The Yugoslav Communists' Special Relationship with the British Labour Party 1950–1956

Abstract

This article uses new evidence to investigate Yugoslav foreign policy through the prism of inter-party relations rather than traditional high diplomacy. It shows the Yugoslav Communists hoped comradeship with Britain's Labour Party would influence Western policies to counter the Soviet threat. Initial successes, especially a deterrent statement by the British Cabinet in February 1951, inspired great optimism. The Labour left was also delighted that Communism could be reformed and Cold War tensions lessened. However, ideological differences crystallised over the Djilas affair and Yugoslavia's choice for Non-Alignment. Only mutual opposition to the USSR during the crises of 1956 ensured their continuing friendship.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Sara Bernard, Gary Blank, Artemy Kalinovsky, Dragan Plavšić, Anita Prazmowska, Svetozar Rajak, James Robertson, and two anonymous reviewers for valuable help with this article. Special thanks are owed to the Estate of Barbara Castle and the Bodleian Library for permission to quote from the Castle Papers; UCL Special Collections for permission to quote from the Gaitskell Papers; and the Open University Archives for permission to quote from the Jennie Lee collection.

Notes

¹ See for a survey of the latest archival research Jeronim Perović, ‘The Tito-Stalin Split: a Reassessment in Light of New Evidence,’ Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 2 (2007): 32–63.

² Jovan Čavoški, ‘Overstepping the Balkan boundaries: The lesser known history of Yugoslavia's early relations with Asian countries (new evidence from Yugoslav/Serbian archives)’, Cold War History 11, no. 4 (2011): 557–77.

³ For Western policies towards Yugoslavia at this time, see: Beatrice Heuser, Western Containment Policies in the Cold War: the Yugoslav case, 1948–53 (London: Routledge, 1988), Anne Lane, Britain, the Cold War and Yugoslav Unity, 1941–1949 (Sussex Academic Press, 1996), and Lorraine Lees, Keeping Tito afloat: the United States, Yugoslavia, and the Cold War (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). For the Yugoslav perspective, see Darko Bekić, Jugoslavija u Hladnom Ratu: Odnosi sa Velikim Silama 1949–1955 (Zagreb: Globus, 1988) and the more recent Dragan Bogetić, Jugoslavija i Zapad, 1952–1955 (Javno preduzeće ‘Službeni list SRJ’, Beograd, 2000).

⁴ See for more: Svetozar Rajak, ‘In search of a life outside the two blocs: Yugoslavia's Road to Non-Alignment’, in ISI, Velike sile i male države u Hladnom ratu: Slučaj Jugoslavije, Beograd, 2003 and Svetozar Rajak, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the Early Cold War: Reconciliation, Comradeship, Confrontation 1953–1957 (London: Routledge, 2011).

⁵ The classic text on the Non-Aligned Movement in English remains Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970). For the Yugoslav perspective, see Leo Mates, Nonalignment theory and current policy (Belgrade: Dobbs Ferry, NY: Institute of International Politics and Economic, 1972). New archival studies include: Dragan Bogetić, Nova strategija jugoslovenske spoljne politike 1956–1961 (Beograd: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2006) for the earlier and Tvrtko Jakovina, Treća Strana Hladnog Rata (Zaprešić: Fraktura, 2011) for the later decades.

⁶ See note 4 above.

⁷ See for a broad overview David Engerman, ‘Ideology and the origins of the Cold War, 1917–1962,’ in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, eds. Mervyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 20–43.

⁸ Recent overviews of Labour foreign policy in the Cold War have begun emphasising ideology but have not explored the Yugoslav connection. See John Callaghan, Labour Party and Foreign Policy: A History (London: Routledge, 2007) and Rhiannon Vickers, The Labour Party and the World, 2 Volumes (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011).

⁹ For more, see Bill Jones, The Russia Complex: The British Labour Party and the Soviet Union (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977), chapters 9–11 and Jonathan Schneer, Labour's Conscience, The Labour Left, 1945–1951 (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988).

¹⁰ Tom Buchanan, East Wind: China and the British Left, 1925–1976 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), chapters 4 and 5.

¹¹ See Bojan Dimitrijević and Dragan Bogetić, Tršćanska kriza 1945–1954: vojno-politički aspekti (Beograd: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2009).

¹² See Rajak, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the Early Cold War.

