I heard this story from the Balkan trots and titoids many times; it continues with Tito sending a message to Stalin: If I attempt to assassinate you, it won’t have a second time. They tell it more to disparage Stalin than to praise Tito, as I understand.

Now, I know Tito and Stalin have a clash of interest after WW2, but I don’t think Stalin was the kind of man that would chase petty revenges.

In addition, I understand that this may be slightly off-topic, but could you also explain the reason that SFRY withdrew from the Eastern Bloc? According to ProleWiki, Tito was too ambitious about its control area in the Balkans and wanted to get closer to the USA, which obviously was not accepted well by Stalin. Is this the full story, or are there more to it?

  • Keld [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    26·
    15 days ago

    but I don’t think Stalin was the kind of man that would chase petty revenges.

    ?!?!?!?

    First off It’s not petty. It’s the difference between having an allied country in your orbit and having a country with mixed allegiances. Its like when people say Trotsky was killed for something he said in a meeting or because Stalin didn’t like him, it’s missing the forest for the trees. Secondly I genuinely cannot think of a man who more decidedly settled things than Stalin.

    Tito was too ambitious about its control area in the Balkans and wanted to get closer to the USA, which obviously was not accepted well by Stalin. Is this the full story, or are there more to it?

    This isnt wrong but it is stretching things to be unkind to Tito. Tito saw surrounding countries populated by slavs as natural places to extend Yugoslav influence. Albania should in his view be included in the Yugoslav federation. An effort Stalin opposed. But also Tito didn’t think that Stalin’s view that communists should more or less leave Europe alone and let the capitalists have it made sense and he supported Greek communists. It was more or less the same thing that later caused the sino-soviet split. Soviet refusal to see other communists as equal participants in revolution and ambition of the non-soviet leadership.

    Tito and Stalin split, Tito purged his government of Stalin loyalists and Staln tried to start a military coup (Or at least support an anti tito movement) in Yugoslavia and later tried to assassinate Tito at least once (Altough that was cancelled when Stalin died)

    After the split the USSR closed off trade and Yugoslavia turned to the US because their economy had been reliant in East Bloc imports.

    Now there are hundreds if not thousands of nuances to every single statement there, and i don’t know enough about it to elucidate more.

    Ediit: the specific threat you refer to is supposedly a letter sent to Stalin. Now the thing is, we don’t know if that is a real letter. Most of Stalin"s letters and notes were destroyed following his death.
    The source for it existing is oral history. Roy Medvedev ran around with a dictaphone recording an oral history of the Stalin period in the late 50s and synthesised his interviews into a “dissident history”. His source is Aleksei Snegov who gave an interview stating the existence of such a letter.

    • jack [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      22·
      15 days ago

      It was more or less the same thing tbat later caused the sino-soviet split. Soviet refusal to see other communists as equal participants in revolution and ambition of the non-soviet leadership.

      Very important to emphasize this. If there hadn’t been a Yugo-Soviet split, there never would’ve been a Sino-Soviet split and the socialist bloc probably never would’ve collapsed. We’d still have half the world population under socialism. If only…

      • Feed_el_Castro [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        13 days ago

        If there hadn’t been a Yugo-Soviet split, there never would’ve been a Sino-Soviet split

        I kinda don’t agree with this, the Sino-Soviet split happened because of Khruschyov-era revisionism, but it got deepest and irreversible after Mao’s death and China’s market reforms. It was bound to happen anyway.

        The Sino-Soviet split for sure costed the USSR a lot and is one of the core reasons behind its eventual dismantling, however China placing itself against the USSR is what encouraged western politicians to allow the offshoring of capital from the NATO block to China, which has eventually resulted in the deindustrialization of the west in favour of China. I’ll be able to call it the correct move when China starts to adopt a more socialist internationalist policy and promotes socialist regime change outside its borders and directs the global narrative towards socialism, which I believe they’ll eventually do over the course of the remaining of this century (or maybe that’s hopium)

    • Feed_el_Castro [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      13 days ago

      Also, idk enough about the Yugoslav project to really have an opinion, was this project always as decentralized, market-oriented and direct-worker-owmership as it was in the late 20th century? If so, I’d argue that, given it lasting a mere 10 years without the Soviet block, the Yugoslav model isn’t capable of defending itself from capitalist interference without a powerful Soviet Union counteracting this influence, in the way that for example the Cuban or DPRK models do allow for this defence.