Resolution of the Information Bureau
The Information Bureau, consisting of representatives of the Communist Party of Bulgaria, Rumanian Workers’ Party, Working People’s Party of Hungary, United Workers’ Party of Poland, Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Communist Party of France, and the Czechoslovak and Italian Communist Parties, having considered the question: “The Yugoslav Communist Party in the power of murderers and spies”, unanimously reached the following conclusions:
Whereas, in June 1948 the meeting of the Information Bureau of the Communist Parties noted the change-over of the Tito-Rankovic clique from democracy and Socialism to bourgeois nationalism, during the period that elapsed since the meeting of the Information Bureau, this clique has travelled all the way from bourgeois nationalism to fascism and outright betrayal of the national interests of Yugoslavia.
Recent events show that the Yugoslav Government is completely dependent on foreign imperialist circles and has become an instrument of their aggressive policy, which has resulted in the liquidation of the independence of the Yugoslav Republic.
The Central Committee of the Party and the Government of Yugoslavia have merged completely with the imperialist circles against the entire camp of Socialism and democracy; against the Communist Parties of the world; against the New Democracies and the U.S.S.R.
The Belgrade clique of hired spies and murderers made a flagrant deal with imperialist reaction and entered its service, as the Budapest trial of Rajk-Brankov made perfectly clear.
This trial showed that the present Yugoslav rulers, having fled from the camp of democracy and Socialism to the camp of capitalism and reaction, have become direct accomplices of the instigators of a new war and by their treacherous deeds are ingratiating themselves with the imperialists and kow-towing to them.
The change-over of the Tito clique to fascism was not fortuitous. It was effected on the order of their masters, the Anglo-American imperialists, whose mercenaries, it is now clear, this clique has been for long.
The Yugoslav traitors, obeying the will of the imperialists, undertook to form in the People’s Democracies political gangs consisting of reactionaries, nationalists, clerical and fascist elements and, relying on these gangs, to bring about counter-revolutionary coups in these countries, wrest them from the Soviet Union and the entire Socialist camp and subordinate them to the forces of imperialism.
The Tito clique transformed Belgrade into an American centre for espionage and anti-Communist propaganda.
When all genuine friends of peace, democracy and Socialism see in the U.S.S.R. a powerful fortress of Socialism, a faithful and steadfast defender of the freedom and independence of nations and the principal bulwark of peace, the Tito-Rankovic clique, having attained power under the mask of friendship with the U.S.S.R., began on the orders of the Anglo-American imperialists a campaign of slander and provocation against the Soviet Union, utilising the most vile calumnies borrowed from the arsenal of Hitler.
The transformation of the Tito-Rankovic clique into a direct agency of imperialism and accomplices of the warmongers, culminated in the lining up of the Yugoslav government with the imperialist bloc at U.N.O., where the Kardeljs, Djilas and Beblers joined in a unit front with American reactionaries on vital matters of international policy.
In the sphere of home policy, the chief outcome of the activity of the traitor Tito-Rankovic clique is the actual liquidation of People’s Democratic system in Yugoslavia.
Due to the counter-revolutionary policy of the Tito-Rankovic clique which usurped power in the Party and in the State, an anti-Communist, police State — fascist type regime — has been installed in Yugoslavia.
The social basis of this regime consists of kulaks in the countryside and capitalist elements in the towns.
In fact power in Yugoslavia is in the hands of anti-popular, reactionary elements. Active members of the old bourgeois parties, kulaks and other enemies of People’s Democracy, are active in central and local government bodies.
The top fascist rulers rely on an enormously swollen military-police apparatus, with the aid of which they oppress the peoples of Yugoslavia.
They have turned the country into a military camp, wiped out all democratic rights of the working people, and trample on any free expression of opinion.
The Yugoslav rulers demagogically and insolently deceive the people, alleging that they are building Socialism in Yugoslavia.
But it is clear to every Marxist that there can be no talk of building Socialism in Yugoslavia when the Tito clique has broken with the Soviet Union, with the entire camp of Socialism and democracy, thereby depriving Yugoslavia of the main bulwark for building Socialism and when it has subordinated the country economically and politically to Anglo-American imperialists.
The State sector in the economy of Yugoslavia has ceased to be people’s property, since State power is in the hands of enemies of the people.
The Tito-Rankovic clique has created wide possibilities for the penetration of foreign capital into the economy of the country, and has placed the economy under the control of capitalist monopolies.
Anglo-American industrial-financial circles investing their capital in Yugoslav economy are transforming Yugoslavia into an agrarian-raw materials adjunct of foreign capital.
The ever-growing slavish dependence of Yugoslavia on imperialism leads to intensified exploitation of the working class and to a severe worsening of its conditions.
The policy of the Yugoslav rulers in the countryside bears a kulak-capitalistic character.
The compulsory pseudo-cooperatives in the countryside are in the hands of kulaks and their agencies and represent an instrument for the exploitation of wide masses of working peasants.
