Informbiro period

Aleksandar Ranković established a special anti-Cominform staff in the Yugoslav State Security Administration.

In the immediate aftermath of the Tito–Stalin split, the leadership of the ruling Communist Party of Yugoslavia (Komunistička partija Jugoslavije, KPJ) was faced with uncertainty over personal loyalty. Interior minister Aleksandar Ranković noted it was impossible to know who to trust and that one's closest comrades may now be the enemy.[13] Even as Tito and Stalin exchanged letters which led to their open split in early 1948, Tito called for action against central committee member Sreten Žujović and former minister of industry Andrija Hebrang. Žujović was the only person openly supporting Stalin when the central committee discussed Stalin's direct accusations and who was his source of information. Tito alleged Hebrang was the main source for Soviet mistrust and tasked Ranković with charging him. Ranković fabricated charges that Hebrang became an Ustaše spy during his captivity in 1942 and that the Soviets subsequently blackmailed him using that information as leverage. Both Žujović and Hebrang were apprehended within a week.[14] There were numerous victims of persecution beyond Žujović and Hebrang. Real or perceived supporters of Stalin were termed "Cominformists" or "ibeovci" as a pejorative initialism based on the first two words in the official name of the Cominform. Thousands were imprisoned, killed, or exiled.[15]

In response to the situation in the country, Ranković established a special anti-Cominform staff in the State Security Administration (Uprava državne bezbednosti, UDB) consisting of his deputy, and nominal head of the UDB, Svetislav Stefanović Ćeća, Veljko Mićunović, Jovo Kapičić, Vojislav Biljanović, Mile Milatović, and Jefto Šašić as the head of the Counterintelligence Service (Kontraobaveštajna služba, KOS).[16]

In 1948–51 alone, 55,663 KPJ members were registered as Cominformists, or 19.52% of the 1948 party membership. However, in the same period, the membership was augmented by the introduction of more than half a million new members. The number and proportion of Cominformists in the KPJ membership varied substantially by federal constituent republics and regions, and as by ethnicity. More than half the members were registered in Serbia proper, while the highest proportion relative to the total population was found in Montenegro.[17]

Such high numbers of Cominformists in Serbia in absolute terms, and in Montenegro in relative terms compared to its population, are explained by the Russophilia traditionally observed there.[18] The origins of this sentiment are linked to Imperial Russian aid in 1804–1815 during the Serbian Revolution coinciding with the 1806–1812 Russo-Turkish War, and subsequently, diplomatically as the Principality of Serbia gained diplomatic recognition in 1830.[19] The sentiment was reinforced in Montenegro since the Russian Empire acted, or was perceived to have acted, to protect the Principality of Montenegro against the Ottoman Empire in the mid-18th century. By extension, this support was given to the USSR.[20]

The exact number of those arrested remains uncertain, but in 1983, Radovan Radonjić stated that 16,288 were arrested and convicted, including 2,616 belonging to various levels of the KPJ leadership.[17] According to Ranković, 51,000 people were killed, imprisoned or sent to forced labour.[21] A majority of them were sentenced without a trial.[22] Prisoners were held at numerous sites including actual prisons, as well as prison camps in Stara Gradiška and the repurposed Ustaše concentration camp in Jasenovac. A special-purpose prison camp was built for Cominformists on the uninhabited Adriatic islands of Goli Otok and Sveti Grgur in 1949.[23]

Goli Otok prison camp was built to hold people convicted of supporting Stalin after the split from the USSR.

