Encyclopedia of Russian History

As a result, the communist state created in Yugoslavia in 1946 was independent of Soviet stewardship even though its constitution was initially modeled on the Soviet constitution. From the outset, Tito pursued an independent domestic policy and an aggressive foreign one. His ambitions threatened both Stalin’s leadership (by his promotion of national communist movements) and also peace in Europe (by such actions as the shooting down of American planes during the Trieste Affair, the Italian-Yugoslav border dispute, and his support for the communists in the Greek Civil War). When Tito attempted to create a separate customs

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

YURI DANILOVICH

union with Bulgaria without consulting the Soviet Union beforehand, and refused to abandon the effort as Stalin demanded, a break, usually referred to as the Tito-Stalin split, quickly followed.

On June 28, 1948, the Cominform, the umbrella communist propaganda organ directed by Moscow, expelled Yugoslavia, charging Tito with betraying the international communist movement. Stalin hoped that this would force Yugoslavia to submit to Soviet leadership, but he miscalculated. Instead, Tito turned to a West that was all too willing to forget his ideology and past actions and provide assistance to enable Yugoslavia to pursue its own command economy and an independent diplomatic and political stance that served as a counterforce to the Soviet leader. Yugoslavia, for example, supported the United Nations resolution authorizing resistance to the invasion of South Korea in June 1950. Tito soon became one of the founders of the nonaligned movement, which held its first conference in Belgrade in 1961.

Stalin’s death in 1953 opened the door for a partial rapprochement with Belgrade. Issues such as navigation and trade along the Danube River were resolved, but the ideological rift never entirely healed. In May 1955 Nikita Khrushchev visited Belgrade, and the following year Tito visited to Moscow, and the Cominform, which dissolved in April 1956, renounced its earlier condemnations. Despite seemingly cordial relations, however, the strains between Moscow and Belgrade persisted, especially after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, which saw the independent-minded Hungarian revolt crushed, and the arrest and subsequent murder of Imre Nagy, the Hungarian prime minister, who had taken refuge in the Yugoslav embassy in Budapest from 1956 until 1958. In 1957 Tito angered Moscow by refusing to sign a declaration commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.

In the wake of the Sino-Soviet split of the early 1960s, another reconciliation took place, most notably in the area of trade. However, Yugoslavia continued to develop economic ties with western Europe, as witnessed by the hundreds of thousands of Yugoslavs who went west for employment as well as by western investment in Yugoslavia. For Belgrade, improved relations with Moscow were but one part of a foreign policy that also looked to the West (despite anti-American rhetoric), China (after a reconciliation in the early 1970s), and the Third World for influence and economic advantages. Soviet leaders in turn realized that the ideological squabble with Belgrade served little purpose.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

The death of Tito in 1980 began the fracturing of a Yugoslav state strained by economic problems and national resentments, and by 1990 the country fragmented. Similarly, the Soviet Union lost its empire in eastern Europe in 1989, and by 1991 the Soviet Union itself dissolved.

The break-up of the two states ironically brought both of them full circle. During the nineteenth century, Russia had been the sole great power supporter of Serbia. Although a “Yugoslavia” continued to exist after 1990, the name denoted a rump state that comprised only Serbia and Montenegro. As the wars in the former Yugoslavia raged, Moscow again served as Belgrade’s principal benefactor, citing historical, religious, and cultural ties. From military aid to peacekeeping in the wake of Slobodan Mlosevic’s failed attempt to promote Serb authority through the brutal suppression of the Albanian Kosovars, Russia had regained an influence in Belgrade that it had not seen since the early days of World War I. See also: BALKAN WARS; COMMUNIST BLOC; COMMUNIST INFORMATION BUREAU; MONTENEGRO, RELATIONS WITH; SERBIA, RELATIONS WITH

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