“Doors of Serbia” are open to the future

Conversation with Ph.D. in History, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Euro-Atlantic Studies, Russian Institute for Strategic Studies

Nikita Viktorovich, you certainly know that on May 25, the day of the 120th anniversary of Marshal Josip Broz Tito, thousands of people from the republics that became sovereign states after the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia came to his mausoleum in Belgrade with flowers in their hands. In general, over the past few years, Tito's birthday has been celebrated more and more massively. How can one explain the clearly growing interest of the people in a man whose name was almost completely forgotten in the 1990s?

- Contemporaries and supporters of Tito rightly say that his time was marked by a high level of prosperity, stability and security, which are now unattainable. People with sadness, even with nostalgia, remember those times when they lived well. They like to remember that Tito really was a big man, not like the current political dwarfs. However, this is not projected into politics in any way. The political parties that claim to be Tito's heirs collect miserable hundredths of a percent in elections. Politically, Tito's legacy is now not in demand. In everyday, cultural terms - yes.

Slovenia has already been accepted into the European Union, Croatia will soon join, but Serbia will never be accepted into the European Union - no one needs a second Greece, and the Serbian economy, if it joins the EU, is capable of ruining everything even more than the Greek one. Despite the fact that the unification of all the former Yugoslav republics within the European Union is impossible, and in the 90s economic ties were largely lost, there is a need for some kind of common organizational structure, the idea of ​​an economic union is being discussed. Thoughts are being actively expressed about the creation of something that is conditionally called the "Southsphere".

In fact, after the death of Tito in 1980, the state also died. Like the empire of Charlemagne: the emperor died - and the empire collapsed. Tito created Yugoslavia and ruled it for 35 years.

Yes, with the death of the leader, the core disappeared. But if the Soviet Union had not collapsed, Yugoslavia could have agonized for a very long time. And that was exactly the agony. Potentially, it could continue for another 10, 15 years ...

- Who was interested in this collapse - the West, Russia?

Russia, of course, was not at all interested in this. But the West, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, had no reason to maintain this buffer state.

Yugoslavia - and suddenly a buffer state! To be honest, I had never before heard such an assessment of the role and significance of the state, which for the entire so-called socialist camp was an example of well-being and prosperity. The geostrategic position of Yugoslavia is clear, but is there a buffer between what and what?

As long as there was a strong Eastern bloc, the Warsaw Pact, as long as there was a strong Soviet Union, such a buffer state as Yugoslavia, with such a buffer political leader as Tito, was objectively beneficial to everyone. A buffer state between East and West could serve as an intermediary in resolving complex issues.

In other words, two military blocs, two different systems kept this state from two sides? But I remember how they went shopping to Yugoslavia, how highly the Yugoslav dinar was quoted. And suddenly everything collapsed at once, the country fell into poverty, and no one really could understand anything ....

- By then, Yugoslavia was deep in debt. Paradoxically, the good life began again in 1989-1991. Everything seems to have returned to the way it was under Tito: money appeared, goods appeared, everything became good and beautiful. But it was a kind of calm before the storm, some moment when, apparently, it was necessary to divert the attention of the broad masses of the people from those destructive processes that were taking place in the state. By and large, the entire Titoite Yugoslavia was one large zone of frozen conflict. The leader left, and 10 years after his death, everything that was frozen was unfrozen ... Because the roots of that contradiction, the confrontation, say, between Serbs and Croats, which so clearly manifested itself during World War II, were not eliminated.

Tito did not want to join NATO or the Warsaw Pact. He did not want to be in either the socialist or the capitalist camp, he wanted to be on his own. What did he build then?

- And how did this scheme work?

I note that Tito was constantly trying to improve relations with the West, primarily with America. At first, Tito was not believed. It was only around 1952 that people began to slowly trust him, and after Stalin's death, in general, it went: peace - friendship - chewing gum. And the scheme was as follows. In the West, a loan is taken, on which industrial production is created in Yugoslavia, which, by the way, ensures the employment of people. Production is created on the basis of some kind of Western industrial equipment, as a rule, but obsolete, manufactured on which products could not be competitive in the West. But it was more than in demand in the Soviet Union and in the countries of people's democracy, where it was exported.

The Soviet Union, which did not have an extra currency, paid with oil and gas. Part of this raw material went to domestic consumption, part to re-export for foreign currency, and the proceeds went to service the debt taken in America. This rather complicated, but very effective system gradually began to fall into disrepair, primarily due to the fact that people were becoming greedier and did not want to service foreign debt at the expense of this scheme. And to pay interest, another debt was simply taken. This is the main source of the Yugoslav economic miracle. Another source of this miracle is the sale to third world countries, which were then united by the Non-Aligned Movement, weapons and military equipment. This was partly a re-export of Soviet and Eastern European military products, partly our own - the military industry in Yugoslavia was quite developed.

- Well, what did the Soviet Union gain from this re-export?

The policy of the Soviet Union is quite understandable: the export of weapons took place to some points where it was better not to shine, they say, everything goes through Yugoslavia. Thus, by arming third countries that were part of the Non-Aligned Movement, the USSR created a force that could resist any expansion, primarily of the West. And for Yugoslavia, the arms trade was a very profitable business.

