World War Two and the Partisan Struggle 117
Tito—ŠubašićThere seemed to be no end of good news. On 8 January 1944, Churchill in-
formed Tito, as well as Stalin, that he would break off relations with Mihailović.
The following day, Tito asked to be officially recognized, and informed Mos-
cow thereof.^347 He could not restrain himself from telling his collaborators—
and Dimitrov—that he was in contact with the British prime minister, who
still wanted him to come to an agreement with King Petar II.^348 These were
obviously purely illusory, since it was evident that the Karadjordjević dynasty
was doomed. Stanoje Simić, the Yugoslav ambassador to Moscow, was also of
this opinion and on 10 March 1944 terminated his relationship with the gov-
ernment in exile.^349 Fitzroy Maclean concurred—he had already written to
London at the end of 1943 that the time had come to confront reality: “The
Partisans are containing more enemy divisions than the combined British and
American armies in Italy, and they will remain the rulers of Yugoslavia what-
ever we do.”^350 Most important, however, was Stalin’s decision to support Tito
in his hostile attitude toward the monarchy. When he realized at the Tehran
Conference that the English and the Americans would recognize the National
Liberation Committee as a fait accompli, he radically changed his negative
stance regarding the AVNOJ government and began acting, to quote Kardelj,
“as if he recognized it.”^351 A significant episode in this regard took place at the
airport in Baku during his return from Iran. As Marshal A. E. Golovanov
recalled, he was approached by the Boss and told that the Yugoslav Partisans
were to be aided with weapons immediately and at any cost.^352 When, on 22
December 1943, Purić, the premier of the Yugoslav royal government, men-
tioned to the Soviet ambassador in Cairo, Nikolai V. Novikov, that he was ready
to sign an agreement of friendship and collaboration with Moscow similar to
the one signed recently by Stalin and Edvard Beneš, prime minister of the
Czechoslovak government in exile, Novikov flatly refused. “I offered you
8 million Serbs,” commented an outraged Purić, “but you do not want them.”^353
Through Dimitrov, Stalin informed Broz on 9 February 1944 that both the
royal government in Cairo and Mihailović had to be removed. The only legiti-
mate power in Yugoslavia should be the AVNOJ and the National Libera-
tion Committee headed by Tito. “If King Petar accepts these conditions, the
AVNOJ will not refuse to collaborate with him. It is clear, however, that the
question of the monarchy will be decided by the people after the liberation of
Yugoslavia.”^354 This letter was later sent by Tito to Churchill as if he himself
were its author.^355
The aforementioned dispatch from Moscow to the Supreme Staff was inter-
cepted by British Intelligence, which gave Churchill a chance to see how close