Surprised by Tito

To most American observers interested in foreign affairs in 1948, the Soviet Union and its allies appeared to be involved in a conspiracy to dominate the world. In China, Mao Zedong's Communist army had renewed its civil war against the Nationalists, while Communist forces in Southeast Asia were in various stages of revolt against feeble colonial regimes. In the Near East, Soviet-led incursions had recently been turned back in Iran and Turkey, but a civil war was well under way in Greece, with support coming from Communist Yugoslavia. In Eastern and Southern Europe, Communist regimes transparently subservient to Moscow were consolidating authority; in Western Europe, Communist parties were working to subvert democratic governments. Most observers were certain that Moscow directed the conspiracy and that Communist parties everywhere were the Kremlin's loyal servants. The appearance of unity in the Soviet bloc, however, proved illusory. At a meeting in Bucharest, Romania, on 28 June 1948, the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform), which was composed of most of the Communist parties of Eastern and Southern Europe and two from Western Europe, issued a communiqué condemning one of the Cominform's hitherto most highly esteemed brethren, Yugoslavia, for pursuing domestic and foreign policies hostile to the Soviet Union.1 In the past, the Kremlin had indicated displeasure with Communist parties through public criticism and liquidation; never before had it read a party in firm control of a country out of the Communist movement

China · Communism · Communist state · Democracy · Economic history · Foreign policy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Balkans: History, Politics, Society · History · Law

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