- And what role did Yugoslavia play in this Movement, carrying out its activities along the “south-south” line?

The Non-Aligned Movement was officially created by 25 states at the Belgrade Conference in September 1961. Its informal leaders were India and Yugoslavia. Egypt, Indonesia, Ghana, Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar) and many other countries actively participated in this movement. The creation of the Movement was preceded by the Bandung Conference in 1955 and the tripartite consultations of Josip Broz Tito, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jawaharlal Nehru in 1956.

Yugoslavia was less concerned than the Afro-Asian countries with the struggle against neo-colonialism. On the other hand, Yugoslavia paid much attention to defending the Movement's equidistance from the great powers and gently neutralizing the attempts of the Soviet Union to declare the Movement a "natural ally" of the socialist camp. Yugoslavia was not only the first European, but also the only socialist country that officially declared itself as non-aligned. And to a large extent, Yugoslavia performed representative functions for the entire Non-Aligned Movement, although legally Tito was never the sole leader.

With all this, I do not understand why, say, Tito was favored by Western leaders. He met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, British Queen Elizabeth II, with US President Richard Nixon ... In 1955, Nikita Khrushchev traveled to Belgrade, and the following year Tito visited the USSR. It seems to me that Tito was not without vanity.

Not that he is not deprived, but this is his main feature - always, throughout his life - the desire to be in the spotlight, the desire to bathe in the rays of glory. But the Western leaders, and then Khrushchev, welcomed Tito not at all in order to amuse his vanity. The Balkans have always been the focus of geostrategic, geopolitical interests. During the war, Churchill's son, Randolph, an intelligence officer, was sent on a special mission to Tito - to make an unbiased judgment of who the man really was. And he was imbued with incredible respect for Tito, in enthusiastic tones he told his father what a wonderful person Tito was.

- Tito's partisan army received serious help from England.

The British, having initially started with the support of the Chetniks, that is, the partisans of the monarchical wing, at some point became disillusioned with them and relied on the Titov partisans. True, they did not stop helping the Chetniks either, they began to support both. During the war, Tito, in general, maintained relations with everyone who was ready to provide some kind of help and support to the partisan movement, then Stalin looked at it through his fingers. But when the war ended, discontent began to arise in Moscow.

This fact amazes me. Already in August 1941, the General Secretary of the CPY Central Committee, Josip Tito, reported to Moscow that the flames of partisan war were blazing throughout Serbia. The number of the People's Liberation Army and partisan detachments of Yugoslavia by the end of 1941 amounted to 80 thousand people, and in 1944 - more than 400 thousand. During the war, Tito's supporters pinned down from 30 to 55 enemy divisions. It was the most powerful resistance movement in Europe, and all the victories over the Nazis in Yugoslavia were always associated with the name of Tito.

I do not want to downplay either the scale or the significance of partisan actions, but one can hardly speak of Tito's military talent. According to military experts, the Tito partisans during the Second World War made a number of completely stupid mistakes, moreover, inexplicable. I am not a specialist in military history and would not like to go into this topic. But what was staged incredibly well was everything related to agitation, propaganda, communications with the Soviet Union and Western allies, and illegal work. Communication with the outside world was established just fine, the agitation and propaganda machine worked like clockwork. Here Tito really showed a genuine organizational talent.

Tito's personality is as bright as it is mysterious. In order to at least a little understand the motives of his actions, one should, apparently, turn to the principles that later determined him as a major historical figure. Of course, it is impossible to retell his entire biography, I propose to dwell on a few, the most significant, from your point of view, moments.

- I absolutely deny everything that is written in official biographies, which are intended to prove that in his early youth, even before the First World War, he adopted a socialist ideology. I do not find confirmation of this anywhere ... He joined some kind of socialist trade unions, but this, in fact, only means that he had certain sympathies of the socialist persuasion. Nevertheless, when the First World War begins, despite the calls of the leaders of the world socialist movement not to participate in it, he immediately goes to the Austro-Hungarian army, enters an intelligence school and leaves as a non-commissioned officer and intelligence officer. While studying at this school, he takes part in the all-imperial fencing tournament, takes second place in his rank and receives a silver medal. And this is already a certain status, that is, he immediately falls into the clip of promising personnel. Then he ends up in Galicia, goes to reconnaissance.

There was a case when on Orthodox Easter he made his way with his team to the Russian rear, tied up 20 slightly drunk Russian Cossacks and brought them. He was proud of this and other combat episodes, and when he became the leader of socialist Yugoslavia. How can this be reconciled with the thesis that he was already a socialist?

Then he was wounded. According to the official version, a Circassian spear pierces his lung, he falls into Russian captivity, there he becomes infected with typhus, he is taken to a hospital for seriously ill patients near Kazan. He has been in a very serious condition for almost a year, but he is being nursed. Tito never hid this story either. Obviously, in the hospital he learned Russian, began to read Russian classics. Married in Russia.

