Part Two - Indymedia

Setting the Stage 21
law on agrarian reform and colonization that ultimately resulted in the
redistribution of some 800,000 hectares of land among 316,000 peasant
families. 6 In December 1946, Parliament passed its first law on nationalization,
covering such enterprises of "national importance" as banking,
transportation, and wholesale commerce, although, in fact, 80 percent of
Yugoslav industry had already been confiscated either directly from
wartime occupiers or from their Yugoslav owners on often dubious
grounds of collaboration. A second nationalization law passed in April
1948 finally completed the process, realizing state control over even
minute enterprises. Meanwhile, in April 1947, the government had unveiled
its first Five Year Plan for economic development, which, again
following the Soviet example, called for extremely high levels of investment,
especially in the infrastructure and in heavy industry.
In the spring and summer of 1948, CPY progress toward socialist development
was suddenly interrupted by its developing conflict with the
Soviet Union and "People's Democracies" of Eastern Europe, After a
tense meeting between top CPY leaders and Stalin in February 1948,
Tito's pictures were suddenly removed from all public places in Romania.
Then on March 18, the Soviet Union abruptly recalled its high level
military and diplomatic personnel from Yugoslavia, claiming that they
were "surrounded by an absence of comradeship." 7 In the weeks and
months that followed, Soviet leaders carried on a heated correspondence
with the Central Committee of the CPY. In their letters, Stalin and Molotov
accused Yugoslav leaders of a variety of sins, from anti-Soviet attitudes
to coddling the peasantry. Some of the accusations were clearly ludicrous
while others bore more relationship to reality. Top CPY leaders,
however, correctly surmised that the conflict had nothing to do with
these specific accusations but was intended to destroy the independence
of the party, making it into a more obedient and predictable satellite.
In their responses, therefore, CPY leaders refused to admit error, while
nonetheless insisting on their loyalty to the Soviet Union and the cause
of socialism. They declined, moreover, to discuss their case at a special
meeting of the Communist Information Bureau or Cominform (an organization
in which Yugoslavia's Communists had previously held a position
of leadership) convened in Bucharest, Romania, on June 28, 1948.
The resolution passed at that meeting restated the Soviet accusations
and called on "healthy elements" in the party to remove their leaders
and return Yugoslavia to the socialist fold. In response, CPY leaders first
published the resolution and their entire correspondence with Soviet
leaders and then instituted a campaign to root out Cominform supporters,
while at the same time still declaring loyalty to the Soviet Union and
socialist bloc.