342 The Presidential Years
France, Austria, and Sweden, but especially West Germany. Among them there
were many Albanians from Kosovo and Bosnians, but as the Croats were most
numerous of all, the phenomenon began to acquire a political dimension. In
fact, in the West the Croat Gastarbeiter (a German term for a worker who
comes from abroad) met the Ustaša diaspora, which launched the fiercely
nationalist and anti-Tito Croatian Liberation Movement (Hrvatski oslobodi-
lački pokret) after the war.^425
The generation that had fought during the resistance and had acquired posi-
tions of power after the victory was unable to cope with the challenges of the
times. Its most eminent representatives frequently affirmed that if in the past
it had been necessary to combat the bureaucrats, today it was necessary to
fight the technocrats, since both pursued the same goal: to usurp power in the
name of the working class. The “old ones,” Tito at their head, naturally felt
that they had been designated to defend the proletariat and to govern in its
name. During a discussion with the representatives of Bosnia-Herzegovina on
24 May 1968, the marshal affirmed this explicitly: “Our league of communists
has to have a political line; it has to be not just an adviser, but a protagonist in
the economic, cultural and every other sphere of development.”^426
Strengthening Ties with the Soviet UnionDuring the sixties Tito’s international prestige grew progressively. After the
success of the first Non-Aligned Conference, in Belgrade in September 1961, he
managed to overcome his disagreement with Moscow. To everyone’s surprise,
Khrushchev let it be known that he had rehabilitated Yugoslavia at the Twenty-
Second Congress of the CPSU at the end of October, at the same time he had
Stalin’s body removed from Lenin’s mausoleum.^427 “The critics of so-called
‘Yugoslav revisionism’ appeared in a new light,” the East Germans commented
sheepishly.^428 The change of climate between the two countries suggested to
Ambassador George Kennan this bitter consideration: “It seems... to be a sad
truth that if the Soviet leaders were only to cast one inviting smile in this direc-
tion, Uncle Sam, with all his bouquets and food baskets, would be promptly
forgotten by Tito, and some of those who are now his closest advisers, and they
would almost swoon in their eagerness to bask in this eastern sunshine, I shud-
der to think.”^429
In April 1962, Soviet foreign minister Andrei A. Gromyko came to Belgrade
on an official visit. This was followed by a visit from the president of the Supreme
Soviet, Leonid I. Brezhnev, in September and October, and on Khrushchev’s
invitation, a “work permit” for Tito to come to Moscow the following Decem-
ber.^430 When he returned home, he affirmed that the Soviet leaders were ready
for more constructive relations with Yugoslavia, and sent a document in the