As a prisoner of war, he worked on the railway in the Volga region, the Urals. The rebellion of the Czechoslovak corps finds him in the vicinity of Krasnoyarsk, then he finds himself in the Omsk region. Russia is trembling in revolutionary convulsions. He waits out this storm in a Kirghiz village with some local rich man in Northern Kazakhstan. The owner bought a steam threshing machine shortly before the revolution, he needed a specialist. Tito is a mechanic by profession. Before the war began, he worked in small factories in Croatia, Slovenia, then he was driven around Europe - Vienna, Munich, was a test driver. That's where his love for expensive cars comes from. But he loved not so much riding them as digging into them. He was a good technician, at one time he studied for three years in a mechanical workshop.

In general, most of the stormy time he waited out quietly. And the most unconvincing, one might even say, the written part of his history, his legends, is everything that concerns his entry into the Red Army and the party at that time.

Why do you think he nevertheless came to communist ideas, communist convictions, and did he have these convictions?

When in 1020 Tito, together with his first wife Pelageya Belousova, returns to Yugoslavia, then simply by the fact that he returned from the Soviet Union, he has a Russian wife and he knows Russian, Tito becomes involved in some kind of local trade union communist activity . Quite reliable archival evidence has been preserved that the local communists attracted him for their agitation and propaganda, a couple of times he spoke to the socialist trade unions.

- Did Tito ever officially join the Communist Party?

According to official biographies, he was admitted to the CPSU(b) while he was in captivity, to the Austro-Hungarian section of the Bolshevik Party. But this version does not find any confirmation. While there was a parliamentary monarchy in Yugoslavia, he is actively used as a person who returned from Russia. He likes it, he gives lectures to the workers about what is happening in Russia. Then a constitutional coup takes place, the Communist Party is banned, and as during the civil war in Russia, he flees to some rich village where no one knew him, finds a job as a mechanic, also at a mill, lives there with Pelageya and knows no grief. And absolutely does not participate and does not want to participate in any political struggle. But after the death of the owner, Tito lost a good job. His wife was from a fairly non-poor family, from a large rich Siberian village, and in Yugoslavia she found herself in poverty, and Tito's family life cracked. The more Pelageya moved away from him, the more he was drawn into some kind of political struggle. In 1928, when Tito was imprisoned, she and her son returned to Russia. Before that, two small children had died ... He was released from prison in 1934.

- For what deeds did he get there?

He sat twice. At first, he was given a relatively short sentence for a minor offense. The second time, the police planted bombs on him, which he allegedly prepared. A purely falsified process, such as the burning of the Reichstag by Dimitrov. Actually, after that, Tito fell into the cage of "professional" communists. As in pre-revolutionary Russia, the prison in Yugoslavia was the main political university. It was here that he became a communist. He communicated with prominent minds of the Yugoslav Communist Party, first of all, with such an experienced communist leader as Moshe Piyade, who spent a total of 25 years in prisons. And, by the way, he was able to be released only after Tito came to power.

This man was just a walking encyclopedia of communist thought, and Tito learned everything from him. Under his influence, Tito was forged as an ideological communist, and not just him. Many of those who were in prison at that time later entered the leadership of Yugoslavia. After his release in 1934, Tito fled from Yugoslavia to Vienna, where at that time the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was located. On the recommendation of Moshe Piyade and several other old communists, he was introduced to the Politburo from the Zagreb party organization. And just a couple of months later he was sent to study in the Soviet Union. Illegal, of course.

- Here we say “Tito”, and he went down in history as Josip Broz Tito, although in reality he is Josip Broz. Why Tito?

On this occasion, there are a variety of versions. Yes, at birth he was named Josip Broz, but he never gave a clear explanation of where the name Tito came from. There is a version of such a conspiracy sense: he always loved weapons and in the Comintern his pseudonym was Walter (the name of a German pistol). And Tito is supposedly a derivative of the TT pistol. But I found another explanation.

When Tito was first sent to the Central Committee of the party, who was in exile, the people who sent him did not trust the Central Committee, and gave him the following instruction: if everything is fine in Vienna, send us a telegram of any content and sign "Tito" - sort of like tip-top or - "everything is OK." And if something goes wrong, you also send a telegram of any content, but signed by a different name. And in a telegram from Vienna, he uses the pseudonym Tito for the first time. Such an interesting "squiggle" ...

- And how did Tito suddenly appear in the Comintern?

This is also an incomprehensible story. He was sent to Moscow to study at the Communist University of Western National Minorities under the Comintern, but he did not study for a single day. Arriving in Moscow, he immediately sets to work as an official of the Balkan Secretariat of the Comintern. Let's finally say it in plain text: the Comintern has been a terrorist organization from the first days of its existence. Tito and all those people who were next to him during the war, and then in the leadership of Yugoslavia, were trained at the military-political courses of the Comintern.

Their official name has changed several times: Political Courses, Military-Political School... This school has existed since the first days of the Comintern, since the days of war communism. Unofficially, the courses were called the partisan academy of the Comintern. They prepared foreign communists for partisan struggle and sabotage activities. The lists of students and teachers of these courses are still classified, but the curriculum has been published. For example, 20 training hours were allotted for the tactics of combined arms actions, for the tactics of partisan actions, which was called the "partisan", 30 hours. It is known that at the railway training ground in Shcherbinka they learned how to derail trains.

