47  See Branko Horvat, An Essay on Yugoslav Society, trans. Henry F. Mins, (Belgrade:
Jugoslavenski Institut za Ekonomska Istraživanja, 1967).
48  See Stevan Pavlowitch, Hitler’s New Disorder (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008).
49  See Jeronim Perović, “The Tito-Stalin Split: A Reassessment in Light of New Evidence,”
Journal of Cold War Studies 9:2 (Spring 2007), pp. 32–63.
Introduction 15

Tito also needed to make his revolution unique and take the opportunity to
have a relevant ideological basis for his state. The result was twofold: First,
the leading intellectuals in the party drew up by the early 1950s a framework
for a different Marxist-Leninist system, one that called on worker ownership
and participation in the means of production. This so-called socialist self-
management relied on giving people a voice that would coincide with official
party doctrine; while paradoxical it nonetheless premised success on reaching
out to people and building a popular domestic basis of power. Second, as a
result of an inability to exert political influence in a highly-charged European
landscape Tito began searching farther afield and latched onto trends in the
decolonizing world.
Chapter Three moves forward the argument by showing how Tito’s involve-
ment in the Non-aligned Movement complemented perfectly the ideological
reform that was already underway. As leaders in what became known as the
Third World began to conceptualize independence, they met at venues across
Asia that culminated in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955. Tito’s men participated
in such meetings from the late 1940s and took a serious interest in what some
leaders—India’s Nehru, Egypt’s Nasser, and Indonesia’s Sukarno—had to say.
As a result, Tito played a significant role in orchestrating what became the
Non-aligned Movement and had a substantial role in that organization until
the late 1960s. Tito’s statesmanlike behavior leading the Third World and forg-
ing a path between the two blocs thereby became a primary vehicle to provide
legitimacy to his rule in Yugoslavia.
While Tito could rely first on his band of Partisan fighters to quell opposition
to his rule and provide legitimacy, the army was not immune to change. Chapter
Four shows how the army proved the ultimate guarantor of power and helped
maintain Tito against domestic enemies. Especially after the United States
had shown interest in a schism within the Communist bloc, Tito also took the
chance to form a military alliance with Greece and Turkey in 1953 and make his
state more secure against foreign enemies. Despite having lost tremendous in-
fluence and the ability to secure claims against Italy and Austria, Tito survived
and the army played a key role in that survival. It also adapted with the state’s
ideological reforms and eventually embraced a self-management model in its
own hierarchy. The resulting Territorial Defense strategy rekindled a popular
Partisan experience that sought to incorporate people into the defense of the
state against the foreign other. But, this move in the 1960s fostered challenges
to Tito’s system; popular resistance in the form of anti-regime agitation cli-
maxed at precisely the time when Tito needed to reconsider the nature of de-
fense policy in Yugoslavia. Following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in
1968 Tito recognized several important things: First, his inability to mobilize
16 Introduction

the non-aligned countries served as the denouement of Yugoslavia’s influence

in that movement. Second, it meant that Yugoslavia’s armed forces needed to
reevaluate the nature of an overwhelming invasion force in light of aggressive
Soviet foreign policy. As a result, it retained the Territorial Defense component
but realigned that under the command of the federal armed forces structure.
Third, because of the notion of heightened foreign tensions, Tito could use the
reorganization of the defense force to quell the popular resistance that peaked
in 1971 during the Croatian Spring and pay tribute to the World War II veterans
who remained some of his most steadfast allies.
During World War II when it seemed clear that a Nazi defeat was immi-
nent Tito saw the potential for creating his new state but despite the promise
he faced an uphill battle. Divisive nationalism could be defeated, according to
Tito’s Party, through the incorporation of Marxist-Leninist ideology and the
projection of power. After 1948, Tito faced enormous challenges and his re-
sponses saw a shift in ideology that proved long lasting. Chapter Five shows
how in tandem with reforms to the legal-ideological framework the regime fo-
cused on foreign policy that moved past nonalignment and latched onto argu-
ing for Human Rights (Helsinki in 1975). Finally, the conclusion and epilogue
helps wrap up the idea that a preoccupation with foreign victories could give
Tito legitimacy through an outward reach of power that would resonate with
everyone in Yugoslavia. Hallmarks of these developments included an impor-
tant complement to his ongoing construction of a Yugoslav ideology, which
included a supranationality designed to bridge the divides between constitu-
ent ethnic identities throughout the country.50 Just like Serbs and Croats were
to identify as Yugoslavs because of the domestic incentives towards adopting
a pan-identity, the creation of a globally important Yugoslavia gave an inter-
national justification for scrapping ethnic labels in favor of a singular unifying

50  For more on a supranationality, see Srđa Pavlović, “Understanding Balkan Nationalism:
The Wrong People, in the Wrong Place, at the Wrong Time,” Southeast European Politics
1:2 (December 2000); also see Sabrina P. Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia,
1962–1991, (Bloomington, IA: Indiana University Press, 1992), p. 57. 237,077 people identi-
fied themselves as Yugoslavs in the 1971 census, a fourteen percent increase over 1961. Ten
years later the figure increased to 1,216,463. Also see Robert Hayden, The Beginning of the
End of Federal Yugoslavia: The Slovenian Amendment Crisis of 1989, (Pittsburgh: University
of Pittsburgh, 1992), p. 2. Hayden explained the diversity in Yugoslavia and discussed the
Yugoslav phenomenon. For example, he attributed mixed marriages to the identification
of Yugoslav as opposed to Serb or Slovene, while also having cited that the fourfold in-
crease in those self-identified as Yugoslav between 1971 and 1981 included young people,
“as the result of increased interethnic contact and education.”
Introduction 17

identity. Each of these projects across the history of Titoist Yugoslav was real
and had a genuine appeal to the people inside Yugoslavia.
An early chief ideologue, Milovan Đilas, summed up Yugoslavia’s policy of
successful independence as seeking to “defend not only our own ideas and
the independence of our internal social evolution, but also the frontiers of
the State.” Đilas continued by noting the fluidity of international relations:
“And we have to defend these frontiers under the concrete condition of the
world as it is today. Hence it is our obligation to concentrate our forces in the
direction from which the main danger is threatening at the given moment.”51
Pragmatism imbued with a Yugoslav ideology directed at both East and West
as a third answer to the bipolar Cold War environment: that is the essence of
what defined Yugoslavia’s foreign policy and its ideological reforms.52

Conclusion

Finally, to clarify my position on legitimacy in this history and to foreshadow

how the ensuing chapters will unfold, a few clarifications are in order. First, in
preparing for this project I might have chosen chapters that would begin by
focusing on the significance of Tito’s Partisan struggle and, in fact, the strong
charisma that Tito manipulated as head of Yugoslavia’s Communist Party dur-
ing the interwar period. This is important given that Tito’s divergence from
Moscow largely rested on his unique path to power as an independent libera-
tor of Yugoslavia from fascist control. Perhaps also worth considerable analysis
would be Tito’s ejection of trusted friend and fellow ideologue Milovan Đilas
from the party in the 1950s. Đilas in fact not only served as a chief architect
of Yugoslavia’s early reforms, but he also understood the nature of his coun-
try’s delicate position in Europe following the break with Stalin. But in the
early 1950s, Đilas’ writings were too progressive and urged too radical a path
of reform for Tito to handle; therefore, Đilas remained a political outsider for
the remainder of his life. Likewise, Tito’s removal of the hardline centralist
Aleksandar Ranković in 1966 opened up new avenues of reforms and helped

51  Milovan Đilas cited in Ernst Halperin, The Triumphant Heretic: Tito’s Struggle Against
Stalin, (London: Heinemann, 1958), pp. 118–19.
52  See Alvin Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Nonaligned World, (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1970), p. 198. Rubinstein has said, “Pragmatism, not dogmatism, has
been the trademark of Yugoslav nation-building.” While I too emphasize the pragmatic,
it seems clear that ideology—first aligned with Soviet interests and then independent—
guided much in Yugoslav politics, including foreign policy.
18 Introduction

resuscitate relations between Serbs and Kosovar Albanians. Another less-

studied yet highly relevant topic in this history is the nature of the Yugoslav
economy. Susan Woodward has argued persuasively over the role of unem-
ployment as paramount in discrediting Tito’s system. From the announcement
in 1952 that unemployment could exist in a socialist state, an aura of eerie in-
difference permeated the country. Tremendous amounts of migrant workers,
an unbalanced and slow transition from rural to urban labor, and the seem-
ing disincentive to hire new workers in a self-managed system where work-
ers preferred to increase their wages or improve the physical plant rather than
take on new labor, all hindered the Yugoslav economy.53 Indeed, other politi-
cal scientists have argued over the importance of the domestic economy in
maintaining a legitimate government. Michael Mandelbaum argues that “the
test of the legitimacy of governments, and thus the survival of contemporary
regimes, is likely to be economic rather than military.” Mandelbaum cites the
demise of the Soviet Union and notes that while the army was weak it was the
“rouble” that doomed that state.54 These topics—along with others—were no
doubt important to how Titoist party leaders brokered reform and sought legit-
imacy for their rule until 1991 but they can each be tied to the path of a Titoist
foreign policy.
This study does not take for granted the wars of dissolution but rather un-
derstands the importance of foreign policy and how top leaders recognized
their power to drive political change in Tito’s Yugoslavia. A foreign policy based
on boisterous rhetoric and action won Tito domestic support in the earliest
years but when that proved unsustainable Tito shifted directions and found
a potent solution in the 1960s, when his socialist self-management and non-
alignment intersected. A more mature Titoist foreign policy brought interna-
tional credibility and gave Yugoslavia a voice on a global stage. This helped
in the creation of a promising and stable multiethnic Yugoslavia because the
sort of global influence that Tito wielded had the potential to solve the riddle
of divisive nationalist politics. Furthermore, Tito’s creation was neither Soviet
nor Western—it was unique and influential and such a narrative has yet to be
explored as significant in this larger story of survival and state building during
the Cold War. In summary, an emphasis on foreign policy from 1945 until 1977

53  See Susan Woodward, Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945–
1990, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 2–6.
54  Michael Mandelbaum, “Is Major War Obsolete?,” Survival 40:4 (Winter 1998–99), p. 25.
In his same article Mandelbaum does correctly point to the plague of secessionist move-
ments in the wake of the Cold War and the need for more federalist structures and an
international order that supports those.
Introduction 19

reinforces scholarship on the Tito-Stalin split, delves into the underdeveloped

field of nonalignment, and clarifies Yugoslav policy in the 1970s and the unrav-
eling of the state once the Cold War disappeared.
Understanding Tito’s state-building project is relevant not only to getting a
fuller picture of the Cold War but it is still germane today. Multi-ethnic, one-
party states persist around the world and several stand at the center of conflict
in the twenty-first century. Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen—each
have faced enormous difficulties and emerged to redefine conflict in the post-
Cold War world. Tito’s model and the foundations of his legitimacy can inform
how we view similar states today, including dealing with interethnic clashes.
Seeing how Tito used foreign policy as a vehicle to broker legitimacy helps us
better situate the role of ethnic conflict in the modern world. Understanding
how and why Tito shifted from a strongman to a statesman and what it meant
for the regime adds a new dimension to both Cold War history and our con-
temporary political challenges.
 chapter 1

Tito’s Early Expansion: A Strongman of the Balkans

Foreign policy was Josip Broz Tito’s favorite.1

Croatian scholar Tvrtko Jakovina

∵
When Yugoslav Josip Broz Tito secured power at the end of World War II, he
did so through the use of force and that remained a primary vehicle for his
retention of power in the earliest years. Thus, as a strongman inside Yugoslavia
he likewise had envisioned for himself a new Yugoslavia that would serve as
the center of power for the Balkan Peninsula, or as Gerhard Wittig has put it,
he had “far-reaching ambitions in the Balkans.”2 During the war, he had main-
tained the fight for the liberation of Yugoslavia against the Nazis and their
collaborators but as they continued to lose control over time, Tito had in-
creased his. First, he worked to ensure a Yugoslav presence in the Trieste
region of Italy and southern Austria as a way to gain territory inhabited by
Slovenes and Croats; meanwhile, his other foreign policy escapades sought to
make Yugoslavia into a major European power. To that end, Yugoslav agents
quickly worked to synchronize the Albanian socio-economic and political
systems through their support of Albanian Partisans that only grew embold-
ened over time. As allies who proved themselves in the fight against fascism,
Yugoslav policymakers felt able to act with impunity throughout the early Cold
War period. Yet, all of their work stopped short in the summer of 1948, when
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin branded Tito an outcast from the Cominform.
While Yugoslav foreign policy abruptly and fundamentally changed because
of Stalin’s condemnation, the significance of Yugoslav foreign relations in the
early Cold War showed the hunger for power of Balkan Marxists. This chapter
highlights how the early struggles to gain territory in Trieste, Carinthia, and

1  Tvrtko Jakovina, Treća strana Hladnog rata, (Zagreb: Fraktura, 2011), p. 639.
2  Gerhard Wettig, Stalin and the Cold War in Europe: The Emergence and Development of East-
West Conflict, 1939–1953, (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2008), p. 80.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004358997_003

Tito ’ s Early Expansion 21

Albania were indicative of how Tito premised his legitimacy on foreign policy
victories as part of his larger state-building program.3
There has been some debate in the literature regarding a so-called indepen-
dent foreign policy by the Yugoslav regime prior to 1948. For instance, Svetozar
Rajak has claimed in a recent article that “manifestations of Tito’s autonomous
actions prior to the rift in 1948 must not be mistaken for an independent foreign
policy,” and that “often quoted examples of Tito’s intransigence prior to 1948,
such as the Trieste crisis in 1945 or Tito’s territorial demands over Carinthia
and Trieste at the Paris Peace Conference in 1946, confirm that Tito in the end
always dutifully accepted Stalin’s diktat.”4 This chapter first and foremost aims
to make clear the larger significance of the shift in foreign policy by Tito’s re-
gime that occured after 1948. To do that, it is important to see how he operated
foreign policy until that time. Tito had in fact used force and sought territorial
amendments prior to the split and these were not understood as incompatible
with any ideological commitments to the Soviet Union. Moreover, Tito was in
contact with and relied on the Soviets for diplomatic support, support that
was not as forthcoming as Tito perhaps liked. But, Tito sought specific foreign
policy projects that would be favorable to the construction of his own legiti-
macy and serve explicitly Yugoslav interests. That is, in this author’s opinion,
the definition an independent foreign policy. Additionally, I understand the
shift that eventually manifested itself as nonalignment came about precisely
because Tito’s regime had no other foreign policy opportunities; Europe in
its totality was closed off to Tito’s politicking but the Third World was a place
whereby the regime could on the one hand operate freely, while on the other
function as a so-called honest broker. The fact that Tito could not transform
his European desires into realities was a factor of the power at his disposal, not
necessarily the lack of independence within the Soviet bloc.

3  While the Balkan Union is an important aspect of Tito’s conception of power in the Balkans,
there was little actual effort to enact it. Instead, this paper intends to focus on actions that
the Yugoslav regime put forward and implemented among its neighbors. Presumably, had
he seen success in these three areas, Tito might have fabricated a larger Balkan Union but
likely on terms that further emphasized power emanating from Belgrade and not Sofia. Such
a union had competing designs, as it a Yugoslav-Bulgarian-Albanian union (at Stalin’s sug-
gestion) might have watered-down Tito’s influence rather than increase it. Ultimately, Tito’s
continued aggressive stance in Albania, Austria, and Trieste took precedence in determining
larger schemes for the Balkans.
4  See Svetozar Rajak, “No Bargaining Chips, No Spheres of Influence: The Yugoslav Origins of
Cold War Nonalignment,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 16:1 (2014), pp. 148–149.
22 chapter 1

Introduction

Titoist Yugoslavia—the multiethnic Marxist creation arising from the ashes

of a Europe devastated by Nazi Germany—is a critical example in the larger
debate over the origins of the Cold War. Tito’s state sought to solve ethnic dif-
ferences between peoples; an integral part of that included the steadfast and
earnest adherence to Marxist ideology. During the war, Tito outmaneuvered
his domestic competitors during World War II and secured his position at the
helm of a new federal Yugoslavia by war’s end. Part of his mission seemed to
be his desire to serve as a willing collaborator in Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s
postwar foreign-policy program. Not only was Tito aligned ideologically with
Soviet policy but he and his elite circle of advisors also saw themselves as the
most westward-oriented in the communist world and, therefore, influential in
future geopolitics. A forward foreign policy and aggressive stance against the
West helped make Yugoslavia the “most important component of the Soviet
bloc” in this early postwar period.5 In fact, much of his early foreign policy
worked towards making Yugoslavia the center of Communism in Southeastern
Europe through the expansion of territory and influence against Italy, Austria,
and Albania.
Despite some warning signs in early 1948 about increasing tensions with
the Soviet Union, the severity of Stalin’s actions in June put the Yugoslavs
on guard because it forced a meaningful reaction.6 Thanks to an aggressive
Yugoslav foreign policy that operated without Soviet supervision, the Soviet
Union had finally attempted to isolate Tito and create a more pliable ally in
Belgrade. Soviet leaders declared in March 1948 that Tito had become over-
confident in his successes and drifted into “adventurism” that attempted to lay
“claim to a leading role in the Balkan and Danubian countries.”7 Stalin would
have none of that.

5  Leonid Gibianskii, “The Soviet-Yugoslav Split and the Cominform,” in The Establishment of
the Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe, 1944–49, ed. Norman Naimark and Leonid
Gibianskii, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), p. 291. Gibianskii argues based on Soviet
archival data that Moscow’s leaders “deeply appreciated the domestic and foreign policy of
the Yugoslav Communist regime.”
6  Original texts of the communications are available; additionally, a contemporary article
summarized some of the highlights: see, G.F.H., “The Stalin-Tito Correspondence: Roots of
the Cominform Dispute,” World Today 4:12 (December 1948), pp. 530–41. See, especially p. 532.
Gibianskii’s article does a nice job of laying out some the precursors to the June expulsion
from the Cominform, especially the exchange of tense notes from March 1948.
7  See Gibianskii, “The Soviet-Yugoslav Split,” p. 300.
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 23

Yet Tito’s survival in power fostered a unique position between the two
Cold War blocs. The events surrounding this episode in history inform a bet-
ter understanding of the later Cold War rivalries, especially those between
communist states in part because these conflicts also fostered dynamic inter-
vention by the former enemy—the West. In terms of Yugoslav historiography,
most scholars have focused on the unpleasant ending of Tito’s state along with
the demise of the Soviet Union. A reevaluation of the early Cold War by exam-
ining Yugoslav policies begs another look not simply to reconsider questions
of power or ideology but rather to see how actions taken by smaller countries
like Yugoslavia helped determine the trajectory of the Cold War. While Tito’s
survival outside the Cominform is the big story of change in the communist
world, the path of how Tito got there merits a fresh look given that Tito’s poli-
cies dramatically altered the Cold War during its early years.8 His attempt
at transforming his state from weak to influential within Europe ultimately
failed, not because his arguments for expansion were without credence or
because he was deterministic regarding ideology. In fact, from a pragmatic
standpoint, much of his expansion had realistic goals that rewarded the peo-
ples in his new state—Croats and Slovenes would benefit in taking Trieste,
Serbs (and Macedonians) would benefit by absorbing Albania, and Slovenes
would gain territory from Austria. Yet, Tito’s ideas of power for Yugoslavia
failed to take into account how the Big Four—including the Soviet Union—
envisioned a postwar Europe. In an attempt to understand better what
Yugoslavs were heading for after 1945 this chapter illuminates how Tito’s
expansionist policies ran afoul and completely altered the subsequent ideo-
logical and diplomatic trajectory of the Cold War.
Tito and Stalin both sought territorial expansion after World War II, but
Stalin was more cautious and cognizant of geopolitical realities. Indeed, as
James Cronin argues, the Soviet leadership had to make tough decisions and
reallocate resources from the domestic economy to the military after the war as
part of maintaining a foreign policy that would help ensure its security. Part of

8  Some notable contemporary examples of scholarship on these subjects includes: Dejan

Jović, Yugoslavia: A State that Withered Away Purdue University Press, (West Lafayette, IN:
Purdue University Press, 2009), H.K. Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia: Tito, Communist
Leadership, and the National Question, (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), and Vladimir Unkovski-
Korica, The Economic Struggle for Power in Tito’s Yugoslavia: From World War II to Non-
Alignment, (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014). Haug’s study in particular discusses nicely the issue
of how Tito constructed his state with an eye towards domestic issues, namely, that of how
to placate and form a sense of unity among the various nationalities and communities scat-
tered across the territory of Yugoslavia. Haug does make clear a point reinforced in this book,
which is that Tito’s state really transformed with the Tito-Stalin split in 1948.
24 chapter 1

this process of seeking security meant that a series of purges targeted “national
deviationists” in Eastern Europe where regimes were forced to adopt a strict
Soviet model and observe hierarchy. Cronin argues that this renewed Stalinism
lasted until the death of Stalin in 1953 and would help explain why Tito found
himself cast aside—not only did his brinkmanship endanger the security of
the Eastern bloc but his independence threatened to curtail Moscow’s author-
ity abroad.9 Perhaps had the Soviet Union been in a more powerful position in
1945, Tito’s actions would have been lauded but the Soviet assessment of global
affairs following the war led to a different reaction.
Instead of relying on caution and prudence, Yugoslav soldiers brazenly
raced to the Italian city of Trieste in spring 1945, hoping to capture that critical
port from the retreating Nazi forces. A standoff soon ensued between those
bold Yugoslav soldiers and the Western powers that would linger for years and
create a sense of instability in the region, especially for early postwar Italian
politicians seeking to navigate the chaos of fascism’s collapse.10 The stubborn-
ness towards seeing all Marxists as the same led to Ambassador to Italy, Clare
Boothe Luce, to comment in writing to John Foster Dulles in 1956, that Tito’s
“triumphant entry into Moscow,” that year had helped him become “the physi-
cal symbol of this Brave New Day of a reformed, reconverted and peacefully
evolving communism.”11 Despite the Tito-Stalin split of 1948 and Stalin’s death
in 1953, Luce had determined that Tito was still a real threat to democracy in
Italy and saw Tito and the Soviet leadership as working hand-in-glove.
During the final days of the war, Yugoslav Partisans were busily charging to-
wards Trieste while Tito demanded Austrian territory, claiming that a Slovene
majority lived clustered near Klagenfurt and thereby mandated inclusion
into his new Yugoslav state. He also sought reparations from Austria to help
him rebuild his fledgling country. Additionally, Tito served as the mentor to
Albania’s Enver Hoxha and Yugoslav policy showed a clear sign of dominating

9  See James Cronin, The World the Cold War Made: Order, Chaos, and the Return of History,
(New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 5.
10  While Italian Marxists—especially those parading in Trieste for union with Yugoslavia—
sought to reap the rewards of a communist paradise, most Italians, alongside their
Western allies, desired to avoid a political defeat and give in to Tito. By 1953, when the
Trieste problem seemed unending, the local communist leader Vittorio Vidali exclaimed
that he would “fight with every means” against Tito’s takeover of Trieste despite his own
aversion to Rome’s capitalist and democratic government. See Vittorio Vidali in “Trieste
Reds Would Fight Tito,” New York Times, 22 October 1953, p. 4.
11  Despite having split the Italian communist party between Palmiro Tagliotti and Vittorio
Vidali balancing against extremes seemed the order of the day. See Clare Boothe Luce,
private letter to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, 15 June 1956. John Foster Dulles
Papers, 1952–6, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library.
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 25

Albania. Part of this domination stood as a key component to Tito’s involve-

ment in the dramatic Greek Civil War, as he could use Albania’s porous border
and rough terrain as the focal point for distributing men and materiel to the
Greek Communist cause and claim influence there once her allies in Athens
reached power. Such early provocations with established Western interests—
namely historic influence in Italy, Austria, and Greece—fostered uncertainly
across Europe.
Tensions rocked the Balkans in these early years as Tito used brinkmanship
to engage the West directly. The newly minted Yugoslav air force audaciously
brought down two American transport planes in a show of force that riled
public opinion across the Atlantic. U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia Richard
Patterson declared, “I consider this a wicked, inexcusable and deliberate at-
tack,” as the State Department released equally damming rhetoric about how
such actions gravely threatened world peace.12 Tito’s defiance of the West was
extraordinary and his demands for territory significant. The flirtation with a
suggested union binding Yugoslavia and Bulgaria only further alarmed Western
leaders, alongside Tito’s simultaneous demands for huge reparation payments
from Germany to finance the recovery.13 Yet, Yugoslav leaders did enjoy a short
tenure when they exerted power behind their capabilities and effectively had
become the center of the Balkans.
Scholars have enjoyed wide access to the sources of the Tito-Stalin split of
1948 thanks to the opening of archives by the Yugoslavs, as well as the pub-
lication of biographies and testimonies from high-ranking officials such as
Vladimir Dedijer, Milovan Đilas, and Ambassador Veljko Mićunović.14 Most of
the materials underwent publication in Western collections and outlets like

12  See, “Envoy Condemns Yugoslav Attack on U.S. Airplane,” New York Times, 19 August 1946,
pp. 1, 8; and Anthony Leviero, “Peace Threat Seen,” New York Times, 22 August 1946, pp. 1, 3.
An ultimatum from the American government included demands that the surviving crew
members be released and to allow American representatives to communicate with those
survivors. In addition, in the Trieste zone, American armed forces mobilized in a show of
force against Yugoslav positions.
13  The proposed Bulgarian union was perhaps never destined to succeed but, at the time,
it was a key point of controversy. News accounts proclaimed “close economic and
political co-operation,” while scholarly reports and documents were more informed.
See “Yugoslav-Bulgarian Pact Signed,” Manchester Guardian, 4 August 1947, p. 6. Also see
Adam Ulam, “The Background of the Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute,” The Review of Politics 13:1
(1951), pp. 39–63.
14  See various works such as Vladimir Dedijer, The Battle Stalin Lost: Memoirs of Yugoslavia,
1948–1953, (New York: Viking Press, 1971); Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin, trans.
Michael B. Petrovich, (New York: Harcourt and Brace, 1962), and Veljko Mićunović,
Moscow Diary, trans. David Floyd, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980).
26 chapter 1

Radio Free Europe collected news articles from all over Eastern Europe, which
has also been available for some time. Soviet charges against the Yugoslavs
were also made publicly available years ago but they told a story filled with
ideological rifts and deviations that set Yugoslav leaders in opposition to the
true path to communism. Yet, work on this subject by scholars continues to
verify the power aspect and the need for a firm control over Eastern Europe
as the motive beyond Soviet actions. A. Ross Johnson pointed out that when
Stalin declared, “mistakes are not the issue: the issue is conceptions different
from our own,” the Soviet leader embarked on conflict with Tito solely because
of control and power.15 There was simply little room for a strong personality
like Tito, whose rise to supremacy in Belgrade threatened to upset the global
competition for power.16

15  See A. Ross Johnson, The Transformation of Communist Ideology: The Yugoslav Case, 1945–
1953, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1972), p. 51.
16  Jeronim Perović has argued that foreign policy conflicts caused Stalin to attack Tito and
isolate him among the Cominform. I agree with this general assessment but foreign policy
simply acted as the external vehicle by which Tito’s ideas clashed with those of Stalin.
In fact, Perović acknowledged in his article that no document has emerged definitively
pointing to Soviet intentions, but, “the most useful source currently available” was a re-
port sent by Stalin to the Czechoslovak leader Klement Gottwald on 14 July 1948, which
emphasized the near-term goals for dealing with Tito:
 “I have the impression that you [Gottwald] are counting on the defeat of Tito and his
group at the next congress of the KPJ. You suggest publishing compromising material
against the Yugoslav leaders.… We in Moscow are not counting on the early defeat of
Tito and have never counted on it. We have achieved the isolation of Yugoslavia. Hence,
the gradual decline of Tito’s Marxist groups is to be expected. This will require patience
and the ability to wait. You seem to be lacking in patience.… There can be no doubt that
Marxism will triumph in due course.”
 The main problem with this source is, of course, that it is not internal correspondence
and thus was drafted more likely to keep the Czechoslovak leadership on edge rather than
justify the Soviet leadership’s policy of isolating Yugoslavia and not immediately forcing
Tito’s hand. Furthermore, evidence from the Archive of Yugoslavia exists from meet-
ings between Khrushchev and Tito in 1955 that shows how Stalin was in fact threatening
Gottwald—Stalin declared at the time that Gottwald’s support was expected and that
he needed to “answer for Czechoslovakia!” Additionally, Stalin was working to keep the
Polish party in check by threatening Gomułka throughout 1948. See Jeronim Perović, “The
Tito-Stalin Split: A Reassessment in Light of New Evidence,” Journal of Cold War Studies
9:2 (Spring 2007), p. 60. For a rebuttal of this, see “Fragmenti” AJ CK IX 119/I K.2 45–90,
folder 56.
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 27

Quest for More Land from Italy

An independent Yugoslav foreign policy that existed between 1945 and 1948
served well the interests of Belgrade and, so the ideologically charged new-
comers thought, Stalin’s wishes as well. Instead, Tito’s actions in places like
Trieste put Stalin in a position of having to satisfy an ally and continue to work
and gain from association with the Western powers.17 With Tito’s Partisan
army a menacing presence at the Austrian border, his soldiers also trained
and equipped their Albanian counterparts and sustained Greek Communist
insurgents in their battle with the British-backed Greek monarchy. Having
liberated much of Istria, including a visible and political presence in Trieste,
the members of the Yugoslav government premised their thinking on the idea
that “whoever is in possession of a certain territory has a ninety-nine percent
chance of keeping it.”18 Regarding Trieste and Istria in particular, Italy’s status
as an aggressor against Yugoslavia in World War II also reinforced Tito’s claims
on the territory as a buffer for security reasons, as modern fascism penetrated
the Balkans through the multiethnic frontier city of Rijeka (Fiume) after 1919.19
Edvard Kardelj, as one of the primary liaisons between his government
in Belgrade and the Allies, voiced his opinion that the presence of Yugoslav
soldiers served as a legitimizing factor in securing territorial claims but also
emphasized the ethnic argument as critical regarding Trieste. In fact, the two

17  See Wettig, Stalin and the Cold War in Europe, p. 87.
18  See Vladimir Velebit in Successful Negotiation: Trieste 1954. An Appraisal by Five
Participants, ed. John C. Campbell, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 84.
Velebit also added that as early as 1945, when Tito’s troops evacuated the city to Western
occupation forces, they were “convinced that they had lost Trieste.”
19  Several New York Times articles from the time quoted Yugoslav speakers as having noted
the ideological importance of Trieste and the other Italian possessions in Slovenia and
Croatia. For instance, “The present Italian possession of this area, the Adriatic islands
and Zara is the result of aggressive policy toward Yugoslavia and served as a bridgehead
to further such ideas.” C.L. Sulzberger, “Yugoslavs Demand Westward Shift of Italian
Border,” New York Times, 17 September 1945, p. 3. Also, see “Excerpts from Yugoslavia’s
Memorandum on territorial Demands,” New York Times, 17 September 1945, p. 2. “The op-
pression started already in the period between 1918 and 1922, before the Fascist regime
came into power.… While fascism only made it worse.” Furthermore, the Italy’s “greed”
and “aggressive behavior” led to war with Yugoslavia, which sought “further forcible pen-
etration” of the Balkans. Stevan Pavlowitch also cited this notion of Italian meddling in
the Balkans: “During the 1930s, Italy had given asylum to ustashas. Mussolini needed them
to initiate the break-up of Yugoslavia, fulfill the last aspirations of irrendentismo across
the Adriatic and enhance Italy’s ‘space.’ ” See Hitler’s New Disorder, (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2008), p. 23.
28 chapter 1

strands of logic fit together as Yugoslav troops ostensibly stood to protect their
fellow countrymen from harassment by the domineering Italians, who had
for the last 25 years ruled the greater Trieste region “by terror,” complete with
“concentration camps and murder,” that had aroused nothing more “among
the population” as “feelings of fear and hatred.”20 Arguments outlined by the
Italian government of an ethnic majority of Italians along the coast but es-
pecially on the Istrian Peninsula only had credence regarding the major city
centers; various demographic records—most unreliable but nonetheless in
general consensus—showed a dominance of Slovenes and Croats in the rural
areas. Moreover, cities typically had a mixed population, which despite the
prevalence of the Italian language, contained large pockets of ethnic Slavs.
Ethnic imbalance also fueled Yugoslav claims, such as how “for 13 centuries the
Slovenes and Croats” of the region had “toiled as slaves of foreign masters and
shed sweat and blood upon their native soil.”21 Such language exaggerated the
case for a national homeland but even so, it argued for what much of Europe
had already achieved—namely, a nation-state that served its majority.22
In addition to ethnic and security arguments for more land, Yugoslav lead-
ers repeatedly emphasized their participation as allies in the war effort and the
tremendous suffering incurred during their stalwart resistance. According to
Ivan Tchok, the President of the National Council of Yugoslavs from Italy, the
Yugoslav peoples struggled with the “desire for the restoration” of their “nation-
al dignity, security, and peace.”23 Tchok’s argument drew heavily on how Benito
Mussolini’s government had annexed much of the Croatian coast during the
war and amplified the longstanding effort to Italianize the various Yugoslav

20  Bogdan Novak, Trieste, 1941–1954: The Ethnic, Political, and Ideological Struggle, (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 43.
21  Novak, Trieste, p. 44. See also Maura Hametz, Making Trieste Italian, 1918–1954,
(Woodbridge, The Royal Historical Society, 2005), pp. 24–25. Hametz’s argument exam-
ined how Trieste, as a border city of Italy, served as a locust of nationalist and irreden-
tist fervor, but how unification with Italy after World War I only added to the woes of
the city as prosperity disappeared to traditional Italian ports and political influence rang
hollow in Rome. For more on Trieste as a “boundary” area, see Glenda Sluga, The Problem
of Trieste and the Italo-Yugoslav Border: Difference, Identity, and Sovereignty in Twentieth-
Century Europe, (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001).
22  See Novak, Trieste, p. xvi. Novak claimed, “Yugoslavia effectively used both nationalism
and ideology when entreating the support of the people of the Julian Region.” With pro-
paganda appealing to Croats and Slovenes coupled with a reaching out to Italian Marxists,
Tito’s case was indeed compelling, but nonetheless fell short.
23  See Ivan Tchok’s [Čok] letter to the editor, “Appeal to Italians Praised,” New York Times,
20 July 1943, p. 18.
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 29

peoples living under Rome’s rule.24 As a result, Yugoslavs were unafraid after
1945 to brazenly push back against the Italians all along the Adriatic coastline,
and felt justified in using any means necessary to reverse that history and flex
their muscles as the powerful regional newcomer and wartime victor.
Yugoslav Ambassador to Great Britain at the time, Ljubo Leontić, summed
up well the economic argument for Yugoslavia’s absorption of Trieste when
he stated that the “economic role of Trieste” was “precisely defined by its
natural situation,” which, of course, “originated as a port of its northeastern
hinterland.”25 Trieste as an Italian seaport had little value, as Yugoslavs rightly
pointed out that after World War I the wealth of Trieste declined precipitously.
Not only did trade to Central European cities take years to recover following
Austria-Hungary’s collapse in 1919 but German ports such as Hamburg and
even Rostok took business away from Trieste, thanks to more direct rail con-
nections and often fewer frontier posts to cross. Giving Trieste to Italy after
World War II would continue to punish the residents of Trieste, as important
financial, insurance, and shipping business would remain in the hands of men
in competing cosmopolitan centers like Genoa. Nevertheless, with the estab-
lished connections through Slovenia and Croatia, Yugoslavs argued that trade
could once again revive the importance of Trieste and help rebuild Tito’s new
Yugoslavia. Debate on how to settle the issue over controlling Trieste would
complicate matters at the peace conference and test the patience of diplomats
from all sides, but for locals the larger Trieste crisis unveiled three significant
factors that made this a time of chaos and uncertainty.
First, the competing ideologies created great rifts among the diverse
populations—Marxist on the one hand and various Western-backed demo-
cratic and capitalist parties on the other. Tito’s Partisans worked hard to exploit
the fascist occupation and benefited greatly from both Tito’s triumph and the
general discredited nature of most center-right political parties across Europe
that had tolerated, embraced, or otherwise allowed the fascist rise to power.26

24  See, Pavlowitch, Hitler’s New Disorder.

25  Trieste, Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, (1946), p. 46. See also Velebit in Successful
Negotiation, p. 81: “One of their [Italian] policies was to have bridgeheads in the Balkans
in order to pursue their imperialist policy there.”
26  Scholars have noted how in the case of Germany, Hitler’s collusions with center-right par-
ties put their postwar roles in government in jeopardy, but this was the case in much
of Eastern Europe, as well, with the pronounced and subsidized rise of Marxism. See
Hametz, Making Trieste, p. 36: “Commercial and business leaders tended to side with
professionals who favoured reunification with Italy. Fascism had tied commerce and
business firmly to the Italian structure … Yugoslav communism threatened the capitalist
foundations of the port society.”
30 chapter 1

General weakness among established parties facilitated Marxism’s potential

as a more attractive solution, but the major problem that plagued Marxists
was whether their ideology could cut across ethnic lines. While Yugoslav pro-
paganda touted the so-called “fusion of the will of the Italians and Slovenes of
Trieste” as the only real future for the city based on “fraternity,” rifts seemed ap-
parent early on.27 Among the Italian communists, the dilemma included how
to satisfy their ideological unity with Tito while also placating other Italians
and recognizing nationalist resistance towards handing over territory. To that
end, while some Italians supported Yugoslav goals, the main party message
coming from leader Palmiro Togliatti in Rome instead sought a triumph for
Communism in Italy at the expense of Tito and his allies in Trieste.28
Togliatti’s party had a difficult time gaining broad support, notwithstanding
the dilemma over Trieste, precisely owing to the tainted history of Marxism in
Italy’s recent history. One of the chief claims by the Italian fascists shortly after
World War I was that the Slavs of the region infiltrated local Italian politics
with Marxist ideology and disrupted society. Indeed, a “hatred of Slavs was a
central element” in the links between Slavs and Marxism; therefore, the as-
sociation between Communism and Slavic speakers seemed longstanding and
un-Italian, which supported claims in Rome for increased American support
in the face of Marxism’s merciless drive westward.29 In such a scenario, Trieste
stood as the first piece of Soviet control of the Adriatic and Mediterranean
Seas and had high political value. While Italian Marxists—especially those
parading in Trieste for union with Yugoslavia—sought to reap the rewards of
a communist paradise, most Italians, alongside their Western allies, desired

27  See Sluga, The Problem of Trieste, p. 95. Sluga quoted Rudi Ursič of the Liberation Council
and Major Giorgio Jaksetich as having expressed these ideas of Italian and Yugoslav unity,
forged especially during the war.
28  The delicate situation of supporting their ideological cousins while satisfying Italian na-
tionalism made for complicated politics. For example of some of the initial unity, see
Herbert Matthews, “Rome Communists Back Tito’s Claim,” New York Times, 8 February
1945, p. 7.
29  For how Italians saw Communism as a Slavic phenomenon, see Sluga, The Problem of
Trieste, p. 58. “As Italian-, Slovene-, and Croatian-based Communist organizations es-
tablished an anti-Fascist network inside the territory occupied by Italian forces and on
both sides of the old Italo-Yugoslav border, the Italian Fascist government felt every more
under siege from a Slav threat.” Sluga also quoted Simonetta Ortaggi on page 169. For
more Italian perceptions, see also Hametz, Making Trieste Italian, p. 30. “The communist
and revolutionary opposition, fed by links to nearby Yugoslavia, had periodically surfaced
throughout the Fascist venennio. Slavs had been under particular suspicion.” Emphasis in
original.
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 31

to avoid the political defeat of surrendering to Tito. Such external pressure in

an emerging standoff between Moscow and Washington helped discredit the
initial unity among communists, as pressure rose among those Italians who
feared a permanent presence and rule from Moscow vis-à-vis Belgrade. Intense
riots and demonstrations in Trieste against the feared Titoist rule provided the
Western Allies with visible and sympathetic evidence to maintain steadfast
in keeping the city Italian.30 But, further exacerbating the ideological stand-
point, once Stalin dismissed Tito in 1948 the various communist groups them-
selves divided on the issue of contested loyalty—should they support Stalin,
the presumed guarantor of international Marxism, or Tito, the local strong-
man with little initial hope of surviving Stalin’s onslaught?31 By 1953, when the
Trieste problem seemed unending, the local communist leader Vittorio Vidali
exclaimed that he would “fight with every means” against Tito’s takeover of
Trieste despite his own aversion to Rome’s capitalist and democratic govern-
ment.32 Vidali spoke in ethnic terms first and then in ideological terms. At the
same time, as local Italian, Slovene, and Croatian communists wrestled with
whom to support, traditional parties and the American-backed Italian govern-
ment grew stronger thanks to economic credits and an ever-increasing stan-
dard of living.
A second major aspect of the Trieste crisis was how people constructed
their identities. Census records were unreliable because Italians overempha-
sized their demographic evidence while the Yugoslavs likewise exaggerated
the numbers of Slovenes and Croats. Locals typically spoke multiple languages,
but the dominant language was not necessarily the mother tongue. Yugoslavs
pointed out that the Slovenes or Croats who worked in cities like Trieste spoke
Italian, because it was the language of trade, manufacturing, and govern-
ment. National identity, therefore, could not rely on language—or religion
for that matter, as virtually all of these people shared cultural or religious as-
pects of Catholicism. Family names of course differentiated ethnic groups, but
Yugoslavs pointed to years of an intense Italianization campaign, whereby the
Italian government attempted to change people’s names and force them to

30  See “Italian Mob Riots in Trieste Streets,” New York Times, 4 November 1946, p. 1. This
article noted how up to 10,000 Italians rioted to celebrate the so-called liberation of
Trieste from Austria in 1918.
31  See Camille M. Cianfarra, “Trieste Reds Oust Defenders of Tito,” New York Times, 22 August
1948, p. 7; also, C.L. Sulzberger, “Trieste Reds Still Battle Over Tito and Cominform,” New
York Times, 4 August 1948, p. 4.
32  See Vittorio Vidali in “Trieste Reds Would Fight Tito,” New York Times, 22 October 1953,
p. 4.
32 chapter 1

speak Italian, such as when they transformed Slovene and Croatian primary
schools into Italian-language only schools in the 1920s.33
Complicated ethnic politics drove the participants at the Paris Peace
Conference to seek the most impartial register of demographics; namely, the
final Austrian census of 1910, when this entire area under question answered to
the ruling Habsburgs at the expense of Italian, Slovenian, and Croatian nation-
alism. While this and other census records showed an Italian majority in each of
the major cities in the region—including Pula, Rijeka, and Trieste—Yugoslavs
dismissed such evidence and understood the urban centers as isolated islands
in an otherwise Yugoslav sea. Proof of this was clear to Tito’s men after 1945,
who interpreted rallies, student-led violence, and parades that seemingly tran-
scended language or cultural norms in support of Belgrade as an expression of
the true Yugoslav identity.34 All of this displayed a reality where it was tricky to
distinguish who was an ethnic Slovene, Croat, or Italian thanks to years of mix-
ing, social practices, and political pressure. It was Tito’s hope that his ideology
and power could make these identities ultimately disappear.
Difficulty in defining a consensus for a permanent solution based on either
ideological or ethnic grounds exacerbated the dilemma and led directly to
the third point of significance in assessing the Trieste issue. All of the various
points of contention absolutely depended on external support because neither
Italy nor Yugoslavia was in a position to resolve the issue on its own. Agency
for those actors in Trieste and the hinterlands at the time mattered little in this
dispute, as the stakes had grown incalculably high and neither Moscow nor
Washington staked its claims on what the locals wanted. Italians overwhelm-
ingly courted the Western Allies hoping that they could retain Istria, along with
other Italian cities claimed by Tito. But American support had its limits, espe-
cially because Italians had fostered corruption and destabilization on Yugoslav
territories since at least the 1920s. Most importantly, the Americans wished
to maintain a non-Communist government in Italy and placate a large and
vocal Italian community back home. Letters to newspaper editors and govern-
ment officials in the United States together with parades for a general Italian

33  For some information on the difficulties that the Italians had in Italianizing the area, see
Hametz, Making Trieste Italian, 1918–1954, p. 3. See also, Sluga, The Problem of Trieste, p. 48.
Sluga cited the transformation of these 500 schools in the short period from 1924 to 1927,
which came in addition to the 1926 law that mandated Slav surnames altered to become
more “aesthetically pleasing” to Italian ears.
34  New York Times has great examples of this: see, for instance, “Trieste Paralyzed by General
Strike,” New York Times, 26 June 1945, p. 4: The “strike was the work of local Communist
leaders.”
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 33

cause further pressured American leaders to keep as much territory as possible

Italian and therefore keep Italy outside the Iron Curtain.35
Tito, in contrast, flagrantly taunted his erstwhile allies in Washington while
relying completely on an inflated notion of his own strength and an uncon-
ditional support by the Soviet Union to support his claims. Soviet assurances
meant little, though, and could not guarantee a Yugoslav victory; rather, the
Soviets added credibility to Tito’s demands and delayed any concrete resolu-
tion but their diplomatic presence only further estranged any Western support
for Tito as tantamount to assisting in the Soviet domination of the Adriatic
Sea. Soviet support for Tito, though, while expected by the Yugoslavs, did not
materialize and even before the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, Soviet diplomats had
left Tito largely isolated on this issue. Stalin had tried to support the Yugoslav
case on reasonable grounds but was unwilling to provoke a major crisis over
territory that Stalin himself seemed to relegate to a critical sphere of influence
for the West.36 Thus, the residents of Trieste found themselves at the center of
an emerging Cold War and despite upheaval in 1948, the area remained tense
until 1954. While Tito thought he had legitimate claims to the area he could
do little to influence a solution, with or without the Soviet Union’s assistance.

Annexation of Southern Austria?

The Yugoslav government under Marshal Tito had two major priorities:
first, he needed to succeed in gaining territories with larger Yugoslav popu-
lations where the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia had failed after World
War I. The Italian border with Yugoslavia was a particular sticking point be-
cause of the presence of large Slovene and Croatian communities who had
experienced the recent and aggressive Italianization campaign. A parallel of
Germanization along border areas of the Nazi Reich similarly aggravated mi-
nority communities and left open a door for Tito to leverage for territorial

35  See Arturo Castiglioni, “Yugoslav Claims Disputed,” New York Times, 16 October 1943, p. 12.
In his letter to the editor, Castiglioni reminded the readers “America has some millions of
citizens of Italian extraction who, with thousands of Italian citizens living in this country,
are following with devotion the fate of their mother country.”
36  As cited in Gibianskii, “Soviet-Yugoslav Split,” p. 292. After a July 1946 meeting by the
Council of Foreign Ministers in Paris, Tito and Stalin exchanged notes about apparent
Soviet support for an internationalization plan for Trieste, proposed by the French. Stalin
told Tito directly that he was obliged to compromise with the West because it was obvious
that they “will in no case agree to hand Trieste over to Yugoslavia.” Tito’s own government
had realized that fact as well yet they persisted in lashing out with aggressive rhetoric.
34 chapter 1

expansion. Not only did Tito enjoy some popular support for amplifying
Yugoslavia’s borders from nationalists of all stripes at home and sympathizers
abroad but he also saw how such campaigns to enlarge the state would add to
his legitimacy as a strong and capable ruler. More than grab symbolic territory,
though, Tito needed to gain areas for Yugoslavia that were economically viable
and would help him construct his new state. Indeed, Yugoslav sources recog-
nized that the country was “economically and technically backward” but was
“rich in natural resources.” Given those resources, Tito’s government sought
to engage in manufacturing and exporting because “economically backward
countries lose their independence.”37 Industry, productive farmland, and in-
frastructure were vital to Tito’s effort at showing the value of his system and
thereby building a long-lasting legitimacy. Therefore, while a port like Trieste
was paramount to helping Yugoslav products reach foreign markets, terri-
tories with Slovenian populations formerly in Austria would also be a boon
to the new Yugoslav economy thanks to traditional development during the
Habsburg era and modernization during the Nazi Reich.38
Tito boldly declared in 1945 that, “Carinthia is ours and we will fight for
her.” “International circumstances” had meant that despite an initial Partisan
penetration of Austrian territory, the Partisans were “obliged” to “withdraw
temporarily,” but it was Tito’s intention to return and remain forever.39 His
propagandistic messages even argued that after the war Slovenes “must still
tremble and suffer under a Gestapo terror clad in another uniform.” He cou-
pled such rhetoric with appeals to “our Allies” who based their foreign policies
on the Atlantic Charter, whereby “all people who were enslaved will have the

37  With regard to the economic question, see C.L. Sulzberger, “Tito to Liquidate Vast Mine
Assets,” New York Times, 12 November 1946, p. 16. Yugoslav sources elaborated their view
as follows: “The third phase is to construct new industry as part of the overall plan. Our
country is economically and technically backward but rich in natural resources. The aim
of our planning is not to export raw materials, as the old regime did, but to manufacture
them within the country.” This because “it is generally known that economically back-
ward countries lose their independence.”
38  I am going to use the term Austrian in this paper to refer to those inhabitants of Austria
who identified either culturally, linguistically, or through heredity as German. Likewise,
with respect to the issue at hand, I will call Slovenes or Croats those people who lived
in Austria and identified as culturally, linguistically, or hereditarily Slovene or Croat. For
more information about wartime Yugoslavia, one of the better recent books to consult is,
Pavlowitch, Hitler’s New Disorder.
39  Recommendations at this time advised ceasing any further advances of material with
“actual or potential military value.” “Tito Threatens War for Carinthia,” New York Times,
5 June 1945, p. 3.
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 35

right themselves to determine their fate.”40 Tamer pronouncements given for

expansion included ethnic, economic, political, and strategic reasons but all
failed to grasp the larger issues of the total realignment of global politics by
war’s end. Tito’s path to expansion might have gained traction but the nature
of the total destruction of the Nazi empire meant larger actors than Tito would
divvy the spoils of war. This redistribution was even more painstaking because
Europe could not afford to replicate the stresses and poor diplomacy that dev-
astated the continent after 1919.
Tito must have been sure that his initial demands for land at the expense of
Italy and Austria would find sympathy. After all, the ethnic argument rested on
solid ground with great sympathy for injustice or minority treatment, especial-
ly in the wake of Hitler’s absurd racially charged regime. Yugoslavs argued that
for centuries the Slavs were subject to foreign masters.41 While this exagger-
ated the case for a national homeland it argued for what much of Europe had
already achieved and would help satisfy Tito’s need to further centralize his
power within Yugoslavia by serving as the protector of all Yugoslavia’s peoples.
Moreover, it fit within the rhetoric of the West regarding self-determination
and by subscribing to it Tito could appeal beyond ideology.
Nevertheless, how could reality satisfy charged and vague rhetoric? Census
records were acceptable but generally unreliable because people in Austria
typically spoke multiple languages with the dominant language not neces-
sarily the mother tongue. Yugoslavs pointed out that the Slovenes or even a
few Croats who worked in cities like Klagenfurt spoke German because it was
the language of trade, manufacturing, and government.42 The recent Nazi

40  As noted in K.R.S., “‘Slovene Carinthia’: The Austro-Yugoslav Frontier Question” The World
Today, 3:9 (September 1947), p. 392.
41  This kind of rhetoric was grounded especially in the Trieste question but existed to aug-
ment the argument to annex parts of Austria. For the Trieste case in particular, see: Trieste,
Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, (1946), p. 44. See also Hametz, Making Trieste
Italian, 1918–1954, pp. 24–25. Hametz’s argument examined how Trieste, as a border city
of Italy, served as a locust of nationalist and irredentist fervor, but how unification with
Italy after World War I only added to the woes of the city as prosperity disappeared to
traditional Italian ports and political influence rang hollow in Rome. For more on Trieste
as a “boundary” area, see Sluga, The Problem of Trieste.
42  Language in this case is nuanced as German dominated in cities but Slovene peasants
lived in the countryside; but, overall, German was the major language of broader com-
munication. For some details, including a breakdown of how language played a role in
the Austrian census records, see Robert Knight, “Ethnicity and Identity in the Cold War:
The Carinthian Border Dispute, 1945–1949,” The International History Review, 22:2 (June
2000), p. 287. On ideas about calculating minority representatives see Tom Priestly,
36 chapter 1

experience also challenged the creation of identities, as Hitler’s racist hierar-

chy held that in at least a pragmatic way, Slovenes were a people who were
“very close to Germans” and had potential within the new Reich.43 Therefore,
like with Trieste, basing territorial expansion on national identity was dubi-
ous at best, because of historic Habsburg and more recent Nazi programs of
Germanization.44 This was because, as top leaders in Belgrade argued, in-
cluding Vice President Edvard Kardelj, Austrians constantly had acted as the
“vanguard of German conquerors,” and must share the “responsibility for hav-
ing participated” in the last war instead of being rewarded with keeping ter-
ritory that might benefit Yugoslavia.45 While resistance to Germanization by
Slovenes, most especially after the Anschluss, increased until the end of the
war men like Kardelj wanted it official and wished Austria to shed land as
punishment.46

“Maintenance of Slovene in Carinthia (Austria): Grounds for Guarded Optimism?,”

Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, 45:1/2 (March–June 2003), p. 96.
About what calculates language use and ethnicity see James Tollefson, “The Maintenance
of Slovenian in Carinthia: A Yugoslav-Austrian Dispute,” Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue
Canadienne des Slavistes, 23:3 (September 1981), p. 302.
43  As noted in Jozo Tomasevich, War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–5: Occupation and
Collaboration, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), p. 85. The same thing, of course,
occurred in areas controlled by Italians during the interwar period. For some informa-
tion on the difficulties that the Italians had in Italianizing the area, see Hametz, Making
Trieste Italian, 1918–1954, p. 3. See also, Sluga, The Problem of Trieste, p. 48. Sluga cited the
transformation of these 500 schools in the short period from 1924 to 1927, which came in
addition to the 1926 law that mandated Slav surnames altered to become more “aestheti-
cally pleasing” to Italian ears.
44  Germanization, of course, happened as both a deliberate and unintentional occurrence.
Nazi forces obviously used brutally to enforce their racial views, even in the face of nega-
tive realities. Much earlier, we can see unintentional Germanization occurring since the
Habsburgs took possession of non-German lands and colonized them with Germans,
whereby German became a language of trade as opposed to one of agriculture. Yet, the
Habsburgs did also begin to influence Slovenes and others towards adopting German
customs and language, especially by the mid eighteenth century with certain reforms.
For more, see Lilyan A. Brudner, “The Maintenance of Bilingualism in Southern Austria,”
Ethnology, 11:1, (January 1972), pp. 39–54.
45  Edvard Kardelj in C.L. Sulzberger, “Yugoslavs Insist Vienna Pay Claims,” New York Times,
18 April 1947, p. 12.
46  For more on Slovene resistance see, Tim Kirk, “Limits of Germandom: Resistance to the
Nazi Annexation of Slovenia,” The Slavonic and East European Review, 69:4 (October 1991),
pp. 646–667.
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 37

Given the evidence at hand, why did Tito and his closest allies like Kardelj
lose in gaining territory against Austria? For starters, there was a dramatic de-
cline in support for Tito by the Soviets, who were growing weary of their allies
in Belgrade, annoyed by the continued independence of the Yugoslav top lead-
ership. Stalin had realized that the Soviet Union emerged from World War II in
an extremely delicate international situation and that his country had suffered
tremendously after four long years of war with Hitler. He also had understood
that the Soviet Union could not afford a renewed struggle with any of the re-
maining world powers and tried to further his policies using caution to avoid
negative reactions from the West. Tito, in contrast, lashed out with grandilo-
quent rhetoric and promised to “go to war” for lands in Austria and this forced
Stalin’s hand. Ultimately, Stalin saw the isolation of Yugoslavia as tantamount
to removing Tito and negotiating with the West for items of greater impor-
tance. U.S. government agents recognized the difficulties surrounding the Tito-
Stalin relationship. On the one hand, they saw a possibility that the “CPY could
be torn to pieces and emerge as a regime subservient to Russia,” without Tito,
while on the other hand it was possible that Tito’s assistants could “promptly
stabilize the situation without any fundamental changes in policy.”47 In the
end, Stalin failed to recognize the power of Tito’s persona, which had helped in
large part to propel a Communist Party to power in Yugoslavia in the first place.
With a dearth of support from any one of the big powers, the Yugoslav gov-
ernment had no way to engage anyone with strength. Tito’s actions against
Italy and Austria fell flat, particularly once he had determined to bully the
United States through harassment of State Department personnel and the
shooting down of U.S. Air Force cargo planes throughout 1946. Indeed, the dip-
lomatic arguments over the shooting down of the American planes led Tito to
explain that while he accepted the notion that he was acting belligerently, he
noted that the Americans could expect little else “by violating our territory.”48

47  Tito’s personality was paramount to his triumph to power in Yugoslavia. For example,
“The Director, Joint Intelligence Group,” has acknowledged, “The assassination or death
of Tito would so weaken the regime that almost anything could happen. It is possible that
his present assistants could promptly stabilize the situation without any fundamental
changes in policy. But it is also equally possible that the CPY could be torn to pieces and
emerge as a regime subservient to Russia.” See “Probable Developments in Yugoslavia and
the Likelihood of Attack upon Yugoslavia, Through 1952,” NIE-29/2, p. 1, DDRS.
48  Yugoslav government personnel saw the few over flights by U.S. aircraft as violations
of sovereignty and protested to the U.S. government just as the United States sought to
improve relations with the Tito government. Obviously, the flights might have gathered
intelligence or served some other anti-Titoist agenda but such behavior on the part of
Belgrade showed their desire to be taken seriously, even if that meant being bullies. See
38 chapter 1

Precisely this sort of action helped solidify opinions in Washington and deprive
Tito of the territory that his government might otherwise have gained from
Austria and Italy. Once again, though, Tito failed to grasp the larger picture as
the rest of the world saw it. From even before the war ended, the Western Allies
feared the victory of Marxist governments throughout Europe, especially as
socialist-sponsored protests and activities created a credible threat. Thus, the
Western Allies treated this issue of postwar European politics with care and,
therefore, the main prizes for Tito remained out of reach. Like with Trieste and
Istria more generally, Austrian Carinthia sat as a prime target for Tito based on
ethnic arguments and Austrian aggression in the war—but again, the Big Four
much preferred a satisfied Austrian state to a brutally weakened and rebellious
country in the middle of Europe. As a result, the Allies treated Austria as a
country that needed to pay its share of the Nazi burden while also remaining
independent, neutral, and territorially intact.
Tito’s quest for money and territory from Austria thus had meaningful over-
tones but stood disconnected from the larger priorities of Europe. Austria truly
had a great deal of guilt—many of the Third Reich’s Balkan soldiers and other
experts were Austrian thanks to linguistic and cultural sensitivities—and its
land area harbored a sizable, yet dispersed, Slovene population in its most
southern portion. Tito saw that as a perfect opportunity to enlarge his new
country and satisfy economic, nationalistic, and strategic goals all the while
increasing his domestic support with each foreign-policy victory.49 That he
misunderstood the nature of how the larger powers—especially the Soviet

U.S. State Department Telegram 811.236H/S-1146, 11 August 1946, “The Charge in Yugoslavia
(Shantz) to the Secretary of State,” FRUS. Also, see some of the language propagated at
the time, including from Ambassador Richard Patterson, who explained to the press that
the Yugoslav action was “wicked,” and “inexcusable,” and “deliberate attack.” See “Envoy
Condemns Yugoslav Attack on U.S. Airplane,” New York Times, 19 August 1946, p. 1. Tito
himself upheld the violation of sovereignty line when conversing with Ambassador
Patterson: he responded to “you cannot get good will by shooting down American planes,”
with “neither by violating our territory.” See telegram 811.2360H/8-3140, “The Ambassador
in Yugoslavia (Patterson) to the Secretary of State, (31 August 1946), FRUS. The gaining of
territory was expected by those in Belgrade in part too because of the wartime occupation
and Axis support of Ante Pavelić’s brutal Ustaša regime.
49  With regard to the economic question, see C.L. Sulzberger, “Tito to Liquidate Vast Mine
Assets,” New York Times, 12 November 1946, p. 16. Yugoslav sources elaborated their view
as follows: “The third phase is to construct new industry as part of the overall plan. Our
country is economically and technically backward but rich in natural resources. The aim
of our planning is not to export raw materials, as the old regime did, but to manufacture
them within the country.” This because “it is generally known that economically back-
ward countries lose their independence.”
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 39

Union, but also the United States and the United Kingdom—viewed the post-
war world was secondary. Those leaders in Moscow, Washington, and London
were not intent on bringing Central Europe back to the Stone Age—instead,
each camp sought to extend its own influence as much as possible all the while
maintaining an overall peace between the increasing Cold War rivalries.

