174 The Postwar Period
The final straw for Stalin was Tito’s policy toward Albania, with whom
Yugoslavia had signed a treaty of friendship and collaboration in the spring of
- Actually, Tito intended to transform Albania into a Yugoslav protector-
ate, something Stalin did not oppose. However, he was displeased that Tito
tried to hinder direct contact between Tirana and Moscow, obstructing his
authority. The Albanian leaders were subjected to so much pressure that one of
them, Naku Spiro, committed suicide in protest against Yugoslav domination
(this, at least, was the official line). Stalin responded with a message to Tito,
asking him to send a senior comrade to Moscow, possibly Djilas, to discuss “the
situation in Albania.”^137
At the beginning of January 1948, Djilas, along with Koča Popović (chief of the
General Staff ) and Mijalko Todorović (minister of military industry), departed
by train for the Soviet capital. A few hours after his arrival, he was summoned
to the Kremlin and a decidedly awkward meeting with Stalin. The Boss voiced
no objection to Yugoslavia “swallowing” Albania—even demonstrating, with a
crude gesture, how to go about it. He also invited Djilas to send Tito a telegram
to this effect on behalf of the Soviet government; a telegram that the Monte-
negrin, alarmed by this odd request, formulated in such a vague way that it was
never sent. After the “urgent” tête-à-tête and a tension-filled dinner at Stalin’s
dacha, the Yugoslav delegation was left to its own devices and encouraged to
roam the museums, theaters, and monuments of Moscow and Leningrad.^138
The turning point came only at the end of the month, when the question of
the Balkan federation arose. The Yugoslavs had signed a treaty of friendship with
the Bulgarians in November 1947 similar to the one already in place with Tirana.
In the middle of January, Dimitrov presided over a comparable treaty in Bucha-
rest with the Romanians. During his journey back to Sofia on 17 January 1948, he
gave an interview to Western journalists in the saloon car of his train, expressing
his view that the time would come when the people of Romania, Bulgaria, Yugo-
slavia, Albania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Greece would unite in a
federation or confederation.^139 This audacious proposal, so alarming to the
West, was unwelcome to Tito and even more so to Stalin, confirming as it did
his fears that he was being kept in the dark about plans that could only be use-
ful to the British and American propaganda. He wrote a letter to Dimitrov
expressing his disapproval and ordered Pravda to denounce his statement as
“inappropriate and impulsive.”^140 At the beginning of February he invited Tito
and Dimitrov to the Kremlin to clear up, once and for all, the “misunderstand-
ings” that had arisen between the three governments. In the telegram written by
Molotov on his behalf, addressed to both statesmen, he said: “The unfortunate
interview by Comrade Dimitrov has provoked discussion about the creation of