Documents have been published that leave no doubt that the Comintern was engaged in the training of saboteurs. Actually, this fact is now not disputed. And I have evidence, though indirect, that Tito also took part in these military courses. Specialists in the Balkans were trained mainly in Odessa, where no archives remained. There were central courses in Moscow. Apparently, due to past intelligence experience, Tito was trained there, who, thus, fell into the central “clip”.

Soon my book “Tito's Moscow Years” will be published, where I write about all this, but now I am leading to an answer to the question of why it was possible to organize a powerful partisan movement in Yugoslavia so quickly. Quite a few people went through partisan universities during the Spanish Civil War. Others received appropriate training in the Soviet Union. In general, mid-level military-political cadres were trained, plus a few tens of thousands of communists who returned to Yugoslavia after the civil war in Russia - it was they who raised the masses to fight against fascism.

- The Chetniks also fought against the Germans there.

This is a tragic story with the Chetniks. In Yugoslavia, at the same time as the Second World War, there was a civil war between Tito's partisans and the Chetniks, who were guided by the royal government in exile and consisted mainly of Serbs. It should be noted that until the beginning of November 1941, neutrality was concluded between the NOAU and the Chetniks of Drazhi Mikhailovich, negotiations were held between Tito and the leader of the Chetnik detachments on possible joint actions against the invaders. However, these negotiations did not bring results and the relationship between the partisans and the Chetniks moved into the sphere of armed struggle.

The Red Army and the Soviet leadership behaved strangely in this situation. Initially, there was no anti-Chetnik attitude. The Chetniks scattered leaflets throughout the cities: “Long live King Peter! Long live Generalissimo Stalin! Long live the Soviet Union!” There were even joint hostilities, even several cities were taken together. Then Tito sharply wedges himself into this relationship with his partisans and says: they are monarchists, accomplices of the Nazis, hanged partisans, that is, Tito did everything to drive a wedge, remove political competitors. And he succeeded.

- Was there a struggle for power?

Tito wanted to rule alone. Moreover, as was the case in all of Eastern Europe, after the liberation, the first government of people's trust included a minister from the royal government in exile, several old, from pre-war times, socialists ... Compromise figures. Then elections were held, in which Tito triumphantly won, and, naturally, all these royal ministers and old socialists were pushed to hell. A purely communist government was formed. In general, events developed along the same lines as in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and so on.

- After all, Tito became a marshal in 1943, I think, not without the consent of Moscow?

Tito solved quite a lot of issues himself, not global ones, of course. But, so to speak, on trifles, from the very beginning he allowed himself to make decisions on his own, without looking back at Stalin. Although there was a permanent radio station in Zagreb, through which a very good connection was maintained with Moscow. And the assignment of the title of marshal was presented as follows: the masses asked Tito to become a marshal - this is, they say, the people's will, and Tito agreed. In fact, that's exactly what it was.

In April 1945, a month before the victory, Josip Broz Tito paid an official visit to Moscow. It is worth noting that the Marshal of Yugoslavia was given the same honors as Charles de Gaulle and Edvard Benes during their visits to the USSR. On September 9 of the same year, Tito was the first foreigner to be awarded the highest Soviet military order "Victory". By the way, Tito became the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPY with the consent of Moscow. During the life of Stalin, the leader of the Yugoslav communists visited Moscow two more times ...

And then there was a quarrel between Tito and Stalin, which marked the beginning of the cooling of Soviet-Yugoslav relations, in the future - and to their almost complete break ... After the end of the conflict, Tito pursued an independent course in foreign policy and built "self-governing socialism." He tried to maintain a balance in national representation in state bodies, rightly believing that the Serbian group would be the strongest. Croats and Slovenes dominated various leadership positions. However, in 1963 there were unrest in Kosovo, caused by the desire of the Albanians to change the legislation on national minorities.

Well, there were regular conflicts. From the very beginning, Tito wanted to turn Kosovo into a showcase for Albania, showing how good things are in Yugoslavia. Huge amounts of money were invested in Kosovo for this purpose, but there was indeed little unrest among the nationalist university intelligentsia. This was quickly sorted out, but it is from there that Ibrahim Rugova, who later became such a well-known ideologist of Kosovo independence, originates. And at that time he was a nationally oriented "leftist", a Marxist. What is called, gradually transformed. His ideology was very strange: the wildest mixture of Gandhism (a follower of Mahatma Gandhi), pacifism and Albanian nationalism.

- What can you say about the events of 1971, known as the "Croatian Spring"?

Let's start with the fact that in Czechoslovakia in 1968 the so-called Prague Spring took place. In the same year, student unrest began in the capital of Yugoslavia. Students took over an entire urban area known as New Belgrade, and no one really knew what to do with it. The students were of an aggressive leftist leaning - Trotskyists, anarchists, Marxists, but in general, as it were, anti-Stalinists. Their main demand is to put an end to the red bourgeoisie. After three or four days of unrest, Tito suddenly said: the students are right, we really have too much bureaucracy, we need to deal with the bureaucracy. He came to the students, said: you guys are great.