Yugoslav Policies against Austria

Described by the press at the time as a “devout, practiced, and fanatical

Communist,” Tito tried using ideology as a glue to bind together all the peoples
in Yugoslavia but saw widespread promise in a popular foreign policy.50 His
primary method for advancing his policies relied on force—by either bluff-
ing war or actually shooting at lone targets or taking individual members of
the Allied armies prisoner—a method that soon wearied the Big Four. Action
coupled with press campaigns against the United States, Great Britain, Italy,
and others, along with charges of espionage hostile to diplomatic personnel
created swirls of tension. American government forces noted in late 1946 that
troop concentrations in Slovenia, Macedonia, and Albania “at least” suggest-
ed “threat of impending aggressive military action now or later” perhaps in
“conjunction with the Soviet Army.”51 The last assumption greatly damaged
Tito’s ability to negotiate and tied his actions—rightly or wrongly—to those of
Stalin. Yet, Tito exhausted all possibilities to get what he wanted—even when
the dispute for Carinthia seemed out of his reach and force backfired, Yugoslav
operatives still used almost any means possible to show that Slovenes repre-
sented a monolithic front. His main organ there, the Osvobodilna Fronta, went
so far as to forge signatures of more than 50 Catholic priests, showing their
desire to join with Yugoslavia.52 This supposedly showed both a united stance
by all members of Slovenes and attempted to demonstrate that Catholic lead-
ers were comfortable with Tito’s government despite its own attack on high-
profile members of the Church, most visibly Archbishop Alozije Stepinac.53

50  See, Charles Sulzberger, “Tito Tries a Test of Nerves with the West,” New York Times,
25 August 1946, p. 77.
51  As noted in telegram 860H.00/10-146, “The Ambassador in Yugoslavia (Patterson) to the
Secretary of State,” (1 October 1946), FRUS.
52  “Signature Forgings Charged in Carinthia,” New York Times, 12 April 1947, p. 7.
53  Much literature exists about Archbishop Stepinac; see, for example Stella Alexander, The
Triple Myth: A Life of Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac, (New York: East European Monographs,
1987).
40 chapter 1

There were two major problems with such policies enacted by Tito. First,
not everyone in Yugoslavia was in favor of Tito’s government.54 Various parts of
the country exploded in resistance to the new Communist regime, most espe-
cially in Croatia; nonetheless, no matter where resistance appeared, Tito was
ruthless in his securing power.55 There was no such thing as a united block—
journalist C.L. Sulzberger wrote correctly in a piece for the New York Times that
opinions differed on the expanse of territory. Regarding the issue of expan-
sion in the west and north, he noted that “in Croatia and Serbia there is little
popular interest, outside Communist and fellow-traveler circles,” but more
importantly, in key centers like Zagreb, a “majority seems to be against the re-
gime,” and sees expansion towards economically more prosperous areas, such
as Trieste in particular, as an “economic death-blow” to the Croatian capital.56
Second, Tito failed to take into account the different perspectives that the
other powers held regarding a post-war Austria. Because Tito vowed to pun-
ish his northern neighbor did not mean that France or the United State held

54  Slovene opinions during World War II seemed to desire a solution to the problem of
ethnic minorities and desired that the end of the war see a larger Yugoslavia at the ex-
pense of Italy and Austria. These bourgeois Slovenes saw the Axis as temporary arbiters
of power, some cooperated, and others resisted. More importantly, many of these same
folks regarded the Communists with hatred because of the long-term consequences of
Communist rule. For more see Tomasevich, War and Revolution, pp. 100–1.
55  For more on the various political viewpoints active in early postwar Yugoslavia, see Ivo
Banac, With Stalin against Tito: Cominformist Splits in Yugoslav Communism, (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press), 1988.
 Such anti-Tito opinions remained throughout the entire history of Yugoslavia but they
decreased markedly once the Tito-Stalin Split took shape in 1948, which allowed Tito to
use a host of measures—including force—to secure a reliable band of followers through-
out the country. For example, see M.S. Handler, “Deserters of Tito Being Organized,” New
York Times, 23 September 1948, p. 13. Handler noted that “Additional evidence of the lack
of success of the Cominform’s drive is the substantiated fact that not a single member of
the Yugoslav Politburo, or Central Committee, is known to have deserted.” An exception
to this was the desertion of a couple of army leaders, including Colonel General Arso
Jovanović, who officials shot near the Romanian frontier in an apparent attempt to flee
the country. A situation report made during September 1948, took note of the success of
Tito’s appeal to nationalism: “There appears no doubt that Marshal Tito gained consider-
able popular support among elements previously opposed to him when he was excori-
ated by the Cominform.” Cited in C.L. Sulzberger, “Anti-Tito Trend is Absent in Yugoslavia,
Experts Say,” New York Times, 6 September 1948, p. 6.
56  C.L. Sulzberger, “Apathy on Trieste is Noted in Serbia: Croats, Too, Found Indifferent,”
New York Times, 17 November 1946, p. 38.
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 41

the same view. In fact, dissention over how to proceed dragged out the con-
clusion of an Austrian peace treaty. Disagreements reached a head once the
nuances of drafting the treaty became a reality, especially over the idea of repa-
rations and territorial changes for Austria. In the preamble to the treaty, the
Russians wished to emphasize as much Austrian war guilt as possible while,
in contrast, the Britons and Americans seemed content to view Vienna as an
unhappy casualty of Nazi aggression.57 In fact, the joint Moscow Declaration
of 1943 mentioned Austria as “the first victim of Hitlerite aggression” while the
British Parliament embraced the view that only the “tender growth of Austrian
independence,” would help ensure a stable and friendly Austria.58 Even prior
to 1943, scholarship has suggested that the Soviets were committed to a sepa-
rate Austrian state in 1941, which would define Austria as a liberated country
and Soviet actions in occupied Austria as much different than in Germany.59
American intelligence documents suggested the “disastrous effects,” that the
extension of Soviet power in Austria would create. As a result, the government
of the United States was “firmly committed” to a policy “directed toward the
early establishment of an independent Austrian state.”60 Profound variations
in policy among the Big Four made it difficult for a small power like Yugoslavia
to make any headway, especially if the Belgrade government seemed aggressive
and reliant on or as a front for the Soviets. Yet, Stalin had little to gain by inter-
ceding on behalf of Tito on a point that was sure to stress any other negotia-
tions on more important matters such as reparations for the Soviet Union and

57  See C.L. Sulzberger, “Had Been Expected to Attempt to Replace Population of Austrian
Burgenland,” New York Times, 4 February 1947, p. 4.
58  See Robert Knight, “Denazification and Integration in the Austrian Province of Carinthia,”
The Journal of Modern History, 79:3 (September 2007), p. 576. In addition see Knight,
“Ethnicity and Identity in the Cold War,” p. 278. Here Knight quoted a 1944 Foreign Office
memo entitled the “Frontiers of Austria,” and concluded that the West was “determined
to oppose any border revisions” for Austria by 1943.
 Also see “The Situation in Austria,” Central Intelligence Agency, (20 February 1947),
DDRS. This report insisted that United Kingdom, France, and the United States worked
together to end four-power occupation regime and create an independent and stable
Austria because that would be in best interest of Europe. Soviet agents desired instead to
take as much as they could and force Austria to be dependent on them. This report made
no mention of anyone giving anything to the Yugoslavs.
59  For a more detailed elaboration see Wettig, Stalin and the Cold War in Europe, pp. 70–1.
60  See “Intelligence Report Regarding the Effects of Austrian Efforts to Remain Communist-
free Upon U.S. Interests in that Country,” Central Intelligence Agency, (28 April 1948),
DDRS. 13.
42 chapter 1

territorial changes for Germany.61 Indeed, both sides felt pressured to come to
a decision about Austria so they could move forward. This became all the more
important because “certain Americans” feared that if the peace could not be
delivered promptly then the “Austrians may tire of their faith in the West and
swing toward Russia, unhappily but realistically.”62 Such a scenario too could
hardly have proven promising for Tito.
While Yugoslavia hurriedly tried to shore up territories at the expense of
the losing Axis powers, the other countries were in no way absent bystanders.
Italians worked from numerous angles to ensure that Trieste and as much ter-
ritory around the city would remain Italian and benefitted from Western inter-
est in securing a pro-Western democracy in Rome. Austrians too, though not
as well connected as their southern neighbors, had a series of tools to combat
Yugoslav annexationist hopes. Once the Austrians employed the tactic of sepa-
rating their union with Germany to the handiwork of Hitler and his hench-
men, they gained a foothold in acting independently. Unquestionably, towards
the end of the war it became clear that Austria could act on its own behalf and
Austrian diplomats sought to secure guarantees and leverage their position for
a more favorable post-war reality. Austrian President (former Chancellor) Karl
Renner sent Stalin a letter on 12 May 1945, which precisely sought guarantees
of an independent Austria. Stalin had replied soon after by confirming that he
worked also for the “independence, integrity and well-being of Austria” and
was “ready to give” any help within his power.63 Although vague in its real in-
tentions, this sort of note was critical to the Austrian question of legitimate
normalization within Europe through a bargaining over reparations but im-
portantly buttressed Vienna’s international plea against Tito’s annexation
of territory.
On a different level, problems between common folks stirred up trouble and
kept bad news in the headlines. It was clear that the local Slovenian population
in Austria largely feared Communism but pamphlets from Yugoslavia came
across the border to keep the issue alive.64 That angered and scared many

61  See “Soviet Policy in Austria,” Strategic Services Union, (22 July 1946), DDRS. The report
noted that Moscow ordered that all heavy industry would remain in their zone of Austria
under their control and light industry would go to the Soviet Union.
62  See Knight, “Denazification and Integration,” p. 576.
63  C.L. Sulzberger, “Stalin ‘Guarantee’ Cited by Austrians,” New York Times, 2 April 1947, p. 11.
64  One of the issues that Kirk sees as important is that Slovene resistance to the Nazis
occurred because of nationalist sentiment, not because of class issues (“Limits of
Germandom,” p. 667). Also see Albion Ross, “Yugoslavs Incite Austrian Slovenes,” New York
Times, 23 March 1947, p. 10. Here the report included information that 350 Austrians beat
members of a Slovene parade.
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 43

ordinary Austrians who saw a larger threat from Belgrade and feared the day
when the British occupation force would leave. Since the massacres conducted
by Tito’s Partisans following the capitulation of Ustaša forces at Bleiburg in
May 1945 trust for official Yugoslav agents had declined dramatically.65 Some
reports, though given dubious value, even noted that the British were arming
former German soldiers in their occupation zone (Carinthia) to fight Yugoslav
Partisans.66 Overall, though, people throughout Austria expressed the need
for the “peace treaty [to] contain a strong four-power frontier guarantee,” or else
the Yugoslavs might simply march in and take what they desired. Thankfully
for the Austrians, the British and Americans saw the activity by Yugoslav agi-
tators as representing a small section of ideologically driven folks against the
“undoubtedly large Slovene-speaking group that prefers Austria.”67 As a mech-
anism to express further German control of the areas, some Austrians resorted
to hooliganism and attacked Slovenes to reaffirm the position of an indepen-
dent and culturally German Austria.68 This campaign’s goals included not only
the refusal to cede land to the Yugoslavs but also to gain land from Yugoslavia
according to the old Habsburg borders. This hooliganism by some Austrians,
“centered in Graz” wished to begin agitation for a return of the entire Maribor
region and the larger Drava Valley, which had been a part of Yugoslavia since
World War I ended.69
By 1948, tensions grew higher and the Soviets exchanged a series of harsh
notes with Belgrade whereby the influential Soviet central committee member
and longtime colleage of Stalin, Andrei Zhdanov, argued that the Yugoslavs
had deliberately misled the Soviets. One of his main points of evidence came
from the Carinthian claim because Yugoslav actions had “pushed the USSR
into defending territorial demands” that were “considerably beyond what they
themselves were making.”70 As in other areas, Tito had lost his Soviet support
long before the Tito-Stalin Split and had little left but to allow the Osvobodilna

65  For more on Bleiburg see Tomislav Dulić, “Tito’s Slaughterhouse: A Critical Analysis of
Rummel’s Work on Democide,” Journal of Peace Research, 41:1 (January 2004), pp. 85–102.
66  As noted in “Austria,” Strategic Services Unit, (13 September 1946), DDRS.
67  Albion Ross, “Carinthia Fears Yugoslav Invasion,” New York Times, 25 March 1947, p. 11.
68  “Austrians in Attack of Slovene Paraders,” New York Times, 18 May 1947, p. 4.
69  See Albion Ross, “Austria Fears Tito,” New York Times, 16 December 1946, p. 5. This effort by
the “Association of Old Austrians and the Aid Committee of Lower Styrians, and residents
of the Miess Valley,” regarded “the Yugoslav claims” as part of a “general effort by the Slavs
to get control of the north-south traffic axis from central Europe and the Danube to the
head of the Adriatic and Italy.”
70  As cited in Knight, “Ethnicity and Identity,” p. 284. For more on Zhdanov’s role, see Perović,
“The Tito-Stalin Split: A Reassessment in Light of New Evidence,” p. 38.
44 chapter 1

Fronta to wind down its campaign for cession to Austria with a string of final
demands.71 Leaders of this group frustratingly and weakly argued that all
Slovenes of Carinthia wished to join Yugoslavia but they could not accept a
plebiscite on the matter. When pushed on the issue of a plebiscite to deter-
mine the people’s desire the group responded with a fantastical reasoning:
Only after “fifty years of Yugoslav rule,” which could have the chance to “cor-
rect the results of a long period of Germanization,” would a plebiscite make
sense. Karl Prusnik, the organization’s secretary, defended this by arguing that
the Partisan war effort was plebiscite enough and the “bodies of Partisans
buried throughout this region are proof of our right to unite this land with
Yugoslavia.”72 At the beginning of 1948, the important Belgrade daily, Borba,
continued to run articles on the Slovenes of Carinthia. One article declared
that the Austrian governing authorities had given Hans Steiner, former head
of the Heimatspartei and a well-known Nazi, the position of advisor for the
Carinthian question. Borba desired that Steiner would be brought to trial as a
“war criminal” and that a democratic solution would prevail.73 Neither bodies
nor the threat of Nazis were not enough, though, and Tito’s use of aggressive
rhetoric and action failed to convince the Western allies of his case but it did
show Yugoslavs that he was bold and serious about taking on anyone threaten-
ing the new Yugoslavia.

Albanian Absorption

A compelling example of Tito’s larger quest for political dominance over the
Balkan Peninsula occurred in Albania, where Yugoslav agents worked hard to
synchronize the Albanian socio-economic and political systems during the
latter stages of the war. When it seemed clear that the Nazi demise was inevi-
table in 1943, Tito’s forces grew emboldened and sought a more direct means
of controlling the postwar situation in Albania by propping up the Partisan
leader Enver Hoxha. This support came first as part of an intense infrastructure

71  See, “Current Situation in Albania,” Office of Reports and Estimates, ORE 71–49,
(15 December 1949), Truman Library, Papers of Harry S. Truman, DDRS. On page 9 of
the analysis, the author declared that the “Kremlin had anticipated the public break with
Tito as early as March 1948 when they elevated the Soviet military attaché in Tirana to the
rank of major general and increasing the staff to 15.”
72  As cited in Albion Ross, “Racial Fanaticism High in Carinthia,” New York Times, 24 March
1947, p. 5.
73  “Zapadne okupacione vlasti sprečavaju demilitarizaciju Austriske preivrede,” Borba,
19 January 1948, p. 1.
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 45

program, which included “telegraph and telephone links” that would be ex-
panded by over 3,200 kilometers by 1951.74 But, this sort of backing was just the
beginning for Tito.
Sreten Žujović, one of the top-ranking Yugoslavs to emerge from World
War II, represented Yugoslavia in early agreements with Albania that included
the establishment of joint stock and banking agreements. These agreements
could then foster greater trade between the two countries in preparation for
a larger confederation or union.75 When Western observers declared that the
relationship between the two countries seemed more like Yugoslav dominance
than a partnership, Belgrade news organs agreed. Tanjug, the major press
agency, reported that in fact, “the Yugoslav commentary does not deny” that
Albania is “becoming” a part of the Yugoslav federation.76 Borba ran an article
in early 1948 that declared how the “Albanian people” saw that “economic co-
operation” when combined “with the protection and all forms of cooperation”
with Yugoslavia were a “secure guarantee of freedom of Albania for the future
development of the country.”77 Furthermore, “in economic terms, Albania can
only benefit from such an agreement,” because, after all, “Albania is in a better
position than it was under Italy.”78 Agents like Žujović penetrated even further
into Albanian domestic politics but their work abruptly stopped in the sum-
mer of 1948, when Joseph Stalin banished Yugoslavia from the Cominform.

74  With hundreds of kilometers of new roads, Yugoslav cooperation grew and the ideo-
logical binds between Belgrade and Tirana strengthened until 1948. See Savezna Planska
Komisija: Albanija, 1947–51, AJ CK SKJ Albanija IX K.12 7. “[We will] ensure good qual-
ity telegraph and telephone links between Tirana and all administrative and commercial
centers as well as other friendly countries…. To this goal, by the end of 1951 [we will]
develop 3,200 km of new telegraph and telephone lines.”
 Additionally, high-level U.S. government documents confirmed this stance. See, for
instance, “Albania,” Central Intelligence Group Situation Report, SR-4. (15 August 1947),
DDRS. CIA analysts argued that most people were anti-Communist and anti-Yugoslav in
Albania but the country was controlled and essentially a part of Yugoslavia. In addition,
the CIA believed that Enver Hoxha was a communist for pragmatic and not ideological
purposes. Also noted that Hoxha owned a cigarette shop before the war when we was
involved in the anti-Zog underground.
75  See People’s Republic of Albania Commercial Contract, Agreement, and Protocols, 24 July
1947, in AJ CK SKJ Komisija za Međunarodne odnose i veze Albanija [Albanija] IX K. 12 2.
76  AJ CK SKJ Albanija IX K.12 5. The New York Times carried similar articles in 1946, includ-
ing one in which a reporter noted that “Albania was on the point of asking annexation to
the Yugoslav Federal Republic.” See “Albania Reported Asking Annexation to Yugoslavia,”
New York Times, 16 March 1946, p. 4.
77  “Albanski narod vidi u novoj Jugoslaviji sigurnu garantiju slobode, nezavisnosti i integ-
riteta svoje zemlje,” Borba, 12 April 1948, p. 3.
78  See AJ CK SKJ Albanija IX K.12 5.
46 chapter 1

Wartime Albania

Present in the Balkans to aid in any resistance against the Nazis, the British
had sent several officers to advise and coordinate disparate armed forces in
the region. While the most famous was Fitzroy Maclean, others like Julian
Amery moved within Yugoslav and Albanian circles during the entirety of
World War II. Amery had recognized that not only the vacuum of ideology
allowed for communism to succeed in Albania but also how the nature of the
foreign presence altered the resistance.79 Over time, Italians increased their
occupation force to reach a level of three Italian soldiers for every military-
aged Albanian. In contrast, when the Nazis replaced the Italians, they exer-
cised a lax occupation regime.80 Concerned with simply covering the larger
Balkan flank and extracting certain resources, Wehrmacht soldiers rarely went
out on the chase. Such nonchalant pressure, according to Amery’s observation,
allowed Enver Hoxha’s Partisan army to consolidate power because rather than
attack Nazi positions, he focused on ridding Albania of domestic competitors.81
Each of the contenders for ruling a postwar Albania sought to establish legit-
imacy—including one centered on ideology—that could motivate the people
and build a new Albania; as World War II drew to a close, the Albanian Party of
Labour seemed poised to rebuild the poverty stricken and war-torn little state.
As leader of that party, Enver Hoxha brought the communist message to the
Albanian people thanks to the economic and military support from his fellow
Balkan resistance fighter, Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia. Like Benito Mussolini’s
friendship before him, Tito’s aid came at a high price, as the latter envisioned
an enlarged Balkan entity that would include Albania within a Slav-dominated
federation. With the conclusion of the war, the Yugoslavs focused on economic
support, as top-level Yugoslav Partisans lorded over joint-stock companies,
banks, and mineral extraction regimes. But, before such commercial entities
could become reality, Belgrade recognized the need to send massive amounts
of foodstuffs to Albania alongside ambitious projects to improve transportation

79  Julian Amery, Sons of the Eagle: A Study in Guerilla War, (London: MacMillan & Co. Ltd,
1948), p. 53.
80  Italian forces were not necessarily brutal—as Nazis were in other parts of Europe—but
they dominated Albania; the Nazis in contrast allowed for an independent Albania, re-
spected its neutrality, and merely desired cooperation. Initially, when Hitler ordered
the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece, he split up the territories and awarded Albanian-
occupied areas like Kosovo to Italy with the exception of the mineral rich Mitrovica re-
gion of Northeast Kosovo. For more on Nazi policy in Yugoslavia see Pavlowitch, Hitler’s
New Disorder, pp. 22, 80.
81  Amery, Sons of the Eagle, p. 65.
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 47

and communication infrastructure. Beyond roads and other networks, various

cultural contacts came about as well. Interestingly, the Republic of Serbia or-
ganized and put into place a “Society for Cultural Cooperation” with Albania.
Its founding assembly met in early 1948 and established a closer connection
with the “brothers in Albanian.”82 With hundreds of kilometers of new roads,
Yugoslav cooperation grew and the ideological binds between Belgrade and
Tirana strengthened until 1948.83

Yugoslav Efforts of Control

Yugoslav policy moved in the direction of propping up Enver Hoxha’s small

branch of the Albanian Communist Party during the war with logistical sup-
port, weapons, and morale. Importantly, the Yugoslavs left out any decision
on the status of Albanians inside Yugoslavia—principally in Kosovo and the
Western fringes of Macedonia—until after the war. Using ideology to show
their benevolence, the Yugoslavs seemed to have real success at convinc-
ing Albanians of their earnest support. During the war, Miladin Popović and
Dušan Mugoša focused on political and military organization. Following
victory in 1945, Tito sent the seasoned Partisan General Sreten Žujović, who
worked to finalize the ties between the two countries.84 By 1947, he had orches-
trated a comprehensive commercial treaty that bound Albania to a Yugoslav
development project that included logistical support for further moderniza-
tion of the economy along with the transfer of foodstuffs.85 While Albania’s
nationalization program might have yielded great dividends for Hoxha’s new
government and his Yugoslav partners, in fact there was little for the state to
take over. Italian occupation had expanded on the largely Austrian-built road
network from World War I, but the goal was simply to increase the ability to
extract minerals. As a result, as Mussolini had learned, profiting from Albania’s

82  “Osnovano ja društvo za kulturnu saradnju srbije i albanijom,” Borba, 7 April 1948, p. 2.
83  See Savezna Planska Komisija: Albanija, 1947–51, AJ CK SKJ Albanija IX K.12 7.
84  For a good review of some of the early details, see Stavro Skendi, “Albania with the Slav
Orbit: Advent to Power of the Communist Party,” Political Science Quarterly 63:2 (June,
1948), pp. 257–274, esp. p. 260.
85  See People’s Republic of Albania Commercial Contract, Agreement, and Protocols, 24 July
1947, in AJ CK SKJ Albanija IX K.12 2. “I am happy to report that the Government of
Yugoslavia will pay the Albanian-Yugoslav Society for the import and export based in
Tirana, the margin of 1 percent of the selling price of goods exported from Yugoslavia to
Albania under the Agreement on trade and agency of the said company.”
48 chapter 1

abundant natural resources would be a long-term and potentially tricky en-

deavor until infrastructure could improve.
Part of Žujović’s job during his time in Tirana was to create the atmosphere
for significant Albanian-Yugoslav trade. While Yugoslavia needed to subsidize
or simply gift critical items like foodstuffs, it also needed to normalize the cur-
rency and establish a reliable exchange.86 Yugoslav agents dealt with many of
the logistics to facilitate trade, including the overseeing of joint-stock compa-
nies, the repair and construction of Albanian infrastructure, and the deliver-
ies of Yugoslav goods. Tito envisioned such aid would benefit both sides, as
taxes on all goods handed over to the Albanians would repay the Yugoslavs,
including those on confiscated and donated materials.87 Yugoslav government
officials even helped craft the Albanian state budget, which had large alloca-
tions for military and material expenses alongside tremendous investment
and finance of projects. In 1947, the amount of the Albanian budget dedicated
to such financing of state-run infrastructure schemes reached almost 40 per-
cent while military expenditures topped 23 percent. Raw percentages for 1948
showed a relative decrease of the total allocation at 34 and 20 percent respec-
tively, but the overall amounts increased by 50 percent. Therefore, while mili-
tary spending reached 819,000 Yugoslav Dinars in 1947, officials set the amount
for 1948 at 1.2 million Yugoslav Dinars.88 More than that, Yugoslav bureaucrats
outlined plans for the agricultural development of Albania, showing how they
planned to increase output of consumer foodstuffs through increased culti-
vation. Staples like corn, sunflower seeds, sugar, potatoes, and, of course, to-
bacco comprised the Yugoslav planning agency’s focus for Albania’s recovery.
The juxtaposition of prewar levels of productivity with the levels of 1947, 1948,
and 1951 argued clearly for communism’s benefits and attempted to secure
Hoxha’s—and, by extension, Tito’s—control over the country.89 Like with the
larger economic development of Albania, Tito’s men worked hard to ensure
that the economies of the two states would complement each other.
As the establishment of a stronger communist Albania aided the Yugoslavs,
the importance of geopolitics made the situation in the Balkans even more
tenuous. Yugoslav strongman General Svetozar Vukmanović Tempo was in
charge of securing territory and allies for Tito, including ensuring the Greek
communists would be triumphant in their struggle after 1945. Cooperation and
control of Tirana meant that Albania’s southern border with Greece—itself a

86  See “Tito Said to Prop Albania’s Economy,” New York Times, 20 October 1947, p. 11.
87  “Referat o Privrednoj Strukturi NR Albanija,” AJ CK SKJ Albanija IX K.12 15.
88  “Referat o Privrednoj Strukturi NR Albanija,” AJ CK SKJ Albanija IX K.12 15.
89  See Savezna Planska Komisija: Albanija, 1947–51 in AJ CK SKJ Albanija IX K.12 7.
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 49

zone of contested space—would allow the Yugoslavs to dominate the Greek

Civil War and use communism to overcome competing nationalisms. In addi-
tion to southern Albania, Macedonia had become a critical component in the
larger question of territorial control, because Bulgaria, Greece, and Yugoslavia
each claimed its territory, while large numbers of Albanians called the part of
the region home. Various local politicians saw the battle for Macedonia as key;
as a result, the Bulgarian Communist Party had worked during World War II to
enlist Macedonians to fight in its struggle instead of with Tito. But, Yugoslav
operatives in fact criticized the work of the Bulgarian Communist Party in par-
ticular for have “illegally assumed the prerogatives” of the Macedonian revolu-
tionaries and generally operated no differently than “monarcho-fascists.”90 For
Yugoslavia, high-ranking Partisans like Vukmanović Tempo needed to main-
tain control over not only Macedonia, but also dominate adjacent areas like
Albania and Greece as part of Tito’s goal to control the Balkans and put linger-
ing political questions to rest once and for all.91
Despite the troubled history of relations between Albania and its South Slav
neighbors, Enver Hoxha described the union with Tito’s Partisan fighters as
representative of the “courage and maturity” to surmount the “old animosi-
ties, feuds and the deep gulf” that had existed.92 Hoxha’s confidence rested
in the power ideology—he wrote after the fact that to him, it was impossible
to “link communism with chauvinism,” because he had seemed to believe the
Yugoslav communists had risen in a “struggle for new Yugoslavia.”93 Ideally,
their aid represented a comradely spirit that they shared against the fascist oc-
cupiers of the entire Balkan Peninsula. Like King Zog before him, Hoxha used
the Yugoslavs to gain supremacy over Albania, but unlike Zog, ideology and not
simply opportunity seemed to motivate his partnership. Yet, in response to the
increased domination of Albania, Hoxha slowly displayed resistance against
the pushy Yugoslavs in late 1947 and early 1948. Once it became clear that Stalin
opposed Tito, Hoxha and his men unleashed scorn for Tito and his gang of so-
called megalomaniacs.94

90  Svetozar Vukmanović Tempo and Lazar Koliševski as cited in Svetozar Vukmanović
Tempo, Struggle for the Balkans, trans. Charles Bartlett, (London: Merlin Press, 1990),
p. 8. For more background on the delicate question of nationalism and Tito’s desire for a
Balkan federation, see Pavlowitch, Hitler’s New Disorder, pp. 208–9.
91  Enver Hoxha, The Titoites, (Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House, 1982), p. 43.
92  Hoxha, The Titoites, p. 3.
93  Hoxha, The Titoites, pp. 11–12.
94  Hoxha, The Titoites, p. 15.
50 chapter 1

Much of the work done by men like Vukmanović Tempo or Žujović enabled
Yugoslavs to build greater cooperation and bring the surrounding areas into a
larger economic zone. Although Tito’s new state was rather poor owing to the
devastation after four years of occupation and resistance, Tito saw himself as
an important figure and Yugoslavia as an integral part of Europe. Aid that came
to Yugoslavia from the Soviet Union initially boosted Tito’s efforts to enlarge
his rebuilding program, but simultaneously gave him the power to fund his
Albanian partners and draw them closer to Belgrade. Without any means of re-
sisting Tito prior to Stalin’s publication of Yugoslavia’s so-called errors, Hoxha
had to accept such Yugoslav domination. June 1948 changed that, though,
and Hoxha claimed that Stalin’s attacks against Tito “threw light on the anti-
Marxist revisionist line” and gave the Albanian party an opportunity to rid
itself of the Yugoslavs, who had become overbearing and oppressive.95

Conclusions: From Brash Foreign Policy to Reevaluation

By the summer of 1948, Joseph Stalin had enough of Tito’s foreign policy antics
and banished Yugoslavia from the Cominform, Moscow’s international organ.
That event profoundly influenced the remainder of the Cold War, including
a permanent reversal of fortune for Tito’s European expansion.96 Without an
ally, the coarse rhetoric from Belgrade on all fronts dwindled to a deafening

95  Hoxha, The Titoites, p. 18. Also see “Albania Says Tito Tried Annexation,” New York Times,
23 August 1948, p. 8. “The Albanian Premier accuses Marshal Tito of employing ‘satanic’
tactics in an effort to annex Albania and of having been an ‘agent of imperialism’ masking
himself as a Communist.”
96  When the Yugoslav secret police uncovered several high-ranking military and political
figures as covert Soviet agents, Tito used the opportunity to fight a high-profile campaign
against all of his opponents, thus leaving him an enviable position of control of the coun-
try by the early 1950s. See M.S. Handler, “Deserters of Tito Being Organized,” New York
Times, 23 September 1948, p. 13. Handler noted that “Additional evidence of the lack of
success of the Cominform’s drive is the substantiated fact that not a single member of
the Yugoslav Politburo, or Central Committee, is known to have deserted.” An exception
to this was the desertion of a couple of army leaders, including Colonel General Arso
Jovanović, who officials shot near the Romanian frontier in an apparent attempt to flee
the country. A situation report made during September 1948, took note of the success of
Tito’s appeal to nationalism: “There appears no doubt that Marshal Tito gained consider-
able popular support among elements previously opposed to him when he was excori-
ated by the Cominform.” Cited in C.L. Sulzberger, “Anti-Tito Trend is Absent in Yugoslavia,
Experts Say,” New York Times, 6 September 1948, p. 6.
Tito ’ s Early Expansion 51

silence and his power over neighboring Albania and in bargaining for either
Austrian territory or Trieste vanished.
In the aftermath of the split with Moscow, Yugoslav leaders acted with both
caution and concern to survive the criticisms by Stalin. Yugoslav agents present
in the Soviet capital sent back coded messages to their superiors in Belgrade
and gave opinions on everything from Soviet domestic intrigues to the state of
the USSR’s foreign policy. These memos, while obviously critical and hypersen-
sitive to Moscow’s moods, nonetheless foreshadowed what later emerged as a
broader, more global understanding by Yugoslav leaders. Interested in Yugoslav
actions against Albania, a secret message from August 1948 reported on how
leaders of the nearby Slovak Communist Party were uneasy with Tito’s desire
to “march into Albania.” In that case, the Slovaks argued America would at-
tempt to occupy Albania and draw the USSR into another European conflict.
Blaming the Yugoslavs seemed natural because of their so-called “adventur-
ous policy.”97 Critical not only of foreign aspirations, early Yugoslav complaints
spoke of Stalin cheating them out of agreed-upon credits, especially for the
war-weary Yugoslav armed forces.98
In the dire challenge to his credibility from Stalin in 1948, Tito at first halt-
ed his Balkan-wide foreign policy. Without Soviet support, Tito could exert
little pressure on the West, or even his significantly weaker neighbors, and
he instead focused on securing power for himself at home. Gradually, after
the initial shock wore off, Tito and his inner circle of advisers and war vet-
erans experimented with creating a new variant of Marxism.99 Coupled with

97  See “Encoded telegrams from the Yugoslav Embassy in Moscow 1948–50.” AJ CK IX 119/I
K.2 47.
98  See “telegrams” in AJ CK IX 119/I K.2 47.
99  The resulting self-management system called for a socio-political system that gradu-
ally devolved power away from the center. The party elites endlessly tinkered with this
system, finding ways to strengthen it against all opposition, because, after all, the LCY
did “not have a ready-made formula for socialism”; instead, the LCY elites needed to
“constantly revise, correct, improve, and construct that socialist formula.” Part of this
reform focused on including regular folks and designing a system that would serve as
a mechanism to perpetuate self-management to include these people until true commu-
nism became a reality. See, Branko Horvat, An Essay on Yugoslav Society, trans. Henry F.
Mins (Belgrade: Jugoslavenski Institut za Ekonomska Istraživanja, 1967), p. 210; Other ex-
amples include: Ljubo Sirc, The Yugoslav Economy Under Self Management, (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 1979), and Dennison Rusinow, The Yugoslav Experiment 1948–1974,
(Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978). Also see “Aktuelni problemi izbornog
sistema i uloga društveno-političkih organizacija u izbornom sistemu,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII
K.2 7, 1967, p. 2.
52 chapter 1

encouragement from a United States government seeking to benefit from a

rift among communist dictators, Tito’s government survived and by the mid
1950s, Yugoslavia had even won over the tacit approval of Stalin’s troubled
successor, Nikita Khrushchev, who justified the idea of a heterogeneous com-
munist movement. Yet Khrushchev sorely misjudged the ramifications of an
independent Tito when they jointly pronounced, “that the roads and condi-
tions of Socialist development are different in different countries” and that
“any tendency to impose one’s views in determining the roads and forms of
socialist development are alien.”100 While Tito’s power in Europe stagnated,
the idea of separate roads to socialism opened the possibility for a new multi-
polar environment, especially once Tito took a lead among Third World lead-
ers in what emerged during the 1960s as the Non-aligned Movement.101 With
a reform program centered on self-management and a foreign policy based on
the principles of nonalignment, Tito could in fact claim victory in his struggle
for a greater Yugoslavia, albeit one based on global influence and not territorial
expansion in the Balkans.

100  Cited in “Soviet–Yugoslav Communiqués on Policies and Party Aims,” New York Times,
21 June 1956, p. 10.
101  The literature on nonalignment is quite rich; a good document that shows the flexibility
and influence of the Yugoslavs see Robert Pastor, “Non-Aligned Conference in Belgrade,”
National Security Council Memorandum, (7 August 1978). This document has summa-
rized nicely the conflicts within the Non-aligned Movement, such as the struggle between
moderates and radicals and how Yugoslav diplomats attempted to steer a middle ground
for the sake of stability.
 chapter 2

Yugoslavia’s Ideological Shift: From Strongman to

Revisionist

And, of course, it was a tremendous moral blow for us.1

Josip Broz Tito to Nikita Khrushchev About the Tito-Stalin split

∵
As much as the beginning, the end of the Cold War in 1991 unleashed profound
changes throughout the world. Some scholars witnessed the defeat of com-
munism in 1991 as tantamount to the fall of fascism in 1945 and too enthusi-
astically proclaimed the triumph of democracy and market capitalism as an
“end of history.”2 Excitement for the withering away of communism in Europe
on the one hand and the brutality of the fighting that shook the political in-
tegrity of post-socialist states therefore marked this period of tense transition.
Yugoslavia’s tragic demise at this time forced a reevaluation of contentious
questions surrounding the broader fundamentals of the modern nation-state
as well as the more noteworthy multiethnic Yugoslav experiment. In part be-
cause of the overwhelming speed of communism’s general collapse in the early
1990s, and partly from the vicious nature of ethnic cleansing, the particular
events in Yugoslavia have been largely misunderstood.3 As part of an effort to

1  See “Fragmenti iz zapisnika o sastanku plenuma CK KPSS Jula 1955. godine na kome je
vodjena diskusija o politici SSSR-a prema Jugoslaviji posle povratka Sovjetske Delegacije iz
Beograda,” AJ CK IX 119/I K.2 45–90, folder 56.
2  For example, Francis Fukuyama authored a series of works with this idea of an “end of his-
tory” in mind. See The End of History and the Last Man, (New York: Free Press, 1992); and Have
We Reached the End of History?, (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corp., 1989). Having rescinded his
thesis later nonetheless shows that at the end of the Cold War scholars failed to recognize
the significance of a unipolar world on lower-tier states like Yugoslavia. The latter type lost a
significant point of comparison and justification for existence.
3  The debate over Yugoslavia’s demise still centers on either a nationalist-driven approach or
an explanation based on Tito’s Yugoslavia as having suffered from dysfunctional politics (i.e.,
Tito as a strongman). For some examples see Raymond Duncan and G. Paul Holman eds.,
Ethnic Nationalism and Regional Conflict, (Oxford: Westview Press, 1994); Richard Betts and

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004358997_004

54 chapter 2

realize how the beginning of Tito’s state might have influenced its demise, this
chapter will analyze the manner in which the unique identity of Yugoslavia
was born as neither fully communist nor fully democratic; as a result, I argue
that party managers premised the foundation of their success on a thorough
and dynamic socio-economic reform program that set them apart from both
West and East.4 This reform progression came about because of Tito’s brash
foreign policy failures of the 1940s and paralleled a search for incorporating
new, more global ideas into a Titoist state-building program.
Following Yugoslavia’s ejection from the Cominform—the Communist
Information Bureau—in 1948, Yugoslav politicians searched for an ideological
justification for the independence of their Marxist system apart from Moscow’s
guiding hand. This transformation stemmed from the Yugoslav Communist
Party’s (LCY) realization that it could no longer continue to follow directives
from Moscow in the wake of an open challenge. The verbal criticisms reached
too high a level for a real and lasting reconciliation—at least not while Stalin
lived. Having staked his wartime liberation movement on the politics of Marx
and Lenin and forged a founding myth based on Partisan struggle against the
Nazis and their fascist allies, Tito found no possibility for wholesale retreat.
Unable to veer too far from its path, Tito’s party nevertheless turned to patrio-
tism and emphasized to the war-weary Yugoslavs the otherness of Soviet com-
munism; the need was clear for centralism and a merging of the party and the
state, but the Yugoslav leadership knew that “revolutionary discipline” could
shift easily into Soviet-style “bureaucratic discipline.”5
After having resisted Soviet calls for regime change in 1948, Tito and the chief
ideologues in the LCY reevaluated Marxist texts and determined to use their
interpretation to forge a unique path that could free them from Moscow’s orbit
while building a legitimate Yugoslav Marxism. Because centralization formed

Samuel Huntington, “Dead Dictators and Rioting Mobs: Does the Demise of Authoritarian
Rulers Lead to Political Instability?” International Security 10:3 (Winter 1985–86); and James
Gow, Legitimacy and the Military: The Yugoslav Crisis, (London: Pinter Publishers, 1992).
4  James Cronin has argued that the détente moods failed so often to come to real agreements
precisely because the two ideological sides were “genuinely in opposition.” See The World the
Cold War Made: Order, Chaos, and the Return of History, (Routledge, 1994), p. 7. That might
explain the rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union but what about Yugoslavia? I would
expand Cronin’s observation to say that Yugoslavia failed in part because it failed to choose.
It was with neither side and therefore in an awkward relationship with both irreconcilable
sides. Tito in this sense was like the marriage counselor whose advice placated both husband
and wife without understanding the profound contradictions at play.
5  See Branko Horvat, An Essay on Yugoslav Society, trans. Henry F. Mins, (Belgrade: Jugoslavenski
Institut za Ekonomska Istraživanja, 1967), p. 196.
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 55

the basis of state-building until 1950, the resulting self-management system

called for a socio-political system that gradually devolved power away from
the center. Party managers endlessly tinkered with this system, finding ways to
strengthen it against what they saw as all opposition, because, after all, the LCY
ostensibly did “not have a ready-made formula for socialism”; instead, lead-
ers needed to “constantly revise, correct, improve, and construct that socialist
formula.”6 Part of this reform focused on including regular folks and design-
ing a system that would serve as a mechanism to perpetuate self-management
to include these people until true communism became a reality.7 As a result,
by the 1960s, Yugoslavia stood firmly wedged between the two competing
systems—the democratic-capitalist West and the communist East—and could
not fully identify with either.
When evaluating the Soviet threat to the United States and mapping out
an adequate response, the American diplomat George Kennan saw “a subtle
connection between traditional Russian habits of thought and the ideology
which has now become official for the Soviet regime.”8 Because of this hybrid
notion of ideology’s constitution, his regard for ideology as a force of and for
itself was small. Despite that, Kennan observed that communism provided
key roles for the party elites. Primarily, Marxism served to legitimize an ille-
gitimate government by supplying a historical imperative for ruling. Second,
communism provided an outlet for both extreme sacrifice by the people and
simultaneous repression by the state, especially enhanced if surrounded by
hostile elements.9 In the wake of worldwide devastation after 1945, Kennan
recognized it as an ideology that could speak to emerging peoples throughout
the world, especially as decolonization efforts seemed already overwhelmingly
led by leftists while Soviet credibility peaked following the Nazi defeat. As a
capstone to his thinking, Kennan astutely defined ideology as the “product and
not a determinant of social and political reality,” which caused him to see an
inherent flexibility within the international communist movement.10

6  Horvat, Yugoslav Essay, p. 210.

7  See “Aktuelni problemi izbornog sistema i uloga društveno-političkih organizacija u
izbornom sistemu,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 1967, p. 2.
8  George Kennan in John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal
of American National Security Policy During the Cold War, (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2005), p. 32. Cited by Gaddis as unpublished paper, “The Soviet Way of Thought and
Its Effects on Foreign Policy,” 24 January 1947, from the Kennan Papers, Box 16.
9  See, for example, the tremendous sacrifice of the Soviet people in Stephen Kotkin’s
Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization, (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1995).
10  Kennan (from 1947) in Gaddis, Strategies, p. 33.
56 chapter 2

While much of what Kennan diagnosed turned out differently, the notion
that communism could act with flexibility proved both right and wrong. The
events in 1948 between Stalin and Tito validated Kennan’s hope for separate
deals with postwar communist countries. Yet, in the long term, Tito’s example
of independence from Moscow could influence little in Europe, thanks to a
persistent and direct Soviet occupation of the eastern half of the continent.
But, in addition to creating an independent Marxism, the Tito-Stalin split did
unveil a wave of hope among U.S. government officials seeking an alterna-
tive to a long-lasting cold war. While Western observers—along with most in
Yugoslavia—were, at first, genuinely taken by surprise by the Soviet condem-
nation in light of the feverish pace of Yugoslavia’s construction of communism,
the results affected U.S. policy in a predictable way. Yugoslav leaders, while not
abandoning communism, embarked upon a policy that led to a series of deals
with the United States whereby Yugoslavia could remain outside of the Soviet
orbit thanks to billions of dollars worth of American aid—$2.2 billion in eco-
nomic and military aid between 1950 and 1965.11
Scholars have enjoyed wide access to the sources of the Tito-Stalin split
thanks to the opening of archives by the Yugoslavs, as well as the publication
of biographies and testimonies from high-ranking officials such as Vladimir
Dedijer, Milovan Đilas, and Ambassador Veljko Mićunović. Most of the ma-
terials underwent publication in Western collections and seemed to portray
Yugoslavia as representative of a neutral and benign socialist alternative to the
Soviet system thanks to Tito’s departure on a reform campaign that empha-
sized the individual at the expense of the bureaucracy and state. Popular re-
ception later of a foreign policy followed after Tito’s domestic reforms sparked
an international agenda centered on nonalignment, at which point, at least
rhetorically, the Soviet Union became a target for criticism as a country ruled
by so-called antidemocratic imperialists.12 Regardless, though, Western sourc-
es have concluded that the split resulted from a combination of power politics
and a careful awareness of geostrategic realities.
Texts of Soviet charges against the Yugoslavs told a different story, still; one
filled with ideological rifts and deviations that set Yugoslav leaders in opposi-
tion to the true path to communism. Recent work on this subject has benefitted

11  “US Policies Toward Yugoslavia,” Department of State Memorandum, 15 July 1965. LBJ
Library.
12  Robert Pastor, “Non-Aligned Conference in Belgrade,” National Security Council
Memorandum, (7 August 1978). This document has summarized nicely the conflicts with-
in the Non-aligned Movement, such as the struggle between moderates and radicals and
how Yugoslav diplomats attempted to steer a middle ground for the sake of stability.
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 57

from an opening of some Soviet archives, but still concludes that while the
Yugoslavs emphasized the ideological charges from Moscow, the reality for the
Soviets was the need for a firm control over Eastern Europe without competi-
tion or troublemakers. Later, when Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev flew to
Yugoslavia to mend relations between the states in 1955, Yugoslav records show
that an independent Yugoslav foreign policy that pressured the West after
World War II placed Tito squarely in Stalin’s sights. Tito told Khrushchev “we
already saw” the reason for the split; “It was a question of our interests towards
Carinthia [Austria] and in relations over Trieste,” combined with the “question
of [war] reparations.”13 Furthermore, Yugoslav territorial designs on Albania
and Tito’s continued meddling in the Greek Civil War reinforced Stalin’s realist
credentials and drove him to attempt the reestablishment of firm authority over
the Balkans without the risk of retaliation from the American government.14
Stalin’s move created a dilemma for Yugoslav Marxist-Leninists who thought
they were helping to broaden the strength of their ideology in the world—with
the challenge from Moscow, Yugoslav ideology needed a reevaluation.
This chapter will first explore how a particular Yugoslav socialism came into
being, and then analyze the path that Yugoslav leaders navigated in order to
define themselves in light of the initial Cold War standoff between sharply di-
vergent ideologies. Tito’s solution, as it evolved by the end of the 1950s, was an
emphasis on reform and flexibility that would make his system a viable and
legitimate alternative to the Soviet model while fitting within the global norms
that were then emerging.

Roots of Tito’s Party

In painting Yugoslavia as a state of ideological traitors, the Soviets forced the

Yugoslav leadership to respond in the only manner possible—with ideology.
Unable to open up the question of Yugoslav territorial aggrandizement since
he could find comfort in neither East nor West, Tito had to abandon his plans
of actually gaining additional territory in placed like Albania or Italy. Moreover,
Tito knew that he had to do something to withstand Soviet pressure, and so he
first trumped up the patriotism still fresh from World War II on the one hand,
while still adhering to Marxism by pressing forward with collectivization and
rapid industrialization on the other. Tito successfully tapped into and used

13  See “Fragmenti” AJ CK IX 119/I K.2 45–90, folder 56.

14  See Jeronim Perović, “The Tito-Stalin Split: A Reassessment in Light of New Evidence,”
Journal of Cold War Studies 9:2 (Spring 2007), p. 60.
58 chapter 2

the people’s shared memories from the recent past in his portrayal of foreign
powers trying to dominate Yugoslavia. Harping on the issue of national pride
was easy for Tito, not least because whether Yugoslavs agreed with him or not,
they knew Tito as a man who fought against the Nazis and the fascist Italians.
Tito’s early foreign policy in Europe sought to strengthen these credentials as
he worked to gain territory and appeal to every major group.
The Communist Party of Yugoslavia, a discreet, revolutionary group, op-
erated throughout the interwar Kingdom of Yugoslav with little success and
even less popular support. King Aleksandar Karađorđević’s royal dictatorship,
along with the numerous inter-ethnic and inter-party disputes, negatively af-
fected all political parties, but profoundly stigmatized the communists as il-
legal and subversive during the 1930s. Such a negative campaign produced
unusually chilly relations between the Soviets and the Yugoslavs that lasted
through World War II, which gave Tito the opportunity to emphasize that re-
cent past when he encountered troubles in 1948. Part of the problem facing
the Yugoslav communists before the war rested on a general hostility towards
the Soviet Union thanks to an extraordinarily large and outspoken group of
tsarist émigrés residing in Belgrade. Such a scenario set the tone for a general
anti-Russian mood, upsetting prior friendships and realigning Yugoslavia with
the Central and West European powers (and, as the Soviets would argue later,
cemented the Austrian Marxist view of Edvard Kardelj into official policy).
A rather active stance outside the country by communists contrasted with
a generally low level of activity within Yugoslavia. Yugoslav Army sources re-
vealed after the war that 1,664 Yugoslav communists had traveled to Spain to
fight in the dramatic struggle against General Francisco Franco.15 About half

15  Georg Steinbacher, a Communist who lived in Augsburg, Germany after the war, sent a
letter of sympathy and support to the Yugoslav Communists via the Yugoslav General-
consulate in Munich. In this memo, he wrote that by 1950 he “could no longer remain
quiet.” He had read in the East German Communist (SED) newspapers for some time
now—that is, since 1948—the “dirty slander” directed at the Communist Party of
Yugoslavia. He simply could not believe what the East Germans, the Soviets, and everyone
else was saying about Tito and Yugoslavia after the split. His former experience fighting
alongside Yugoslavs in Spain and an émigré who had moved to Sarajevo in the 1930s, he
could only remember good things about Yugoslavs. Moreover, “every German prisoner
who came from Yugoslavia” who he interviewed related only positive memories about his
experience. At least for Mr. Steinbacher, who signed his letter “salud Compañeros,” the
memories of a vivid international Marxist movement championed in part by Yugoslavs
before the war in places like Spain was a reality that could not be shaken by the sort of
brute politics that had determined inter-Communist relations after the summer of 1948.
See AJ CK SKJ IX 86 “Komisija za međunarodne odnose i veze DR Nemačke.”
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 59

of that number perished in the war while 350 returned to Tito’s side, with the
rest having begun resistance movements in other countries.16 Likely, the dif-
ference in numbers is due perhaps to the Communist Party members purged
in the 1930s and early 1940s such as Milan Gorkić.17 Nevertheless, this effort at
preventing fascism from triumphing in Spain proved a fruitless cause and fur-
ther separated the communists from the prevailing political moods in interwar
Eastern Europe.18
Soon after Franco’s victory and the banishment of leftist opposition from
Spain, Hitler unleashed World War II in Europe, and, by 1941, Axis forces had
invaded and occupied Yugoslavia. Tito liked to point out after 1948 that dur-
ing the period of occupation the Soviet Union had provided little support for
his Partisans. More aid had come from the Americans and the British than
from the Soviets, but owing to a lack of Western troops in the Balkan theater
of operations, it was the Soviet Red Army that helped liberate Belgrade, and
it was to the Soviet Union that Tito and his entourage held passionate alle-
giances. Because of the limited assistance that the Soviets had provided Tito,
though, and indeed the limited contact with the Yugoslav Party more generally,
the Yugoslavs understandably felt rather self-sufficient and could easily tap

16  See “Da li znate”? Vojnoistorijski glasnik 8 (Beograd: Vojnoistorijskog instituta, 1970),
p. 52. These Spanish Civil War veterans, while failing to defeat General Franco, did earn
valuable war experience and helped with Tito’s Partisan and postwar efforts. For more,
see Vjeran Pavlaković, “‘Our Spaniards’: Croatian Communists, Fascists, and the Spanish
Civil War, 1936–1939,” PhD diss., University of Washington, 2005.
17  An older but useful resource on the pre-World War II Yugoslav Communist Party un-
veils some of the intricate twists that occurred until the outbreak of war in 1941; see Ivan
Avakumovic, History of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 (Aberdeen: Aberdeen
University Press, 1964). Other sources cite the Kremlin’s purging of top prewar Yugoslav
Communists, including Gorkić. See, for example, Xulio Ríos, “O labirinto iugoslavo,” Grial
32:121 (1994), p. 95. A more thorough journal article on this topic of how the Yugoslav gov-
ernment repression and Soviet purges allowed for Tito’s triumph over the party is Phyllis
Auty, “Popular Front in the Balkans: 1. Yugoslavia,” Journal of Contemporary History 5:3
(1970), pp. 51–67, esp. p. 54.
18  There has been some exciting new work coming out on the influence that the Spanish
Civil War had throughout the world. While much activity has been devoted to the Cold
War as an ideological nightmare wrought with zero-sum games, the battle between fas-
cism, democracy, and communism should not be passed over. While it looked at a point
that fascism might triumph, it ultimately failed and crumbled with Hitler’s Germany.
Being pro or anti-fascist meant a lot for deciding political careers, even in the United
States. For more see, Michael E. Chapman, “Arguing Americanism: John Eoghan Kelly and
the Spanish Civil War” PhD diss., Boston College, 2006.
60 chapter 2

into that independent mood after 1948.19 In addition, the leading pro-Soviet
factions within the Yugoslav Party—indeed many prewar Communist Party
members—largely died during the war.20 What emerged then was what
Edvard Kardelj, chief Yugoslav ideologue and confidant of Tito, later described
as a feeling of how the struggle for liberation against the enemies of Yugoslavia
determined the independent nature of Tito’s communist regime. Kardelj logi-
cally linked the self-sufficient revolutionary struggle with the postwar socio-
political reforms that became socialist self-management.21

A Yugoslav Way Emerged

Enormous tensions bubbled inside Yugoslavia as leaders fought a two-front

struggle on behalf of the regime during the initial years following the split with
the Soviets. On the one hand, there existed the effort to consolidate the party
by getting rid of the so-called Cominformists (supporters of Stalin) and, on the
other hand, Tito knew he needed to build a credible military deterrent against a
Soviet-led invasion. Kremlin operatives fueled both these fires by attempting to
drive rifts within the Yugoslav Party while inciting numerous border incursions
from Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Albania.22 Yugoslav sources reported

19  Ivo Banac has claimed, on the one hand, (with good reason) that the declaration of a pro-
visional government in the Bosnian town of Jajce on 29–30 November 1943, was against
the wishes of Stalin (at least at that time). Banac has argued that Tito was self-sufficient
during the war and emphasized that point explicitly. See Ivo Banac, With Stalin Against
Tito: Cominformist Splits in Yugoslav Communism, (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1988),
p. 11. In contrast, Perović has argued that while this might be the case, recent work verifies
that Tito was in contact with the Soviets and they knew of Tito’s intentions. See Perović,
“The Tito-Stalin Split,” pp. 36–37.
20  The number of Communist Party survivors following the war was relatively small, but
worse still was any influence that pre-war members might have had came under attack
thanks to a tremendous influx of hundreds of thousands of new members. Some who had
survived would perish or face imprisonment after the Tito-Stalin split, as was the fate of
long-time Serbian Communist and then army General Sreten Žujović.
21  See Edvard Kardelj, Borba za Priznanje i Nezavisnost Nove Jugoslavije: 1944–1957, in
Sećanje, (Ljubljana i Radnička štampa, Beograd: Državna založba Slovenije, 1980), p. 11.
“A jugoslovensko socijalistička revolucije je bila narodna, demokratska, samoupravna.
Bez takve revolucije, Kardelj je to više puta isticao i naglašavao, ‘ne bi mogli nastati takvi
oblici samooupravnih demokratskih odnosa kakvi su izgrađeni u posleratnom razvitku
Jugoslavije.’ ”
22  See M.S. Handler, “Yugoslavia Tense over Balkan Rift,” New York Times, 16 September
1948, p. 7. Yugoslavia had officially sent notes of protest to Romania and Hungary
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 61

“thousands” of border incidents, but the fear of actual invasion decreased with
each passing day, purportedly because of a strong Yugoslav resolve in seal-
ing the frontier and the return to peacetime normalcy in Europe.23 When the
Yugoslav secret police uncovered several high-ranking military and political
figures as covert Soviet agents, Tito used the opportunity to fight a high-profile
campaign against all of his opponents, thus leaving him in an enviable position
of control over the country by the early 1950s.24
Yugoslav sources staked this early power on the “politically pure, unified,”
and “monolithic,” army that prevented the “undermining” of the “great confi-
dence and love of our peoples” towards the armed forces, and, by extension,
the state.25 The army indeed was a primary contributor to Tito’s survival as
it could fight domestic competitors while also preparing against external in-
vasion. When American aid arrived in spades during the early 1950s, it did
so according to American foreign-policy priorities. American strategists had
recognized a potential ally in Tito and thereby acted as the vital cement for
the LCY’s ability to control the country precisely because Tito lacked the re-
sources on his own.26 American aid reached so deep, that even some Yugoslav

because of what Handler quoted as “attempts to stir up a revolt against Premier Tito”;
see also, William Zimmerman, Open Borders, Nonalignment, and the Political Evolution of
Yugoslavia, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 20. Zimmerman has a number
of 1,500 incidents with Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria in 1948–50.
23  Banac cites 7,877 border incidents; a reasonable figure. See Banac, Cominformist, p. 130.
There were many reports of instability at all frontiers, and, after 1948, the Albanian and
Greek borders with Yugoslavia were especially troublesome thanks to other unfinished
revolutionary activity there.
24  See M.S. Handler, “Deserters of Tito Being Organized,” New York Times, 23 September 1948,
p. 13. Handler noted that “Additional evidence of the lack of success of the Cominform’s
drive is the substantiated fact that not a single member of the Yugoslav Politburo, or
Central Committee, is known to have deserted.” An exception to this was the desertion
of a couple of army leaders, including Colonel General Arso Jovanović, who officials shot
near the Romanian frontier in an apparent attempt to flee the country. A situation report
made during September 1948, took note of the success of Tito’s appeal to nationalism:
“There appears no doubt that Marshal Tito gained considerable popular support among
elements previously opposed to him when he was excoriated by the Cominform.” Cited
in C.L. Sulzberger, “Anti-Tito Trend is Absent in Yugoslavia, Experts Say,” New York Times,
6 September 1948, p. 6.
25  “From the Session of Representation of CC LCY For Organization of LC in Army,”
Komunist, 29 September 1966, p. 3. Yugoslav Subject Files I [YSFI] Army [A] Army 1953–66
[A53–66], container [cn.] 23.
26  For the impact at the time, see M.S. Handler, “U.S. Help at Once Held Vital to Tito,”
New York Times, 29 December 1948, p. 10. Much later, General Ljubačić—the Yugoslav
62 chapter 2

decision-makers declared a preference to join forces with the West and fall
under the early American nuclear umbrella that protected Western Europe
from Soviet aggression. Outside of such bold calls for military alliance, most
Yugoslav politicians enjoyed the support from Washington because it allowed
them to continue on their own state-building program with little fear of Soviet-
sponsored hostility.27 As tensions eased over time, the fundamental problem
that faced Tito and his loyal revolutionary band lingered on: What to do in
the face of Soviet charges of heresy? If survival meant that Tito would have to
adopt a new line—one based upon elaborating the particular Yugoslav charac-
teristics of revolution—then, he said, so be it. The groundwork for an ideologi-
cal break already existed and all Tito needed to do was emphasize the errors
committed by Moscow’s elite. With vast changes to the Yugoslav Constitution
put into place in 1953, the two systems formally separated and the LCY soon
began flirting with its new ideological position, which rested on a newfound
unity within the Yugoslav federation; anything else would have been “an ugly
dream” for the leaders in Belgrade.28

Change Became Evident

When Stalin declared that under no circumstances would the Soviets inter-
vene after the war in the internal affairs of other people, he established a basis
for Tito to demand unquestioned independence. Tito outlined his maverick

Secretary of Defense—petitioned the U.S. government for aid as news of Tito’s ail-
ing health spread and his death drew nearer. While the most significant American aid
ceased after the mid-1950s, such payments, gifts, or subsidies continued until the very eve
of Yugoslavia’s demise. Ljubačić noted in 1980, a similar dilemma facing the Yugoslavs,
that is, how Yugoslavia was in a “complicated position” between both international and
domestic troubles. He solicited a “special arrangement” with the U.S. government that
would facilitate a system of credits that could be used to purchase weapons from the
American military in case of crisis within or nearby to Yugoslavia. See “General Graves’
Meeting with Yugoslav Secretary of Defense Ljubacic [sic],” 11 February 1980, American
Embassy, Belgrade. Carter Library.
27  Yugoslav Colonel General Dapčević stated to the Associated Press in an interview in 1951
that “Yugoslavia is ready now to defend herself against any aggressor,” and he suggested
that they “would like to have some United States atomic bombs,” and that Yugoslavia
“could build more air fields for strategic bombing of Russian targets if given United States
material.” See “Yugoslavia Wants U.S. Aid To Include Atomic Bombs,” New York Times,
31 October 1951, p. 4.
28  See Marko Nikezić, “Stenografske beleške sa sednice Komišije CK SKJ za Informisanje,
13 September 1968,” AJ CK SKJ XXVI K.1 6, p. 27. The “disunity of Yugoslavia” for him, was
“an ugly dream.”
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 63

nature as early as during his speech in Ljubljana on 27 May 1945, when he de-
clared World War II a, “just war and we have considered it as such,” which gave
him the right to “demand that everyone shall be master in his own house.” “We
do not want to be used as a bribe in international bargaining,” Tito said, and
“we do not want to get involved in any policy of spheres of interest.29 Soviet
leaders, of course, took note of the tone in the speech and were offended.
I.V. Sadchikov, the Soviet ambassador to Yugoslavia, cried out that Tito’s speech
was an “unfriendly attack on the Soviet Union” and that another instance of
such insubordination would be met with “open criticism in the press” and
disavowal.30 Such a warning, though, failed to rein in Tito’s individualism and
bring about a subservient attitude among Belgrade’s political class.
The years following victory in World War II fell short in altering drastically
the balance of power in the Balkans. Relations between Moscow and Belgrade
were often affable, but also frequently chilly. Tito’s hostile actions in demand-
ing large sums as war reparations, alongside his brazen attempts to extend
Yugoslav territory and influence among his neighbors, put Stalin’s position at
risk as the Great Power in Central and Eastern Europe. Soviet responses con-
tinued to caution the Yugoslavs about their foreign policies, but the answers
Stalin received constantly affirmed obedience—nonetheless, without drastic
changes in policies.31 When Stalin had enough by early 1948, he wanted a way
to discredit Tito and the Cominform grounded its response in Marxist rheto-
ric and considered that the basis for these and other Yugoslav “mistakes” grew
out of the “undoubted fact that nationalistic elements” influenced the leader-
ship of Yugoslavia. Moreover, Moscow’s vanguard believed that Yugoslav lead-
ers considerably overestimated their domestic supporters and their influence,
thinking that, as a result, “they can maintain Yugoslavia’s independence and
build socialism without the support of the Communist Parties of other coun-
tries,” chiefly the Soviet Union. The path for the Yugoslavs, so the story went,
rested with “healthy elements” within the party who could “return to inter-
nationalism and in every way to consolidate the united socialist front against
imperialism.”32 Naturally, these healthy elements never arose to challenge

29  The Soviet–Yugoslav Dispute: Text of the Published Correspondence, (London: Royal
Institute of International Affairs, 1948), p. 35.
30  The Soviet–Yugoslav Dispute, p. 36.
31  While decreasing over time, actions in both Greece and Albania continued into 1948.
While a host important issues were present, from commercial ties, including banking and
import-export deals to military advisors—primarily Yugoslav citizens from the neighbor-
ing territory who spoke either Greek or Albanian—persisted even after Soviet warnings
to the contrary. For examples see, AJ CK IX 1/III K.12 1–16 and K.13 17–35 for Albania and
AJ CK IX 33/III K.12 1–30 for Greece.
32  “Cominform communiqué, 28 June 1948,” in Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute, pp. 69–70.
64 chapter 2

directly Tito’s hold on power, although the initial years following this critique
remained tense.
Having watched with interest the provocative rhetoric between Belgrade
and Moscow for several years, U.S. President Harry S. Truman finally wrote
Congress a letter in 1952 stating, “I have determined that Yugoslavia is a coun-
try which is of direct importance to the defense of the North Atlantic area.”33
The Joint Chiefs of Staff had decided much the same prior to Truman’s dec-
laration on behalf of Yugoslavia: “it is in the important interests of the West
that Tito maintain his resistance,” but the United States government needed to
foster “the reliability of the Tito Communist regime as an instrument of United
States policy toward the USSR.”34 By the early 1950s, Yugoslavia’s place rested
securely in the middle; with even tacit American support, Tito gained freedom
to maneuver and construct a new ideological legitimacy in the wake of devas-
tating crisis.
In response to the Soviet challenge to his credibility, Tito found justification
in the form of what would become his own ideology—Titoism—coupled with
encouragement from the United States government. By the mid 1950s, Tito’s
position earned him the envy of Eastern Europe, and he even had elicited the
unspoken approval of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who justified the idea
of a heterogeneous communist movement and reaffirmed Stalin’s stated policy
of non-intervention. Yet Khrushchev sorely misjudged the ramifications of an
independent Tito when they jointly pronounced, “that the roads and condi-
tions of Socialist development are different in different countries” and that
“any tendency to impose one’s views in determining the roads and forms of
socialist development are alien.”35 That joint pronouncement guaranteed doc-
trinal change in the communist world and legitimized a new multipolarity in
global politics.
Tito’s freedom rested, though, during this tense transitory period, on the
laurels of American declarations of support and Moscow’s hesitation to test
American resolve. Especially after the Korean War, an invasion of Yugoslavia
by the Soviet Union or its allies seemed unlikely.36 While in 1951, American

33  Harry S. Truman in Yugoslavia: Titoism and U.S. Foreign Policy, Washington D.C.,
Department of State Publications, 1952, p. 2.
34  General Omar Bradley in Sidney W. Souers, “Memorandum for the National Security
Council,” National Security Council, 16 November 1949, p. 1.
35  Cited in “Soviet-Yugoslav Communiqués on Policies and Party Aims,” New York Times,
21 June 1956, p. 10.
36  For example, while no known plans against Yugoslavia exist, Bela Kiraly, a former
Hungarian general before the 1956 Revolution, claimed that the Soviets had a plan in
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 65

analysts still thought such an invasion possible, and notably so did Yugoslavs
who called for vocal American support—even for American nuclear arms—
that assessment significantly decreased by 1952 as the U.S. government saw
Tito clearly had consolidated domestic power.37 While the main American
concerns over aggression faded in 1952, the threat of instability in the Balkans
remained a distinct possibility. Moreover, American policymakers worried
throughout the early 1950s about the continued success and expansion of com-
munism because not only did the devastation of war in Eastern Europe com-
bine with the Soviet presence to weaken American influence there, but also
both France and Italy possessed influential communist parties that caused
concern for American policymakers. After all, a dangerous cohort of “Marxian
Socialists,” who have “consistently looked on the USSR ‘in spite of all its faults’
as the hope of the world” remained influential in those countries through the
early 1950s.38

place to use Hungary as a staging point for an armed removal of Tito by the Red Army.
Scholars have found, though, that his claim was false. See Mark Kramer, “The Expulsion
of Yugoslavia and Stalin’s Efforts to Reassert Control,” Yugoslavia’s Expulsion from the
Cominform Sixty Years Later, AAASS National Convention, Philadelphia, PA, 22 November
2008. Bela Kiraly’s original work appeared as, “The Aborted Soviet Military Plans Against
Tito’s Yugoslavia,” in At the Brink of War and Peace: The Tito-Stalin Split in a Historical
Perspective, vol. 10 of War and Society in East Central Europe, Wayne Vucinich, ed., (New
York: Social Science Monographs, 1982), pp. 273–88; also see, Sabina P. Ramet, Three
Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918–2005, (Bloomington, IN: Woodrow
Wilson Center Press, 2006), p. 4. Here Ramet reiterated the common notion that Stalin
backed away from Yugoslavia because if “the U.S. would send in an expeditionary force
to fight the North Koreans, it would surely do likewise in Yugoslavia.”
37  The Department of State issued paper NIE-29 “Probability of an Invasion of Yugoslavia in
1951” on 20 March 1951 and determined that “the extent of Satellite military and propagan-
da preparations indicates that an attack on Yugoslavia in 1951 should be considered a seri-
ous possibility.” The Intelligence Advisory Committee conferred another meeting 3 May
1951 and reviewed the situation published in NIE-29/1. They noted heavier Soviet troop
movements coupled with “high Yugoslav officials” privately expressing “increased con-
cern over the possibility of an early Satellite attack. Although the timing of these state-
ments suggests that they may in part have been designed to support the recent formal
Yugoslav requests for arms and equipment from the US, the fact that Yugoslavia is openly
requesting such assistance may also be interpreted as further evidence of genuine fear of
Satellite aggression.” See Review of the conclusions of NIE-29 “Probability of an Invasion
of Yugoslavia in 1951,” NIE-29/1, (4 May 1951), pp. 1–2.
38  See Clare Boothe Luce, private letter to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, 15 June 1956.
John Foster Dulles Papers, 1952–56, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library. For more on the split
of the Italian Communist Party and Tito’s role see M.S. Handler, “Titoism, Nemesis of
Stalinism,” New York Times, 1 April 1951, p. 18. “The resignations of Valdo Magnani and Aldo
66 chapter 2

After having reviewed the situation in 1952, the U.S. government noted sev-
eral key features of the Yugoslav situation:39 “The assassination or death of Tito
would weaken the regime and would afford added opportunity for the USSR
to exploit political confusion and discontent, but would be unlikely to break
the regime’s hold over the country or to produce fundamental changes in its
foreign or domestic policies”; that “from the outset, the regime has placed a
heavy strain on the population, particularly the peasant majority”; but that
“current and future peasant discontent will be firmly handled on a local level”;
and, finally, that “a coup d’état directed against Tito by high members of the
CPY [LCY], the armed forces, the security forces, or by other dissatisfied ele-
ments is unlikely.”40 The American government asserted that Tito had solidi-
fied his position as leader after having combated domestic competitors and
that by 1952, he commanded, “the loyalty and obedience of the party and the
armed and security forces, and even opponents of the regime apparently prefer
it to the reestablishment of alien control from Moscow.”41 With a secure power
base thanks to his loyal police and officer corps—recognized by American
policymakers as strengthened by “confidence in themselves,” and a “particu-
laristic pride in their own achievements”—and international recognition by
the United States, Tito enjoyed the flexibility to pursue his own policies with a
much-needed vigor.42

Cucchi were not the cause of the split in the Italian Communist party, but were a logical
outcome of an internal struggle within the party—a struggle which was set in motion by
the Yugoslav revolt against Stalinist dictatorship.” Further in the article, the struggles fac-
ing the French Communist Party were attributed to the “Economic recovery” that has hit
the party “a hard blow and cost many rank-and-file members,” p. 59.
39  Though, it must be added that the report notes the following, “The Director, Joint
Intelligence Group,” has acknowledged, “The assassination or death of Tito would so
weaken the regime that almost anything could happen. It is possible that his present
assistants could promptly stabilize the situation without any fundamental changes in
policy. But it is also equally possible that the CPY could be torn to pieces and emerge
as a regime subservient to Russia.’ ” See “Probable Developments in Yugoslavia and the
Likelihood of Attack upon Yugoslavia, Through 1952,” NIE-29/2, p. 1.
40  See “Probable Developments in Yugoslavia and the Likelihood of Attack upon Yugoslavia,
Through 1952,” NIE-29/2, pp. 1–3.
41  See “Probable Developments in Yugoslavia and the Likelihood of Attack upon Yugoslavia,
Through 1952,” NIE-29/2, pp. 1–3. Emphasis mine.
42  See “General Policies and Problems in the Relations of the United States with Eastern
Europe,” U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS], Eastern
Europe; the Soviet Union Volume V (1949), p. 49.
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 67

America’s policy of supporting Tito in the early years after the split paid off.
Intelligence officials credited the efforts by the United States as key in con-
vincing the USSR “that an attack by the adjacent Satellites would involve not
only serious risk of war between the US or UN and these Satellites, but also the
danger that such a conflict would develop into a general war.”43 American of-
ficials determined that “without doubt,” the Soviets would instead “exploit all
possibilities short of war to liquidate the Tito regime.”44 The estimates of the
Kremlin’s assessment of Tito and his successful resistance against its overtures
led the Soviets to prevent further resistance from undermining their control
in other East European countries.45 No doubt disappointing to American poli-
cymakers, this realization of further Soviet crackdown stood in stark contrast
with what was hoped in June 1948—at the outset of the Tito-Stalin split—when
policymakers such as Kennan and institutions such as the Central Intelligence
Agency indicated that if Tito won “substantial concessions from the Kremlin or
is successful in breaking away from Kremlin control,” then the Satellite coun-
tries would find it difficult to control their “nationalist” elements, who were
reportedly “already rebelling against blind obedience to the Kremlin.”46 Even
though this did not happen, Tito survived and served as a continual remind-
er of the limits of Soviet control. Something seemed to have worked from an
American perspective.

