– A.B. Edemskii –
By the fall of 1948, the conflict had escalated irreversibly. On August 18, the Yugoslav newspaper Borba published an official statement from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (FPRY) regarding the death “during an attempt to flee across the border” of the legendary Yugoslav general and Chief of the Supreme Headquarters of the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia (NOVJ) during the Second World War, A. Jovanović. This seasoned general, who was the highest-ranking Yugoslav officer trained in the Soviet Union after 1945, according to those close to him, was unable to adapt to the new situation upon his return to the FPRY in May 1948 during the covert stage of the Soviet-Yugoslav conflict. A battle-tested officer educated in the academy of one of the world’s best armies, he had only been entrusted with managing the national Higher Military Academy. He also could not come to terms with the brusque behaviour of the security services towards officers trained in Moscow, nor with the harsh crackdowns among the leadership on political opponents — including his wartime comrade S. Žujović.
There is no doubt that Jovanović knew a great deal about the wartime past of Broz Tito and his inner circle — including the Supreme Headquarters’ negotiations with the nazis in March 1943, which Stalin and Molotov blamed Tito for in correspondence between the CPSU(B) Central Committee and the CPY Central Committee. He was also aware of the destruction of bridges across the Neretva River that same March, and of the behaviour of Tito and Kardelj in the Drvar cave, while Žujović, Ranković and Jovanović were holding their ground against the nazis. He also found it unacceptable to deny the scale and importance of Soviet military aid to Yugoslav partisans, since Stalin had fulfilled his promise, given to Jovanović in Moscow on January 20, 1945, to arm 20 Yugoslav divisions. The battle-hardened general feared that the ongoing criticism of the Soviet Union could sever the profound and spiritually rich ties between Serbs and the Russian people — ties that those who had taken command posts in the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) after the war, in his view, failed to appreciate due to their “Western school” background. With the beginning of the public phase of the Soviet-Yugoslav conflict, he adopted a wait-and-see approach, refraining from participating in speeches and articles glorifying Tito’s military genius.1
After August 18, members of Yugoslavia’s military elite began linking Jovanović’s death to Soviet actions. The first to speak out were generals S. Vukmanović-Tempo and P. Dapčević, whose wartime reputations were comparable to Jovanović’s. They associated the “shameful fact of betraying the country and the people” with Jovanović’s “class background” and his time spent in the USSR, where they claimed he had been “recruited by the NKVD.”2
What happened to Jovanović deeply affected the Soviet leadership. There were suspicions that his attempted escape to Romania — which coincided with an international Danube navigation conference in Belgrade3 — was no coincidence. It was alleged that Jovanović, together with the Yugoslav ambassador to Romania, R. Golubović, who had publicly supported the Cominform resolution, planned to establish a government-in-exile in Bucharest that would declare the government in the FPRY illegitimate.4
Realizing that support for the Cominform resolution on the “Yugoslav question” was dwindling, the Kremlin intensified its public criticism of the Yugoslav leadership. On September 8, 1948, Pravda published an article under the byline “Tseka” entitled “Where the Tito Nationalist Group Is Leading Yugoslavia.” The authors claimed that Jovanović had “been killed because he questioned the nationalist and terrorist policy of the Tito group. In connection with this, people in Yugoslavia openly say that ‘the Tito group is degenerating into a clique of political assassins.’” The Kremlin leadership behind the article believed that “the Tito group does not intend to recognize or correct its mistakes… Worse still, in its panic, it grabs and represses anyone who dares mention them.”
The article concluded by stating, “…now, after the split with communist parties, after breaking with all neighbouring republics, after shifting into the camp of nationalism — the Tito group no longer represents the majority of the party. The Tito group is now a faction that enjoys the trust of only a minority of the party and uses the state apparatus to suppress the will of the party’s internationalist majority. The Tito faction has separated itself from the party because it handed it over to the executioner Ranković and because it established a brutal terrorist regime within the party with its repressions, mass arrests and killings. In reality, the Tito faction is now at war with its own party… and has been forced to resort to mass repression.” The article ended with a stark conclusion: “The Tito faction represents only a minority of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, relying not on the party’s trust, but on the administrative and police apparatus of Yugoslavia.”5 The Yugoslav chargé d’affaires, S. Fejić, who relayed the article’s contents to Belgrade, expressed the view that, based on its style, the author was likely Stalin himself. There is no information on whether the Yugoslavs were aware of Stalin’s reply to Gottwald in July 1948, but Fejić was likely correct, as the article closely reflected the position expressed in that response — namely, that there were distinct factions within the CPY.6
Next to the article — which effectively served as a policy statement on the Yugoslav issue — the editorial board published an obituary for Lieutenant General of the Yugoslav Army, A. Jovanović. It recounted the life of the hero, who “from July 1941 until the victory over the fascist occupiers” served as Chief of the Supreme Headquarters of the NOVJ, and was also described as “the soul and the brain of all major strategic and tactical operations.” From late 1945 until May 1948, he studied at the K.E. Voroshilov Higher Military Academy, and upon returning from the USSR, he was appointed head of the Yugoslav Military Academy.
The newspaper described Jovanović’s stance in the Soviet-Yugoslav conflict as follows: “In 1948, when the current Yugoslav leaders openly took the path of nationalism, Arso Jovanović, condemning the nationalist position of the Yugoslav leadership, expressed solidarity with the well-known Cominform resolution on the situation in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia,” and in August was “vilely murdered by agents of the executioner Ranković.”
Characterizing the general’s attitude toward the USSR, the obituary stated: “Arso Jovanović was a loyal friend of the Soviet Union and trained the cadres of the Yugoslav Army in the spirit of love for the great socialist country. He repeatedly declared that only through friendship with the Soviet Union could Yugoslavia defend its independence and freedom and continue to develop along the path of socialism.”7
The “Tseka” article in Pravda broke the psychological barrier that had until then restrained the Yugoslav leadership — who, apart from responding to the publication of the Cominform resolution on June 29, had not publicly reacted to the Soviet attacks.
Notes
1 Matović J. Tragom sudbine Arsa R. Jovanovica // Jugoslovensko-sovjetski sukob 1948 godine. S. 190.
2 Ibid. S. 191.
3 In the Danube Commission, whose permanent location was in Belgrade, both sides were primarily represented by intelligence agents. See: Очерки истории российской внешней разведки. Т. 5. С. 317-318.
4 Jugoslavija 1918/1988. S. 953. Fusnota 5.
5 Правда. 1948. 8 сент. С. 4.
6 Tripković Đ. Zapadne sile i konflikt Tito-Staljin 1948. godine // Jugoslavenski istorijski časopis. 1996. № 1/2. S. 144.
7 Правда. 1948. 8 сент. С. 2.
Excerpt translated from: A. B. Edemskii, Ot konflikta k normalizatsii: sovetsko-iugoslavskie otnosheniia v 1953–1956 godakh, ed. K. V. Nikiforov (Nauka, 2008), pp. 33-36, 135-136.