172 The Postwar Period
important theorist of our times—a worthy successor to Marx, Engels and Lenin.
In their speeches, there is no hint of the groundbreaking role played by the com-
munist parties, especially of the All-Soviet Communist Party (Bolshevik). The
glorious influence of the Soviet Union, the only country to have successfully
built a communist society, and which nurtures all human progress, is ignored.”^122
The behavior of the CPY leaders, their “hostile” attitude toward the Soviet
Union, and the scope of their ambition in the Balkans was testimony to the
audacity of their foreign policy and their belief that Yugoslavia was special: that
it existed outside of the framework of revolution and socialism. As early as the
beginning of April 1945, Dimitrov wrote in his diary: “I received Tito in my city
apartment. We spoke at length about the situation in Yugoslavia, about rela-
tions with the English and Americans, and about a possible union (or some-
thing like it) between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. General impression: underap-
preciation of the complex reality and of the difficulties before us, very superior,
prideful and overconfident, and his success has clearly gone to his head. Thus,
when he speaks, everything seems fine.”^123 In the eyes of Stalin and his circle,
in short, Tito and his comrades were becoming a bunch of dull-minded nation-
alists, perilously close to betraying the socialist bloc led by the Soviet Union.^124
While Tito forged his grand plans with complete disregard for Moscow,
Stalin decided to create a bureau of information (Cominform), signaling that
he wanted the European communist parties to unite and be ready to march at
his order. As the United States was inaugurating its Marshall Plan and provid-
ing relief to Western Europe, Stalin felt this gathering of forces was urgent. To
this end, he convened a secret meeting of delegates from the most important
Eastern and Western European parties, held at Szklarska Poręba, near Wrocław
in Poland. Tito, in a discussion with Stalin in April 1945, had already stressed
the importance of organizing a body that could offer mutual advice among the
European communist parties. Stalin had expressed no view on the proposal
at that time; but the next year, when they met again, he suggested that the
Yugoslavs take the initiative. Tito answered that he felt the French should issue
the invitation, given their status. In the end, it was the Soviets themselves who
organized the conference, preoccupied as they were with the “dollar imperial-
ism” of the Americans.^125 During the meeting at Szklarska Poręba, Andrei A.
Zhdanov expounded his theory of two opposing camps that would, sooner or
later, clash in an armed struggle, and pleaded for all communists to band
together: this political decisiveness in some way renewed the heritage of the
Comintern in Europe.^126 On 5 October, when Pravda published news of the
conference, Dimitrov, the former secretary general of that organization, wrote
enthusiastically in his diary: “This assembly is our atomic bomb.... It is the
best answer to the anti-communism of the American imperialists.”^127