The “Thaw” in Yugoslav-Soviet Relations

The 1948 Cominform Resolution expelling Yugoslavia from the Communist bloc was an attempt by Joseph Stalin to isolate the Yugoslav regime and force command obedience from Tito and other national Communist parties.

Stalin is reported to have stated: “I will shake my little finger---and there will be no more Tito. He will fall”. Nikita Khrushchev in his memoirs, Khrushchev Remembers (1970), wrote that he was "absolutely sure that if the Soviet Union bordered Yugoslavia Stalin would have intervened militarily."

This is how Khrushchev analyzed the Yugoslav-Soviet Split in the 1956 Secret Speech to the 20th Congress of the CPSU, in which he denounced Stalin’s policies:

“The willfulness of Stalin showed itself not only in decisions concerning the internal life of the country but also in the international relations of the Soviet Union.

	Tito, Khrushchev, and Bulganin in Belgrade in 1955.

The July Plenum of the Central Committee studied in detail the reasons for the development of conflict with Yugoslavia. It was a shameful role which Stalin played here. The ‘Yugoslav affair’ contained no problems which could not have been solved through Party discussions among comrades. There was no significant basis for the development of this ‘affair.’ It was completely possible to have prevented the rupture of relations with that country. This does not mean, however, that Yugoslav leaders made no mistakes or had no shortcomings. But these mistakes and shortcomings were magnified in a monstrous manner by Stalin, resulting in the break-off of relations with a friendly country.

I recall the first days when the conflict between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia began to be blown up artificially. Once, when I came from Kiev to Moscow, I was invited to visit Stalin, who, pointing to the copy of a letter recently sent to Tito, asked me, ‘Have you read this?’

Not waiting for my reply, he answered, ‘I will shake my little finger -- and there will be no more Tito. He will fall.’

We have paid dearly for this ‘shaking of the little finger.’ This statement reflected Stalin's mania for greatness, but he acted just that way: ‘I will shake my little finger -- and there will be no Kosior’; ‘I will shake my little finger once more and Postyshev and Chubar will be no more’; ‘I will shake my little finger again -- and Voznesensky, Kuznetsov and many others will disappear.’

But this did not happen to Tito. No matter how much or how little Stalin shook, not only his little finger but everything else that he could shake, Tito did not fall. Why? The reason was that, in this instance of disagreement with [our] Yugoslav comrades, Tito had behind him a state and a people who had had a serious education in fighting for liberty and independence, a people who gave support to its leaders.

You see what Stalin's mania for greatness led to. He completely lost consciousness of reality. He demonstrated his suspicion and haughtiness not only in relation to individuals in the USSR, but in relation to whole parties and nations.

We have carefully examined the case of Yugoslavia. We have found a proper solution which is approved by the peoples of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia as well as by the working masses of all the people's democracies and by all progressive humanity. The liquidation of [our] abnormal relationship with Yugoslavia was done in the interest of the whole camp of socialism, in the interest of strengthening peace in the whole world.”

The thaw in relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union began after the death of Joseph Stalin on March 5, 1953. On June 6, 1953, under Nikita Khrushchev, who had been a Stalin lieutenant, the USSR suggested the exchange of ambassadors with Yugoslavia. Bulgaria, Hungary, and Albania likewise suggested exchanges of ambassadors. Poland and Czechoslovakia restored diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia in 1954.

	Yugoslav President Tito with Soviet Premier Khrushchev at the UN General Assembly on September 26, 1960.

On May 26, 1955, Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin met with Tito in Belgrade, where they issued an apology for the grave "accusations and offenses" against Yugoslavia. A joint Belgrade Declaration issued on June 2 recognized that "different forms of Socialist development are solely the concern of the individual countries" and condemned aggression and "all attempts to subject countries to political and economic domination."

During the June, 1956 visit to Moscow by Tito, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union formally reestablished government and party relations.

Khrushchev reconciled with Tito during his visit to Belgrade in 1955. This ended the mini-cold war period between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.

On June 2, 1955, Yugoslavia and the USSR signed a joint declaration in Belgrade, the Belgrade Declaration, that reestablished diplomatic and friendly relations between the two nations.

