Conversations with Stalin Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Note on the Spelling and Pronunciation of Serbo-Croat Words and Names

  Foreword

  RAPTURES

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  DOUBTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  DISAPPOINTMENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  Conclusion

  Selected Biographical Notes

  Index

  About the Author

  Copyright © 1962 by Harcourt Brace & Company

  Copyright renewed 1990 by Harcourt Brace &Company

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.hmhco.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 0-15-622591-3 (Harvest: pbk.)

  eISBN 978-0-544-49572-2

  v1.1214

  To the memory of

  ANEURIN BEVAN

  Note on the Spelling and Pronunciation of Serbo-Croat Words and Names

  s = s as in sink

  š = sh as in shift

  c = ts as in mats

  č = ch as in charge

  ć = similar to, but lighter than, č—as in arch

  ž = j as in French jour

  z = z as in zodiac

  j = y as in yell

  nj = n as in neutral

  g = g as in go

  dj = g as in George

  lj = li as in million

  Foreword

  IT IS in the nature of the human memory to rid itself of the superfluous, to retain only what has proved to be most important in the light of later events. Yet that is also its weak side. Being biased it cannot help adjusting past reality to fit present needs and future hopes.

  Aware of this, I have endeavored to present the facts as exactly as possible. If this book is still not exempt from my views of today, this should be attributed neither to ill will nor to the partisanship of a protagonist, but rather to the nature of memory itself and to my effort to elucidate past encounters and events on the basis of my present insights.

  There is not much in this book that the well-versed reader will not already know from published memoirs and other literature. However, since an event becomes more comprehensible and tangible if explained in greater detail and from several vantage points, I have considered it not unuseful if I, too, had my say. I hold that humans and human relationships are more important than dry facts, and so I have paid greater attention to the former. And if the book contains anything that might be called literary, this too should be ascribed less to my style of expression than to my desire to make the subject all the more engaging, clear, and true.

  While working on my autobiography, the idea occurred to me, in 1955 or 1956, to set apart my meetings with Stalin in a separate book which could be published sooner and separately. However, I landed in jail, and it was not convenient for me, while imprisoned, to engage in that kind of literary activity since, even though my book dealt with the past, it could not but impinge on current political relations.

  Only upon my release from prison, in January of 1961, did I return to my old idea. To be sure, this time, in view of changed conditions and the evolution of my own views, I had to approach this subject rather differently. For one thing, I now devoted greater attention to the psychological, the human aspects of these historical events. Moreover, accounts of Stalin are still so contradictory, and his image is still so vivid, that I have also felt it necessary to present at the end, on the basis of personal insights and experiences, my own conclusions about this truly enigmatic personality.

  Above all else, I am driven by an inner necessity to leave nothing unsaid that might be of significance to those who write history, and especially to those who strive for a freer human existence. In any case, both the reader and I should be satisfied if the truth is left unscathed even if it is enveloped in my own passions and judgments. For we must realize that, however complete, the truth about humans and human relations can never be anything but the truth about particular persons, persons in a given time.

  Belgrade

  November 1961

  I

  RAPTURES

  1

  THE first foreign military mission to come to the Supreme Command of the Army of People’s Liberation and Partisan Units of Yugoslavia was the British. It parachuted in during May 1943. The Soviet Mission arrived nine months later—in February 1944.

  Soon following the arrival of the Soviet Mission the question arose of sending a Yugoslav military mission to Moscow, especially since a mission of this kind had already been assigned to the corresponding British Command. In the Supreme Command, that is, among the members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia who were working at headquarters at the time, there developed a fervent desire to send a mission to Moscow. I believe that Tito brought it orally to the attention of the Chief of the Soviet Mission, General Korneev; however, it is quite certain that the matter was settled by a telegram from the Soviet Government. The sending of a mission to Moscow was of manifold significance to the Yugoslavs, and the mission itself was of a different character and quite different purpose to the one assigned to the British Command.

  As is known, it was the Communist Party of Yugoslavia that organized the Partisan and insurgent movement against the German and Italian forces of occupation in Yugoslavia and their domestic collaborators. While solving its national problems through the most ruthless kind of warfare, it continued to regard itself as a member of the world Communist movement, as something inseparable from the Soviet Union—“the homeland of socialism.” Throughout the entire war the innermost agency of the Party, the Political Bureau, more popularly known by the abbreviated name Politburo, managed to keep a connection with Moscow by radio. Formally this connection was with the Communist International—the Comintern—but at the same time it meant a connection with the Soviet Government as well.

  The special conditions brought on by war and the survival of the revolutionary movement had already, on several occasions, led to misunderstandings with Moscow. Among the most significant I would mention the following.

