406 The Later Years
consequences—and he stubbornly persevered in his pro-Arab policy, which
was in perfect agreement with the Soviets. They were so delighted with his
attitude that they invited him to meet with Brezhnev in Kiev. When he went
there in November 1973, allegedly for a hunting trip, the Western newspapers
were full of cynical commentaries: “Just good friends? Why do the Russians
and the Yugoslavs go on meeting like this?” asked the Economist, with suspi-
cion.^71 The press release at the end of the meeting seemed to suggest that they
were not just friends but allies as well. To describe the spirit of their conversa-
tions, the two leaders used the word “trust” for the first time and forgot to
mention the Belgrade and Moscow declarations, as if they were obsolete. Tito
did not hide his critical attitude toward the American “gangsters” and their
policies in the Middle and Far East or in the Mediterranean, convinced that he
was besieged by capitalist states such as Italy, Greece, and Austria. He asked for
and received military supplies from Brezhnev, including SAM rockets like those
recently used on the Israeli-Egyptian front. A mutual sympathy was created
between the two statesmen, demonstrated by Tito’s emotion when Brezhnev
gifted him a collection of his writings published in Russian.^72
“Leninist discipline” was confirmed at the Tenth Congress of the LCY in
1974, which hosted a Soviet delegation for the first time since 1964. Pravda, in
its commentary, praised Tito’s firmness in fighting the “enemies of socialism.”
The marshal was convinced that he deserved these sorts of encomia, as testified
by the self-aggrandizing expressions he used without restraint at this “Vic-
tory Congress,” where he was confirmed as president for life of the LCY. “We
have defeated all our opponents,” he claimed on that occasion, which was, in
his opinion, the “best congress of our party” and “a congress that has illumi-
nated the entire world like a torch.” At the same time, he condemned the entire
political experience of recent years, stressing that the “worst enemies of social-
ism and self-management were technocracy and bureaucracy, especially if ideo-
logically supported by nationalism, liberalism and dogmatism.”^73
This return to Soviet-style orthodoxy troubled not just Belgrade’s relations
with Washington but also the European Economic Community. When the
Arab States decided to raise the price of petroleum as a reaction to the Israeli
victory in the Yom Kippur War, the Yugoslavs hailed this step enthusiastically,
ignoring their own economic interests. The admonitions of Foreign Secretary
Miko Tepavac went unheard: he advised that the country should follow a neu-
tral course, similar to that of the Swiss, rather than persist in its pro-Arab
attitude. “Our policy,” Kavčič confided with resignation in his diary, “sees a
more important ally in every Arab sheikh, black chieftain or Asian despot
than in developed and civilized Europe.”^74 In his opinion, this attitude con-
tained something of Stalin’s distrust of the West, as well as his sectarianism and