(2 of 3)
Plain Yugoslavs were feeling the pinch of the U.S.S.R.'s blockade, but most were still eating better than their Russian comrades. The West was quietly giving Tito limited economic assistance. A French trade delegation arrived in Belgrade last week, joining U.S. and British engineers who are helping Tito build some steel plants. The U.S. State Department let it be known that Yugoslavia fitted into "the general picture" of American trade.
Where Alexander Came From. When it became clear that economic pressure would not dislodge Tito, the Cominform decided on a more drastic strategy. The new base of operations against Tito's Yugoslavia was to be Macedonia, the wild, barren stretch of country which is distinguished in history chiefly for sending Alexander the Great into the world.
Macedonia is divided among Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. The Cominform plan calls for the several parts to be united in a separate "free" Macedonian state (see map). This would isolate Yugoslavia by creating a link between Bulgaria and Albania (both loyal to Stalin), and provide a base from which well-organized Macedonian terrorists would try to foment rebellion within Tito's Yugoslavia. Last month the Communist Macedonian Peoples' Liberation front called for a "struggle to free the Macedonian people from Yugoslav and Greek domination." The Cominform's long-range goal was common knowledge, even in Belgrade: dismemberment of Yugoslavia into "sovereign" republics which would become part of a larger Balkan federation, probably headed by Bulgaria's Georgi Dimitrov.
The plan was bound to run into serious troubles. Not the least of these was the fact that all around Yugoslavia and throughout Eastern Europe, Titoism was breaking out like a fever rash.
Unhealthy Ambitions. Last September Poland's Vice Premier Wladislaw Gomulka fell into disgrace because he disagreed with Soviet economic plans for Poland. Next to go was Greece's Communist Boss
Markos Vafiades, who was ousted last February for deviation from the Moscow line. Last week, it was rumored that Hilary Minc, who had succeeded Gomulka as Poland's economic boss, was also on the skids. The most spectacular new outbreak of Titoism occurred in Georgi Dimitrov's own Bulgaria, where Deputy Premier Traicho Kostov was arrested last week with five high Communist officials and 300 lesser fry. Their crime: "Spying."
Last summer, when Kostov returned from a trade mission to Moscow, he still talked about the magnificent assistance Bulgaria could expect from her Soviet ally. But he soon found out that trade with Russia is a one-sided affair. He began to rebel against the slow, deliberate sacrifice of Bulgaria's economy to Russia. "He followed a policy which lacked sincerity and friendship toward the U.S.S.R.," said the Communists' bill of particulars against Kostov. "Comrade Kostov was moved by a conscious individualism [toward] unhealthy ambitions . . ."