The secret police themselves were among organisations targeted by purges. Yugoslav sources indicate that 1,722 UDB servicemen and officers were convicted. Particularly wide-ranging purges were carried out against the UDB in Sarajevo after all of the UDB personnel of Sarajevo's second district declared their support for the Cominform. Their action was echoed by UDB chiefs in Mostar and Banja Luka. At least seventeen UDB officers holding the rank of Lieutenant Colonel or higher in high-profile positions in the federal bodies or in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro were arrested, and several UDB officers escaped to Romania.[24]

Support for the Soviets within the Yugoslav Army ranks is difficult to determine. Low-end estimates indicate that 10–15% of the army's personnel favoured the Soviet position. Yugoslav sources estimate the number of military members arrested is in a range from 4,153 officers and soldiers put forward by Radonjić, to 7,000 imprisoned officers estimated by Milovan Đilas. The purge included 22 officers in the presidential guard regiment reporting directly to Tito, including Momčilo Đurić, wartime commander of the Yugoslav Partisan Supreme Headquarters escort battalion.[25]

Forty-nine Yugoslav Army graduates of the Voroshilov, the Frunze, and other Soviet military academies were deemed potential Soviet supporters. Many of those attending such academies in the USSR at the time of the Tito–Stalin split never returned to Yugoslavia.[26]

The split particularly affected the Air Force. Almost all Air Force officers had Soviet training, and some of them fled the country in air force planes. The defectors included Major General Pero Popivoda, who was the head of the air force operational service. Batajnica, Zemun, and Pančevo airbases near Belgrade saw several attacks by groups of saboteurs, while the Zemun airbase commander and his deputy fled to Romania.[27]

In the immediate aftermath of the split, there was at least one failed attempt of a military coup d'état supported by the Soviets. Colonel General Arso Jovanović, who was chief of Tito's wartime Supreme Headquarters and later the chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army headed it, supported by Major General Branko Petričević Kadja and Colonel Vladimir Dapčević. Border guards killed Jovanović near Vršac while he was attempting to flee to Romania, Petričević was arrested in Belgrade, and Dapčević was arrested just as he was about to cross the Hungarian border.[28][29]

Tito faced opposition from a group of émigrés—Yugoslav nationals who were out of the country at the time of the split. According to Yugoslav sources, the group consisted of 4,928 people including 475 specifically chosen military and civilian experts sent to the USSR and elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc for training, and comparably few defectors. Initially, the Yugoslav ambassador to Romania, Radonja Golubović, led them. In addition to Golubović, the group included diplomats posted to Hungary, Sweden, Norway, and the United States.[30] By late 1949, Popivoda was established as the undisputed leader of the exiled opposition, and the group named itself the League of Yugoslav Patriots for the Liberation of the Peoples of Yugoslavia from the Yoke of the Tito-Ranković Clique and Imperialist Slavery.[31]

Soviet authorities organised the émigrés along several lines. They supported the publication of several newspapers advocating anti-Titoist efforts, the most influential being Za socijalističku Jugoslaviju (For Socialist Yugoslavia) and Nova borba (New Struggle). Radio Free Yugoslavia aired daily propaganda broadcasts from Bucharest. Various non-military experts were trained for a future takeover of the government, while military personnel were organised into four international brigades deployed to Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria near their Yugoslav borders, and an air force unit was set up in the Ural Mountains. The international brigades included thousands of personnel drawn from various Eastern Bloc countries touted as volunteers.[32]

The Soviet allies blockaded their borders with Yugoslavia—where 7,877 border incidents took place.[33] By 1953, Soviet or Soviet-backed incursions resulted in the killing of 27 Yugoslav security personnel. More than 700 agents are thought to have crossed the border into Yugoslavia—160 of whom were captured and 40 killed in combat.[34]

The Yugoslav security apparatus also faced armed insurrection in several areas—most notably in Montenegro.[35] As a result, an entire UDB division was deployed to Montenegro in the summer and autumn of 1948 to combat the insurrection led by former secretary of the KPJ organisation Ilija Bulatović, in the town of Bijelo Polje. In addition to the KPJ organisation there, large segments or entire organisations in Kolašin, Berane, Cetinje, Nikšić, Bar, and Danilovgrad voiced support for the Cominformists. A special task force, headed by Komnen Cerović, was added to the Montenegrin government to persecute the insurgents.[36] They suppressed the rebellion but only temporarily. In 1949, Cerović's force took out insurgent strongholds in the Monetenegrin part of Sandžak. Further uprisings took place in the Zeta River valley and the area between the republic's capital, Titograd and Nikšić. Ultimately, the insurgents failed.[37]

