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purging the Stalinist elements f rom the
ranks of his Communist party. When
sorne opposed the decentralization
proposals last spring, many hard-line
Communists found themselves going
into retirement.
The Yugoslavs have also been quietly
improving their relations with China to
further offset the Russian threat, some–
thing the more idealistic Czechs never
bothered to do.
Finally, President Tito continues to
bolster his ties with the United States, as
illustrated by his coming visit to
Washington.
Moving Westward
Since Tito's break with Stalin, Yugo–
slavia has been moving almost con–
tinually, albeit slowly, in a Westerly
direction.
At first, Soviet thinking was that
Marshal Tito would be overthrown
from within as a result of a Russian
economic and military boycott. But the
West held out a hand of support, and
beginning in 1949, economic and mili–
tary assistance began flowing in from
Britain, France and the United States.
Since that time, American aid alone has
come to well over two billion dollars.
Officially, Yugoslavia adopted a non–
alignment stance in the 1950's and was
in fact one of the champions of the
"third world" movement attempting to
unite the neutralist nations. But with
the ouster of both Sukarno and Nkru–
mah, and the deaths of Nasser and
Nehru, the non-aligned bloc has vir–
tually disappeared as a force in inter–
national relations. Nothing illustrates
this more perhaps than India, formerly
the epítome of non-alignment, now en–
tering into a recent twenty-year treaty
with the Soviet Union.
Yugoslavia, however, while techni–
cally still neutral, has continued to
broaden its ties with the West.
In
Feb–
ruary 1970, Yugoslavia entered into an
official trade agreement with the Com–
mon Market, with whom it had been
doing much of its business anyway.
Just last March carne President Tito's
ver:y
successful
visi.t
to
ltaly.
While thece.,
the Yugoslav leader sought Italian sup–
port for strengthening and increasing his
nation's Common Market ties. Such
support is expected to be forthcoming.
The
PLAIN TRUTH
While in Rome, President Tito be–
carne the first "Communist" head of
state to have an official audience with
Pope Paul. Previously, Yugoslavia had
become
the lirst and only Communist
country to enter into diplomatic relations
with the Vatican, relations which today
can only
be
described as harmonious.
"Socialism and religion do not con–
tradict each other," says Petar Segivc,
one of the heads of the Yugoslav State
Religion Council. "They complement
each other." This is yet another evi–
dence of changed thinking in the
"New" Yugoslavia.
Latest Developments
This past summer the Russians, along
with sorne of their Warsaw pact satel–
lites, conducted military maneuvers in
Hungary aloog both the Romanian and
Yugoslav bordees in an attempt to
iocrease pressure on both states to
respond more to Moscow's wishes. The
code name for the maneuvers was ap–
propriately "Yug." This was scheduled
to
be
followed by other maneuvers along
the bordees of those two nations, this
time in Bulgaria.
The Yugoslav response this time was
to plan
its oum maneuvers
on its side of
the bordee for this autumn with special
emphasis given to coordinating the
operations of specially trained guerrilla
units with the regular army.
In late September 1971, Kremlin
leader Brezhnev delivered a pledge to
keep hands off Yugoslav affairs, cou–
pling it with a pica for closer coopera–
tion with the Soviet bloc.
To add to the Balkan confusion, the
Chinese are hard at work attempting to
increase their influence in the region.
Their diplomatic successes there, albeit
limited, are occurring much to the
chagrín and alarm of the Kremlin.
Romanía for many years has been
courting Chinese friendship in an at–
tempt to gain leverage in its struggle
for a greater measure of independence
from Moscow. And China has been
quite obliging, anxious to outflank its
rival in the strategic Balkans.
Now the Chinese are showing an
interest in Yugoslavia as well. P¡:emier
Chou En-lai
is
scheduled to visit the
Balkans this fall, with stops in Albania,
November 1971
Romanía and Yugoslavia. Not to be
outdone, Russia's Brezhnev is planning
to visit Belgrade as well. But it is
highly unlikely that either of the Com–
munist giants will receive any kind of
formal commitment from PresidentTito.
The Yugoslavs are, to a certain
extent, wary of the Chinese as well as
the Soviets. For years the rigid Stalinists
in Peking denounced ''Titoism" as a
betrayal of Communism. Of late the
Yugoslavs have grown even more liberal
in their outlook while Communist
Chinese remain dogmatic. Ideologically,
Yugoslavia today is closer to Western
European socialist states than to Peking.
European Sentiment
There is strong feeling in Yugoslavia
today for the
need
to integrate that
country into a strong Europe in order to
offset the Soviet threat.
This is especially true in the northern
republics of Croatia and Slovenia.
Roman Catholic by religion and using
the Latin ( rather than Cyrillic) alpha–
bet, these peoples have traditionally
been associated with Central Europe,
while the rest of Yugoslavia was part of
the Turkish empire.
A Croatian writer recently said, "Of
course sorne people in Belgrade will
keep worrying that one day
we
[the
Croats] may walk out of Yugoslavia.
Actually we and the Slovenes are the
locomotive that is pulling the Serbs, the
Bosnians, the Montenegrins and the
Macedonians into Europe."
There is certainly the likelihood that
Yugoslavia could eventually become
part of a powerful, united Europe,
whose nucleus today
is
the European
Common Market. While this has not
by any means as
yet
occurred, it seems
far, far more likely today than back in
the 1950's.
The Soviet Union- already worried
about wayward Romanía, fearful of a
revitalized China, and very coocerned
about losing her expanding inlluence
in the Mediterranean -
may
view such a
move with great alarm.
Today, the Balkan area is as much a
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keg
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it
e"{et
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A.
B?.~kan
crisis was the spark that set off World
War
I.
lt is hoped that another crisis in
the Balkans will not be the spark to set
off World War III. O