43  See “Probable Developments in Yugoslavia and the Likelihood of Attack upon Yugoslavia,
Through 1952,” NIE-29/2, p. 6. See also, Gregory Mitrovich, Undermining the Kremlin:
America’s Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947–1956 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 2000), pp. 40–41. Mitrovich pointed out that Charles Bohlen saw in the wake of the
Tito-Stalin that the Soviets would cement their control over Eastern Europe, especially
given the strategic importance of certain countries such as Poland or Hungary.
44  See FRUS, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union Volume V (1949), p. 948. “Although Tito’s her-
esy represents an intolerable challenge to Soviet authority, the Soviet Government is not
likely to risk a direct military attack on Yugoslavia which might develop into a general
conflict.”
45  For some discussion of this process, see Roy Macridis, “Stalinism and the Meaning of
Titoism,” World Politics, 4:2 (January 1952), p. 235. “Soviet leaders undertook a vast cam-
paign of purging the Communist parties of the satellites to eliminate all dissident ele-
ments. In some cases, as in Poland, direct command of military personnel was entrusted
to Russians.”
46  R.H. Hillenkoetter, “Memorandum for the President,” 30 June 1948, Washington, DC:
Central Intelligence Agency, p. 1.
68 chapter 2

The Yugoslav Perspective of Titoism

Yugoslav politicians struggled to maintain a high-level of awareness among

their members and, as a result, reach deeply into larger society to build sup-
port for the regime. Tito’s most intimate supporters recognized that the best
method for constructing a popular legitimacy rested on the policy of reform-
ing Marxism vis-à-vis socialist self-management and decentralization of power
that would give people a stake in the regime’s success and bind them to his
legacy. Reform proved a balancing act, because when party members rejected
the reforms that worked towards realizing self-managing goals or went too far,
Tito removed them. Milovan Đilas fell first from the top leadership circle, but
much later in 1966 Aleksandar Ranković, vice president of the federation and
heir apparent to Tito, not only used the power of his influential security ser-
vice (UDB-a) for his own political agenda, but also made frequent public and
private statements against decentralization and the path of Yugoslavia’s socio-
economic development.47 Unable to tolerate such behavior, Tito removed foes
like Ranković, and created a stir inside Yugoslavia that firmly solidified a slow
and consistent course of reform alongside a globalist and activist foreign policy
component. In addition, the removal of Ranković banished authoritative totali-
tarianism in Belgrade. Self-management became more than a rhetorical device
for LCY leaders. Central Committee member Nijaz Dizdarević “stress[ed]” that
it was necessary to put forth the question of the ideological awareness of the
LCY members, because it was “of essential importance,” for the LCY’s role in
society to “help the working man in his struggle for self-management.”48 This
emphasis on the individual made Titoism markedly different from the Soviet
case, where decrees by the elite vanguard managed the lives of the workers.
Roots of a particular Yugoslav identity remain clouded by the events of the
1948. How reliable are the sources that have painted Tito as a maverick unwill-
ing to bow to Stalin? Moreover, what did Stalin think he was going to achieve
by expelling Tito from the Cominform? While Yugoslav sources typically have
painted Tito as independent-minded from the beginning, no sources prior to
1948 describe a unique Titoist ideology—as a sort of Yugoslav Communism in
contrast to the communism of the Soviet Union.49 The latter emerged because

47  Department of State Telegram, “Rankovic’s Fall—Part V,” 7 July 1966, LBJ Library.
48  Dizdarević in “‘Deformities’ in Yugoslav Army Security,” Radio Zagreb. HU OSA 300-10-2
YSFI A A53–66, cn. 23.
49  I contend that after a thorough review of Yugoslav documents—including Soviet-
Yugoslav and American-Yugoslav conversations—Tito was not only a tough negotiator
and shrewd politician, but also incredibly confident in himself and his position. Tito’s
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 69

of the split; this is undeniable. What happened, though, in Yugoslavia after

1948 was not just a blind groping for survival. Instead, a deliberate system ma-
terialized that not only built legitimacy for itself, but also maintained a logic
and consistency.
Self-managing socialism lasted the entire life of Tito’s state and as it pro-
gressed, so did all other aspects of ideology and practice. When the army
reformed in the late 1960s, it did so according to self-managing principles;
likewise, with decentralization of the federal apparatuses mandated with each
new constitution came a reliance on local leaders that encompassed hundreds
of thousands of Yugoslavs into the direct management of the state. While not
without its inefficiencies, defects, and other tensions over control of resources
and authority, self-management quickly became the mantra of Tito’s reform
regime and helped build a unique Marxist identity. While domestic policies
took center stage for self-management, the important changes that Tito intro-
duced into his system greatly expanded into all spheres of Yugoslav life and
deeply influenced foreign policy.
Because of the far-reaching reforms towards further decentralization and
self-management, a parallel foreign policy promptly emerged. In 1955, when
a group of newly independent African and Asian states met at Bandung,
Indonesia, Tito latched onto and helped develop the principles that these
leaders formulated. The resulting Non-aligned Movement spoke of lofty goals
and primarily influenced change in the 1960s, including having spearheaded
the fight against new colonialism (vis-à-vis a binding alliance with Moscow
or Washington), domination, racism, and any interference in a country’s do-
mestic affairs by another state.50 The last point is obvious from Tito’s own ex-
perience with Stalin and the resulting Yugoslav fear of Soviet or Soviet-bloc
invasion. Kremlin leaders kept this fear real with the suppression of riots in
East Germany in 1953, protestors in Poznan, Poland, and the 1956 invasions of

confidence though seems to have mattered greatly as he not only weathered the storm of
Soviet critiques but also took the dangerous path towards reforming his state in the face
of hostility. Edvard Kardelj, Titoism and the Contemporary World: Edvard Kardelj’s Speech
to the Fourth Congress of the People’s Front of Yugoslavia (New York: National Committee
for a Free Europe, Inc., 1953); and, John C. Campbell, Tito’s Separate Road: America and
Yugoslavia in World Politics (New York: Harper Row, 1967).
50  “Budući da je nesvrstanost efikasno, oružje malih i srednjih zemalja u borbi protiv bilo
kojeg oblika dominacije i homogenije i za očuvanje nacionalne političke i ekonomske
nezavisnosti, to očito ne odgovara ambicijama da se nesvstani pretvore u instrument poli-
tike lagera, a prije svega Sovjetskog Saveza.” From “Promašeni napadi na nesvrstanost,”
Vjesnik, 21 September 1968. HU OSA 300-10-2 Yugoslav Subject Files I, Non-Alignment
Foreign Policy 1 of 2, 1964–68 [NAFP1, 64–68], cn. 286.
70 chapter 2

Hungary, which were meant to protect socialism; but also much later in 1968,
when events in Czechoslovakia involved Red Army intervention.
A Yugoslav path necessarily opted out of either course laid out by Moscow
and Washington. As a working alternative to choosing sides, this third way
naturally had the most potential in the Third World, those countries Yugoslavs
identified as “liberating themselves from colonial slavery,” who only desired “to
formulate their own policies, to be equal in international affairs, and to pre-
serve freedom of action.”51 Yet, as history has shown, Yugoslav socialism failed
to export itself as a political model for emulation. Its limited success in draw-
ing in members of the newly liberated countries of Africa and Asia towards a
friendly relationship succeeded only as long as Tito could supply economic aid
alongside moral and political advice, such as the delivery of arms to Indonesia
or Egypt. As Odd Arne Westad has argued, during the Cold War there existed
two blocs, along with a host of revolutionaries whom all courted yet no one
could control.52 Revolutionaries took sides according to the level of economic,
military, and political aid dispersed and unfortunately for Tito, he had little
money to finance a viable foreign policy or vehicle to export his worldview.
Traveling to Africa and Asia as part of goodwill missions, Tito tried to promote
trade but his industrial economy was never large enough to compete with ei-
ther the United States or the Soviet Union. Ignoring that reality, Gavro Altman
argued in the important Yugoslav weekly, Komunist, that “the lasting political
interests of our own country and the well conceived interest of our economy”
calls for a further involvement with fellow unaligned countries.53
Despite calls for a greater presence in the Third World, Yugoslavia’s trade
in the mid-1960s heavily favored the United States and Western Europe with
forty-eight percent compared to thirty-three percent with the Soviet Union
and its satellites and a mere nineteen percent with the nonaligned countries.54
Altman’s call for an increased Yugoslav economic presence across the world
mirrored the hopes of politicians who saw trade as an innocuous manner
of expanding Yugoslavia’s influence throughout the world. Tito declared,

51  See “Belgrade: Nonalignment—Antithesis to Policy of Position from Strength,” Radio

Belgrade, 11 June 1968. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NAFP1, 64–68, cn. 286.
52  See Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Intervention and the Making of
Our Times, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
53  See Gavro Altman, “The Responsibility of Europe,” Komunist, 11 January 1968, p. 3. HU OSA
300-10-2 YSFI NAFP1, 64–68, cn. 286. Also see, J. Đoric, “Jesmo lli Evropljan ili nesvrstani?”
Vjesnik, 26 March 1967. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NAFP1, 64–68, cn. 286.
54  The Yugoslav Experiment, National Intelligence Estimate (NIE 15–67), 13 April 1967, LBJ
Library.
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 71

“Yugoslavia has its own ambitions,” including what he termed as the “inter-
ests of further development of socialism and the furthering of the revolution-
ary development of all progressive people.”55 One path towards that goal of
leading the way among all so-called progressive people rested on Yugoslavia’s
economic expansion; with a healthy and diverse economy, Tito could have
looked to selling his ideology along with his country’s products. One outlet
that emerged was the “food, medicine, and military supplies to the Algerian
mujahideen” during its conflict for independence against the French.56

Recognition of Different Paths

A tremendous success for Tito’s reform program and the construction of his
ideology after the 1948 split came not merely from a willing domestic audi-
ence, but with recognition from outside sources. After all, external recognition
rewarded Tito for his behavior and proved him right against domestic competi-
tors. While the American government saw Tito as a useful force and supported
him in the overall fight against the Soviets, Tito could not rely on support from
Washington alone to sustain him.57 In 1955, a summit between top leaders
from the Kremlin and Belgrade met to hash out their differences and achieve
a working relationship again. During this Soviet–Yugoslav summit in the sum-
mer of 1955, Vice President Edvard Kardelj stated that the Yugoslavs believed
that diplomatic relations with all countries stood out as a moral and socialist
objective. As a result, he supported international socialist parties in addition to
communist parties, whereas Kardelj harangued the USSR’s elite for supporting
only those under their control. Such a policy, according to Kardelj, was foolish.58
Indeed, in other areas, the Yugoslavs displayed an incredible willingness to
cross party lines, even before the Tito-Stalin split. In terms of treating German

55  See “Fragmenti” AJ CK IX 119/I K.2 45–90, folder 56. “Jugoslavija ima svoje ambicije, da
ona hoće da igra tako neku naročitu ulogu u socijalističkom svetu i da prema njoj treba
drugačije postupati nego prema drugim socijalističkim zemljama. Naime, drugim rečima,
ja mislim da teba tako postaviti odnose ne samo specijalne prema Jugoslaviji nego uopšte
u socijalističkom svetu. Ja govorim u interesu daljeg razvijanja socijalizma i daljeg revolu-
cionarnog razvoja i omogućavanja okupljanja svih progresivnih ljudi….”
56  See Jeffrey James Byrne, “Beyond Continents, Colours, and the Cold War: Yugoslavia,
Algeria, and the Struggle for Non-Alignment,” The International History Review, 37:5
(2015), p. 918.
57  See Lorraine Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat: The United States, Yugoslavia, and the Cold War,
(University Park, PN: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).
58  Kardelj in “Fragmenti” AJ CK IX 119/I K.2 45–90, folder 56.
72 chapter 2

prisoners of war, the Yugoslavs focused on treating former Social Democrats

(SPD) and Communists (KPD) equally and as vital contributors to the recon-
struction of Germany. In 1947, Colonel Dimitrije Georgijević, one of the officers
in charge of the POW program, declared that the SPD men “created together
with the communists an anti-fascist movement in the camps and represent
an unconditional ideal to create a single workers’ party.” One SPD member
in particular, who was for a time a police officer, was “otherwise one of our
best anti-fascists.”59 Such an early flexibility in their thinking—predating the
Tito-Stalin split—shows that the Yugoslavs did act independently in earnest
and perhaps already stood poised to logically move towards a sort of nonalign-
ment, or peaceful cooperation with folks regardless of minute differences.
Much later in the early 1970s Nijaz Dizdarević reemphasized his willingness
to “collaborate with all socialist countries,” but, in particular, those familiar
“countries in the socialist camp and the Warsaw Pact.”60 Yugoslavs defended
their position because, as they saw it, support for social-democratic parties
would help draw those parties away from the capitalists, while the opposite
would occur if left isolated.61 This position supported the Yugoslav sense of sov-
ereignty and cooperation, but it also fit within the larger dilemma of European
security, especially in light of the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) with West Germany’s inclusion in 1949. Khrushchev and
Tito alike had jointly recognized the German problem as the bane of European
stability and social development.62 Difference between the two leaders,

59  AJ CKJ IX, 86, “Komisija za međunarodne oddnose i veze DR Nemačke.” This entire
fond includes information about German prisoners held in Yugoslav captivity after the
end of World War II. Most of these files include information about the prisoners from
Wehrmacht Battalion 999, which was a penal battalion that first fought in Africa before
moving to Greece and eventually into Yugoslavia. Nazi Germany’s idea of a penal bat-
talion included politically unreliable folks who had served time in concentration camps
prior to their conscription in 1942. For a fuller treatment of this episode, see Robert
Niebuhr, “Between Victors and Vanquished: Wehrmacht Prisoners of War in Yugoslavia,”
Journal of Slavic Military Studies 29:1 (March 2016), pp. 1–21.
60  “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog biroa,” AJ CK SKJ IV K.7 7, 1971, p. 50.
61  See “Fragmenti” AJ CK IX 119/I K.2 45–90, folder 56. “Mi ne mislimo da su socijal-demokrati
danas bolji nego što su bili pre 20 godina. Naprotiv, u mnogim stvarima oni su možda
otišli još dalje od marksizma. Međutim, oni imaju za sobom radničke mase i u radničkom
masama ima tendencija za jednom aktivnijom socijalističkom akcijom.”
62  At the 1955 summit in Belgrade, Khrushchev said, “The question of Germany. The central
question is Germany.” Later in that same day, Tito said, “That means, the question of re-
solving the German question is closely bound with the question of European security at
the same time.” See “Fragmenti” AJ CK IX 119/I K.2 45–90, folder 56.
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 73

though, revealed themselves with the proposed solution. Obviously, Tito had
less to lose by recognizing one Germany whereas the Soviets needed to have
East Germany—as a sovereign German state—legitimized by other parties.63
But the Soviets could gain little ground in the West, according to the Yugoslavs,
because with secrecy and exclusion, Western Europe—in particular countries
such as Britain and France—had more to fear from the Soviets than from a
resurgent Germany.
From the Yugoslav point of view, the Soviet brutalization of other parties
stood as a testament as to why the LCY had to remain steadfast on ideologi-
cal questions. Yugoslavs could not tolerate such a hierarchical system within
self-management, but while admittedly different compared to the Soviets,
the founding members of NATO told Tito that Yugoslavia was ineligible for
membership because of its one-party system.64 In some instances, Western
governments afforded Tito some flexibility and held out stimuli—the Italian
government, despite its territorial dispute with Tito over Trieste, followed
America’s lead and encouraged Tito with a commercial agreement.65 For the
West, Yugoslav leaders fit the original Joint Chiefs’ declaration of anti-Soviet
attitudes that would benefit U.S. foreign policy; importantly, though, because
Tito refused to abandon Marxism and embrace the American system, he stood
outside multinational systems such as NATO and later the European Economic
Community (EEC).
Western appreciation of Tito, while in effect allowing Tito to reform his
Marxist principles in peace, underscored the larger problem of legitimacy
for the dictator. A lack of real inclusion into a foreign system or association
helped reinforce the fear in Belgrade over its perceived isolation and pushed
Tito towards creating a larger foreign policy centered on a strong and globally
vocal Yugoslavia. Uncertainty plagued the West on this score too, and George

63  See also “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ IV K.7 7,
1971, p. 96. The discussions at this 1971 meeting outlined the thoughts of the committee
in terms of Brezhnev’s visit to Yugoslavia in that same year. It coincided with a “definite
turn to solve the German problem” and finally rest easy regarding security in Europe. The
Soviets had ratified talks in Bonn, which maintained the status quo and agreed to set a
time in the near future for what would become the Helsinki Accords and put an end to
the uneasiness over borders in Europe.
64  Tito told Khrushchev, that the forming members of NATO told him that Yugoslavia cannot
join because “You have a different system and because of that cannot come into NATO.”
See “Fragmenti” AJ CK IX 119/I K.2 45–90, folder 56.
65  See “Participation by the United States in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and
in Efforts for European Integration; The Military Assistance Program,” FRUS, Western
Europe, Volume IV (1949), p. 476.
74 chapter 2

Kennan had already noted in 1949 that the U.S. response to an independent
Tito needed to avoid “extremes.” Americans could neither “beseech” Tito’s
favor and ruin his domestic standing nor “repulse” him and cause a victory for
the Kremlin.66 Leaders in the West tried, though, to modify Yugoslav domestic
politics because of the critical aid provided during the post-1948 Soviet eco-
nomic blockade—Khrushchev criticized Tito in 1955, saying, “If the Americans
gave you help, they did not do it for good publicity.” Tito defended himself to
Khrushchev when he explained that he had not been a fool; in fact, as Tito de-
clared, “It was not only that they used us, but we used them too.”67 Over time,
it became clear that Tito used this ongoing uncertainty shrewdly to extract
concessions from both sides; the problem in the early 1950s rested on the need
for someone to recognize Tito as the undisputed leader of his Yugoslavia.
True to his revolutionary character and the socialist principles for which he
and his followers fought, Tito strengthened his credentials as a Marxist and, in
1955, gained something completely unforeseeable since the summer of 1948—
recognition by the Soviet Union. Results of the Soviet–Yugoslav summit in 1955
opened up new avenues for Yugoslav policy and helped to consolidate the le-
gitimacy of Tito’s communism. Having admitted that “our ideological develop-
ment has always stuck with Marxism-Leninism,” but that the Yugoslav system
has employed different means to realize the Marxist-Leninist vision, Yugoslav
leaders successfully negotiated for a series of concessions and admissions
from the Soviets, including the notion that different paths to socialism existed.
Yugoslavs then successfully debunked the myth of an immaculate Soviet de-
sign and secured guarantees by the Soviet Union not to mingle in the internal
affairs of other countries—including economic and ideological affairs.68 With
the stroke of a pen, Moscow held up Tito’s system as valid. The Kremlin’s rec-
ognition of Tito as an independent socialist actor paved the way for further
reforms and strategies for Yugoslav ideologues to perfect the new Yugoslav sys-
tem under the communist umbrella. While within less than a year, Soviet tanks

66  Kennan cited in Mitrovich, Undermining, p. 37.

67  See “Fragmenti” AJ CK IX 119/I-56 K.2 45–90, folder 56.
68  “Soviet–Yugoslav Communiqués on Policies and Party Aims,” New York Times, 21 June
1956, p. 10. Negotiations continued for more than a year and in the end the Soviets and
Yugoslavs uttered several important phrases; one such includes, “Abiding by the view that
the roads and conditions of Socialist development are different in different countries,”
relations between progressive forces throughout the world should be based “on complete
freedom of will and equality, on friendly criticism and on the comradely character of the
exchange of views on disputes between our parties.”
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 75

would roll into Hungary to protect socialism there against so-called “reaction-
ary elements” of the Hungarian party, Tito could nonetheless rest easier than at
any time since 1948 knowing that recognition helped solidify his control over
Yugoslavia.69
The result of this reassurance of sovereignty meant that for Tito and the LCY,
a further revision of their principles and methods could proceed unhindered.
By the early 1950s, the LCY dominated the state and Tito reigned supreme
without serious domestic competition thanks to the unswerving loyalty of the
armed forces and police. Tacit acknowledgement by the West of Yugoslavia’s
security and recognition of independence by the Soviet Union gave Tito the
freedom to experiment with ongoing reforms to help perfect his new self-
management system without risk of Soviet intervention. Initially serving, after
1948, as a way to make the Yugoslav system different from its Soviet progenitor,
self-management—the idea that workers would theoretically own the means
of production and have a larger voice in the administration of the state at all
levels—quickly grew to dominate the political geography and define Yugoslav
socialism.
Edvard Kardelj asserted in 1953 that the Yugoslav Federation had become,
“above all a bearer of the social functions of a unified socialist community of
the Yugoslav working people.”70 An assertion of the rights of the working peo-
ple was deliberate, because the party managers regarded them as the backbone
of Yugoslavia and the ones who would take the initiative and work towards
communism. To that end, the Constitutional Law of 1953 stated in Article 2
that, “all power belonged to the working people, who exercised their power
either directly (social self-management) or indirectly, through representative
organs.”71 In the decade following the enactment of the 1953 Constitutional
Laws Yugoslav party members recognized that a more thoroughgoing reform
platform needed implementation because society had not progressed as thor-
oughly as they wanted and because they had external guarantees over their
power in Yugoslavia. As a result, a new constitution in 1963 sought to clarify
the role of worker in factory units and the nature of a working administra-
tive system that could adapt to the changes. The basics of self-management
as originally described meant that people would work to satisfy both the per-
sonal and common needs. Framers defined people to acknowledge workers

69  See “Fragmenti” AJ, CK IX 119/I K.2 45–90, folder 56.

70  Kardelj in Frits W. Hondius, The Yugoslav Community of Nations (The Hague: Mouton,
1968), p. 194.
71  Hondius, The Yugoslav Community, p. 196.
76 chapter 2

as the cornerstone of the country’s ongoing success. The introduction to the

1963 Constitution noted that the “peoples of Yugoslavia” were “aware that the
further consolidation of their brotherhood and unity” was necessary and that
to accomplish that task they “have founded a socialist federalist community of
working people.”72
Self-management gave each Yugoslav citizen a stake in the government and
served to boost the popularity of the regime in the wake of ideological con-
tradictions following the split with Stalin. Workers became the de facto cen-
ter point of Yugoslav politics and represented the ideal Yugoslav identity that
leaders vied for because, as Veljko Vlahović, a member of the committee on
socio-political relations stated, the profound “strengthening among worker’s
organizations and a quality grasp on our self-management” will uplift all of
Yugoslavia.73 LCY members desired reactions from the people and took input
seriously as part of self-management’s continual transformation—when peo-
ple pointed out negative aspects of the Yugoslav system, party leaders coun-
tered with a boilerplate charge that reform was incomplete and “intensive”
changes needed to flourish in the rest of society.74 Despite all of the rhetoric,
a clear gulf existed between theory and practice and when people responded
favorably to reforms leaders recognized that their new socio-economic system
might solve all of their problems, including the nationalist one.
In constructing a Marxist state, the chief Yugoslav ideologues turned towards
a policy of self-management that stressed the nature of a decentralized admin-
istration of industry, agriculture, and government. At first, self-management
spoke to merely the working class, but the concept expanded to include virtu-
ally every sector of society with the exception of the armed forces (and then
until 1968, when army leaders adopted the same within the defense sector).75

72  Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, (Beograd, 1963), pp. 3–4.
73  See “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka predsednice Komisije CK SKJ za pitanje društveno-
političkih odnosa,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 28 December 1967, p. 25.
74  See Vladimir Mitkov in “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka predsednice Komisije CK SKJ
za pitanje društveno-političkih odnosa,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 28 December 1967, p. 31;
also see, Horvat, Yugoslav Essays, p. 193.
75  Yugoslavs repeatedly cited the JNA as being the only Yugoslav institution that was not
self-managed. Many Yugoslav elites claimed that a military could not function under self-
management due to inherent hierarchy issues prevalent in any army. Yet it is interesting
to note that one of the justifications for the creation and strengthening of the Territorial
Defense Forces (TDF) during the late 1960s was the self-management system based on
self-directing principles. Namely, the TDF (operating on an equal level with the JNA)
allowed Yugoslav citizens to participate in the defense of the country but in an organi-
zation that was inherently opposed to self-management. For examples of this consult,
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 77

Representative of the Yugoslav spirit of reform, Miljenko Živković, a Yugoslav

military thinker, reckoned self-management to be the answer to questions of
divisions throughout society because “self-management and self-directing so-
cietal relations form the basis of the unity of the classes, political and national
interests, as well as all nations and nationalities.” As a result, Yugoslav lead-
ers confidently boasted of their success in uniting the citizenry and building
Marxism.76 Leaders might have begun to win over people to Marxism, but the
more important question was whether Marx had the formula for a successful
and lasting society.
In attaining self-government, the regime assigned the duty of the working
people in the social-political communities to “decide on the course of econom-
ic and social development, on the distribution of the social product, and on
the matters of common concern.”77 Self-management would continue as the
primary means of state-driven ideology and, as such, play a commanding role
in giving people a stake in the system and incorporating them indefinitely into
it. What Yugoslav leaders at the time did not envision, though, was how dan-
gerous constant reform of a one-party state might ultimately prove.

Self Management in Practice

Tito’s system had emphasized decentralization so much that any desire to

centralize moved “backwards,” in the minds of certain leaders, and created an
“extremely dangerous” scenario for “the development of self-management.”78
When the party experienced an increase in participation and membership
in the early 1970s, leaders called the time a “renaissance” that sprang from
the LCY’s “positive program and the prospects it offers society.”79 The more
pressing reason for increased participation came after the Soviet-led invasion
of Czechoslovakia because of the popular fear that Yugoslavia was next on

Colonel-General Viktor Bubanj in Teritorijalna odbrana (Beograd: Vojnoizdavački zavod,

1970), p. 7; Miljenko Živković, Teritorijalna obrana Jugoslavije (Beograd: Vojnoizdavački
zavod, 1985), p. 180.
76  Živković, Teritorijalna obrana Jugoslavije, p. 61. “Samoupravljanje i samoupravni društveni
odnosi utemeljuju jedinstvo klasnih, političkih i nacionalnih interesa svih naroda i
narodnosti.”
77  Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, pp. 13–14.
78  Vladimir Bakarić in “‘Centralistically-Minded’ Croats Attacked,” CMD, 6 February 1974. HU
OSA 300-10-2 YSFI Centralists 1973–78 [C73–78], cn. 68.
79  See “Yugoslav Weekly Claims Party Entering ‘Its Renaissance,” Radio Zagreb, 22 February
1974, HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI C73–78, cn. 68.
78 chapter 2

Leonid Brezhnev’s list. Whatever the case, the overall value of participation
in government vis-à-vis self-management—despite the convoluted rhetoric—
showed itself through the logical consistency with the overall Yugoslav notion
of independence. When Tito rejected Soviet control of the Yugoslav economy
through joint-stock companies and import-export deals, Tito rejected the en-
tire platform whereby a central authority directed the state and the economy.
Self-management grew to become the rhetorical and ideological personifica-
tion of Tito’s independent mood. This also reinforced Tito’s credentials abroad
as someone unlikely to pressure or control. Giving more power to the workers
in an abstract sense meant that more people would have some sort of say in
how Yugoslavia progressed, but also that leaders respected diversity. As a re-
sult, centralism became a synonym for “neo-Stalinism” and “dogmatism,” and
thus solidified the logical base of Yugoslav planning.80
Local solutions to local problems destined that no central planning board
ever determined quantities of goods or laid out specifics regarding worker pro-
ductivity. While the party always had goals and expectations, the reality en-
sured that workers operated alongside managers in what became an intricate
system of shared authority. This logic of catering to local interests permeated
Yugoslav society, as was the case in Kosovo where Serbs had some official expo-
sure to Albanian language whereas Serbs in Vojvojdina or Croatia would have
had neither any reason nor availability to do the same.81 When it came to dis-
cussing how to help farmers within different regions and populated by differ-
ent ethnicities, the Commission on National Minorities member Geza Tikvicki
declared, “the federation does not have any kind of possibility nor does it
have the instruments to help”; instead, areas such as Kosovo or Macedonia
needed to rely on local government.82 Strahil Gigov agreed with Tikvicki and
noted that the state had not “yet realized such instruments” and that differ-
ences between the regions and the entire country posed unique problems.83
To that end, the idea that each region, or larger commune, would have a
“Common Investment Fund,” to help modernize or improve other aspects

80  See, Slobodan Stankovic, “No Return to Stalinism Possible in Yugoslavia, Dolanc Claims,”
Radio Free Europe Research, 18 February 1974; “Komunist Warns Croatia,” Tanjug,
17 February 1974, HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI C73–78, cn. 68.
81  See “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka komisije za nacionalne manjine, 1960,” AJ CK SKJ
XVIII Komisija za nacionalne manjine 1956–67, K.2 f. 3, p. 12.
82  Geza Tikvicki in “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka komisije za nacionalne manjine, 1960,”
AJ CK SKJ XVIII Komisija za nacionalne manjine 1956–67, K.2 f. 3, p. 6.
83  Stahil Gigov in “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka komisije za nacionalne manjine, 1960,”
AJ CK SKJ XVIII Komisija za nacionalne manjine 1956–67, K.2 f. 3, p. 9.
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 79

of the locality took hold as a potential solution to foster growth.84 Naturally,

the “question of cadres,” became an important sticking point for the LCY, as it
needed to maintain a certain amount of “moral” influence within each worker
commune.85 After all, Comrade Laca emphasized at a committee meeting that
“we cannot insist that everyone conform to a single rubric.” “We are,” Laca said,
“looking at things in a practical way.”86 That so-called practical nature helped
create the intricate self-management regime that would touch almost every
Yugoslav at one point or another despite problems of cooperation or a lack of
an overarching authority.87
Because the central problem in Yugoslavia was supposedly “economic”
in nature, especially issues such an unemployment, the character of self-
management as an economic system had tremendous influence in shaping
Yugoslavia’s entire development.88 Moreover, because the leadership rested on
its credentials as directors of the Communist Party, the question of ideology
remained paramount. Self-management, as it first developed in the early 1950s,
tackled the economic issues facing Yugoslavia, and was the first step in a larger
attempt to gain credibility from the people in light of Soviet repression. Once
the system began to function normally, managers saw room for improvement
and, by 1959, leaders saw further reform as necessary to create new economic
units (make the size of the work commune smaller), and to build in the costs,
quality control, maintenance of capital, and profit sharing techniques within
the larger business environment.89
Before 1948, Tito could always look to the Soviet Union to legitimize his situ-
ation, no matter how popular, or unpopular, he was in Yugoslavia. After 1948,
though, Tito’s only chance for achieving the kind of general legitimacy he so
desired rested with the people of Yugoslavia. With this idea of reaching out to
the people, self-management strove to provide people with the tools to real-
ize their stake in the regime and reaffirm Tito and his LCY as their councilor,

84  See “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka komisije za nacionalne manjine, 1960,” AJ CK SKJ
XVIII Komisija za nacionalne manjine 1956–67, K.2 f. 3, p. 26.
85  See “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka komisije za nacionalne manjine, 1960,” AJ CK SKJ
XVIII Komisija za nacionalne manjine 1956–67, K.2 f. 3, p. 28.
86  See “Sedmice komisije CK SKJ za informisanje, 9 October 1965,” AJ XXVI Komisije za
političku propagandu i informativnu delatnost K.1 3, p. 4.
87  See “Sedmice komisije CK SKJ za informisanje, 9 October 1965,” AJ XXVI Komisije za
političku propagandu i informativnu delatnost K.1 5, p. 10.
88  See “Sedmice komisije CK SKJ za informisanje, 9 October 1965,” AJ XXVI Komisije za
političku propagandu i informativnu delatnost K.1 4.
89  See Branko Horvat, The Yugoslav Economic System: The First Labor-Managed Economy in
the Making, (New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1976), pp. 159–160.
80 chapter 2

naturally in accordance with Tito’s flexible prescription of Marxism. While

self-management later touched all aspects of Yugoslav society, an examina-
tion of how it functioned within factories or larger work communes gets to
the crux of the issue of how, in the Yugoslav case, labor employed capital in-
stead of vice-versa.90 In a factory setting, it was typical for the workers there
to have several organizations of authority. The most important factory orga-
nizations were the workers’ council and the managing board. These two com-
bined to represent all the employees at the factory and gave workers a chance
to cooperate within a structure of shared authority. Complementing these
two organizations, the labor union committee, youth organization, and the
League of Communists organizations served as further avenues for advanc-
ing the cooperative spirit that leaders desired alongside trusted government
auxiliaries.91 While LCY members typically formed a minority on the workers’
councils, they represented a powerful voice in the overall system, and workers
likely reelected LCY members to key positions within the decentralized fac-
tory management system. Depending on the size of the factory, the workers’
council might have eclipsed the power of the labor union committees—the
smaller the factory, the more likely the workers’ council catered to the needs
of individual needs of workers, whereas the larger the factory, the more likely
bigger management issues would preoccupy the workers’ council. Devolved
authority, though, meant that a worker possessed multiple avenues for com-
pensation and recourse.92 Furthermore, to manage the rights of workers and
prevent against an overwhelming management led by university graduates,
or other white-collar workers, the law mandated that at least three-fourths of
all members of the workers’ councils were production workers and no more
than one-fourth in any sort of office or management position.93 Finally, de-
rived from the workers’ council, the management board—also in accordance
with the same job-specific regulations as the workers’ council—served as the
executive organ of the council. The management board implemented policies
from the larger body and it was this group that developed monthly operational
and production plans.94
Laws allowed management boards flexibility in operation that gradu-
ally worked to establish a general economy based on market socialism. But,

90  See Howard M. Wachtel, Workers’ Management and Workers’ Wages in Yugoslavia:
The Theory and Practice of Participatory Socialism, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973),
p. 59.
91  See Jiri Kolaja, Workers’ Councils: The Yugoslav Experience, (New York: Praeger, 1966), p. 16.
92  See Kolaga, Workers’ Councils, pp. 26–7.
93  See Wachtel, Workers’ Management and Workers’ Wages, p. 65.
94  See Wachtel, Workers’ Management and Workers’ Wages, p. 70.
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 81

because Yugoslavia could never open up to a true market economy, the limita-
tions on industries’ ability to prosper and grow became apparent during global
recessions or price increases on energy. Despite that, reacting to the market
and using supply and demand along with world prices helped these firms de-
velop and prosper in a way that the Soviets or their allies in Eastern Europe
could not. Nonetheless, the party was always in the background and served to
communicate the directives outlined by the government to the workers and
urged them to comply with socialist aspects of development.95
An interesting consequence of the self-management system led to a com-
mon disparity in earnings among not only different industries, but within
industries as wages depended on the success of the individual enterprise.
Because the workers’ councils determined what to do with excess capital—pay
out extra wages, increase existing wages, make capital improvements, or hire
more staff—being part of a profitable company could yield great financial re-
sults regardless of individual performance. In contrast, a struggling firm might
not reward a good worker because the employer could not compete in that
industry or perhaps it suffered with some sort of larger problem such as high
energy or transportation costs. In such cases where the company ran a deficit,
the local commune or regional government would typically loan money at a
favorable rate to help reverse matters.96 Often, though, such financial guaran-
tees by the state kept management in a business-as-usual mindset and failed to
spur credible ingenuity to respond correctly to (limited) market forces.
In summary, the Yugoslav self-management system allowed for and adapt-
ed to diversity, and succeeded in bringing common folks into the decision-
making system. While the LCY served as a guiding ideological institution, it did
not monopolize workers’ councils nor did it dictate all policy. It did set limits
and worked to increase its own size in Yugoslavia as a truly popular party that
could, as leaders liked to boast, with unity of purpose and dedication, uplift
Yugoslavia. A partial market system, though, did create inequality in a system
that was supposed to equalize all people, ironically creating rifts among its
core group of supporters—workers. Perhaps most importantly for Yugoslavia
as a whole, self-management served as a bellwether of consistency for the ide-
ological position of Tito’s system—it helped differentiate between the Soviet
and Yugoslav systems and legitimized Tito’s reform package in the post-1948
environment that could continue indefinitely so long as reforms moved to-
wards prosperity.

95  See Wachtel, Workers’ Management and Workers’ Wages, p. 79.

96  For more see, Saul Estrin, Self-Management: Economic Theory and Yugoslav Practice,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), esp. chapter 5.
82 chapter 2

Toward a Unique Yugoslavia

The description of events following Stalin’s 1948 polemic banning the wily
Yugoslav dictator from the Cominform shows Yugoslavia’s unique place in the
community of nations. Tito’s survival—in any form—meant that reform of
Marxism would take on critical importance in his regime as he first sought to
re-mold it into his own system and then perfect it over time. His reform agenda
that came about in the early 1950s never ceased as Yugoslav leaders recognized
the transformative nature of identity at all levels, public and private. Claiming
never to have strayed from the tenets of Marx and Lenin, Tito sought to make his
rule legitimate in the eyes of his people and throughout the world. Yugoslavia’s
identity fluctuated over the years, but people could compare themselves to
their neighbors in the East. Twenty years after his banishment by Stalin, Tito’s
comrades understood that the focus of their comparison always rested on how
Yugoslav Communism—principally vis-à-vis self-management—was better
than the Soviet variety. As a member of the LCY’s Commission for Information
and Propaganda, Marko Nikezić, outlined this view following the Soviet inva-
sion of Czechoslovakia; he stressed how the Warsaw Pact leaders “intervened
in the first place because” of their own dysfunctional systems. In stark contrast
to the “very closed system” in the Eastern zone, the Yugoslavs had a less system-
atic bureaucracy and proceeded by way of a positive spirit of reform.97
Having tied the Yugoslav identity to the existence of a failing, hostile, Soviet
Bloc, those in Belgrade established the concept of a menacing other to high-
light the progressive nature of their own system. At each juncture during the
remainder of the Cold War, Yugoslav party officials pointed to political mis-
haps, economic misery, and social unrest as part of a generally unpopular
existence under the Kremlin’s control. Dramatic events such as the invasions
of Hungary in 1956, or Czechoslovakia in 1968 enhanced these opportunities
for propaganda victories, having given the Yugoslavs fuel to prove the differ-
ences between the two systems. Yugoslavs argued in the press and in private
about these severe differences between the socialist systems, such as the open-
ness and liberalism in Yugoslavia compared to “other socialist countries,” with
closed frontiers and harsher standards.98

97  Marko Nikezić in “Stenografske beleške sa sednice Komišije CK SKJ za Informisanje,

13 September 1968,” AJ CK SKJ XXVI K.1 6, p. 21.
98  Slobodan Stankovic, “Yugoslav Paper Demands ‘Open Discussion’ of Differences with
Soviet Bloc,” Radio Free Europe Report, 9 December 1975, p. 1. HU OSA 205-4-80, Yugoslav
Subject Files from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty [YSFRFE/RL], Politics/Foreign
Relations, USSR, 1975 [PFRUSSR75], cn. 21.
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 83

Soviet power, though, scared the Yugoslav elite and set a mood of caution
among party members in Belgrade. Despite this, LCY managers were on a
quest to make Yugoslavia something that contrasted with their estranged cous-
ins in the Kremlin. Nijaz Dizdarević, another member of the Commission for
Information and Propaganda, reaffirmed the superiority of what set Yugoslavia
apart; that is, self-management, because “it solves all dilemmas,” and that “re-
form is key to success.” The challenge, though, to the course of reform and the
course towards what leaders like Dizdarević described as “democratic social-
ism,” required genuine success and popularity among the Yugoslav people.99
Soviet leaders spoke of the LCY as “revisionist” partly because of the problem-
atic nature of foreign capital infused within their command economy; but,
Yugoslavs could parry such offensives because, according to Nikezić, the LCY
isolated itself from the Soviet Union by pointing out the lurid hypocrisy ema-
nating from Moscow. As a capstone, Nikezić added that importance rested with
the public seeing reality as it truly was and this was possible only in Yugoslavia
and would solidify the course towards progress.100
While Tito could always outline the differences between his system and
the West, he needed to work a bit harder to differentiate how and why people
needed to look to him as a socialist leader instead of the vanguard in Moscow.
Tito’s task grew easier over the years following 1948, especially as the Yugoslavs
pieced together their own unique interpretation of Marx vis-à-vis their com-
mitment to socialist self-management. Tito had in fact created his own world-
view, but the contrast to the Soviet Union made an important difference when
defining what it meant to be a Yugoslav. They were wealthier, freer, allowed
to go to church, had more control over their daily lives, and thus, could be
considered happier than their counterparts in the Soviet-controlled East.
Yugoslavs, while not quite Occidentals, were not exactly Orientals either, and
that mattered greatly as identities underwent constant refashioning. Pivotal
for leaders was that in contrast to its eastern neighbors, “socialist practice and
socialist theory” in Yugoslavia existed, “in harmony” because “dialogue” was
supposedly “completely open.” Yugoslav secret police, of course, kept track of
just how “completely open” dialogue was among anti-regime elements, but the
Yugoslavs were correct to note the contrast between the domineering Soviet
police state with their own.

99  Nijaz Dizdarević in “Stenografske beleške sa sednice Komišije CK SKJ za Informisanje,

13 September 1968,” AJ CK SKJ XXVI K.1 6, pp. 7–8.
100  Marko Nikezić in “Stenografske beleške sa sednice Komišije CK SKJ za Informisanje,
13 September 1968,” AJ CK SKJ XXVI K.1 6, pp. 28, 32.
84 chapter 2

The prevailing view of Tito’s state during this period—indeed until 1966—
is that the state underwent a centralization program by the LCY in order to
solidify its reign.101 This is also what historian Ivo Banac has referred to as
Tito taking on Stalinist trimmings in the wake of the 1948 split.102 Only after
1966, this view has contended, did Tito relax the reins of power and allow for
self-management and decentralization to take place in earnest. This period of
openness then ended quickly once the anti-regime protests in Croatia mandat-
ed a return to central control over Yugoslavia’s constituent republics in 1971. A
general review of the armed forces supports this view since army officers only
embraced self-management in the army—vis-à-vis the Territorial Defense—in
the late 1960s and then quickly moved to recentralize. Although this view has
merits, an exhaustive search in the archives of former Yugoslavia shows that
this centralization program was neither so expansive nor such a large part of
Titoist history precisely because Tito grounded his successful stewardship of
the country on popularity and not repression. The LCY constantly reformed
Marxism to fit the changing needs of the country—before and after 1966. Eric
Kocher, the interim U.S. Charge d’Affaires in Belgrade in 1965, held that do-
mestically, “Yugoslav socialism has departed from many Marxist norms and
is now,” and seems ready to continue to be “devoted to a search along ways of
its own choosing” as a vehicle to “perfect its identity.”103 Self-management—
as outlined from the beginning—by definition meant devolution of author-
ity from the center and provided people more of a voice in their own lives
and the affairs of the state. While in the initial years following the split, Tito
sought rearmament and used his police to crack down on Cominformists, this
was but a brief effort to stabilize the regime to face the greater fear—that is,
isolation in the face of a dangerous and aggressive Soviet Union. Reform was
the hallmark of Tito’s system and while the system moved back and forth at
times in response to different threats, a reformist agenda was nonetheless al-
ways present and as Kocher noted, already well established by 1965. This move
for constant reform distinguished Tito’s Marxism from any other at the time.
Soviet leaders always remained reluctant to speak of reform and they made no
bones about it, telling Tito in a 1967 meeting, “they saw no reason to change
[a] system which had been effective for fifty years.” Moreover, Tito’s endless

101  See, for example, Dušan Bataković, “The National Integration of the Serbs and Croats,”
Dialogue 7/8 (September–December 1994), pp. 5–13.
102  Banac, Cominformist, p. 257.
103  See Eric Kocher, Department of State Airgram, “Foreign Policy of Yugoslavia and Its
Effects on U.S. Policy,” 31 May 1965, LBJ Library.
Yugoslavia ’ s Ideological Shift 85

tinkering with his political-economic views strengthened the Soviet sources

of disagreement.104

Conclusion

When Hitler committed suicide in his besieged Berlin bunker in May 1945, fas-
cism as a viable worldview went up in flames alongside his charred body. The
two remaining competitors—communism and market capitalism/democratic
liberalism—thereafter possessed awesome power over molding the direc-
tion that the new Europe would take.105 For a time following the end of World
War II, it looked as if the entire world was going to fall into two categories and
another great conflict would soon engulf mankind. Not only did World War III
grow farther from reality with each day, but the notion of infallible control
from the two centers of the postwar world also proved to be false. Much of the
Third World entered global politics without pledging allegiance to either side,
in part because the period after 1948 gave birth to the possibility of a com-
peting socialist system, providing that Tito remained in control of Yugoslavia
and continued his active criticism of both blocs. Documents clearly show that
Tito’s real revolutionary nature came of age after 1948 as he fought to not only
survive as the uncontested leader of Yugoslavia, but also affect wider change
throughout the world. His break from Stalin reinforced already independent
motives of his LCY comrades and gave them the freedom to embark on a re-
form campaign to refashion Marxism’s identity to fit their special circumstanc-
es. At home, the logic of self-management grew to become the hallmark of the
reformist agenda that would last until the final days of Yugoslavia; meanwhile,
intersecting with self-management’s principles at home, several key Yugoslav
officials reached out to find and craft ideological compatriots abroad through
the Non-aligned Movement.

104  Department of State Telegram, “Under Secretary’s Talk with Pavicevic,” 22 October 1968,
LBJ Library.
105  See Wettig, Stalin and the Cold War in Europe, p. 140. Here, Wittig cites a note from Georgii
Malenkov at the Communist Party conference in Szklarska Poreba, in September 1947.
Malenkov declared that “As a result of the victorious war against fascism, the position
of socialism and democracy has been strengthened and that of the imperialist camp
has been weakened. One of the most important results of the Second World War is the
strengthening of the USSR and the establishment of new democratic regimes led by the
working class. The defeat of Germany and Japan signifies a weakening of the camp of
imperialism and a further deepening of the critis of the capitalist system.”
86 chapter 2

After 1948, the Soviets made Tito a wanted man. That he survived meant that
the Cold War, still in its infancy, needed realignment. Titoism (an interpretation
of Marxism-Leninism that took into account broad participation and pragma-
tism instead of a domineering dictatorship) as a viable ideology confidently
emerged by 1953 with the passage of numerous constitutional amendments. It
sought worker self-management, a principle that Vaclav Havel admired much
later in 1978, which would be based on a genuine—or, “informal” participation
of “workers in economic decision-making, leading to a genuine responsibility
for their collective work.” While this was what Titoism sought, it still tried to
control self-management from the top down, which Havel thought needed to
be “abandoned” in favor or “self-control and self-discipline,” which would infer
trust.106 Trusting the people was something that Tito’s reform program could
only attempt when the regime believed that the legitimacy was secure and
much of Tito’s politicking went towards securing that in terms of a successful
foreign policy.
Titoism as a so-called separate path to socialism meant that throughout
Eastern Europe and especially in the emerging Third World, the Soviets moved
to the defensive as Tito had a system of government to exhibit across the world
as an alternative to the Soviet model. Building upon the success of those initial
reforms, the LCY continued to adapt and cater to changing environments; nev-
ertheless, the party always remained the sole interpreter of Yugoslav thought.
A particular Yugoslav system, once emerged, sought legitimacy at home, and
then abroad as a third way—Titoism represented a complete Weltanschauung,
which implied a distinctive foreign policy, tied heavily to the principles of
peaceful-coexistence and sovereignty for all nations.
Yugoslavs put into practice changes that fundamentally shifted the rhetoric
of the new state from that of a tight, federalist system based upon Stalinist
principles, to one marked by a decentralized administration, self-managed
communes, and worker rights. Yugoslavia truly stands out in the history of
Cold War-era European politics with the emphasis placed by the LCY on the
world’s stage vis-à-vis nonalignment. Tito’s system thus gained a voice among
the decolonizing peoples and those newly free from colonial rule. I argue that a
multipolar world reemerged soon after 1948, because neither the Red Army nor
its patrons in Moscow were seen as invincible, perfect, or unquestionable—
nor was the West the only opponent: Those illusions died in the summer of
1948 when Stalin exiled Tito and his party.

106  Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern
Europe, ed. John Keane, (London: Hutchinson, 1985), p. 94.
 chapter 3

Nonalignment: Yugoslavia’s Foreign Policy Climax

Yugoslavia is permanently and fatefully committed to the policy and

movement of non-alignment … In the case of Yugoslavia, to renounce
non-alignment would mean to reconcile itself with the gradual loss of
freedom and independence and of the right to determine independently
its way of internal development.1
Yugoslav scholar Ranko Petković

∵
When Stalin waved his little finger at his opponents, they had an uncanny way
of disappearing. Before World War II, when the Soviet leader sought to con-
solidate his power and fortify his regime, his fellow citizens well understood
the power of that wave. But when the conclusion of the war brought Soviet
control farther West than any of the Russian tsars could have ever dreamed,
Stalin’s wrath had a grander purpose of incorporating Eastern Europe into
the Soviet system. Stalin thought that in 1948, through his employment of the
Communist Information Bureau (Cominform), the banishment of Yugoslav
leader Josip Broz Tito would mean the return of pro-Soviet elements to the
leadership of the Yugoslav Communist Party. That this did not happen proved
to have far-reaching consequences for Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and the
broader Cold War.
As the Yugoslav Party struggled in the wake of this challenge to maintain
its sovereignty in light of aggressive Soviet rhetoric and actions throughout
Eastern Europe, Tito undertook an ambitious reform program of his commu-
nist system that would eventually sever any resemblance to its Soviet cousin.
For ideological reasons, though, reforms could never bring Yugoslavia into
line with the competing model offered by the West; therefore, surviving be-
tween the awesome Cold War superpowers meant making tough choices, not
least of which included navigating a successful course outside of competing

1  Ranko Petković, Non-Aligned Yugoslavia and the Contemporary World: The Foreign Policy of
Yugoslavia, 1945–1985, (Beograd: Međunarodna politika, 1986), p. 59.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004358997_005

88 chapter 3

bloc politics.2 Tito and the regime he created suffered from grave threats from
outside—primarily from the Cold War standoff—and from within the coun-
try. True to his revolutionary nature, Tito could never be content with simple
survival—he needed to affect greater change and, as a result, he sought a le-
gitimate and powerful outlet for his ideas that could, at the same time, provide
much needed flexibility despite the rigid international political environment.
While some in the West described nonalignment as simply part of Tito’s “grop-
ing towards a conception of world society,” Yugoslavs did see a global perspec-
tive at hand—namely, operating outside of blocs allowed leaders to “exercise
their sovereign right to choose freely their internal ways.” Chief among their
rights was, “their own way of socialist development.”3 In comparison, the
Russia of Nicholas I stood for the maintenance of his concept of “autocracy”
as the path of legitimism. Consequently, “Nicholas I was determined to main-
tain and defend the existing order in Europe,” in the same way that he “con-
sidered it his sacred duty to preserve the archaic system in his own country.”4
Nicholas umpired the fight between right and left in a revolutionary period
in European history while Tito used his unique position between the blocs to
foster engagement in the yet uncommitted Third World. This chapter contends
that Tito’s confident quest for legitimacy compelled him to help establish the
Non-aligned Movement to determine a genuine third force in world affairs as
part of a larger effort to strengthen his regime.
Scholarly work on the Non-aligned Movement is rather limited in nature, as
most authors wrote contemporaneously with roughly three competing view-
points: a Marxist, Yugoslav moralist, and political realist. Caribbean political
scientist A.W. Singham latched onto the Marxist perspective in his argument
over the roots of nonalignment when he underscored it as a powerful social
movement fighting against the capitalist and nationalist formulations of the
West. Nonalignment for Singham was not a political move taken by political
actors to secure some sort of peace and cooperation, but rather an institution-
alization of the “redistribution” of wealth that eventually would claim victory
in a brutalized Cold War world divided by a struggle on the part of “European

2  See William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since
A.D. 1000, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 386. McNeill argued, “Awesome
power and awful dilemmas have never been so closely juxtaposed.”
3  See John Burton, “Nonalignment and Contemporary World Politics,” in Nonalignment in
the World Today, Ljubivoje Aćimović, ed., (Beograd: Institute of International Politics and
Economics, 1969), p. 257; Petković, Non-aligned Yugoslavia, p. 20.
4  Nicholas Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationalist in Russia, 1825–1855, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1961), pp. 235–6.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 89

capitalism trying to resurrect itself,” combined with what Singham hinted at

as a racist program to destroy the ‘ “Asiatic tyranny’ ” of communism.5 Beyond
his emphasis on economics and social classes, Singham did correctly allude to
the real power of nonalignment—that is, one where national liberation move-
ments (presumably beginning with Tito’s) gained “international legitimacy”
through cooperation.6
Leo Mates, former Yugoslav ambassador to the United States, wrote in 1972
that nonalignment was not a predictable policy for the Yugoslav government to
accept; rather, as soon as Stalin banished Tito, the Yugoslavs found themselves
in an isolation that forced them to reevaluate their tenuous plight between the
blocs. The result inspired LCY leaders to cooperate with newly independent
actors in the Third World—initially Burma, Ethiopia, and India. What Mates
emphasized, though, was how the cooperation began in economics and only
made strides in the political domain “soon after,” which fomented into a clear
policy of nonalignment.7 While Mates accepted that Yugoslavia “played a fairly
important role” in the formative period of the Non-aligned Movement, he re-
treated on how Yugoslav leaders manipulated foreign policy as part of a larger
project. “Through the policy of nonalignment,” Mates concluded, Yugoslavia
“could not hope to achieve anything other than her affirmation in a quite gen-
eral sense of developing ties with countries with which she felt a kinship.”8
Seen by Mates as a sort of disinterested observer lending merely moral sup-
port, he had rejected the idea that Yugoslav leaders saw practical benefits in
their association outside of the blocs and had more at stake than simply kind
words.
Finally, then, the look at nonalignment from a realist perspective under-
stands power politics as an arbiter of change and recognizes the intersec-
tion between pragmatism and conformity with a dynamic Yugoslav ideology.
Yugoslav scholar Alvin Rubinstein wrote a compelling thesis on Tito and non-
alignment, which outlined three primary goals for the Yugoslavs: “to rein-
force Yugoslav efforts to end its position of relative diplomatic isolation”; “to
link Yugoslavia to the “‘progressive’” forces in the world”; and to “develop the

5  A.W. Singham, ed., The Nonaligned Movement in World Politics, (Westport, CN: L. Hill, 1978),
pp. xi, viii.
6  Singham, Nonaligned Movement, p. x.
7  Leo Mates, Nonalignment Theory and Current Policy, (Belgrade: Institute of International
Politics and Economics, 1972), p. 209.
8  Mates, Nonalignment Theory, pp. 215–16.
90 chapter 3

markets Yugoslav enterprises thought they saw” in the Third World.9 Despite
that analysis, Rubinstein failed to identify the desire by party leaders to export
their ideology; instead, he stalwartly denied that Yugoslav leaders tried to ever
‘“sell’” their model because of what he termed a “psycho-political climate con-
ducive to the leisurely” exchange of ideas.10 He confused the idea, though, and
quoted Tito as having urged economic expansion in developing countries, “so
that Yugoslavia would be an exemplar of equality, dependability, and disinter-
ested involvement in the strengthening of socialism and mutual ties between
states and peoples.”11 As was Tito’s view of the power of economics influencing
political change, this chapter will later unveil high-level conversations between
Yugoslav leaders that point directly to their desire to “sell” Yugoslav socialism
to the rest of the world.
Political scientist William Zimmerman correctly linked the internal devel-
opment of self-management as a domestic ideology with similarities in non-
alignment’s foreign policy. But, Zimmerman took the two policies and argued
against what he termed as the popular Western and Yugoslav view of devel-
opment; namely, instead of nonalignment coming out of self-management
and the chaos since 1948, he saw self-management as having come from non-
alignment. He theorized how a “primacy of foreign policy considerations”
was overwhelming, because the Yugoslavs needed to find a way to position
themselves between the blocs—the “domestic expression” of that need be-
came “self-managing socialism.”12 Zimmerman got it right when he saw the
fluidity between the two spheres of policy, but what neither he, nor any other
author, have linked together was how these policies—whether related or taken
separately—articulated a deliberate attempt on the part of the regime’s lead-
ers to construct a tangible legitimacy for themselves and the worldview that
they purported to have. I argue that self-management came first, followed by
nonalignment as part of the deliberate effort by the regime to solidify power at
home and then search for external support. Furthermore, evidence will unveil
how Tito and his government manipulated foreign policy victories to reinforce
the regime’s standing among Yugoslavs. That this process was dynamic shows
the pragmatism of the Yugoslav leaders in their quest for survival and success,

9  Alvin Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Nonaligned World (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1970), p. 39.
10  Rubinstein, Yugoslavia, p. 196.
11  Rubinstein, Yugoslavia, p. 221.
12  William Zimmerman, Open Borders, Nonalignment, and the Political Evolution of
Yugoslavia, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 28.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 91

but in any case, it was from this concern for their right to rule that they sought
the vindication of their efforts by the Yugoslav people. If others in the Third
World—or any other for that matter—cared to recognize them, the better.13

The Dynamic of Change inside Yugoslavia

The internal challenges in Yugoslavia following Stalin’s condemnation of Tito

and his comrades forced a dramatic realignment in Yugoslav political thought.
As a result, party managers dedicated themselves to molding Marxism to fit
best their needs and took a bold new step in creating a fresh trend in social-
ist thought outlined as socialist self-management. The seriousness with which
people took this new Yugoslav approach inside the country was real, at least for
elites. Yugoslavia needed to be different from the Soviet Union and if it became
apparent that Soviet tendencies entered the new political life of the Yugoslav
Communist Party (LCY), then Tito’s loyal followers immediately attempted to
rectify matters. Yugoslav politicians branded the great Soviet evil, as represent-
ed by bureaucratic chauvinism, “an expression of non-democratic and bureau-
cratic relations” that emerged in a “period when it became clear that it was
impossible to continue developing socialist democracy and self-government
relations in society,” while at the same time retaining a hierarchy with power
concentrated in the center.14 In contrast, the Yugoslav system, according to
General Ivan Gošnjak, head of the Yugoslav People Army’s (JNA) security ser-
vice and Minister of Defense, relied on “progressive thought” formed because
of “the party and its forums,” but also out of “self-government organizations”
instead of hierarchical and archaic bureaucratic processes.15 Ceda Kapor,
a member of the Central Committee from Bosnia and Hercegovina argued,

13  See Eric Kocher, “Foreign Policy of Yugoslavia and Its Effect on U.S. Policy.” Kocher
noted that “As the GOY [government of Yugoslavia] continued its experiments with self-­
management, it believes with some justification that its vulnerability is less in the eyes
of its traditional friends if Yugoslavia follows conventional Socialist positions in foreign
policy matters.” Thus, internal reform worked to gain the favor of Yugoslavs, while foreign
policy remained rooted to socialist principles that would keep Tito in a sort of positive
middle ground.
14  Avdo Humo, in “‘Deformities’ in Yugoslav Army Security,” Tanjug, 24 September 1966.
Open Society Archive [HU OSA] 300-10-2 Yugoslav Subject Files I [YSFI], Army[A], Army
1953–1966 [A53–66], container number [cn.] 23. Also see Horvat, Yugoslav Essays, p. 189.
15  General Ivan Gošnjak in “‘Deformities’ in Yugoslav Army Security,” Tanjug, 24 September
1966. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI A A53–66, cn. 23.
92 chapter 3

“everything should be done” so that communists and working people realize

that the “implementation of the decisions” meant “struggle for the further de-
velopment of socialism and socialist social relations, not only one for clearing
up the national problems and relations.”16 Reform in Yugoslavia had become,
in fact, the only reality for leaders to construct a popular and legitimate system
and reform operated as the watchword of progress and the solution to all di-
lemmas in both domestic and foreign politics.

Nonalignment’s Prehistory

In the spring of 1953, at the beginning of decolonization, Asian socialist lead-

ers met in the capital of newly independent Burma. The Conference of Asian
Socialists in Rangoon included representatives from states across the world,
including China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, and observers from the
recently renamed League of Communists of Yugoslavia. At the opening of the
conference, conscious of the potential for creating change, the Israeli delegate,
M. Stein, called forth a prayer that the conference “lay the foundations of a
“Third Force” which shall alter the existing balance of power and shall prevent
a new world catastrophe.”17 Global war, particularly nuclear war, was high on
the list of participants’ worries—Japan’s delegate Suzuki called atomic dev-
astation a “major problem”—but leaders also worried about the continued
movement to lift the “foreign yoke” from colonies across the world.18 When
Comrade Aleš Bebler from the LCY rose to make his statement during the
opening ceremonies, he recited the recent struggles fought out in the heart of
Europe between his party and the Kremlin, because, for Bebler, conflict set the
tone for socialists worldwide and dictated the course of change. He took for
granted a general animosity among the conference participants for the Soviet
Union—complete with its “socialist and peace loving mask” used to trick hap-
less Marxists as part of a larger “insatiable hegemonistic appetite.”19 To pre-
vent Soviet aggression into this awakening Asian and African paradigm, Bebler

16  Ceda Kapor in “‘Deformities’ in Yugoslav Army Security,” Tanjug, 24 September 1966. HU
OSA 300-10-2 YSFI A A53–66, cn. 23 (Emphasis mine).
17  M. Stein in First Asian Socialist Conference, (Rangoon: Asian Socialist Publication, 1953),
p. 3.
18  Suzuki in First Asian Socialist, pp. 8, 12.
19  Bebler in First Asian Socialist, p. 21.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 93

reiterated the struggle against all types of oppression, equality among peoples,
and peaceful international coexistence.20
Influence from the small Yugoslav delegation of just three men—Milovan
Đilas, Aleš Bebler, and Anđelko Blažević—made a noteworthy difference in
the direction that socialists worldwide would take in the coming years. Many
of the world leaders present no doubt desired simply to exercise neutrality in
political and economic disputes, but most of them, partly thanks to speeches
like that by Bebler, helped to push for a more proactive, non-neutral foreign
policy.21 Real neutrality was difficult in the Cold War environment—indeed,
branded “immoral” by then Secretary of State John Foster Dulles—and the
Third World leaders who met at Rangoon, formed a nucleus of actors who took
the concept of neutrality and moved it forward by using a non-allied status
to gain concessions from multiple world powers.22 Increased contact between
the parties from India, Indonesia, Egypt, and Yugoslavia in particular also
helped form such new methods of political thought despite the zero-sum atti-
tude of the early Cold War, because the rhetoric emphasized the sovereignty of
all countries and the resistance against forming lasting alliances—regardless
of ideological similarities. Yugoslav leaders shared a common fear among the
newly liberated leaders in Africa and Asia of dominance by superpowers and
had begun as early as at Rangoon to foster cooperation with an eye towards
resisting directives from stronger powers. In that spirit, if anyone at the confer-
ence held out positive ideals about the Soviets, Bebler strongly condemned
Moscow by asking people to look no further than the “Yugoslav experience” of
1948 to learn the evils of supremacy by any group.23
While the short conference set the groundwork for how socialists could
compare notes and cooperate in all respects, many of the foreign-policy state-
ments that arose had logical links with the broader principles of the Yugoslav
socialist self-management. Beginning in Rangoon, the LCY in Belgrade had
found a way to extend its principles of individual ownership, accountability,
and reform to the sphere of foreign policy, because of the unique circumstanc-
es between the competing Cold War blocs and the compelling desire of many
leaders of the recently independent or soon-to-be independent countries to

20  Bebler in First Asian Socialist, p. 22.

21  See Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), p. 222.
22  See Wolfers, Discord, p. 224. “What matters most in this connection is to be courted by the
two major powers and, possibly, by playing them off against each other, to receive support
and economic aid from both of them.
23  Bebler in First Asian Socialist, p. 73.
94 chapter 3

maintain their sovereignty. But the Cold War dilemma was not the only prob-
lem facing leaders in nonaligned countries. Competition over political control
from domestic challengers also forced the hand of these leaders, including
Tito. LCY leaders overtly boasted about how their influence in foreign affairs
gave them credibility and such rhetoric surely worked for dual goals; that is,
not only did nonalignment boost support for the regime among Yugoslavs, it
also marginalized any potential opposition group. With this balance between
foreign and domestic forces, the work of political scientist Steven David has
proven insightful. His concept of omnibalancing takes into account traditional
balance of power considerations, but also employs the need of Third World
(and Yugoslavia’s) leaders to counter “all threats.” David has recognized how
most of the Third World states faced primarily external threats from one or the
other superpower; but, moreover, “the needs of leaders to appease secondary
adversaries as well as to balance against both internal and external threats”
marked the quest for political survival.24 A common feature for the Third
World leaders, as outlined by David, was the idea that leaders were “weak and
illegitimate,” and therefore, the stakes in domestic politics trumped those of
external threats.25 Such logic applies to Yugoslavia too, but more so with re-
spect to the issue of legitimacy than with weakness. Tito had handily defeated
his domestic enemies—including the same Milovan Đilas, who landed in and
out of jail for the rest of his life thanks to his liberal views—and while Tito
spoke out against fringe groups at times of crisis, the reality saw his loyal army
and police in unquestionable positions of dominance. Nonetheless, the idea
that nonalignment served dual masters and that these leaders work within
David’s concept of omnibalancing has considerable merit. Without any other
positive foreign policy and in tandem with the construction of an optimistic,
ideologically driven legitimacy, the profound consequences of nonalignment
stood out as critical aspects of state relations during the Cold War.
Attending the conference in Rangoon meant more than engaging in dia-
logue with like-minded folks—it also showed the desire for international
recognition of their regimes and worldviews. By sending a delegation, the
Yugoslavs attempted to break out of their ideological isolation and align them-
selves with a movement shielded against rhetorical condemnation by either
the United States or the Soviet Union. Asian socialists largely already under-
stood the dangerous situation facing the world and thought about how they
could alternate between Moscow and Washington, and the emerging power

24  Steven David, “Explaining Third World Alignment,” World Politics 43:2 (January 1991),
pp. 233, 236. Emphasis in original.
25  David, “Explaining Third World Alignment,” p. 236.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 95

in Beijing. Tito’s flexibility to move within these Asian circles—for example,

with respected party members such as Vladimir Dedijer visiting India as early
as 1948—grew as tremendous help from the United States government arrived
in depth throughout the early 1950s, which mainly served the American inter-
est in weakening the power of the Soviet Union.26 Despite poor harvests and
potential upheaval by allies of Stalin, Tito had survived and his top ideologues
and comrades—Edvard Kardelj and Milovan Đilas—were hard at work to cre-
ate a better socialist system. But much effort still remained as Kardelj unveiled
his new constitutional restructuring in 1953 as a means to further distance
Yugoslavia from the Soviet Union—not only for the Yugoslavs but for socialists
throughout the world.