Two more insurrections, led by ethnic Serb veterans of the Partisan forces and former army officers, took place in the areas of Kordun, Lika, Banovina in Croatia, and just across the federal unit's border in Bosnia and Herzegovina where rebellion centered on the city of Cazin in 1950.[38] In the Cazin area, the bulk of the insurgents were actually Muslim peasants.[39] The motivation for the twin rebellions appears more diverse, including real or perceived inadequate appreciation of the wartime efforts of the rebellion leaders,[40] promises to abolish various taxes, and the restoration of King Petar II to the throne.[41] Yugoslav authorities captured ten infiltrators, including eight former Chetniks, coming from Austria to support the rebels.[42] The insurrections were put down quickly,[41] and Yugoslav authorities ascribed them to Cominformism.[43] Also, a likewise unsuccessful, small-scale rebellion took place in Slovenia at the same time.[44]

Prior to 1948, the Yugoslav economy relied on state-controlled trade of agricultural products and raw materials to the USSR in exchange for processed goods and machinery.[45] Overall shortages of machinery and local shortages of labour—especially skilled experts—plagued the economy.[46] As the conflict with Stalin progressed, Yugoslavia decided to become self-sufficient and develop its military capabilities, which led to greater budget expenditures for infrastructure and personnel,[47] and the establishment of research and development institutions. To offset the lack of machinery, third shifts were introduced in factories.[48] Authorities mobilised, under threat of imprisonment, those not otherwise employed, and peasants not actively doing agricultural work, to work in mines extracting coal or ores for export, or at construction sites.[49] Food and fuel were stockpiled for the military,[50] leading to market shortages.[51]

By June 1948, Yugoslavia reached an agreement with the United States, allowing Yugoslav authorities to access their gold reserves held in the United States. At the same time, Yugoslavia announced it would like to trade with the West.[52] Yugoslavia first requested assistance from the United States in summer 1948.[53] In December, Tito announced strategic raw materials would be shipped to the West in return for increased trade.[54]

In February 1949, the US decided to provide Tito with economic assistance and, in return, the US would demand Tito to cut support to the DSE when the internal situation in Yugoslavia allowed such a move without endangering his position.[55] Ultimately, Secretary of State Dean Acheson took the position that the Yugoslav five-year plan must succeed if Tito was to prevail against Stalin and that, regardless of the nature of his regime, Tito was in the United States' interest.[56] In October 1949, Yugoslavia received backing by the United States and won its bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council,[57] despite Soviet opposition.[58]

Construction of the Jablanica Dam took place during the period following the Tito–Stalin split as one of major infrastructural works in Yugoslavia.

The Soviet-led blockade of Eastern Bloc trade with Yugoslavia came into effect gradually and remained incomplete until 1949.[59] It first took the form of stoppage of oil from Albania, Hungary and Romania, but purchases from Allied authorities in the Free Territory of Trieste offset this. Trading with the United States began in 1948 when Yugoslavia purchased a steel blooming mill, fifteen oil drills, industrial mixers required to set up a tire production facility, five mobile repair workshops and several thousand tractor tires in exchange for various minerals and ores. By the end of the year, it concluded trade agreements with several West European countries.[60]

The Export–Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) approved its first loan in late August 1949, when the Soviet blockade took full effect. It reflected the decision to "keep Tito afloat" made in February. The United States switched to full support by September. Soon, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank approved loans as well, albeit requiring Yugoslavia to use them to repay pre-war debts to Britain, France, Italy and Belgium. The United States pressured Belgium to accept payment in kind instead of cash.[61]

By the end of the year, stocks of grain, fertilisers, and agricultural machinery were running very low. At the same time, export income declined by 36% requiring the extension of rationing.[62] Consequently, a $20 million Ex-Im Bank loan was used to buy food in October 1950, and the United States sent nearly twice the amount of food as aid in November. In late December, President Harry S. Truman signed the 1950 Yugoslav Emergency Assistance Act granting $50 million worth of food.[63] This aid helped Yugoslavia overcome poor harvests of 1948, 1949 and 1950,[58] but there would be almost no economic growth before 1952.[64]