Economic Policies

The USSR accused Yugoslavia of the following during the Yugoslav-Soviet rift: 1) Yugoslavia pursued a non-Marxist domestic and foreign policy; 2) Yugoslavia had shown “belligerence and hostility” towards the Soviet Union and the Soviet Communist party; 3) Yugoslavia had not collectivized and had not made a distinction between wealthy and poor peasants; 4) the Yugoslav Communist Party was treated as subordinate. Yugoslavia was accused of “petty-bourgeois nationalism”, leaders had “boundless ambition, arrogance and conceit”. Pro-Soviet and dissident Yugoslav leaders Andrija Hebrang and Sreten Zujovic were arrested. Hebrang was imprisoned and died under mysterious circumstances in 1948. Tito did not want to follow Soviet policies in Yugoslavia such as forced collectivization, which was unpopular in Yugoslavia, would alienate over half the population, and would lead to food shortages and a possible economic collapse.

The Yugoslavian economy was dependent on trade with the Communist bloc countries. Over half of Yugoslavia’s foreign trade was with the Cominform countries. The expulsion meant that credits and aid for the Five-Year Plan were not available.  Yugoslavia did not have good relations with the West at this time, almost going to war with the US over Trieste in 1945. Yugoslavia made some changes. In July, 1948, an open and public congress of the Yugoslav Communsit party was in session. The central committee was open to more workers, its members were to be elected, and its sessions were to be less secretive. In 1949 attempts were made at semi-collectivization. By 1951, one million farmers in 6,500 co-operative farms had been forced into the semi-collectivization of their land. The result was the lowest crop yield since 1920 was reached in 1952. In 1953, coerced collectivization was scrapped and most of the co-opertaive farms were broken-up.

The Cominform countries imposed an economic blockade against Yugoslavia.  Credits, trade, and heavy industrial products stopped. The jointly-formed Yugoslav-Soviet companies were dismantled. Plants for steel mills, electric power stations, coke, and coal were no longer impoted to Yugoslavia. This forced Yugoslavia to rely on the West for economic trade. This was seen as a breach in “the iron curtain”. Yugoslavia adopted a less rigid ideological position and a more liberal economic policy as a redult. Economic planning was not as rigid, political controls were more liberal, more self-management or zadrugas, and a non-palignment policy that played each Superpower against the other. The Yugoslav regime was forced to rely on Western aid. Yugoslavia exported strategic metals and minerals to the West.

	Tito with John F. Kennedy in 1963, Tito's first visit to the US.

The US, in turn, lifted the trade embargo against Yugoslavia and began exporting industrial equipment to Yugoslavia. Great Britain, West Germany, and the US replaced the USSR and the Communist bloc countries as the main trading partners. Short and medium term credits were provided. In 1949, the US Export-Import Bank began providing loans to Yugoslavia as did the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Yugoslavia began accumulating foreign debt to the West. Following the 1950 drought when the harvest was halved, the UK, US, and France provided aid that by 1958 would total $2,517 million.

US Relations with Yugoslavia

On May 29, 1955, Nikita Khrushchev, the First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, and Nikolai Bulganin, the new Soviet Prime Minister, made an official visit to Yugoslavia at which time he attempted a rapprochement with Yugoslav leaders. Khrushchev and Bulganin sought to improve relations not only with Yugoslavia, but also with India and Britain, countries that they also visited in what was dubbed “the B and K show”, an important diplomatic initiative pursuant to deStalinization. Khrushchev argued that “there are different roads to communism” and that Yugoslavia need not follow the Soviet model. Moreover, Khrushchev dissolved the Cominform. This ended the Informbiro period. Tito visited Moscow in June, 1956. Yugoslavia continued, however, to follow an independent course.

The Yugoslav rapprochement with the Soviet Union caused alarm and concern in the US. Since 1951 the United States had given Yugoslavia an estimated $500 million in military equipment, including jet planes and tanks. In August, Secretary John Foster Dulles convinced Eisenhower to send Deputy Undersecretary Robert Murphy to Yugoslavia to take some new soundings in Yugoslavia."

