The Long March of Revisionism

Abstract

On 28 June 1948, the Cominform states issued a Resolution in Bucharest expelling the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Instigated by Stalin and Molotov, the attack was timed to disrupt the final stages of the Fifth Congress, and bring Tito to heel by calling on rank-and-file members to put an end to the ‘Turkish-terroristic regime’ of their leaders. The political map of Eastern Europe was being redrawn, though this was not yet clear even to the principals in the drama. The Party continued to acclaim the Soviet Union as the leader of the people’s democracies1 in the struggle against capitalist imperialism. Compliments were lavished on Stalin personally, to whom Congress sent fulsome comradely greetings. For more than a year the CPY lived in limbo, ostracized by the socialist camp but hoping for a return to normality. Stalin was unrelenting. On 29 September 1949, he revoked the treaty of friendship and cooperation between Yugoslavia and the USSR, and it was clear that he meant business. In secret session, the Federal Assembly declared a state of national emergency and prepared to resist invasion.