In 1950, Yugoslav authorities sought to combat unsustainable labour practices and improve production efficiency through the introduction of compulsory employment contracts and the reduction of labour quotas while maintaining production goals, and requiring factories to balance goods, available cash, and labour through workers' councils. The system would later become known as "self-management".[65] The push to increased efficiency led to lay-offs of workers deemed less productive—including women, the elderly and even maintenance crews, which did not actually produce anything—resulting in a sharp rise in unemployment.[66]

YUGOSLAVIA

★HUNGARY

★CZECHOSLOVAKIA

★ POLAND

★EAST
GERMANY

★SOVIET UNION

★ROMANIA

★BULGARIA

TURKEY

GREECE

★ALBANIA

ITALY

AUSTRIA

WEST
GERMANY

The Eastern Bloc countries (marked ★) at the time of the Tito–Stalin split; The Free Territory of Trieste is not shown

Even though the Yugoslavs initially avoided asking for military aid, believing it would be a pretext for a Soviet invasion,[74] it is unclear whether the USSR planned any military intervention in response to the Tito–Stalin split. Hungarian Major General Béla Király, who defected to the United States in 1956, claimed that there were such plans, but research carried out in the 2000s demonstrated his claims were false.[75] Regardless of any Soviet plans, Yugoslavs believed an invasion was likely and planned accordingly.[76] It would appear from a message from Stalin to Czechoslovak president Klement Gottwald in 1948 that his aim was the isolation and decline of Yugoslavia.[77]

Following a shift of United States policy to "all-out support" for Yugoslavia, on 17 November 1949, the National Security Council pledged to help Yugoslavia defend against invasions.[78] By 1951, Yugoslav authorities became convinced that a Soviet attack was inevitable and Yugoslavia joined the Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP).[74] Shortly before Yugoslavia joined the MDAP, the Yugoslav military held an exercise near Banja Luka in 1951 which hosted US observers, including the Chief of Staff of the United States Army General J. Lawton Collins.[79] In November, the United States provided aid under the MDAP and successfully persuaded the British and French to sell arms to Yugoslavia.[80] The United States provided a large quantity of military hardware; the bulk of the equipment was given to the Army. The Yugoslav Air Force was particularly low on equipment in 1951, but within two years it received 25 Lockheed T-33As, and 167 Republic F-84 Thunderjets.[79] In view of the defence cooperation, the United States Forces in Austria proposed a plan for joint American-Yugoslav defence against Soviet advances from Hungary to Austria through Slovenia, but such plans were never approved.[81] By the mid-1950s, the military aid provided by the United States amounted to a half a billion dollars.[82]

In 1952, as Greece and Turkey joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the US ambassador approached the Yugoslav ambassador to Turkey in Ankara and suggested strengthening military ties between Yugoslavia with Greece and Turkey.[83] The idea was discussed through 1952 at various levels, with all three countries expressing interest in cooperation, although Yugoslavia employed the most cautious approach to an alliance.[84]

In February 1953, Yugoslav, Greek and Turkish foreign ministers signed the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in Ankara, later also known as the Ankara Agreement, formalising an agreement to cooperate in defence matters.[85] A military alliance agreement building on the Ankara Agreement was signed by the three in Bled on in August 1954, but it did not attach Yugoslavia to NATO. Instead, it allowed Yugoslavia to retain an independent policy.[86] Tito signed this pact to bolster the defense of Yugoslavia against a potential Soviet military invasion. It also made the option of Yugoslavia's NATO membership more plausible at its time. Under this pact, any potential Soviet invasion of Yugoslavia could also lead to NATO intervention to help defend Yugoslavia due to the NATO memberships of Greece and Turkey. However, the foreign policy disagreements between the three countries in the pact eventually crippled the alliance itself, thus ending the possibility of Yugoslavia's NATO membership.[87]

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