After the dissolution of the Comintern the world Communist movement was without an official international organization through which the exchange of strategy and information could be channeled. In response to the Marshall Plan and a felt need, the Cominform was created in 1947. By January of 1948 the first crisis of this organization began to unfold. It centered around Yugoslavia and the conduct of the Soviet Union within and towards that nation. Non-fraternal intervention in the affairs of Yugoslavia, problems involving Soviet economic use of joint Yugoslav-Soviet companies, the high salaries exacted by Russian officers and experts attached to Yugoslavia, and other matters led to the conflict about which we shall read. Soviet charges were designed to weaken and discredit Yugoslavia’s leadership but the fantastic exaggerations and inconsistencies of their argument only served to solidify that leadership’s position. Only two Communists of stature, Hebrang and Zujovic-Crni, lent themselves to Soviet plans for internal upheaval and they both ended up in jail, where Hebrang supposedly committed suicide. As the major conflict of the Cominform’s short history this episode throws great light on the operational codes of the world movement in certain nations of Europe and the expected conduct of each member party at this time. This, along with the new theory of the “two camps” will be the object of our study.
1. Why was the Cominform created? What was its purpose, how was it run and how did it parallel and differ from the Comintern?
2. What is the basis of the Cominform’s assessment of Tito as a “fascist”? How is this similar to the ultra-left line of the Third Period toward Social Fascism?
3. How rigorously are terms like “democratic”, “peace”, and “internationalism” used in line with Marxist-Leninist theory? What did “internationalism” mean to the Cominform?
4. How does the theory of the “two camps” differ from the line of the period of the 7th Congress? What possible effects for Communist strategy in the post war period could this have had?
5. Is the criterion for calling a nation socialist based on the internal policies and conduct of the class struggle within the nation or on some other basis?
A. Zhadanov, The International Situation, parts 2,4.
Communist Party of China, Is Yugoslavia a Socialist Country?
Royal Institute of International Affairs, The Soviet Yugoslav Debate, pp. 61-79.
Yugoslavian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, White Book, pp.14-17, 174-178.
Gunther Nollav, Marxism, Communism and Western Society, Vol. 2, pp.58-60.