ON THE COMINFORM

7 The Cominform in the struggle against Tito's Balkan Federation

The Balkan Federation was a form of bloc formation of states within the world socialist camp for the purpose of their incorporation by the world imperialist camp, for the smashing of the world socialist camp and its leadership by Lenin and Stalin's Soviet Union.

Tito's plan was to annex the whole Balkans, to ruthlessly exploit and oppress it as his colony. This plan of forming a Titoist-capitalist bloc of states outside the world socialist camp of the Soviet Union was forged and pushed by the Anglo-American imperialists in order to stop the advance of Lenin's and Stalin's Soviet Union. Stalin successfully derailed these plans, striking Tito and also Dimitroff on the head, who had played a decisive role in the formation of the Balkan federation, not for disinterested socialist reasons, but for Bulgarian nationalist-capitalist reasons.

[see:

a)

from a conversation of the meeting with Tito in the Kremlin on 27 May 1946 : Stalin: "Do you speak in favour of a federation with Bulgaria at the present moment? "Tito: "No. Not at this moment. Many things are still unresolved in Bulgaria - [according to the minutes of the CPJ delegation].

b)

Stalin's article in Pravda of 28 January 1948;

c)

"Self-criticism" of Dimitroff at the Party Congress of the Patriotic Front, on 2 February 1948; ]

ENVER HOXHA:

"All Tito's words and oaths were a bluff: he lied and deceived us about the truth of the idea of the 'Balkan Federation'. Tito, as facts and time have proved, was a vicious anti-Marxist, a nationalist, a chauvinist and an agent of the bourgeoisie and imperialism, he was a 'Trojan horse' in the camp of socialism, in the international communist movement and even more so in the Balkans. Taking up the idea of the 'Balkan Federation', he fought for the goal of annexing the whole Balkans to Yugoslavia, and within this framework, Albania as well.

Stalin, who had smelled Tito's expansionist plans, drew Dimitroff's attention to this, and Dimitroff publicly declared in early 1948 that he had thought wrongly about the federation between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria." (Enver Hoxha, "The Titoists", pages 319 and 320)

"We do not interfere in each other's internal affairs, but if, as a result of the waning of the struggle against the Yugoslav revisionists, it comes to the point that in a friendly country like Bulgaria a Balkan map is printed showing Albania within the Yugoslav borders, then we cannot be quiet."

"Can one indulge the Bulgarian comrades when, without consulting the Albanian government, with which they are bound by a defence pact, they propose to the Greek government a pact of friendship and non-aggression, at a time when Greece is still in a state of war with Albania and is making territorial claims against our fatherland? It seems to us very dangerous to take such actions unilaterally."

(Enver Hoxha (16 November 1960)

It is essential to emphasise that Stalin had forced Dimitroff to "self-criticism" at the secret meeting with Yugoslavia and Bulgaria in Moscow on 10 February 1948. It was only afterwards that Dimitroff publicly practised "self-criticism". One reads Stalin on this:

"Against the Vulgarisation of the Slogan of Self-Criticism", Stalin, Vol. 11 pp. 113- 122 and pp. 26 - 35).

We are of the opinion that Dimitroff's "self-criticism" was hypocrisy.

Even if Dimitroff was not the main culprit in the anti-Stalin Balkan Federation, we cannot absolve him of his complicity. We consider Stalin's criticism of Dimitroff to be correct. Therefore, we Stalinist-Hoxhaists can defend comrade Stalin only if we defend Stalin's criticism of Dimitroff. The neo-revisionists have committed treason against Stalin by defending Dimitroff. Dimitroff was a collaborator of Titoism in word and deed. He used centrism, the reconciliation of Titoism with Stalinism, feigned self-criticism, swore loyalty only AFTER he had been criticised by Stalin, only to save his own head by doing so. But Dimitroff's role in the Comintern and Dimitroff's role in the Balkan Federation, these are not the only roles Dimitroff played as a pioneer of modern revisionism. He had also betrayed the working class of Bulgaria by setting the course there for the takeover of power by the modern revisionists. Stalinism in words, revisionism in deeds - this is the physiognomy of Dimitroff's betrayal.