Tito and His Comrades

166 The Postwar Period

and were socially discriminated against. As Yugoslavia lacked the means with
which to realize its Five-Year Plan, and could not rely on Western aid, the
government reached a series of bilateral agreements securing credit and invest-
ment from the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, which it hoped
would provide the materials and expertise needed to construct key factories. In
the period leading up to May 1948, trade with other socialist states constituted
51 percent of the entire foreign trade budget.^90 According to Yugoslavia’s
supreme leader, however, the future was bright: “The well-being of the people
will improve markedly,” promised Tito at the end of his speech presenting the
Five-Year Plan to the Federal Assembly.^91

The Exclusion of the CPY from the Cominform

As Kardelj said to Dedijer in June 1952, Tito and his comrades based their
postwar policy on the presumption that the Soviet Union would be stronger
if Yugoslavia was strong, “but, at the same time, we were never servile toward
the Russians.”^92 They failed to understand that Stalin would not tolerate such
arrogance. Despite the decorations he lavished upon them, his fundamental
dislike of the Yugoslavs surfaced every time he met them. And for every honor
given, there was a (perhaps deliberate) provocation. In the autumn of 1944,
Stalin awarded Tito the Medal of Suvorov while the king of Romania, who in
1941 had declared war on the Soviet Union, was given the more important
Medal of Victory, an honor for which Tito had to wait until October 1945.^93
The only meeting at which Stalin made no offensive comments about the
Yugoslavs took place in Moscow between 27 May and 10 June 1946, during
Tito’s second official visit. When they discussed the question of the border with
Italy, which was to be decided in Paris, Stalin committed to protecting Yugo-
slav interests and pretended, in his deceitful way, to be entirely sympathetic to
their cause. After dinner in his dacha at Kuntsevo, he strolled with his guest
in the garden, where suddenly he grabbed Tito around the waist, trying three
times to lift him up.
“Are you healthy?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Take good care of your health. It’s essential to Europe.”^94
Tito and his comrades were elated, particularly when Stalin proposed a toast
to their brotherhood. They were even more pleased when, some days later, at
the funeral of M. I. Kalinin, the former Soviet head of state, Stalin invited Tito
to join him in the guard of honor. After the ceremony in Red Square, Tito fol-
lowed Stalin to the top of Lenin’s mausoleum and realized that his health was,
in fact, precarious. Stalin struggled up the stairs, pale and breathless, but tried
to hide his panting. “I thought: God’s breath, you’re dying!”^95