The Mutual Security Act of 1956 regulated US aid to Yugoslavia. The Act required termination of aid to Yugoslavia unless the President decided that continued assistance was in the American interest and that Yugoslavia remained independent of the Soviet Union. Tito requested 300,000 tons of wheat, major military supplies, and a $10 million loan to assist the development of a copper mining facility. On October 15, 1956, Eisenhower announced the decision to allow economic aid to Yugoslavia. The United States, however, continued to refuse to supply jet planes and other heavy equipment pending the further clarification of Yugoslav policies.

Yugoslavia continued to pursue an independent foreign policy course in international affairs. Yugoslavia had abstained several times from voting on U.N. resolutions regarding Soviet actions in Hungary in 1956. Eisenhower formally invited Tito to visit the US. Tito accepted the offer and planned to visit the US in 1957. The controversy surrounding this invitation, however, forced its cancellation.

Tito’s first visit to the US would come on October, 1963, when he met with US President John F. Kennedy.

Controversy over US aid to Communist Yugoslavia became an issue during the Tito visit. In a Friday, October 27, 1961 Time magazine article on Texas Air National Guard Major Harry C. Knickerbocker, Jr., criticisms were expressed about US aid to Communist Yugoslavia. Knickerbocker had hoped to obtain some used ground-training equipment for the F-86 jets that were in his Guard unit. A US officer at the Perrin base had explained that Knickerbocker could not use the equipment because it was being used "by the class with the Yugoslavs in it." Knickerbocker reacted to the September incident: "It didn't hit me for a few minutes. Then you might say I got a real jolt."

	Khrushchev and Tito in Moscow.

Knickerbocker was reported to have written a letter of protest to Texas Republican Senator John Tower. He complained that "a treasonous situation" existed because four Yugoslav pilots and four maintenance men were being trained at Perrin in the use of the F-86. A "National Indignation Convention" had been formed in Texas that staged protest rallies that drew 2,000. Time reported that Knickerbocker protests were “making national headlines”. The policies of three US administrations on military aid to Communist Yugoslavia were being attacked.

Not only were pilots and airmen from Communist Yugoslavia trained. Under the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations, the US sold, at reduced prices, tanks, guns and some 550 jet fighters, fighter-bombers and training aircraft to Yugoslavia.

In March, 1963, the Kennedy Administration had approved the plan sponsored by the President Eisenhower Administration to sell 130 F-86D jets to Yugoslavia fat a price of $10,000 each. These aircraft were originally sold for $345,000, but were sold at the reduced rate to Communist Yugoslavia. They were described as “obsolescent” or obsolete models.

Time reported “a rising outcry” against US military aid to Communist Yugoslavia. The Kennedy Administration and Dwight Eisenhower defended their transactions with Yugoslavia. The rationale for the US military assistance was that US military aid “helps Yugoslavia's dissident Communist Tito from falling into the Soviet Union's smothering embrace.” US Secretary of State Dean Rusk maintained that US aid “has unquestionably helped Yugoslavia to stay independent of the Soviet bloc.” For Eisenhower, the sale to Communist Yugoslavia of obsolescent jets was "in the best interests of the United States."

The Kennedy Administration, although it approved the jet sale to Yugoslavia, has taken the issue of US military aid to Yugoslavia “under close review”. Time reported that President Kennedy was “angered by the hostility Tito displayed toward the West at the Belgrade conference of neutrals last month”. The US could influence and coerce Yugoslavia to act or behave in a certain way by means of military, diplomatic, and economic pressure. Kennedy retaliated against Yugoslavia by using the lever of economic aid. Yugoslavia had requested a 500,000 ton shipment of surplus US wheat. The US Ambassador George Kennan told Yugoslav officials that the US had not decided on whether to go through with the wheat deal. Kennan was the US Ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1961 to 1963. Kennan was “the father of containment”, the ideological construct that guided US policy during the Cold War. In many respects, Kennan was one of the key ideologues and architect of the Cold War, although he was later disgusted with some of the ramifications of his policies. Kennan was photographed in a jovial mood with Tito.