¹³ For probably the best known account advancing the thesis of global Cold War, see Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

¹⁴ See for a similar argument Mark B. Smith, ‘Peaceful coexistence at all costs: Cold War exchanges between Britain and the Soviet Union in 1956’, Cold War History 12, no. 3 (2012): 537–58.

¹⁵ Geoffrey Swain, Tito: A Biography (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011), esp. 25–26.

¹⁶ Andrew Thorpe, ‘Stalinism and British Politics’, History 83, no. 272 (1998): 608–27.

¹⁷ See Walter R. Roberts, Tito, Mihailović and the Allies, 1941-1945 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1973) and Stevan K. Pavlowitch, Hitler's New Disorder: the Second World War in Yugoslavia (London: Hurst, 2008), 223–227.

¹⁸ Labour Party Archives International Department, LP/ID Section 8 – Box Listed Collection, Box 8, Topalović to Attlee, 28 May 1944, and Topalović to Citrine, 28 May 1944.

¹⁹ Labour Party Archives International Department, LP/ID Section 8 – Box Listed Collection, Box 8, Topalović to Attlee, 28 May 1944, and Topalović to Citrine, 28 May 1944 Gillies to Burke, 2 August 1944.

²⁰ Dragan Subotić, ‘Srpski socijalista dr Živko Topalović (1886–1972)’ in Srpska Politička Misao, no. 3 (2009): 271–300.

²¹ Lane, Britain, the Cold War and Yugoslav Unity, chapters 4 and 5.

²² See Jones, The Russia Complex, chapters 10 and 11.

²³ See, for instance, Heuser, Western ‘Containment’ Policies in the Cold War, chapters 2 and 3.

²⁴ Bekić, Jugoslavija u Hladnom Ratu, chapter 4, esp. 92–93.

²⁵ Bekić, Jugoslavija u Hladnom Ratu, chapter 4, esp. 92–93, 477.

²⁶ Bekić, Jugoslavija u Hladnom Ratu, chapter 4, esp. 92–93

²⁷ See for more Ivo Banac, With Stalin against Tito: Cominformist Splits in Yugoslav Communism (Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 1988).

²⁸ Archives of Yugoslavia, Arhiv Centralnog Komiteta Saveza Komunista Jugoslavije 507, IX – Komisija za Medjunarodne Odnose i Saradnju, ACKSKJ/IX, S/a-1–38, ‘Zapisnik sastanka spoljnopolitičke komisije CK KPJ održanog 27 maja 1950 godine.’ and ‘Zapisnik Spoljno-političke Komisije CK KPJ održan 12 juna 1950 godine, u 17. časova’.

²⁹ Heuser, Western ‘Containment’ Policies in the Cold War, 49–59.

³⁰ Heuser, Western ‘Containment’ Policies in the Cold War, 49–59, 19.

³¹ Heuser, Western ‘Containment’ Policies in the Cold War, 49–59, 20

³² Stephen Clissold, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, 1939–1973: A Documentary Survey (London: Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1975).

³³ ACKSKJ/IX, S/a-1–38, ‘Zapisnik Spoljno-političke Komisije CK KPJ održan 12 juna 1950 godine, u 17. časova’, 42.

³⁴ ACKSKJ/IX, S/a-1–38, ‘Zapisnik Spoljno-političke Komisije CK KPJ održan 12 juna 1950 godine, u 17. časova’, 42, 62.

³⁵ The Fourth International's flirtation with Titoism is well established in the literature, See for instance, Alex Callinicos, Trotskyism (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1990), chapter 2. For an coded discussion of the Yugoslav debate, see Vladimir Dedijer, Novi prilozi za biografiju Josipa Broza Tita, vol. 3 (Rijeka: Zagreb, Liburnija, 1981), 335–336.

³⁶ Cited in Bekić, Jugoslavija u Hladnom Ratu, 164.

³⁷ Ernest Davies, personal papers, Archives at London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE/Davies/3/4, ‘European Tour 1950’, Davies to Peake, 7 October 1950, 1.

³⁸ Archives of Yugoslavia, 836, Kabinet Maršala Jugoslavije, KMJ (Cabinet of the Marshal of Yugoslavia), I-2-a/140, ‘Jugoslovensko-britanski odnosi od Rezolucije I.B. do danas’, 2–3.

³⁹Tribune, 2 July 1948, 3.

⁴⁰ 9 September 1949, 3.

⁴¹ Labour Party NEC microfilm, Part 8, NEC meeting 23^rd August 1950, 1.