From Rangoon to Bandung

Two years after the Rangoon meeting of 1953, many of the same leaders or-
ganized the Afro-Asian Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, and boldly
proclaimed a new spirit guiding foreign affairs. Attendees at Bandung cried
out that they did not “want any domination either by force or by ideology,”
but, instead, simply “genuine peace.” The path to peace rested in a “willingness
and determination” to live together, exude “mutual respect for each other’s na-
tional sovereignty,” to foster the “abhorrence of aggression,” and never to inter-
fere in “each other’s domestic affairs.”27 Five guiding principles of Bandung’s
meetings set out to change the face of global politics: Mutual respect for
each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; mutual non-aggression; non-
interference in each other’s internal affairs; equality and mutual benefit; and
peaceful co-existence. Building on the long struggle of independence from Asian

26  President Harry S. Truman wrote Congress a letter stating, “I have determined that
Yugoslavia is a country which is of direct importance to the defense of the North Atlantic
area.” See, Harry S. Truman in Yugoslavia: Titoism and U.S. Foreign Policy, Washington
D.C., Department of State Publications, 1952, p. 2. The Joint Chiefs of Staff concurred
over Truman’s support for Yugoslavia: “it is in the important interests of the West that
Tito maintain his resistance,” but that one consideration that the United States needed to
heed was “the reliability of the Tito Communist regime as an instrument of United States
policy toward the USSR.” See General Omar Bradley in Sidney W. Souers, “Memorandum
for the National Security Council,” National Security Council, (16 November 1949), p. 1. For
information on Dedijer’s trips abroad in this critical time, see Vladimir Dedijer, The Battle
Stalin Lost: Memoirs of Yugoslavia, 1948–1953, (New York, Viking Press, 1971), pp. 9–22.
27  D.W.A. Baker, ed., The Facts of the Bandung Conference, (New South Wales: A.D. Lindsay,
1955), p. 15.
96 chapter 3

and European colonial powers, the meeting sought to establish a new system
free of entangling alliances and hostilities.
India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru proved an important figure in es-
tablishing the basis of what these ideas would come to mean for the confer-
ence participants, thanks to his experience leading an independent India since
1947, and having played a significant role as a leader among the South Asian
states (specifically, as part of the Colombo Five). Nehru’s presence was critical
because while at first he denied the centrality of India’s role in Asian geopoli-
tics following India’s independence, he quickly discovered the complexity of
his country’s importance once the Communist Mao Zedong proclaimed vic-
tory over his nationalist rival Chiang Kai-Shek in nearby China. With two mas-
sive empires in Asia furthering the cause of international communism, Indian
leaders, despite a modest degree of sympathy for Marx’s ideas, clearly felt enor-
mous pressure to succumb to a combination of Soviet and “belligerent” Chinese
force.28 Nehru had felt that Indian foreign policy before independence was a
product of British imperialism and that India possessed no historic hostilities
with any people in the region, and, as a result, he attempted to shape policy
accordingly, while also placating the diverse religious, ethnic, and linguistic
interests under his control. He swiftly recognized the advantages in a coordi-
nated policy of neutrality that would weaken any so-called artificial hostili-
ties because of an alliance with either Moscow and Beijing or Washington—to
that end, Nehru coined the term nonalignment during his April 1954 visit to
Colombo, Sri Lanka.29

28  See George McTurnan Kahin, The Asian–African Conference: Bandung, Indonesia, April
1955, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1956), p. 5. Kahin argued in his summary
that the conference participants “envisaged the Conference as providing an opportu-
nity for working towards three important objectives of their foreign policies: (1) avoid-
ance of war, most immediately between China and the United States; (2) development
of China’s diplomatic independence of Soviet Russia; (3) containment of Chinese and
Vietminh military power and political influence at the southern border of China and the
eastern boundaries of Cambodia and Laos, and the combating of illegal and subversive
Communist activities in all non-Communist Asia, particularly in their countries.” In the
mid-1960s, Tito noted in a conversation with Governor Averell Harriman and Ambassador
C. Burke Elbrick that China stood opposed to the policy of nonalignment and, “in fact,
the belligerent Chinese do not want to promote peace in the world but wish to aggravate
the international situation.” See Department of State Airgram, “Conversation between
President Tito and Governor Harriman and Ambassador Elbrick,” 30 July 1965. LBJ Library.
29  See Richard L. Jackson, The Non-aligned, the UN, and the Superpowers, (New York: Praeger,
1983), p. 6.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 97

Global political realignment following the end of World War II gave a voice
to many formerly underrepresented actors. While some European countries
fought to hold onto their earlier possessions, most were too broken at home to
deal with troublesome appendages half a world away. One-by-one, the old col-
onies broke free. In a flurry of excitement, local leaders—including a wealth
of pragmatic revolutionaries—declared the independence of new countries
and set on a path towards building new states. While India was a tremendous
new addition to the global community during the first stage of decolonization,
another significant Asian country to emerge from World War II was Indonesia.
On the island of Java, the new government led by the nationalist Sukarno, took
form and soon encompassed almost all of the former Dutch East Indies; but,
as in India, the idea of a united vision for a diverse state proved troublesome.
Unlike Nehru, Sukarno could avoid civil war and partition, but his foreign pol-
icy could not avoid the reality of both the obvious Cold War divide and the
emerging significance of Islam as a political force. Like Nehru, Sukarno desired
a foreign policy that could allow for flexibility and relieve the embattled coun-
try of any problematic alliances.
Finally, the other major leader to seek an independent foreign policy and
grow as a regional power surfaced in the turbulent Middle East. Despite cer-
tain Western leaders having promised a Jewish homeland in Palestine since the
Zionist movement took shape in the late nineteenth century, the real embodi-
ment of this pledge only appeared at the end of World War II. While the re-
gion itself hosted some of the battles during the war—most notably in Algeria,
Egypt, and Tunisia—the postwar power vacuum fostered an eruption of inde-
pendence movements. A focused and anti-Western Muslim attitude soon de-
veloped with the establishment of Israel in 1948.30 Unable to expel the Jewish

30  See Synopsis of the Second Conference of Non-Aligned Countries, (Cairo: Information
Department, 1964), p. 4. Abdel Khalek Hassuna, the Secretary-General of the Arab League,
argued that Arabs were, in 1964, “still fighting against imperialism, which has driven the
people of Palestine from their own land and established Israel as an instrument of aggres-
sion, threatening the security, unity and progress of the Arab hope.” I would argue that
Western support for Israel from day one has defined most of the history of the modern
Middle East. From the beginning, anti-Israeli feelings were rife among Muslims and the
important support from the United States of Israel made sure that while certain Arab
regimes found a friend in Washington—thanks to the importance of oil—no truly posi-
tive partnerships could be created. While Saudi Arabia, for instance, would become a
staunch U.S. ally, Saudi motives rested in large part by the ruling elite seeking to win
international backing against revolutionaries and other popular anti-regime elements
inside the kingdom. True alliances between Arab states and America remained difficult
to forge and maintain partly because of the pro-Israel position of the U.S. government.
98 chapter 3

settlers, most of these newly emboldened Muslim leaders nonetheless tried

to resist the change as best they could.31 As one of the most populous and po-
tentially powerful nations in the Middle East, Egypt soon became the foremost
place for advocates of Arab positions. The personification of this new voice,
Gamal Abdel Nasser, attempted to bring his impoverished state to a higher
level using the Cold War dilemma to his favor by gaining high technology and
modern weapons. But Nasser faced the tremendous handicap of bordering a
powerful and motivated Israel; indeed, he also fought for contested space in
Lebanon and later merged with Syria to form the United Arab Republic as a
way to change the overall balance of power in the Middle East. Bandung’s re-
sults, coupled with the complex and rapid pace of change across the globe, had
persuaded Nasser of the benefits of seeking closer ties outside of the Cold War
divide. Nasser’s logic—similar to a Nehru or a Tito—rested on the idea that
if enough leaders of small states could organize and resist overtures from the
superpowers through balancing, they would not only break free of traditional
neutrality but by so doing, would guarantee their own sovereignty and build
their economies through trade and concessions from both blocs. But prior to,
and again at Bandung, Indonesia’s Prime Minister Ali Sastroamidjojo asked
pointedly, “‘Where do we, the peoples of Asia and Africa, stand; and for what
do we stand in this world dominated by fear?”’32 Over the next few years, Tito
revealed his provocative answer.

The contradictions were too clear to allow for American aid to beget American-style re-
gimes in the Middle East and the entire region had fallen easily as potential prey to the
Soviets. Soviet success was limited partly because of the posturing by Nasser that helped
to strengthen Tito at the expense of Moscow. The ramifications of American policy in the
Middle East, of course, have become clearer as the Cold War ended; the United States still
finds difficulty in forging positive, popularly accepted partnerships in the region because
of continued support for Israel, and, moreover, having suffered for so long without real
economic reforms to enrich the people of the region, none of the states are economically
viable or stable in an integrated, global environment.
31  While Israel was invited to participate at the conference at Rangoon, the rhetoric there
from the delegates from Egypt and Lebanon drew lines of controversy that continued
at Bandung; at the latter, Pakistan effectively blocked the participation of Israel despite
Burma’s and India’s desire to have Israel there. See Kahin, The Asian-African Conference,
p. 3; and, Ahmad Hussein in First Asian Socialist, p. 28. Hussein of Egypt equated socialism
with justice and therefore could not “recognize Israel” because Egyptian leaders could not
“tolerate imperialism in any form.”
32  Sastroamidjoj in Kahin, The Asian-African Conference, p. 12.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 99

Yugoslavia and the Third World

When the French demographer Alfred Sauvy created the term Third World in
1952 to describe the areas of the world ravaged by poverty, high birthrates, poor
infrastructure, and the like, he sought a comparison with the distraught Third
Estate of the French revolutionary period of the late eighteenth century.33 The
comparison struck a chord among the leaders of the emerging states, and the
organizers of Bandung adopted the expression at the conference to describe
their plight and raise awareness over these issues that most affected them. An
awareness among Asian leaders about how they could grapple with decolo-
nization on the one hand and the structural problems facing their societies,
including an overwhelming number of rural peasants in virtually all of Asia.
Yugoslavs had already staked out a claim of how to deal with both outside con-
trol and notions of transforming society. With years of experience covering
Mao’s revolution, interacting with Indian communists and revising ideology
to at once grapple with global diplomatic crises and concerns with domestic
legitimacy, Yugoslavs leaders were eager to serve as role models.34

33  See Nathan Keyfitz, “Alfred Sauvy,” Population and Development Review 16:4 (December
1990), p. 729.
34  The Yugoslavs had followed the Chinese Civil War with great attention during the late
1940s. Articles in official press organs such as Borba compared Mao’s struggle with that of
Tito’s anti-fascist campaign during World War II. See, for instance: “Istoriska prekretnica
y oslobodilačkoj borbi,” Borba, 4 January 1948, p. 1; “Oslobodilačka borba naroda Kine,”
Borba, (21 January 1948), p. 5; “Oslobođena područja Kine zapremaju preko 2,390.000
kvadratnih kilometara sa više od 168 milijuna stanovnika,” Borba, 9 February 1948, p. 5;
“Ofenzivna moć Narodnooslobodilačke armije Kine povećava se svakog dana,” Borba,
15 February 1948, p. 5.
 Also, later as the Yugoslavs dealt with Asian political developments more closely, top
aide Vladimir Dedijer’s essay in Komunist, entitled the “The Soviet Union and Korea,”
summed up the contradictions between Soviet policies and Marxism by saying that “on
the example of Korea, once more following the example of Yugoslavia, we see the sever-
ity in how the Soviet Union manifested its expansionistic foreign politics.” See “Sovjetski
Savez i Koreja” Komunist (V-6, November 1950), p. 137.
 General Secretary of the Rangoon meetings in early 1953, Prabhakar Padhye, mused
over how the Yugoslav actions were actually creating a condition whereby the “workers
are enfranchised in the factory and the peasants are enfranchised in the field.” Report of
the Rangoon Conference, p. 220. During that discussion at the Rangoon meetings, Eric P. W.
da Costa countered that Yugoslavia’s decentralization efforts have not led to freedom.
 Jovan Čavoški has argued that Yugoslavia in this early period represented a “role model
to Burma”—the Rangoon Conference’s host—precisely because it was “pursuing a specif-
ic road to socialism, proclaiming a nonaligned position in world politics,” and balancing
100 chapter 3

Yugoslavia had, though, two critically important reasons for becoming in-
volved with the organizers of Bandung. The more pressing of the two was the
incredible promise that these third-world statesmen held for reinforcing inde-
pendence and resisting bloc domination. Having an already abundant store of
rhetoric speaking to issues such as sovereignty, non-intervention, and peaceful
co-existence, thanks to their diatribe with the Soviets and subsequent reform
of Marxism, Yugoslav leaders pinned their hopes on making these statements
politically important and bringing their foreign policy agendas to the forefront
of decision-making across the globe.
During the early 1950s, leaders all over the world molded ideology to fit their
own unique needs—including Tito in Yugoslavia. With decolonization, new
movements searched for a way to organize the economic and political system
that they fought to control. When the Socialist Conference of Asian Nations
opened in Rangoon in 1953, men such as Tito saw it as a venue for shaping
the future. Admittedly Tito knew little about Asia but he had made a point
of establishing diplomatic ties with countries like India from soon after the
end of World War II.35 Josip Đerđa served as the first Yugoslav ambassador

between the superpowers. Burma’s Socialist leader U Kyaw Nyein reiterated this when
he stated that “Yugoslavia and Burma are countries both building socialism…. Therefore
they have similarity of interests and goals.” See Jovan Č avoški, “Arming Nonalignment:
Yugoslavia’s Relations with Burma and the Cold War in Asia, 1950–1955” Cold War
International History Project Working Paper (2010), p. 6. Accessed online: http://wilson
center.org/topics/pubs/WP61_Cavoski_web.pdf. Also, Alvin Rubinstein has noted that the
Burmese, unable to buy arms from London or Washington turned to Yugoslavia and Israel,
both having provided an unstable Burmese polity the means to remain independent. See
Alvin Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Nonaligned World (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1970), p. 45. See also Jovan Čavoški, “Yugoslavia and the Belgrade Conference,”
in The Non-Aligned Movement and the Cold War: Delhi–Bandung–Belgrade, eds. Nataša
Mišković, Harald Fischer-Tine, Nada Boškovska (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 186.
35  Yugoslavs sent a special mission to India again in the early 1950s, headed by Rodoljub
Čolaković in order to “strengthen world peace.” An Indian representative, stressed that
“India can learn a lot from the Yugoslav example.” Čolaković declared that “for years we
have led in our country the struggle for freedom and sovereignty”; likewise, a similar fight
has occurred in “India for decades” according to the same principles. Moreover, he contin-
ued, “we believe that world peace requires a practical application of these principles” and
we are pleased that India has the same goals to “maintain and strengthen world peace.”
See “Naše zemlje imaju jedan isti cilj da se održi i ojača svetski mir,” Borba, 13 January 1953,
p. 3. Other articles continued this coverage and mentioned how India was still trying to
overcome the remnants of colonialism. See “Madras–Kulturno-politička centar Indiskog
juga,” Borba, 13 January 1953, p. 5.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 101

to India and upon his return he worked in the foreign ministry where other
heads of departments regularly met and discussed policy.36 Part of the interac-
tions with India included important party leaders such as one of Tito’s most
trusted colleagues, Milovan Đilas, who played a prominent role in the initial
transformation of Yugoslav ideology following the Tito-Stalin split. Soon after,
though, Tito persecuted Đilas for advocating for reforms that Tito saw at the
time as too radical—nonetheless, an array of informal, regular diplomatic, and
top party visits took place in these early postwar years.37 That other world lead-
ers held out sympathetic notions for Tito’s project and encouraged by his suc-
cess at thwarting Moscow without succumbing to the promise of American aid
should not be surprising. The significance of Đilas in Rangoon and a Yugoslav
presence at Bandung shows the convergence of ideology and global politics
as systematic and deliberate rather than reliant upon whimsical or idealistic
leaders.38 Leaders throughout the Third World and in Belgrade assigned great
value to a united non-bloc foreign policy and leaders like Tito used it to recon-
cile problems with domestic affairs.
While Yugoslavs began to reach out into the Third World in the early 1950s,
the domestic arena also underwent great reform and proved critical for under-
standing the rest of Yugoslav history. Edvard Kardelj, the well-placed Yugoslav
politician and theorist, had noted how peace relied upon “the struggle for real
independence,” and for a “gradual abolition of the backwardness which divides

36  For details on this and general items about Yugoslavia’s role in nonalignment see a recent
work: Svetozar Rajak, “No Bargaining Chips, No Spheres of Influence: The Yugoslav
Origins of Cold War Nonalignment,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 16:1 (2014), p. 156.
37  See Slobodan Stankovic, “Tito and the Nonaligned Summit in Colombo,” RAD Background
Report/166, 28 July 1976. HU OSA 300-8-3 Records of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Research Institute [RRFE/RLRI], Background Reports [BR], cn. 186.
38  This work understands the convergance of Yugoslav ideological reform as undertaken in
the wake of the Tito-Stalin split but also in the context of global issues such as Mao’s
struggle in China, the Korean War, and reconciliation with the peaceful rhetoric outlined
by the United Nations. Tito later boasted his policy to Nikita Khrushchev in 1955 that
“it would not be productive to conduct foreign policy based on state or party lines; it is
better to have courteous meetings and discuss openly.” See “Fragmenti iz zapisnika o sas-
tanku plenuma CK KPSS Jula 1955. godine na kome je vodjena diskusija o politici SSSR-a
prema Jugoslaviji posle povratka Sovjetske Delegacije iz Beograda,” AJ CK IX 119/I K.2
45–90, folder 56. Overall, Yugoslav activity in Asia, as Čavoški has argued based on newly
declassified Chinese and Yugoslav documents, shows that “Sino-Yugoslav competition for
ideological and political influence among the nonaligned nations was much wider and
more acute than was previously believed.” Such a declaration warrants continued investi-
gation in what this might have meant. See Čavoški, “Arming Nonalignment,” p. 7.
102 chapter 3

the developed and underdeveloped nations.” In other words, Kardelj vied for
more partners in the quest to unite his message with those in Africa and Asia.
To achieve the goal of peace, “great political struggles and many social forms”
would come to the fore, but naturally, Kardelj envisioned the victory of his
socio-political system. Nonetheless, in two simple thoughts, Kardelj had antici-
pated much of Bandung’s spirit and automatically made Yugoslavia a natural
ally of the emerging nations in Asia and Africa.39 Joining hands with the states-
men at Bandung, and using issues such as cooperative neutrality and peaceful
co-existence as a working policy not only opened up trade possibilities with
emerging states but more importantly helped Yugoslav leaders fight contin-
ued Soviet pressure with moral and spirited rhetoric. While not accepted as
official conference policy, the words of Sir John Kotelawala, the Prime Minister
of Ceylon, certainly vilified the Soviets when he loudly declared at Bandung
that everyone should voice their opposition to “Soviet colonialism as much as
Western imperialism.” After all, Kotelawala asked in perplexity about “Hungary,
Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and
Poland”—were these countries somehow different from the “colonial territo-
ries in Africa and Asia?”40 To the partners of Bandung, there certainly was no
difference.
The second key reason that Yugoslav leaders latched onto the idea of
nonalignment and involvement with the Third World rested on the regime’s
manipulation of positive ideals to help build legitimacy for itself, vis-à-vis for-
eign-policy related victories. Domestic reforms enacted by the Titoist regime
in the wake of the Soviet threats after 1948 has shown that Yugoslavs sought
to establish something that was both different and meaningful. In response
to Soviet indictments, a Yugoslav ideology surfaced that not only promised to
“build a better life” for the people, but also began to deliver at least the sem-
blance of progress thanks to American aid in the early 1950s, and the movement
away from collectivization that together jumpstarted the Yugoslav economy
and allowed self-management to show real promise.41

39  Edvard Kardelj, Titoism and the Contemporary World: Edvard Kardelj’s Speech to the Fourth
Congress of the People’s Front of Yugoslavia, (New York: National Committee for a Free
Europe, Inc., 1953), p. I.13.
40  Text of the “Address on Colonialism to the Political Committee of the Asian-African
Conference made on the afternoon of Thursday, April 21,” Bandung 1955: Addresses to the
Asian-African Conference and Statements to the Press by the Rt. Hon. Sir John Kotelawala,
Prime Minister of Ceylon, (Colombo: Government Press, 1955), p. 18.
41  Tito in “Speech of J.B. Tito at Labin,” Vaclav L. Benes, Robert F. Byrnes, and Nicolas Spulber,
eds., The Second Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute: Full Text of Main Documents, (Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Publications, 1959), p. 256.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 103

Yugoslavia’s path outside of Soviet control brought with it a different kind

of responsibility in foreign relations. Acting independently meant that on one
hand, the difficult task of making tough choices rested on Yugoslav shoulders
and answers could not simply mimic the declarations of others. On the other
hand, meanwhile, nonalignment allowed the Yugoslavs and other partici-
pants to avoid pressing questions and tense foreign-policy dilemmas. Foreign
Minister Koča Popović declared that independence and good relations with
all was the most desirable policy for his country. In fact, Yugoslav politicians
understood their legacy of independence since Tito’s Partisans took to the bat-
tlefield with liberation on their minds as the LCY had taken “upon itself” the
“historic responsibility for the fate of the peoples of Yugoslavia.”42 Popović sur-
mised that if the Yugoslavs kneeled to one or another power then they would
not be acting in a “correct” manner, therefore they would be exposing their
position as a genuine force in world politics to critique and jeopardizing the
delicate construction of legitimacy (vis-à-vis self-management) from within.43
The preeminent goal of the Yugoslav leadership rested with an understand-
ing that they needed to reconcile their domestic policy and its currents with
the direction of the country’s foreign policy. To that end, Kardelj observed
that Yugoslavia must fight to change the world, because “the world will not
change by the dissolving of blocs but blocs will disappear with the changing
of the world.”44 Kardelj’s opinion, of course, rested on the newfound moral-
ity of Yugoslav socialism as it had developed since 1948. That same year when
Kardelj presented the address at the Fourth Congress of the People’s Front
of Yugoslavia, he outlined the nature of global politics as he saw it; having

42  Fabijan Trgo, “KPJ i obrana zemlje do aprilskog rata 1941,” Vojnoistorijski glasnik 2 (Beograd:
Vojnoistorijskog instituta, 1970), p. 30; Edvard Kardelj directly linked the later policy of
nonalignment with the Yugoslav experience in World War II. He saw the power in inde-
pendent thought and national liberation movements when he mentioned that in “China,
Yugoslavia, Vietnam” had genuine “people’s and socialist revolutions” as an “outgrowth
of national liberation wars,” and making themselves “as one of the significant factors in
resolving world problems and antagonisms.” See Edvard Kardelj: The Historical Roots
of Non-alignment, Nikolaos A. Stavrou, ed., (Lanham, MD: University Press of America,
1980), p. 42.
43  Cited in Elie Abel, “Fresh Arms Step Proposed by Tito,” New York Times, 1 January 1958, p. 2.
44  See Edvard Kardelj: The Historical Roots of Non-alignment, p. 60. Kardelj further elabo-
rated the Yugoslav idea of what nonalignment meant by understanding the movement
as “not only a form of international policy and action, but also a form of social, class,
economic, political and cultural redeployment of the modern world.” To Kardelj, the Non-
aligned Movement was consistent with the idea of Marxism’s progress towards reaching
utopia.
104 chapter 3

recognized evils in both Soviet imperialism and Western economic might,

Kardelj promptly redefined Yugoslavia as special.45
Just as in Yugoslavia and elsewhere, the notion that policy justified the right
to rule, Kardelj recognized the dilemma facing the Soviet Union. He hypothe-
sized that Soviet leaders used their system of “extremely aggressive, menacing,
coercive” behavior and the “immense concentration of military and political
power” to “justify” their existence before their “own society” because they had
“exhausted all possibilities of progress” inside their “own country.”46 Kardelj
sought to refrain from military repression and thus favored positive reinforce-
ment as the means for progress in Yugoslavia. Toward the same end, justifying
a special and unique place for Yugoslavia laid the groundwork for the vocal
foreign policy that would embody the Non-aligned Movement. Moreover, the
place for Tito’s Yugoslavia would be in influencing the further expansion of so-
cialism and future revolutionary developments of “all progressive people,” liv-
ing in those countries “liberating themselves from colonial slavery,” who only
desired “to formulate their own policies, to be equal in international affairs, and
to preserve freedom of action.”47 Vice President Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo,
in an interview with the New York Times, downplayed the consequences of op-
position with the Soviets when he observed that the ideological differences
between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union represented a “normal occurrence,”
and that such differences should not interfere with general policy.48 Following
the Tito-Stalin controversy in the summer of 1948, while the Yugoslav lead-
ership consistently reaffirmed the pledge neither to join other blocs nor to
submit to outside pressures from any side, they indeed flirted with temporal
regional alliances. Yet, once nonalignment took off as a credible alternative
in the late 1950s, the LCY abandoned those too. In response to controversial

45  See Edvard Kardelj in Titoism and the Contemporary World, pp. I.9–I.10. Kardelj claimed
that the Soviets must seek greater domination as the “only method of preserving” their
system.
46  Edvard Kardelj in Titoism and the Contemporary World, p. I10.
47  See “Fragmenti” AJ CK IX 119/I K.2 45–90, folder 56. “Yugoslavia has its own ambitions,
that it wants to play these idiosyncratic games in the socialist world and that towards this
it must be different than towards other socialist countries. Namely, in other words, I think
that it must situate relations not only especially toward Yugoslavia but also in principle in
the socialist world. I am talking in the interests of further development of socialism and
furthering revolutionary development and the possibilities of gathering all progressive
peoples.” See “Belgrade: Nonalignment—Antithesis to Policy of Position from Strength,”
Radio Belgrade, 11 June 1968. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NAFP1, 64–68, cn. 286.
48  Elie Abel, “Yugoslav Lauds U.S. Relationship,” New York Times, 11 January 1958, p. 3.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 105

bickering between the Cold War Goliaths, the Yugoslavs stressed peace and
disarmament that fed on the intense fear of nuclear devastation.49

Non-aligned Movement: Institutionalizing Legitimacy

Racked by external and internal challenges since Stalin discarded Tito and pub-
licly called for his ouster, Yugoslav leaders had struggled to retrieve momen-
tum and build a positive legitimacy based on popular support of Tito’s right to
rule. By using nonalignment as a vehicle for legitimacy, though, the Yugoslav
leadership managed to vocalize its unique views of Marxism, but, most im-
portantly, Tito could take the lead regarding so-called progressive thought and
advocate on behalf of Yugoslavia to a global audience. On a par with the kind
of ideological changes within Yugoslavia, the LCY used its newfound interna-
tional voice to sponsor its leadership in global ideology; in 1958, the LCY pro-
nounced, “Marxist thought in the course of the last two decades has not kept
in step with the advance of contemporary society.” In other words, the Soviet
Union fostered an illegitimate version of Marxism ruined by “bureaucracy and
statism,” in its attempt to build an “ideological monopoly”; both factors that
perverted true Marxism, according to the Yugoslavs, who recognized the dy-
namism of ideology and, as a result, fostered a system that would keep pace
with society’s constant transformations.50 Tito’s logic behind nonalignment
rested on equality among states because, as he put it, “internationalism means
respect for equal relations,” among states and the indivisibility “into camp and
non-camp groups”—just like how Titoism spoke about equality and respect,
internationalism was also “universal.”51
Nearly a decade later, in 1968, Central Committee member Nijaz Dizdarević
buttressed Tito’s argument for nonalignment by hailing its “universal charac-
ter” as representative of the LCY’s aspirations to find solutions to “major, vital
questions” plaguing the world, such as threats to peace and stability.52 The

49  See “Yugoslavs Issue Party Platform; Affirm Own Road to Socialism,” New York Times,
14 March 1958, p. 3.
50  “Tito’s ‘Do-It-Yourself’ Program Annoys Soviet Communist Chiefs,” New York Times,
23 April 1958, p. 11.
51  Elie Abel, “Tito Tells Soviet to Stop Meddling in Yugoslav Rule,” New York Times, 23 April
1958, p. 1.
52  “Dizdarevic: Non-alignment is not only for Small Countries,” CMD, 27 December 1968.
HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI, Non-aligned Foreign Policy 1964–68 (2 of 2) [NAFP2, 64–68],
cn. 286.
106 chapter 3

Soviet menace remained in force despite periods of goodwill and normaliza-

tion. One such ebb in relations came in 1955, when Stalin’s successor, Nikita
Khrushchev, flew to Belgrade and worked out a deal with a stronger and more
resolute Tito. While the Soviets recognized that “separate paths to socialism”
existed, they declared that they would not threaten Yugoslavia as they once
had; but by 1956, the invasions of Hungary harkened back to the days of over-
whelming Soviet power.53 Use of force by the Soviets that year left Tito hesi-
tant to condemn forcefully any of the parties involved as a way to maintain
influence in Budapest but his lack of any meaningful pronouncement hurt his
credibility.54 In the end, Tito had held out lukewarm support for both the actors
in the first invasion, and then for the Soviets in the second (when the Soviets
moved in to prevent the removal of socialism as government policy). As a re-
sult, he robbed himself of any outlet for lofty critique that resonated among his
Third-World friends.55 Tito had remained too hopeful for a peaceful solution
prior to armed intervention and in fact supported the Hungarian government
in its quest for a separate path until he realized that leaders there directly chal-
lenged Communism’s success in Budapest. While he lent some moral support
and then recognized that things had gotten out of control, it was clear to see
that Tito was indecisive and therefore too clouded on policy to make a decisive
statement.
Nonetheless, time and again, Yugoslav leaders reacted from personal expe-
rience against Soviet overtures, and they would not find themselves again in
such a chaotic position as they had in 1956. Shortly thereafter, in 1958, Tito

53  When in 1955, Tito and Khrushchev recognized and pronounced the idea of “separate
paths to socialism,” they again renewed their stance the following year in 1956, during
a visit to Moscow by Tito. The joint declaration from 26 June 1956 reasserted, “the path
of socialist development varies according to country and conditions,” and furthermore,
that “the multiplicity of forms of socialist development tends to strengthen socialism.”
See “Declaration on Relations Between the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union,” in The Second Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute, p. 9.
54  Department of State Intelligence Report, “Yugoslav Relations with the Kadar Regime,”
28 February 1957.
55  Tito took great pains to avoid placing blame on the events in Hungary and reconcile
his confused position. An excellent example of this is during his speech in Pula, on
11 November 1956, when he condemned the first intervention as unnecessary and the
second premature. In a rare moment of resolve on this issue, he declared, “it was a great
mistake to call the army of another country to give a lesson to the people the country,
even if there had been some shooting.” See Robert Bass and Elizabeth Marbury, eds.,
The Soviet–Yugoslav Controversy, 1948–58: A Documentary Record, (New York: Prospect
Books, 1959), p. 72.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 107

called for a Communist Party Congress for Yugoslavia and set the stage for an-
other ideological clash with the Soviets. At this congress, Vice President Edvard
Kardelj mentioned the Soviet Union specifically when he assailed interfer-
ence in another’s internal affairs. According to Kardelj, the LCY recognized
the need for “solidarity among Communists,” but rejected the “idea that one
party should impose its dogma on another.”56 With that, Kardelj had set the
stage for renewed conflict with the Soviets over ideology and blazed a path for
Yugoslavia to pursue a moralistic position.
With an improved ideological vigor claimed by the Yugoslavs, the Soviets
not surprisingly retaliated with words and sought to limit the power and
persuasion of Yugoslavia’s messages. A second Soviet–Yugoslav dispute then
emerged, pitting the veteran Tito against the already embattled Khrushchev.
Scandalous ideological attacks marked this largely academic and journalistic
debate. But while the first split in 1948 enabled Tito to strike out on his own
and mold Marxism to fit his own desires, this second split was significant not
just for the solidification of Titoism inside Yugoslavia but as the impetus for
Tito’s movement in calling forth the first Non-aligned Conference a short three
years later. The second Soviet–Yugoslav split paved the way for a true change
in world politics and emboldened Yugoslav leaders—themselves more secure
in their sovereignty—to make the morality of the Bandung Conference into
something momentous. Renewed Soviet pressure against the Yugoslav ideo-
logical position in 1958 effectively gave birth to the Non-aligned Movement
as a political institution, especially as it coincided with other ideological and
security threats to Tito’s Bandung partners.
Following Stalin’s critique of Tito in 1948, the Yugoslavs responded with pro-
nouncements aimed at demonstrating the unity within Yugoslavia against any
invader. As a result, Milovan Đilas enthusiastically announced at the Fifth Party
Congress in 1948 that his fellow party members should be proud of their “un-
wavering” adherence to the principles of “Marxism-Leninism,” because they
did “not fear any hardships in the struggle for their victory.”57 At the outset of
the second Soviet–Yugoslav dispute, Tito expanded the message into the realm
of foreign policy, praising the universalism and unity of the LCY’s message. He
emphasized with confidence what he saw as the rock-solid “unity” of the LCY
members and peoples of Yugoslavia, declaring that no one was beset by “nar-
row national interests.” Instead, they rested upon and responded to a feeling

56  Edvard Kardelj in Elie Abel, “Yugoslavs Score Soviet Line Again,” New York Times, 25 April
1958, p. 2.
57  Milovan Đilas, Report on Agitation-Propaganda Work of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia, (Beograd, 1948), p. 62.
108 chapter 3

of “international solidarity with all the labor and progressive movements,”

including the important “colonial peoples who are fighting for their freedom
and independence.”58 When Tito uttered those words to the LCY Congress, he
not only attacked the Soviet Union, but he also made himself the ostensible
protector of “colonial peoples” then struggling for their independence—much
like he himself did against the fascists during World War II, and the Soviets
after 1948. Immediately establishing the Yugoslav position as one with inter-
national interests and significance meant that the rhetoric needed meaningful
action to follow. Ever since the Rangoon and Bandung meetings in 1953 and
1955, respectively, Tito had kept in close contact with Third World leaders such
as Nehru, Sukarno, and Nasser. By 1958 the time was right to make the rhetoric
into reality and bring together the powers of many into an organization that
could speak for broader issues.
Tito attempted to ground his new position on “principle,” both in “interna-
tional and in internal matters,” and tried to forestall any Soviet attacks as some-
thing that would cause “damage to all” socialist states.59 Since the successful
Yugoslav resistance in 1948, and the relentless path towards communism as
the country’s guiding ideology, the leaders in Moscow had a great deal to fear.
The events of the early to mid 1950s—the East German rebellions, the riots
in Poznan, Poland, and the 1956 invasions of Hungary—left the people living
under Soviet communism without doubt regarding Moscow’s desire to con-
trol international Marxism. In the Third World, the devastating shock of the
combined assault of the Suez Canal in 1956 by the Israelis, British, and French
forces made leaders like Nasser even more cognizant of their relative weakness
compared to either bloc.60
Responding to the Soviet declarations against Tito’s position in 1958, his
supporters in the proto Non-aligned Movement raised their voices in unison.
During May of that year, Nehru denounced Soviet criticism of Yugoslavia’s
position, and he argued that such negative and abusive rhetoric represented
foreign interference in another’s domestic affairs. In a display of even greater

58  “Text of the Address by Marshal Tito,” New York Times, 27 April 1958, p. 12.
59  Elie Abel, “Tito Bids Soviet Talk, Not Berate,” New York Times, 27 April 1958, p. 1.
60  While upset at the invasion of the Suez because of his geographic proximity and his work
with Nasser, Tito could merely voice regrets. Eleven years later in 1967, when the Israelis
occupied the canal, Tito called for a return to the status quo ante, condemned the Israeli
behavior, and pressed ahead with moral support for the Arabs in the region. But in 1958,
when Yugoslav leaders restated their well-known beliefs at their Fifth Party Congress,
they forced the Soviets to further clamp down on any deviation within the Soviet zone.
See Josip Broz Tito, “Letter to Lyndon Johnson,” 24 August 1967, LBJ Library.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 109

camaraderie with the besieged Tito, Nehru expressed his approval of the idea
of “separate paths to socialism,” by stating its consistency with Indian political
norms.61 The proof that Tito’s vocal stance outside of the Soviet system allowed
for a third way as a plausible movement showed itself in spades during the
last half of 1958. Nasser visited both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in short
sequence following the outbreak of the second Soviet–Yugoslav dispute, and,
therefore, strengthened the Yugoslav position by symbolically treating both as
equals. Egypt played a large role in any Soviet strategy in the Middle East and
if Yugoslavia successfully courted Nasser, then Moscow feared that it might
lose a valuable ally in a key position in the world. This trend of Soviet leaders
posturing for allies in the Third World would continually menace them and
have long-lasting consequences for the nature of the Cold War. While many
nonaligned participants sympathized with Marxism and even received aid
from the Soviet Union, most leaders in the Non-aligned Movement successful-
ly thwarted attempts to fall under the direct sway of Moscow. Refusing direct
Soviet power a platform for expansion hindered Moscow elites in the over-
all Cold War struggle because no victory in this sense equaled a defeat. On a
micro level, Nasser’s own drive towards a formal policy of nonalignment must
be treated as similar to that of his peers—that is, it cannot be seen apart from
his experience in opposition to regional and global powers.62
Nasser’s joint displays with Tito clearly showed his attempt to maneuver
between the competing superpowers. By 1958, Nasser and Tito had met four
times, and their July 1958 meeting laid the groundwork for the first formal Non-
aligned Conference, scheduled for Belgrade in 1961. Cementing their ideas of
peaceful coexistence at Tito’s villa on the Adriatic island of Brioni, Nasser and
Tito called for a summit to end the production and testing of nuclear weapons,
and they cried out for adherence to the United Nations Charter as the basis for
state relations and the “cooperation among nations on the basis of indepen-
dence and equality.”63
New York Times journalist Elie Abel evoked great enthusiasm for the new
foreign policy that was developing in the late 1950s, when he recognized Tito

61  From A.M. Rosenthal, “Nehru Assails Communists For Attacks on Yugoslavia,” New York
Times, 13 May 1958, p. 1.
62  See “Nasser to Visit Tito During July,” New York Times, 25 May 1958, p. 8. Nasser faced a host
of challenges from foreign powers—most recently in 1956, against the British, French,
and Israelis following his nationalization of the Suez Canal. Despite the retreat of the
intervention force, Nasser had good reason to show concern over a renewed Western
intervention.
63  See Paul Underwood, “Tito and Nasser Ask Summit Talk,” New York Times, 11 July 1958, p. 2.
110 chapter 3

as the “storm center of the Soviet bloc,” while Nasser was at the “vortex of the
turbulent Middle East.” With these words, Abel recognized the power of unity
when he declared, moreover, that not one of the besieged statesmen alone was
in a “position to influence” a decisive solution—instead, a joint force might cre-
ate tremendous headway.64 A few months after the flurry of activity between
Tito and Nasser, the premier of Indonesia traveled to meet with both leaders
and worked out a plan of mutual action and, as a further boon to the Yugoslav
position of independence, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower continued to
uphold support for keeping Yugoslavia free of any foreign domination.65 Tito
needed every bit of potential support against renewed Soviet aggression in
Europe, especially when tensions over Berlin threatened to unleash hostilities.66
Conflict thus set the tone for the political turn of nonalignment’s founders as
each of the statesmen faced a new round of pressure in 1958: Nasser felt the
need to win support of the other Arab countries and therefore deter an aggres-
sive and powerful Western-backed Israel; Sukarno needed fresh support for his
conflict against Holland over Dutch New Guinea; Nehru faced ever-increasing
tensions with China over Tibet and the Sino–Indian border; and finally, Tito
was uncomfortable about Yugoslavia’s security following the second split.
The culmination of fears over renewed international conflict became ap-
parent when Nasser and Tito issued a joint communiqué in July 1958, which
stated that following a favorable development towards a relaxation of inter-
national tension, “a tendency in the opposite direction” had emerged in the
form of an arms race and a pronounced trend of breaking the sanctity of
sovereignty. Leaders of the newly emerging states saw the Cold War as a tre-
mendous menace to world security and tried to use the popular fear of war
throughout the world to build support. Among the important demands that
Nasser and Tito called for was the “need of holding a summit conference” to
ease tensions. This clearly laid the foundation for a formal establishment of
the Non-aligned Movement, as it would take form in the early 1960s.67 Finally,
the last part of the 1950s ended as Tito embarked on a grand world tour to
gather support for this movement, which spanned two-and-a-half months
and included far-away Burma, Ceylon, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, and finally

64  Elie Abel, “Tito-Nasser Need One Another,” New York Times, 13 July 1958, p. E7.
65  See, for instance, Mitrovich, Undermining, p. 172; also see, “U.S. Policy Toward Yugoslavia,”
National Security Council 5805, 28 February 1958, Eisenhower Library.
66  See “До Београдског консултативног састанка,” Борба, 9 July 1969, p. 19. HU OSA
300-10-2 YSFI NAFP2, 64–68, cn. 286.
67  “Tito-Nasser Communiqué,” New York Times, 11 July 1958, p. 2.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 111

the United Arab Republic—all states that would participate in the upcoming
Belgrade Conference.68

Non-aligned Movement in Practice

While Tito deserves little credit for inventing the concept of nonalignment—
that should go to all of the original participants at Bandung—he did ensure
that Yugoslavia would play a commanding role in shaping the Non-aligned
Movement by solidifying its political presence and ideological underpin-
nings, at least during the 1960s. After a series of visits between Nasser, Nehru,
Sukarno, and Tito during the latter 1950s, and several joint pronouncements of
the need for a conference to address issues affecting world peace, they finally
met in 1961. The city of Belgrade hosted the event, drawing official delegations
from twenty-five countries—from Afghanistan to Yemen—and promoted a
mood of progress and hope in a world dominated by fear. The opening state-
ment decried the conflict and trepidation that had brought them together and
noted that the participants must fight instead for a united approach toward
solving their common problems. Summit contributors recognized inaction as
the most dangerous response because ever since in the late 1950s, “interna-
tional events have taken a turn for the worst” and “seriously threatened” world
peace as a consequence.69 They felt the need to act and stand together to avert
the destructiveness of war.
Echoing the Yugoslav pronouncements of the 1950s in justification of their
peace-loving ideology, the conference members understood the world as
“characterised by the existence of different social systems,” which should not
“constitute an unsurmountable [sic.] obstacle” for peace provided that others
abstain from interfering in the “internal development of other peoples.” As a
logical extension, “all peoples and nations have to solve the problems of their
own political, economic, social and cultural systems in accordance with their
own conditions, needs and potentialities.”70 The similarities of these messag-
es with what Tito had uttered to Khrushchev in 1955 show that a consistency
had emerged regarding a Yugoslav ideology—both domestic and foreign policy

68  See “Tito is Off on Tour of Asia and Africa,” New York Times, 2 December 1958, p. 3; also
see Bernard Kfalb, “Tito and Sukarno Urge Peace Drive,” New York Times, 31 December
1958, p. 2.
69  The Belgrade Conference: September 1–6, 1961, Documents, (Cairo: Information Department,
1961), p. 3.
70  The Belgrade Conference, p. 6.
112 chapter 3

had grown more connected and, with international recognition, Yugoslavia

stood a great chance of securing a pivotal role as a new global force.71
Yugoslav influence during the 1961 conference represented the heightened
role of ideology in world affairs. By then, branded by the world as an ideol-
ogy, Titoism represented the unique way of attaining socialism vis-à-vis the
Yugoslavs’ interpretation of Marx’s writings. As a result, LCY officials noted that
they were “aware that ideological differences” necessarily remained a part of
the “growth of the human society,” but argued that people should “refrain from
any use of ideologies for the purpose of waging cold war” or “imposing their
will”—a direct attack on how they saw Soviet policy used abroad.72 Such state-
ments also advocated on behalf of the exportation of Yugoslav ideology among
its Third World partners—for that, pronouncements of self-determination
were a critical first step. The resolutions of the conference verified that, “all na-
tions have the right of unity, self-determination, and independence,” through
which they can freely determine their political status and pursue their “eco-
nomic, social and cultural development without intimidation or hindrance.”73
Tito no doubt hoped that once the superpowers left the Third World alone,
the LCY could step in and serve as the merchant and banker for progress and
development.
Attendees of the Belgrade Conference linked decolonization with a gen-
eral trend towards the cessation of “foreign oppression,” and vigorously tied
“national independence” to “equality.”74 Yugoslav leaders used nonalignment
as propaganda for domestic consumption, claiming that “the problems of the
developing countries have a special place in Yugoslav foreign policy,” because
Yugoslavs could cooperate freely with their “honored” friends in Africa and
Asia, recently relieved of their heavy colonial “burden of the past.” Writers for
Komunist confirmed, “Yugoslavia has closely collaborated with the developing
countries” and has relied “on its own rich experience from the struggle for its
own independence and economic development.”75 In fact, Yugoslav compa-
nies took advantage of international connections with non-aligned world and

71  For a complete transcript of the Khrushchev–Tito meetings, see “Fragmenti iz zapisnika
o sastanku plenuma CK KPSS Jula 1955. godine na kome je vođena diskusija o politici
SSSR-a prema Jugoslaviji posle povratka Sovjetske Dele Legacije iz Beograda,” AJ CK SKJ
IX 119/I K.2 45–90, folder 56.
72  The Belgrade Conference, p. 7.
73  The Belgrade Conference, p. 11.
74  The Belgrade Conference, p. 5.
75  “Economic Relationships of Yugoslavia and the Developing Countries,” Komunist,
3 December 1964, p. 2. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NAFP2, 64–68, cn. 286.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 113

worked on major infrastructural and architectural projects in Africa, Asia, and

the Middle East.76 As early as 1961, the Yugoslav government supplied $20 mil-
lion industrial credit and sponsored the construction of a tractor plant near
Cairo, Egypt. Yugoslav investment in Egypt was in exchange for mineral iron for
its own manufacturing needs but these sorts of real economic indicators show
just how eager these states were to advance their economies alongside their
political legitimacy.77 Yugoslav media outlets had in fact made a direct connec-
tion between their own struggle for independence—from both the Nazis and
the Soviets—with the struggle of colonial peoples in their quest for freedom
and sovereignty.
Tvrtko Jakovina has argued that the connections between countries in
the globalized world were critical and Yugoslavia played an important role.78
Doctors, military experts, politicians, experts in higher education, culture,
sport, and international events all moved between countries thanks to in-
creased connectivity of the non-aligned.79 Furthermore, Jakovina argues that
ideology was fluid—Nasser and Tito could talk about real cooperation despite
Nasser’s imprisonment of communists; likewise, Tito did not premise friend-
ship on whether his interlocutor was a former guerrilla fighter who won inde-
pendence. Rather, anything was possible when each party was ready to follow
the principles of nonalignment.80 This sort of flexibility had outstanding po-
tential not to overcommit or entangle each country’s affairs but it also made
the bonds between the various government leaders loose and therefore un-
stable. Again, Tito could exercise authority and act as a statesman but only so
long as others cared to listed and cooperate.
Three years after the Belgrade Conference leaders were eager to listen; they
called for a second nonalignment conference that convened in Cairo. As a
much larger and better organized conference, the Cairo meetings attempted
to turn what leaders perceived as the moral success at Belgrade into politi-
cal dividends, because while Nehru boldly proclaimed at Bandung that “moral
force counts,” such force faced enormous amoral competition in the form of

76  See Vladimir Kulić, “National, supranational, international: New Belgrade and the sym-
bolic construction of a socialist capital,” Nationalities Papers, 41:1 (2013), p. 53.
77  Guy Laron, “Semi-peripheral countries and the invention of the ‘Third World’, 1955–65,”
Third World Quarterly 35:9 (2014), p. 1554.
78  Tvrtko Jakovina, Treća strana Hladnog rata, (Zagreb: Fraktura, 2011), p. 19.
79  Jakovina, Treća strana Hladnog rata, p. 24.
80  Jakovina, Treća strana Hladnog rata, p. 26.
114 chapter 3

devastating nuclear holocaust.81 Recognizing that international tensions had

decreased by 1964, the leaders of nonalignment nonetheless spelled out a cau-
tious and proactive path for the so-called peace-loving countries of the world.
Nasser told the crowd of diplomats in Cairo that with the Cuban Missile Crisis
in 1962, the Cold War “had reached the peak of violence and brutality,” and
had confronted the world with the possibility of a “definite nuclear tragedy.”82
A battle over strategic bombers and supremacy had dictated the security con-
cerns of the United States and the USSR and missile stockpiles continued to
dominate the thinking of American and Soviet military officials. Despite an
easing of tensions by the time of Cairo, the threat of the Cold War erupting
into devastatingly global conflagration drew even greater attention to a Non-
aligned Movement strongly advocating for peace and cooperation without a
seemingly larger agenda. “It is not by coincidence,” the Yugoslav news agency
Tanjug proudly boasted to its readers, “that news agencies and the world public
follow all news which emanates these days from Cairo and Belgrade,” because,
ostensibly, Tito was a part of a global solution to Cold War.83
At the height of the Non-aligned Movement’s influence in the world follow-
ing the Belgrade Conference, nonaligned leaders won a seat at the global dis-
armament talks between the Americans and Soviets. The Cuban Missile Crisis
indeed had brought the world to the brink of catastrophe and leaders in both
blocs recognized a need to caution. That they included the leaders of nonalign-
ment speaks to the significance that both sides gave to what Tito had helped
create. Nasser confidently concluded that the Cairo Conference marked an
even greater progression toward world peace and boasted at the progress made
throughout the world. He noted that the “great Bandung Conference” directed
attention to the “evils of imperialism,” while the “great Belgrade Conference”
proclaimed the unity of peoples against the “perils of war,” and finally, he saw
how, at Cairo, the world was achieving the “consolidation of peace through in-
ternational co-operation.”84 Nasser might have added that nonalignment had
yet done little to ease the economic and social grievances among those who
participated, but instead, he congratulated Tito for his strong role as a peace-
maker. Nasser and other Egyptian leaders simply had “expressed high tribute
to the support that Yugoslavia and particularly President Tito himself” had

81  Nehru in G.M. Kahin, The Asian-African Conference, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1956), pp. 64–72.
82  Synopsis of Cairo Conference, p. 45.
83  “Tito Traveling to Butress [sic.] Third World,” Tanjug, 29 April 1964. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI
NAFP2, 64–68, cn. 286.
84  See, Synopsis of Cairo Conference, p. 53.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 115

given, based upon Tito’s “efforts to oppose” the “aggression and external pres-
sures and work for the consolidation of peace” throughout the world.85 Tito
did deserve credit for hosting and organizing meetings and placing several im-
portant Yugoslav ideologues at the disposal of nonalignment, but Nasser saw
the real value of the movement not only in logistics but also in the moral vic-
tory they had won on among other world leaders. Ironically, the trend towards
dialogue between Moscow and Washington advanced peace through greater
cooperation and effectively derailed the Non-aligned Movement by robbing it
of its greatest unifying force—the fear of global conflict.

The Beginning of the End for Political Nonalignment

Threats of nuclear catastrophe and the continued presence of American forces

in Vietnam kept nonalignment alive throughout the 1960s but the crippling
speed with which the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact forces invaded Czechoslovakia
in the summer of 1968 caught many world leaders by surprise—including Tito,
who had met with the Soviets less than a fortnight prior.86 These events re-
minded the Yugoslavs of their own precarious position and, according to one
German journalist at the time, the invasion of Czechoslovakia was an attempt
by “the Moscow Polemics” to check directly against the successful “Yugoslav
path to socialism.”87 Regardless of Soviet intentions against Yugoslavia, Tito
expressed enough displeasure to call for a three-day meeting to begin in
Belgrade on 7 July 1969. LCY leaders hoped that such a meeting would “lead
to a non-aligned summit”; after all, Tito had constantly, if not untruthfully, de-
fended Yugoslavia as a comradely “socialist and non-aligned country,” that has
“never hesitated when it was necessary for it to react to aggressions” against

85  See Slobodan Stankovic, “Tito in Moscow: Roots of a Sudden Anti-Semitism,” p. 2. Original
citation from Politika, 24 May 1967. HU OSA 300-8-3 Background Reports, 1956–1989,
Yugoslavia [BR 56–89Y], cn. 63.
86  See Nicholas Katzenbach, “My Meeting with Tito,” Department of State Telegram,
20 October 1968.
87  Wolfgang Libal, DPA correspondent, “Tito to Activate the Uncommitted Counties,”
30 September 1968, HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NAFP1, 64–68, cn. 286. “Es vergeht kaum ein Tag,
ohne dass die Jugoslawische Presse die bedeutung dieser Politik eroertiert. Das ist nicht
allein auf die durch die Sowjetische Okupation der CSSR entstandene Lage in Europa
zurueckzufuehren, sondern auch auf die Moskauer Angriffe auf die Jugoslawische
Politik der Buendnislosigkeit. Man schenkt diesen angriffen hier in Belgrad beinahe eine
groessere beachtung als den Moskauer Polemiken gegen den Jugoslawische weg zum
Sozialismus.”
116 chapter 3

whomever.88 Despite the personal abhorrence of the Soviet actions against

the government in Prague, representatives from Yugoslavia and several other
countries were anxious that the meeting of nonaligned countries should not
put too much emphasis on the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia because they
feared repercussions by Moscow such as removal of economic credits or revo-
cation of treaties.89 Nijaz Dizdarević in fact, stated as part of a meeting of the
propaganda committee of the LCY in 1968 his aversion to taking too strong a
stance against the Soviets lest they threaten Yugoslavia more directly.90
Partly because of the complexities in outlining dangers to global peace
without blaming obvious perpetrators, this Yugoslav push for a new direction
for nonalignment failed to rally support. Egypt had been humiliated again in
the Six Days’ War against Israel in 1967 and Nehru had already died in 1964.
Without effective leaders in the Third World to both encourage and push Tito
and the Non-aligned Movement, progress seemed stifled. An unnamed Asian
diplomat expressed this displeasure with the movement, saying in 1969, “the
majority of nations present realize the futility of convening another summit—
at least now,” because “there is nothing to say except generalities, nothing to
be accomplished save words.”91 Tito’s failure to rally support for a new confer-
ence also coincided with a failed effort to expand the reach of nonalignment to
encompass non-state actors, newly independent states, and members of small
defense pacts.
Gradually, as larger numbers of African countries won independence but
sorely lacked the resources to join the global community, they turned to the
Non-aligned Movement and naturally pressed issues that dealt with devel-
opment and economics, not political and ideological legitimacy. The Lusaka
Conference in 1970 epitomized this transformation of the movement. The
Swiss Review of World Affairs noted how “vague” nonalignment had become
and indeed, classified it as a “negative” term because of the “highly variegated
standpoints” of those present.92 President Kaunda of Zambia took pride in
this concept, noting that the strength of nonalignment rested on the “unity

88  See Slobodan Stankovic, “Tito in Moscow: Roots of a Sudden Anti-Semitism,” p. 5. Original
citation from Borba, 12 June 1967. HU OSA 300-8-3 BR 56–89Y, cn. 63.
89  “Nonaligned Meetings Opens Tomorrow,” Reuters, 7 July 1968. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI
NAFP2, 64–68, cn. 286.
90  See “Stenografske beleške sa sednice Komišije CK SKJ za Informisanje, 13 September
1968,” AJ CK SKJ XXVI K.1 6, p. 6.
91  See “Resistance to Non-Aligned Summit,” UPI, 7 July 1968. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NAFP2,
64–68, cn. 286.
92  Swiss Review of World Affairs cited in Resolutions of the Third Conference of Non-aligned
States, (Johannesburg: The South African Institute of International Affairs, 1971), p. 43.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 117

in diversity,” but this was merely a rhetorical device.93 While Radio Australia’s
correspondent noted the political potential of the program as a non-bloc entity,
the real emphasis, he concluded, was the “need for economic development.”94
What stood in the way of this economic development, for many in the asso-
ciation, including Kuanda, was the “imperialism, colonialism, and racial op-
pression and exploitation” present in southern Africa.95 Sir Seretse Khama,
president of Botswana agreed with Kuanda and noted how the nonaligned
countries needed a “greater awareness of needs and opportunities, a stronger
determination to assist” one another, and “clearer understanding” of the prob-
lems facing the world.96 These African leaders, though, had a distinctive un-
derstanding of development and independence that clashed with the greater
political goals first envisioned by Tito.
Tito’s plan for nonalignment, especially in the wake of the Soviet moves
against Czechoslovakia relied on his stewardship of the movement and the
furthering of Yugoslavia’s economy and the attractiveness of the LCY abroad.
Taking a moral stance against the superpowers—such as with arms sales to
South Africa’s apartheid regime—would complement, according to Tito, the
development programs that not only strengthened the African states, but also
fostered growth in Yugoslavia too. With the inclusion of Fidel Castro and his
powerful place in nonalignment—coupled with Nehru’s earlier death—Tito
stood alone without either the economic power to aid his nonaligned allies
directly or the ability to champion his cause in the face of such an overwhelm-
ing contingent of poorer and underdeveloped former colonies. If successful,
the Yugoslav plan for widening nonalignment further by including Titoist allies
might have saved the movement as a political force and kept it on the minds
of policymakers in Washington and Moscow. Instead, nonalignment drifted
towards issues of lesser importance for the superpowers. Nasser had clarified
earlier that the goal of the Non-aligned Movement’s policies should be to work
with the competing blocs in solving problems and not to serve as a foreign pol-
icy base to leverage for “securing the highest portion of privileges” as a result
of a “trade in the strife between the two blocs.”97 By the time of Tito’s rushed
Belgrade meetings in 1969, nonalignment had already largely become what
Nasser had feared most—isolated and weak in the political sphere.

93  President Kaunda cited in Resolutions of the Third Conference of Non-aligned States, p. 30.
94  Radio Australia cited in Resolutions of the Third Conference of Non-aligned States, p. 45.
95  Kuanda cited in Resolutions of the Third Conference of Non-aligned States, p. 31.
96  Sir Seretse Khama cited in Resolutions of the Third Conference of Non-aligned States, p. 36.
97  Synopsis of Cairo Conference, p. 46.
118 chapter 3

Still, the roadblocks Yugoslavia encountered in the wake of the Prague Spring
made little difference toward changing the LCY’s goals for the international
movement. The linkage between Yugoslav ideology and the existence of a ve-
hicle to foster that ideology throughout the world remained too important for
Tito and his chief advisors simply to abandon; after all, they were fearlessly car-
rying their ideas of “non-intervention” and “peaceful coexistence” boldly into
the future.98 For practical economic and political reasons, the Yugoslavs want-
ed to open up relations with the emerging states in the Third World and benefit
from those relationships. As Marxists, the Yugoslavs believed in the promise of
their ideology and felt that fostering the organizations of likeminded people to
mobilize for change under the auspices of the Non-aligned Movement was a
good idea. LCY propaganda targeted the modern working class and revolution-
ary intelligentsia as a potential driver of change in the emerging Third World
because Yugoslav leaders recognized that “in most of the underdeveloped
countries” the “class structure in practice makes impossible the forming of vig-
orous capitalist[s]” and “provides great opportunities for the development of
progressive and socialist movements.”99 At the Fourth Party Congress in 1948,
Đilas had explained that the “Party emerged victorious” in Yugoslavia because
its members were “deeply loyal to the Party,” and because it “always connected
ideological struggle with revolutionary practice.”100 The challenge for Yugoslav
leaders embracing nonalignment during the 1960s was to forge together the
complementary notions of loyalty to the party and revolutionary zeal among
their friends abroad. As a result, the LCY clearly saw the 1960s as a period of op-
portunity despite the practical limitations facing the party, including the lack
of money. LCY leaders envisioned the limitations in the Third World hindered
capitalism and Soviet communism and therefore allowed Yugoslavs room for
expansion. In the end, the Yugoslavs observed a promising outlook for the fu-
ture because “the declarations for socialism in the underdeveloped countries”
were often louder than their realization; for the Yugoslavs, it became their job
to export ideology and make their vision a reality.101
The last conference where Yugoslavia would make any sort of lasting im-
pression to a nonaligned program occurred in 1970, in Lusaka, Zambia, a full

98  Nijaz Dizdarević in “Stenografske beleške sa sednice Komišije CK SKJ za Informisanje,

13 September 1968,” AJ CK SKJ XXVI K.1 6, p. 4.
99  “View of Socialist Orientation of Developing Countries,” Socijalizam, No. 7–8, (July/
August 1964). HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NAFP2, 64–68, cn. 286.
100  Đilas, Report on Agitation, p. 8.
101  “View of Socialist Orientation of Developing Countries,” Socijalizam, No. 7–8, (July/
August 1964). HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NAFP2, 64–68, cn. 286.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 119

two years after the Soviet repression of the Czechoslovak Communist Party
leadership and the resulting occupation of that tiny country. Yugoslav lead-
ers had been outspoken opponents of the Soviet action inside Yugoslavia, but
despite that, Tito could not rally enough support to assemble at least what had
seemingly become his moral community of states. In an effort to make up for
the lack of international condemnation, the Yugoslav government—outside
of the Non-aligned Movement—flooded the domestic press with statements
condemning the Soviet intervention as not only dangerous to world peace but
also as “the greatest form of violation of the sovereignty and the territorial in-
tegrity of an independent country.”102
Notwithstanding the concerns following the clear violation of Czechoslo­
va­kia’s rights as a sovereign nation, the Lusaka Conference ignored issues of
politics and emphasized instead lofty principles such as cultivating the “spir-
it of self-reliance,” and focused the debate on racism and Africa’s economic
plight. Outspoken distress over continued American involvement in Vietnam
also plagued the leaders gathered in Lusaka but politics took a largely second-
ary position.103 Only President Seretse Khama of Botswana noted the events—
in passing—inside Czechoslovakia as invalidating the progress towards
freedom.104 As the host of the conference, the president of Zambia, Dr. K.D.
Kaunda, only went so far as to reaffirm the pledge against the “non-interference
in the internal affairs of other nations, the urge for peaceful coexistence
and for the pursuit of independent policies,” without naming any country
specifically.105 The movement grew too clouded by individual events and ef-
fectively ceased to live up to its expectations; all that it could do was utter
generalities of little consequence. Nonalignment, as Tito had founded it, faced
challenges as the tremendous numbers of the new African and poorer Asian
states eclipsed the original political meaning and spoke to a different set of
realities. Third World leaders simply worried more about economics than
political posturing between power blocs and sought aid from whomever—
including Moscow and Beijing. While the 1961 meeting strove to ease rela-
tions between competing blocs, the 1970 meeting inspired little confidence
as to the movement’s future. Participants mused over “what non-alignment
really means, if anything, or what shared goals the self-styled ‘non-aligned’
can best pursue collectively.”106 Tito’s challenge to this evident decline in

102  See Lars Nord, Nonalignment and Socialism: Yugoslav Foreign Policy in Theory and Practice,
(Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1973), p. 261.
103  See Resolutions of the Third Conference of Non-aligned States, p. 22.
104  See Resolutions of the Third Conference of Non-aligned States, p. 35.
105  Dr. K.D. Kaunda in Resolutions of the Third Conference of Non-aligned States, p. 29.
106  New York Times cited in Resolutions of the Third Conference of Non-aligned States, p. 42.
120 chapter 3

nonalignment’s stature remained finding an alternative for this external source

of legitimacy.
By the early 1970s, the Soviet-led intervention in Czechoslovakia had stirred
Europeans, and given Tito a renewed sense of urgency to institute a strong se-
curity regime against external threats. This was part of the realization not just
of the vulnerabilities of mounting an adequate defense against the Soviets,
but moreover, part of an understanding of the critical strategic position of
Yugoslavia. Nijaz Dizdarević expressed his understanding of the heightened
Soviet interest in the Balkans as a product of the “geo-strategic position of the
region” and any dramatic change in Yugoslavia, in particular, was an invitation
for Soviet aggression. Dizdarević understood that in moments of weakness, the
Soviets looked at how best they could benefit; after all, “they have their own
interests in our internal situation.”107 For the members of the party hierarchy,
Yugoslavia represented a pillar of resistance against Soviet designs in south-
eastern Europe and in the Middle East and they reinforced this logic as a foun-
dation for their continued rule.