  Moscow could never quite understand the realities of the revolution in Yugoslavia, that is, the fact that in Yugoslavia simultaneously with the resistance to the forces of occupation a domestic revolution was also going on. The basis for this misconception was the Soviet Government’s fear that the Western Allies, primarily Great Britain, might resent its taking advantage of the misfortunes of war in the occupied countries to spread revolution and its Communist influence. As is often the case with new phenomena, the struggle of the Yugoslav Communists was not in accord with the settled views and indisputable interests of the Soviet Government and state.

  Nor did Moscow comprehend the peculiarities of warfare in Yugoslavia. No matter how much the struggle of the Yugoslavs enheartened not only the military—who were fighting to preserve the Russian national organism from the Nazi German invasion—but official Soviet circles as well, the latter nev
ertheless underrated it, if only by comparing it with their own Partisans and their own methods of warfare. The Partisans in the Soviet Union were an auxiliary, quite incidental force of the Red Army, and they never grew into a regular army. On the basis of their own experience, the Soviet leaders could not comprehend that the Yugoslav Partisans were capable of turning into an army and a government, and that in time they would develop an identity and interests which differed from the Soviet—in short, their own pattern of life.

  In this connection one incident stands out as extremely significant to me, perhaps even decisive: In the course of the so-called Fourth Offensive, in March of 1943, a parley between the Supreme Command and the German commands took place. The occasion for the parley was an exchange of prisoners, but its essence lay in getting the Germans to recognize the rights of the Partisans as combatants so that the killing of each other’s wounded and prisoners might be halted. This came at a time when the Supreme Command, the bulk of the revolutionary army, and thousands of our wounded found themselves in mortal danger, and we needed every break we could get. Moscow had to be informed about all this, but we knew full well—Tito because he knew Moscow, and Ranković more by instinct—that it was better not to tell Moscow everything. Moscow was simply informed that we were negotiating with the Germans for the exchange of the wounded. However, in Moscow they did not even try to project themselves into our situation, but doubted us—despite the rivers of blood we had already shed—and replied very sharply. I remember—it was in a mill by the Rama River on the eve of our breakthrough across the Neretva, February 1943—how Tito reacted to all this: “Our first duty is to look after our own army and our own people.”

  This was the first time that anyone on the Central Committee openly formulated our disparateness to Moscow. It was also the first time that my own consciousness was struck, independently of Tito’s words but not unrelatedly, that this disparateness was essential if we wanted to survive in this life-and-death struggle between opposing worlds.

  Still another example occurred on November 29, 1943, in Jajce, at the Second Session of the Antifascist Council, where resolutions were passed that in fact amounted to the legalization of a new social and political order in Yugoslavia. At the same time there was formed a National Committee to act as the provisional government of Yugoslavia. During the preparation for these resolutions in meetings of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the stand was taken that Moscow should not be informed until after it was all over. We knew from previous experience with Moscow and from its line of propaganda that it would not be capable of understanding. And indeed, Moscow’s reactions to these resolutions were negative to such a degree that some parts were not even broadcast by the radio station Free Yugoslavia, which was located in the Soviet Union to serve the needs of the resistance movement in Yugoslavia. Thus the Soviet Government failed to understand the most important act of the Yugoslav revolution—the one that transformed this revolution into a new order and brought it onto the international scene. Only when it became obvious that the West had reacted to the resolutions at Jajce with understanding did Moscow alter its stand to conform with the realities.

  Yet the Yugoslav Communists, despite all their bitterness over experiences whose significance they could comprehend only after the break with Moscow in 1948, and despite their differing ways of life, considered themselves to be ideologically bound to Moscow and regarded themselves as Moscow’s most consistent followers. Though vital revolutionary and other realities were separating the Yugoslav Communists ever more thoroughly and irreconcilably from Moscow, they regarded these very realities, especially their own successes in the revolution, as proofs of their ties with Moscow and with the ideological programs that it prescribed. For the Yugoslavs, Moscow was not only a political and spiritual center but the realization of an abstract ideal—the “classless society”—something that not only made their sacrifice and suffering easy and sweet, but that justified their very existence in their own eyes.

  The Yugoslav Communist Party was not only as ideologically unified as the Soviet, but faithfulness to Soviet leadership was one of the essential elements of its development and its activity. Stalin was not only the undisputed leader of genius, he was the incarnation of the very idea and dream of the new society. That idolatry of Stalin’s personality, as well as of more or less everything in the Soviet Union, acquired irrational forms and proportions. Every action of the Soviet Government—for example, the attack on Finland—and every negative feature in the Soviet Union—for example, the trials and the purges—were defended and justified. What appears even stranger. Communists succeeded in convincing themselves of the propriety and suitability of such actions, and in banishing from their minds unpleasant facts.

