226 The Postwar Period
Haile Selassie, Kardelj did as requested. The reply came on 24 July, in which
Khrushchev affirmed that he understood the delicate situation and hoped for a
favorable resolution of the Trieste question.^389 When the solution seemed near,
Tito answered with a long letter in the name of the Executive Committee (the
new denomination of the Politburo) proclaiming his readiness to normalize
relations between the two states. He ignored Khrushchev’s proposal to reestab-
lish party connections and refused to blame Beria and Djilas for what had
happened. During a meeting with 250,000 people in attendance, Tito hinted
about what was going on behind the scenes, mentioning the possibility of
restoring collaboration with the East, not just on an economic but also on a
political level. At the same time, he dictated the terms under which he was
willing to negotiate: “The normalization should not be achieved blindly with
kisses and hugs, as if nothing had happened. It cannot transform our policy and
cannot influence our internal development, or our path to socialism. Normal-
ization has to exclude every interference in internal affairs.”^390
Khrushchev replied on 23 September with a third letter, accepting Tito’s
request that first state relations should be improved, rather than those of the
party. Regarding responsibility for the 1948 split, he declared that it was of
secondary importance and that it was necessary to silence mutual hostile pro-
paganda and look to the future. Three days later, on 27 September, he sent
another letter full of good will while at the same time the CC of the CPSU
decided to put a stop to the subversive activity of the Cominformists who had
taken refuge in the Soviet Union and in other socialist countries. Their news-
papers and Radio Free Yugoslavia, which was broadcast from Bucharest, were
closed.^391 Soon Ambassador Volkov informed Tito that the author of the entry
“Yugoslavia” in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, who was guilty of having declared
it a fascist country, had been arrested in Moscow. In public libraries, slanderous
books on Tito disappeared, while on 20 October 1954 the press published a
series of articles “on the gallant National Liberation Army, which liberated
Belgrade with the help of the Red Army.”^392
On 16 November, the Yugoslavs signaled that they were ready to accept a
summit meeting, stressing however that they would not return to the “camp”
(as the Soviets called their bloc) and renounce their own path to socialism
and foreign policy.^393 These negotiations were prompted by Khrushchev’s need
to strengthen his power at home as well as his hatred for Stalin and his ad-
miration for Tito, who had succeeded in opposing him. On 25 May 1955, the
new “Boss” came to Belgrade at the head of an important delegation. This
was an audacious decision, which the Stalinist group in the Presidium, under
Molotov’s leadership, opposed, although it was not strong enough to block the
formidable Nikita S. Khrushchev. The “friendly” warnings of his “comrades”