Broader Implications of Nonalignment and the Cold War

In 1955, when the attendees of the Bandung Conference met to discuss issues
that directly affected newly independent or struggling peoples, much of the
world was at peace as neither of the two superpowers was embroiled in di-
rect combat following the bloody and relentless stalemate in Korea. Still, local
conflicts abounded, and it was such small-scale struggles against former colo­
nial powers, local leaders, or neighboring tribes that had defined the tone of
Bandung.108 The threat of larger involvement loomed, but until that came clos­
er to reality, any sort of Non-aligned Movement seemed destined to generate
only token support. Nineteen fifty-six brought a return of hostility in several
regions of the world; the British, French, and Israelis intervened to stop the

107  Dizdarević in “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ IV K.7
7, 1971, p. 2.
108  At the 1970 conference in Lusaka, the official declaration mentioned the phenomenon
whereby “the immediate danger of a conflict between the superpowers has lessened, be-
cause their tendency to negotiate in their mutual relations is strengthening. However, it
has not yet contributed to the security of the small, medium-sized and developing coun-
tries, or prevented the danger of local wars.” See Resolutions of the Third Conference of
Non-Aligned States, (Johannesburg: The South African Institute of International Affairs,
1971), p. 2. In general, the ideological tone of nonalignment weakened as it gained more
members and as the Cold War matured into normalcy.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 121

nationalization program of the Suez Canal by Nasser, and the Soviets sent
troops into Hungary as part of an effort to reaffirm dominance over the com-
munist leaders there. Tito had mixed emotions over Soviet action in Hungary,
and despite his assertion that the first intervention was “absolutely wrong,” he
remained unsure over the implications of the second intervention and thus
failed to take a strong stand against the Soviet Union because of his contradic-
tory rhetoric.109 In part, this stemmed from his realization that some elements
of the Hungarian ruling clique threatened to de-emphasize communism in its
break away from Moscow—something Tito had never envisioned. All this fol-
lowed the important summit meetings between Tito and Khrushchev, which
had recognized “separate paths to socialism” and relaxed tensions directly re-
garding Yugoslavia; as a result, Tito acted cautiously for fear of prematurely
straining the new friendship.
Separate paths provided the Yugoslav leader the external legitimacy he
craved but, moreover, the renewed friendly relationship with the Soviet Union
relieved pressure on the Yugoslavs and opened up avenues for aid packages
and cooperation in cultural and economic spheres. Tito also flirted in 1956 with
Third World leaders, but too many contradictions stemmed from Yugoslav in-
action because of the Soviet crackdown and the resulting embarrassment of
Yugoslavia’s position. Tito needed to rectify this chaos regarding Yugoslavia’s
domestic and foreign policies before he could proceed with a bold new global
foreign policy.
After 1956, meetings with Nasser and Nehru emerged poised to clarify
Yugoslavia’s views. For the domestic audience, the presentation of nonalign-
ment and Tito’s successful diplomatic missions and friendships with leaders
across the world enhanced the credibility of the regime and, by extension, the
Yugoslav communists, in the face of ongoing ideological battles within the par-
ty.110 By drawing popular attention to events outside of Yugoslavia and placing
Tito’s foreign policy as a premier piece of Yugoslav policy, negative features
of the regime waned in comparison. In a continual effort to court supporters

109  Tito quoted in Dusko Duisin, “The Impact of United States Assistance on Yugoslav Policy:
1949–1959,” MA thesis, (New York: Columbia University, 1963), p. 64.
110  The Croatian Communist, Vladimir Bakarić, admitted in 1964 that ideological problems
in Yugoslavia had been fast accumulating. He noted to the weekly magazine NIN that:
“As far as the further political development of our country is concerned—I mean ideo-
logical-political development—today there are really many problems. I am not denying
this; what I am denying is that these problems have been of such a nature as to divide us,
although there have been such tendencies, too.” Cited in Slobodan Stankovic, “On the Eve
of the Sixth Plenum of the Yugoslav Central Committee,” Radio Free Europe/Background
Report, HU OSA 300-8-3 RRFE/RLRI, BR, cn. 124.
122 chapter 3

among the many Yugoslavs unconvinced about Tito and his system, the force-
ful entry into a meaningful foreign policy discredited opposition. Miloš Žanko,
a member of the Central Committee of the LCY, noted as late as 1967, that “for
us, it cannot be black and white,” and “our system is in a crisis.”111 Tito’s answer
rested with success outside the country to reinforce his legitimacy as a world-
class statesman. If he could solve the world’s problems the argument went,
then he could solve those plaguing Yugoslavia.
With enough hostility against Tito and his system in place throughout
Yugoslavia to motivate him to increase the positive aspects of his regime, a
large foreign-policy victory, such as with the resulting Non-aligned Movement,
promised a quieting of opposition. Pomp surrounding Tito’s trips and his host-
ing of world leaders dazzled the Yugoslav press and presented the impression
that Yugoslavia was of pivotal importance in global politics. No matter what,
though, the regime combated antisocialist forces because Yugoslav leaders
understood well—from their own experience—the danger of giving any op-
position group a legitimate political outlet. Kardelj argued within the same
1967 Central Committee meeting as Žanko that, “in today’s phase neither our
democracy nor our entire system can be open for antisocialist and similar ele-
ments.” Furthermore, if “we open up, if our system expands with democratic
forms,” we must, at the same time “fight against a breakthrough by antisocialist
forces.”112 Taking the fight abroad solved many problems for Kardelj and if suc-
cessful, Yugoslavia might have served as a beacon among Third World leaders
and the axis of a third force.
A salient feature of these Yugoslav machinations remains the degree of
change that followed from Tito’s posturing. While Moscow had little to fear
from a renewed campaign in Eastern Europe, several statesmen maneuvered
for the least bit of flexibility and independence for their states—Romania hav-
ing been the most successful. Nonalignment certainly aided these moves, but
while no other Warsaw Pact country could fully accept nonalignment’s conse-
quences, those states could manipulate popular rhetoric for their own good.
Romania drifted the furthest from Moscow’s orbit by the mid to late 1960s,
but always stayed just close enough to avoid the fate of a Hungary, or later, a
Czechoslovakia. Leaders in Prague and Budapest stood apart from others in the

111  See “Komisija CK SKJ za pitanja društveno-političkih odnosa, 1967–1968. godina,”

AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.4/4, folder 56 (Beleška sa santanka prve radne grupe “Problemi razvoja
društveno-političkog sistema”).
112  Edvard Kardelj in “Komisija CK SKJ za pitanja društveno-političkih odnosa, 1967–1968.
godina,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.4/4, folder 56 (Beleška sa santanka prve radne grupe “Problemi
razvoja društveno-političkog sistema”).
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 123

Eastern bloc, because, as Romanian scholar Ghita Ionescu has aptly argued,
the “logical nexus between internal national communism [i.e., not emanating
from Moscow] and external neutralism” brought such significant challenges
for Moscow that armed intervention could not be avoided.113 It was apparent
that with the death of Stalin, the leaders in the Kremlin worked with their cli-
ents in Eastern Europe and understood—certainly following public rhetoric of
appeasement and pluralism—that not all countries under their control need-
ed to follow their political line exactly.
Moscow’s policymakers surely considered the geo-strategic repercussions
as paramount compared to some internal fuzziness in ideology. They simply
accepted the primacy of foreign policy and would return to this mantra with
the Helsinki Accords a decade later. This became even more perceptible when
men such as Nikita Khrushchev—described by deposed Czechoslovak lead-
er Ota Sik as a believer in “ideas” with a “propagandistic” personality—and
Leonid Brezhnev, the simple bureaucrat with “no imagination” and “incapable
of ideological creativity,” had both ignored internal issues affecting their East
European allies so long as they did not seriously threaten the ruling communist
regimes there or advocate a withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact.114 Ionescu has
pointed out that the Romanian leadership understood the line along which
they could proceed and recognized concepts such as absolute neutrality to be
so dangerous as to carry a death sentence.115
At the height of Tito’s search for legitimacy, Khrushchev criticized him for
having attempted to tie “unrelated issues”—Yugoslav ideology and its path
toward self-management and an independent foreign policy—together and
deceive people as part of a campaign for self-aggrandizement. Khrushchev
deplored the “prattle about a ‘nonbloc’ policy” as a deliberate method to fool
the “people and obtain their approval” for Tito’s ignorance of socialism and
his concurrent boost of the Yugoslav “policy of neutrality.”116 Nonetheless,
Tito defended himself by stating that he had put together his “foreign p ­ olicy”
based upon the “principles of coexistence” and the need for cooperation with
“all countries” without catering to any sides besides his own. Kardelj and
Dizdarević voiced their willingness to “collaborate with all socialist countries,”

113  Ghita Ionescu, “Communist Rumania and Nonalignment (April 1964–March 1965),” Slavic
Review 24:2 (June 1965), p. 242.
114  Slobodan Stankovic, “Brezhnev a Bureaucrat, Ota Sik Says,” Radio Free Europe Research,
12 September 1968. HU OSA YSFI Czechoslovakia 1968 [CZ 68], cn. 104.
115  Ionescu, “Communist Rumania and Nonalignment,” p. 242.
116  Khrushchev in “Speech of N.S. Khrushchev at the Fifth Congress of the Socialist Unity
Party of Germany,” The Second Soviet–Yugoslav Dispute, p. 203.
124 chapter 3

but, in particular, those “countries in the socialist camp and the Warsaw Pact.”117
The way it turned out, Tito’s characterization of Khrushchev as the one filled
with foolish thoughts proved truer.118
Once again under attack in 1968 following the invasion of Czechoslovakia,
the Non-aligned Movement needed to justify itself as a viable organ for world
peace. Even Yugoslavs noted the trend away from their goals for nonalignment
and defended themselves by exclaiming that attacks on nonalignment merely
represented an “expression of fear of the principles of peaceful coexistence” by
political leaders who maintained an alliance with one or another bloc.119 After
all, Yugoslavia had—according to Zagreb radio—dealt with two decades of
“unscrupulous attacks” by the Soviets that failed to alter Yugoslavia negatively.120
Yugoslavs argued that when Tito met with Nasser and Nehru at his vacation
complex on Brioni Island, the statesmen regarded hostile international actions
as “momentous,” but argued that they themsvelves stopped short of creating a
“third bloc.”121 The creation of a third bloc, though, was precisely what made
their neutrality different and enabled nonalignment to make positive gains in
world affairs. Finally, Yugoslavia’s existence outside of Moscow’s control served
as encouragement to any sense of individualism among her neighbors but the
dynamic of change had limited growth potential. According to Soviet special-
ist Adam Ulam, Stalin’s successor would find himself thrust into a world where
the battle with the United States demanded quick and popular results.122

117  For Kardelj’s thoughts see, “Fragmenti” AJ CK IX 119/I K.2 45–90, folder 56; Dizdarević
in “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog biroa,” AJ CK SKJ IV K.7 7, 1971,
p. 50. Kardelj also vetted his logic behind support of even social-democratic parties: See
“Fragmenti” AJ CK IX 119/I K.2 45–90, folder 56. “We do not think that social democracy
today is better than it was twenty years ago. Just the opposite, in many aspects, they have
probably strayed farther from Marxism. In the meantime, they have with their own work-
ing masses and in worker masses the tendencies for united, active, socialist activity.”
118  Tito in “Speech of J.B. Tito at Labin,” The Second Soviet–Yugoslav Dispute, p. 258.
119  “Belgrade: Yugoslavia Pursues Anti-bloc Policy,” Radio Belgrade, Domestic, 12 November
1968. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NAFP2, 64–68, cn. 286.
120  “Belgrade: Yugoslavia Pursues Anti-bloc Policy,” Radio Belgrade, Domestic, 12 November
1968. Also see “Nonalignment Today,” Borba, 28 September 1968, p. 9. HU OSA 300-10-2
YSFI NAFP2, 64–68, cn. 286.
121  “пут дуг преко две деценије,” Борба, 8 June 1969, p. 18. “Brioni meetings were at the time,
regarded as one of the most important international events…. Other fields also rendered
assumptions that the most common of them was that the three leades worked against a
“‘third bloc.’” HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NAFP2, 64–68, cn. 286.
122  See Adam Ulam, The New Face of Soviet Totalitarianism, (New York: Frederick A. Praeger,
1963).
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 125

Khrushchev—Stalin’s titular successor—unleashed a new era, which meant

for the USSR an “introduction of enlightened totalitarianism” with a “conscious
effort to dispense with the pathological, uneconomic, and plainly unnecessary
aspects” of Stalinism.123 One of the underlining points of this chapter has been
that while Tito clearly inspired reaction from the Eastern-bloc satellites in light
of direct and often overwhelming Soviet control, Tito’s real significance was
that he unleashed ideological change throughout the Marxist world because
of his successful existence outside of Moscow and his ideological advances
through the Non-aligned Movement. For this reason, Khrushchev followed
Tito’s lead regarding socialism and reacted to changes in both communist
ideology and the uses of that ideology throughout the world. Whereas many
scholars have looked at Titoism as an ideology and the Non-aligned Movement
as an agent of progressive change for the Third World, few have yet understood
how interrelated these two concepts were and how they both served as pillars
of Tito’s quest for ideological and political legitimacy.124 Ulam’s work, dating
from the height of the Cold War, pointed out contradictions in the postwar
Soviet state in light of alterations to totalitarianism and the fluid nature of
domestic and foreign policy in a high-stakes, conflict-driven world. American
diplomat George Kennan also saw hope in the immediate aftermath of World
War II that eventually communist forces would recognize the fallacy behind
the ideological assumption of the collapse of capitalism, because “no mysti-
cal, Messianic movement—and particularly not that of the Kremlin—can face
frustration indefinitely without eventually adjusting itself in one way or an-
other to the logic of that state of affairs.”125 Tito’s survival in Europe added to
the woes of those in the Kremlin, and Tito’s success in helping bring together
diverse forces from across the world to face the troublesome nature of the Cold
War proved damaging to Soviet credibility. But this would not become obvious
until much later in the Cold War, when the political phase of the Non-aligned
Movement had already served its course.

123  Ulam, New Face, p. 116.

124  In addition to this author, only Sabrina P. Ramet has hinted at the link between Tito’s
state-building project and a search for legitimacy in the Non-aligned Movement. See The
Three Yugoslavia’s: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918–2005, (Washington, DC: Woodrow
Wilson Center Press, 2006).
125  Ulam, New Face, p. 127; Kennan as cited in Ulam, New Face, p. 141.
126 chapter 3

Conclusion: Non-Alignment in Perspective

When Sukarno came to Belgrade in January 1958, he and Tito advocated for a
series of proposals, including a cessation of the “senseless armament race and
the perfecting of weapons of colossal destructive power.”126 Despite the call
for peace, the two leaders agreed to a weapons deal, whereby the Yugoslavs
would sell the Indonesian Army small arms. The Indonesians needed these
guns because they were engaged in a bitter and violent dispute with Holland
over the continued Dutch presence in New Guinea—an area claimed by the
Indonesian leadership. This shows that, at some level, the kind of coopera-
tion between countries meant more than the peace-loving rhetoric—rather,
it demonstrated an attempt to establish some sort of third bloc, in which the
countries could rely on each other for trade and develop independently of
Moscow or Washington.127 Belgrade stood directly in the center of this sys-
tem, since Yugoslavia—in contrast to her Third World partners—possessed
a sizable industrial sector centered on weapons and heavy machinery, both
excellent items for export. According to Yugoslav sources, in 1961—the time of
the Belgrade Conference—Tito extended credits in the sum of $20 million to
Nasser to purchase equipment and, in 1964, during the second nonalignment
conference, Tito doled out another $35 million to Nasser.128 Although Tito had
already stopped receiving aid from the United States by then, his financing
Nasser—along with other regimes in the Middle East like Baathist Iraq—came

126  See “Tito and Sukarno Spur Neutralism,” New York Ttimes, 19 January 1958, p. 6.
127  Tito noted in a letter from 1955 sent to Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin that
U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had informed Tito of the delicacy required to
maneuver between Israel and the Arab world, Egypt in particular. Because of Israel’s ex-
istence, the United States government could not sell arms to the Egyptians and Dulles im-
plored Tito that it was his job to “work for the peace between Israel and Egypt.” “But,” Tito
pointed out, “we must think that it would be a very unhappy idea to create in the Middle
East some form of pact which will never have another effect except for the division of the
Arab unity and the creation of permanent conflict in that part of the world.” Tito would
later sell Nasser arms that would be used against the Israelis. See “Pismo Josipa Broza
Tita,” November 1955, AJ IX K.2 I-59; Tito also brokered arms deals with far-off nonalign-
ment hopefuls during the early 1950s. Alvin Rubinstein has noted that the Burmese, un-
able to buy arms from London or Washington turned to Yugoslavia and Israel, both having
provided an unstable Burmese polity the means to remain independent. See Rubinstein,
Yugoslavia, p. 45.
128  See Slobodan Stankovic, “Tito in Moscow: Roots of a Sudden Anti-Semitism,” p. 5. Original
citation from Yugoslav Survey (April–June 1966), p. 369. HU OSA 300-8-3 BR 56–89Y,
cn. 63.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 127

at a domestic expense of making positive improvements at home. Furthermore,

Yugoslavs noted that the countries of the developing world represented a
“potential and very important partner” for Yugoslavia.129 Unfortunately for
Tito, any significant export economy dwindled once technology outpaced any
capacity for Yugoslavia to produce viable weapons by the middle 1960s.130 The
Soviets gave away the same equipment and the Americans subsidized higher-
value arms to their allies during a time when oil prices rose dramatically—
something that by the 1970s had severely handicapped Yugoslavia’s industrial
sector. While an arms trade among so-called peace-loving nations seems para-
doxical, it rather shows the pragmatic views of nonalignment’s founders and
speaks to their hope in creating a working political system to balance against
the superpowers and establish an independent legitimacy. In any case, a po-
litically based nonalignment could only exist as a concept in a conflict-driven
world beset by uncertainty and mistrust between Moscow and Washington.
The 1960s was the heyday for the Non-aligned Movement; the two most
important conferences met in Belgrade in 1961 and in Cairo in 1964, but both
failed to establish any cohesive bloc of like-minded statesmen represent-
ing the participating countries. Movement organizers took advantage of the
tense rivalry between the superpowers and the frustrations of smaller coun-
tries in Africa and Asia, but the bonds were not lasting. But a bloc of united
and staunch fighters for world peace and the end of the Cold War would have
meant the creation of a competing bloc, against the wishes of the nonalign-
ment founders.131 Nonalignment lingers on into the twenty-first century but its
bold stance and compelling leadership disappeared with the deaths of Nehru
(d. 1964) and Nasser (d. 1970), and the sidelining of Tito’s premier role by the
end of the 1960s. Conflict pushed Yugoslavia and its Third-World allies together

129  “Economic Relationships of Yugoslavia and the Developing Countries,” Komunist,

3 December 1964, p. 2. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NAFP2, 64–68, cn. 286.
130  By the mid 1970s, a National Security Council memo noted that the “Yugoslavs are anxious
to escalate the sophistication of their arsenal and lessen their dependence on the Soviets
by purchasing advanced weaponry and equipment from us.” Tito continued to secure U.S.
arms contracts but failed to receive the latest technology for fear of leaking information
to the Soviets. See Clinton E. Granger, “Arms Relationship with Yugoslavia,” Memorandum
for General Scoworoft, 8 August 1975, Gerald R. Ford Library.
131  Time and again, the organizers of the Non-aligned Movement deemphasized the idea of a
third bloc: “The non-aligned countries represented at this conference do not wish to form
a new bloc and cannot be a bloc.” The reality though, necessitated a strong, united group
to lobby against the prevailing Cold War dynamic as seen by the same demand that “the
non-aligned nations should be represented at all future world conferences on disarma-
ment,” See The Belgrade Conference, pp. 7, 12.
128 chapter 3

during a time of intense insecurity, yet only kept them together as a significant
force during the remainder of the 1960s when global devastation threatened
not just the supporters of nonalignment but also the entire world. The last
conference where Yugoslavia played a meaningful role—in 1970—occurred
following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the renewed concern over
the new path that Soviet leaders would take, but Yugoslav delegates failed to
make that the primary focus for the conference attendees.132 Economic and
social issues correctly transcended politics for many of nonalignment’s adher-
ents as the Soviet Union retreated from the Brezhnev Doctrine’s employment
in Europe and the 1970s hosted a time of relaxation marked by détente. With
meaningful dialogue between the primary Cold War actors, sparked under the
turbulent and controversial Richard Nixon presidency, détente became a real
possibility, and international tensions lessened. Partly as a result of this, during
the 1970s, and thereafter, the Non-aligned Movement shrank until it no longer
played any noteworthy role in global politics and merely watched as the final
collapse of communism brought an end to the Cold War.
Documents and statements by Yugoslav leaders show that Yugoslavia’s entry
into nonalignment had taken the shared principles of Rangoon and Bandung
to a political level in emphasizing issues of sovereignty, non-interference, and
peaceful coexistence. Such rhetoric worked within the ideological transforma-
tions at home and reinforced the moralizing tone of the Titoist regime, espe-
cially in comparison to the Soviet Union. While Tito and his comrades held no
monopoly on these concepts—men such as Nehru took great pains to note the
same phenomena—Yugoslav actions lifted the concepts to the center of the
Cold War debate and made Yugoslavia a global actor with an important voice.
Milovan Đilas claimed that he was “instrumental in getting the Yugoslavs in
touch” with these Third World leaders and he saw the Yugoslavs as the driving
force, since as Đilas noted, he “would not take” these “so-called uncommitted
people too seriously.”133 By the end of the 1960s, when the Cold War tensions
eased, Yugoslavia’s political commentary ceased to matter as much and the
Non-aligned Movement returned to its original Bandung spirit: “to promote
goodwill and co-operation among the nations of Asia and Africa”; to “consider

132  While the Yugoslavs were vocal at the Havana Conference in 1979 and Yugoslavs contin-
ued to press for a conference in Yugoslavia during the 1980s, I argue that nonalignment
had already drifted too far away from the principles first outlined by Nehru, Nasser, and
Tito. Nonalignment in the 1970s had moved decidedly towards economic issues that also
worked to negate its politically neutral position.
133  See, Central Intelligence Agency, “Some Recent Opinions of Milovan Djilas,” 7 September
1961.
Nonalignment: Yugoslavia ’ s Foreign Policy Climax 129

social, economic and cultural problems”; to find solutions to the “problems af-
fecting national sovereignty and of racialism and colonialism”; and, finally, “to
view the position of Asia and Africa and their peoples in the world of today
and the contribution they can make to the promotion of world peace and
co-operation.”134 At the same time, Yugoslav leaders struggled during the 1970s
to not only deliver on their promise of reform and material wealth to the peo-
ple, but also to co-opt the next generation of young people into supporting the
regime.135
At the beginning of the Cold War, George Kennan had commented that the
Soviet Union could potentially identify with the aspirations and frustrations
of discontented elements outside of Europe. Kennan correctly noted the value
of decolonization and rightly feared that the Soviets would stake their ideol-
ogy among those dispossessed masses throughout the world and create within
the international communist movement a powerful instrument with which
to project influence beyond the Soviet Union’s borders.136 The enormous po-
tential that the Soviets had in extending their control into the so-called Third
World could have changed the face of the Cold War. This continued once it
became clear that many within the Non-aligned Movement were nominally
socialist or harbored sympathies in that direction. Despite that, the reality was
far different because the Soviets never derailed the Yugoslavs in their efforts
to make nonalignment the logical derivative of their own unique communist
ideology. I argue that an independent communist Yugoslavia discredited the
Soviets—although, not to the large extent that some feared and others predict-
ed—but when Tito successfully latched onto influential third-world statesmen
at an opportune time in Cold War history and used the Non-aligned Movement
as a vehicle to popularize his opinions, the Soviets clearly lost.
When Tito outmaneuvered the Soviet leaders he created an international
authority for nonalignment and peaceful coexistence as watchwords of prog-
ress; additionally, he won a huge moral victory. At the same time, he used
that external success to fortify his regime and create a lasting legitimacy that
began in earnest with the domestic program of socialist self-management.

134  Baker, The Facts of the Bandung Conference, p. 2.

135  During 1971, Yugoslavs noted how the “young people” had begun to feel “cheated” and
experienced a “complete loss of confidence” in the ruling elite. See Slobodan Stankovic,
“Yugoslavia’s Students: Their Successes and Failures,” 9 December 1971, Radio Free Europe
Research, HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
136  George Kennan in John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal
of American National Security Policy During the Cold War, (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2005), p. 33.
130 chapter 3

Nonalignment then served as an early avenue to foster multiple interpretations

of Marxism and paved the way for the Sino-Soviet split and even Albanian-
Soviet split later on. These events all reshaped the Cold War not because the
Soviets failed to stop nonalignment but rather because the Yugoslavs emerged
as a leading voice in the Non-aligned Movement during the turbulent 1960s.
Tito’s actions and the establishment of nonalignment as a global force eclipsed
Moscow’s monopoly on ideology, itself already reeling from Stalin’s death. A
Soviet weakness in the Third World would later become much more apparent
after the numerous adventures by Soviet agents seemed not to have worked;
competition with China in Asia and Africa, primarily during the 1970s, strained
the Soviets and helped exaggerate the reform process that Mikhail Gorbachev
initiated a decade later. The resulting pressure on Soviet energy, finances, and
political authority only added to the already overwhelmed Soviet system and
led the Kremlin into seeking concessions (vis-à-vis détente) from the West to
maintain the status quo. While the Soviet revolution was clearly over, that real-
ity still eluded many across the globe—including the Yugoslav People’s Army.
 chapter 4

The Tito Doctrine

But if it comes to shooting, if we have to defend our achievements, the

army too is here.1
Josip Broz Tito, Thirtieth Anniversary of the JNA, 1971

∵
The guardian of Tito’s state and his helpmeet in attaining power, the army,
underwent dramatic transformations in response to the threats against the
Yugoslav regime. First established to expel the reportedly 300,000 domes-
tic quislings who cooperated with the Axis Powers to destroy Yugoslavia, the
Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) served as the model institution devoted to its
commander, Marshal Tito.2 As the most loyal group, JNA officers acted as close
confidants to their commander and made sure that they always would take
an active role in state building at each stage of Yugoslavia’s history. With the
dual role of defending the revolution against internal challengers and deter-
ring and fighting against external aggression, JNA leaders sought to solidify
their authoritative role in the state. But, the army elite also had to deal with
the powerful Communist Party (LCY), and while the JNA remained the most
steadfast pillar of the party, it also had to accept certain uncomfortable aspects
of party rule. In response to the success of socialist self-management since the
early 1950s, military leaders could not continue to resist reforms in their own
institution; as a result, they altered Yugoslav defensive doctrine to meet the
decentralized reform regime. The military solution implemented at the end
of the 1960s was the advent of Territorial Defense (TDF), which harkened back
to the Partisan experience of World War II and drew common citizens into
an active defense regime, described as completely “integrated with the social

1  Tito in Adam Roberts, Nations in Arms: The Theory and Practice of Territorial Defense, (New
York: Praeger Publishing, 1976), p. 202.
2  See, Đorđo Novosel et al., Savezni sekretarijat za narodnu odbranu I, vol. 7.1, Razvoj oružanih
snaga SFRJ, 1945–1985 (Beograd: Vojnoizdavačka i novinski centar, 1990), p. 27. “Oko 300.000
ustaša, četnika i drugih izdajnika napustilo je zemlju i uključilo se u antijugoslovensku kam-
panju i pružanje podrške reakcionarnim i neprijateljskim snagama u zemlji.”

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004358997_006

132 chapter 4

structure.”3 Alongside the federal army, these territorial defense forces came
from local sources and trained primarily in guerrilla warfare techniques; the
TDF soldiers represented the popular and large-scale reserve force that would
supposedly unite all peoples while enhancing the defensive posture of the
armed forces. After having embraced reform in the army, JNA leaders initially
saw the TDF as necessary to build a democratic and unified Marxist Yugoslavia,
but they soon felt sidelined and attempted to reduce the influence of the TDF
as nationalism appeared on the forefront of Yugoslav politics at the beginning
of the 1970s. That the officers succeeded is a testament to the critical role that
the army played in Titoist Yugoslavia—fear of Soviet invasion propelled all
leaders into opting for a popular system of defense that could serve to align
more people with the regime. Nonetheless, the critical question for Yugoslav
leaders to answer was whom did they fear more: the Red Army or their own
people?
In this chapter, I will argue that Yugoslav politicians ultimately shaped their
policies according to the unrest and potential for rebellion by their own peo-
ple. Tito had recast the army to fit foreign policy dilemmas but ultimately the
fear of external invasion was small and the ability of Tito’s state to project force
in the exterior was minimal. Instead, the regime needed the army to combat
domestic unrest precisely at the time that Tito’s foreign-policy had failed to
provide a durable legitimacy. The 1960s served as a hopeful period whereby
Yugoslavia stood at the forefront of global diplomacy but that decade ended
with nonalignment in disarray and Tito alone in Europe facing down Soviet
aggression in nearby Czechoslovakia. That chronology helped encourage folks
in and outside of Tito’s government to clamor for change, not just in Croatia,
but also in Serbia between so-called liberals and conservatives. Tito wanted his
army to reflect his socio-economic system and foreign policy and thereby saw
the territorial defense system as a critical pillar of the regime. Yet, by 1971 he
had recognized that much work still remained and that he needed the army
to serve once again as the premier guardian of the state. Tito’s foreign policy
after 1948 had little for the JNA to do; only so many observers or military tech-
nicians could go abroad to the nonaligned countries. Domestically, the role
of the army could shift to become more popular and serve as a school for the
nation, putting the Yugoslav supranationality on a pedestal against competing
ethnic identities. Thus, the history of the military in Tito’s Yugoslavia stands
as a testament to the powerful dilemmas that the regime faced and in the end
Tito relied on the army at home in the same way that Brezhnev employed the

3  
Viktor Bubanj, “Povodom tridesetogodišnjice JNA,” Vojnoistorijski glasnik 12 (Beograd:
Vojnoistorijskog instituta, 1971), p. 6.
The Tito Doctrine 133

Warsaw Pact against the government in Prague—his was a multinational force

that sought to quell particularist groups seeking independence. For Tito, a for-
eign policy had become domestic.
Following Stalin’s expulsion of Tito from the Cominform and the aggressive
rhetoric that threatened the stability of Tito’s state from the outside, the party
was concerned chiefly with rearming the military to counteract this threat.
With the critical aid from the Americans Tito had rebuilt the peacetime army
during the early 1950s to reach towards the 800,000 men in arms during World
War II. This external threat also had a small internal element, but one that
Tito’s secret police (Uprava državne bezbednosti, UDB-a) handily controlled.
The series of arrests of potential internal enemies was so thorough that most
accounts showed Tito in full control of the country by early 1952.4 Such control
enabled the army to stand at the ready with newly acquired American weap-
ons and with the de facto support of the Western nations in case of a broader
European conflict; as a result, the internal reform process of the LCY had begun
in earnest and proceeded in most other sectors of Yugoslav society. Socialist
self-management gained credibility as a method to secure the legitimacy of
the regime among the people and as a way to deliver on the promise of mate-
rial prosperity and social equality. A vital aspect of this reformist system rested
on how the army could help construct popular support for the regime. As the
only institution to touch virtually all males in Yugoslavia thanks to obligatory
service, the role of the army was potentially paramount towards securing a
positive idea of the state among the common folk.
“The strength of our doctrine,” boasted Defense Secretary Viktor Bubanj
much later in 1970, “is that it is public and belongs to the people.”5 Bubanj’s
comment came at a time when the fear of the Soviet Union returned to cen-
ter stage following the intervention in Czechoslovakia when Yugoslav leaders
sought to reinvigorate support for the army. Soon, though, the army officers
and the party officials questioned bringing the people into the system and cor-
rectly recognized that Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev was uninterested in
crushing Yugoslavia with armed force. But, with the onset of internal riots and
nationalist uprisings in 1971, the regime reanalyzed the commitment to the
JNA–TDF arrangement for defense and sided with a professional and unswerv-
ingly loyal officer corps at the head of the armed forces. This prompt series of
transformations of defensive doctrine in Yugoslavia—based upon an emphasis

4  See “Probable Developments in Yugoslavia and the Likelihood of Attack upon Yugoslavia,
Through 1952,” NIE-29/2, pp. 1–3.
5  Viktor Bubanj cited in James Gow, Legitimacy and the Military: The Yugoslav Crisis, (London:
Pinter Publishers, 1992), p. 47.
134 chapter 4

and then de-emphasis of popular participation—intersects directly with how

the regime interpreted threats: External threats brought about a need for a
more inclusive regime, whereas domestic challenges required the reliance on
a trusted and unified cadre. The outside aggressor united Yugoslavia’s peoples
by drawing on their common patriotism and common struggle against historic
external forces. Internal challengers, meanwhile, proved the most dangerous
because they brought Tito to alter the reform process in Yugoslavia and called
into question the viability of his worldview. With a clear disconnect between
the LCY’s rhetoric and the reality in the country, the trust that the party and the
army was supposedly building was frittered away and lost forever once defense
became the focal point for the state’s stability.

The Party’s Vision

LCY leaders continually sought to build legitimacy for themselves in Yugoslavia;

they showed themselves as a dynamic group and used both internal and exter-
nal factors to rally people behind the cause of Marxism. The Yugoslav People’s
Army was the primary vehicle to achieve a lasting unity behind the party’s prin-
ciples because as leaders insisted, the “JNA was for all of Yugoslavia,” and rep-
resented “every people” and fought on behalf of “every republic.”6 Yugoslavia’s
multiethnic composition forced leaders to envision a proactive army that
could in fact expose members of the various national groups to each other
and build a unified identity according to Tito’s political model.7 LCY leaders
repeatedly relied upon the army as their most loyal institution to maintain the
strength of the party among the people and build a better Yugoslavia. “It would
be,” Bubanj argued, “a bad investment of our society,” if the JNA merely func-
tioned during a time of war.8

6  Bubanj, “Povodom tridesetogodišnjice JNA,” pp. 6–7.

7  See Ronald Krebs, “A School for the Nation: How Military Service Does Not Build Nations,
and How it Might,” International Security 28:4 (Spring 2004), p. 120. Krebs has argued over
the value of the custodial role played by the military by stressing the need to revamp the
entire study of civil-military relationships, abandoning Huntingtonian models that describe
the military as profoundly influential during the state-building process. For Krebs, the mili-
tary aids the modern state in nation building thanks to its institutional integrity; nonethe-
less, he has discounted the three main theories of how the military has traditionally served
as a nation-builder—what he calls the contact, socialization mechanism, and the elite-
transformation hypotheses.
8  See Viktor Bubanj, Vojnoistorijski glasnik 12, (Beograd: Vojnoistorijskog instituta, 1970), p. 4.
The Tito Doctrine 135

Historic roots from the struggle in World War II shaped the perceptions of
the JNA as army leaders attributed the victory against the Nazis to a combina-
tion of the “large-scale participation of the population, moral-political unity,”
and the “close ties between the people and the fighting forces.”9 Feelings of
common struggle against fascism, with Tito at the helm of the Partisan army,
went a long way to creating a level of popularity among Yugoslavs. Leaders
depended on such a combination as further reinforcing the state towards
building a better society according to the real legitimacy that the army earned
during the wartime struggle. Earlier chapters elaborated that this process of
dwelling on the Partisan struggle and Tito’s charisma and energy for a renewed
Yugoslav state was not static. Reform that built upon uniquely Yugoslav fac-
tors was a primary facet of the Yugoslav system after it emerged from the Tito-
Stalin split in 1948; constant transformation—at all levels—was an explicit
defining characteristic of Yugoslavia. Members of the armed forces were not
inert actors nor did they fight change; instead, they often prescribed methods
of reform and served on the frontlines of building a genuine and legitimate
Yugoslav community. The fact that the party and the army worked so closely
together to forge and transform Yugoslavia made it clear that the army’s role
in safeguarding the state took on a broader definition. Army leaders were pro-
active in their campaign to serve Yugoslavia and the continued focus showed
how important the “moral and political” status of soldiers was for the general
wellbeing of Tito’s creation.10
But the fear of divisive nationalism drove Yugoslav leaders to maintain an
overall balance and accommodate all peoples. As Todo Kurtović, president of
the Republican Conference of the Socialist Alliance of Bosnia-Hercegovina,
explained to a fiery crowd in the town of Kakanj in late November 1971, “every
aspect of nationalism, from simple traditional chauvinisms,” to the more dan-
gerous “unitarist negation of a nation” is destructive. Yugoslavia would suffer,
Kurtović emphasized, because of a renewed sense of chauvinism, but he rested
confidently on the unity of Bosnia’s “joint institutions” and inter-ethnic coop-
eration.11 In this vein of unity and cooperation, World War II, with all its divi-
sive civil conflicts and massacres, forced Tito to downplay hostility and simply
label all wartime casualties as victims of fascism, and “domestic traitors”

9  See Milan Obradović and Milan Miladinović, “Obaveštajno-bezbednosna aktivnost jedi-

nica NOV i POJ u vreme bitke na Neretvi,” Vojnoistorijski glasnik 20:1 (Januar–April 1969),
p. 284.
10  See “Savez Komunisti u Armiji,” Komunist, 28 October 1971. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI A, cn. 23.
11  Todo Kurtović in Tanjug, 28 November 1971. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI, Croatia Opposition
[CO], cn. 95.
136 chapter 4

instead of blaming any particular ethnic group.12 One of Alvin Rubinstein’s

works on Yugoslavia saw this fear of nationalism as the solution for everything.
It was, “indeed, a compelling argument” for the continued “one-Party system
in Yugoslavia,” according to Rubinstein, as well as possibly having “provided
Yugoslav leaders” with the impetus to promote nonalignment.13 It seems clear-
er still from Kurtović’s words that self-management provided the people with
a rhetorical device to propagate unity in the face of nationalism at local lev-
els, but this issue generated even more tense discussion. While nonalignment,
the LCY, and even self-managing systems all seemingly fought nationalism,
the army was the one institution that had the opportunity to affect change
thanks to its inclusive and captive audience. From the barracks, army leaders
encouraged their soldiers to reach out to society and act as models of coopera-
tion and socialism in the overall drive for a more equitable representation for
Yugoslavia’s ethnic groups.14
Moreover, the Yugoslav People’s Army pledged that its members would be
“uncompromised fighters for the unity of the Yugoslav Socialist society, broth-
erhood and unity,” and the “development of social self-government” in a demo-
cratic society.15 Owing to the nature of the revolutionary armed struggle during
World War II, the army’s role in the state—vis-à-vis the LCY—was paramount.
During the 1960s, a critical time in the history of the Cold War, a sharpening
of laws and policies in the League of Communists emerged, but also alongside
the adoption of a series of educational courses to indoctrinate members of
the armed forces. Educators introduced a course entitled “The History of the
LCY” with a special emphasis on understanding the conditions of social devel-
opment. Its syllabus outlined the “dialectic approach and solution of compli-
cated problems” in the period of preparations and carrying out the revolution,
as well as in the period of the “construction of socialism”—including a direct
emphasis on the position of the individual in Yugoslav socialism.16

12  See Katherine Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies, (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1999), p. 99.
13  Alvin Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Nonaligned World, (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1970), p. 203.
14  Leaders called for equitable representation at “ALL levels.” See “3rd Session of the YPA
Conference at the LCY: Only a Strong Yugoslavia can Define her Independence,” Borba,
12 November 1971, p. 6.
15  General Ivan Gošnjak in “‘Deformities’ in Yugoslav Army Security,” Tanjug, 24 September
1966. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI A A53–66, cn. 23.
16  See “Marxist Education in Military Schools,” Komunist, 27 August, 1964, p. 4. HU OSA
300-10-2 YSFI A A53–66, cn. 23.
The Tito Doctrine 137

But just what sort of people identified with the army and the regime?
Ethnicity in the JNA deserves attention since it was a major force condition-
ing the role of the army in Yugoslavia. Numerous studies have pointed to the
dominance of Serbs in the officer corps of the Yugoslav People’s Army. Despite
some debate on the issue, the fact remains that Serbs comprised the largest
share of officers and non-commissioned officers in the JNA. Historian John
Lampe has stated “by ethnic origin, some 60 percent were Serbs and 8 per-
cent Montenegrins.”17 He has noted also that as early as 1946, a still partisan-
led Yugoslav Army possessed a decidedly Serbian cast.18 This trend continued.
James Gow has argued in numerous works of a Serbian domination of the mid-
dle and junior ranks as late as 1990, with 60 percent of the total, leaving Croats
with only 12.6 percent.19 (See Appendix B for more.)
Ethnic percentages demand attention because despite all the rhetoric on
brotherhood and unity within official circles, the JNA needed to appeal to all
members in the state in order to gain support for itself and then proactively
support the regime. Even the military leadership realized that it was important
to reduce any social divisions within the ranks. As Admiral Branko Mamula
explained, “facts of social affairs have a most direct influence on the army,”
because the “negative features influence the consciousness” of soldiers as well
as “their mood, motivation and conduct.”20 Later on, in 1983, a leading LCY
newspaper, Borba, reported that despite the large threat to Yugoslav unity, the
situation in the army was stable and good. Included in the list of enemies for

17  John Lampe, Yugoslavia: Twice There was a Country, (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), p. 337.
18  Lampe, Yugoslavia: Twice there was a Country, p. 250.
19  Gow, Legitimacy, p. 142. See also Mile Bjelajac, Jugoslovensko iskustvo sa multietničkom
armijom 1918–1991., (Beograd: Udruženje za društvenu istoriju, 1999), p. 81. Bjelajac also
has cited the same figures in similar numbers of Serb domination in 1991, basing his infor-
mation on the Slovenian newspaper Obramba: sixty percent Serbs, 5.4 percent Yugoslavs
(probably Serbs), 6.2 percent Montenegrins, 12.6 percent Croats, 6.3 percent Macedonians,
2.4 percent Muslims, 2.8 percent Slovenes, .6 percent Albanians, .7 percent Hungarians,
and 1.6 percent others. The historian Matteo Milazzo essentially has agreed, having con-
tended that Serb dominance tainted the entire twentieth-century Yugoslav history: The
Chetnik Movement & The Yugoslav Resistance, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1975), p. 186: “Even the Partisans … were an overwhelmingly Serb movement until well
into 1943, and there is considerable evidence that they often expanded their ranks by ap-
pealing to national sentiments which had little to do with allegiance to the Yugoslav idea.”
20  Branko Mamula in Gow, Legitimacy, pp. 116–117.
138 chapter 4

the army was nationalism, shown to be, without exception, the favorite cos-
tume for separatism, irredentism, or unitarism.21
An ethnic key—or affirmative action program based on maintaining an
equality among ethnic groups—powerfully influenced the army high com-
mand because, in 1971, of the twenty-four highest military commanders,
“33 percent were Serbs, while 38 percent were Croats.”22 But, in reality, “Serbs
dominated the officer corps in the Yugoslav military, the civil service and se-
cret police; Belgrade was Yugoslavia’s power center.”23 The theory behind equal
representation in key institutions such as the army clearly differed from re-
ality because despite a superficial realization of some goals—personified by
the ethnic balance in the army high command—Serbs remained in the major-
ity among government employees and especially among lower and middling
ranks. In 1963, the army recognized the abundance of Serbs within that institu-
tion relative to the demographic reality in Yugoslavia.24 Between 1970 and 1985,
the ethnic imbalance in the military academy in Belgrade showed that among
army cadets, Serbs again comprised the majority.25 Despite the presence of
the ethnic key, Serbs simply outnumbered other ethnic groups and gener-
ally remained dominant at the lower and middle levels of authority. While
some high profile successes of the ethnic key—notably the fact that Croats
staffed 38 percent of the high command despite a smaller overall demographic
balance—the consensus showed that continued work was necessary to bring

21  “Situacija u Armiji dobra i stabilna,” Borba, 25 March 1983. “Ukazano je na obavezu ko-
munista i organizacija da se u armiji, kao i do sada, ne stvori prostor i mogućnost ispol-
javanju nacionalizma, bez obzira da li je on odijenut u seperatističko, iredentističko
ili unitarističko ruho, kao i drugim željama i tendencijama sa pozicija suprotnim
socijalističkom samoupravnom društvu, ideologiji i politici SKJ.”
22  Roberts, Nations in Arms, p. 200. Regarding the high command see Zdenko Antić,
“National Structure of the Yugoslav Army Leadership,” Radio Free Europe Research
(12 April 1972). This paper quotes figures in the Belgrade newspaper NIN, 20 September
1971.
23  See Raymond Duncan, and G. Paul Holman, Jr. Ethnic Nationalism and Regional Conflict,
(Oxford: Westview Press, 1994), p. 24.
24  Dušan Pejanović, Josip Karavanić, Mihajlo Golubović, Ernest Mezga, Boška Stojanović,
Božo Šašić, and Čedo Stanković, Organizacija SKJ u JNA, vol. 2, Razvoj oružanih snaga
SFRJ, 1945–1985, (Beograd: Vojnoizdavački i novinski centar, 1986), p. 217. In 1963, the state
did not recognize Muslims as a special group as they were in 1971, but instead many likely
declared themselves as Serbs; thus, the true ethnic balance remains unknown and virtu-
ally impossible to determine in exact terms.
25  Drago Nikolić, Kadrovi i kadrovska politika, vol. 15, Razvoj oružanih snaga SFRJ, 1945–1985.,
(Beograd: Vojnoizdavački i novinski centar, 1989), pp. 321–322.
The Tito Doctrine 139

in more non-Serbs into the government, otherwise nationalist voices might

rise in critiquing the regime.
The army consistently acted as the bulwark of the regime and despite, or,
because of, its ethnic imbalance, its members vigorously fought to maintain
Yugoslavia. A 1975 program, outlined by the LCY organization within the JNA,
encompassed ten points that could aid in the “Socialist Self-Management in
Yugoslavia.” Point 7 emphasized the need for, “equality, brotherhood and unity
of nations and nationalities in our social system.”26 This kind of spirit grew
from the belief (even in 1984) that the army was in “a struggle against counter-
revolutionary works” acting in the name of nationalism.27 According to army
leadership the revolution never ended; but, while fighting on behalf of official
party ideology, the army suffered from an uneven implementation of inclusive
policies, such as the ethnic key. Internal contradictions within the army only
mirrored that of its partners and the reality of Yugoslav ideology.
A critical aspect of why leaders assigned the army such a profound role in
the affairs of the state derived from the nature of the LCY organization in the
army. Described by the Yugoslav periodical, Narodna armija (People’s Army), as
the “leading ideological force within the army,” the role of the party sought to
increase the “ideological awareness and moral and political unity,” as well work
towards “perfection” of the army’s military character.28 Outside of the army,
the soldiers were “duty bound to actively and systematically participate” in the
ideological activity throughout civil society. Lieutenant Colonel-General Dane
Petkovski, at the Third Conference of the LCY Organization of the JNA, empha-
sized how united and strong the army needed to be in the face of grave danger.
It was the “inflexible will of every individual” Petkovski said, to repulse the

26  Pejanović et al., Organizacija SKJ u JNA, p. 326. “Tim programom su obuhvaćene teme: (1)
Osnove marksističkog shvatanja društva; (2) Kriza svjetskog kapitalističkog sistema i razvoj
socijalizma kao svjetskog procesa; (3) Socijalistička revolucija i stvaranje nove Jugoslavije;
(4) Društveno-ekonomske osnove socijalističkog samoupravljanja; (5) Samoupravljanje u
osnovnim organizacijama i zajednicama; (6) Politički sistem socijalističkog samouprav-
ljanja; (7) Ravnopravnost, bratsvto i jedinstvo naroda i narodnosti u našem društvenom
sistemu; (8) Društveno-političke organizacije u političkom sistemu socijalističkog samou-
pravljanja; (9) Opštenarodna odbrana i oružane snage u političkom sistemu socijalističkog
samoupravljanja, i (10) Spoljna politika socijalističke Jugoslavije.”
27  Pejanović et al., Organizacija SKJ u JNA, p. 326. “Program je početkom 1984. godine do-
punjen sa dvije nove teme: ‘Borba protiv kontrarevolucionarnog djelovanja’ i ‘Religija i
vjerske zajednice u Jugoslaviji.’”
28  See “League of Communists Organization Within Armed Forces,” Narodna Armija,
25 April 1974. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI, Army-Party 1965–1974 [AP65–74], cn. 26.
140 chapter 4

enemies of “our socialist community” and that required a high level of aware-
ness by soldiers.29 Apparently, Petkovski understood that a positive force in
the army was the best way to counter a “psychological propaganda attack,” on
the army and, by extension, on society as a whole.30 It was because army lead-
ers saw “fairly strong links” between “outside” enemies—including intelligence
services, extremist émigré groups—and the “anti self-management forces” in-
side Yugoslavia, that they called forth for such stalwart action; if these enemies
succeeded in infiltrating “into the army” and made their “influence felt,” the
destructiveness would help annihilate Yugoslavia altogether.31 As the protec-
tors of the state from all enemies, army leaders naturally bound themselves to
the party at all costs.

Crisis: Czechoslovakia, 1968

Events inside the Soviet Union defied any Western attempts to predict Soviet
leader’s actions and reactions throughout the world.32 The first part of the
1960s brought the superpowers into conflict over the tenuous situation in
Berlin, but events closer to America dwarfed the commotion over the skies of
Germany. Soviet missiles in Cuba brought the superpowers to the brink of war
over Moscow’s larger support for the Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro
and partly owing to Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s desire to win a strate-
gic victory over the young President John F. Kennedy. As the events unfolded
and subsided with an American victory of sorts, Khrushchev’s power base fur-
ther weakened at home in the Soviet Communist Party. Owing to this defeat by
Khrushchev—who Milovan Đilas described in 1961 as ‘“not sure of his footing’”—
along with the failed virgin lands program, his popularity in the Soviet
Politburo continued to wane until the party finally replaced him in 1964.33
The new man in charge, Leonid Brezhnev, immediately attempted to regain

29  See “Yugoslav Army Communists Hold Session in Belgrade,” Tanjug, 16 April 1974. HU OSA
300-10-2 YSFI, AP65–74, cn. 26 (Emphasis mine).
30  See “Yugoslav Army Communists Hold Session in Belgrade,” Tanjug, 16 April 1974. HU OSA
300-10-2 YSFI, AP65–74, cn. 26.
31  See “Yugoslav Army Communists Hold Session in Belgrade,” Tanjug, 16 April 1974. HU OSA
300-10-2 YSFI, AP65–74, cn. 26.
32  See S.I. Ploss, “The Uncertainty of Soviet Foreign Policy,” World Politics 15:3 (April, 1963),
p. 455. According to Ploss, with the advent of Khrushchev’s policies in the first part of the
1960s, “erraticism has often marked the Kremlin’s foreign policy behavior.”
33  See, Central Intelligence Agency, “Some Recent Opinions of Milovan Djilas,” 7 September
1961.
The Tito Doctrine 141

the USSR’s position of parity with respect to the United States as well as regain
the diplomatic advantage in Europe.
As a veteran of the Stalinist period and an astute political protégé of
Khrushchev, Brezhnev signified a nominal return to conservative politics. The
butt of many jokes about his crude personality cult or his unresponsiveness
towards positive change, Brezhnev nonetheless did contribute a lasting and
potentially dangerous doctrine of thought on Soviet politics. His Brezhnev
Doctrine came as a formal response to actions already taken by the Soviet gov-
ernment and Warsaw Pact forces in quelling a nominally anti-Soviet, liberal
communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Appearing in the Soviet Union’s
premier daily, Pravda, on 25 September 1968, the doctrine laid out the goals
and limitations of Soviet Policy: At a time “when forces that are hostile to so-
cialism try to turn the development of some socialist country towards capi-
talism,” then “it becomes not only a problem of the country concerned,” but
a problem common to “all socialist countries.”34 Brezhnev’s pronouncement
caused great concern for Tito because this statement raised doubts about the
long-term viability of the status quo and stood in violation to international law
and the Charter of the United Nations, not to mention Tito’s mantra of non-
alignment. Action by the Soviets ostensibly to protect members of the “social-
ist commonwealth” made Yugoslavs uneasy because if the Soviets determined
the geographic limits, they might seek revision and act aggressively for regime
change in Belgrade.35 Yet for some Yugoslav leaders, this renewed fear of Soviet
aggression provided an opportunity to use the alarming nature of intervention
to correct some domestic ills troubling Yugoslavia.
When Soviet-led forces entered Prague and reestablished order suiting the
Kremlin, the world needed to evaluate what had happened and predict
the ramifications of action for international politics. Moscow’s crackdown
had the most influence among the states in Eastern Europe, but, of course,
some leaders had more reason to worry than others. For East Germans or Poles,
living in areas with large garrisons of Red Army forces and important in the
Northern Tier defense system, Prague was a disconcerting reminder that the
Kremlin would not tolerate anti-Soviet behavior. On another level, Romania
continued to drift away from Moscow even after the crackdown in Prague,
but Romanian leaders recognized the need to remain formally a member of
the Warsaw Pact and COMECON—the military and economic unions among

34  Text of Brezhnev Doctrine as cited in L.S. Stavrianos, The Epic of Man, (Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall, 1971), pp. 465–66.
35  Department of State Telegram, “Under Secretary’s Talk with Pavicevic,” 22 October 1968,
LBJ Library.
142 chapter 4

Soviet satellite states. As the only Warsaw Pact country not to have contrib-
uted to the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Romanians had little to fear from
the Soviets as long as a general allegiance to Moscow remained. Leaders in
Bucharest understood that Romania was in no position geographically, eco-
nomically, or politically to break away from the Soviets and succeed as Tito had
after 1948. Prague did serve as a reminder, though, to any Romanian, Bulgarian,
or Hungarian that the maintenance of socialism and the allegiance to Moscow
was of paramount importance.
Yugoslavs reacted to the Soviet invasion with stunned rage. In the wake of
the intervention, the “patriotic spirit” would rise, according to the LCY, along-
side either the “hajduk blood in the Yugoslav man” or the “partisan blood in
our struggle.”36 While Tito felt confident from earlier meetings with the Soviets
that aggressive action against the Czechoslovak leadership was unnecessary,
he was upset to see the sovereignty of a fellow socialist country violated, not
the least because “any unilateral move may encourage” intervention “in places
where” the superpowers merely “think their interests are threatened.”37 Indeed,
up until this time, LCY members exhibited a general confidence in their le-
gitimacy abroad as peacemakers and statesmen leading the Third World.38
Nonetheless, typical Yugoslav responses to the Soviet action reemphasized
the accepted viewpoint of different roads to socialism and the development
of individual revolutionary movements while vigorously opposing third-party
action: “the LCY has resolutely opposed the doctrine according to which the
leading power, in defending the so-called higher interests of a bloc, has the
right to intervene unilaterally in its ‘own zone’ for the purpose of establishing
a state of affairs suitable to its wishes.”39 Privately, the Yugoslav leadership ex-
pressed profound disappointment and fear that their work over the last fifteen
years was for naught—the morality of Tito’s foreign policy and the work of the
Non-aligned Movement sought an end to such unilateral actions by powers if
for no other reason than international disapproval. Even so, the events against
the Czechoslovak leadership served to embarrass and discredit Tito’s actions

36  Unidentified speaker in “Stenografske beleške sa sednice Komišije CK SKJ za Informisanje,

13 September 1968,” AJ CK SKJ XXVI K.1 6, p. 61.
37  Colonel Vasilije Čerović, “Military Commentary: Consequences,” Politika, 8 September
1968, p. 5. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI, NATO 1967–1972 [NATO 67–72], cn. 283.
38  See “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ IV K.7 7, 1971,
p. 67. Budislav Šoškić explained, “Ja bih ovde zabišao nesvrstanost, nego da idemo dalje,
spoljnopolitičke akcije, aktivnost ovoga i onoga, pa onda prelazimo na ovo drugo.”
39  Živko Mijatović, “International Relations and Cooperation of the League of Communists
in Yugoslavia,” Yugoslav Survey 10:1 (February 1969), p. 20.
The Tito Doctrine 143

as a sovereign mover in international relations. The executive bureau of the

party recognized that a victory for Yugoslavia in such a hostile atmosphere
would entail a simple reaffirmation of its separate path to socialism and the
recognition of sovereignty.40
Not only did Tito and the LCY cry out against the Soviet intervention in
Czechoslovakia as wrong, but they also took note of what had happened
to prompt the invasion. Generally favorable on the idea of socialism with a
human face, Tito also witnessed how a Slovak nationalism took hold and how
the country’s leaders moved in the field of constitutional reform to broker
change. A prominent Czechoslovak reporter, Karel Jezdinsky, served as the
Radio Prague reporter in Belgrade and spoke out strongly against his regime
and, as a result, won a lopsided amount of public attention in the Yugoslav
press, especially after he fled to the West. As a proponent against the “greatest
enemies of socialism” in Moscow, Jezdinsky saw Soviet policies at home and
abroad as simply representative of imperialism.41 He made himself a martyr
for a larger cause, no doubt informing LCY leaders on the power of public opin-
ion, despite his potentially dangerous message that noted, “internal opposi-
tion” was the “most important opposition.”42 Furthermore, Yugoslavs had to
see how these changes had affected not only the Czechoslovak domestic scene,
but also how the events had further distanced Prague from the voices tucked
away inside the Kremlin.
Warsaw Pact forces, at the behest of the Soviet Union, had created new ten-
sions among the Yugoslav leadership, whose members realized that relations
between socialist countries had fundamentally changed in a direction “under
firm socialist internationalism” that necessarily compromised the Yugoslav
thesis of independence and cooperation.43 Debate among Yugoslavs in 1968
questioned whether the action in Czechoslovakia would serve as a precedent
for Soviet forces intervening later in Yugoslavia or in other states within the
so-called Soviet orbit of influence. The reasoning behind this rested with
the interpretation of what constituted a socialist state and to what lengths the

40  Nijaz Dizdarević sought a reaffirmation of the Belgrade Declaration, as Buda Šoškić
agreed that essentially “uspeli da očuvamo i ponovo afirmišemo poziciju socijalističke
Jugoslavije kao nezavisne, nesvrstane zemlje sa samostalnim putem u izgradnji socijal-
izma.” See “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ IV K.7 7,
1971, p. 45.
41  Karel Jezdinsky in UPI, 20 September 1968. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI, Czechoslovakia [CZ],
cn. 104.
42  Jezdinsky in UPI, 20 September 1968. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI, CZ, cn. 104.
43  Stane Dolanc in “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ IV
K.7 7, 1971, p. 5.
144 chapter 4

Soviets would enact the Brezhnev Doctrine. Brezhnev’s policy implied that
the Soviet Union held the monopoly on socialist decisions and that its vague
policy could be used to justify otherwise geopolitical interests, such as aggres-
sion against states in the Middle East and Central Asia.44 While never again
used in Europe, Brezhnev did employ his logic in 1979 to reign in the turbu-
lence in Afghanistan, and thus eventually proved the Yugoslavs’ concerns as
valid.
Closer to Yugoslavia though, the invasion of Czechoslovakia had forced
Tito and the leadership to reevaluate their position vis-à-vis Soviet interests
and what the proper response should encompass. While Tito knew of certain
plans the Soviets harbored, he felt that the Soviets had abandoned all reason
in what seemed a dangerously disruptive display of force. Tito had warned the
Soviets at a joint meeting in Czechoslovakia prior to the use of force that a
Soviet-led invasion would be a “catastrophe,” but the events in Prague obvi-
ously overruled him. When Tito and acting Foreign Secretary Mišo Pavičević
met with Undersecretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach in October of that
year, Katzenbach reported that the Yugoslavs were concerned about Soviet in-
tentions in the Balkans and greater Mediterranean region. Tito realized that
Moscow’s influence with Nasser in Egypt had, by 1968, surpassed his own,
and that if the Soviets gained further momentum with respect to Bulgaria’s
claims on Yugoslav Macedonia, the Balkans might once again become a “pow-
der keg.”45 The idea that Yugoslavia held the key position regarding stability
in the Balkans and stood at the door to the Middle East gave Yugoslav leaders
an added burden of responsibility to maintain order. Keeping the status quo
meant decisive action and strong international influence, but Tito always re-
mained handicapped by his foreign policy based on nonintervention and co-
existence. Although Soviet action in Czechoslovakia served to weaken Tito’s
influence in the Non-aligned Movement, he still had enough credibility to re-
main involved in the complex process of European peacemaking throughout
the 1970s because of his unique position between the blocs.

44  Stane Dolanc in “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ IV
K.7 7, 1971, p. 2.
45  See Nicholas Katzenbach, “My Meeting With Tito,” Department of State Telegram,
20 October, 1968.
The Tito Doctrine 145

Territorial Defense in Theory and Practice

In response to some of problems with the new strategy for defense in the wake
of the Prague Spring, the military underwent reorganization in 1969, with the
passage of the General People’s Defense (GPD) law. The law created two equal
elements for defense, the Yugoslav People’s Army and the Territorial Defense
Force (TDF).46 While the JNA remained a federal institution, the TDF fell under
various decentralized republican, autonomous provincial, and communal
oversight. Each TDF unit came from the region and thus served to defend that
particular region—in addition, as merely a defense force, it had no formal of-
ficer training regime, no real offensive capabilities, and little in the way of pro-
active military training. What the TDF did was bring all able-bodied men into
a formal role in the Yugoslav government and exposed them to certain aspects
of national defense. That it was decentralized meant that a significant portion
of the nation’s defense forces fulfilled the goal of organizing the military along
self-management principles that were already prevalent in other sectors of
society.47 Such changes hindered the established federal military, but cement-
ed the role of the policeman and a guerrilla militiaman within official policy.
Such a shift towards an emphasis on the citizen-soldier fit within what Yugoslav
theorists saw as an armed force with historic and communist-liberation
roots; furthermore, Tito argued that relations within Yugoslavia would im-
prove once citizens organized defense to protect themselves and their state.48
The important Zagreb paper Vjesnik ran an article in 1972 that quoted Tito as

46  Article 1 of the General People’s Defense Law stated, “Every citizen who in war, in an orga-
nized way, participates with arms in the struggle against the enemy can be a member of
the armed forces of Yugoslavia.” Cited in Gow, Legitimacy, p. 46.
47  Elites in Yugoslavia repeatedly cited the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) as being the only
Yugoslav institution that was not “self-managed.” JNA leaders argued that a military could
not function under self-management and thus excused. Despite this, what is interest-
ing to note is that self-management system based on self-directing principles served as
one of the justifications for the creation and strengthening of the Territorial Defense
Forces (TDF); namely, the TDF allowed Yugoslav citizens to participate in the defense
of the country but in an organization that was inherently opposed to self-management.
For examples of the kind of verbiage about the self-managed nature of the TDF, con-
sult the following: Colonel–General Viktor Bubanj in Teritorijalna odbrana, (Beograd:
Vojnoizdavački zavod, 1970), p. 7; and, Miljenko Živković, Teritorijalna obrana Jugoslavije,
(Beograd: Vojnoizdavački zavod, 1985), p. 180.
48  See, for example, Živković, Teritorijalna odbrana, pp. 7–9; Tito in Živković, Teritorijalna
odbrana, p. 57.
146 chapter 4

having argued that “lessons from the war of liberation are valuable” as part of
our “efforts to build the armed forces and strengthen the defense capability
of our united community.”49 Yugoslav sources showed how the federal bud-
get benefitted from the new organization while people across the spectrum
came together under the auspices of a single institution.50 Military analysts
in Yugoslavia saw this arrangement as credible, not only as a real deterrent in
the face of renewed Soviet aggression, but also in light of the poor U.S. perfor-
mance in Vietnam against popular liberation forces.51 Yugoslav officers repeat-
edly declared that the JNA–TDF arrangement represented a “comprehensive
defense,” comprising armed resistance, civil defense, armament production,
and military engineering, not least of which because the Yugoslavs understood
the “human factor as the essential element” in the “ability of every individual
country to defend itself.”52
Despite Tito’s manipulation of leaders in both East and West, the Cold War
division of Europe between the Warsaw Pact, backed by the Soviet Union, and
NATO, backed by the United States, left Yugoslavia vulnerable and presented
unprecedented complexity for Yugoslavia’s military defense. Yugoslav military
officers, recognizing their position in relation to the superpowers surrounding
them, tried to adopt a credible strategy that could deter neighboring countries
such as Albania, while also deterring large powers such as the Soviet Union.
Such logic served as the reasoning behind the reemergence of guerrilla forces;
namely, a popular struggle that could once again protect Yugoslavia from dom-
inance by stronger neighbors and reinvigorate the population behind Tito as
World War II had done almost three decades prior.
Tito’s Partisan movement secured victory in World War II by conducting
a limited, guerrilla war aimed at taxing and outlasting a highly overextend-
ed, more powerful enemy, while, at the same time, relying on other countries
to fight the major battles to cripple Nazi strength. Such a strategy remained

49  “Tito: pouke iz oslobodilačkog rata dragocjene su u naporima za izgradnju oružanih

snaga,” Vjesnik, 6 October 1972, p. 1.
50  Milojica Pantelić, “The Role of the Armed Forces in the System of National Defence,”
Yugoslav Survey 10:4 (November 1969), p. 31; Also see Živković, Teritorijalna odbrana, p. 61.
51  Yugoslav analysts took into consideration, as did others around the world, how the United
States had performed in Vietnam against the communist guerilla forces. The success of
Ho Chi Mihn’s armies against the Americans led many to believe that such warfare tactics
were credible against modern armies.
52  For these officer declarations, see Drew Middleton, “Belgrade’s Defense Strategy: Guerrilla
War,” New York Times, 5 May 1980, p. A13; Colonel Vasilije Čerović, “Military Commentary:
Consequences,” Politika, 8 September 1968, p. 5. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NATO 67–72,
cn. 283.
The Tito Doctrine 147

plausible in light of what potential battle between the United States and the
Soviet Union might look like alongside the expected devastation that would
befall both powers. JNA commanders felt that their role could never be to de-
feat decisively either superpower on an open battlefield; rather, they could
delay the total capitulation of Yugoslavia for a few days or, at best, a few weeks,
by pinning down major enemy forces. Meanwhile, following this scenario, the
major burden would increasingly rest on the TDF thanks to a well-planned and
strategically competent guerrilla war comprised of virtually the entire able-
bodied population. These two factors combined to convince external enemies
that an invasion of Yugoslavia would present unreasonable complexities and
an overtaxing burden in the event of war.
Because of all the rhetoric about self-management and decentralization
that would bring all the people together in defense of the nation, this JNA–
TDF arrangement had a perfect ideological foundation. With more people in-
volved in the defense regime, the system would touch people more directly;
and, moreover, bringing more people into the armed forces, even for short pe-
riods, would increase the contact with other economic, ethnic, and religious
groups, especially since many parts of Yugoslavia were diverse. Exposure to
a multiethnic Yugoslavia would, army leaders hoped, foster brotherhood and
unity not only during wartime but also in periods of peace. Yugoslav officers
surmised that the TDF was a necessary reality if leaders wished to claim a le-
gitimate role in protecting the people of Yugoslavia from external enemies. In
line with the politicization of the armed forces, the National Defense Law of
1969 stated that it was the right and duty of the local political leader “to orga-
nize total national defense and to command the battle directly.”53 Territorial
Defense Forces with locally drawn men would counter attacks in that region
only and therefore, “would play a particularly significant role in fighting off all
kinds of air-borne attacks” as the force “always ‘on the spot.’” Furthermore, as
Milojica Pantelić noted at the time, “large partisan units”—the TDF—would
serve to drain enemy resources in the event of an invasion.54 In order to carry
out a predominantly partisan-type war, though, that force needed to be both
popular and self-sustaining. This notion of popularity gave the impression that
people would identify with the regime and gladly take to arms in its defense;
accordingly, Defense Secretary Bubanj assertion of 1970 that “the strength of

53  See A. Ross Johnson, Total National Defense in Yugoslavia (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1971),
p. 3.
54  Pantelić, “The Role of the Armed Forces in the System of National Defence,” p. 37.
148 chapter 4

our doctrine is that it is public and belongs to the people” resonated for the
Yugoslav leadership.55
Although Bubanj’s exaltation of his military’s strength seemed reasonable,
it became problematic once the country faced new challenges. Indeed, the
power of this system became a liability as a problem in maintaining unity.
The two-tiered JNA and TDF defense strategy lessened the role of the federal
government and gave more power to the republics. Under the umbrella of the
armed defense of Yugoslavia, the TDF and JNA forces were legally equal as two
parts of a complete defensive system.56 Following the 1969 reorganization, the
law clearly recognized the JNA as the premier defender of the country through
its ownership of “extraordinary high striking and strategic, operative, tactical
and maneuvering capabilities”; despite this, the JNA was “not the principal fac-
tor responsible for territorial defense and territorial operations, this being the
principal concern of work organizations and socio-political communities.”57
Such language limited the importance of the federal mechanism for defense
and caused many to question the proper role of the army. Narodna armija di-
rectly took on such skeptics, who “from time to time” raised “very suspicious
theses on questions which have been crystal clear for a long time.” Declaring
superfluous those queries over whether there was an “essential difference” be-
tween the JNA and the TDF, the newspaper meted out harsh critique against
the “unscientific and anti-constitutional” statements that did no more than
endanger the basic nature of the armed forces.58 LCY leaders must have taken
note of the “downplaying and particularly the denial of a military threat” as
a contributing factor “to a disorganization of the state and the people,” and a
general mood of “universal pacifism.”59 Vigilance against enemies would con-
tinue to underpin the state, but only so long as everyone remained tied to the
Titoist project.