  Among us Communists there were men with a developed aesthetic sense and a considerable acquaintance with literature and philosophy, and yet we waxed enthusiastic not only over Stalin’s views but also over the “perfection” of their formulation. I myself referred many times in discussions to the crystal clarity of his style, the penetration of his logic, and the harmony of his commentaries, as though they were expressions of the most exalted wisdom. But it would not have been difficult for me, even then, to detect in any other author of the same qualities that his style was colorless, meager, and an unblended jumble of vulgar journalism and the Bible. Sometimes the idolatry acquired ridiculous proportions: we seriously believed that the war would end in 1942, because Stalin said so, and when this failed to happen, the prophecy was forgotten—and the prophet lost none of his superhuman power. In actual fact, what happened to the Yugoslav Communists is what has happened to all throughout the long history of man who have ever subordinated their individual fate and the fate of mankind exclusively to one idea: unconsciously they described the Soviet Union and Stalin in terms required by their own struggle and its justification.

  The Yugoslav Military Mission went to Moscow, accordingly, with idealized images of the Soviet Government and the Soviet Union on the one hand and with their own practical needs on the other. Superficially it resembled the mission that had been sent to the British, but in composition and conception it in fact marked an informal nexus with a political leadership of identical views and aims. More simply: the Mission had to have both a military and a Party character.

  2

  Thus it was no accident that, in company with General Velimir Terzić, Tito assigned me to the Mission in my role as a high Party functionary. (I had by then been a member of the innermost Party leadership for several years.) The other members of the Mission were similarly selected as Party or military functionaries, and among them was one financial expert. The Mission also included the atomic physicist Pavle Savić, with the aim of having him pursue his scientific work in Moscow. We also had with us Antun Augustinčić, a sculptor, who was given a respite from the rigors of the war so that he might pursue his art All of us, to be sure, were in uniform. I had the rank of general. I believe that my selection was based in part on the fact that I knew Russian well—I had learned it in prison during the years before the war—and in part because I had never been to the Soviet Union before and thus was not burdened with any factional or deviationist past. Neither had the other members of the Mission ever been to the Soviet Union, but none of them had a good command of Russian.

  It was the beginning of March 1944.

  Several days were spent in assembling the members of the Mission and their gear. Our uniforms were old and motley, and since cloth was lacking, new ones had to be made from the uniforms of captured Italian officers. We also had to have passports in order to cross British and American territories, and so they were hastily printed. These were the first passports of the new Yugoslav state and bore Tito’s personal signature.

  The proposal arose almost spontaneously that gifts be sent to Stalin. But what kind and from where? The Supreme Command was located at the time in Drvar, in Bosnia. The immediate surroundings consisted almost entirely of gutted villages and pillaged, desolated li
ttle towns. Nevertheless a solution was found: to take Stalin one of the rifles manufactured in the Partisan factory in Užice in 1941. It was quite a job to find one. Then gifts began to come in from the villages—pouches, towels, peasant clothing and footwear. We selected the best among these—some sandals of untanned leather and other things that were just as poor and primitive. Precisely because they were of this character, we concluded that we ought to take them as tokens of popular good will.

  The Mission had as an objective to arrange for Soviet help to the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. At the same time Tito charged us with gaining, either through the Soviet Government or other channels, UNRRA aid for the liberated areas of Yugoslavia. We were to ask the Soviet Government for a loan of two hundred thousand dollars to cover the expenses of our missions in the West. Tito emphasized that we declare that we would repay the sum as well as the aid in arms and medicine when the country was liberated. The Mission had to take with it the archives of the Supreme Command and of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

  Most important of all, it had to sound out the Soviet Government on the possibility of their recognizing the National Committee as the provisional legal government and of having the Soviets influence the Western Allies in this direction. The Mission was to maintain communications with the Supreme Command through the Soviet Mission, and it could also make use of the old channel of the Comintern.

  Besides these tasks of the Mission, Tito charged me at our leave-taking to find out from Dimitrov, or from Stalin if I could get to him, whether there was any dissatisfaction with the work of our Party. This command of Tito’s was purely formal—to call attention to our disciplined relations with Moscow—for he was utterly convinced that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had brilliantly passed the test, and uniquely so. There was also some discussion about the Yugoslav Party émigrés (Communists who had gone to Russia before the war). Tito’s attitude was that we were not to become involved in mutual recriminations with these émigrés, especially if they had anything to do with Soviet agencies and officials. At the same time Tito emphasized that I ought to beware of secretaries, for there were all kinds, which I understood to mean that we were not only to guard an already traditional Party morality, but that we were to avoid anything that might endanger the reputation and distinction of the Yugoslav Party and of Yugoslav Communists.