The students immediately changed their slogans. Literally a couple of days before that, they were absolutely anti-Tito, and after a conversation with him, along with portraits of Che Guevara, they carried portraits of Tito. But the main thing in this whole story is that the leftist Serbian students, among whom there were a number of people minded both socialistically and nationalistically, received a certain carte blanche from Tito, and until 1972 a regime favoring such revisionism emanating from leftist student youth was established. It was one of the most fruitful moments in the culture of Yugoslavia. Some unrestrained experimental films began to be shot there, some books that were completely unacceptable before that were published ... So, returning to the Croatian Spring, I will say: the Croats were very envious that the Serbs had their Belgrade summer 68 th year, a deceptive summer, I note, and the Croats really wanted to have something like that.

Prague Spring, Belgrade Summer, Croatian Spring… Arab Spring, finally. An amazing historical series is lining up!

The Croats decided: if the Serbs succeeded, then why don't we try? The composition of the participants was approximately the same: everything also revolved around universities, around professors, students, some kind of left-wing intellectuals, so to speak, but nothing came of it. First of all, because during this time Tito was already a little pushed aside from power, well, in principle, it is impossible to enter the same river twice. And the main thing in all these events: in their demands, the Croats went further than the Serbs. There were nationally colored slogans, in the foreground were "leftists" and nationalists. The Croats had a nationalistic moment in all this, as they said, mass movement.

- Croats wanted secession?

No. It was about transforming the federation into a confederation. About softer subordination of national republics to Belgrade, first of all, in culture and economy. They did not even lay claim to their own foreign policy. The national intelligentsia wanted more autonomy, the party and economic activists wanted to be able to manipulate money more freely. They didn't succeed.

By the way, as a result of the events that took place in 1974, a new Constitution of the SFRY was approved, which formalized the foundations of Yugoslav federalism. But, as the events of our day have clearly shown, the separatist-nationalist centrifugal tendencies were not destroyed, but only frozen.

The origins of Croatian nationalism and everything that destroyed Yugoslavia in the 1990s are rooted in how the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was created. “The ugly creation of the Versailles world,” Molotov said of Poland. To the same extent, this applies to the Kingdom, created in 1918 at the behest of the great powers from the fragments of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They themselves counted on the fact that, perhaps, they would become three independent states or one state consisting of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia. Maybe they will unite with Serbia in the form of a soft confederation - this option seemed to them the most acceptable. And suddenly they are all simply taken and attributed to the Kingdom of Serbia, subordinated to the Serbian royal dynasty. The origins of the dissatisfaction of the Croats and Slovenes with the Yugoslav state originate precisely at this moment, the moment of the creation of the state.

- Interesting idea. This is almost never mentioned...

I think this is where the explanation of what happened in the 1990s should begin. Usually the reasons are seen in Tito's creation of a socialist Yugoslavia. In fact, the roots are in the past. There has always been an underlying nationalism, ever since the creation of the Kingdom. It showed itself very clearly during the Second World War. Further, this underlying nationalism clashed with purely economic problems. There was an opinion that we would live poorly as part of Yugoslavia, because we owe everything to everyone, but we can leave Yugoslavia, and we will not owe anyone. And the debtors are those who are the legal successors of Yugoslavia, that is, Serbia and Montenegro.

No one had any doubts that the Serbs would not allow Yugoslavia to fall apart completely, but would preserve the state at least in the form of a union between Serbia and Montenegro, as it happened, no one had. However, it didn't work out that way. The debt remained with both independent Slovenia and independent Croatia, but, of course, it was completely incomparable with the money that they would have owed as republics within Yugoslavia.

- And the debt is mainly to the West?

Certainly. At the time of the collapse of Yugoslavia, there was no structure at all, which they would not have to. Debts continued to be collected even when Serbia was under economic sanctions in the 1990s. The debt service left over from socialist Yugoslavia was not affected by economic sanctions.

- What religion was Tito?

According to the official version, his father is Croatian, his mother is Slovenian. Both Croats and Slovenes are Catholics. And there is a version, which I now often meet in the works of Croatian and Slovenian journalists, historians and church historians, that in the last months of his life he returned to the fold of the Catholic Church. He was ill for a long time, he understood that he was dying, and, allegedly, a priest was brought from the residence of the Bishop of Ljubljana in a car with tinted windows so that Tito would consecrate before his death. This is not confirmed by any facts, but now this thesis is being stubbornly planted in Croatia.

- Remember Voltaire, who, dying, asked for a Bible to be brought to him ...

Yes, such a parallel can be drawn. And another parallel arises. Tito became a kind of counterbalance to the policy of the USSR in Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia was an alternative socialist entity. The policy of "brotherhood-unity", united Yugoslavia is identified with the iron will, the magnitude of Tito as a political leader. It is very symptomatic that in the future there was no statesman of such a level in the SFRY.