⁴² Labour Party NEC microfilm, Part 8, NEC meeting 23^rd August 1950, ‘Report of Visit to Yugoslavia’, 16.

⁴³ For a narrower account, see Čedomir Štrbac, ‘Britanski laburisti u Jugoslaviji 1950’, in Jugoslovensko-britanski odnosi, ISI, Belgrade, 1988 and for a consideration from the perspective of the Djilas case, see Dejan Djokić, ‘Britain and Dissent in Tito's Yugoslavia: The Djilas Affair, ca. 1956’, European History Quarterly, 36, no. 3 (2006): 371–95.

⁴⁴ Labour Party NEC microfilm, op. cit., ‘Report of Visit to Yugoslavia’, 1.

⁴⁵ Labour Party NEC microfilm, op. cit., ‘Report of Visit to Yugoslavia’, 1

⁴⁶ Labour Party NEC microfilm, op. cit., ‘Report of Visit to Yugoslavia’, 1, 9.

⁴⁷ Labour Party NEC microfilm, op. cit., ‘Report of Visit to Yugoslavia’, 1, 10.

⁴⁸ Archives of Josip Broz Tito, I – 2/133, ‘Razgovor maršala Tita i predstavnika engleske laburističke partije – stenografske beleške’: 14–15.

⁴⁹ Labour Party NEC microfilm, op.cit., ‘Report of Visit to Yugoslavia’, 16.

⁵⁰ Labour Party NEC microfilm, op.cit., ‘Report of Visit to Yugoslavia’, 16

⁵¹ All quotations: AJBT I – 2/133, Razgovor maršala Tita i predstavnika engleske laburističke partije – stenografske beleške: 14–16.

⁵² Labour Party NEC microfilm, op.cit., ‘Report of Visit to Yugoslavia’, 18.

⁵³ Labour Party NEC microfilm, op.cit., ‘Report of Visit to Yugoslavia’, 18, 17.

⁵⁴ Labour Party NEC microfilm, op.cit., ‘Report of Visit to Yugoslavia’, 18, 18.

⁵⁵ Labour Party NEC microfilm, op.cit., ‘Report of Visit to Yugoslavia’, 18

⁵⁶ Stephen Clissold, Djilas: The Progress of a Revolutionary (Hounslow: Maurice Temple Smith, 1983), 218–219.

⁵⁷ ‘Zapisnik sa sastanka Spoljno-političke komisije CK KPJ održanog 28 februara 1951 godine, u 9 časova prepodne’, 1.

⁵⁸ See Heuser, Western ‘Containment’ Policies in the Cold War, 159.

⁵⁹ See Michael Foot, Aneurin Bevan: A Biography, Volume 2, 1945–1960, London: Davis-Poynter, 1973, 347–348.

⁶⁰ John Callaghan, ‘The Left and the “Unfinished Revolution”: Bevanites and Soviet Russia in the 1950s’, Contemporary British History 15, no. 3 (2001): 63–82.

⁶¹Tribune, 7 September 1951, 6.

⁶²The New Statesman and Nation, 22 September 1951, 301.

⁶³ A CKSKJ 507/IX, s/b, box 27, ‘Stenografske beleške sa sastanka održanog u CK KPJ na dan 23 maja 1951 god. u 9 časova’, 29.

⁶⁴ For the standard account, see A. Ross Johnson, The Transformation of Communist Ideology, The Yugoslav Case 1945–1953 (Cambridge, MA, 1972), 100–112. For its continued influence, see: Geoffrey Swain and Nigel Swain, Eastern Europe since 1945, 4th edn (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 84.

⁶⁵ ACKSKJ/IX, Sekretarijat, 25 April 1951, 29.

⁶⁶ ACKSKJ/IX, Sekretarijat, 25 April 1951, 29

⁶⁷ For a useful survey on social democracy in the West, the role of Labour, and the left and foreign policy, see Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010).

⁶⁸ Labour Party NEC microfilm, op.cit., ‘International Sub-Committee of the National Executive Committee, Report n Meeting of Comisco, London, March 2–4, 1951, by Denis Healey’, 2.

⁶⁹ ACKSKJ/IX, S/a-1–38, ‘Neki problemi u vezi naše saradnje sa socijalističkim partijama, demokratskim organizacijama i nacionalno-oslobodilačkim pokretima u svetu’, 2.

⁷⁰ ‘SSRNJ i Socijalistička internacionala’, report appended to the ‘Zapisnik sa sastanka Komisije za medjunarodne veze, održanog 20. januara 1954’, 2.

