The Postwar Period 207
took was the exclusion of Yugoslavia from the Council of Mutual Economic
Assistance (COMECON), formed in Moscow at the beginning of January
- This made it easier to coordinate the economic boycott of the Belgrade
rebels. When Kardelj, Yugoslavia’s foreign minister since September 1948, pro-
tested and reminded the Soviet government of the numerous commercial trea-
ties signed by his country with members of the new organization, all he got
was a sarcastic answer from the Kremlin. Only those states that had an “honor-
able and friendly policy” in their mutual relations had the right to be part of
COMECON.^294
The prudent policy that Kardelj had tried to follow from September 1948
had no effect. At the beginning of October 1948, he sent Tito a dispatch from
the UN General Assembly in Paris, where he wrote with proud satis faction:
“Marko Ristić (the Yugoslav ambassador in France) has declared that Yugosla-
via [after the United States and the Soviet Union] is the third inde pendent
country at this session. In fact, he seems to be right. It is pathetic to see the
Czechs and the Poles avoiding us in the corridors, but trying to contact our
delegates in the restrooms in order to express their sympathy.”^295 In contrast to
these self-congratulatory words, however, he participated in discussions and
voting in the Assembly in complete harmony with the Soviets, as he did not
want to quarrel openly with them. At the same time, he felt ashamed that he
said nothing about the split with Stalin.^296
When the Americans and the British felt that Tito was able and willing
to cope with the terrible Soviet pressure, they decided to organize a rescue
operation, which in the following month moved from economic assistance to
diplomatic support. They did not try to influence his political regime, asking
only one favor: the closing of the border between Vardar and Aegean Mace-
donia and the ending of Yugoslav military aid to the Greek rebels.^297 They
therefore sent Tito’s old comrade-in-arms Fitzroy Maclean to Belgrade; the
marshal promised him that he would review his policy in Greece, since the
situation had changed drastically there because of the decision by the Greek
Communists to side with Stalin. Consequently, the governments of Belgrade
and Athens, for years fiercely hostile to each other, found themselves on the
same side of the barricade.^298 On 10 June, Tito gave a speech in Pula in Istria,
announcing that he would accept Western economic aid and would seal off the
frontier with Greece. This was decisive for the outcome of the civil war in that
country and, a few months later, the Greek Communists had to surrender. This
led to the bitter recrimination by the secretary general of the local party, who
claimed that they would never have started the uprising if they had foreseen
Tito’s treachery.^299 The Soviets took immediate revenge during the conference
on the peace treaty with Austria, withdrawing their support of Yugoslavia’s