55  Viktor Bubanj quoted in Gow, Legitimacy, p. 47.

56  Živković, Teritorijalna odbrana, pp. 179–180.
57  Pantelić, “The System and Organization of National Defence,” pp. 6–7.
58  See “Army Committee,” Narodna armija, 23 September 1973. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI, AP65–
74, cn. 26.
59  See William D. Jackson, “Encircled Again: Russia’s Military Assesses Threats in a Post-
Soviet World,” Political Science Quarterly 117:3 (Fall 2002), p. 378.
The Tito Doctrine 149

Reform Again

Against whom was the army defending? In the role of “protector of the state
and people,” and as the creator of second Yugoslavia, the army needed to show
that its defensive role was legitimate and necessary. Leaders placed emphasis
on not only the quality of work in the JNA, but also on how well the army
protected the sovereignty of the state against border incursions and domestic
harassment.60 Because the prospect of overwhelming invasion from the Soviet
Union worried the JNA, the establishment of the Territorial Defense Force
gained credibility in light of the renewed stress from the Brezhnev Doctrine
and the internal pressure for the military to conform to the broader reform
regime in place since the early 1950s. Once enacted, the TDF itself constantly
underwent reform; its composition changed each year as the soldiers reflected
changing demographics in each region or commune. As a result, the percent-
age of TDF soldiers from Serbia increased from 17.83 percent of the total in
1980, to 24.69 percent in 1984, while some regions like Croatia and Bosnia and
Hercegovina saw a decrease thanks to declining populations there.61 Most
importantly, when speaking of manpower, the TDF outnumbered the JNA,
with almost 700,000 soldiers in arms by 1970, and reaching almost one mil-
lion a decade later.62 Although the idea of dividing the defense between the
JNA and the TDF showed Yugoslavia’s ability to transform to meet changing
realities, this division fueled confusion as to the proper roles and responsibili-
ties that Yugoslav leaders faced during the hectic time following the invasion
of Czechoslovakia until the last days of Yugoslavia in 1991. Reform of the TDF
system became necessary out of concern that too much power devolved from
the central authorities but then concerned leaders who saw potential counter-
revolutionary forces benefiting from the local emphasis of Territorial Defense.
JNA commanders saw the constitutional reform that culminated with the
last Yugoslav Constitution of 1974 as boosting their esteem because of the legal
rejection of the overt reliance on Partisan-type TDF fighting forces. The con-
stitution reneged on the equal distribution of power between the JNA and the
TDF outlined by the General People’s Defense Law of 1969 and resumed the
JNA’s role as the preeminent fighting force in Yugoslavia under the federal gov-
ernment’s control. As the new Yugoslav national defense laws in 1974 noted,

60  Novosel et al., Savezni sekretarijat za narodnu odbranu, p. 27. “[The JNA serves] as the
guarantor of direct security and activity through the fighting of existing problems.”
61  Miljenko Živković, Teritorijalna odbrana, vol. 6, Razvoj Oružanih snaga SFRY: 1945–1985,
(Beograd: Vojnoizdavački i novinski centar, 1986), p. 174.
62  Živković, Teritorijalna odbrana, pp. 106, 157.
150 chapter 4

“The supreme direction and command of the armed forces ensures the unity
and inseparability of the armed forces and the armed struggle.” Important for
the JNA’s high command, the president of the federation stood as the “Supreme
Commander of the armed forces.”63 Reform centralized the command struc-
ture of the JNA and concentrated the armed forces in Belgrade rather than
distributing them to regional centers. Because of the profound ideological un-
derpinnings of the Titoist system based on reform and a desire to retain a sem-
blance of popular participation in government activities, the reorganization
did not eliminate the TDF; rather, restructuring had streamlined the structure
and introduced a series of small solutions to work over time. JNA officers ea-
gerly took on the dual role of commanding the JNA and the TDF, leaving the
TDF without a forceful administration of its own. Even for such simple things
as obtaining rifles or ammunition for practice, TDF units needed to obtain
permission from JNA authorities. Yet, the popular notion of defense remained
as constitutional designers reaffirmed total participation during wartime, be-
cause as Article 172 stated, “The defense of the country shall be the inviolable
and inalienable right and the supreme duty and honor of every citizen.”64
Reforms to unify people behind a partisan-concept of self-defense failed,
though, to address basic issues that allowed the TDF to operate as a semi-
parallel military institution. The constitution clearly laid out the role of na-
tional defense, in terms of the “right and duty of the communes, autonomous
provinces and the republics” to organize and direct “national defense.”65 While
this organization of total national defense fell under the JNA’s command struc-
ture, in practice, leaders allotted the burden to the individual territorial units.
Emphasizing this dilemma, the constitution noted that the federal army was
the “common armed force of all the nations and nationalities and of all the
working people and citizens,” but it stood alongside the “territorial defense,

63  National Defense Law of 1969 and 1974 in Roberts, Nations in Arms, p. 179; also see Article
313, Ustav Socijalističke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije, (Zagreb: Narodne Novine, 1975),
p. 153. “The SFRY presidency is the supreme body in charge of the administration and
command of the Armed Forces of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in war and
peace.”
64  Article 172, Ustav Socijaličke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije, p. 96. “Obrana zemlje je
nepovredivo i neotuđivo te najviša dužnost i čast svakog građanina.”
65  Article 239, Ustav Socijaličke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije, p. 113. “Pravo i dužnost
općina, autonomih pokrajina, republika odnosno drugih društveno-političkih zajednica
da u skladu sa sistemom narodne obrane svaka na svojem teritoriju uređuje i organizira
narodnu obranu i da rukovodi teritorijalom obranom, civilnom zaštitom te drugim pri-
premama za obranu zemlje, a u slučaju napada na zemlju—da organizira općenarodni
otpor i njime rukovodi.”
The Tito Doctrine 151

as the broadest form of organized total national armed resistance.”66 While

the JNA was supreme, the necessity of the TDF, according to Yugoslav theory,
made it such that the reform affected broader social issues. Peoples ability to
participate leveled the so-called boundaries that formerly separated so-called
important and ordinary folks and continued the government’s program to de-
stroy nationalism—the army simply represented a traditional melting pot and
leaders hoped for success to go beyond the army and into broader society.
Political reforms that came with the 1974 Constitution further secured the
JNA a position within the LCY Central Committee. At the federal level, each
republic and autonomous province had a vote in the party presidium, but the
1974 Constitution created a ninth member—the army. Giving a greater voice
to the 100,000 LCY members in the army, this move further solidified the two
institutions and brought an increased military presence within the visible op-
erations of the federal government.67 Despite increased political influence, all
constitutions forbid army interference in the political life of the state by posi-
tioning it as a purely defensive organization. Nonetheless, the idea of bringing
the army and the party closer together simply made sense; after all, the “high
political” and “patriotic consciousness” that had grown up during World War II
supposedly reinforced the unity of the people behind the tenacity of the armed
forces.68 The National Defense Laws also revised an overall change in the civil-
military relationship.69 These 1974 reforms culminated in a new basis for future
army intervention in maintaining the regime and lent further legitimacy to

66  Article 240, Ustav Socijaličke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije, pp. 113–114. “Oružane snage
Socijalističke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije štite nezavisnost, suverenitet, teritorijal-
nu cjelokupnost i ovim ustavom utvrđeno društveno uređenje Socijalističke Federativne
Republike Jugoslavije. Oružane snage Socijalističke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije
čine jedinstvenu cjelinu i sastoje se od Jugoslavenske narodne armije, kao zajedničke
oružane sile svih naroda i narodnosti to svih radnih ljudi i građana, i od teritorijalne ob-
rane, kao najšireg oblika organiziranog oružanog općenarodnog otpora.”
67  “Fadil Hodža Addresses Army League of Communists Conference,” Tanjug, 26 December
1978. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI Army-Party 1974–78 [AP74–78], cn. 26.
68  “Fadil Hodža Addresses Army League of Communists Conference,” Tanjug, 26 December
1978. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI AP74–78, cn. 26.
69  See Roberts, Nations, p. 180. “Regarding the question of who comprised the armed forces
required the 1974 National Defense law writers to define combatants along the following
terms: The armed forces of Yugoslavia comprise the Yugoslav People’s Army and territo-
rial defence. Every citizen who is involved in defence against the aggressor with arms or
in any other way is a member of the armed forces.” The first section came from the 1969
National Defense Law but remained, while the 1974 law strengthened the second section
to the prior notation: “participates in an organized manner with arms in hand.”
152 chapter 4

both the LCY and the JNA. Thus, the 1974 Constitution legitimated Tito’s use of
force to quell domestic opponents to the regime.

Crisis Again: Croatian Spring, 1971

During World War II, Tito and his closest advisors contemplated what a mul-
tiethnic communist-led Yugoslavia would look like and their vision increas-
ingly rested on a strong, meaningful legal framework. Each successive Yugoslav
constitution dealt in depth with issues such as political autonomy, ethnic rep-
resentation, and various cultural issues. The law clearly stood on the side of
multi-ethnicity; to that end, any form of national injustice or incitement of ha-
tred was unconstitutional and punishable under the law.70 Having a legal out-
let to punish offenders guilty of ethnic chauvinism meant that Tito’s state fully
embraced a carrot-and-stick approach to solving its perceived ethnic problem.
Despite broad legal protection, some inter-ethnic tensions remained. The
largest challenge had occurred in 1971, when emotions erupted in Croatia
growing out of largely cultural disputes. The leading Croatian cultural orga-
nization, Matica Hrvatska, published a manifesto in 1967, which demanded
changes in the federal constitution to more forcefully protect the cultural val-
ues of individuals within Yugoslavia. Several literary scholars in Zagreb contin-
ued to emphasize that their particular version of the common Serbo–Croatian
idiom needed reinforcement in the face of a more dominant Serbian variety
propagated at the federal level. Demands from the cultural organization even-
tually came in the form of a document entitled, “Declaration on the Name and
Position of the Croatian Literary Language,” which asked for an affirmation
of Croatian culture within the state’s legal framework.71 From 1967 until 1971,

70  See Ustav Socijalističke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije, pp. 176–77. “Citizens shall be
guaranteed the right to opt for a nation or nationality and to express their national cul-
ture, and also the right to the free use of their language and alphabet. No citizen shall be
obliged to state to which nation or nationality he belongs, nor to opt for any one of the na-
tions or nationalities. Propagating or practicing national inequality, and any incitement
of national, racial or religious hatred and intolerance shall be unconstitutional and pun-
ishable.” While this is from the 1974 Constitution, laws before this protected the national
identity of all Yugoslavs and made ethnically charged slander or violence punishable in
court.
71  Gojko Vučković, Ethic Cleavages and Conflict: The Sources of National Cohesion and
Disintegration, (Brookfield: Ashgate, 1997), p. 117.
The Tito Doctrine 153

the voices on behalf of a greater Croatian voice continued to rise and finally
erupted into a broad-based challenge to Tito’s system.
During the last half of 1971, this Croatian Spring represented the first poten-
tially successful domestic challenge to Tito’s government since he had consoli-
dated power in the wake of World War II. Despite the state’s inclusive stance
and legal safeguards against the misuse of power, a sensitivity to abuse or al-
leged injustice pushed events into the political sphere. Demands transcended
cultural lines and included economic grievances to the list of complaints be-
cause, as Croatia grew wealthier, an increasing number of Croats became re-
luctant to continue to fund economic growth in the less-developed areas of
Yugoslavia, such as Macedonia and Kosovo.72 On many fronts, people rejected
this argument as chauvinistic and selfish and recognized that it went against
how Tito understood the continued economic development of Yugoslavia:
Economic progress and cooperation between republics was for Tito “the logi-
cal continuation of the present policy of equality among our peoples.”73 In
layman’s terms, Tito outlined his view that as soon as a “finger is pointed at
another Republic,” issues went astray and that was “not right, and ought not
to be.”74 To combat these separatist forces, Tito first relied upon the police to
deal with individuals who spoke out against the regime. But, because of the
powerful potential of a large-scale challenge, the army also took on a powerful
role in this conflict. During the summer of 1971, the JNA held maneuvers in the
vicinity of Zagreb—as part of one of the largest peacetime armed exercises,
called “Sloboda ’71,” or Freedom ’71—and solidified an increased cooperation

72  “JNA—velika škola patriotizma,” Vjesnik, 7 October 1981. In this passage, Fadil Hoxha, the
Kosovar representative to the rotating presidency outlined some of the problems facing
Yugoslavia with a focus on how the army is the institution that will uphold the sovereign-
ty of the union. Also see Slobodan Stankovic, “Regional Party Congresses in Yugoslavia,”
Radio Free Europe Research: RAD Background Report/107 (3 May 1982), p. 4. “Another
Kosovo Albanian leader, Nazim Mikulovci, said that “the counterrevolution did not have
any influence on the majority of our Albanian workers,” although the Albanian nation-
alists and irredentists had done their utmost to infiltrate their ranks. Jusuf Zajnulahu
said, “Albanian nationalists and irredentists have tried to use economic difficulties and
Kosovo’s backwardness for their hostile demands by claiming that Kosovo has been
exploited.”
73  See Josip Broz Tito, The Building of Socialism and the Role and Tasks of the Socialist Alliance
of the Working People of Yugoslavia, Report to the Fifth Congress of the Socialist Alliance
of the Working People of Yugoslavia, (Beograd: Publishing House Jugoslavija, 1960), p. 68.
74  Tito in “Tito’s Winding-up Speech at the LCY Presidium,” Tanjug, 3 December 1971.
HU OSA 300-10-2 Yugoslav Subject Files I, Croatia Opposition, container number 95.
154 chapter 4

between Tito and the top JNA leadership.75 The army’s visible presence made
clear that officers were deadly serious in their support for Tito and foreshad-
owed an even greater role during their commander’s final years in office.76
I would emphasize too, that this overt show of force by the regime caused op-
ponents of the regime to surface since “Sloboda ‘71” so clearly provoked and
insulted the leadership in Croatia. Tito had recognized that the rhetoric in
Croatia grew worse since 1967, and sought to either quell it outright or bring
the forces of resistance into the open.
In an anonymous letter from Zagreb directed to the executive bureau of the
LCY, a worker complained that “functionaries in this country do not speak in
the name of the working class and working man” and that this “socialism is
worse than capitalism in which our workers labor three to five times harder.”77
A Milan Topalović from Mostar wrote to the party declaring that Croats in
Hercegovina had acted unfairly and questioned everything, beginning with
language, schools, the distribution of apartments, and the allocation of official
positions. In addition, another letter mentioned how Serbs in Croatia were in

75  See “Povezanost nesvrstane politike i obrane,” Vjesnik, 11 October 1971. HU OSA 300-10-2
YSFI, Nationalism Croatia and Karin Case [NC&KC], cn. 281. In this article, Colonel–
General Viktor Bubanj expressed his high praise on Yugoslavia’s readiness to face armed
enemies during the exercises of “Sloboda ’71.” This came at a unique time and centered
most of its weight towards the diffusion of any Croatian challenge.
76  On 22 December 1971, the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the Partisans/JNA, Tito
explained to the audience that, “We are fortunate that we have rescued our army and
preserved it, that we have preserved it from the influence of all elements of the class
enemy, so that it has remained so united with such a high level of awareness … In my
view the organization of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in the army will need
to rectify some things organizationally, but it is working well … There is also the question
of the army’s role in preserving the achievements of our revolution … Its task primarily
is to defend our country from external enemies, but also to defend the achievements of
our revolution inside the country, should that become necessary. It cannot be otherwise. I
say this though I believe that we have enough forces outside the army to be able to ensure
our peaceful development … But if it comes to shooting, if we have to defend our achieve-
ments, the army too is here.” Cited in Roberts, Nations in Arms, p. 202; also see Othmar
Haberl, Parteiorganisation und die Nationale Frage in Jugoslawien, (Berlin: Osteuropa-
Institut, 1976), p. 159. “Simultaneously Tito could rely for extreme cases on the instrument
of power that really was left on the army.”
77  “Informacija o primedbama na društveno-politički sistem i međunacionalne odnose
iznetim u pismima Predsedništvu SKJ i njegovim organima,” AJ CK SKJ IV K.19 3, p. 2.
The Tito Doctrine 155

danger from those who sing chauvinistic songs and attack Partisan veterans.78
To the party, it seemed as if in the late summer and early fall of 1971, all Croats
were attacking the system.79 These complaints gave real meaning to what stu-
dents had protested at several points since 1968 as they sought to make their
voices heard and affect change much as in Western Europe and the United
States during this same period. What set the movement in 1971 apart from other
student protests was that the Zagreb students wrote in their November reso-
lution that they would only “accept the changes in the sociopolitical system”
designed to make Croatia a “sovereign, national state of the Croatian people.”80
Zagreb’s students also called for their acceptance into the United Nations
and for a separate Croatian army.81 Such a call for a reevaluation of Croatia’s
place within Tito’s Yugoslavia crossed the line and guaranteed a stern rebut-
tal by the LCY but it simultaneously prompted other students in Yugoslavia—
principally in Kosovo—to demand similar anti-Titoist measures.82 At the end
of the Croatian Spring, party leader Vladimir Bakarić, warned the Croatian
communists, “you should tell us very clearly,” whether or not “‘we trust you,’”
or that “‘we do not trust you.’”83 Fear had grown rapidly in the party to a point
of no return.
Widespread arrests in Croatia and purges from the Croatian LCY shook the
foundations of the regime’s attitude towards stability and their legitimacy; as
part of his search for answers and reasoning behind the protests, Tito alluded
to the appearance of “foreign interference.”84 For Tito, his entire state-building
project lay open for destruction at the hands of “hostile” elements active in

78  “Informacija o primedbama na društveno-politički sistem i međunacionalne odnose

iznetim u pismima Predsedništvu SKJ i njegovim organima,” AJ CK SKJ IV K.19 3, pp. 3–4.
79  The Croatian Spring is the general term for all of the events that took place in Croatia dur-
ing 1971; most of the fervent protests and nationalist-inspired troubles occurred during
the late summer and autumn of that year.
80  Slobodan Stankovic, “Yugoslavia’s Students: Their Successes and Failures,” 9 December
1971, originally cited in Vjesnik, 24 November 1971, Radio Free Europe Research, HU OSA
300-10-2 YSFI, CO, cn. 95.
81  See Slobodan Stankovic, “Yugoslavia’s Students: Their Successes and Failures,” 9 December
1971, HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
82  See “Kosovo Leader Cites Hostile Pristina Student Assemblies,” Tanjug, 16 December 1971.
HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI Kosovo [K], cn. 227.
83  Vladimir Bakarić in “Speech by Vladimir Bakarić at the Meeting in Virovitica,” Politika,
8 December 1971, p. 7. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
84  Tito in “Tito’s Speech at Session of Presidium of LCY,” Komunist, 9 December 1971, p. 1.
HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
156 chapter 4

Croatia who worked on behalf of multiple actors.85 Desire for an end to Tito’s
reign also grew among Croats in the United States at this time. Ohio Senator
Robert Taft, Jr. petitioned Henry Kissinger for a meeting with representatives
of the National Federation of Croatian–American Republican Clubs in early
1972, because of that group’s continued “frustration” with the Nixon admin-
istration’s reactions to the Croatian Spring.86 Joseph Bosiliević, the organiza-
tion’s national secretary, railed against Tito’s “inequitable, multinational” state
with its “highly centralized power establishment and its divergent, antagonis-
tic, and disfranchised people.” While he employed rhetoric similar to Tito’s,
Bosiliević’s goal of an independent (and, most likely, enlarged) Croatian state
ran counter to Tito’s multiethnic project; namely, “nations, like people,” also
have a “sense of self direction, and the freedom by which to develop” a range of
“creative capacities” and to “assert their cultural identities” to avoid reaction-
ary behavior. Bosiliević’s definition of reactionary revealed the point of depar-
ture with Tito. His organization felt remorse at Tito’s actions against so-called
freedom-loving Croats and desired that the U.S. government pressure Tito to
alter his repressive and multiethnic course.87
Back at home in Croatia, anti-regime propaganda and illegal assembly by
students had kept the police in Zagreb busy during the Croatian Spring with
almost 200 arrests in just five days—criminal arrests that could lead to deten-
tion for “at least five years.”88 Police also rounded up those who were “disturb-
ing order” and “chanting slogans” in support of anti-Titoist forces.89 Of course,
the criminal charges and euphemisms such as “hostile propaganda” masked
the real nature of these charges as based on nationalism. Bakarić warned in
November that in Croatia “an organized nationalistic group” was not extraordi-
nary; instead, it was “crystallizing” and “rising” with each day from the bottom

85  See “‘Politika’ on the “organized Challenge” to Socialism,” Tanjug, 27 November 1971.
HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95. “[We are at] that decisive moment when the conscious-
ness of responsibility should strengthen our possibilities to overcome what is imposed on
us as alien and to look together for solutions for everything.”
86  Senator Robert Taft, Jr., “Letter to Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs,” 24 January 1972.
87  Joseph Bosiliević, “The Crisis in Yugoslavia,” 15 January 1972, memo attached to Senator
Robert Taft, Jr., “Letter to Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs,” 24 January 1972.
88  See “Seven Students Arrested in Zagreb Yesterday,” CMD, 17 December 1971. HU OSA 300-
10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
89  See “Six Students Reported Arrested in Croatia,” Reuter/AFP, 21 December 1971. HU OSA
300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
The Tito Doctrine 157

up.90 Incidentally, the LCY hoped that Yugoslav society would develop self-
management and unity with just such “initiative from below.”91
The political grievances of certain Croatian politicians such as Miko Tripalo,
Savka Dabčević-Kučar, and Pero Pirker brewed for some months prior to fall
1971—arguably since party leaders encouraged Matica Hrvatska to move for-
ward with critical publications in 1967. What made things different by late
1971, though, was the provocative stance the regime had taken to combat these
voices of opposition. Student strikes in late November rocked Croatia, and,
to an extent, gave authorities in Ljubljana and Belgrade the impetus to deter
protests at institutions there.92 Tito had spoken out harshly against the ac-
tions in Croatia and about the leaders of Croatia, who he saw as fundamen-
tally against “our State,” and in favor of “some other one, of the Pavelić type.”93
Eventually, with the power of the police and the loyal JNA, the leaders in
Croatia reneged on their particularistic views. The student group at the vortex
of the movement—at the University of Zagreb—met and formed an initiative
committee. They decided finally to reaffirm the Titoist mantra: “any national-
ism and counter-revolutionary movement is alien,” because such behavior was
“incompatible with socialist aspirations.” Committee members also concluded
that events had gotten out of control thanks to a student body insufficiently
“alert and active to suppress” anti-socialist forces.94
When, in 1971, Tito spoke out that the state had suffered because of a lack of
true democracy, the LCY listened. Bakarić noted how Tito saw the events of the

90  Vladimir Bakarić cited in Zdenko Antic, “The Croatian CP After Tito’s December 1 Speech,”
Radio Free Europe Research, pp. 3–4. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
91  Branko Horvat, An Essay on Yugoslav Society, trans. Henry F. Mins, (Belgrade: Jugoslavenski
Institut za Ekonomska Istraživanja, 1967), p. 227.
92  See, for examples, “Decision of the Economics Faculty of Zagreb,” Borba, 30 December
1970, p. 5; “Section of Belgrade Faculty of Law Meets,” Borba, 26 December 1971, p. 5; “Rijeka:
Responsibility of University Leadership,” Borba, 25 December 1971, p. 12; and “Session
of the University Conference of LC Ljubljana: ‘13 November’ Movement Condemned,”
Borba, 25 December 1971, p. 6. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
93  Tito in “Tito’s Winding-up Speech at the LCY Presidium,” Tanjug, 3 December 1971. HU OSA
300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95. Ante Pavelić was the wartime leader of Croatia, who served as the
Nazi puppet and commander of local fascists, generally referred to as Ustaša. This govern-
ment proceeded during the war to alienate all ethnic groups and set out on a deliberate
campaign of genocide against Jews, Roma, and Serbs. For more, see Jozo Tomasevich, War
and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration, (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2001); and, Fikreta Jelić-Butić, Ustaše i Nezavisna Država Hrvatska 1941–
1945, (Zagreb: Liber, 1977).
94  See “Initiative Committee of Zagreb Students Set Up,” Borba, 24 December 1971, p. 4
HU OSA C300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
158 chapter 4

Croatian Spring as represented by “people” who were “fighting for something”

and while the implementation of law was “very weak,” the party must turn
again, to “reform” and “bring the worker from his place of work” into “political
life.” This was merely the “beginning of the development of self-management
and of the mobilization” of “working people in daily political life”; not, the cre-
ation of a “movement with a firm” and unrelenting leadership.95 Even with a
profound challenge to the Party’s legitimacy to rule, Tito refocused his efforts
and believed that the right path relied upon better reforms that could continue
to induce more people into believing in the system. While he would vacillate
back and forth between conservative action and ongoing reform for a few years
following the Croatian Spring, Tito decided on reform when he unveiled the
last Yugoslav constitution in 1974. Yugoslav media outlets purported that in
principle, the “most dangerous side” of anti-Yugoslavism to appear in society
was nationalism. To combat this, leaders told the people that they will best
learn from history “to understand brotherhood and unity as a sine qua non
condition, as the key of all keys, as the solution of all solutions for our survival,
as the foundation of our country” and of peace and prosperity.96 Tito made
sure that he equated “‘our’ nationalisms” in all “their variants” with the “ideol-
ogy of capitalism” as a further means to ground his solution within his Marxist
worldview.97

An Impetus for Change: The Village of Karin Donji in 1971

It is easy to see the Croatian Spring in broad terms and make equally expan-
sive conclusions about its causes and effects, including the movement towards
reform as outlined in the 1974 Constitution. With that in mind, a closer look at
the tensions present in Croatia in 1971 reveals a great deal about the nature of
the Yugoslav system that leaders set out to repair.
Ethnic Serbs have called the picturesque and tourist-friendly region of
Dalmatia in Croatia home for hundreds of years; as a result, Serbian symbols
such as monasteries and Orthodox churches had sprung up and dotted the
landscape alongside traditional Croatian and typically Catholic monuments.

95  Vladimir Bakarić in “Bakarić on Tito’s Attitude to the Croatian League,” Tanjug,
7 December 1971. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
96  Doko Stojičić, “Plićaci i virovi bratstva i jedinstva,” Intervju, 27 September 1985. HU OSA
300-10-2 YSFI, Nationality Problems, 1985 [NP 85], cn. 283.
97  Tito in “Tito’s Speech at Session of Presidium of LCY,” Komunist, 9 December 1971, p. 1. HU
OSA 300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
The Tito Doctrine 159

This multiethnic region of Yugoslavia witnessed a flurry of activity during

the Croatian Spring but escaped much of the national spotlight despite large-
scale anti-regime behavior. Events in Zagreb preoccupied intellectuals and
the party, and, therefore, took center stage; meanwhile events in villages stole
the attention of common folk and represented a far more systematic threat to
Tito’s state.
The small village of Karin Donji fell under the jurisdiction of the Obravac
opština, or administative region, and a mixed constituency of Serbs and Croats
called the area home; but, on 2 August 1971, tension there reached a level of
violence. Reports of an incident described a small group of ethnic Croatian vil-
lagers from nearby Pridraga, but led by a student from Zagreb named Branko
Perica, walking down a village road singing “chauvinist songs,” thus potentially
inflaming tensions between the peoples in the mixed community. The songs
no doubt referred to Croatia’s greatness or harkened back to the Ustaša state of
World War II, or likewise defiled the Serbian national heritage. Such actions—
the use of sensitive national markers—drew criticism from Tito’s regime since
the beginning; as a result, the government had in place a series of bans against
such action. Tito understood well that to focus attention on his state-building
project he needed the undivided attention of everyone in Yugoslavia and thus
created legal barriers to such inter-ethnic baiting and hostility. Singing from
Pridraga to Karin seems not to have aroused local Serbs to respond and seek
vengeance, though—no inter-village fighting or even name-calling took place.
Violence only occurred when four members of the local police stationed in
nearby Benkovac and Obravac happened by and overheard what was certainly
alcohol-induced rancor. The police officers—comprised of several Serbs—
ordered that the drunken revel cease but the villagers answered with ill words
and a flying beer bottle.98
In response to the provocation of the singing Croats and the use of force
to resist the police order, the officers employed their clubs and succeeded in
tracking down and detaining the drunken men, taking them afterwards to
the nearest police facility in Benkovac. When the dust settled, the authorities
charged the villagers with “arousing national intolerance, hatred and dissent,
obstructing official persons in carrying out their official duties, and causing
bodily injury” to three officers.99 In all, some nineteen people were targets of
what would become almost an eight-month-long investigation. News of the
incident spread fast despite a desire by the police not to have the situation

98  See Zadar District Public Prosecutor’s Office Statement in “Statement on Karin Case,”
Tanjug, 1 October 1971. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NC&KC, cn. 281.
99  “Statement on Karin Case,” Tanjug, 1 October 1971. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NC&KC, cn. 281.
160 chapter 4

reach popular consumption only to be misunderstood and therefore foster

more unrest. As a result, in addition to the arrest and trial of the Croatian vil-
lagers, several of the Serbian policemen—they themselves objects of the ini-
tial harassment—became subjects of inquiry for misconduct and undue use
of physical force. In the end, following a thorough criminal investigation with
dozens of interrogations and interviews, four men faced criminal sentences
to varying degrees. That process ended a year later and with it came an ease
among politicians who had shelved these problems knowing that they had
stepped up efforts of party activism to thwart any particularism—from Croats
and Serbs alike—by realigning people with the regime and acting as an honest
broker between both sides.
Confrontations between the ethnic Croats and the police reveal four crit-
ical aspects regarding the national question in Yugoslavia in 1971. First, it is
noteworthy that the state authorities had banned the use of national symbols
that caused tensions with other groups. This banning encompassed the artistic
sphere affecting music, paintings, poems, as well as slogans and demonstra-
tions. Time and again, the publication or public announcement of a poten-
tially infuriating song raised the level of awareness for people in Yugoslavia.
Such was the case when the Serbian folk song, “Tamo daleko,”—meaning
“Over there,” as an ode to the survivors of the Serbian army and government
who escaped to the island of Corfu during World War I—was published in the
highly respected Yugoslav weekly, NIN, in 1966. An editorial later appeared in
the Communist daily, Borba, and called the publication of the song infuriating,
especially at a sensitive time when Serbian folk music could offend Albanians
in Kosovo, not to mention other non-Serbs, who distrusted Serbian territorial
aggrandizement.100 Likewise, telling ethnically biased jokes making fun of
other Yugoslavs could land a person in trouble or even in jail just as telling a
joke about Tito or the Communist Party.101 The Titoist regime not only looked
poorly upon issues that would raise the ethnic awareness of Yugoslavia’s peo-
ple, but also used its own set of guidelines and principles as a way to frame the

100  Dobrivoje Radosavljević in Borba, 12 October 1966, p. 6. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI, Nationality
1966–69 [N 66–69], cn. 283. The concerned writer claimed that the “transfer of a song
from different times and other condition into the present conditions and the fact that
it is made topical mean nothing else but a challenge against the equality of Shiptars
[Albanians] in Kosovo;” and, furthermore, that “this publication is objectively an attempt
at encouraging the nationalistic and chauvinist tendencies in our society.”
101  The author has heard first-hand from several former citizens of Yugoslavia that after tell-
ing a joke that portrayed Tito as a humorous character to a colleague, an investigation
followed and ended with a six-month jail sentence.
The Tito Doctrine 161

case. After all, party functionaries described the “basic duty of the federation”
as to diffuse conflict in a “democratic spirit ‘“while keeping the line of progress
and in the interest of the whole community.’”102 Politicians reduced their fears
of resurgent nationalism by conflating it with anti-socialist propaganda by peo-
ple potentially hostile to the regime. Adherence to exclusive nationalism not
only likely drove a wedge between Yugoslavia’s peoples but also directly chal-
lenged the state and its ideals. Put simply, the Titoist worldview tolerated no
real competition and to use Benedict Anderson’s terminology, if people imag-
ined themselves as a separate community and not a part of a larger Yugoslav
one then the entire federal project suffered.103 As a result, news reports and
quotes from officials at the time often classified the incident in Karin Donji
in terms of anti-socialist behavior, concluding resolutely “a conflict between
members of the Croatian and Serbian nationalities is not involved.”104
The second critical aspect of this event is that local Croats physically pre-
vented the police with carrying out their official duties. When the officers
asked the men to stop their singing, they refused and proceeded to resist arrest.
Several of the citizens then fled the scene and the police thereafter tracked
down the perpetrators; as part of that search, other Croats became involved
and “physically obstructed” the officers in their attempts to “obtain informa-
tion” about the whereabouts of the organizers of the incident.105 From the per-
spective of political leaders, the fact that no clashes between Croats and Serbs
occurred outside of these incidents with the police must have been pivotal in
assessing a formal response to the day’s events. Importantly, the Croatian vil-
lagers unleashed their hostility against the regime—vis-à-vis the police—and
not local Serbs living in the area.
Third, it should be pointed out that while the incident began with drunken
rabble-rousing on the part of Croats, Serbian party members also faced sepa-
rate investigation and punishment. As with the aftershocks of the Croatian
Spring, when thousands of Croatian communists found themselves outside
of the party, Tito used the events as an excuse to rid the LCY of any poten-
tial threats, including some in the Serbian branch of the party who were
eager to recentralize the state. Tito’s confidence in continued decentraliza-
tion and his clashes with the Croatian Party leaders in 1971 continued with the

102  Mitja Ribičić, in “Slovenian Party Aide Warns of Separatism,” Tanjug, 13 April 1967. HU OSA
300-10-2 YSFI N 66–69, cn. 283.
103  Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, (New York: Verso, 1991).
104  “It Happened in Karin,” Politika, 25 August 1971, p. 6. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NC&KC, cn. 281.
105  “Statement on Karin Case,” Tanjug, 1 October 1971. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NC&KC, cn. 281.
162 chapter 4

1972 purging of the Serbian leadership, including Marko Nikezić and Latinka
Perović.106 Consequently, both sides suffered criticism and faced penalties.
Charges against the police officers of Serbian ethnicity centered on abuse
of authority that regional officials no doubt used as a means to alleviate any
claim by Croats of unfair penalization. The court investigated three of the four
police officers involved, based upon “justified suspicion” that their resort to
physical force in detaining the troublemakers had drifted into unprofessional
and criminal offenses of “maltreatment and misuse of official function and
powers.”107 This complex tit-for-tat system attempted to quell anger but also
affected people’s attitudes towards the regime, as when a teacher scolds all
the children in the yard, but, in fact, only a few deserved reprimanding. We
know from the documents of the Karin case that the local authorities investi-
gated and charged Serbs too and that this might have been a result of a larger
Croatian demonstration in nearby Zadar, which called on city officials to rec-
ognize the need for “protection in their own homeland” of Croats in the face
of brutality by Serbs.108 Such calls for aid by Croats in Zadar emphasized the
regime’s sensitivity to ethnic injustice and further justified leaders who meted
out punishment to all sides. Tito’s system in fact normalized a zero-sum men-
tality when nationalism was involved, and reinforced it—and highlighted and
perpetuated it—among Yugoslavia’s ethnic groups. Tito solidified this sort of
thinking but also tried to couch his terms in political rhetoric that equated in-
terethnic mistrust and tension with a “great deal of ideological confusion,” that

106  Aspects of Serbian representation within Yugoslavia in particular came under fire with
increased legal changes to the state, with continued decentralization after the purging
of Aleksandar Ranković in 1966. For a brief treatment of the larger intellectual issues
see Jasna Dragović-Soso, “Rethinking Yugoslavia: Serbian Intellectuals and the ‘National
Question’ in Historical Perspective,” Contemporary European History 13:2 (2004), pp. 170–
184, esp. p. 177.
 Ivo Banac has claimed that Tito had understood Serbian centralism as a danger to the
state and was convinced of decentralization as proffered by Edvard Kardelj since Sixth
Plenum of the LCY in 1962. See Ivo Banac, “The Fearful Asymmetry of War: The Causes
and Consequences of Yugoslavia’s Demise” Daedalus 121:2 (1992), pp. 147–48.
 At the time a British observer, F. Singleton, observed that the purges of both Croats
and Serbs from the LCY would strain the parallel intentions of maintaining so-called mar-
ket socialism and self-management. Overall, the events of the early 1970s placed Tito’s
state in jeopardy yet tense international crises continued to give Yugoslavia a pedestal
to continue the rhetoric of peace. See K.F. Cviic, “Turning the Clock Back in Yugoslavia,”
The World Today 30:5 (1974), pp. 206–213, esp. p. 206.
107  “Statement on Karin Case,” Tanjug, 1 October 1971. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NC&KC, cn. 281.
108  “It Happened in Karin,” Politika, 25 August 1971, p. 6. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NC&KC, cn. 281.
The Tito Doctrine 163

exists everywhere, and a “lot of it at that.”109 Tito’s elaborate system of equality

only furthered the level of uncertainly during periods of unrest.
The fourth important aspect of this incident shows how young people were
at the heart of anti-regime activity; the trial concluded with the mastermind,
Zagreb University student Branko Perica, sentenced to six months of imprison-
ment based on his actions of organizing the singing and then having caused
bodily injury to officer Frane Pajić. This sentence was the most severe; the only
other Croat from the group sentenced was Dušan Viduka, who faced one year
of probation on a suspended sentence of four months imprisonment for “pre-
venting militiamen from doing their duty.”110 Regarding the police officers, just
Dušan Drača faced a suspended sentence equal to that of Viduka for abuse of
power; the judges found the other three not guilty. Likewise, the prosecutor
dropped the charges against the other men involved in the singing; rather than
focus on the nationalist rhetoric, he had chosen to ground his case on abuses
of authority or the physical prevention of official duty—easily proven criminal
charges—rather than on exclusivist behavior witnessed by no one but those
involved.111 At the same time, though, as the events in Karin Donji unfolded,
state authorities severely criticized other student groups. In nearby Biograd na
moru, the regional committee of the League of Communists censured the pre-
sidium of students of Croatia, especially the Faculty of Philosophy at Zadar—
which was part of the University of Split—because of the large number of
students from Biograd “studying in that city.”112 The committee declared pub-
licly, “communists from Biograd” had “taken a course contrary to that of the
League of Communists and the strivings of the Croatian people.”113 As a result,
the Biograd committee decided to convene a meeting with all students from
the area to “thrash out possibly vague questions concerning topical political
trends,” as part of a larger effort to destroy localized opposition to the regime.114

109  Tito in “Tito’s Winding-up Speech at the LCY Presidium,” Tanjug, 3 December 1971, HU OSA
300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
110  “The ‘Karin Case’ Terminated,” Borba, 10 March 1972, p. 9. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NC&KC,
cn. 281.
111  The prosecutor directed charges of “causing a public disorder” on the Croats and abuse
of authority on the police. “Those Responsible for Public Disorder in Karin Sentenced,”
Tanjug, 9 March 1972. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NC&KC, cn. 281. Also see “The ‘Karin Case’
Terminated,” Borba, 10 March 1972, p. 9. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NC&KC, cn. 281.
112  “Biograd na Moru: Denunciation of Students’ Leaderships,” Politika, 25 August 1971, p. 6.
HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NC&KC, cn. 281.
113  “Biograd na Moru: Denunciation of Students’ Leaderships,” Politika, 25 August 1971, p. 6.
HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NC&KC, cn. 281 (Emphasis mine).
114  “Biograd na Moru: Denunciation of Students’ Leaderships,” Politika, 25 August 1971, p. 6.
HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NC&KC, cn. 281.
164 chapter 4

While confined acts such as in Karin Donji or Biograd na Moru pressured the
regime to respond with care but also with severity, proceedings at the national
level saw to it that the regime regained the momentum. After having made a
series of constitutional amendments ever since 1968, Tito set forth with vigor
after the Croatian Spring to construct the final constitution that would termi-
nate forever any of the problems that might further trouble his rule and the
rule of his successor. Ironically, many of the more reasonable demands made
during the Croatian Spring saw realization in this last Yugoslav constitution.
The repression of nationalist tendencies in favor of a more statist society was
an integral, successful feature of Tito’s Yugoslavia. In contrast, certain Croats in
the LCY advocated decentralization and a continued move towards “market
socialism,” or an increased alignment with Western economies. Institutions
such as the army overwhelmed and repressed ethnically based challenges
but the real goal of Titoist politicians rested on the natural development of
Yugoslav society that would overcome nationalism. Vladimir Bakarić, chair-
man of the Croatian League of Communists from 1948–69, pronounced in
early 1966 that tension between nationalities was the second most important
question in Yugoslavia, surpassed only by economic reforms, but, ominously,
“if the battle for the reform and against bureaucratic centralism was not won, it
could become question number one. Great tension could lead some republics
to think of secession.”115
In 1971, the Yugoslav Defense Ministry polled officers about what problems
they considered as the greatest threat to the army and, by logical extension,
Yugoslavia. Rather than expected notions of foreign aggression, respondents
cited divisive nationalism and chauvinism as the supreme dangers facing the
army. Enemies from within apparently worried the officer corps and forced
them to insist on measures that would bring together the various ethnic groups
throughout the country—hence the enthusiasm for the use of the army as a
vehicle to build unity between peoples, but only under their strict control.
Despite the timing of this particular poll at the height of the Croatian Spring,
its results spoke to a general attitude prevalent among Yugoslav leaders dur-
ing the entire life of Yugoslavia. Broken down by the rank of the respondent,
the poll’s results showed how perceptions of nationalism changed across the
grades: fifty-four percent of high-ranking officers (major and above), forty per-
cent of low-ranking officers, and forty-seven percent of non-commissioned of-
ficers saw nationalism as the greatest danger; only 13.5 percent, ten percent,
and 11.7 percent respectively, saw foreign aggression as the greatest danger

115  See John Campbell, Tito’s Separate Road: America and Yugoslavia in World Politics, (New
York: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 138.
The Tito Doctrine 165

facing Yugoslavia.116 Fear of domestic upheaval as represented by the Croatian

Spring had superseded the potent Soviet threat following the invasion of
Czechoslovakia a mere three years prior. The question remained, though, what
the regime would, or could, do about that.

The Tito Doctrine

When he confronted the Presidium of the League of Communists in December

1971, Tito stood ready to defend his revolution against all opponents. Confident
in his power base but fearful of losing popular legitimacy, Tito returned to the
mantra of reform. While in terms of military affairs, the civil-military relation-
ship definitively shifted back to a more centralized character, the progression of
the party vis-à-vis self-management and legal-based reform continued, though
with a slight pause, unencumbered. This was critical if Tito was to maintain
any credibility abroad in the Non-aligned Movement, which by this time,
meant trying again to harness the power of the decolonizing world and focus
leaders’ attentions on his agenda. Zagreb Radio broadcasted on 4 December
1971, that, “Yugoslavia’s unity is the common interest and responsibility of all
Republics,” as a subtle reminder to World War II and the internecine fighting
between the ethnic groups. Tito managed to rise above nationalism, despite
the slight Serbian demographic advantage among his Partisan fighters, be-
cause he had fought during the war against the foreign invaders and in the
name of brotherhood and unity of all peoples. Tito also worked to rise above
nation-states and particular interests and lead the Third World. Memories and
legacies of the wartime struggle and his early success in nonalignment did give
Tito credibility as a fighter for all groups and that spirit of unity became cen-
tral to any working federation. More simply, working together fit within Tito’s
broader ideology and strengthened his rule—opting out of that system meant
a declaration of war on his worldview.117

116  Roberts, Nations, p. 200. Also see A. Ross Johnson, The Role of the Military in Communist
Yugoslavia: An Historical Sketch, (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1978), pp. 11–12. Johnson has
added that, “Seventy-two percent of the “higher officers” thought the national question
had been overemphasized in the public discussion of the Constitutional Amendments
of 1971.” This is indicative of the kind of downplaying that higher officers wished on the
entire issue of nationalism in Yugoslavia. Such public discussion could only but worsen
problems in their eyes.
117  See HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
166 chapter 4

Tito and the LCY had reacted to the Brezhnev Doctrine in the summer of
1968, when it appeared that the Soviet leaders were confident in their strength
and might renew verbal attacks or open armed aggression against Yugoslavia.
Neither happened, but the events in Prague and the potential precedent set
gave Tito’s regime a boost towards bringing reforms closer to the people. The
General People’s Defense Law served as one facet of this turn to popular sup-
port as a means to deter the Soviet Union and wave the flag for Tito’s continued
success. Yet, when the events in Croatia took a turn that called into the question
the sovereignty of his state, Tito expressed frustration and dismay and doubted
whether or not bringing in more people under the defense umbrella was wise.
He called out the regime opponents and reevaluated his stance on power. As
the fundamental issue over Croatian demands, the right of sovereignty took on
a new level for Tito as he declared, “every republic has its sovereignty and right
to safeguard it”; but, “Yugoslavia, in relation to other countries,” has a single
“sovereignty as a state, that is, Yugoslav.” This Yugoslav sovereignty consisted
of the collective independence of “all the republics” no matter how they or-
ganized internally.118 A break from this system meant a challenge to Tito and
a challenge to the political status quo. As Brezhnev had called out the leaders
in Prague on the same accord, Tito had in fact declared his own doctrine in
1971—the Tito Doctrine.

Conclusion

In former Yugoslavia, the army was one of the most important organizations.
The army allowed the state to exist and maintain itself, and, eventually, served
as the means of Yugoslavia’s dismemberment. While the LCY had acted as a
bonding agent within the post-World War II state’s framework, it also sought
to tailor the JNA to the internal as well as external threats confronting the
Yugoslav state. That is why the party launched the experiment with Territorial
Defense and then backpedaled on its reforms. In the end, these machinations
over political prowess hampered the construction of a popular legitimacy.
While reform harkened an earnest desire for the army to conform to self-
management through the TDF, the reality of power inside Yugoslavia made
leaders think twice. Territorial Defense created the necessary deterrent against
some external invasion following the invasion of Czechoslovakia and further
opportunities to indoctrinate more Yugoslavs with the official party line. All the

118  Tito in “Tito’s Speech at Session of Presidium of LCY,” Komunist, 9 December 1971, p. 1. HU
OSA 300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
The Tito Doctrine 167

same, too many people still harbored discontent with the regime and desired
change antithetical to Tito’s system.
The history of Yugoslavia is more complex than any simple evolutionary
model of civil-military relations would suggest, but that relationship did play a
determining role in the stability and cohesion of the state. Military leaders ini-
tially acquiesced in handing over power to Tito’s civil authority during and im-
mediately following the World War II and stood idly by as the socio-economic
sphere underwent reform to achieve self-management. Soldiers cooperated in
this unending transformation of Yugoslav society partly because they devoutly
followed the party’s prescription for success but also because they knew that
their institution, the army, was largely immune to internal reform. Leaders
changed their mind, though, when Brezhnev sent forces into Czechoslovakia;
the result saw how leaders not only embraced ideological reform, but also
argued its unifying characteristics for the entire country. Professionalism suf-
fered, as the military grew more dependent and involved in the party and state
apparatuses. When the army saw the dangers of nationalism in 1971, it prompt-
ly sought a return to the status quo ante, when people were less involved in
armed defense or at least answerable to reliable JNA officers. Political leaders
such as Bakarić noted such hesitation when he asked the Croatian leadership
whom they trusted and if they themselves were trustworthy.
As a member of the Central Committee, Dobrica Ćosić had argued that dur-
ing the 1960s, decentralization led to bureaucratic nationalism and the exalta-
tion of the federal state above the individual Yugoslav citizen. Ćosić claimed that
the developmental tendencies of nationalism remained unresolved through-
out the Balkans and, if trends continued, the national question “will remain
the torment and the preoccupation of generations to come.” He felt that the so-
lution rested with the “democratic forces of socialism,” because if they did not
win the final victory, then the Serbian people might seek an “old historic goal
and national ideal—the unification of the Serbian people in a single state.” The
repercussions of that for Ćosić were clear: “No political imagination is needed
to foresee the consequences of such a process.”119 Ćosić railed against decen-
tralization as a method towards maintaining Yugoslav legitimacy because he
saw a strong state as the antidote to dismemberment and, quite possibly, as a
means to exaggerate a Serbian presence in his idea of a strong, federal state.
Between his vocal stance and an underlying danger in his logic, the LCY muted
his voice because it went against Tito’s idea of how to govern a transitional
and multiethnic state. In November 1968, the Central Committee dropped
him for what its members noted as his anti-decentralization statements and

119  Ćosić in Budding, “Serbian Nationalism,” p. 35.

168 chapter 4

his linkage of decentralization with the bogeyman of Yugoslav politics—

nationalism.120 By the 1970s, though, after the repercussions of the Croatian
Spring set in, the LCY still spoke of decentralization, and, in fact, solidified
greater rights for the constituent republics in the 1974 Constitution; but, at the
same time, LCY leaders worked hard to restrain the ill effects of a decentralized
state. The realignment of the TDF under the JNA command structure served
as an important pillar in that delicate quest to resolve the division between
rhetoric and reality, federalism and decentralized confederation. Party mem-
bers went to great lengths to prove that the state was ready for decentralization
and that such moves would make it stronger in the end.121
Within his mantra of reform, ideology was an important foundation for
Tito’s system—designed simply to supplant all other notions of individual and
collective identity, including nationalism. Manipulating ideology proved dan-
gerous, as these attempts have shown, and while often positive and proactive,

120  See Tito, The Building of Socialism, p. 18. “The State is undeniably necessary to a transition-
al socialist society. First, it plays an important role in defending the socialist system from
the internal and external enemies of socialism. Secondly, when taking over the means of
production, under conditions of low capital accumulation, it plays an important role in
the concentration and distribution of resources during the first period of development of
the socialist economy. The role of the State in this respect is of special importance when
economically less developed countries are involved. Thirdly, especially at the beginning,
it has an important role in fostering the socialist elements of society and giving them
guidenc. But, its functions gradually diminish, as society as a whole takes them over.” For
a comparison with other Eastern bloc regimes, see Sheldon Anderson, A Cold War in the
Soviet Bloc: Polish-East German Relations, 1945–1962, (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001), p. 222.
Anderson has cited East German leader Ulbricht, in his typical Stalinist style, as having
defended the SED’s (East Germany’s Communist Party) tight control over all aspects of
East German society to the Polish Embassy in East Berlin in 1958: “When one has a strong
police then it is possible to talk about building socialism.”
121  See Federalizam i Nacionalno Pitanje: zbirka radova, (Beograd: Savez Udruženja za
Političke Nauke Jugoslavije, 1971), p. 260. “Osobenost naše samoupravne socijalističke de-
mokratije određuje i specifičnu prirodu jugoslovenskog federalizma, pa u tom smislu i
sam ustavni karakter i društveno-politički sadržaj autonomne pokrajine kao elementa
federalizma.… Lenjin je autonomiju tražio u celokupnom socijalnom i političkom kon-
tekstu, kulturno-ideološkoj strukturi, u samom shvatanju političkih oblika socijalističke
demokratije. Svojevremino je on, ulazeći u suštinu političkih odnosa, govorio da “mark-
sisti ne brane” “pravo na autonomiju”, nego samo autonomiju kao opšti, univerzalni prin-
cip demokratske države sa šarenim nacionalnim sastavom, s oštrom razlikom geografskih
i drugih uslova. Prema tome, priznavati pravo nacija na autonomiju bilo bi isto tako be-
smisleno kao i priznavati pravo nacija na federaciju.” This passage talks about some of
the major issues involved with greater autonomy given to the constituent republics and
declares that federalism is the best solution.
The Tito Doctrine 169

party leaders too often delivered punishment, emphasized jealousy and mis-
trust, and simply reinforced thinking along ethnic lines. Actions taken during
the Croatian Spring unveiled the flaws within the system, as did the failure of
the ethnic key to bring about a truly equitable system. Too often, people had
an excuse to feel disadvantaged as ethnicity brokered promotion and reward
rather than merit. While public and frequently popular, the idea of an ethnic
key nonetheless brought ethnicity to the forefront of daily politics for many
Yugoslavs in the civil service or armed forces at the expense of a common iden-
tity and equality.
Tito and the LCY thought the country was ready in 1968 to embrace a
Yugoslav supranationalism; the patriotic outbursts following the Soviet in-
vasion of Czechoslovakia seemed to make that dream a reality in the face of
overwhelming aggression from outside the country. Once again, it seemed that
a negative other and fear of domination could unite the various differences
within Yugoslavia. His creation of the TDF brought this hope alive as a mecha-
nism to forge a common and inclusive identity yet this glue was not durable.
When anti-regime behavior burst forth in 1971 in Croatia, Tito feared a loss of
political control, especially in the wake of a decline in Yugoslavia’s interna-
tional position and at the dawn of his last decade in power. As a result, the TDF
experiment underwent reform and the most loyal group in Yugoslavia—the
JNA officer corps—reemerged as a primary political arbiter.
Part of the problem for Tito rested on his ability to maintain a stable and
prosperous system at home; after all, “the question of material resources will
be a very important thing,” because with a stronger economy, the country “will
get strong in every way,” including in the army.122 The LCY relied on bring-
ing people into the system and making it function effectively and efficiently
as a guarantee for Yugoslavia’s independence in the face of broader threats.
Leaders saw the solution to the regime’s problems in delivering to the people
the promises of prosperity and freedom that the LCY had made—after all, how
else could the regime expect people to sacrifice their lives in defense of the
state?123 Tito recognized in 1971 that, “we have promised the working class a

122  Marko Nikezić in “Stenografske beleške sa sednice Komišije CK SKJ za Informisanje,

13 September 1968,” AJ CK SKJ XXVI K.1 6, p. 61.
123  See Jovan Đorđević, “The Creation of the 1974 Constitution of the Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia,” in Robert A. Goldwin and Art Kaufman, eds., Constitution Makers
on Constitution Making: The Experience of Eight Nations, (Washington, DC: American
Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1983), p. 191. Đorđević stated that, “The
Constitution of Yugoslavia devotes several provisions, more than any other constitu-
tion, to national defense and the armed forces in accordance with the principle that the
170 chapter 4

lot, and have carried out little.” Furthermore, “we cannot separate the working
class according to republics,” because “there is only one working class,” and “it
is Yugoslav.”124 Tito desperately needed to convince his people of just such an
idea—that ethnic markers clashed with his Marxist ideology and that he must
prevail in order to unite Yugoslavia. Dissenting voices in the LCY—in journals
such as Praxis—noted that the Yugoslav Communism had made a “fetish of
materialism,” with the partial market base of the economy and thus “resur-
rected many of the evils of capitalism.” Because the system has failed to deliver
material plenty, the party’s emphasis should shift “from production to human
relations.”125 Such a damning critique put extra stress on Tito to have his sys-
tem perform on some level, either within the domestic arena, or more, likely,
in the field of foreign relations.
The unity and strength of Yugoslavia mattered greatly for the LCY, especially
in the early 1970s, when crises seemed ready to explode into chaos and dis-
integration. Any real problems that might shake Yugoslavia, party members
thought, would open up Yugoslavia to outside influences and destroy the en-
tire status quo in Europe.126 “Therefore,” partly leader Nijaz Dizdarević de-
clared, “we are always ready to defend our future,” and that stance has kept
aggression at arm’s length.127 Such a need for an external victory also hastened
Tito to latch onto the conference on human rights, held in Helsinki in 1975.
Once again turning to foreign affairs for a moral victory, Tito tried to play the
statesman once again, this largely giving up on the Third World and turning to
his backyard in Europe.

defense of the country is the right and duty of all citizens and that surrender to an enemy
is prohibited”; see Article 238, Ustav Socijaličke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije, p. 113.
This article addresses the issue of surrender as tantamount to high treason: “No one shall
have the right to acknowledge or sign an act of capitulation, nor to accept or recognize
the occupation of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or any of its individual
parts. No one shall have the right to prevent citizens of the Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia from fighting against an enemy who has attacked the country. Such acts shall
be unconstitutional and punishable as high treason.”
124  Tito in “Tito’s Winding-up Speech at the LCY Presidium,” Tanjug, 3 December 1971, HU
OSA 300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
125  Praxis cited in Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Current Intelligence, “Yugoslav
Intellectuals Challenge the Regime,” 25 June 1965, LBJ Library.
126  Stane Dolanc in “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ IV
K.7 7, 1971, p. 22.
127  Nijaz Dizdarević in “Stenografske beleške sa sednice Komišije CK SKJ za Informisanje,
13 September 1968,” AJ CK SKJ XXVI K.1 6, p. 9.
 Chapter 5

Tito’s Twilight: A Post Nonalignment

European Focus

Fear makes easy the task of diplomats.1

John Foster Dulles

∵
My analysis of the evolution of Titoist Yugoslavia focuses on the question of
politics and I break that down into two primary components—power and fear.
Unpacking this definition leads directly to the problem that Yugoslav leaders
had always faced; namely, how to reconcile those two forces into a working
system that fostered legitimacy—i.e., using a carrot or a stick approach. Party
leader Krste Crvenkovski knew this dilemma well; he had recognized that the
LCY came to rule thanks to individuals who “raised themselves to the heights
just by means of this irrational authority. In other words, power on one side
and fear on the other.”2 Power, as Crvenkovski knew, was important because
political figures seek to rule—no matter how restricted or unimpeded—over
the populace under the government’s jurisdiction. Yet characteristics of fear
remain salient for these same people because both a beginning and an end
bind every regime, and leaders fear their terminal point of departure. Divided
into two parts, this chapter will examine the importance of the final reforms
under Tito’s watchful eye, when power and fear collided, and argue that ad-
vanced reform of Yugoslavia’s political system—primarily by legal means and
dictated by international events—attempted to supplement Tito’s personality
and his legacy as a Partisan in the never-ending quest for legitimacy.

1  John Foster Dulles in John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of
American National Security Policy During the Cold War, (New York: Oxford University Press,
2005), p. 142.
2  Krste Crvenkovski in Branko Horvat, An Essay on Yugoslav Society, trans. Henry F. Mins,
(Belgrade: Jugoslavenski Institut za Ekonomska Istraživanja, 1967), p. 197.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004358997_007

172 Chapter 5

One of the primary problems that has plagued Marxist states from the
moment Vladimir Ilyich Lenin took power away from Aleksandr Kerenskij’s
Provisional Government in October 1917, has been the question of legitimacy
and succession; furthermore, only a few leaders—Tito most especially—have
appreciated “legitimation,” or the grounding of their rule in legal and histori-
cal norms accompanied by related myths and the promise of progress, as the
“central challenge” to their rule.3 Vaclav Havel noted the importance of the law;
it was, he said, an “essential instrument of ritual communication outside the
power structure.” Furthermore, a legal code enables “all components of the sys-
tem to communication,” and helps the leaders “establish their own legitimacy.”4
In all fairness, the question of legitimate rule arises in nearly all polities, but
the socialist states faced a peculiar combination of self-directed criticism and
international disdain, especially during the Cold War. As part of a great revo-
lutionary experiment, Marxists sought to prove the universal applicability of
their message by promising the people—more precisely the working class—a
good quality of life alongside stability and social justice.5 The promises of ma-
terial plenty and equality often fell short—even in Yugoslavia—but the hope
for a better time always seemed ready to motivate the working class.
At the same time, though, Marxists have had to contend always with com-
petition from capitalists in a pluralistic world. In the beginning, lukewarm con-
demnation followed by armed action against Lenin’s Bolshevik takeover gave
way to ambivalence, and even excited anticipation as a relatively large degree
of popular appeal for the Soviet experiment enthralled observers around the
world. Supporters thought that they saw something truly novel underway and
hoped that humanity would be better off as a result. Early on, World War I had
only recently challenged the European Enlightenment and left millions ques-
tioning the positive aspects of that legacy, including doubting the value of free-
market capitalism. Political, cultural, and economic elites around the world
thought that Lenin’s Soviet regime might prove Marx right and effectively solve
economic injustice and disparity between peoples.

3  See Sabina P. Ramet, Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918–2005,

(Bloomington, IN: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2006), p. 184.
4  See Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern
Europe, ed. John Keane, (London: Hutchinson, 1985), p. 74.
5  See Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Intervention and the Making of Our
Times, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 4. Westad’s overall argument has
taken into consideration how the world was affected by the two superpowers in their quest
to “prove the universal applicability” of their ideologies.
Tito ’ s Twilight 173

Or, maybe not. Lenin and his successor, Joseph Stalin, attempted to refash-
ion society completely according to their interpretation of Marxist dogma, and
this quest produced great success and a genuine hope for progress while also
exacerbating tremendous pain. We cannot forget the authentic enthusiasm
with which Stakhanovite shock workers sought to over-fulfill Stalin’s first Five
Year Plan when Soviet leaders were in fact “dizzy with success.” Meanwhile,
Stalin’s secret police had purged society of enough potential enemies to satisfy
any paranoid ruler by the end of the 1930s and successfully intimidated the
remainder of the population into submission.6 As a result, he really did have
enormous control over his people, and, as a result, he wielded great power and
lorded over his subjects with the full weight of ideology behind him.7
Stalin accepted the notion of socialism in one country during the interwar
period because he recognized, more so than his principal rival, Leon Trotsky,
that a world revolution ending in a Soviet victory remained far off in the dis-
tance. Even after the great advances following victory in World War II, the es-
sential problem that faced the Soviet leadership until its bitter demise was how
to prove to the people—or make them accept—that the Soviet system was in
fact the best. Stalin preferred simply to act with realistic caution and he suc-
ceeded until his death in 1953; whenever his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, tried
to mimic Stalin, he typically failed, most blatantly during the Cuban Missile
Crisis in 1961. Khrushchev’s heir—Leonid Brezhnev—brought coolness back
into Soviet diplomacy, but he still struggled to find a working, universal solu-
tion to the nagging issue of legitimacy. By the 1970s, the mood among politi-
cal actors in both Moscow and Washington was one of cooperation between
the two enemies as a solid solution for global stability and reaffirmation of
the post-World War II territorial divide. While working together meant that
Brezhnev still had no solution to his other problems, he continued calmly into
the future believing that maintaining the status quo was better than any revo-
lution or dramatic alteration of policy.
Soviet diplomatic pressure to draft and sign the agreement that eventually
saw fruition in the Helsinki Accords in 1975 personified this inherent legitima-
cy crisis. It was itself a product of legal code and as Havel noted, it was a boon
for the dissident movements throughout the Soviet bloc.8 Helsinki ultimately

6  For reference, see J. Stalin “Dizzy with Success,” Pravda, 2 March 1930.
7  The dated, yet powerful work by Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, (New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973), has illuminated a glaring critique against the power of ide-
ology and how any system that claims to “solve” the problems of society winds up mobilizing
people to unleash death and destruction on unprecedented scales.
8  Havel, Power of Powerless, p. 69.
174 Chapter 5

fostered the growth a larger human rights regime with a global reach, but per-
haps its first important victory came with the creation of the Organization of
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Yugoslav dissident and scholar
Aleksa Đilas has argued that Helsinki did little to change the reality in Europe
at the time and seemed redundant with respect to the mood of détente. But,
for the Soviet leaders, Helsinki once again legitimized the postwar boundaries
in favor of the Kremlin and solidified, for the entire world, Moscow’s hege-
mony over Eastern Europe. By so doing, it necessarily reaffirmed the territorial
integrity of Tito’s Yugoslavia while also advancing a line of thought familiar to
Yugoslav theorists. Tito himself “solemnly declared” that he considered sov-
ereignty as “binding” for his country, and for all of Yugoslavia’s “neighbours in
relations to the existing frontiers.”9 No doubt, the Croatian Spring remained
fresh in Tito’s mind and he was just as anxious as Brezhnev to preserve every-
one’s frontiers. Đilas has contended that Helsinki grew out of the Soviet fear
of internal instability throughout its empire and the results of the 1975 accords
delivered a lasting reassurance of geopolitical legitimacy in place of a real
legitimacy among the Soviet and East European populations.10 I would add
to Đilas’ contention that this is precisely the same phenomenon that guided
Titoist leaders as they realized that the construction of a popular legitimacy
would take many more years to build. A foreign policy victory where Tito once
again seemed the influential statesman and won a victory for European secu-
rity might just serve as a bandage until that domestic legitimacy appeared. As
a result, they used international treaties and conferences as a crutch to supple-
ment the slow process of fostering a healthy economy and positively trans-
forming society.
The 1970s seemed an ideal time to situate the wider implications of Marxist
promises against the realities under actually existing societies. This was a time,
despite global economic shocks, when consumer culture and real wealth rose
dramatically in the West. Capitalism really was beating socialism by delivering
more goods and a higher standard to more people despite high-energy costs.
In addition, the technology gap expanded greatly from this time and the chal-
lenge facing the leaders in cities such as Moscow, Warsaw, Prague, and even

9   Tito in Ranko Petković, Non-Aligned Yugoslavia and the Contemporary World: The Foreign
Policy of Yugoslavia, 1945–1985, (Beograd: Međunarodna politika, 1986), p. 27.
10  Aleksa Đilas, “Of Novelty and Oblivion: What We Can Learn from Dissidents under
Communism,” lecture delivered at Harvard University, Russian Research Center, 3 April
2007.
Tito ’ s Twilight 175

Belgrade, was how to compete against such overwhelming odds and solve the
“credibility gap” that plagued all of the Marxist regimes.11

Part I: The Domestic Arena

As the revolutionary generation grew old and out of touch, the changes that
began to take place in the standards of legitimacy throughout Eastern Europe
brought about increased demands for new, quality leadership; instead of open-
ing completely to the next generation, though, many among the ruling elite
desperately hoped—perhaps even prayed—for the maintenance of the status
quo. Such a scenario applied to the Yugoslavia of the 1970s. As Tito’s death be-
came a more realistic possibility, Yugoslav politicians feared that his unifying
charisma and power over Yugoslav politics would disappear along with him.
While politicos argued at the time that Tito’s spirit would live on and Yugoslavia
would not veer from his path, they also took action just in case.12 Because
Tito’s death grew nearer with each day, the quest intensified for methods to
keep his spirit and state alive; much of that quest outlined by Tito himself.
Reform in Yugoslavia increased to a feverish pace but the question remained
of what to reform. Tremendous issues faced the country, including high un-
employment, rising inflation, and increasingly vocal ethnic particularism;
these all intersected with issues such as constitutional legality and increased
ideological validation.13
As time passed, Tito sought to further cement the state to a legalistic frame-
work that would bind together the peoples of Yugoslavia and bridge any gaps

11  See Flora Lewis, “Many Poles Say that Unrest is Far Deeper Than Economics,” New York
Times, 26 January 1977, p. 8.
12  In 1976, a Serbian-produced movie came out, featuring what would become a semi-
official song, both entitled, Our Oath to You Comrade Tito. At Tito’s memorial center in
Belgrade—and at select monuments throughout former Yugoslavia—a small statue reaf-
firming this oath never to veer from his path stands to this day.
13  Unemployment remained a problem for the Yugoslav government from the 1950s on-
wards, but several factors combined to make the Yugoslav case particularly interesting.
With a domestic unemployment rate typically higher than the rest of Europe for much of
the period under consideration, there were times, such as the 1970s, when unemployment
in Yugoslavia jumped rapidly because of returning migrant workers. Because of the tran-
sition from rural to urban employment, job creation goals fell short; coupled with hordes
of unskilled workers outside of the country, the situation was indeed grim. For more, see
Susan Woodward, Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945–1990,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 197–99.
176 Chapter 5

between his ideology and everyday reality by altering the constitution to once
again revisit the question of how self-management functioned in Yugoslavia
and how the party and the state served as guardians and helpmeets to suc-
cess. Challenges to Tito’s system had come and gone; each time, Tito had ma-
neuvered appropriately and avoided a meltdown. When the Tito-Stalin split
came in 1948, the regime made the first move towards independence and so-
cialist self-management. Thereafter, nonalignment came as the foreign policy
equivalent of Yugoslav ideology but the invasion of Czechoslovakia showed
the weaknesses of nonalignment and brought a reevaluation of the Yugoslav
armed forces. Domestic unrest followed in Croatia and military policy again
shifted slightly to meet the new threat. Both the Soviet action and unrest at
home prompted a reevaluation of the Yugoslav defense sector, whose leader-
ship feared the worst if relations soured to the point of war. Political figures
saw in the army a further vanguard against domestic unrest; in that spirit, the
burden remained on the army leadership to reshape a positive Yugoslav image.
The task of the military increased from simply defense against a Soviet inva-
sion to quickly educating Yugoslavs towards creating a united front against all
enemies, foreign and domestic. But, at the same time, army commanders and
the party saw popular participation in the state as vital for a successful future,
they also worried that the people might not be trustworthy.
Were Yugoslavs in fact sufficiently signed onto the Titoist experiment? An
affirmative answer to this question by leaders makes it clear why their re-
formed Marxist rhetoric sought a more perfect realization of ideological ends
using proven (and legitimating) legal means. Yugoslav leaders attempted to
broker reform in the 1970s based on legal fundamentals—principally vis-à-vis
constitutional design—as both a guide and as a rational foundation towards
constructing a workable, lasting socialist reality. This struggle for popularity
was important for Tito at least since the 1948 Cominform critique; but the cre-
ation of a Rechtstaat as a primary reinforcement for the regime increased dra-
matically with his inevitable passing from the political scene and worked in
tandem with an international mood that sought legal guarantees; the Helsinki
Accords in 1975 therefore intersected with reformist moods in Yugoslavia just
as nonalignment had worked as the international arm of self-management.
Thus, an examination of the period of Tito’s twilight unveils a scramble for
alternatives to his personal charisma, bullying purges, continued reforms of
the self-management system, and the pan-Yugoslav appeal of his brotherhood
and unity message. Where army reform left off, constitutionalism and a final
international relations opportunity became the new vehicles for achieving le-
gitimacy for Tito’s creation.
Tito ’ s Twilight 177

The Workings of the Early Constitutions

Constitutional rhetoric serves as a useful gauge of how ruling elites sought to
reform and preserve their system in Yugoslavia. The development of the three
major constitutions intersects with the evolution of political thought among
the Yugoslav Communist Party. In crafting the 1946 Constitution, Yugoslav
party managers drew heavily from the Soviet Union, owing to the closeness of
the two countries’ ideologies and an assumed amiable post-war relationship.14
Chief Yugoslav ideologue Edvard Kardelj, architect of that document and all
the other constitutions and amendments, declared in 1946 that, “for us the
model was the Soviet Constitution,” because the Soviet “federation is the most
positive example of the solution of relations between peoples in the history
of Mankind.”15 Such reverence to the Soviet system by Yugoslavs was common
prior to and shortly after the Tito-Stalin split, because as the only successful
communist state prior to the end of World War II, the Soviet Union had a god-
like status among communists in Yugoslavia and elsewhere.
Like its Soviet counterpart, the 1946 Constitution had two main sections:
Having dealt with the ideological principles, framers understandably entitled
the first section Fundamental Principles, while in the second they addressed
state institutions. Article 1 defined Yugoslavia as a federal people’s union, “re-
publican in form,” comprised of a “community of peoples equal in rights who,
on the basis of the right to self-determination, including the right of separa-
tion, have expressed their will to live together.”16 Federal units included the
People’s Republics of Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Slovenia,