⁷¹ AJ 836, KMJ, I-2-a/140, ‘Jugoslovensko-britanski odnosi od Rezolucije I.B. do danas’, 3–4.

⁷² AJ 836, KMJ, I-2-a/140, ‘Jugoslovensko-britanski odnosi od Rezolucije I.B. do danas’, 3–4, 8–9.

⁷³ Callaghan, Labour Party and Foreign Policy, 218.

⁷⁴ AJ 836, KMJ, I-2-a/140, ‘Jugoslovensko-britanski odnosi od Rezolucije I.B. do danas’, 9.

⁷⁵ Johnson, Transformation of Communist Ideology, 206–207.

⁷⁶ Labour Party NEC microfilm,‘The Fourth Congress of the People's Front of Yugoslavia, Held in Belgrade / 22^nd February to 25^th February, 1953, Report to the Sub-Committee of the Labour Party, prepared by Mr Sam Watson and Mr George Brinham,’ 3.

⁷⁷ Labour Party NEC microfilm,‘The Fourth Congress of the People's Front of Yugoslavia, Held in Belgrade / 22^nd February to 25^th February, 1953, Report to the Sub-Committee of the Labour Party, prepared by Mr Sam Watson and Mr George Brinham,’, 3, 4.

⁷⁸ Labour Party NEC microfilm,‘The Fourth Congress of the People's Front of Yugoslavia, Held in Belgrade / 22^nd February to 25^th February, 1953, Report to the Sub-Committee of the Labour Party, prepared by Mr Sam Watson and Mr George Brinham,’, 3, 5.

⁷⁹ See especially Rajak, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, chapters 1 and 2.

⁸⁰ Jovan Čavoški, ‘Arming Nonalignment: Yugoslavia's Relations with Burma and the Cold War in Asia, 1950–1955’, CWIHP Working Paper, 2010, 23–30.

⁸¹ Čavoški, Arming Nonalignment, 23–30, 28.

⁸² ‘SSRNJ i Socijalistička internacionala’, report appended to the ‘Zapisnik sa sastanka Komisije za medjunarodne veze, održanog 20. Januara 1954’, 3.

⁸³ ACKSKJ/IX, S/a-1–38, ‘Zabeleška sa sastanka sa ambasadorima Pricom, Velebitom, Gregorićem i Ivekovićem, održanog 7 maja 1953’.

⁸⁴ ACKSKJ/IX, S/a-1–38, ‘Zapisnik sa sastanka Komisije za medjunarodne veze SSRNJ održanog 24 avgusta 1953 godine’, 4–5.

⁸⁵ AJBT, KPR, I-2/4-2, Memorandum of conversation between the President and the Prime Minister of India, J. Nehru, in New Delhi, 21 December 1954.

⁸⁶ AJBT, KPR, I-2/4-2, Memorandum of conversation between the President and the Prime Minister of India, J. Nehru, in New Delhi, 21 December 1954, see also Ibid. (after dinner in Nehru's residence), and ‘Memorandum of the meeting at the Indian Foreign Ministry, 22 December 1954, at 10:30’.

⁸⁷ Rajak, ‘In search of a life outside the blocs’.

⁸⁸ AJBT, KPR, I-2/4-2. Special Statement (Annex to the Joint Statement by the President of Yugoslavia, Marshal J. Broz Tito and the Prime Minister of Burma, U Nu, 17 January 1955.

⁸⁹ Bogetić, Nova strategija, 49–50.

⁹⁰ See Djokić, ‘Britain and Dissent in Tito's Yugoslavia’, 371–372.

⁹¹ ACKSKJ/IX, S/a, ‘Pregled međunarodnih veza Socijalističkog saveza u 1955 godini i perspektive rada 1956 (Izveštaj Komisije za međunarodne veze SSNRJ)’, 2.

⁹² ACKSKJ/IX, S/a, ‘Pregled međunarodnih veza Socijalističkog saveza u 1955 godini i perspektive rada 1956 (Izveštaj Komisije za međunarodne veze SSNRJ)’, 2

⁹³ Labour Party NEC microfilms, op.cit., ‘International Sub-Committee of the National Executive Committee, Report on Visit to Yugoslavia, August, 1955, by the Rt. Hon. Dr. E. Sumerskill MP and Mr. J. Cooper,’ 4.

⁹⁴Tribune, 10 June 1955, 3.

