YUGOSLAVIA: In the Woods at Yalta

When Marshal Tito flew into the Crimea to take a brief “vacation” at Russia’s First Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev’s sunny Yalta villa, he did not expect to meet so many old comrades. The emphasis of the eight-day talk in Nikita’s parlor and in Yalta’s woods and hills was on “comradeship” among the European Communist Parties. A thoughtful Tito, as he flew back to Belgrade one day last week, must have been brooding deeply about how comradely an independent Yugoslav Communist could afford to be. It was not difficult to understand why.

Black Pedro. With the beaming Khrushchev at his elbow, Tito had met the black-browed Pedro, whom Khrushchev introduced, and of course the prestigious Serov. Tito certainly remembered them. They had all been working for Stalin during the Spanish civil war 20 years before. That was when Tito was a Comintern agent traveling under the name of Walter, and Pedro and Serov were top Russian secret police operators. In that office, Serov, Pedro and Walter (and other Communist notables, including France’s Andre Marty and Italy’s Palmiro Togliatti) shared a common assignment: the liquidation of all left elements in the Spanish Republican forces that were not completely subservient to Stalin.

In World War II, after the spectacular failure in Spain, Serov, Pedro, Walter & Co. had remained faithful Stalinists, though their ways parted. Tito in Yugoslavia organized a Communist-controlled partisan army; Serov back in Russia rounded out his NKVD career as the liquidator of minority nationalities, numbering some millions of people who saw the war as a chance to throw off the Soviet yoke; Pedro became a big wheel in Moscow’s Free Germany Committee, and later, under the name of Erno Gero, Stalin’s agent in Hungary. When Tito, protected by his 33-division Yugoslav army, broke with Stalin in 1948, it was Erno Gero, Ivan Serov and a whole raft of equally ruthless, scheming and experienced Communist operators who organized the Cominform campaign of vilification and intrigue aimed at destroying him.

Meeting these comrade antagonists again last week, matching their friendly handshakes, Tito had reason to guess that their comradely smiles were inspired by the fact that, after a temporary setback, the old Stalin faithfuls of Soviet Communism were again wielding influence.

Be Patient, Comrade. The “ideological difference” which brought the Communists together in the Crimea revolved around the same problem that had taken them to Spain: Moscow domination of foreign Communist Parties. Since Khrushchev’s and Bulganin’s rapprochement with Tito last year and their joint recognition of Tito’s “many-roads-to-Socialism” principle, the cautious movement towards a controlled autonomy in the Soviet satellite states has been getting out of hand. Local Communist Parties spurred on by the desperation of their nation’s destitute workers, e.g., in Poland and Hungary, have apparently had the nerve to aim for an independent status as complete as that enjoyed by Tito. The reaction of Moscow’s diehard Stalinists (among them Molotov, Malenkov, Suslov) has been to give off reverberations of the old Cominform line (Pravda: “What’s this claptrap about national Communism?”), and to thwart Tito’s suggestions—agreed to by Khrushchev—for loosenings and changes in neighboring satellite states.

When it was decided to change the leadership of the Hungarian party, an extreme Stalinist, perhaps the power and brains of the Stalinist faction, was left to carry it out. Onetime Cominform Spokesman Mikhail Suslov, a Central Committee secretary and member of the present Soviet Presidium, flew down to Budapest to depose reigning Party Boss Matyas Rakosi, in accordance with Tito’s wishes. But in doing so, he established old-line Stalinist Erno Gero as Rakosi’s successor.

In the confused, rumor-filled wake of the Reds’ Yalta conclave, there was still nothing to contradict the best interpretation of why Nikita Khrushchev went suddenly to Belgrade, and Tito went as suddenly to Yalta. The interpretation: Khrushchev, unable to put down the Stalinist faction, went to Yugoslavia to persuade Tito to be a patient comrade, and to play along with the Stalinists, to insist too loudly on neither satellite autonomy nor further destalinization. When Tito proved stubborn, Khrushchev took him to Yalta to hear the arguments and to feel the strength of the forces against him. As he paced the Yalta seashore, Tito might have heard it suggested that, if he were serious about furthering satellite Communism and not merely intent on fragmentizing that empire, he should join an association of satellite states and parties, in which he could wield constructive influence (TIME, Oct. 8).

Funeral for Face. There is no real evidence that Tito is going to fall into the trap set for him by his old comrades. In fact, the Soviet Communists, by making a number of concessions to him, made his visit to Yalta seem highly successful. In Hungary, the Communists ordered the disinterment and state reburial of former Foreign Minister Laszlo Rajk and three other top-ranking Communists who were all hanged seven years ago as Titoists. The Hungarian state Cabinet and some 200,000 Hungarians marching behind the black coffins were, in effect, a tribute to Tito’s new importance in that country. A delegation from the Hungarian Communist Party, led by Erno Gero himself, prepared to pay court to Belgrade. A delegation from the Italian party, the most powerful outside the Iron Curtain, was already on Tito’s doorstep. Rumania was sending a delegation, and also the French Communist Party, hitherto cool towards the Yugoslavs. Pravda reported that differences between the Yugoslav and Soviet Communist Parties had “considerably lessened” and were “continuing to diminish.”

Cautious not to read too much into these “face” maneuvers, Western experts were of no mind to write off Marshal Tito as a son returned to the tight Red fold. In Washington, Secretary of State Dulles said he had no reason to think that Tito had changed his policy, which was “that the now satellite countries should have a greater measure of independence.” To get at the truth of Tito’s position, virtually every Western and Communist diplomat in Belgrade (including U.S. Ambassador James W. Riddleberger, back in Belgrade from vacation) was lined up for official interviews with the Yugoslav President. Tito, for the moment at least, was letting them twiddle their thumbs and—as he perhaps was doing too—wonder just what it is all about.