This is how the US managed relations with Yugoslavia during the Cold War. This was the modus operandi (MO). Time reported that “the choice was up to Tito: whether to be at least reasonably friendly toward the U.S. or to forgo its much-needed aid.” Yugoslavia was a pawn in the larger global chess-match between the US and USSR. Nevertheless, Communist Yugoslavia benefited from US military and economic support during the Cold War. The US policy was to provide aid so long as Yugoslavia did not join the Soviet bloc and pursued an “independent” course.

A “Forward Strategy” in Europe

Initially, the US planned to withdraw from Europe following World War II because of the strategic weakness vis-à-vis the Soviet land forces on the continent. The US military view was that if the Soviet Union decided to invade and take over Western Europe, there was nothing the US could do to prevent this. Gradually, a US policy evolved and developed that would envision a greater US role in the defense of Western Europe from a possible Soviet attack. Yugoslavia became of greater strategic importance to US policy with the emergence of the evolving “forward strategy” in Europe.

The NATO Treaty committed the US to the defense of Western Europe and a greater military role on the continent. On April 4, 1949, the US signed the North Atlantic Treaty creating NATO, a defensive military alliance between the US, UK, Canada, France, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Italy, and the Benelux countries. This alliance would be under the leadership of the US and pledged that an attack on one or more of the countries in Europe or North America would be regarded as an attack against all of them. This was an important military commitment for the US, meaning that the US would go to war over an attack against a European nation. Greece and Turkey wee admitted in 1952, but West Germany was excluded from NATO.

So US policy had not yet ossified on the militarization of Germany. Indeed, even by 1949 there still lingered a powerful “taboo” against “militarism” in Germany that was shared by US policymakers, German chancellor Konrad Adenauer, French leaders, and the German public. The extent of aversion to “German militarism” in Germany was shown by the prohibition against glider planes and even fencing because they were categorized as “military exercises”. There was a shift in US policy on German remilitarization.

In the US policy shift on the rearmament of Germany, several factors played key roles. US policy on this issue ossified as well, but only after a “long series of hurdles” were cleared. These included US “self-doubts, widespread European reluctance, and Soviet obstructionism.”  First, Germany was perceived as an “ideological, not a traditional enemy” of the US. It had been Japan, not Germany, which had attacked the US and forced the US to enter the war. Moreover, the bulk of the combat during World War II was between Germany and the Soviet Union. Moreover, Germany did not border the US, so there was not the threat of a land invasion of the US by Germany. The German military forces destroyed 1,700 Soviet cities, 70,000 villages, and 31,000 factories. The economic infrastructure of the USSR was destroyed. The German military forces killed up to 28 million Soviet citizens.

	Tito with Nikita Khrushchev on Brioni in 1963.

By contrast, the US mainland was virtually untouched by German forces and thus US economic infrastructure was untouched. Total US deaths during World War II were 425,000. (26) The major theater of the war for the US was Japan and Asia, not Europe. For the Soviet Union, the invasion force came from Germany, Hungary, and Romania. These factors are important in analyzing differing US and Soviet attitudes toward Germany. There was a much greater antipathy to the rearmament of Germany in the USSR and other countries of Western and Eastern Europe , who had been occupied by German forces, such as France, than there was in the US.

By as late as August, 1950, US policy was to oppose German rearmament. A US State Department statement declared that it had “opposed, and still strongly opposes, the creation of German national forces.” A rearmed Germany “frightened” even the US State Department. George Kennan argued that the “German people are still politically immature and lacking in any realistic understanding of themselves and their past mistakes.”

There was a gradual evolution in US policy in 1950 that resulted in a change in US policy toward German militarization. The change began with NSC resolution 68, which argued that the US should “conclude separate arrangements with Japan, Western Germany, and Austria which would enlist the energies and resources of those countries in support of the free world.” The US Joint Chiefs of Staff, in NSC-71, argued that Germany should be rearmed: “The appropriate and early arming of Germany is of fundamental importance to the defense of Western Europe against the USSR.” This was a radical proposal because it would result in the total and complete integration of West Germany into the US “empire by consent”. If German militarization was achieved and West Germany were to be integrated in the US-led military alliance, it would mean the full and complete break with the Soviet Union. It would mean that the US no longer was pursuing a “double containment” policy, but only a single containment policy against the USSR. President Truman criticized the proposal as “decidedly militaristic”. Dean Acheson regarded the creation of a German army as “quite insane”. (24)