⁹⁵ ACKSKJ/IX, S/a, ‘Pregled međunarodnih veza Socijalističkog saveza u 1955 godini…’, op cit., 2.

⁹⁶ ACKSKJ/IX, S/a, ‘Pregled međunarodnih veza Socijalističkog saveza u 1955 godini…’, op cit., 2, 382–384.

⁹⁷ ACKSKJ/IX, S/a-1–38, ‘Izveštaj o putu u Englesku, Belgiju i Francusku od 25. februara do 6. marta 1954 godine’ 3–4.

⁹⁸ ACKSKJ/IX, S/a-1–38, ‘Izveštaj o putu u Englesku, Belgiju i Francusku od 25. februara do 6. marta 1954 godine’ 3–4, 376.

⁹⁹ ACKSKJ/IX, S/a-1–38, ‘Izveštaj o putu u Englesku, Belgiju i Francusku od 25. februara do 6. marta 1954 godine’ 3–4

¹⁰⁰ A CKSKJ/IX, S/a, ‘Sastanak sekretarijata za medjunarodne odnose i veze SSRNJ”, 2.

¹⁰¹ A CKSKJ/IX, S/a, ‘Sastanak sekretarijata za medjunarodne odnose i veze SSRNJ”, 2, 149–154.

¹⁰² Bodleian Library, Castle papers, MS Castle 4, diary entry for 28 September 1954, folios 48–53.

¹⁰³ See Smith, ‘Peaceful Coexistence at All Costs’.

¹⁰⁴ A CKSKJ, IX, S/a-39–78, ‘Zapisnik sa sastanka Komisije za Medjunarodne Veze SSRNJ održanog 7.11.1958’, 1.

¹⁰⁵ A CKSKJ, IX, 133/II − 87–184, ‘London, 1132, 1.XII. 56’, 1–2.

¹⁰⁶ A CKSKJ, IX, S/a-39–78, ‘Zapisnik sa sastanka Komisije za Medjunarodne Veze SSRNJ održanog 25. januara 1957’, 4.

¹⁰⁷ ‘Zapisnik sa sastanka Komisije za Medjunarodne Veze SSRNJ održanog 7.11.1958’, 1.

¹⁰⁸ A CKSKJ, IX, 133/II − 87–184, ‘Povodom dolaske Dženi Li u Jugoslaviju’, 2.

¹⁰⁹ A CKSKJ, IX, 133/II − 87–184, ‘Zabeleška o razgovoru druga pretsednika sa laburističkim poslanikom Dženi Li u Užičkoj 15, 14-XII-1956’, 3–4.

¹¹⁰ Labour Party NEC microfilm, op.cit., ‘Emergency Meeting of the National Executive Committee, 6 November 1956’, 3

¹¹¹ A CKSKJ, IX, S/a-39–78, ‘Zapisnik sa sastanka Komisije za Medjunarodne Veze SSRNJ održanog 4. marta 1957’, 3–4.

¹¹² A CKSKJ, IX, S/a-39–78, ‘Zapisnik sa sastanka Komisije za Medjunarodne Veze SSRNJ održanog 25. januara 1957’, 3.

¹¹³ Philip M. Williams, Hugh Gaitskell: A Political Biography (London: Cape, 1979), 515.

¹¹⁴ Gaitskell Papers, UCL Special Collections, Gaitskell/D/56, ‘Official Visit and Holiday to Yugoslavia Aug 1960’.

¹¹⁵ Gaitskell Papers, UCL Special Collections, Gaitskell/D/56, ‘Official Visit and Holiday to Yugoslavia Aug 1960’

¹¹⁶ Djokić, ‘Britain and Dissent in Tito's Yugoslavia’, 383.

¹¹⁷ Djokić, ‘Britain and Dissent in Tito's Yugoslavia’, 383

¹¹⁸ Mark Jenkins, Bevanism: Labour's High Tide: The Cold War and the Democratic Mass Movement (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1979), 260.

¹¹⁹ Jenkins, Bevanism, 260

¹²⁰ Open University Archive, Jennie Lee Collection GB/2315/JL/2/3/2/3 Letter from Jennie Lee to Harold Wilson, 22 March 1963.

¹²¹ See Vijay Prashad, Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World (New York: New Press, 2007).

¹²² On Yugoslav relations with the Italian Communists, see Eric R. Terzuolo, Red Adriatic: The Communist Parties of Italy and Yugoslavia, Westview Pr (Short Disc), 1985. On the Third World, see Bogetić, Nova strategija.