Interviewed by Valery Panov

Why is the new Serbian youth political movement so important for Russia?

One of the fundamentally important for Russia participants in the political process in the Republic of Serbia is the youth Orthodox movement “Doors of Serbia”. Despite the fact that in the last parliamentary elections, the Doors failed to overcome the five percent threshold, many analysts, including those of a liberal persuasion, associate the future of the soil-based, conservative ideology in Serbia with this movement.

Patriotic forces in the country today are in the deepest crisis. The most numerous of the right-wing, nationally oriented parties, the DSS of former Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, will hardly receive more than eight percent of the votes in the upcoming March 16 early parliamentary elections. Other consistently patriotic parties and movements - the SRS under the chairmanship of "The Hague prisoner" Vojislav Seselj, the radical nationalist movement "Obraz", as well as "Doors" - are teetering on the verge of a five percent barrier. This situation is due to the fact that, on the one hand, Serbian voters no longer have confidence in political veterans like Kostunica. On the other hand, young people, both in terms of political experience and composition of party and movement members, such as the “Doors”, are deliberately cut off by the ruling cabinet from access to the media.

At the moment, "Doors" is suing the state TV channel RTS, which refuses to give this movement the time required by law for campaigning on the air.

Why is a small non-parliamentary youth political movement so important to us? "Doors of Serbia" is generally a unique phenomenon for the Balkans. The backbone of this political movement are people who have known each other since early youth, since they all studied at the philological and law faculties of the University of Belgrade and were grouped around the journal of Orthodox students, also called “The Doors of Serbia”. From this follows the first distinctive feature of the "Doors": it is not a party of the leader type, like all the "old" political movements in Serbia; "Doors" is directed by a close-knit group of like-minded people, none of whom dreams of becoming a "second Kostunica" or "second Sesel". The absence of a clear party leader created a certain problem for the Doors, since party activity in Serbia is thoroughly imbued with ideas of leaderism and political machismo. We must state that, in general, the Doors managed to overcome the leader-like tendencies of Serbian political life - there are no instantly recognizable faces in this movement, but there is a unique for Serbia manner of agitation and propaganda, providing the Doors with an ever-growing electorate.

The second distinctive quality of the Doors movement is the amazing homogeneity, consistency and purity of their ideology. Modern Serbia exists to a large extent in the coordinate system that was laid down in the days of Slobodan Milosevic, when the Socialist Party (SPS) proclaimed itself the main defender of conservative values ​​and the traditional way of life. For a significant part of the population of Serbia, especially in the provinces, the socialists until recently were the main exponents of the conservative worldview, and only the negotiations on Kosovo in Brussels, at which Serbia was represented by the SPS leader Ivica Dacic, thoroughly undermined this stereotype. No less syncretic is the ideology of the ruling Progressive Party (SNS) – once spun off from the radical Seselj party, the Progressives are simultaneously in favor of friendship with Russia and joining the EU, a strong army and membership in NATO, Greater Serbia and the recognition of an independent Kosovo. “Doors” designate their ideological principles as “holy ordination”, that is, following the precepts of St. Savva of Serbia, spiritual enlightener and teacher, honored by the Russian Orthodox Church. Moreover, Orthodoxy for the "Doors" is not an external paraphernalia, as for the same "Image", the activists of which walk hung with crosses, up to tattoos on their foreheads. This is the organizing principle of both their political program and their personal life - all members of the "Doors" are church people, members of the political council of the movement are elders in church communities. These are modest, not aggressive, but unshakably self-righteous people.

The third feature of the “Doors” is that it is actually the first “network” party in Serbia, making the main bet in the political struggle not on traditional media, but on social networks and the Internet. This strategy is partly forced, but it turned out to be extremely effective.

The main broadcasting channel of "Doors" is Internet radio, and their radio channel today is the most listened to Internet radio in Serbia, including pure entertainment. Internet TV is under development. "Doors" are actively present in all social networks, successfully using for their own purposes such means of Western socio-cultural engineering as Livejournal, Facebook and Twitter. As a result, "Doors" managed to interest and attract a significant part of the urban "advanced" youth, who do not watch TV or read newspapers at all, preferring to learn all the news from the Internet. To the surprise of the liberal public, there were a large number of Serbian patriots among system administrators, web designers and all those who are collectively called “bloggers” in Russia, who traditionally feed leftists and libertarians with their votes.

The fourth unique feature of the "Doors" is their organic, immutable focus on Russia. “There are quite a lot of people in Serbia who behave like this: they come to the Russian embassy and say - I am a Russophile, I love Russia, I love Russians, please give me money for this, and the more the better. Some even register political parties in the hope of shaking money off "rich Russians." It is difficult in this situation to prove that you do not need anything from Russia, on the contrary, we ourselves would like to do something for Russia to the best of our ability, ”says Srdjan Nogo, member of the Political Council of the Doors, who has become sore. His idea is developed by another member of the Political Council, Zoran Radoichic: “The Doors connect their lives and their political struggle not with Yeltsin’s Russia or Putin’s Russia, but with the Russia of Seraphim of Sarov and John of Kronstadt, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Berdyaev and Ivan Ilyin. Although, of course, you were lucky with Putin, there is no other politician like him in the world…”.