The rift over the militarization of Germany revealed a split between the US State Department and the US Defense Department. In his memoirs, Present at the Creation, Acheson revealed that as late as June 5, 1950, he opposed the rearmament of Germany. (25) For Acheson, the “United States would continue the policy of German demilitarization.” Acheson recounted how General Omar Bradley had told him that “from a strictly military point of view, I do believe the defense of western Europe would be strengthened by the inclusion of Germany.” The US High Commissioner for Germany, John McCloy, recommended in July, 1950, that Germany be rearmed. Thus, US policy was evolving towards German rearmament from as a military necessity. The decisive event that changed US policy on German rearmament was the June 25, 1950 North Korean invasion of South Korea. According to Acheson, this event resulted in a reassessment of US policy in Germany: “it was time to consider our plans for European defense in the light of Korea.” (27)

The US was evolving a “forward strategy” with regard to Germany even before the Korean attack in 1950. Acheson noted that “the need for increased Military strength was in the air, given a renewed fillip by the Korean attack.” General Bradley described this “fundamental change” in US policy on rearming Germany as a reaction to Soviet and Communist actions: “Communism is willing to use arms to gain its ends. This is a fundamental change, and it has forced a change in our estimate of the military needs of the United States.”

US policymakers transposed the Korean scenario onto Germany. If East Germany, like North Korea, chose to invade a demilitarized West Germany, the latter would be defenseless because it would be outgunned and outmanned. In 1949, the USSR had acquired atomic weapons, so the US did not have the nuclear deterrent anymore. Acheson pointed out that there were only 12 NATO divisions in all of Europe, while the Soviets had 27 divisions in East Germany alone, and up to 100,000 police units that could be converted to a military force. Korea revealed the vulnerability and weakness of West Germany in case of a similar invasion. Korea changed everything. Acheson did an about-face on German rearmament: “My conversion to German participation in European defense was quick.” US policy towards German rearmament was evolving towards remilitarizing West Germany.

The Korean invasion acted as a catalyst. Acheson explained the effect of Korea: “Korea had speeded up evolution.” It meant that Germany now had the primary role in the “balancing of power in Europe.” According to Acheson, US defense strategy against the USSR in Europe “had to be based on a forward strategy.” This was the key decision in US policy towards West Germany. It ossified US policy on Germany. Now there was no room for maneuver. There were two opposing camps, two “empires” that confronted each other.  Détente was precluded with the Soviet Union. What followed now was a search for a way to realize a forward strategy with German military participation against the Soviet Union. The lines were drawn now. There was total and complete ossification.
Conclusion

	US Ambassador George F. Kennan, one of the architects of the Cold War, with Tito in Belgrade, 1961.

By 1953, US foreign policy toward Germany had ossified to the point where détente was not possible with the Soviet Union during the next decade. This ossification in US foreign policy resulted because of several key factors.

First, the Truman Doctrine in 1947 enunciated a new policy for the US that represented a clean break with isolationism and a new commitment to global leadership, global engagement, confrontation, and containment of Communism. This was a “turning point” in US foreign policy during the Cold War, which represented a crystallization or consensus that the US should lead the free world block of nations and confront Communism everywhere on the planet. The Truman Doctrine resulted in a consistent US foreign policy throughout the Cold War based on containment and confrontation.

Second, the US was committed to integrating the West German economy into the capitalist system. This precluded a unified, neutral Germany, a plan proposed by the USSR. The US was committed to the inclusion of West Germany into the capitalist system, which ossified US policy on Germany vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Finally, the US reversed its policy of keeping West Germany demilitarized by 1950. West Germany not only became remilitarized, but was incorporated in NATO, the US defensive military alliance against the Soviet Union. These three factors, the Truman Doctrine, West German economic integration into the market capitalism system led by the US, and the militarization and inclusion of Germany into a military alliance led by the US, resulted in an ossified foreign policy on Germany by 1953. There were now two opposing and confrontation “empires” or blocs that faced each other. The lines were drawn in the sand by 1953.

The Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations consistently upheld these policies in negotiations with Nikita Khrushchev. In A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963, Marc Trachtenberg concluded that the US developed a consistent policy during this period that resulted in a “constructed peace” for Germany and for Europe. (28)

US foreign policy crystallized and ossified by 1953 with regard to Germany and Yugoslavia. The US foreign policy paradigm of 1953 remained in effect until the break-up and dismemberment of Yugoslavia in 1991. The paradigm was applied consistently throughout the Cold War period.

Conclusion

The US had created an ”empire by consent” in Western Europe, an economic, military, and political bloc or alliance system lead by the United States as the dominant power, which included a remilitarized Germany. Détente was not possible in the next decade because the US consistently pursued this policy in Germany against the Soviet Union. The US foreign policy towards Germany which was set and determined by 1953 was consistently applied and remained in place until 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down.

US policy was to aid Communist Yugoslavia militarily and economically during the Cold War so that Yugoslavia could pursue an independent course from the Soviet bloc. US policy sought to encourage a middle course for Yugoslavia because it prevented Yugoslavia from joining the Soviet bloc. Once the Soviet bloc collapsed, Yugoslavia was no longer of any use to the US; Yugoslavia was expendable. The US no longer needed to prop up Communist Yugoslavia in the Cold War balance. With the collapse of the Soviet Communist bloc, there was no longer a counterweight that Yugoslavia could rely on. Being of no use to the US, Communist Yugoslavia was allowed to implode and to disintegrate as a nation beginning in 1990. With the counterweight of the Communist bloc gone, US policy could focus of dismembering Communist Yugoslavia and incorporating and absorbing the new, emerging “fledgling democracies” into the “free world”, the US or Western bloc, the only global system left. The objective of US policy following the Cold War is to totally and completely integrate the remnants of the former Communist Yugoslavia into US economic, political, and military blocs.

Yugoslavia was a pawn in the larger chess-match between the two global superpowers during the Cold War. With the end of the Cold War superpower conflict, Yugoslavia lost its value even as a pawn. Yugoslavia became worthless and of no strategic value to the remaining superpower bloc led by the US. The ineluctable result was that Yugoslavia was immediately dismembered and destroyed as a unified state. Yugoslavia needed the Cold War ideological and geopolitical conflict to remain viable and integrated. The Cold War conflict gave Yugoslavia a raison d’etre. With the end of the Cold War came the inevitable end of Yugoslavia.

Footnotes

(1) John Gaddis, We Now Know (NY: Oxford, 1997), 292-93.
(2) Gaddis, 294-96.
(3) Gaddis, 44.
(4) Jean Smith, The Defense of Berlin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1963), 72-76.
(5) H.W. Brands, The Devil We Knew (NY: Oxford, 1993), 30-32.
(6) Harry Truman, Memoirs, 2 vols. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1955), 170-74. Truman discussed how Republicans controlled the Eightieth Congress and how they opposed his foreign and domestic policies. Many Republicans were “isolationists” and wanted “appeasement” with the USSR. Truman also complained about the “Republican-controlled press and radio.” Truman’s policies were by no means automatically accepted, but by 1953, a bi-partisan consensus had emerged in the US in support of containment and confrontation.
(7) Frank Ninkovich, Germany and the United States (Boston: Twayne, 1995), 81-88.
(8) Smith, 127-135.
(9) Ninkovich, 90-93.
(10) Ninkovich, 91.
(11) Ninkovich, 94-96.
(12) Anne Deighton, The Impossible Peace (NY: Oxford, 1990), 6-18.
(13) Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation (NY: Norton, 1969), 67-71.
(14) Melvyn Leffler, A Preponderance of Power (Stanford: Stanford Press, 1992), 224-225.
(15) Acheson, 258-67.
(16) Truman, Vol. 2, 113.
(17) Truman, Vol. 2, 106.
(18) Acheson, 247-53.
(19) Leffler, 221.
(20) Brands, 31-33.
(21) Brands, 31-32.
(22) Gaddis, 286-87.
(23) Truman, Vol. 2, 101.
(24) Acheson, 64-76.
(25) Acheson, 81-90.
(26) Leffler, 14-17.
(27) Acheson, 327-336.
(28) Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace ( Princeton: Princeton Press, 1999), 3-8.

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