From Normalization to the Conflict: the Soviet-Yugoslav Relations in Spring and Summer 1956

Abstract. This article attempts to explore the turning point in Soviet-Yugoslav relations, which were developing in the mid-XX century as a reciprocating cycle of conflict to normalization. In 1956 one of these cycles began with the conflict between Yugoslavia and Cominformbeauro countries (1948–1953) and continued with the normalization stage after the Stalin’s death (1953–1956). Brewing a new conflict between Moscow and Belgrade meant a new round of bilateral relations pendulum. The purpose of research is to track the position of Soviet and Yugoslav on bilateral cooperation and to identify the main differences between them, so that appeared some tendencies that led to a new conflict in 1958. Based on materials of Serbian and Russian archives, periodicals, published sources, as well as works of Russian and foreign historians, the author examines the main landmark moments in Soviet-Yugoslav relations in Spring and Autumn 1956. Among them he explores the events of the XXth Congress of the CPSU; dismissing the Cominformbeauro and the impact of the Yugoslavian factor on this decision; informal trip of N.S. Khrushchev for holidays in Yugoslavia in September 1956; tensions in Hungary in Summer and Autumn 1956 and the role of Yugoslavia in these events. In the center of the research is the trip of the Yugoslav delegation headed by J. Broz Tito to the USSR and signing the Moscow Declaration. Despite the great attention paid to the preparation of the visit and hopes that were pinned on it, the negotiations failured.

Keywords: Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, foreign policy, the “Cold War”, Josip Broz Tito, N.S. Khrushchev, the XXth CPSU Congress.