44 The Young Broz
commission felt that his lifestyle was not compatible with his income, which
gave rise to suspicions that he was corrupt. The Soviet counterespionage agency
also had a say in the inquiry, accusing him of Trotskyism. Broz saved him-
self, even if only by the skin of his teeth (and probably with Dimitrov pulling
some strings), since it was evident that the charges against him were ground-
less.^199 A report Walter had presented on 23 September 1938 was also of help.
It described in detail his relationship with people “who had been discovered
to be saboteurs and enemies of our party,” nine eminent Yugoslav commu-
nists, of whom seven had already been shot and two were still alive but on trial.
Obviously he had nothing good to say about any of them, although later
he maintained that he had been prudent because, as he had not worked with
them, he did not know them well.^200 Manuilskii also spoke in his favor, and
probably the powerful Mikhail Trilisser, called Moskvin, one of the leaders
of the NKVD with whom Broz was acquainted. This came just in time, for at
the end of November Moskvin fell victim to the Stalinist purge. According to
Tito, this was the most difficult time of his life. “I was not sure,” he said later,
“whether I would be taken away one day. It was above all thanks to Dimitrov
that I was not arrested. In fact, he trusted me, convinced that I should lead
the party as secretary general.”^201 In any case, it was a particularly distressing
time, sketched as follows in a conversation with Dedijer: “Night at Karaiva-
nov’s. Some bottles of vodka. I am terribly afraid. Now I understand why, in
the USSR, they drink so much. They drink because they are afraid.”^202 Ivan
Karaivanov, the Bulgarian Communist, collaborator with the NKVD, Broz’s
confidant and, naturally, a spy, wrote about that period: “He was extremely
preoccupied. His eyes were full of tears. These were the days when Comrade
Tito got his first grey hairs.”^203
Despite all this, he won the day. After this trying experience he was reha-
bilitated and on 17 September 1938 he was already taking part in an IKKI ses-
sion where his report on the Yugoslav situation was discussed.^204 In his diary,
Dimitrov wrote laconically: “In its main lines, the Yugoslav report is correct.”^205
The demonstrations in support of Czechoslovakia organized by Yugoslav
Communists at the end of September and beginning of October during the
Czechoslovak crisis also played a part. In Belgrade and in Zagreb thousands of
students paraded in the streets, shouting that they wanted to go to Czechoslo-
vakia and fight Nazism. Many of them even went to Prague in order to enroll
in the International Brigades and resist the aggression of the Third Reich. The
Munich agreement between Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, the French prime
minister Édouard Daladier, and his British colleague Neville Chamberlain
regarding the annexation of the Sudetenland to Germany was seen in Moscow
as an anti-Soviet move, and this also worked in Walter’s favor.^206