Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XVI, Eastern Europe; Cyprus; Greece; Turkey

142. Telegram From the Embassy in Yugoslavia to the Department of State⁰

Belgrade, December 13, 1962, 2 p.m.

743. Following are some personal interpretive comments on pres-ent Yugoslav situation in light of Tito visit to Russia¹ and other developments. These comments were drafted prior receipt news of Khrushchev speech on Soviet-Yugoslav relations² but they may be useful as comment on same.

1. Experience Tito is now undergoing in Russia no doubt represents for him personal triumph of his life. Without compromising a single point of course he has adopted in domestic affairs, once so bitterly challenged by bloc, and with undiminished insistence on right to conduct an independent foreign policy free of bloc discipline, he has now won recognition for his movement, by Soviet Premier at least, as respectable independent socialist force, and as honored guest in USSR is being treated with deference greater than he could possibly have earned by servile submissiveness.

2. Tito’s triumph will be heightened to extent bloc countries show tendency not only to respect Yugoslav version of socialism but in some respects to imitate it. I can of course be wrong, but proposal for establishment of factory production committees, as proposed in Khrushchev’s speech of November 19, seems closely related to example of Yugoslav system workers councils to which Brezhnev so recently exposed; and certain surprising statements by members Soviet Embassy here suggest Russians are scrutinizing Yugoslav institutions with more than detached interest. People have long speculated whether Yugoslav practices and institutions could be brought sufficiently into conformity with those of bloc to permit Yugoslavia’s reintegration. That such reconciliation should be effected, in part at least, by bringing bloc practices and institutions into greater conformity with those of Yugoslavia presents new and interesting possibility.

3. Central purpose of Tito, in these discussions in Russia, must be to achieve elimination from binding resolutions of Russian Party Congress and of international body of communist parties of postulate that dogmatism and revisionism are both dangers but revisionism is greater of two. He surely desires to see revisionist portion of this formula junked entirely and to have it formally acknowledged that Yugoslav socialism represents neither revisionism nor any other sort of deviation but merely a respectable variant of Marxist-socialist practice, properly tailored to specific needs and possibilities of Yugoslav people. Presumably, such doctrinal readjustment could be formally effected only by new international gathering of communist parties and by new Russian Party Congress. So far as Russian Party concerned I assume that in light recent events prospects for elimination of offensive formula at a new congress would be more favorable today than they were last year, though there would still be bitter opposition. Such change in Russian Party doctrine would in any case be neither fitting nor effective unless it occurred in harmony with and pursuant to, similar readjustments of doctrine on part of bloc as whole. However, to convene new gathering of parties with view to eliminating this formula would, as things stand today, surely be to invite open and final split with Chinese over this issue. To convene a rump meeting without Chinese group would be to acknowledge and formalize split before Congress ever convened. And if formula should be altered or removed, further question would at once arise as to relationship of Yugoslavs, now formally recognized as respectable, to future international communist gatherings. Yugoslavs would be unlikely to resubmit themselves to bloc discipline and to bind themselves in advance to respect and implement collective decisions sight unseen. Yet if revisionism were no longer “greater danger,” would there be adequate rationale for their exclusion from regular gatherings to which dogmatist Chinese were being admitted? Role Yugoslavs were permitted to play at recent Italian Party Congress,³ where concept of “observers” was apparently stretched quite far, illustrates urgency this problem. In short, Khrushchev’s action in trying to patent socialist respectability to a state which insists on independence of policy strikes at heart of present ambiguities in intra-bloc relationships and may operate to heighten still further present divisive tendencies.

4. Yugoslav desires do not necessarily run to producing a split between China and remainder of bloc. One should not be misled by anguished Yugoslav reactions to Chinese attacks. Tito admires Chinese Communists and would like, for his part, to have had good relations with them. His response to Chinese hostility has not been lasting embitterment or even appreciation for imperialistic and misanthropic nature of Chinese Communist regime, but something more like the disappointment of unrequited love. In his eyes cruelest and most Marxist-Communist regime remains more attractive than most liberal non-Communist government. Were Chinese to turn around and treat him well, as Russians are doing, he would glow with satisfaction; and it would cost him no more to forget their previous insults than it does to forget, as he speaks today in Volgograd of wartime Soviet-Yugoslavia collaboration, the countless slights and atrocities suffered by Yugoslavs at hands of Red Army Forces on Yugoslav soil in 1945.

5. While Tito is enjoying red-carpet treatment and applause of multitudes in Russia, Yugoslavia’s relations with the West, marked by effects of US Congressional actions, renewed strain on relations with Germany resulting from attack on Yugoslav mission in Godesberg, cold shoulder presented by Common Market, and growing indifference of that portion of Western public opinion which is not actively hostile, are at lowest ebb in years. Obviously, one could conceive of no situation better designed to facilitate reconciliation of Yugoslavia with bloc. It is clear that burden of maintenance of Yugoslav independence vis-à-vis Moscow has now come to rest primarily on sense of self-interest of Yugoslavs themselves, in sense that for first time since 1948 it is scarcely supported by any counter-attractions in field of Yugoslav relations with the West. It has been proven that Yugoslav independence can be maintained in face of reasonable balance in potential advantages of friendship with the two sides. Whether it can be maintained when scales are sharply tipped in favor of East, when West has little to offer and Russians much, is now being tested. Perhaps it can. Tito will of course see no reason to make concessions at expense of his independence where he has won so much without them. But situation is still precarious. If in these circumstances present clarification of Yugoslav relations with bloc ends in manner not detrimental to Western interests, Western powers will deserve credit for luck rather than for effort.

6. Seriousness this situation is heightened by fact that effect of recent events, as I see it, can only be to cause further deterioration in climate of Western opinion concerning Yugoslavia. In light of Cuba and Indo-Chinese conflict, Yugoslavia’s claim to be simultaneously non-aligned and socialist, non-aligned for benefit of West and socialist for benefit of East, is wearing dangerously thin. Yugoslav position was revealed in each of these cases as distinctly more socialist than unaligned. At same time, these same conflicts tended to spotlight certain major elements of fraudulence in Marxist-Leninist socialist doctrine: Among others, theses that true socialist country cannot be author of aggression, that socialism is interested only in peace, and that triumph of socialist cause is inevitable and inexorable. All this is bound to stimulate increased impatience even in liberal circles abroad for professed Yugoslav adherence to these principles and skepticism as to its sincerity—a skepticism which will be misplaced primarily only in case of Tito himself and a few ossified followers and I see therefore a further widening of gap between Tito’s outmoded attachment to Marxism-Leninism and needs of Yugo-slavia’s relationship to West. With Tito now being veritably bathed in type of ideological cant and personal flattery to which he is most susceptible, with Belgrade still smarting under effects of various anti-Yugoslav actions and attitudes in West, and with growing impatience in Western circles with all Marxian socialism but particularly that which masquerades as neutralism, I have gloomy thoughts these days re future our efforts to keep Yugoslav-Western relations on even keel.

Kennan

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 768.11/12–1362. Confidential. Also sent to Bucharest and repeated to Bonn, Rome, Moscow, Vienna, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Sofia, Hong Kong, Zagreb, and Sarajevo.
1. Tito visited the Soviet Union December 2–21.
2. In his December 12 speech to the Supreme Soviet, Khrushchev placed the majority of the blame for the Yugoslav-Soviet split on Stalin, indicated that Yugoslavia was following its own road to socialism, and stated that Yugoslavia was a socialist country.
3. At the December 2–8 Italian Party Congress, the Yugoslav delegate was invited to address the meeting and received prolonged applause.