14  See, for example, Nebojša Popov, Srpska strana rata: trauma i katarza u istorijskom
pamćenju, (Beograd: Građanska Čitaonica, 1996), p. 447. “After the 1946 Constitution,
which together with the (later unchangeable) coat of arms, was an uninventive copy of
the ‘big’ Soviet Constitution from 1936 by Stalin, while in the new constitutions of 1953,
1963, and 1974 the concept of self-management was added. These constitutions were all
amended in 1967, 1968, 1971, 1981, and 1988.”
15  Kardelj in Frits Honduis, The Yugoslav Community of Nations, (The Hague: Mouton, 1968),
p. 137. Kardelj also explained some of the factors that played a role in the drafting of
the 1946 Constitution in Borba za Priznanje i Nezavisnost Nove Jugoslavije: 1944–1957, in
Sećanje, (Beograd: Državna založba Slovenije, 1980), p. 77. He noted the importance of
the time and that the new Yugoslav leaders took into consideration the formation of their
new state and its constitution in light of the powerful Soviet example. Kardelj then wrote
that the influence of the Partisan struggle played a role in their formulations.
16  Article 1, Constitution of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, (Washington, DC:
Embassy of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, 1946), p. 5.
178 Chapter 5

Bosnia and Hercegovina; additionally, within the Republic of Serbia, exist-

ed the Autonomous Province of Vojvojdina, and the Autonomous Region of
Kosovo-Metohija. The idea that certain peoples had come together and jointly
desired to form a federation was nowhere clear since the broader concept of
people itself was vague. It remained ambiguous as to whether this idea of the
people merely represented the still tiny working class, or, rather, the inhabit-
ants of the particular republics. Furthermore, Yugoslavs scrutinized the issue
of separation but they declared secession impossible because the constitu-
tion’s architects incorporated the idea merely in recognition of the eventual
withering away of the state—they envisioned that secession would serve as
the symbolic precursor to the communist paradise of stateless order.17
After 1948, when the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia parted ways and the
Yugoslav party desperately sought its own ideological identity, Tito struggled
with his existence outside of the Soviet sphere. It took some time before the
Yugoslavs could operate as independent Marxists, and leaders hesitated to com-
plete the removal of the cult of Stalin from Tito’s message. In October 1948, Tito
still declared that Yugoslavs were worthy to carry on the great ideas of “Marx,
Engels, Lenin, and Stalin.”18 Soon after, though, the witch-hunt for so-called
Cominformists—supporters of Stalin—ensued inside Yugoslavia and ended
with a secure and pliant base for Tito. He succeeded in distancing himself from
the Soviet leader, and, by the early 1950s, changes to the Soviet-inspired con-
stitution had taken place. The Constitutional Laws of 1953 sought to redefine
Yugoslavia as a Marxist state more in line with what Yugoslav party leaders
then regarded as true Marxism based on a self-managing reality. Ruminations
of Yugoslav ideologues about self-management and workers owning the means
the production had already taken shape and soon extended into the inter-
national arena with nonalignment. Initial reform helped build a new legiti-
macy for Tito to replace the discredited Soviet one, based upon his clever use
of patriotism and successful foreign policy—that is, credits and aid from the
West coupled with a potential for expansion as leaders in the emerging Third
World. Later, at the dawn of the 1960s, it was clear that the 1946 Constitution, in
service but much amended by the laws of 1953, needed complete refashioning
in order to keep pace with the widespread reforms.
Evolution towards a new constitution both reflected the many critiques
against the Soviet system and Soviet critiques of Yugoslavia. In 1948, the Soviet

17  For the sake of comparison with the 1936 Soviet Constitution, see Aryeh L. Unger,
Constitutional Development in the USSR, (New York: Pica Press, 1982), pp. 140–158. The
relevant Articles include 13 and 22–29.
18  Ћетврти Конгрес СКОЈ-а, 12–14 Октобра, 1948, (Београд, 1948), p. 9.
Tito ’ s Twilight 179

Union lashed out against Tito’s state as riddled with rampant nationalism
alongside a lack of democracy within the Yugoslav Communist Party—two
things antithetic to communism. Soviet criticisms included describing the
Yugoslav police and bureaucracy as arbitrary, and lacking true credibility.19
Shocked, the Yugoslavs responded by remarking in numerous essays, speech-
es, and party conferences that the Soviet system based itself on bureaucratic
centralism, an argument that would remain in force for the following decades.
Yugoslavs contended that the Soviet bureaucracy made the eventual wither-
ing away of the state impossible and thus maintained the dictatorship of the
vanguard in perpetuity. Stalin had perversely corrupted the Soviet Union and
strengthened rather than weakened the interests of the state. Tito declared
much the same when he noted that the nature of the Soviet bureaucracy, the
secret police (NKVD, later KGB), and the militia had no resemblance to “state
machinery which is withering away.”20 Kardelj went on to emphasize that a
great cleavage existed between Soviet rhetoric and reality—a gap that he saw
rectified within Yugoslav Marxism. Because his emphasis pointed out the lack
of democracy and the huge bureaucratic regime run from the Kremlin, the re-
sult for Kardelj and Tito meant that Yugoslavia needed a system structured on
many levels with an adequate voice for individuals to reform the system.21 The
most local form of popular representation came at the commune—village or
town council—level, where all citizens could share their opinions about gov-
ernment. As leaders highlighted their move towards local politics as profound-
ly democratic, the LCY saw this question of political control as “one of the key
questions” regarding the socio-political system in Yugoslavia.22 While few in
the party doubted that they would not command authority at the local level,
most believed that reaching out to Yugoslavs on a grassroots level would yield
a boon to the never-ending reform movement.
Because the initial Yugoslav constitution and state apparatuses mirrored the
Soviet example, the criticisms raised by Yugoslav leaders such as Kardelj forced
LCY members to refashion completely their own system. Self-management
triggered the federal state into undertaking significant decentralization and
realizing a broad-based mechanism for making the Yugoslav system work

19  See Pierre Maurer, The Tito-Stalin Split in Historical Perspective, (Bradford: Postgraduate
School of Yugoslav Studies, University of Bradford, 1987), p. 15.
20  Tito in Ivo Lapenna, State and Law: Soviet and Yugoslav Theory, (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1964), p. 43.
21  Tito in Lapenna, State and Law, p. 42.
22  Veljko Vlahović in “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka predsednice Komisije CK SKJ za pi-
tanje društveno-političkih odnosa,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 28 December 1967, p. 26.
180 Chapter 5

long into the future. The party hierarchy retained great power, but virtually
the entire society could theoretically respond to local issues according to
local norms. Prior to these early reforms, the state was highly centralized and
ruled in strict accordance under the principles of the Communist Party. All
this began to change when the government ratified the Constitution Laws in
1953, making self-management a fundamental principle of Yugoslav socialism
as a means towards distinctive Yugoslav goals that operated under the guid-
ance of the LCY. Self-management did not discard the party—it still reigned
supreme—but decision-making dispersed and control from the center neces-
sarily weakened. Before such change could take place, further developments
regarding self-management needed reinforcement.
In the introduction to the 1963 Constitution, Kardelj noted the “right of
every people to self-determination, including the right to secession,” based
upon the tremendous “common struggle” during World War II—a significant
marker since the war was the foundation of Tito’s legitimacy; importantly, he
owed his power to his own movement’s success, not to anyone else. Moreover,
the constitution clarified that the unification of Yugoslavia was in accord with
the people’s “historical aspirations, aware that the further consolidation of
their brotherhood and unity” in the “common interest,” and would lead to a
realization of the desires “of each people and of all of them together.”23 These
“peoples” were seemingly “voluntarily united and equal” within this “socialist
democratic community based on the powers of the working people and on
self-government.”24 This description tied together Tito’s wartime exploits with
the idea that everybody in Yugoslavia was better off united and working togeth-
er than separated into competing nation-states. While self-management took
center stage in the unrelenting constitutional reform initiatives, the intention
to downplay nationalism was clear. A working class with communist aspira-
tions became the de facto center point of Yugoslav politics that represented
the ideal Yugoslav identity because Tito’s worldview should take precedence
over all other notions among the people. The leveling of peoples, in the ethnic
sense, to a “community of working people” in a broader sense, was also a delib-
erate tool used by the regime because according to the constitution, the work-
ing people commanded greater authority and transcended ethnic boundaries
to help build the Yugoslav nation. Yugoslav theorists also felt that in making
the party more in touch with the people, internal issues drifted to the margins.25

23  Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, (Beograd, 1963), pp. 3–4.
24  Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1963), p. 12.
25  The text of exactly what constituted self-management is important in understanding
this concept and is in Article 9 of the 1963 Constitution. See Constitution of the Socialist
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, pp. 13–14. “Self-management in the working organization
Tito ’ s Twilight 181

Despite this, even a progressive idea such as self-management, which gave peo-
ple the right to direct their working environment and positively affect change,
was subject to the whims of the party after they decided to “recognize when to
discuss” change and when to issue “polemics” to reform the system.26
In 1963, Kardelj had once again clarified for the Yugoslav community that
the main point of reform and progress rested with socialist self-management.
Self-management’s basics laid out in 1953 meant that people would work to
satisfy both the personal and common needs. The party’s role was to invigo-
rate people into this work and that meant continued development of socio-
political relations. As the prime mover and ideological guide inside Yugoslavia,
the party retained great importance and operated not as dogmatic police but
as a yardstick of progress, though, often, important people who strayed too far
faced removal or prison sentences.27 Veljko Vlahović, a member of the com-
mittee for socio-political relations, knew that “reform and reorganization of
the League of Communists” was crucial to the proper development of self-
management.28 Vlahović confidently went further to note just how the party
could achieve such results; they rested upon the “material situation” of peo-
ple, which had a “significant meaning” because without development in that
direction—for the “entire society”—the LCY would be at a grave disadvantage
and probably lean towards bureaucratization and centralization as instru-
ments of necessary repression.29 Tito had emphasized this path to prosperity
as a goal and the Yugoslav economy had grown relatively fast since the 1950s.
But the rhetoric needed to keep in line with reality and that, leaders feared,
was not happening rapidly enough.

shall include in particular the right and duty of the working people.… In attaining self-
government, the working people in the social-political communities shall decide on the
course of economic and social development, on the distribution of the social product,
and on the matters of common concern.… Any act violating the right to self-management
of the working people is unconstitutional.”
26  See Veljko Vlahović in “Stenografske beleške sa sednice Komišije CK SKJ za Informisanje,
13 September 1968,” AJ CK SKJ XXVI K.1 6, p. 38.
27  For example, Sabrina Ramet has noted in one of her latest works that the events of the
Croatian Spring caused “Tito’s response” to fire “liberal party leaders,” and that others re-
moved in 1972, like Nikezić, “was one of most fateful errors committed by Tito.” See Sabina
P. Ramet, Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918–2005, (Bloomington, IN:
Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2006), p. 5.
28  Veljko Vlahović in “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka predsednice Komisije CK SKJ za pi-
tanje društveno-političkih odnosa,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 28 December 1967, p. 24.
29  Veljko Vlahović in “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka predsednice Komisije CK SKJ za pi-
tanje društveno-političkih odnosa,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 28 December 1967, p. 26.
182 Chapter 5

Constitutional Reform in the 1970s

Leaders continued to discuss how the party could best reach people’s
needs and make Yugoslavia a more stable and prosperous place. While self-
management commanded primary value in 1963, the complementary policy of
decentralization of the state apparatuses continued. The host of amendments
that sprang forth in the later 1960s, and early 1970s, expressed the desire of
the regime to refashion the functioning and role of the state. In 1971, delibera-
tions began about writing a new constitution that would better clarify issues of
governance specific to the Yugoslav self-managing system and give even more
power to local and regional elites. Most importantly, this last Yugoslav consti-
tution served to establish how a post-Tito system would function. Based on
Tito’s conceptions of community, the Yugoslav Constitution of 1974 evolved
into a system where socialism and social progress were ostensibly inseparable
from equality, freedom, and a real promise of material satisfaction. Yugoslav
politicians recognized the kind of state needed to govern that community re-
quired “multinational, equal, self-managing, and cooperative federalism”—no
other framework would suffice.30 Some scholars have acknowledged this con-
stitution of 1974 was pivotal because it foreshadowed the dissolution of the
federation.31 While logic for dissolution seems to have strong roots in the de-
centralized mood of 1974, the tragedy of war in 1991 might have been avoidable.
Yet, reform in Yugoslavia clung to the ideology of Marxism and a single-party
governing structure. Revision, though, did allow for adaptations over time, but
did little else than serve the bureaucrats in Belgrade who saw merely a reform-
ist mindset as important.
The quest for popularity within Marxist-led regimes posed special problems
in part because none satisfied the materials demands of the people—includ-
ing Tito’s regime. Yugoslav party leaders vied for this popularity in other ways,
as we have seen with the granting to people a voice in their local affairs, with

30  Jovan Đorđević, in Constitution Makers on Constitution Making: The Experience of Eight
Nations, eds. Robert A. Goldwin, and Art Kaufman, (Washington, DC: American Enterprise
Institute for Public Policy Research, 1983), p. 204.
31  See Robert Hayden, The Beginning of the End of Federal Yugoslavia: The Slovenian
Amendment Crisis of 1989, (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1992), pp. 3–4. Here
Hayden claimed that the “‘Slovenian amendment crisis’ of 1989 [w]as the critical step in
the disintegration of federal Yugoslavia” (3). Basing this failure on the 1974 Constitution,
Hayden declared, “While the Yugoslav Constitution of 1974 was certainly unique, the is-
sues of federal structure raised by the failure of this constitutional order are general” (4);
also see Robert Hayden, Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the
Yugoslav Conflicts, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999).
Tito ’ s Twilight 183

a broad-based and successful foreign policy, and with a more inclusive role for
the armed forces. When each failed to produce lasting results, leaders turned
again to reforming their internal self-managing system and as a way to move
past unsuccessful rhetoric, they looked to constitutional law as a better way to
delineate the relationship between society and the withering away of the state.
Political leaders in Yugoslavia felt an especially urgent need to appeal to soci-
ety thanks to the convergence of their isolated position within the Cold War
world—particularly as nonalignment’s appeal decreased by the early 1970s—
and Tito’s reliance on his popular anti-fascist resistance movement rather than
through a Soviet-inspired or directed regime change.
Having begun the process of catering to the people with programs such as
self-management, Yugoslav politicians thought that they needed to refashion
constantly in response to the changes in society.32 Even after challenges to the
regime from inside, as in 1971 with the Croatian Spring, Tito eventually sided
with further reforms. Serbian party leader Marko Nikezić believed that the
evils of 1971 represented the “consequences of a long-lasting monopoly of the
top party and state leadership,” which, when placed with the overall “conser-
vatism,” combined as a recipe that highlighted the inability of leaders to fulfill
the country’s needs. Instead, he noted that the new policy must be in accor-
dance with and “approved by the masses of the people” in order to really affect
change.33 Just when some in the party thought decentralization and reform
had gone too far, leaders like Nikezić reemphasized it as a working policy be-
cause the Yugoslav experiment never seemed complete. Tito dismissed Nikezić,
though, and sided in the immediate term with party leader Stane Dolanc, who
attempted to refocus the debate onto bringing more people into line because it
was, for Dolanc, the unruly liberalism that had opened the regime to hostility.
The task for the Yugoslav leadership, according to Dolanc, was to bring the peo-
ple into the system first and only then proceed down the line of what Nikezić

32  See Valerie Bunce, in State-Society Relations in Yugoslavia, 1945–1992, eds. Melissa K.
Bokovoy, Jill A. Irvine, and Carol S. Lilly, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p. 347. Bunce
argued that such popular support explains one reason why Yugoslavia died in the violent
manner that it did. While it is logical to assume that popular support would afford the
regime freedom of movement, just the opposite was true because the state had to cater to
its relatively politicized populace for fear of constantly losing support and creating mini-
Titos—republican leaders who could wield local support and affect change. The need to
maintain not only a popular regime, but a popular federal government was the utmost
priority of the Yugoslav elites.
33  Marko Nikezić in William Zimmerman, Open Borders, Nonalignment, and the Political
Evolution of Yugoslavia, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 46.
184 Chapter 5

wanted.34 While this flexibility might have hampered Yugoslavia’s overall sur-
vivability, the continued quest, explained by Franc Hočevar of the committee
for the question of socio-political relations, as a question of “what must be
changed” to improve Yugoslav society—most especially, of course, the regime’s
status and ability to govern with the people, not against them.35
When deliberations for the new 1974 Constitution occurred, Yugoslavs em-
phasized the continued development of their government.36 As deliberations
occurred in the years prior about how best to realign the system according to
what the people wanted, the issue of openness arose. If the parliament was
open, Velimir Stojnić argued along with Hočevar, transparency will spread
“across the socio-political organizations” of Yugoslavia and bring about posi-
tive change.37 Committee chair Lazar Koliševski reaffirmed this lucidity as real
in Yugoslavia when he proudly boasted, “no longer do we have secrets in this
country, everyone knows that.”38 While contested views about just what to re-
form drove the LCY since the late 1960s, it was in the 1970s when these processes
were becoming reality. The party significantly reorganized the electoral system
in response to their desire to draw closer to the people of Yugoslavia and ally
them to the regime. Vladimir Mitkov argued that the electoral system needed
reform because it represented the “compromises” that the party had made
regarding the structure of society at the social, national, and public levels.39
Instead, Mitkov lobbied for solutions but not all people welcomed a change
despite the system’s limitations. Vladimir Bakarić argued that electoral reform
was not only unnecessary but also dangerous to the functioning of the state
until the people were ready. In anticipation of that time, any further moves
that emphasized decentralization might reawaken nationalist feelings accord-
ing to Bakarić and his supporters.40 The committee charged with undertaking
reform disagreed on principle with Bakarić. While some members agreed that

34  See Zimmerman, Open Borders, p. 47.

35  See Franc Hočevar in “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka predsednice Komisije CK SKJ za
pitanje društveno-političkih odnosa,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 28 December 1967, p. 9.
36  For example see Stipe Šuvar in Othmar Haberl, Parteiorganisation und die Nationale Frage
in Jugoslavien, (Berlin: Osteuropa-Institut, 1976), p. 145.
37  Velimir Stojnić in “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka predsednice Komisije CK SKJ za
pitanje društveno-političkih odnosa,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 28 December 1967, p. 7.
38  Lazar Koliševski in “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka predsednice Komisije CK SKJ za
pitanje društveno-političkih odnosa,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 28 December 1967, p. 43.
39  Vladimir Mitkov in “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka predsednice Komisije CK SKJ za
pitanje društveno-političkih odnosa,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 28 December 1967, p. 32.
40  See “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka predsednice Komisije CK SKJ za pitanje društveno-
političkih odnosa,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 28 December 1967, p. 2.
Tito ’ s Twilight 185

incorrect reform—or “radical reform”—would harm the system, all agreed

on the urgency of reform nonetheless.41 After all, proponents of reform still
pointed to continued evolution as the paramount feature of the system and,
therefore, could really “compliment and be a component” of the mechanism of
socialist self-management and help resolve any conflicts between Yugoslavia’s
peoples.42
One of the primary pieces of reform that the party functionaries examined
and discussed was how a multiparty system might operate in Yugoslavia while
retaining the guiding character of the LCY. Some members, such as Lazar
Koliševski, thought such a system workable because they could not foresee
how any non-LCY policies would be feasible. For Koliševski, “if an enemy, if
an opponent with a demagogic position appeared, the LCY would stand op-
posed and in struggle against demagoguery,” proving that not only could the
LCY implement positive reform programs and bring democracy—including
the principle of “rotation”—to the people, but, that at every stage of develop-
ment, the LCY was a self-fixing institution.43 Recognizing that leaders saw an
infallibility in the party is critical to understanding the direction that reform
took, yet also shows a unshakable confidence in the legitimacy of their rule in
Yugoslavia. All that mattered after that was convincing ordinary Yugoslavs to
understand the same truth.
When the 1974 Constitution finally came into being after more than two
years of deliberation among party members, it affected society in several key
areas including: Socio-economic relations and the system of self-management;
the communal and assembly systems; the functions of the federation; the
participation and direct responsibility of the republics and autonomous prov-
inces in the exercise of federal functions; and, finally, the judiciary and consti-
tutional courts.44 Constitution-makers sought to clearly outline the realities
of self-management, including the importance of abolishing “any kind of

41  Krsto Popivoda “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka predsednice Komisije CK SKJ za pi-
tanje društveno-političkih odnosa,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 28 December 1967, p. 21.
42  “Aktuelni problemi izbornog sistema i uloga društveno-političkih organizacija u izbor-
nom sistemu,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 1967, p. 2.
43  Lazar Koliševski “Stenografske beleške sa sastanka predsednice Komisije CK SKJ za
pitanje društveno-političkih odnosa,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 28 December 1967, p. 46;
“Aktuelni problemi izbornog sistema i uloga društveno-političkih organizacija u izbor-
nom sistemu,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 1967, p. 7.
44  The Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, (Ljubljana: Dopisna
Delavska Univerza, 1974), p. 8.
186 Chapter 5

monopoly—either private-capitalist or state—of the means of production.”45

Much as the prior constitution had solidified the role of the worker, the 1974
Constitution claimed outright that, “the socialist social system” of Yugoslavia
relied on the “power of the working class and all working people and on rela-
tions among people as free and equal producers and creators whose labour
serves exclusively for the satisfaction of their personal and common needs.”46
The League of Communists retained its status as the prime mover through
its guiding ideological and political action in order to safeguard and further
develop the socialist revolution and its results, but the emphasis on self-
management again secured a voice for the ordinary.47 Naturally, while de-
mocracy became a watchword for members of the party, the LCY was the only
recognized ideological leader and organization. Regarding the important
question of nationalism, the 1974 Constitution was clear in Article 170, which
stated that any form of national injustice or incitement of hatred was uncon-
stitutional and punishable by law—a pronouncement that only further exac-
erbated tensions during the 1980s.48
Having clarified issues regarding the entities comprising Yugoslavia, the 1974
Constitution renovated the political landscape by raising the status of Kosovo
to that of an autonomous province, giving the increasingly Albanian leader-
ship in Priština a louder voice in the federal system; with that, the unification
of peoples seemed complete and catered to both the dominant nations and
the biggest nationality groups. Each republic guaranteed its minorities—Serbs
in Croatia for instance—the same rights that they would enjoy if they were in
the majority.49 Including Kosovo fit within scheme—on the one hand help-
ing to protect the province’s Serbian minority, while on the other, giving a
voice to the Albanian majority at the federal level—and was a major step that
worked towards strengthening Tito’s legitimacy among all peoples, no matter

45  Mijalko Todorović in The Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, (1974),
p. 14.
46  The Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, (1974), p. 55.
47  The Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, (1974), p. 73.
48  The Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, (1974), pp. 176–77. “Citizens
shall be guaranteed the right to opt for a nation or nationality and to express their na-
tional culture, and also the right to the free use of their language and alphabet. No citizen
shall be obliged to state to which nation or nationality he belongs, nor to opt for any one
of the nations or nationalities. Propagating or practicing national inequality, and any in-
citement of national, racial or religious hatred and intolerance shall be unconstitutional
and punishable.”
49  For example, see Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Serbia, trans. Petar Mjušković,
(Beograd, 1964).
Tito ’ s Twilight 187

how they constructed their national identity. Moreover, to change the consti-
tution again, every republic needed to agree, which made further reform more
difficult. Leaders felt confident, though, and language in the 1974 Constitution
coincided with the general movement of state power away from the center to
elites on the local and republican levels as part of the broader effort to bring
government to the lowest levels and secure a faith and support in the regime
as a result.
A rotating presidency was the last significant issue raised by the 1974
Constitution. While Tito already ruled as president for life, the 1970s brought
about the urgency of a post-Tito scenario. Language in the 1974 Constitution
outlined Tito’s idea of a rotating presidency to include eight members who
alternated and shared power among themselves. Within this framework, issues
affecting the federation required consensus among all members and thus sup-
posedly guaranteed conflict resolution and reinforced cooperation between
peoples, because each republic or province possessed representation at the
presidency. So long as Tito lived, he would preside over the group and man-
age it according to his vision; but with his death, the rotating system would
ease the transition and perpetuate a system whereby nobody could wield total
control at the expense of others and repress any group according to individual
prerogative.

What Legal Reform Meant for Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia’s history is unique among the communist regimes of the time,
because a clear movement toward legality and rights built upon a constitu-
tional rhetoric already in place rather than a system of ignoring the law and
perpetuating arbitrary and unpopular rule. An early break with the Soviet
Union triggered the Yugoslav development of a Rechtstaat, though this pro-
cess itself was a slow evolution; early constitutions fortified public law as the
basis for a popular socialist commonwealth and with successive reform of self-
management, the foundation of law in Yugoslavia came closer to reality. This
process further severed ties with the Soviet Union and Soviet-dominated states
whose leaders sought roughly a long continuance of a dictatorship of the pro-
letariat, administrative rule by the party and its apparatuses, and the mainte-
nance of a strong-state system in place of a popular legitimacy.50 Titoist leaders

50  For a full treatment on this subject see Winston M. Fisk, “A Communist Rechtsstaat? The
Case of Yugoslav Constitutionalism,” in Leonard Shapiro, ed., Political Opposition in One-
Party States, (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1972), pp. 138–159 (Especially p. 139).
188 Chapter 5

repeatedly compared themselves to the Soviets and they recognized that the
Soviet parties “no longer represented the political organization of workers.”51
In contrast, Yugoslavia underwent many changes that freed the judiciary, made
the party’s role more in tune with changing ideological realities (adapted as
the reform process moved forward), and succeeded in making issues of law
more than just rhetoric. Because Yugoslav leaders favored an incremental
approach to change, the path towards decentralization, rule of law, and self-
management occurred alongside intricate debate and experimentation.
What sets each constitution apart in this respect was the manner in which
successive laws sought to decentralize and increase the power of local insti-
tutions. Looking at these constitutions shows how legal theory evolved from
something that at first sought to separate Tito’s state from Stalin’s in the wake
of 1948, to a system whose leaders developed it in earnest as a way to secure
their own legitimacy and recognition. Decentralization continually tried to
bring the power of the state onto the most local and direct levels to affect
change there in line with self-management and a desire for more popular
representation at each place in government. The federal apparatus, especially
after 1974, was to be the glue that kept the union together while allowing the
regional units—republics, provinces, and communes respectively—to operate
where they best serviced the people.52 But this move was not without contro-
versy. Some members of the central committee argued that the state was not
yet strong enough to allow for any thoroughgoing restructuring.
Deliberate rhetoric to downplay troubles and acclaim communist ac-
complishments existed throughout the Communist world—including in
Yugoslavia. Tito’s reliance on the famous brotherhood and unity slogan per-
sonified this rhetorical method to avoid answers with abstract concepts. While
overused by the regime, the idea of brotherhood and unity was part of a more
serious attempt to rein in any dominance by one group over another; almost
exclusively, Yugoslavs feared a Serbian predominance in Yugoslavia and tried
to avoid such a situation, resulting in what became a divisive nationalism
­policy.53 The experience in Karin Donji in 1971 showed how the regime dealt
with nationalism—it avoided recognition of inter-ethnic tensions and instead

51  “Razlika između statute KPJ i statuta SKP (b),” AJ IX 119, I K.2 45–90, folder 90.
52  See Vladimir Bakarić in Ustavna Reforma: Saopćenja sa kolokvija na pravnom fakultetu u
Zagrebu, (Zagreb: Centar za aktualni politički studij, 1971), p. 8. Here Bakarić explained the
functions of the federation and how it relates to other questions like those of economics.
53  See Hondius, The Yugoslav Community of Nations, p. 149. He noted that Serbia covered
thirty-four percent of all territory while the Serbian population was forty-three percent of
the total population.
Tito ’ s Twilight 189

pushed the idea of anti-regime forces coupled with punishments meted

out to all ethnic groups involved as a way to quiet any potential opposition.
Nonetheless, while the results may have actually provoked inter-ethnic dis-
trust among Yugoslavs, governing elites understood the benefits of showing
impartiality among all groups.
True ethnic equality also stands out as one of the major differences between
the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia—Russians dominated the USSR and, at times,
followed deliberate polices of Russification whereas the Yugoslavs sought to
realize a more realistic balance between ethnic groups.54 Only towards the
end of Yugoslavia, and, especially after its demise, did a virulent Serbian cause
manifest itself, but in a profoundly exclusivist manner and in a shrunken po-
litical entity. Any attempt by a group to control or alter the identity of another
group could not happen in Tito’s Yugoslavia, according to the guarantees of
the constitution and the precedent of reform that centered on securing a vi-
able and constructive legitimacy for the system. No one mentioned Serbs as a
special group; moreover, Tito splintered the Serbian republic into a rump state
with two autonomous provinces. As a result, all peoples supposedly shared the
same rights and freedoms in Yugoslavia—even non-Slavs such as the Albanian,
Hungarian, Italian, and Romanian minorities.
Finally, the role of the party in this movement towards the legal notion of
legitimacy demands mention. State leaders had tried ever since the break with
Stalin to show how rooted their system was in the peculiar Yugoslav experience.
The focus on stalwart independence in the face of a dominant foreign oppres-
sor did not begin with Tito’s resistance after 1948. Serbian folklore emphasizing
the Battle of Kosovo where Tsar Lazar chose the heavenly kingdom—death
and honor—instead of an earthly kingdom marked by servitude and prostra-
tion to the Ottoman sultan. More modern notions of Slavic resistance to the
Austro-Hungarian ultimatum in summer 1914 inspired Yugoslavs of all stripes,
despite the potential victimization that might result. Showing an earnest desire
for unity in purpose—in Tito’s case, the construction of Marxism—furthered
along ideas of the real and imagined bonds between the Yugoslav peoples and
added to his legitimate claim of power.
Tito’s emphasis on self-management also compelled him to make the rule of
law in Yugoslav another pillar holding up his system. Even with decentraliza-
tion, the LCY’s role increased with an eye towards emphasizing commonality

54  For an example of the Soviet case see Eric D. Weitz, “Racial Politics Without the Concept
of Race: Reevaluating Soviet Ethnic and National Purges,” Slavic Review 61:1 (Spring 2002),
pp. 1–29.
190 Chapter 5

and inclusiveness rather than competition and hatred.55 While the commu-
nists lost power at the federal level, thanks to decentralization, they retained
the monopoly over ideological issues and maintained prominence in creat-
ing and shaping foreign policy. As the party devolved power to the republic-
based parties where politicians had widespread support, it became clear by
the 1970s that a regional party position was more important than a federal one
and a regional career yielded greater influence. The introduction of the 1963
Constitution provides a good summary of the party’s important socio-political
role throughout the entire Titoist period. “Under the conditions of the socialist
democracy and social self-government,” it was the job of the LCY, because of
“its guiding ideological and political work,” to work to “protect and to promote
the achievements of the Socialist Revolution and socialist social relations, and
especially, to strengthen the socialist social and democratic consciousness of
the people.”56 Framers who designed the system to guide thought that with
greater decentralization, the more people would see the benefits of the system
and appreciate the intimacy of Yugoslav governance.
As the so-called prime movers in Yugoslav politics, members of the League
of Communists desired that all citizens understand and work for the system,
but they had a fundamental problem in trying to control people and make
them understand the nature of the correct path towards communism. The LCY
recognized this intense pressure and tried to emphasize its message among
new generations of Yugoslavs. As early as 1958, Yugoslav leaders recognized a
lack of enthusiasm among the youth compared with those communists and
non-communists alike who survived the brutality of World War II. During 1971,
Yugoslavs noted how the “young people” had begun to feel “cheated” and ex-
perienced a “complete loss of confidence” in the ruling elite.57 Milovan Đilas
confided to a source for the CIA in 1961 that he felt that Yugoslavia was beset
by “real political stagnation,” and that “the young generation doesn’t care
about slogans, the party or doctrine.” Young people wanted more “economic

55  See Program Saveza Komunista Jugoslavije: Usvojen na sednom kongresu saveza komuni-
sta Jugoslavije, (Beograd: Komunist, 1962), pp. 201–202. “The League of Communists of
Yugoslavia is the organization of political force of the working classes and the working
people of Yugoslavia … The League of the Communists of Yugoslavia is with her own ac-
tivities operating the scientific theory of socialism … For the conveyance in life of our own
line, the League of Communists works towards political and ideological activities in our
regions of social-political life and in social organizations, organs, and institutions.”
56  See Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of  Yugoslavia, (1963), pp. 9–10.
57  See Slobodan Stankovic, “Yugoslavia’s Students: Their Successes and Failures,” 9 December
1971, Radio Free Europe Research, HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI CO, cn. 95.
Tito ’ s Twilight 191

development” because “the Americans are the real hope of the world.”58 With
the worsening of economic issues, a significant strain on the leaders’ self-
confidence also hampered progress and emphasized the kind of political stag-
nation that Đilas had mentioned at the dawn of the 1960s.59 Nonetheless, top
Yugoslav political thinkers such as Edvard Kardelj continued to refashion com-
munism as a working ideology in Yugoslavia to meet new realities, but the most
pressing reality was this disappointment in the party at combating economic
hardship. Yugoslav leaders noted in a meeting from 1968 that it was imperative
for the young people to mobilize alongside members of the LCY because,
“every house, every family in Yugoslavia must return to political thought and
political sense.”60
Towards reforming the state through the party, leaders established several
commissions to work out solutions to their most critical problems. One such
committee chairman, Albreht Roman of the Committee for Socio-Political
System and International Relations, verified the power of the constitution as
one of the fundamental cells of the entire political system and government.61
To buttress the constitutional works, the various LCY committees worked to
form “new institutions” that would aid in the functioning of the federation and
“profoundly influence” the socio-political system.62 The committee deliber-
ated over what influence it might exert and if there was a challenge to the
regime. National identity took precedence in relation to “our political interest”;
Fuad Muhić declared that it was a “problem of togetherness which in some in-
terpretations” pointed to “one multinational structure,” the creation of which
could yield a more united populace willing to follow the LCY.63 Creating that
single multiethnic unit was fraught with danger, though.
Foreign observers noticed how young people clung to the latest trends
and styles popular in the West, and how—particularly at universities—“the
slogans and speeches” praising communism fell on deaf ears.64 As the late

58  Central Intelligence Agency, “Some Recent Opinions of Milovan Djilas,” 7 September 1961.
59  Robert C. McFarlane, “Visit of Yugoslav President Mika Spiljak,” White House Memo,
30 January 1984.
60  See “Stenografske beleške sa sednice Komišije CK SKJ za Informisanje, 13 September
1968,” AJ CK SKJ XXVI K.1 6, p. 66.
61  Albreht Roman in “Magnetofonske beleške na sednici Komisije za društveno-politički
sistem i međunacionalne odnose, 10 February 1975,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII E K.1 1, p. 4.
62  Mugbil Bejzat in “Magnetofonske beleške na sednici Komisije za društveno-politički
sistem i međunacionalne odnose, 10 February 1975,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII E K.1 1, p. 18.
63  Fuad Muhić in “Magnetofonske beleške na sednici Komisije za društveno-politički sistem
i međunacionalne odnose, 10 February 1975,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII E K.1 1, p. 32.
64  See Elie Abel, “Young Yugoslavs Get Work Project,” New York Times, 8 February 1958, p. 3.
192 Chapter 5

1960s and early 1970s again brought challenges for Tito’s project in both the do-
mestic and international arenas, the LCY looked with renewed vigor at fixing
itself because its leaders feared collapse. The logical result was that the party
looked to where it was most successful and influential—the Yugoslav People’s
Army (JNA).
As the Yugoslav state decentralized with each successive constitution in line
with its ideology of communism, the most important state organ was recen-
tralizing. Because of fears following the Brezhnev Doctrine and an aggressive
Soviet position, the army succumbed to the reality of squaring off against the
Red Army and accepted the de facto predominance of the regionally based
Territorial Defense Forces (TDF). But, after 1971, the army leadership man-
aged to gain ground and recentralize because it argued that the people were
not yet ready to accept the full responsibilities of national defense. This drive
by army leaders also neglected the mantra of Yugoslav politics—that is, self-
management. Recentralization continued as a trend until the final months of
Yugoslavia’s existence, when the army even took it upon itself to prepare cau-
tiously for inter-republic fighting.65 In the 1980s, the army high command had
begun a series of reorganization plans named Jedinstvo or unity. These opera-
tions re-allocated military forces to the re-drawn districts to the disadvantage of
Slovenia and Croatia—republics that many Yugoslav political managers feared
would attempt to find leverage for more autonomy within—or, outside of—
the state’s framework. The army’s own ethnic imbalance might have played
a role in this phenomenon having fit within the greater trend of a Serbian
dominance of the armed forces and the mistrust of potential separatists.66
Army leaders sought to control the TDF and ensure the hegemony of the JNA
within the federal state, according to the strict rules of and in the name of
the LCY—the same LCY that operated towards decentralization and self-
management in civil society. As the final opportunity under Tito’s guiding hand
to clarify the state and its communist goals for society, though, his system—as
laid out in 1974—ultimately rested on the situation outside of Yugoslavia and
the relations between the superpower blocs.

65  For more see Davor Marijan, “‘Jedinstvo’—posljednji ustroj JNA”, Polemos: Časopis za
interdisciplinarna istraživanja rata i mira 6:1–2 (January–June 2003), pp. 11–47.
66  See Robert Niebuhr, “Death of the Yugoslav People’s Army and the Wars of Succession,”
Polemos: Časopis za interdisciplinarna istraživanja rata i mira 7:13–14 (December 2004),
pp. 91–107.
Tito ’ s Twilight 193

Part II: International Security in the Post-1968 World

Long before Chancellor Willy Brandy of Germany unveiled his Ostpolitik in the
1960s—engagement with the Soviets and East Germans as part of an Eastern
Policy—and before a mood of détente in the early 1970s brought about the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), the Soviets, like
the Yugoslavs, strove for international recognition. Soviet actions against
Czechoslovakia in 1968 questioned the legitimacy emanating from the Kremlin
and placed the Soviet Union in a delicate international position. Repression
during the Prague Spring brought criticism from the nearby Yugoslavs and
made the Chinese increasingly wary of their northern neighbor even more
than before, fueling even greater hostility against Moscow.67 Taking advantage
of this rift, the shrewd politics of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon forced the
hand of the Soviets in foreign policy and reignited fears of isolation and war.
With a new China policy, Nixon took advantage of this fissure within the com-
munist world and brought the Soviets back onto the defensive despite their
impressive gains in nuclear weapons and growing presence throughout the
world. A renewal of Realpolitik between the two superpowers—or three, keep-
ing in mind the power of the Chinese—served to alter dramatically the mood
in international relations.
Soviet leaders had asked as early as 1954 for an international conference
that would solidify the borders of Europe and finalize the division of Europe
into the two zones of authority.68 Kremlin elites saw such an affirmation of
their rule as necessary in light of the internal unrest in many of the Eastern
bloc countries. But neither the United States nor its Western partners took
the Soviet overtures at face value and distrusted the intentions of securing the
Soviets a guarantee of authority from East Germany to Bulgaria. That these
Soviet objectives came to fruition much later appropriately falls under the
scheme of linkage among American leaders.69 With a slow American with-
drawal from Vietnam, Kissinger sought to normalize relations with China and
then approach the Soviets about disarmament, détente, and press them for
concessions as part of the later CSCE agreement. Kissinger’s policies took time,
but by the 1972–3, the pressure was significant enough to press for a European

67  M.E. Sarotte, Dealing with Devil, (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press,
2001), p. 21.
68  For more, see Janie Leatherman, From Cold War to Democratic Peace: Third Parties,
Peaceful Change, and the OSCE, (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2003), p. 50.
69  See L. Larry Pullen, Christian Ethics and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Helsinki Accords and
Human Rights, (New York: Lexington Books, 2000), p. 11.
194 Chapter 5

agreement. Emphasizing the peaceful settlement of disputes, nonintervention

in internal affairs, respect for human rights, and fundamental freedoms—laid
out by the Americans as freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief—
coupled with self-determination, the CSCE had a fundamental impact for both
states and individuals.70 While Kissinger brought the Soviets into dialogue
thanks to events in Asia, what moved forward as détente gave the leaders in
Moscow comfort in knowing that the Americans were recognizing their rights
in Europe. The key to Europe, though, waited in Berlin.
As soon as Brandt expressed his notion of Ostpolitik, he effectively opened
up dialogue between the two German states and dangled the idea of rap-
prochement in a larger sense because his policies worked to solve the German
problem, recognized by most Europeans and understood by scholar John
Freeman as the “focus of incipient East-West military conflict.”71 A solution to
the German problem came true with Helsinki on the larger state level but it
opened up new avenues for discord on a lower level.
When it came time to reassess progress of the Helsinki Accords in 1977, then
U.S. national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski saw the broader process of
détente as “inevitably challenging Soviet control of Eastern Europe”; as such,
any move that drove apart East Europeans from the Soviet Union worked to
benefit the United States.72 What seems to have worked at influencing this—as
well as tying directly into the German problem—was the force of national-
ism in this process. Why else would East German ruler Erich Honecker have
sought to curb interaction between East and West Germans “envisioned in the
Basic Treaty,” of the Helsinki Accords?73 It was clear that the artificial divide of
Germany—a divide that separated peoples within other East European coun-
tries as well—drew the scorn of average folks; in 1963, lines of West Germans,
730,00 of them, formed for a Christmas pass to visit relatives and friends in East
Germany and showed that interaction was paramount in solving the two-state
dilemma.74 Ostpolitik, as engendered by Brandt, had served to normalize the
relations and paved the way for Helsinki, but Brandt’s policies always pointed

70  Pullen, Christian Ethics, p. 26.

71  John Freeman, Security and the CSCE Process: The Stockholm Conference and Beyond,
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), p. 21.
72  Leatherman, From Cold War, p. 173; See also Mitrovich, Undermining the Kremlin.
73  See Thomas Banchoff, The German Problem Transformed: Institutions, Politics, and Foreign
Policy, 1945–1995, (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999), p. 65.
74  See M.E. Sarrotte, “The Frailties of Grand Strategy: A Comparison of Détente and
Ostpolitik,” in Fredik Logevall and Andrew Preston eds., Nixon in the World: American
Foreign Relations, 1969–1977, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 148.
Tito ’ s Twilight 195

importantly to the “emigration rights” for the nearly 2 million “Germans liv-
ing in the Soviet Union.”75 Emigration rights had the clear potential to disrupt
the entire Eastern bloc and prove the illegitimacy of all the regimes as people
voted with their feet.
While Yugoslav leaders influenced little in this larger peace process, they did
have a lot at stake regarding the outcomes and this machination of interna-
tional law greatly affected how things like nationalism would influence policy.
One of the most important aspects of Yugoslavia’s foreign policy for leaders
in Belgrade was that they considered the unity of their country to be a key
element in European security. The Cold War system had made a European
conflict—any conflict—potentially earth shattering and Yugoslavs knew that
no matter what side they chose, if any, they would suffer devastation. Central
to avoiding this devastation was solving the German question and to that end,
Tito told Khrushchev in 1955 that he believed “the question of resolving the
German question is closely bound with the question of European security at
the same time.”76 While Tito, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev all recognized the
centrality of solving the status of Germany in order to achieve a lasting peace,
they also knew that more was at stake. Party leaders understood their limita-
tions but still acted with caution regarding the enforcement of the Brezhnev
Doctrine; LCY executive bureau member Stane Dolanc stressed that “the whole
world would see it in a positive light if Brezhnev won’t enforce his doctrine on
Yugoslavia.” Soviet intentions on the German problem were quite serious and
Dolanc saw Brezhnev’s 1971 visit to Yugoslavia as part of the larger European
security problem.77 Indeed, interactions with outsiders like the Soviets gave
Yugoslav leaders more cause for concern at home because they feared inter-
vention. Yugoslavia’s relationship with the two German states did not help
matters either. While recognition of East Germany came late after intense
prodding by Khrushchev, Tito owed a considerable debt to the West German
economic miracle. Not only were the West Germans able to pay reparations,
but hordes of Yugoslav workers took part in rebuilding West Germany and, as
a result, sent home prodigious amounts of hard currency and alleviated un-
employment problems inside Yugoslavia. In the larger sense, Tito’s particular
dilemma recognizing both German states while the superpowers haggled over

75  See Avril Pittman, From Ostpolitik to Reunification: West German–Soviet Political Relations
Since 1974, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 13, 16.
76  See “Fragmenti,” AJ CK IX 119/I K.2 45–90, folder 56.
77  Stane Dolanc in “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ IV
K.7 7, 1971, p. 96.
196 Chapter 5

some sort of finality of the German problem paralleled his larger foreign policy
dilemma as it dealt with nonalignment.78
By the early 1970s, the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia had stirred
Europe and given a renewed sense of urgency to Tito for a strong security re-
gime against external threats. This was part of the realization not just of the
vulnerabilities of mounting an adequate defense against the Soviets, but more-
over, part of an understanding of the critical strategic position of Yugoslavia.
The 1970s opened the way for increased intervention in the Third World by the
Soviet Union, the United States, and China. Chinese influence made its pres-
ence known throughout Asia, in far-away Africa, and among Tito’s estranged
Albanian neighbors. Because of the delicate situation in the nearby Middle
East thanks to hostility against the existence and practices of the Israeli state,
combined with the global realization of oil as a strategic commodity, the Cold
War superpowers assigned the region great importance. Nijaz Dizdarević ex-
pressed his understanding of the heightened Soviet interest in the Balkans as a
product of the “geo-strategic position of the region” and any dramatic change
in Yugoslavia, in particular, was an invitation for Soviet aggression. Dizdarević
understood that during the events of the Croatian Spring in 1971, the Soviets
looked at how best they could benefit by a weakened Yugoslavia; after all, “they
have their own interests in our internal situation.”79
For the members of the party hierarchy, Yugoslavia represented a pillar of
resistance against Soviet designs on the Middle East. While Stane Dolanc and
the rest of the executive bureau of the LCY’s Presidium debated the official lan-
guage to use to describe Brezhnev’s impending visit to Belgrade in 1971, in the
end, they pointed out, “Brezhnev’s visit was part of an intensive foreign-policy
activity on the part of the USSR, which Brezhnev characterized as an execu-
tive ‘program for peace.’”80 This program of peace, though, came at a sensitive
time for the Yugoslavs. With external pressure still visible after Czechoslovakia
among certain army and party elites combined with the student protests at
major Yugoslav universities, and nationalist-driven riots in Croatia, the LCY de-
cided that it must reinforce the idea that “the existence of Socialist Yugoslavia
is in the interests” of all of Europe, because, “as the key to the Balkans” and
as part of the European peace process, Yugoslavia must remain strong and

78  See “Tito Between Two Germanies,” 19 January 1957. HU OSA 300-8-3 RRFE/RLRI, cn. 121.
79  Nijaz Dizdarević in “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ
IV K.7 7, 1971, p. 2.
80  “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ IV K.7 7, 1971, p. 23.
Tito ’ s Twilight 197

intact.81 Dizdarević stressed that the talks during the visit gave a critical op-
portunity to emphasize how stability in the Balkans represented an “integral
part of the course” shaping the eventual settlement of security and peace in
Europe.82 Stevan Doronjski added, “in this process, Yugoslavia serves to stabi-
lize relations in the Balkans”; Dizdarević returned promptly by reaffirming his
fear of upsetting the “status quo of Europe.”83
Part of Brezhnev’s 1971 visit meant that a new round of talks occurred re-
garding the questions of Yugoslavia’s place in Europe and the future develop-
ment of Soviet–Yugoslav relations. While relations between the two countries
naturally suffered after Czechoslovakia, the Yugoslavs clearly wanted another
vindication of sovereignty and the notion of separate paths. For these reasons,
the executive bureau had worked hard to figure out what the proper course
for the meetings should take. Buda Šoškić argued, “we would have success if
they affirm the position of socialist Yugoslavia as an independent, nonaligned
country on a unique path towards building socialism.”84 Brezhnev essential-
ly made little news to stir up relations and in fact had prompted too much
worrisome behavior on the part of Yugoslav leaders, they themselves craving
support as events in Croatia had reached crisis level. Recognition of nonalign-
ment as a primary mover in this process also gave the party leaders a chance
to reflect on the differences between the two systems. Dizdarević returned to
the issue of Yugoslavia’s internal stability and delineated how the two systems
are different: “we have our system and they have their own system.” What set
Yugoslavia apart was that the LCY proceeded from the “people’s nonalign-
ment” and, therefore, acted in a more democratic way—supposedly always
resting on transparency and openness.85 Speaking more broadly, Dizdarević
confirmed the non-bloc component of the LCY’s view towards security in
Europe and saw that role as critical to acting as a sort of honest broker between
all sides.86 Brezhnev, though, cared little for Yugoslavia’s role as an honest

81  Budislav Čošrić in “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ
IV K.7 7, 1971, p. 28.
82  Dizdarević in “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ IV K.7
7, 1971, p. 29.
83  Stevan Doronjski and Nijaz Dizdarević in “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka
Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ IV K.7 7, 1971, p. 29.
84  Buda Šoškić in “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ IV
K.7 7, 1971, p. 45.
85  Nijaz Dizdarević in “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ
IV K.7 7, 1971, p. 60–61.
86  Nijaz Dizdarević in “Magnetofonske beleške i materijal sastanka Izvršnog bira,” AJ CK SKJ
IV K.7 7, 1971, p. 63.
198 Chapter 5

broker and had a greater international goal in mind with his visit. Even the
New York Times reporter Alfred Friendly, Jr., present in Belgrade during the
meetings, noted, “behind the Soviet smiles,” the Yugoslavs see “only Moscow’s
tactics in pursuing its policy of détente with the West.”87 Détente with the West
and its result several years later with the Helsinki Accords, of course, became
a priority for the Kremlin as continued problems with Chinese leaders set the
stage for a potential American–Chinese rapprochement. Brezhnev too was
grateful for external recognition and positive publicity—especially from Tito,
the heretic—in the wake of his crackdown against Czechoslovakia.

In the Middle
What kept Tito and his comrades edgy and fearful, even worrying about
Brezhnev’s intentions in 1971, was their perception of internal disruptions.
Despite all of the rhetoric and the real progress from reforms, people still
voiced displeasure and opposition to the regime; this was clear during the
Croatian Spring on both the broader level and in villages like Karin Donji. Tito
made it his first priority to continue forward with reform of the constitution to
better the roles and rights of citizens and the government; importantly, he also
took the opportunity to use the police to quiet adversaries.
The Yugoslav security service (UDB-a) ensured that political enemies of all
sorts were kept under control, but repression by Tito’s forces generally was
intermittent because it generally reacted to threats both in and outside the
LCY. A crisis would arise because of a problematic publication, a dangerous
protest, or series of riots prompting Tito to respond by ordering the removal
of these people from the spotlight. Such vicissitudes symbolized Tito’s tenure
as Yugoslavia’s leader—whether it was relations with the United States or the
Soviet Union, treatment (negative or positive) of ethnic groups, or with real
or imagined opponents—Tito’s state alternated between carrot and stick in
line with Crvenkovski’s analysis of how power and fear intersected among
Belgrade’s elite. During the first half of the 1970s, Tito and Brezhnev enjoyed
amicable relations, but the second half became problematic. Tito lashed out
rather irrationally with infuriated rage when the Soviets celebrated thirty
years of peace after World War II and ignored the Yugoslav theater of opera-
tions. While no more than symbolic, the outrage shown by Tito represented
how even minor issues potentially worried Yugoslav leaders, as they feared a

87  
Alfred Friendly, Jr., “Yugoslavs Speculate on What Soviet Wants,” New York Times,
23 September 1971, p. 16.
Tito ’ s Twilight 199

discredited legitimacy from any actor, domestic or foreign. Tito mocked the
Soviet presence in Eastern Europe as a series of “too heavy interferences in the
communist countries” that, “can no longer be considered as ‘liberating.’”88 As a
result, the Soviets officially apologized and the issue subsided.
Merely a year later after the Soviet apology, Brezhnev again visited Yugoslavia
and the results of this encounter epitomized Tito’s characteristic shifting.
Brezhnev had requested a Soviet naval base on the Adriatic but Tito vehe-
mently denied the Soviets access to Yugoslav ports. Meanwhile, Tito ordered
UDB-a officers to track down and arrest or harass people associated with fringe
groups who might possibly ally with Moscow in any fight against Tito; namely,
Cominformists, Croatian nationalists, Serbian army officers, and Macedonian
irredentists.89
Despite such whimsical and irrational use of police power, Tito’s state did
try to emphasize positive ideal. The number of incarcerated dissidents or polit-
ical enemies fluctuated during the entirety of Titoist Yugoslavia, but when the
focus on human rights came to Belgrade in 1977—in a scheduled analysis of
the Helsinki Accords—Tito surrendered to pressure and released over 200 pris-
oners in a general amnesty.90 But this fact did not discolor his standing either
at home or abroad; Tito in fact, remained “very popular” in Europe because of
his independent position between NATO and the Warsaw Pact and his stance
on nonalignment.91 Popularity among statesmen abroad naturally buoyed his
position internally and countered any small to moderate level of police perse-
cution. American diplomats hoped to set “higher standards” for human rights
and take the lead at the Belgrade Conference in 1977 through cooperation with
the nonaligned countries.92 Yugoslavs continued to cherish the foreign-policy
spectacle and it use the changes in international law to their advantage: Borba,
the Yugoslav daily, unjustifiably argued in 1971, partly because of the recent
Croatian Spring, that because of Yugoslavia’s “great international prestige,”
through nonalignment, diplomats safeguarded independence. Nonalignment,
even after it had largely moved beyond Tito’s goals, still represented for the

88  “Soviet Union Admits Yugoslavia Freed Itself on Its Own of the Nazi-Fascists,” Radio Free
Europe, 11 April 1975. HU OSA 205-4-80 YSF RFE/RL PFRUSSR75, cn. 21.
89  Paul Hofmann, “Yugoslavia Squelches Its Own Dissidents,” New York Times, 26 June 1977,
p. 130.
90  See Mihajlo Mihajlov, “Rights Come First,” New York Times, 8 April 1978, p. 23.
91  Joseph Luns, NATO General Secretary, in “Luns Statement on Disarmament and Security
Conference,” CMD, 13 November 1971, HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NATO 67–72, cn. 283.
92  “Summary of Conclusions,” Policy Review Committee Meeting, 23 August 1977. Carter
Library.
200 Chapter 5

Yugoslav press a tangible international legitimacy that remained an attractive

means to support the regime.93
One thing, though, that emerged from nonalignment’s rhetoric and carried
over to larger international venues such as the Helsinki Conference was the
issue of sovereignty. When Brezhnev spearheaded the Warsaw Pact’s interven-
tion in Czechoslovakia, he meddled in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation,
a nation recognized by both East and West. Yugoslavs everywhere cried that
the invasion “raised onto the level of a doctrine governing the relations among
socialist countries” and threatened world peace. Proof no sooner came when
NATO met in November 1968, and issued explicit warnings, determined to un-
dertake certain military measures to enhance readiness among its members.
Večernje Novosti, a Yugoslav daily, mocked the surprise of Warsaw Pact coun-
tries following the Czechoslovak invasion by insisting that it would have been
“unbelievable” for the “authors of the military occupation of Czechoslovakia”
to have had any illusions that their actions of 1968 would not heighten tensions
in Europe.94 While the Yugoslavs feared the destabilizing aspects of Soviet in-
tervention, both blocs also recognized that it was in everyone’s interest to reaf-
firm the forces of stability. Hinting at where this logic would follow, Secretary of
State Dean Rusk had commented in 1968, that “it is impossible for us not to be
concerned about what happens to the national independence and sovereignty
and integrity” of all European countries.95 Cooperation between the Soviet
Union and the United States in the legal realm soon emerged as the path to
restore confidence in peace and cooperation. While the Yugoslavs emphasized
respect for the Charter of the United Nations (UN), including independence
and sovereignty of all countries and the banishment of force in international
relations, the superpowers also had such ideals on their front burners.96
When the United States and Soviet Union agreed on the terms for a European
summit to ease tensions and reaffirm the territorial status quo, the Western
negotiators—chief among them Secretary of State Henry Kissinger—success-
fully lobbied for a so-called third basket consisting of human rights and a free-
dom of movement for all people. Subsequent meetings in Helsinki outlined

93  Milika Sundić, 3 February 1972, from Radio Zagreb, “Washington Speaks Through Luns,”
HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NATO 67–72, cn. 283.
94  “We are Not on the Moon,” Večernje Novosti, 25 November 1968, p. 2. HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI
NATO 67–72, cn. 283.
95  Secretary of State Dean Rusk in “NATO Commitment Does Not Cover Rumania,
Yugoslavia,” UPI, 1 December 1968, HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NATO 67–72, cn. 283.
96  “Yugoslavia’s Independence ‘Gives Stability,’” CMD, 28 November 1968, HU OSA 300-10-2
YSFI NATO 67–72, cn. 283.
Tito ’ s Twilight 201

a broad plan that gave the Soviets the commitment by the West to uphold in
international law the contentious borders created following Nazi Germany’s
defeat in 1945. Furthermore, the summit attempted to ease tense relations
and succeeded in reinforcing the prevailing mood of détente. Such an inter-
national situation drew support from European political leaders because no
revisions could be made to existing borders and, with that, ideas of sovereignty
and the call for non-intervention were solidified as universal—no longer the
exclusive domain of Tito’s nonalignment. Issues of human rights remained less
important for all parties concerned at Helsinki, but with a relative success in
the first two arenas, human rights violations became the focus of the Belgrade
Conference in 1977.

Helsinki and Beyond

With the policy of détente, relations normalized between East and West,
especially after the global ramifications of America’s new China policy; as
a result, both sides benefited from a renewed call for peace. Tito could also
breathe easier as the heightened Soviet threat since 1968 seemed over with
the agreement at Helsinki. While European leaders could relax and enjoy
moments of calm, an issue of contention born at Helsinki increasingly grew
important. Admittedly, not a critical priority at the Helsinki meetings, issues
of human rights and the free movement of people became talking points for
the American and West European negotiating team. Nationalism dominated
the logic behind this entire issue; whether people in Eastern Europe desired a
unique approach—such as “socialism with a human face” in Czechoslovakia—
or how the West envisioned the free movement of peoples.97 Part of this
rhetoric that inspired Western diplomats to seek freedom for people to trav-
el rested with the German problem.98 In an artificially divided nation after
World War II, many German families remained stranded from kin networks
without the opportunity for reunion. The onus mainly rested on Germans in
the Democratic Republic of Germany (DDR) because not only did the Federal
Republic (BRD) consider all Germans as BRD citizens, but also because the
DDR could not trust that its people would return home if allowed to venture to
the West. This also applied to ethnic Germans living in the Soviet Union who
wished to emigrate to the BRD. Moreover, Western views held that Jews from

97  See Lewis, “Many Poles Say,” New York Times, p. 8.

98  See R.W. Apple Jr., “Allies Warn Soviet Against Imperiling Security of Berlin,” New York
Times, 10 May 1977, p. 69.
202 Chapter 5

the Soviet Union should have permission to emigrate to Israel or the United
States, but other problematic issues over ethnic identity could have potentially
upset the peace if this logic extended to its logical conclusions. Hungarians liv-
ing mainly in the Slovakia and in Romania, and Germans in Romania, all com-
plicated the issue of where people belonged and thereby directly threatened
the working logic of communism—as the ideology that stated a resolution for
all ethnic problems. Tito outlined the importance of nationalism with regard
to the Helsinki Accords: “national minorities must not be misused for disturb-
ing good-neighbourly relations”; moreover, Tito saw the dangers inherent with
the Third Basket, because, “any idea of forcibly moving state frontiers for the
purpose of settling minority questions” was alien to his country’s ideology.99
A logic that involved the movement of peoples could only further aggravate
nationalism in Yugoslavia if minorities such as Hungarians voiced demands
for union with Hungary and compromised cooperation with their neighboring
Croats and Serbs, themselves subject to living in heterogeneous communities.
At Helsinki, the Soviet Union accepted this idea of human rights as encom-
passing the freedom to choose a place of residence, but, by 1977, the leaders
in Eastern Europe argued that human rights, as emphasized in the Helsinki
Accords, contradicted the ban—as laid out in the same document—on inter-
ference in the internal affairs of any other nation. A communiqué following a
meeting in Sofia, in 1977 leveled criticism against the “imperialist circles” in the
West who were merely using human rights as a vehicle to undermine the re-
gimes and systems in Eastern Europe.100 Soviet agents followed up soon after,
by defining what “human rights” really meant and determined that the right
to work, free medical care, free education, and old-age pensions were critical.
None of these existed in the capitalist West, where a “tiny clique” supposedly
reaped “huge profits” and wielded “enormous power” as part of the larger “in-
ferno for the working class.”101
Western leaders naturally disagreed. Belgrade, though, once again became
a center for international activity, as the Helsinki Accords underwent review
in 1977, by a multinational delegation in the Yugoslav capital. This would be
Yugoslavia’s last major international event until 1980, when Tito died and fu-
neral services drew hundreds of world leaders for mourning. When Secretary
of State Cyrus Vance placed enormous emphasis on the issue of human rights
and argued that “the freer flow of people and ideas” was critical “to long-term
security and cooperation,” he put pressure on the Soviets and the Yugoslavs.