Bondarev Nikita Viktorovich - Senior Research Fellow, Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies, Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, Candidate of Historical Sciences

A series of openly unfriendly and provocative actions by the authorities of the Republic of Moldova against employees of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies continues. On Wednesday, November 25, 2015, at the airport in Chisinau, while passing through passport control, the head of the RISS Balkan Research Group, Candidate of Historical Sciences Nikita Viktorovich Bondarev, who arrived from Moscow to participate in an international scientific conference, was detained.

The head of the RISS Balkan Research Group, Bondarev, arrived in Moldova to participate in the international scientific conference "The Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic and the Republic of Serbia: Protecting Sovereignty in the Conditions of International Turbulence", held by the Pridnestrovian State University in Tiraspol.

Representatives of the Moldovan authorities informed N.V. Bondarev that he was denied entry to the territory of the Republic of Moldova, after which the RISI employee had to return from Chisinau to Moscow by the next flight.

Let us recall that earlier, on October 12, 2014, the Moldovan authorities similarly did not let the Deputy Director-Head of Scientific Programs of the Dniester-Prut Information and Analytical Center (DPIAC) RISS V.B. into the territory of the republic. Kashirin, and then on May 22, 2015, a similar measure was applied against the director of the DPIAC S.A. Mokshantsev, a native of Bendery. According to the official statements of the Moldovan authorities, these persons pose a "threat to the national security and territorial integrity" of the Republic of Moldova. On November 18, 2015, at the Chisinau airport, RISS Senior Researcher A.M. Shevchenko, a representative of the Moldovan border authorities, pointed out the categorical undesirability of his presence on the territory of Transnistria with the threat of subsequent deprivation of the right to enter the Republic of Moldova. In addition, over the past year, dozens of Russian journalists, scientists, military personnel of the Operational Group of Russian Forces (OGRF) and politicians have been denied entry to Moldova.

Assessing the meaning and significance of these actions of official Chisinau, the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies is forced to state that the current authorities of Moldova, being unable to conduct and maintain a normal level of political, economic, scientific and humanitarian dialogue with Pridnestrovie, instead relied on the artificial isolation of the PMR and obstruction any contacts of the inhabitants of the left bank of the Dniester with the outside world.

These attempts are an integral part of the course that in recent years has led Moldova to a protracted domestic political crisis, a significant deterioration in the socio-economic situation and a sharp decline in public confidence in the main institutions of the state. We are convinced that the observed dynamics of processes in the region makes almost inevitable a quick change in political conditions in which the implementation of such a short-sighted, irresponsible and destructive policy of official Chisinau is possible, after which the process of restoring normal scientific and expert communication and interaction will inevitably begin, including with the participation of representatives RISI.

2009-08-31

Bondarev Nikita Viktorovich

The Moscow period in the biography of Josip Broz Tito: through the Comintern structures to the leadership of the CPY (1935-1936)

Abstract of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of historical sciences

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE STUDY

Formulation of the problem

The research topic is related to the activities of a major historical figure of the 20th century, a long-term leader of Yugoslavia, an extraordinary political and ideological leader of the Yugoslav peoples, Josip Broz Tito. Undoubtedly, he was one of those personalities who influenced the course of history in the 20th century, and even today the legacy of I. Broz Tito continues to influence political processes and human destinies, primarily in the Balkans, partly in the Third World countries that preserve loyalty to the non-aligned movement. From the point of view of the formation of the worldview and the system of political beliefs, the development of practical skills in the party and ideological work of the future leader of the Yugoslav communists and one of the builders of socialist Yugoslavia, the study of the so-called Moscow period in the biography of I. Broz Tito is of great importance. Despite the fact that the years spent in Moscow (1935-1936) largely influenced the formation of the party and political line implemented by the Yugoslav communists during the Second World War and during the first years of building an independent socialist state, the Moscow period is one of the least studied stages in the biography of I. Broz Tito. This also applies to Yugoslav and, to an even greater extent, to domestic historical science. As a rule, researchers confine themselves to stating two facts: that, firstly, I. Broz Tito was a referent first of the Balkan Secretariat of the Comintern, and then of the Yugoslav Party Representation; and secondly, he participated in the VII Congress of the Comintern and became a member of the Executive Committee of the CI.

Meanwhile, it must be borne in mind that, having arrived in the Soviet Union in fact as an ordinary party member (although he was nominally included in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPY before leaving), I. Broz Tito returned to his homeland as a member of the narrow party leadership, endowed with special powers, and who, according to some researchers, became the second person in the party after the secretary of the CPY, Milan Gorkich. Acquaintance with the management practice of the Soviet system and immersion in the party apparatus environment gave him not only practical guidelines for leadership work, but also formed the “attraction-repulsion” complex that characterizes the phenomenon of the conflict between Tito and Stalin. Much not only in the personal relations of the two leaders - Stalin and Tito, but in the relations of the two parties and two states in the 40-50s. The twentieth century was largely due to the circumstances of the life of I. Broz Tito in the Soviet Union during the period under review and the nature of his work and contacts in the Executive Committee of the Comintern, his environment, the established connections and ideological stereotypes acquired precisely in these years.

