Tito and the Soviets: From Hate to Love and Back
摘要
During the 1950s Yugoslav and Soviet policies changed dramatically. The Tito-Stalin split occasioned a larger and deeper conflict expressed diplomatically, through the United Nations, and in a confrontation with Yugoslav citizens for alleged “Cominformist” sympathies. Retaining its communist identity, Yugoslavia nevertheless joined the Balkan Pacts with NATO members Greece and Turkey; Tito visited the UK, his first foreign visit after 1948. With the 1955 Soviet-Yugoslav rapprochement and “Destalinization,” Tito anticipated recognition of “different roads to socialism.” Belgrade needed good relations with Moscow for cultural and ideological reasons, and Moscow sought to arrest Belgrade’s drift towards the West. Events in Hungary in 1956 demonstrated the incompatibility of Soviet and Yugoslav objectives. The result was a “serious and defining” breach, evident in the 1958 Yugoslav party program. Foreign Minister Koča Popović finally returned to Moscow in 1961. Meanwhile, Yugoslavia pursued its non-aligned foreign policy between Eastern and Western Europe and the developing countries.