448 Tito’s Death and His Political Legacy, 1980
movement.”^87 It was his personal triumph: at the opening session, he was
greeted by cheers. The president of Guinea, Ahmed Sékou Touré, proclaimed
him “the great statesman of the poor of the world.”^88 However, his efforts to
isolate Castro were not successful. After dramatic discussions, the congress
ended with a declaration that differed from the draft prepared by the Cubans
who, with their allies, were nevertheless given the task of leading the Organi-
zational Bureau of the movement for the next five years. Although aware of
their isolation, the Yugoslavs preferred to ignore the fact that their primacy was
waning and that this was a mirror image of the profound crisis of their regime.
To reinvigorate the Non-Aligned Movement they would have to roundly con-
demn Soviet socialism, which would bring their own legitimacy into question.
“But here flows the Rubicon,” wrote Stane Kavčič, “that the current leadership,
with Tito at the head, does not want to and cannot cross.”^89 Tito lost his last
battle with the Soviets because he was too close to them, too similar.
In assessing the struggle with the Soviets, it should not be overlooked that
Yugoslavia was more and more economically linked to the Soviet Union. In
1979 it reached the same level of trade it had enjoyed before the split with
Stalin, not to mention the armaments received, mostly of Soviet origin, in spite
of the development of a domestic military industry.^90 The disagreement be-
tween the Yugoslavs and Soviets over how to implement socialism continued
to smolder. Tito discussed it one last time with Brezhnev during his “friendly
and unofficial” visit to Moscow in May 1979, a visit that was marked by Ceau-
șescu’s recent, urgent, and top secret communication to Tito warning him that
Romanian intelligence had learned of Russian strategic plans to invade Yugo-
slavia.^91 Against this background, the marshal and his host were not able to
reach any agreement on the most important questions—relations with China
and Southeast Asia, the Horn of Africa, Bulgarian irredentist ambitions in
Macedonia, and the Non-Aligned Movement. The only point of understanding
was the mutual commitment to put a damper on the controversies in the press
in their respective countries, and a five-year plan for commercial exchange.^92
But as soon as Tito left—not without the traditional kisses—Radio Moscow
broadcast a comment that sounded dangerously ambiguous, since it confirmed
Brezhnev’s doctrine about the limited sovereignty of the socialist countries: it
stated that the Soviet Union was ready to cultivate equal relations with Yugo-
slavia, taking into account, however, “not just national interests, but interna-
tional too.”^93
“Nothing Should Surprise Us”At the end of the seventies, Tito was even more concerned about Southeast Asia
than about Cuba. He saw Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia on 25 December