99  Tito in Petković, Non-Aligned Yugoslavia, pp. 27–28.

100  “Communists Ask a Battle on Rights,” New York Times, 5 March 1977, p. 2.
101  Paul Hoffman, “Soviet Bloc Steps up Ideology Drive,” New York Times, 14 April 1977, p. 4.
Tito ’ s Twilight 203

Vance argued that Warsaw Pact countries needed to understand that travel or
emigration to the West was not a “privilege to be granted or refused by the
state rather than as a matter of personal choice.”102 The Yugoslav government
had accepted travel as a necessary tool in obtaining foreign currency—vis-à-
vis foreign tourists or remittances from Yugoslav workers abroad—but it also
felt strained by the repercussions of migration; might Yugoslavia lose more tal-
ented people to the West or would opponents of the regime join forces with
diasporas and thwart Yugoslav policy from overseas? Furthermore, part of a
freer flow of people meant a freedom of the press that naturally stood in oppo-
sition to the closed regimes of the Soviet bloc. American senator Claiborne Pell
assumed that the Soviets would take the chance to avoid questions of “basket
three” and instead, “move into other things, such as general conference, of a
broad and unspecific nature.”103 Brezhnev did indeed take that tack, having
focused his attention on the “continuing process of détente,” that he saw as
more important than human rights, especially considering the West’s view-
point and the recognized danger that this clause had in terms of the internal
stability throughout Eastern Europe.104 This led to a mixed attitude regarding
the Belgrade Conference, one where the West was confident for progress, but
leery that “a great many things have not” yet been done.105
When the Belgrade Conference got underway, the Western delegation made
a point of assuring that human rights would be the main issue because people
in the West were “thoroughly tired of having their hopes raised and then shat-
tered by empty words and unfulfilled pledges.”106 One aspect of this hopeful
Western attitude manifested itself with a delegation of fifteen visitors who lob-
bied on behalf of Soviet Jews; the result for those fifteen was ironic—arrest,
ostensibly because they abused their visas for Yugoslavia.107 Such treatment
to contain opposition groups or other troublemakers kept the focus on the
abuses of the Tito government and undermined his other positive attempts of

102  Cyrus Vance in Bernard Gwertzman, “U.S. to Press Soviet on Helsinki Accords,” New York
Times, 7 June 1977, p. 9.
103  Senator Claiborne Pell in “Helsinki Watchmen Return from Europe,” 24 November 1976,
HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI, European Security—Helsinki [ESH], cn. 148.
104  Leonid Brezhnev in Christopher Wren, “Soviet Confident it Can Handle Rights Issue at
Belgrade Conference,” New York Times, 14 June 1977, p. 14.
105  Dante Fascell in “‘Helsinki Watch’” Members Return More Encouraged,” 24 November
1976, HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI ESH, cn. 148.
106  Gerald Ford in “Excerpts of White House Report on Helsinki Cooperation in Europe,”
9 December 1976, HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI ESH, cn. 148.
107  Malcolm Browne, “35 Countries Meet on Helsinki Accord,” New York Times, 16 June 1977,
p. 1.
204 Chapter 5

reform, which included increasing freedom for the press and for freer speech.
As the host nation of an event that sought to improve human rights, the nega-
tive publicity that began for the Yugoslav government remained as a number
of political prisoners remained in captivity even after the conference began
amid rumors of a general amnesty. One such case included a Yugoslav judge,
Franc Miklavčič, arrested in his own courtroom in late 1976, after UDB-a of-
ficers had read his diary and concluded that he had “expressed a belief in po-
litical pluralism rather than Communism.”108 Sentenced to six years in prison
for his apparent opposition to Tito’s reform regime, Miklavčič joined over 500
comrades awaiting the end of their terms in prison. Yugoslav leaders eventu-
ally pardoned 200 political prisoners in 1977, but the issue of how a supposedly
legitimate regime functioned alongside hundreds, if not thousands, of political
victims remained a poignant reminder of how true popular support eluded
Tito’s Marxist system.
In the end, Helsinki’s third basket, which dealt with human rights, was both
a conservative and a radical document.109 Conservative in its reaffirmation of
basic principles from the UN Charter including sovereign equality, no threat
or use of force between nations, inviolability of frontiers, peaceful settlement
of disputes, and nonintervention in the internal affairs of another state.110 The
settlement put to rest any claims for revenge or hopes for territorial aggrandize-
ment in Europe; but it also raised the specter of doubt over what intervention

108  Malcolm Browne, “Lack of Amnesty as Parley Opens Upsets Yugoslav Rights Activists,”
New York Times, 18 June 1977, p. 3.
109  See Candis Agnone, “Helsinki Accord Important to U.S. Policy, Fascell Says,” USIS,
9 December 1976, HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI ESH, cn. 148. Agnone quoted Congressman Fascell
as noting the significance of the third basket of the Helsinki Accords: “he has ‘no doubt’
that human rights, or those questions contained in basket three of the accord, ‘have
achieved a level of discussion and legitimacy in international politics that heretofore did
not exist.”’ This legitimizing of human rights would fundamentally change international
relations as the conservative aspects of Helsinki’s first and second baskets of sovereignty
and non-intervention could slowly erode away. The Soviets argued just this case; I argue
the issue of Kosovo’s final status and the recognition of unilateral independence (as of
2008) occurred thanks to this blurring of the conservative and radical. For more also see,
“Excerpts of White House Report on Helsinki Cooperation in Europe,” 9 December 1976,
HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI ESH, cn. 148. This report noted, “the final act is not a legal document
but rather an expression of political will. Nonetheless, we do not accept the argument of
some Eastern states that implementation can only occur if there are supplementary legal
undertakings. Nor can we accept that behavior contrary to the act’s undertakings is ac-
ceptable, even in the absence of such legal undertakings.”
110  See James Reston, “Letter from Belgrade,” New York Times, 17 June 1977, p. A27.
Tito ’ s Twilight 205

in another state meant.111 President Gerald Ford acknowledged that when he

signed the final act at Helsinki, he declared, “our peoples will be watching and
measuring our progress,” because it was critical that these “noble sentiments”
became reality. To that end, Ford saw the OSCE as the vehicle to measure the
gains of freedom, but also stated that it was not his purpose to “interfere in the
domestic affairs of others.”112 The behavior of a government against its own
citizens—whether freedom of speech, religion, or movement—though, sud-
denly became a legitimate international concern and stood poised to upset the
delicate and unfinished national question active east of Winston Churchill’s
Iron Curtain. This opened up a line of thought that both reassured and scared
Tito. After all, the problems facing Yugoslavia not only included the fear of a for-
eign invasion, but most importantly, a domestic challenge that would overturn
the regime. It was with this notion that Tito hoped the international situation
after the Belgrade Conference would help his state transition peacefully after
he died. This same anxiety made the standing policy apt: “After Tito—Tito.”113

Conclusion: After Tito—Tito

The final decade of Tito’s rule called into question how the post-Tito system
would function. As Tito aged, he recognized the need to ensure his successors
would inherit a legitimate and well-functioning political system. Two things
guided Yugoslavia during the 1970s: Internal constitutional reform and the ex-
ternal focus on upholding ideas Tito had championed since the early 1950s.
Yugoslav political reform took the events of the 1960s and early 1970s, and tried
to home in on the legal means to make the regime unbreakable following Tito’s
death. Drafters emphasized self-management and decentralization of the fed-
eral system and set up a rotating presidency as part of a larger power-sharing
method to maintain equality between all ethnic groups and regional political
entities. Kosovo’s status grew from autonomous region to autonomous prov-
ince and thus the Kosovar leaders gained a voice in the federal decision-making

111  See “A Belgrade Balance Sheet,” New York Times, 24 January 1978, p. 30.
112  President Gerald Ford, “Excerpts of White House Report on Helsinki Cooperation in
Europe,” 9 December 1976, HU OSA 300-10-2 YSFI ESH, cn. 148.
113  This slogan emerged at the time of Tito’s death to symbolize that the country would
not veer from his directives. For more, see Rajko Muršič, “The Yugoslav Dark Side of
Humanity: A View from a Slovene Blind Spot,” in Neighbors at War: Anthropological
Perspectives on Yugoslav Ethnicity, Joel Halpern and David A. Kideckel, eds., (University
Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), pp. 56–81.
206 Chapter 5

process. Likewise, the federal system brought the army c­ loser—this in re-
sponse to both the external threat by the Soviets after 1968, and a renewed
spurt of nationalist tensions in Croatia in 1971.
The general mood in the international environment also brought great hope
for Yugoslavia’s future. No major international conflicts arose to trouble Tito
during his last years in power; in contrast, the Soviet Union and the United
States met in 1975, in Helsinki, and reaffirmed the territorial borders, the sover-
eignty of states, solidified the mood of détente, and finally repeated the impor-
tance of human rights as outlined in the UN Charter. While the human rights
aspect drew Yugoslavia back into the spotlight with the hosting of the review of
Helsinki’s progress until 1977, the other consequences of Helsinki encouraged
Yugoslav leaders. With territorial integrity and sovereignty restated and the
status quo upheld by both blocs, Yugoslav leaders relaxed knowing that nei-
ther side would recognize external designs and that any moves for secession
from Yugoslav republics would be disregarded.114 Reemphasizing this commit-
ment to Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity in early January 1980, as Tito’s failing
health brought about a profound concern for the future of Yugoslavia, Stephen
Larrabee noted in a National Security Council memorandum that the United
States government should treat Yugoslavia as a special case and be prepared to
“aid Yugoslavia in case of a crisis.”115 A telegram from the American Embassy in
Belgrade to the secretary of state called on the president for a “further public
restatement” of his position to “make certain that the Soviets are aware that”
the United States “will react to any Soviet move.”116 As a result, in a private let-
ter to Brezhnev, President Jimmy Carter confirmed the view first established
by Harry S. Truman that “we and our allies attach the highest importance to
the independence, unity and territorial integrity of non-aligned Yugoslavia.”
Budimir Lončar said at the time that “Yugoslavia is able to preserve its inde-
pendence and unity.”117 Despite Lončar’s proclamation and sensing trouble
after Tito’s death, Carter wished to confirm to the Yugoslavs “under whatever
leadership” that they must be free to choose their own course.118

114  For example, the United States reaffirmed in 1977 that the government “opposed the
Croatian demands for independence,” in response to an act of terrorism committed
by Croatian nationalists at Yugoslavia’s New York Consulate office. See Carey Winfrey,
“Croatians Held Without Bail as Jurisdiction Is Argued,” New York Times, 16 June 1977, p. 33.
115  See Stephen Larrabee, “National Security Council Memorandum,” 22 January 1980. Carter
Library), p. 1.
116  Department of State Telegram, “Draft Letter to Brezhnev on Yugoslavia,” 19 January 1980.
Carter Library.
117  As cited in Tvrtko Jakovina, Treća strana Hladnog rata, (Zagreb: Fraktura, 2011), p. 305.
118  Jimmy Carter, “Letter Carter–Brezhnev,” 29 January 1980, p. 4. Carter Library.
Tito ’ s Twilight 207

This chapter has shown that while the Yugoslavs used the 1970s to fix what
they saw as any final flaws in their internal workings before Tito died, they also
tried to manipulate the external situation to their benefit and largely succeed-
ed. Reacting to the dynamic of the time, the Yugoslavs sealed any differences
between their system and the other socialist system in Eastern Europe. Proud
of their reinforcement of legality in the 1974 constitution, leaders felt confi-
dent that the system would function smoothly without Tito, especially after
they considered the progress of détente to have upheld the territorial integrity
of European states at Helsinki. With both superpowers therefore committed
to upholding the current state of affairs, and consistent with rhetoric made
popular by Yugoslav politicians and theorists since the early 1950s, Tito’s legacy
seemingly could live on indefinitely. But, fear still gripped the Yugoslav leader-
ship in anticipation of Tito’s death; Secretary of Defense General Ljubičić, ex-
claimed that Yugoslavia sat in a “complicated position” between both domestic
and international troubles.119 All they could hope for was that the brotherhood
and unity of all nations and nationalities in Yugoslavia seemed guaranteed so
long as the complex Titoist ideology supplied it.

119  “General Graves’ Meeting with Yugoslav Secretary of Defense Ljubicic [sic.],” 12 February
1980, (NLC-48-40, Carter Library), p. 1.
 chapter 6

Conclusions: Yugoslavia and the Legacy of the

Cold War

Not a single one of our republics would mean anything if we were not
all together. Socialist history of Yugoslavia united also in the future.1
Josip Broz Tito

∵
To understand the historical significance of how leaders attempted to build
legitimacy in Titoist Yugoslavia, the process needs to be situated in the broader
history of the twentieth-century. As the century of ideology, the competition
over legitimate worldviews defined how leaders both shaped their state’s iden-
tities and outlined the nature of alliances. The century began with a profound
hope that Enlightenment values would persist indefinitely into the future and
that human progress was destined to achieve all things imaginable. World
War I brutally called into question this positive outlook on progress and chal-
lenged the core values held by people not only in the West, but also throughout
the world. The tremendous devastation from the war laid the groundwork for
an ideological battle that took on awesome proportions for the remainder of
the century. When war raised its ugly head again at the end of the 1930s, thanks
primarily to irrational aggression, the provocative power of ideology took on a
radical new dimension. The warring parties drew boundaries that were more
concrete over what separated “us” versus “them” and made the struggle for
survival larger than life. For each side, the world’s freedom was at stake and
everything fell into its own intellectual compartment. Fascism’s defeat in 1945
meant that the world was down to two: Democratic market-capitalism and
Marxism. For the wealth of leaders who harnessed political control across the
globe for the first time and attempted to fill the political vacuum that followed
fascism’s defeat, they all found state building in the post-1945 world unfeasible
absent one of the compelling worldviews.

1  Josip Broz Tito in Janja Glogovac, Tito: A Documentary Film, (TV Slovenija, Česka Televize &
Bindweed Soundvision, 2001).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004358997_008

Conclusions 209

State building in an era of tensions shaped the nature of how the gover-
nors could govern. Fear over nuclear devastation—especially once the Soviet
Union attained atomic weapons—helped form not only government policy in
both East and West, but also reinforced popular movements such as the stu-
dent rebellions of 1968 and the Green Revolution. But the two superpowers
eventually worked out a system whereby conflict would be controlled and lo-
calized; nuclear holocaust remained in the background while proxy wars in the
Third World prevailed over direct confrontation. Nonetheless, the Cold War
brought fear to a new height. For Tito, his fragile creation stood on the frontier
between East and West; its own divided legacy—torn between the Habsburgs,
the Ottoman Sultans, and, to an extent, the Romanovs—made the Cold War
dilemma even greater for him and the people of Yugoslavia. Where would their
allegiances fall if World War III set into motion the fateful clash between the
superpowers? What hope did Yugoslavs have for a peaceful future and prosper-
ity in a stable environment? Finally, what goals could the regime have pointed
to as paramount in their attempt to control the direction of change?
First and foremost, Tito felt that he could solve the security problem facing
Yugoslavia by being the most powerful in the Balkans following World War II.2
With the destruction of that ideal in 1948, Tito searched for a reform program
that would redefine his state and build a solid legitimacy.3 By the end of the
1960s, with these reforms in full swing, everything was in synch: “in the same
breath in which they mentioned self-management socialism, brotherhood and
unity, the Party or Tito, the regime cited the commitment to the principle of
non-alignment.”4 These ideals mattered in so far as it showed a consistency
in the party’s leadership but it also showed that Tito and Yugoslavia were in-
ternationally important. Yugoslavia was not going to be like Albania. Isolated
and dependent on others, Enver Hoxha’s Albanian socialist creation posed a
recurring “other” for Tito but Tito instead saw the benefits of engagement and
a global awareness. He might not win every victory but he would be a voice
of reason that would be heard and respected as a sovereign state that in-
cluded Croats, Bosnians, Macedonians, Slovenes, Serbs, and other minorities.
International importance fueled Tito’s larger designs.
My look at Tito and his creation focuses on how power, legitimacy, and ide-
ology intersected to instruct the course of events. Change over time unveils a
state wrapped up with modes of dynamism yet forever stuck as a static rep-
lica of the ideologically driven past with the resiliency of a one-party system.

2  Tvrtko Jakovina, Treća strana Hladnog rata, (Zagreb: Fraktura, 2011), p. 31.
3  Jakovina, Treća strana Hladnog rata, p. 636.
4  Jakovina, Treća strana Hladnog rata, pp. 33–4.
210 chapter 6

At each juncture, from the earliest days when he seemed poised and confident
in leading a new Yugoslavia after World War II until the final days of dicta-
torship as he stood at the helm of a state upheld and confirmed by external
powers, Tito’s foreign policy stood at the center of his governance strategy. The
Partisan legacy from the early years promised a fresh ideology and glimpsed at
a new state unencumbered by ethnic disputes and fissures. The fateful blow by
Stalin called into question Tito’s Marxist-Leninist credentials and instilled pro-
found fear into the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Territories that Tito and his
comrades fought so hard for became the subject of political dispute after 1948
and the Soviets branded the LCY as falsifiers of Marx and imperialist lackeys,
thereby dramatically calling into question the sincerity of Tito’s legitimacy to
rule and pushing the regime into an ideological abyss. But Yugoslav commu-
nists would have none of that.
Banished from the Soviet camp yet unable and unwilling to abandon their
Marxist principles, the Yugoslavs set about creating something new; but, from
the beginning, they recognized that this new system required legitimacy.
Unable to embrace the West pushed the Yugoslavs to create something unique
and organic to their country; this would take time but foreign policy proved
an important avenue for Titoist bureacrats. While he no longer could affect
change within Europe after 1948, Tito turned to score victories in the emerging
Third World and latch onto a rhetoric that focused on morality and sovereignty
in the face of outside control. These themes defined Tito’s goals but leading
diverse post-colonial leaders proved too much for a state with so few resources.
Outside events took center stage again with the invasion of Czechoslovakia and
while that promised to stir up pro-Yugoslav emotions, it was not enough. Tito
himself cracked down on dissent much the same way as Brezhnev and used
the threat of force to cement his state in place. Yet, thanks to that very tension
in Europe, Tito took the opportunity to join together with East and West as the
world sought détente. Playing a role in the Helsinki Accords and then hosting
the first follow-up conference to Helsinki seemed to succeed where nonalign-
ment failed because it recognized the territorial integrity of Tito’s state against
external and internal enemies.
Indeed, when European and North American leaders met in Helsinki in
1975 each of the Cold War superpowers won—the Soviet Union guaranteed
human rights principles that few expected and the West solidified the status
quo regarding borders and granted the Soviets an internationally recognized
legitimacy over their space in Eastern Europe. Regarding Human Rights and
the Final Act of Helsinki it was the Soviet dissident and physicist Yuri Orlov
who told U.S. Representative Millicent Fenwick (R-NJ) that the West needed to
Conclusions 211

“pressure the Soviet government to honor its human rights obligation.”5 Tito’s
Yugoslavia was a signatory country to Helsinki and Tito saw this opportunity
in the face of decline of his role in nonalignment to return to European foreign
politics, albeit in stark contrast to his earliest days of brinkmanship and ag-
gression. Like the Soviets, Tito needed to look no further than the late 1960s
and early 1970s when a crackdown against dissidents took place to desire ex-
ternal vindication of his rule. Just like the Soviets then Tito scored victories
at Helsinki. Yet, just like the Soviets his prior crackdowns stood in violation
of some of the norms outlined at Helsinki. Soviet dissidents understood that
pressuring the government in Moscow to honor the Helsinki human rights
mandates would limit the actions that the government could take against those
same dissidents. Tito just the same could not simply jail or beat protestors or
use the army to combat dissidents without facing external critique. Thus, by
signing onto Helsinki Tito won a foreign policy victory but limited the tools
that his regime could employ to maintain legitimacy in case of challenges. Tito
further accentuated both the victories and limits of this late diplomacy when
he offered Belgrade as the host for the first review conference in 1977. He put
the regime in the spotlight against foreign observers and made it even harder
to quell domestic opposition.
Documents show that Tito’s initial position between the two blocs grew
into a profound and serious agent of change in its own right. Yugoslav party
leaders gave birth to a unique ideology and sought to make their interpreta-
tion of Marxism genuine and lasting. Constant reform of the party’s role in
society and the important nature of civil-military relations helped to guide
Tito’s state down the path towards reaching its goals. I posit that reform of
any one-party state is dangerous and poses its own unique problems but Tito’s
party machinery weathered every storm that came its way.6 Manipulating the
external situation and using foreign-policy victories to offset domestic trou-
bles, the LCY leadership showed itself as shrewd and pliable. While internal

5  Yuri Orlov cited in Peter Slezkine, “From Helsinki to Human Rights Watch: How an American
Cold War Monitoring Group Became an International Human Rights Institution,” Humanity:
An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 5:3 (Winter
2014), pp. 347–48.
6  Eric Hoffer built on a remark by Alexis de Tocqueville: “What de Tocqueville says of a tyran-
nical government is true of all totalitarian orders—their moment of greatest danger is when
they begin to reform, that is to say when they begin to show liberal tendencies.” See Eric
Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1951), p. 44.
212 chapter 6

matters troubled the party, members remained confident that their stance
would eventually solve all the problems. Domestically, the path to this solution
rested, so they thought, on legality and guarantees from the state and seemed
to compliment well the legitimacy earned by the regime abroad. Various
speeches and conversations by LCY members showed a consensus on these is-
sues as it effected them and their system. Burdened with the hapless job of suc-
ceeding in an environment of immense pressure and multi-faceted conflicts,
the LCY members who spoke out at committee meetings, in the newspapers,
and to other agents, did so with an earnest desire to succeed in the struggle
for political mastery, which, for them, also meant socio-economic transforma-
tion driven by the messianic desire to convert all Yugoslavs—in brotherhood
and unity—to their cause. Scholarship has mistakenly viewed this history as
one fraught with unsolvable and age-old ethnic hatreds or as led by men who
were inept when it came to political machinations. Ethnic differences were
neither unsolvable nor ancient and the politicians displayed a firm handle on
matters and displayed a cognizance and shrewdness that equaled their fellow
Cold Warriors. State managers failed because they could not maintain foreign-
policy victories indefinately; the attention given to lead the Third World or
host international events took away from the ability of the state to incorpo-
rate real change into its domestic economy and provide a better life, especially
when management of the Third World became unsustainable in the late 1960s.
Furthermore, Titoist leaders misunderstood the nature of reform in a one-­
party state; without serious competition, reform cannot hope to prevail no
matter how sober the intentions.
Conflict against the so-called other has historically bound together alle-
giances and created a unity so that coalitions slowly transformed into perma-
nent groups. Reformers in the top echelons of power in Yugoslavia manipulated
conflicts between groups and alongside fear of outside domination to prolong
the rule of the LCY. They thought that the unification against a common enemy
would permanently glue together Yugoslav society but, such unity, according
to sociologist Lewis Coser, “tends to remain on the level of temporary associa-
tion when it is limited to instrumental ends and temporary, limited purposes.”7
This temporal aspect of Yugoslav politics meant that the direction or emphasis
constantly changed; reform for the LCY was a spastic effort to reach out in all
directions without concretely solving anything. Fear of a common foe was the
glue that bound the regime together but it was an adhesive that failed because
the definition of what was Yugoslav and what was not constantly eluded the

7  Lewis Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict, (London: Collier-Macmillan Limited, 1956),
pp. 145–46.
Conclusions 213

people of Yugoslavia. The LCY remained in the hands of World War II-era fight-
ers, men who changed reluctantly after 1948, but who nonetheless recognized
that change—at least the rhetoric of change—was the only thing possible to
prolong their political survival. While the leadership remained conservative,
desperate attempts to find progressive solutions to the country’s dilemmas
riddled the political landscape. The two forces never reconciled to build a last-
ing legitimacy.
An aspect of similarity among all twentieth century ideologies was the
insistence that nationalism was dead. In the case of fascism, exclusionary
rhetoric emphasized the nationalism of one group—Italians or Germans, for
­example—so much so that no other group mattered. Elaborate racial hierar-
chies explained the future march of history and with Hitler’s victory, all sem-
blance of difference would disappear as the Untermenschen themselves would
wither into oblivion. For Marxists, they understood a history of conflict that
would cease because Marx’s system would end all antagonisms between peo-
ple. The last antagonism to disappear would be class, but Marx was confident
from his look at history that while each national group needed to organize to
realize their own revolutions, animosity between nationalities would cease as
more and more workers united. Finally, it is worth mentioning that American
or Western ideology, based on capitalism and opportunity also has contend-
ed to solve divisive nationalism. The American dream unites all people, so it
goes, gradually tearing off the accoutrements of ethnic identity. While it seems
that in the American case violent nationalism indeed lies far from the politi-
cal spectrum, the twenty-first century might present unforeseeable challenges
that could shake the foundation of America’s ideology much as what befell
Marxism in the 1980s and 1990s.8 What seems ironic is that despite Marx’s
insistence on having abolished nationalism in a socialist society, the loss of
political control in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia by the communists saw
politics degrade into the ethnic. Top-down ideologies that sought to overcome
individual ethnic markers failed, at least in the short period of the Cold War.
In the end, many of Yugoslavia’s problems were not ethnic in origin, but the
political system never really moved past ethnicity as an identifying marker—
indeed, it often emphasized ethnicity and, by the 1980s, politicians seeking an
easy path to power ethnicized problems. The image that arose to explain this
movement towards ethnicity as one of primordial hatreds rests on shaky foun-
dations; rather, we must recognize that “particular identities (such as ethnic or

8  See, for example, Samuel P. Huntington, Who are We? The Challenges to America’s National
Identity, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005).
214 chapter 6

religious ones) are significant one day and insignificant the next,” depending
on the larger economic, historical, political, and other circumstances.9
Conflict largely has disappeared from the embattled Yugoslav arena despite
the continued debate over Kosovo’s final status as the last successor state to
Tito’s failed creation. Local issues may persist but in the place of wide-scale
violence, the European Union (EU), with its inclusive foundations and great
wealth, has stumbled into its new role as the primary arbiter in European di-
plomacy. A united Europe inherited this role as soon as the Soviet Union crum-
bled, but, at the time, Yugoslavia’s leaders, whether too shortsighted, selfish, or
simply ignorant of the rapidly changing realities at the end of the Cold War,
retreated into a more destructive manipulation of fear instead of embracing
European institutions. Within each republic, leaders looked inward and played
on nationalism to win votes and attain political power with little regard for
worldviews or global trends.
Leaders in the 1980s and early 1990s ignored the hallmark of Tito’s rule—
reaching out for foreign-policy victories—and failed to take advantage of
the increasing moves to unite Europe through the then European Economic
Community (EEC). This was perhaps the only foreign policy achievement
worth striving for, as a manner of answering the nationality question and yet
post-Titoist politicians did little significant in the 1980s outside of Yugoslavia.
Tito had the urge to be bigger and more influential and thus meddled in and
sought recognition outside of his country. That he used those moves to work
hand-in-glove with domestic reforms and moods showed the real power of
Josip Broz Tito. He was a Cold War Otto von Bismarck stuck in the middle
of two overwhelming blocs. Had a Titoist foreign-policy agenda continued,
Franjo Tuđman, Slobodan Milošević, Alija Izetbegović, and so on might have
courted economic and political inclusion into the EEC instead of peddling
nationalism. These politicians argued that multiethnic societies preyed on
the weaker or smaller group; therefore, Croats were inherently unsafe in a
Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia, Serbs were unsafe in an independent Croatia,
neither Croats nor Serbs were safe in a Muslim Bosnia-Hercegovina, and so
the trend continued. Neighbors turned on each other despite years of peaceful
and friendly coexistence because leaders exaggerated diversity to delineate the
exceedingly small differences that really existed between all groups. The mas-
sive evidence of what unfolded during the resulting wars of dismemberment

9  See Ger Duijzings, Religion and the Politics of Identity in Kosovo, (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2000), p. 207.
Conclusions 215

elucidates not the dangerously provocative attraction of selfish, exclusive na-

tionalism, but, rather, how fear and emptiness can drive people to extremes.10
After Tito’s death, official Yugoslav channels declared that Tito still ruled—
his spirit would provide the new governing elite with the necessary inspira-
tion. The major problem that the post-Tito leaders could not foresee included
the rapid pace of change as the Cold War ended and that his spirit was not
enough—they needed a proactive international presence. But once Mikhail
Gorbachev began real reform in the Soviet Union and backed away from the
Brezhnev Doctrine, especially with respect to the East European satellites, all
the accomplishments of détente and the strengthening of the state vanished as
foreign-policy tools for the ruling elite of Yugoslavia. Yugoslav leaders needed
something new in the 1980 and failed to uphold the focus on the kind of foreign
policy that Tito had so vehemently sought. Moreover, the external legitimacy
gained by otherizing the Soviets disappeared and the entire Cold War world—
including the nonaligned—came under question. The subsequent dismem-
berment of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s shocked the world with brutality
unseen in Europe since World War II. The secession of Yugoslavia’s republics
and eruption of Bosnia-Herzegovina into civil war along ethnic lines reopened
the prior questions about the integrity of the modern nation-state and, more
specifically, the lasting consequences of multiethnic polities at the same time
as the continued integration of the rest of Europe within the boundaries of the
European Economic Community, or the later European Union.
This study has attempted to refocus the debate on Titoist Yugoslavia to-
wards understanding how foreign policy attempted to supersede everything
else, including nationalism. Foreign policy served to buttress Tito’s charisma—
the original fuel for his Partisan wartime movement—as the impetus for eco-
nomic, political, and military reforms, and for finding a solution to the na-
tional question. Nationalism need not have doomed Yugoslavia to fail by the
early 1990s. Neither was it the lack of a charismatic leader after Tito’s death in
1980 nor the disconnectedness younger generations felt towards the Partisan
struggle. Instead, the fatal flaw was twofold: Tito won important foreign-policy
victories but never achieved the ultimate external rationale that won over a
majority of Yugoslavs; moreover, post-Tito political leaders abandoned his
foreign-policy emphasis and sought answers to Yugoslavia’s problems from
within a diverse country. Post Titoist leaders gave up on Tito’s trademark ruling

10  The idea of Sigmund Freud’s so-called “narcissism of minor differences” serves as an in-
teresting point of departure for analyzing relations—before, during, and after the wars
of dismemberment—between Bosnians (Bosniaks, Bosnian-Croats, and Bosnian-Serbs),
Croats, and Serbs.
216 chapter 6

style that Tito and his Communist Party had tried so hard to contain in the
name of a united, stable, and prosperous Yugoslavia that reached from the
mountains of Slovenia to the border with Greece; instead, successors increas-
ingly turned to divisive and internal items for answers to political problems. By
the end of the 1980s, empty rhetoric governed Yugoslavia until violence filled
the void and destroyed the country.11

11  See Marlise Simons, “Yugoslavia on the Brink,” New York Times, 24 January 1990, p. A11.
Simons has quoted Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Marković, who said, that the “process of
disassociating of the two [party and state] has begun. If parties have a real chance to take
part in free elections, then everything else is rhetoric.” He was correct.
Epilogue: The Triumph of Fear and Loss of
Legitimacy

However much each of us loves the land of socialism, the USSR, he can in
no case love his own country less.1
Josip Broz Tito

∵
During the 1980s, when the Soviet Union underwent restructuring under
General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, tensions mounted in the outlying areas
of Soviet control—both within the USSR itself and among its satellites and
ideological ­neighbors.2 In certain respects, what happened in the Soviet Union
mirrored a similar process of change taking place in Yugoslavia. In the end,
dramatic political failure brought forth remarkable changes that made nation-
alism a “beneficiary of these developments but not, in any serious sense, an
important factor in bringing them about.”3 In the Yugoslav case in particular,
Robert Hayden has written that, “it is tempting to see the breakdown of federal
Yugoslavia as the inevitable result of those national tensions, once the over-
arching structure of the one-party state” disappeared; but to “stress only those
nationalisms is to distort the reality of political, social, and economic life in

1  Tito in Carol Lilly, Power and Persuasion: Ideology and Rhetoric in Communist Yugoslavia,
1944–1953, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001), p. 170.
2  Naturally, an alternative argument exists in the form of Soviet policy as rooted in the eco-
nomic turbulence of the 1970s. Specifically, the two oil shocks of that decade created an at-
mosphere whereby the Soviet Union found a more lucrative market for its raw materials in
the West and in effect abandoned Eastern Europe to its own devices. Once East European
satellites looked to the expensive Western market for raw and finished goods (oil from the
Middle East, for example) they were neither economically viable as individual states nor
beneficial for Moscow’s economic policies. Gorbachev merely realized this economic imbal-
ance in trying to balance his accounts and espoused a political policy to the working eco-
nomic reality with Glastnost and Perestroika.
3  See Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth and Reality,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 167.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004358997_009

218 Epilogue

Yugoslavia in the critical years of 1989–91.”4 I would add to Hayden’s assertion

that to stress only nationalism misrepresents not just the “critical years” of
the civil wars but discounts the relative success achieved during Tito’s tenure
when his rule strived for legitimacy and seemingly worked towards creating a
progressive Yugoslav state, not the least of which occurred on the world’s stage.
During World War II, the Nazis deliberately ripped apart and carved up
Yugoslavia along competing ethnic lines vis-à-vis annexations and support for
one of the most fanatical Croatian politicians, Ante Pavelić, who sought to re-
fashion his Independent State of Croatia (NDH) as a homogenous nation-state.
In response to the Nazi–NDH alliance, Tito and his communist cadres fought
Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, the NDH, and the Četniks (primarily Serbian royal-
ists representing the Yugoslav government-in-exile), while advocating for an
inclusive and multiethnic state after the war. Historian Carol Lilly has termed
this vicious fighting among Yugoslavs during World War II, as having given
rise to a “legacy of hatred,” which “was perhaps the greatest challenge that
Yugoslavia’s postwar Communist Party would face.”5 I agree, but emphasize
that the LCY’s overall management of conflict resolution failed. The regime
tried to win international prestige with the Non-aligned Movement as a way
to bind people to the regime as a substitute until real unity appeared because
at least with a common foreign policy that worked, constituent ethnic groups
would have less reason to work for particularistic aims.6 By 1960, Tito had de-
clared success because Yugoslavia was no longer frought with “internal nation-
al strifes and antagonisms,” or exploited by “domestic and foreign capitalists.”7
For Tito, the functioning of his socialist state simply meant, “we have solved

4  Robert Hayden, Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav
Conflicts, (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1999), p. 27.
5  Lilly, Power and Persuasion, p. 29.
6  For a similar approach to this idea, see Esad Zgodić, Titova Nacionalna Politika: Temeljni po-
jmovi, načela i vrijednosti, (Sarajevo, Kantonalni odbor SDP BiH, 2000), p. 164. He has noted
that Tito believed that brotherhood between peoples had helped him beat the common
foe—the fascists—and that a continued emphasis on brotherhood in post-war Yugoslavia
would logically continue, especially as long as a common threat remained.
7  See Josip Broz Tito, The Building of Socialism and the Role and Tasks of the Socialist Alliance
of the Working People of Yugoslavia, Report to the Fifth Congress of the Socialist Alliance of
the Working People of Yugoslavia, (Beograd: Publishing House Jugoslavija, 1960), p. 37; also
see Tito, The Building of Socialism, p. 36. “But, both for the young people and for the whole
of our socialist community, the most important thing is that the youth should during these
work drives strengthen the brotherhood and unity of our peoples and, discarding obsolete
national prejudices and chauvinistic tendencies, should forge a new, more monolithic, so-
cialist social community—Yugoslavia.”
Epilogue 219

the national question in the best possible way, according to Marxist princi-
ples;” nationalism was an outgrowth of capitalism and imperialism and Tito
had supposedly eliminated both factors within Yugoslavia.8 But in the face of
such positive rhetoric and the “construction of hope,” leaders had to keep re-
peating the same fear of nationalist tension because they never really achieved
the kind of economic success that they said they wanted. More importantly,
the economic and social development in Yugoslavia was unequal.

The 1980s: The Best and Worst of Times

In 1986, Dušan Bilandžić, a professor in Croatia, stated clearly, “we abandoned

the Eastern model because it did not suit us.” Overall, for him, Marxism had
“failed,” because it was “born in the nineteenth century,” but “cannot be ap-
plied in the modern world without some amendment.” What Yugoslav leaders
searched for, especially in times of crisis, was the proper reform that could
reverse the negative situation facing the country.9
Socialism was not dead yet. As a worldview based on the “fundamental prin-
ciples” of “social equality” and “freedom and democracy,” it still had enough
support inside Yugoslavia during the 1980s in comparison to the tiny minority
of people who wanted to impose “a heavy hand” to restore stability and prosper-
ity to the country.10 In 1967, a poll showed that ninety-two percent of Yugoslavs
were “satisfied with the political situation in Yugoslavia.” Two decades later,
that same question garnered a less-than enthusiastic fifty-five percent with
twenty-seven percent of the respondents having expressed “fear” alongside

8   See Zgodić, Titova, pp. 93–100. Also see Yuri Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment,
or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism,” Slavic Review 53:2 (Summer 1994),
p. 420. Slezkine has quoted a Civil-war era theorist who argued, “Many of these peoples
have nothing in common except the fact that before they were all parts of the Russian
Empire and now they have all been liberated by the revolution, but there are no internal
connections among them.” Furthermore, Lenin believed that the surest way to unity in
content was diversity in form: “By fostering national cultures and creating national au-
tonomies, national schools, national languages and national cadres, the Bolsheviks would
overcome national distrust and reach national audiences. ‘We are going to help you de-
velop your Buriat, Votiak, etc. language and culture, because in this way you will join the
universal culture, revolution and communism sooner.’”
9   See Slobodan Stankovic, “Soviet System for Yugoslavia Rejected,” 8 August 1986, RAD
Research Report. HU OSA, 300-10-2, YSFI, Public Opinion Polls, 1988 [POP88], cn. 354.
10  “Yugoslavs Call for More Democracy, Unity to Solve Crisis,” Tanjug, 17 October 1986. HU
OSA, 300-10-2, YSFI POP88, cn. 354.
220 Epilogue

twenty-three percent believing in “hope” for a better future.11 The fear of for-
eign invasion subsided, but the fear of being able to secure employment and
raise a family took over. Nearly two-thirds of all Yugoslav households expected
to live worse in 1988 than in 1987, while only seven percent had “hope” for a bet-
ter quality of life. Such statistics illuminated what a dire situation the people
faced. All this grew worse with the general agreement in stagnation and wors-
ening in all fields of life such as social differences and conflict as well as the
political status of the country.12 With ninety-two percent inflation in January
of 1987, the people indeed had a great deal to fear. Unlike the general state of
the economy, though, inflation did not stagnate—it worsened. By August
of the same year, inflation was at 110 percent and represented a tremendous
challenge to the regime because it directly called into question the legitimacy
of Tito’s worldview from a material standpoint—something a Marxist should
have fixed long ago with the redistribution of wealth.13
Yugoslav leaders fretted over what they saw as a generation gap and a gen-
eral disenchantment with the regime among young people. After all, the eco-
nomic problems hit young people—a large contingent of the population by
the 1980s—the hardest and facilitated the replacement of hope in the future
with a profound fear of what lay ahead. The plethora of polls conducted dur-
ing the 1980s unveiled a lot about the situation inside of Yugoslavia. One such
poll asked young people where they would like to live if no Yugoslavia existed;
they largely chose Western countries—33.6 percent for the United States and
another 15.8 percent for Australia—compared to a miniscule .9 percent hav-
ing chosen the Soviet Union as their ideal society. Young people clearly vied
for Western liberalism—or, at least, Western goods, as their goal; moreover,
Yugoslavs felt that the benefits of the Western system were possible if led by
a progressive LCY vis-à-vis socialist self-management and an increased move
to greater democracy, complete with multiple candidates.14 In stark contrasts
to the situation at home, young Yugoslavs expressed their wish to achieve the
economic prosperity Tito had promised long ago. University of Split profes-
sor Boris Vušković agreed in 1984 that, “the main source of all problems is the

11  See “SFRY: Results Published of Zagreb Opinion Poll,” Borba, 23 November 1987, p. 5. HU
OSA, 300-10-2, YSFI POP88, cn. 354.
12  See “Poll Measures Reaction to Economic Crisis,” Tanjug, 17 July 1988, and “Будучност
Земље,” Недељна Борба, 27–28 August 1988. HU OSA, 300-10-2, YSFI POP88, cn. 354.
13  “Yugoslavs Pessimistic About Future,” Associated Press, 3 August 1987. HU OSA, 300-10-2,
YSFI POP88, cn. 354.
14  See Zlatko Gaš, “Radnici vole papu,” Intervju, 27 September 1985. HU OSA, 300-10-2, YSFI,
Public Opinion Polls, 1982–85 [POP 82–85], cn. 354.
Epilogue 221

economic crisis.”15 This corresponded to the absolute dire status that faced
many Yugoslav families. NIN—the weekly newsmagazine—determined that
the “worsening living standards, unemployment, housing shortage,” and the
“moral crisis,” combined to make 1984 a terrible year.16 What more proof of
that than the overwhelming vote for Ronald Reagan as the personality of 1984.17
As a way to prescribe solutions to such failures, the regime sponsored sympo-
siums and meetings, including a so-called brotherhood and unity symposium
in 1985, in Ivangrad, Montenegro, chaired by former diplomat Mišo Pavićević
to deal directly with the crisis of Yugoslav disintegration. Organizers faced dif-
ficult questions in trying to forge a positive future for the country. Pavićević
said in a summary statement of the meetings, “Switzerland is a multinational
confederation, but its system functions effectively.” But, Yugoslavia was also
“multinational and is officially a federation, but this system does not function
effectively.”18 Clearly, something needed fixing but one of the toughest road-
blocks to clear was the national spirit that thrived in each of the republics and
provinces. Despite trying, the regime failed miserably at solving the problem
political leaders recognized as most critical—nationalism.
While Yugoslavs largely expressed frustration and called for a change on the
micro-level, some party elites still saw the problem in a state-driven system.
One member of the presidency of the federal Socialist Alliance of Yugoslavia,
Jovan Dejanović, argued in 1986, that it was “illusory to expect that that in-
stitutional changes and constitutional amendments” would alone solve the
problems of Yugoslavia. He admitted such in response to what he termed the
control of “socially-controlled income” by “strongholds of mighty groupings”—
in other words, leaders could not trust the people to rise to the occasion and
defend a united Yugoslavia. But, what is more telling in Dejanović’s statements
was that he had essentially given up on the hallmark of Tito’s system—reform

15  Vušković in Slobodan Stankovic, “Young Yugoslavs Disenchanted with the Regime,” RAD
Research, 1985. HU OSA, 300-10-2, YSFI POP 82–85, cn. 354. Vušković argued that it would
be wrong to blame the “Church or other ‘enemies’” but instead argued that “communist
practices that antagonized young people” were to blame. He was also cited in “Radnici
vole papu,” Intervju (25 September 1985).
16  Cited in Wolf Oschlies, “Jugoslawien: “‘Leichter Abshied vom Orwell-Jahr,’” Köln,
Bundesinstitut für Ostwissenschaftliche und Internnaionale Studien, 1985. HU OSA, 300-
10-2, YSFI POP 82–85, cn. 354.
17  Cited in Oschlies, “Jugoslawien,” HU OSA, 300-10-2, YSFI POP 82–85, cn. 354.
18  Dragan Barjaktarević and Ivan Ivanov, “Vreme nam ističe,” Duga, 5–18 October 1985. HU
OSA 300-10-2 YSFI NP 85, cn. 283.
222 Epilogue

no longer matter, it was the state itself that had rotted beyond repair.19 Most
importantly, Dejanović was not alone.

Conclusion

The brutal dismemberment of Yugoslavia during the 1990s directed the

world’s attention away from peace and joyous celebration in the wake of the
collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union’s retreat from competing in
the Cold War and subsequent disappearance. But, it is a mistake to assume
that the Yugoslav leaders acted as cynics. They were dedicated communists
with their own ideology that coalesced over more than forty years. As soon
as Stalin waved his little finger as part of his effort to remove Tito from power
after ejecting Yugoslavia from the Cominform, Yugoslav ideology changed
and kept on changing.20 More importantly, that ideology changed alongside
foreign-policy moves that sought to not only make Yugoslavia last but make it
important. Reaching out to the various ethnic groups under a state’s control
was vital and sought to equalize the peoples in question and thus solidify the
regime by removing political opposition and competing ideologies.21 A sort of
democratization within the LCY also allowed, as the Yugoslavs eventually put
into practice, the decentralization of the state and facilitated the path towards
its eventual disappearance. Theorists argued that by including more people in

19  Jovan Dejanović in “Vested Interests, Nationalism Said Hampering Yugoslavia’s

Development,” Tanjug, 23 May 1986. HU OSA, 300-10-2, YSFI POP 82–85, cn. 354.
20  See A. Ross. Johnson, The Transformation of Communist Ideology: The Yugoslav Case,
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1972), p. 242. “After 1953 Yugoslav Communist ideology de-
veloped a more integral, codified conception of socialist self-management, with its own
philosophical assumptions, analytical categories, and terminology—much of which must
often have seemed as unfamiliar to Soviet or Chinese Communist theorists as to Western
non-Marxists. After 1953, the philosophical component of the ideology underwent a
major transformation matching the doctrinal transformation examined in this study.
Stalinist dialectical materialism and historical materialism were revised as Yugoslav phi-
losophers drew increasingly on the non-Marxist philosophical tradition. But, by 1966,
when the most recent stage of political and economic reform in Yugoslavia was initiated,
it was perhaps questionable whether a Yugoslav Communist ideology still existed at all …
Self-management itself became a term of self-legitimization for a number of contending
groups within the LCY.”
21  See Ivo Banac, National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics, (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1984), p. 413. “Since [interwar] Yugoslavia’s national question
was, more than anything, an expression of mutually exclusive national ideologies, the
chances for its internal stability were not very good.”
Epilogue 223

a system “where there are communists who are active and united in activity,”
positive results would appear.22 Furthermore, with a sound system in place
in Yugoslavia, the LCY would emerge—according to Yugoslav theorists—as
the model for communism around the world, having “opened the way for a
genuine socialist democracy.”23 Nevertheless, who could imagine any such
worldview as credible in 1990 as all of Eastern Europe and Eurasia seemingly
clamored for change from a socio-economic system that had failed to deliver
and an international state structure that was on the verge of collapse?
In the end, once the Communist Party abandoned power in 1991, the army
and the federal government together sought a new “national” basis for le-
gitimacy, which failed and led to the brutal wars of secession. As the Serbian
historian, Mile Bjelajac, has summarized: “After the collapse of the LCY, the
JNA became the last standard-bearer of Tito’s brand of communism.”24 The
army served as the legitimate state actors and represented the idea of a united
Yugoslavia. Simply put, the army had a historical presence as a multiethnic
champion of Yugoslav unity and yet it could not supplant the power of the
party as the means to hold together the state. Without the LCY, the JNA was
a completely empty institution because it was merely a domestic actor. After
Tito’s death and in the wake of civilian elites widespread failure to combat the
problems of inflation and inequality during the 1980s, military leaders tried to
act in place of a powerful Tito.25 Laura Silber’s and Alan Little’s interpretation
of these events posited that, “After 1980, the JNA knew that, along with the
League of Communists, it was the glue” that held together postwar Yugoslavia.
Until the outbreak of armed conflict in 1991, the authors argued that “most of-
ficers genuinely believed in the multinational union of six Socialist republics,
and in ‘bratsvo i jedinstvo’”—brotherhood and unity.26 Silber and Little did cor-
rectly note this strong bond between the two institutions but the explanation
as to why points to both the JNA and the LCY as giving up on Tito’s adventures
abroad. Army officers took their constitutional role seriously after 1974 and

22  “Aktuelni problemi izbornog sistema i uloga društveno-političkih organizacija u izbor-

nom sistemu,” AJ CK SKJ XXIII K.2 7, 1967, p. 13.
23  See Aleš Bebler in Report of the First Asian Socialist Conference, (Rangoon: Asian Socialist
Publication, 1953), p. 21.
24  Bjelajac, Jugoslovensko iskustvo, p. 83.
25  For more, see Robert Niebuhr, “War in Slovenia: Doctrine and Defeat,” Journal of Slavic
Military Studies, 19:3 (September, 2006), pp. 489–513.
26  Laura Silber and Alan Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, (New York: Penguin, 1997),
p. 50.
224 Epilogue

fought hard to maintain their Yugoslavia at all costs but could not craft an ex-
ternal policy as the Cold War drew nearer to an end.
The very decentralization campaign enshrined by Tito served as a mecha-
nism for both containing and emphasizing nationalist tensions because on
the one hand, Tito fought against particularism, but on the other, his reforms
brought power away from a strong center and into the hands of local elites who
abandoned the international perspective. Because decentralization enabled
local folks to engage in decision-making, the ethnic character of the local party
organizations necessarily stood in opposition to federal or other competing re-
gional units and failed again to look beyond Yugoslavia. An ethnic key (i.e., af-
firmative action) provided the federal government with a diverse foundation,
but the reality within the regions—such as the Zadar region in Croatia—often
resisted the manifestation of the ethnic key and only exacerbated tensions.
Moreover, the Yugoslav identity remained insignificant and when economic
troubles reached a boiling point during the 1980s, people lost hope and con-
fided their fears to local leaders. The full effects of this move showed them-
selves once “six million” Yugoslavs lived “on the edge or below the minimum
subsistence” standards.27 Finally, high-ranking officers in the JNA feared that
the Territorial Defense Force (TDF)—the system arranged to complement the
federal army with units drawn from the constituent republics—would not
respond to the central government because of similar selfish interests. Time
proved those viewers correct because in the 1990s, the TDF failed to respond
to calls by the federal government for loyalty, but they also in fact formed the
bases for new armies in the secessionist republics. Nationalism did take the
place of communism and filled the political vacuum that accompanied the
confusion behind the end of the Cold War; unfortunately, for several East
European and Eurasian states, the power of nationalism—or at least aspects of
it—still reigns supreme in the twenty-first century because the international
order deemphasizes international cooperation as leaders across the world de-
spise the overwhelming and flagrant power of the United States and mistrust a
rise in Chinese and Russian power. Medium-sized states like Iran are vying for
prestige but rather than emulate Tito and act diplomatically, leaders in Tehran
bully and engage in brinkmanship. Indeed, there is little cohesion to the post-
Cold War international arena and that will continue to pose risks to the greater
security of the world.

27  Radmila Klikovac, “Socijalna pomoć svakom sedmom!” Večernji list, 13 March 1985.
HU OSA, 300-10-2, YSFI POP 82–85, cn. 354.
Appendix A: List of Key LCY Officials, 19581

Name Nationality Age Joined Federal position

LCY

Kardelj, Edvard Slovene 49 1928 Vice President

Ranković, Aleksandar Serb 50 1928 Vice President
Gošnjak, Ivan Croat 50 1933 General
Vukmanović, Svetozar Montenegrin 47 1935 Vice President
Leskosek, Franc Slovene 62 1926
Stambolić, Petar Serb 47 1933 Pres. Federal National
Assembly
Pucar, Đuro Bosnian-Serb 60 1922
Koliševski, Lazar Macedonian 45 1935
Bakarić, Vladimir Croat 47 1933
Marinko, Miha Slovene 60 1924
Jovanović, Blažo Montenegrin 52 1924
Veselinov, Jovan Serb 53 1923
Begović, Vlajko Bosnian-Serb 54 1930
Popivoda, Krsto Montenegrin 49 1933 Committee for internal
affairs
Popović, Koča Serb 51 1933 State Sec. Foreign Affairs
Žeković, Veljko Montenegrin 53 1934
Bebler, Aleš Slovene Jew 52 1929 Pres. Committee Foreign
Affairs
Humo, Avdo Muslim, 45 1935
Bosnian-Serb
Mićunović, Veljko Montenegrin 43 1934 State Under Secretary
Foreign Affairs
Todorović, Mijalko Serb 46 1938
Vlahović, Veljko Montenegrin 45 1935 Pres. Committee for Internal
Rel.
Krajger, Boris Slovene 46 1935
Karabegović, Osman Muslim, Serb 48 1932
Arsov, Ljupčo Macedonian 49 1940
Crvenkovski, Krste Macedonian 37 1940

1  Department of State Intelligence Report. “After Tito: Forces of Cohesion and Division in the
Union of Communist of Yugoslavia.” 26 November 1956. Department of State Library Division.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004358997_010

Appendix B: Ethnicity in the JNA, 1963

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004358997_011

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New York Times (New York) Mladost (Belgrade)

Pravda (Moscow) Komunist (Belgrade)
Vjesnik (Zagreb) NIN (Belgrade)
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Archive of Yugoslavia, Formerly Archive of Serbia and Montenegro

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Index
Adolf Hitler 14
Adriatic 27 n. 19, 29, 30, 33, 43 n. 69, 109, 199
Afghanistan 19, 111, 144
Afro-Asian Conference 95
Agents 45
Aid 43 n. 69, 50, 62 n. 27
Albania 13, 21–24, 39, 44–49, 50 n. 95, 51, 57,
60, 63 n. 31, 102, 146, 209, 241
Albanian Party of Labour 46
Aleksandar Karađorđević 58
Aleksandar Ranković 68
Aleksandr Kerenskij 172
Aleš Bebler 92–93, 222 n. 23
Algeria 10 n. 35, 71 n. 56, 97, 239,
American xii, xv, 25, 30, 32, 37, 38 n. 48, 39,
41, 55–57, 61, 62 n. 26, 64, 66–67, 68
n. 49, 71, 73, 95, 98 n. 30, 101–102,
114–115, 119, 125, 133, 140, 156, 169 n. 123,
182 n. 30, 193, 194 n. 74, 198–199, 201,
203, 206, 210, 211 n. 5, 213, 234, 236–237,
239–241
Andrei Zhdanov 43
Archbishop Alozije Stepinac 39
Atlantic Charter 34
Austria 15, 20, 21 n. 3, 22–24, 29, 31 n. 30,
33–35, 36 n. 42, 44, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41
n. 58, 42, 43 nn. 65–66, 69, 44, 57, 239,
241
Axis 38 n. 48, 40 n. 54, 42, 59, 131
Axis Powers 131
Balkan 1, 16 n. 50, 20, 21 n. 3, 22, 38, 44, 46,
49, 51, 59, 60 n. 22, 235, 241
Bandung 69, 95, 96 n. 28, 98–99, 101–102,
107–108, 111, 113–114, 120, 128, 230
Bandung Conference 9, 95 n. 27, 107, 114,
120, 129 n. 134, 230
Belgrade vii, xv, 9, 11, 12 n. 43, 14 n. 47,
21 n. 3, 22, 26–27, 31–32, 36–37, 41, 43,
45–46, 50–51, 52 n. 101, 54 n. 5, 56 n. 12,
58, 59, 62–64, 68, 70 n. 51, 71, 72 n. 62,
73, 82–84, 89 n. 7, 93, 100 n. 34, 101,
104 n. 47, 106, 109, 111–115, 117, 124 nn. 119–
120, 126–127, 138, 140 nn. 29–31, 141, 143,
146 n. 52, 150, 157, 171 n. 2, 175, 182,
195–196, 198–199, 201–203, 204 n. 110,
205–206, 211, 227, 229–231, 233,
235–236, 238, 240
Belgrade Conference 9 n. 35, 100 n. 34,
111–114, 126, 127 n. 131, 199, 201, 203, 205,
230
Non-aligned Movement 111, 112, 113, 114,
126, 127 n. 131, 201, 203, 205, 230
Benkovac 159
Berlin Wall xiv, 221
Big Four 23, 38, 39, 41
Biograd na Moru 163 nn. 112–114, 164
Bleiburg 8, 9 n. 31, 43, 231–232, 240
Bolshevik 14, 172
Boris Vušković 220
Branko Mamula 137
Branko Perica 159, 163
Brezhnev Doctrine 128, 141, 144, 149, 166,
192, 195, 215
Brioni 109, 124
Buda Šoškić 143 n. 40, 197
Budapest xii, xiv, 106, 122, 228
Bulgaria 25, 49, 60, 61 n. 22, 102, 144, 193
Burma 89, 92, 98 n. 31, 99 n. 34, 110, 239
Cairo 97 n. 30, 111 n. 69, 113–114, 117 n. 97,
127, 230
Carinthia 13, 20–21, 34, 35 n. 40, 36 n. 42,
38–39, 41 n. 58, 43, 43 n. 67, 44, 44 n. 72
57, 240–242
Ceda Kapor 91, 92 n. 16
Central Committee 40 n. 55, 50 n. 96,
61 n. 24, 68, 91, 105, 107 n. 57, 121 n. 110,
122, 151, 167, 230
Central Intelligence Agency 67, 67 n. 46,
229
Charisma 2 n. 8, 241
Clare Boothe Luce 24, 24 n. 11, 65 n. 38
Cold War vii, xii, xiv, xv, 3–10, 12–13, 14
nn. 46, 49, 17–20, 21 n. 4, 22–23,
24 n. 9, 26 n. 16, 27 n. 17, 33, 35 n. 42,
39, 41 nn. 58–59, 50, 53, 54 n. 4, 55 n. 8,
56–57, 59 n. 18, 70, 71 nn. 56–57, 82, 85
n. 105, 86–88, 93, 97–98, 100 n. 34,
101 n. 36, 105, 109–110, 114, 120, 125,
Index
127–130, 136, 146, 168 n. 120, 171 n. 1,
172, 183, 193 n. 68, 194 n. 72, 195–196,
208–210, 211 n. 5, 212–215, 222–224,
232–234, 236, 238–241
COMECON 141
Cominform 7 n. 27, 11, 20, 22 nn. 5–6, 23,
26 n. 16, 31 n. 31, 40 n. 55, 45, 50, 54,
61 n. 24, 63, 65 n. 36, 68, 82, 87, 133, 176,
222, 240, 243
Communism 22, 30, 30 n. 29, 40 n. 55, 42,
60 n. 19, 68, 82, 106, 170, 174 n. 10, 204,
233, 243
Conference of Asian Socialists in Rangoon  69–70, 73, 86, 89–90, 91 n. 13, 93, 96–97,
92
Conference on Security and Co-operation in
Europe 12
Croatian Spring 16, 152–153, 155–156,
158–159, 161, 164, 168–169, 174, 181 n. 27,
183, 196, 198–199
Cuban Missile Crisis 114, 173
Cyrus Vance 202, 203 nn. 102–106
Czechoslovakia 15, 26 n. 16, 70, 77, 82, 102,
115, 117, 119–120, 122, 123 n. 114, 124, 128,
132–133, 140–144, 149, 165–167, 169, 176,
193, 196–197, 200–201, 210, 228
Dean Rusk 200
Decentralization 188
Democratic 13, 193 n. 68, 201, 208, 236
détente 128, 130, 174, 201, 203, 206, 215
Détente 194 n. 74, 198, 237
diplomacy 35, 132, 173, 211, 214
Disarmament 199 n. 91
Dobrica Ćosić 167
Dušan Mugoša 47
Dwight D. Eisenhower 24 n. 11, 65 n. 38, 110,
229
East Germany 69, 73, 168 n. 120, 193–195
Eastern Europe xiv, 3 n. 10, 4, 7 n. 27, 8,
22 n. 5, 24, 26, 29 n. 26, 57, 59, 63–65,
66 n. 42, 67 nn. 43–44, 81, 86–87, 122,
141, 172 n. 4, 174–175, 194, 199, 201–203,
207, 210, 217 n. 2, 222, 230, 234, 236
Edvard Kardelj 27, 36, 58, 60, 69 n. 49, 71, 75,
95, 101, 102 n. 39, 103, 104 nn. 45–46, 107,
122 n. 112, 162 n. 106, 177, 191, 230, 231,
238
245
Egypt 9, 11 n. 41, 15, 70, 93, 97, 98 n. 31, 109,
113, 116, 126 n. 127, 144
Enver Hoxha 24, 44, 45 n. 74, 46–47, 49,
209
European Economic Community x, 73,
214–215
European Union x, 214–215
Fascism 29 n. 26, 208
Fitzroy Maclean 46
foreign policy xv, 3–4, 6–8, 11–12, 14, 16–22,
23, 26 n. 16, 27, 39, 50–51, 54–58, 68,
100–101, 103–104, 107, 109, 111–112, 117,
121, 123, 125, 132, 140 n. 32, 142, 144, 174,
176, 178, 183, 190, 193, 195, 210–211,
214–215, 218
Francisco Franco 59
Gamal Abdel Nasser 98
General People’s Defense Law 145 n. 46,
149, 166
George Kennan 55, 74, 125, 129
Gerald Ford 205
Germanization 33, 36, 44
Germany 12, 22, 25, 29 n. 26, 41–42, 58 n. 15,
59 n. 18, 72, 85 n. 105, 123 n. 116, 140,
168 n. 120, 193–195, 201, 218
Greece 15, 25, 46 n. 80, 48, 63 n. 31, 72 n. 59,
216
Greek Civil War 25, 49, 57
Guerrilla 146 n. 52
Harry S. Truman 44 n. 71, 64, 95 n. 26,
206, 229
Helsinki 16, 73 n. 63, 123, 170, 173, 176,
193 n. 69, 194, 198–200, 201, 202,
203 nn. 102–103, 105–107, 109, 112,
204, 206–207, 210, 211 n. 5, 228, 237,
241
Helsinki Accords 73 n. 63, 123, 173, 176,
193 n. 69, 194, 198, 199, 202, 203 n. 102,
204 n. 109, 210, 237
Henry Kissinger 156, 193, 200
Hitler 59, 85, 213
Hungary vii, 29, 60, 65 n. 36, 67 n. 43,
70, 75, 82, 102, 106, 108, 121–122, 202,
228
246
Independent State of Croatia 218
India 15, 89, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98 n. 31, 100,
110
Indonesia 15, 69, 70, 92–93, 95, 96 n. 28,
97–98, 110, 230
International Monetary Fund 12
Iron Curtain xiv, 33, 205
Istria 27, 32, 38
Italianization 31, 33
Ivan Gošnjak 91, 136 n. 15
Ivangrad 221
I.V. Sadchikov 63
Jawaharlal Nehru 96
Jedinstvo 192
Jimmy Carter 206
JNA 8 n. 31, 76 n. 75, 91, 131–135, 137, 138
n. 24, 139, 145, 147–151, 153, 154 n. 76,
157, 166–169, 192, 223–224, 231
John Foster Dulles 24, 65 n. 38, 93,
126 n. 127, 171, 229
Joint Chiefs of Staff 64, 95 n. 26
Joseph Stalin 14, 20, 22, 45, 50, 173
Josif Dzhugashvili Stalin See Stalin
Julian Amery 46
Karin Donji 158–159, 161, 163–164, 188, 198
Karl Renner 42
K.D. Kaunda 119
King Zog 49
Koča Popović 103
Korean War 64, 101 n. 38
Kosovo 2, 46 n. 80, 47, 78, 153, 155, 160,
178, 186, 189, 204 n. 109, 205, 214, 228,
234
Kremlin 44 n. 71, 59 n. 17, 60, 67, 69, 71, 74,
82–83, 92, 123, 125, 130, 140 n. 32, 141,
143, 174, 179, 193, 194 n. 72, 198, 236
Krste Crvenkovski 171
Lazar Koliševski 184–185
LCY x, 51 n. 99, 54, 61 n. 25, 62, 66, 68, 73,
75–77, 79, 81–86, 89, 91–93, 103–105,
107, 112, 115, 117–118, 122, 131, 133–134,
136–137, 139, 142–143, 148, 151, 153 n. 74,
154–155, 157, 158 n. 97, 161, 162 n. 106,
163 n. 109, 164, 166–167, 169–171, 179,
181, 184, 185–186, 189–192, 195–198,
210–212, 218, 220, 222–223, 225
Index
Legitimacy 2 n. 8, 5–6, 54 n. 3, 105, 133 n. 5,
137 nn. 19–20, 145 n. 46, 148 n. 55, 217,
234, 239–241
Leo Mates 89
Leon Trotsky 173
Leonid Brezhnev 78, 123, 133, 140, 173,
203 n. 104
Ljubo Leontić 29
Lusaka 116, 118–119, 120 n. 108
Macedonia 39, 47, 49, 78, 144, 153, 177
Mao Zedong 96
Maoism 130
Marko Nikezić 62 n. 28, 82, 83 n. 100
Marxism xii, 4, 14, 26 n. 16, 29–30, 51, 54–57,
68, 73–74, 77, 80, 82, 84–86, 91, 99 n. 34,
100, 103 n. 44, 105, 107–109, 124 n. 117,
130, 134, 178–179, 182, 189, 208, 211, 213,
219
Matica Hrvatska 152, 157
Middle East 97, 109, 110, 126 n. 127, 144, 196,
217 n. 2
Mikhail Gorbachev 130, 215, 217
Miladin Popović 47
Milan Gorkić 59
Miljenko Živković 77, 145 n. 47, 149 n. 61
Miloš Žanko 122
Milovan Đilas 9 n. 31, 17, 25, 56, 68, 93–95,
101, 107, 128, 140, 190
Mišo Pavićević 221
Moscow 7–8, 13 n. 45, 14, 17, 22 n. 5, 24,
25 n. 14, 26 n. 16, 31–32, 39, 41, 42 n. 61,
50–51, 54, 56–57, 62–64, 66, 69–70,
74, 83, 86, 93–94, 96, 98 n. 30, 101,
106 n. 53, 108–109, 115, 116 n. 88, 117,
119, 121–126, 130, 140–141, 143–144,
173–174, 193–194, 198–199, 211, 217 n. 2,
227, 230
Nasser 98, 108–111, 114, 117, 121, 124, 126–127,
144
National Defense Laws 151
Nationalism 2, 16 n. 50, 53 n. 3, 138 n. 23,
154 n. 75, 167 n. 119, 201, 215, 217 n. 3,
221 n. 19, 224, 228, 233–238, 241–242
NATO x, 72–73, 142 n. 37, 146, 199–200, 228
Nazi 16, 22, 24, 33, 35, 36 nn. 44, 46, 38,
41, 44, 46, 55, 72 n. 59, 146, 157 n. 93,
199 n. 88, 201, 218, 240
Index
Nehru 96–97, 108, 109 n. 61, 110–111, 113,
114 n. 81, 121, 124, 127–128
Nicholas Katzenbach 144
Nijaz Dizdarević 68, 72, 83, 105, 116,
118 n. 98, 120, 143 n. 40, 170, 196,
197 nn. 83, 85–86
Nikita Khrushchev 1, 52–53, 57, 64, 101
n. 38, 106, 123, 126 n. 127, 140, 173
Non-aligned Movement xii, 7, 9, 15, 52,
56 n. 12, 69, 85, 88–89, 103 n. 44, 104,
107–108, 110–111, 114, 116–120, 122,
124–125, 127–130, 142, 144, 165, 218
nonalignment xii, 9–10, 12–13, 16, 18, 21, 52,
56, 72, 86, 88–90, 94, 96, 101 n. 36,
102–105, 109–118, 120–122, 124, 126–129,
132, 136, 141, 165, 176, 178, 183, 196–197,
199–201, 210–211
Opposition 135 n. 11, 153 n. 74, 187 n. 50,
228, 234, 237
Osvobodilna Fronta 39, 44
Palmiro Togliatti 30
Partisans 8, 13, 20, 24, 29, 34, 43–44, 46, 49,
59, 103, 137 n. 19, 154 n. 76
Pavelić 157, 218
Police 156, 239
Prague 116, 118, 122, 133, 141, 143, 144, 145,
166, 174, 193
Pravda 141, 173 n. 6, 227
Priština 186
Propaganda 82, 83, 107 n. 57, 230
Rangoon 10 n. 38, 92, 93, 94, 95, 98 n. 31,
99 n. 34, 100, 108, 128, 222 n. 23, 230
Red Army 59, 65 n. 36, 70, 86, 132, 141, 192
Reform 68, 84, 92, 135, 149–150, 175, 182,
187
revolutionary 30 n. 29, 54, 58, 60, 61 n. 23,
62, 71, 74, 85, 88, 99, 104, 118, 136, 140,
142, 157, 172, 175
Richard Nixon 128, 193
Romania 60, 122, 141, 202
Ronald Reagan 221
self-management 4, 15, 18, 51 n. 99, 52, 55,
60, 68–69, 73, 75–77, 79, 81–86, 90–93,
102–103, 123, 129, 131, 133, 136, 140, 145,
147, 157, 158, 162 n. 106, 165–167, 176,
247
177 n. 14, 178, 180–183, 185, 188–189, 192,
205, 209, 220, 222 n. 20
Six Days’ War 116
Sloboda ‘71 154
socialism 51 n. 99, 52, 55, 57, 63, 69–71,
74–75, 80, 83–84, 85 n. 105, 86, 90, 92,
98 n. 31, 99 n. 34, 103–104, 106, 109, 112,
115, 118, 121, 123, 125, 136, 141–143, 154,
162 n. 106, 164, 167, 168 n. 120, 173–174,
180, 182, 190 n. 55, 197, 201, 209, 217
Socialism 80 n. 90, 105 n. 49, 119 n. 102,
153 n. 73, 156 n. 85, 168 n. 120, 218 n. 7,
219, 230, 237, 238
Sovereignty 28 n. 21, 237
Stakhanovite 173
Stane Dolanc 143 n. 43, 144 n. 44, 195–196
Suez Canal 108, 109 n. 62, 121
Sukarno 15, 97, 108, 110, 111, 126
Superpowers 96 n. 29, 235
Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo 104
TDF x, 76 n. 75, 131, 133, 145, 147–150, 166,
168–169, 192, 224
Territorial Defense x, 15, 76 n. 75, 84, 131,
145, 147, 149, 166, 192, 224, 237
Third World 7–8, 10, 11 n. 41, 12, 13 n. 45, 15,
21, 52, 70, 85–86, 88–89, 90–91, 93–94,
99, 101–102, 108–109, 112, 113 n. 77,
114 n. 83, 116, 118–119, 121–122, 125–126,
128–130, 142, 165, 170, 172 n. 5, 178, 196,
209–210, 212, 238–240
Titoism 4, 64, 65 n. 38, 67 n. 45, 68, 69 n. 49,
86, 95 n. 26, 102 n. 39, 104 nn. 45–46,
105, 107, 112, 125, 229–230, 236, 240
Tito-Stalin split 19, 24, 33, 56, 60 n. 20, 67,
71, 101 n. 38, 135, 176, 177
Trieste 13, 20–21, 23–24, 25 n. 12, 27, 28 nn. 20–
22, 29–34, 35 n. 41, 36, 38, 40, 42, 51, 57,
73, 233–234, 237–238
UDB-a x, 68, 133, 198–199, 204
Unemployment 18 n. 53, 175 n. 13, 238
UNESCO 12
United Arab Republic 98, 111
United Nations 101 n. 38, 109, 141, 155, 200
USSR x, 43, 51, 64–67, 71, 82 n. 98, 85 n. 105,
95 n. 26, 114, 125, 141, 178 n. 17, 189, 196,
217, 218 n. 8, 228–229, 238, 242
Ustaša 38 n. 48, 43, 157 n. 93, 159
248
Veljko Mićunović 25, 56
Veljko Vlahović 76, 179 n. 22, 181
Vietnam 103 n. 42, 115, 119, 146, 193
Viktor Bubanj 77 n. 75, 132 n. 3, 133, 134 n. 8,
145 n. 47, 148 n. 55, 154 n. 75
Vittorio Vidali 24 nn. 10–11, 31
Vladimir Bakarić 77 n. 78, 121 n. 110, 155–156,
157 n. 90, 158 n. 95, 164, 184, 188 n. 52
Vladimir Dedijer 25, 56, 95, 99 n. 34
Vladimir Lenin xiv, 172
Warsaw Pact 72, 82, 115, 122–124, 133, 141,
143, 146, 199–200, 203, 229
Washington 7, 31–33, 38–39, 59 n. 16, 62,
64 n. 33, 67 n. 46, 69–71, 94, 95 n. 26,
96, 97 n. 30, 100 n. 34, 115, 117, 125 n. 124,
126, 169 n. 123, 173, 177 n. 16, 182 n. 30,
200 n. 93, 229, 231, 234, 237–238, 242
World Bank 12
Index
World War II 1, 7, 9 n. 31, 13, 16, 20, 22–23,
27, 29, 37, 40 n. 54, 45–46, 49, 57–59,
63, 72 n. 59, 85, 87, 97, 99 n. 34, 100,
103 n. 42, 108, 125, 131, 133, 135–136, 146,
151–153, 159, 165–167, 173, 177, 180, 190,
198, 201, 209–210, 213, 215, 218, 233, 238
Yugoslav Communist Party xv, 54, 87, 91
Yugoslav People’s Army x, xiv, 131, 134, 136,
137, 145, 151 n. 69, 192, 241
Yuri Orlov 210, 211 n. 5
Zagreb 7 n. 28, 8 n. 31, 20 n. 1, 40, 68 n. 48,
77 n. 79, 113 n. 78, 124, 145, 150 n. 63,
152–154, 156–157, 159, 163, 165, 188 n. 52,
200 n. 93, 206 n. 117, 209 n. 2, 219 n. 11,
227, 231–232
Zbigniew Brzezinski 14 n. 46, 194
Zhou En Lai 10