290 The Presidential Years
protest, Tito sent Khrushchev a private letter, which was also issued to all LCY
organizations. Further, at the beginning of 1959, a white paper was published in
which the Belgrade government publicly revealed the copious documentation
on the case.^133 Nagy’s ghost, said Khrushchev’s son Sergei, was forever present
between Tito and his father.^134
A month later, on 12 July, Khrushchev described Yugoslav communists as
“parasites,” accusing them of getting American aid as a prize for their attempt
to destroy the socialist bloc.^135 Although in Sofia he stressed that the relations
between Yugoslavia and the Soviet bloc countries at the state level should not
be hindered, he soon decided to cancel the promised loans. This sealed the fate
of the aluminum plant in Montenegro that would have improved the industri-
alization of the republic. The GDR also joined the boycott, which the Yugo-
slavs considered a rotten thing to do, given the price they had paid for their
diplomatic recognition.^136
At the time, the Yugoslav press unanimously celebrated the results of the
Seventh Congress, stressing the importance of self-managed socialism and their
non-aligned policy. It hailed beyond measure the achievements of the country,
affirming that it was the victim of malevolent slander and exalting Tito.^137
Some months before the Ljubljana congress, but also after it, the rumor cir-
culated that the sixty-five-year-old marshal would renounce the leadership
of the government and party, keeping only the presidency of the federation. His
successors would be Ranković, as secretary general of the LCY, and Kardelj,
as head of the Federal Council. Moscow’s offensive buried these projects—if
they ever had any substance—convincing Tito that any change could be risky.^138
In Yugoslavia, memories of the “fifty-fifty” agreement between Churchill and
Stalin started to resurface, as did the conviction that a division of the country
among the great powers was still a current option.^139
Chinese Polemics with TitoIn the manifesto published in 1958 by the CC CPSU to mark the anniversary of
the October Revolution, Yugoslavia was not mentioned among the states that
were building socialism. The LCY was also not invited to the Twenty-First
Congress of the CPSU, organized in 1959.^140 In spite of this acrimony, the con-
viction prevailed in Moscow that it was opportune to preserve normal relations,
at least at the state level, even if those at the party level had been practically
severed. Economic, cultural, and scientific cooperation between the two coun-
tries was not compromised.^141 The Bulgarians and Albanians, who saw the
Yugoslavs as their main enemies because of border frictions, took a harder
line against “Titoist revisionism.” As the Belgrade newspaper Politika wrote
on 17 September 1958, the Albanians openly incited their nationals in Kosovo