The Yugoslav hirelings of imperialism, having seized leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, unloosed a campaign of terror against genuine Communists loyal to the principles of Marxism-Leninism and who fight for Yugoslavia’s independence from the imperialists.
Thousands of Yugoslav patriots, devoted to Communism have been expelled from the Party and incarcerated in jails and concentration camps. Many have been tortured and killed in prison or as was the case with the well-known Communist, Arso Jovanovic, were dastardly assassinated.
The brutality with which staunch fighters for Communism are being annihilated in Yugoslavia can be compared only with the atrocities of the Hitler fascists or the butcher Tsaldaris in Greece or Franco in Spain.
Expelling from the ranks of the Party those Communists loyal to proletarian internationalism, annihilating them, the Yugoslav fascists opened wide the doors of the Party to bourgeois and kulak elements.
As a result of the fascist terror of the Tito gangs against the healthy forces in the Yugoslav Communist Party, leadership of the party is wholly in the hands of spies and murderers, mercenaries of imperialism.
The Communist Party of Yugoslavia has been seized by counterrevolutionary forces, acting arbitrarily in the name of the Party. Recruiting spies and provocateurs in the ranks of the working class parties is, as is well-known, an old method of the bourgeoisie.
In this way the imperialists seek to undermine the Parties from within and subordinate them to themselves. They have succeeded in realising this aim in Yugoslavia.
The fascist ideology and fascist domestic policy, as well as the perfidious foreign policy of the Tito clique, completely subordinated to the foreign imperialist circles, have created a gulf between the espionage fascist Tito-Rankovic clique and the vital interests of the freedom-loving peoples of Yugoslavia.
Consequently, the anti-popular and treacherous activity of the Tito clique is encountering ever-growing resistance from those Communists who have remained loyal to Marxism-Leninism, and among the working class and working peasantry of Yugoslavia.
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On the basis of irrefutable facts testifying to the complete change-over of the Tito clique to fascism and its desertion to the camp of world imperialism, the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties considers, that:
1. The espionage group of Tito, Rankovic, Kardelj, Djilas, Pijade, Gosnjak, Maslaric, Bebler, Mrazovic, Vukmanovic, Koca Popovic, Kidric, Neskovic, Zlatic, Velebit, Kolishevski and others, are enemies of the working class and peasantry and enemies of the peoples of Yugoslavia.
2. This espionage group expresses not the will of the peoples of Yugoslavia but the will of the Anglo-American imperialists, and has therefore betrayed the interests of the country and abolished the political sovereignty and economic independence of Yugoslavia.
3. The “Communist Party of Yugoslavia”, as at present constituted, being in the hands of enemies of the people, murderers and spies, has forfeited the right to be called a Communist Party and is merely an apparatus for carrying out the espionage assignments of the clique of Tito-Kardelj-Rankovic-Djilas.
The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties considers therefore, that the struggle against the Tito clique — hired spies and murderers — is the international duty of all Communist and Workers’ Parties.
It is the duty of Communist and Workers’ Parties to give all possible aid to the Yugoslav working class and working peasantry who are fighting for the return of Yugoslavia to the camp of democracy and socialism.
A necessary condition for the return of Yugoslavia to the Socialist camp is active struggle on the part of revolutionary elements both inside the Yugoslav Communist Party and outside its ranks, for the regeneration of the revolutionary genuine Communist Party of Yugoslavia, loyal to Marxism-Leninism, to the principles of proletarian internationalism, and fighting for the independence of Yugoslavia from imperialism.
The loyal Communist forces in Yugoslavia, who, in the present brutal conditions of fascist terror, are deprived of the possibility of engaging in open action against the Tito-Rankovic clique, were compelled in the struggle for the cause of Communism, to follow the path taken by the Communists in those countries where legal work is forbidden.
The Information Bureau expresses the firm conviction that among the workers and peasants of Yugoslavia forces will be found capable ensuring victory over the bourgeois- restoration espionage Tito-Rankovic clique; that the toiling people of Yugoslavia led by the working class will succeed in restoring the historical gains of People’s Democracy won at the price of heavy sacrifice and heroic struggle by the people of Yugoslavia and that they will take the road of building socialism.
The Information Bureau considers one of the most important tasks of the Communist and Workers’ Parties to be an all-round heightening of revolutionary vigilance in Party ranks; exposing and rooting out bourgeois-nationalist elements and agents of imperialism no matter under what flag they conceal themselves.
The Information Bureau recognises the need for more ideological work in the Communist and Workers’ Parties; more work to train Communists in the spirit of loyalty to proletarian internationalism; irreconcilability to any departure from the principles of Marxism-Leninism, and in the spirit of loyalty to People’s Democracy and Socialism.
(For a Lasting Peace, for a People’s Democracy!, No. 28 (55), November 29, 1949, p. 2)