202 The Postwar Period
in Belgrade, nurtured by the hope that the disappearance of the principal pro-
tagonist of the Bucharest excommunication would give the Boss a valid ex-
cuse to correct his policy. These illusions were shattered on 8 September 1948,
with a long article published by Pravda entitled “Where Is the Nationalism
of Tito’s Clique Leading Yugoslavia?” It was a tirade that condemned the Bel-
grade leaders without appeal, denouncing them as ignoble, hypocritical, and
hostile to Lenin’s doctrine. Their proclaimed love of the Soviet Union was just
a cheap stratagem to deceive the Yugoslav people. In reality, during the Fifth
Congress, when the rhetorical phrases about Yugoslavia as part of the united
anti-imperialist front were especially loud, “Tito’s faction passed to the oppo-
site camp, renouncing the alliance with the revolutionary international prole-
tariat and preparing the ruin of the country.”^274
These tough words, the harshest ever used by the Soviet press, were signed
“CEKA” in boldface capital letters. In Russian, but also in Serbian, this sug-
gested the Central Committee, giving weight to the text. According to the
experts at the British Embassy in Moscow, this article was characteristic of
Stalin’s style, with his taste for heavy irony and obsessive repetitions of the
same ideas.^275 This did not escape the Belgrade leaders, who until this point
had taken comfort in the relative silence of the Soviet press, which they consid-
ered a good omen for possible reconciliation. The Pravda article therefore
came as an unwelcome surprise, as shown by the fact that it was not mentioned
in the Yugoslav media. To make the attack even more offensive, in the same
issue Pravda published a biography of Arso Jovanović, “recently killed in a
barbaric way” and “dear to the memory of all those who have fought Fascism.”
The following day, the article was also published by the Soviet government
newspaper Izvestiia, this time accompanied by a violent letter written by the
fugitive general Krsto Popivoda. The Kremlin obviously wanted to stress with
all its authority that nationalism was an unforgivable sin, and admonish not
only the Yugoslavs but the other satellites as well that “internationalism,” in the
sense of absolute subjection to Moscow, was a categorical imperative.^276
In the face of the attacks that came from all sides and pinpointed Tito as the
main enemy of the proletariat worldwide, many thought that Stalin would try
to get rid of him with violence. “Tito’s assassination,” wrote American diplomat
Robert B. Reams on 5 September 1948, “is probably the most concrete political
option for the Cominform.” He added, however, that “in the first place, it would
have been necessary to penetrate one of the most rigorous security systems in
the world.”^277 The Yugoslav authorities, knowing that such threats were any-
thing but imaginary, took strict measures to guarantee the safety of the marshal
and his closest collaborators. Tito, Kardelj, Ranković, and Djilas no longer
appeared together in public, and each always had a heavily armed escort. When