Carrying out, on the basis of documentary sources, a detailed reconstruction of various aspects of the life of I. Broz Tito in the USSR in 1935-36. opens up the opportunity to establish the causes and more deeply analyze the circumstances that brought him to the forefront of the communist movement in the Balkans, as well as his activities as head of the party and state in the future.

The relevance of research

The scientific relevance of the work is due to the fact that, for objective reasons, this topic has remained outside the field of view of Yugoslav and Russian historical science for many years. During the life of I. Broz Tito, any research that somehow affected his biography was possible only with the permission of the country's leadership and had to be correlated with the current political course; in fact, there was a "canonized" version of his biography. The death of I. Broz Tito in 1980 and the crisis of the state system he created led to the appearance of a large number of publications about his life and work, however, the works of professional historians in these years were obscured by revelations of journalists, publicists and others who claimed to be sensational. to science, persons, up to mediums and astrologers. The subsequent collapse of Yugoslavia and armed conflicts in the former Soviet republics moved the biography of I. Broz Tito to the area of ​​interest of supporters of the "conspiracy theory", who saw in I. Broz Tito one of the main characters of the "behind-the-scenes" history of the 20th century. The deplorable situation in which Yugoslav academic science found itself in those years made it impossible for serious researchers to oppose such publications. In recent years, there has been a revival of the attention of the scientific community to the personality of I. Broz Tito. This is due to several circumstances. Firstly, the collapse of the federation, the political and economic instability of the post-Yugoslav space led to interest in the long-term leader, in the "firm hand" that kept the multinational country in balance for forty years. Secondly, once closed archival funds became available. Thus, in October 2006, an exhibition of archival documents and an international conference "Stalin - Tito" were held in the Belgrade Archive of Serbia and Montenegro. Both in Serbia and in Russia, however, no monographic studies have yet been created on the topic under consideration that would correspond to the scientific tasks of mastering and comprehending the entire vast documentary fund that was opened in our country and in the countries of the former Yugoslavia for research work.

An objective study of the Moscow period based on a thorough and systematic study of archival materials, primarily the Comintern fund, the personal funds of I. Broz Tito's associates, a new reading and rethinking of his works of this period, are necessary to study the activities of the Yugoslav leader and the history of the socialist movement in the Balkans. These circumstances determine the relevance and relevance of the work on the Moscow period in the life of I. Broz Tito.

Main goals and objectives of the study

The aim of the study is a comprehensive study of the period of I. Broz Tito's stay in Moscow in 1935-1936. To achieve the goal of the study, the following tasks were set:

Conduct a comparative analysis of the official biographies of I. Broz Tito, primarily in terms of coverage of the Moscow period;

To explore the influence that Soviet realities had, and first of all the situation that developed in the Comintern, on the formation of I. Broz Tito as a party functionary and politician;

Explore controversial moments in the coverage of the Moscow period in the biography of I. Broz Tito, including those characterizing his cooperation with the Soviet state security agencies;

Reveal inaccuracies, omissions and falsifications in the historiography of the problem under study;

Introduce new sources on the research topic into scientific circulation.

Research Methodology

The goals and objectives of the study determined the theoretical and methodological approaches used, the tools with which the designated topic is revealed. The dissertation was written in accordance with the basic principles of historical research - historicism, scientific objectivity, development (study of reality as changing and developing) and consistency (study of a historical phenomenon as a system with its own internal structure, typology and dynamics). The use of general scientific and specific research methods (analysis, synthesis, comparativeism) is combined with the universal principles of research ethics (conscientiousness and impartiality). When studying the fate of an individual or a generation, the biographical method is important. Therefore, in relation to the life path of I. Broz Tito and his associates, the methods corresponding to this method were used: chronological reconstruction, psychological portrait, parallel study of biographies, etc.

Timeline of the study

The dissertation covers the period from February 1935 to September 1936. In February 1935, Josip Broz Tito arrived in the USSR, according to the official version, to perform the duties of a referent in the Balkan Lender Secretariat of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. From October of the same year to August 1936, Josip Broz was officially listed as the referent of the Yugoslav Party Representation and assigned to the secretariat of Wilhelm Pieck. At the end of September 1936, Josip Broz Tito left the Soviet Union. Since Tito visited the USSR again in the thirties, in late 1938 - early 1939, many researchers combine these two visits and consider them within the framework of a single, "Soviet" paradigm. This approach is by no means flawless, since during these two periods Josip Broz was in our country in completely different capacities. On his first visit, he is a staff member of the CI, on the second he is the object of an investigation into the mistakes of the leadership of the CPY, a factionalist, a splitter, a potential enemy of the Comintern and the Soviet state.

It is also necessary to take into account the fundamental importance for Tito’s biography of a fairly independent one and a half year period between his two visits to the USSR, when he participates in attempts to create the Operational Leadership of the CPY, conducts illegal work on the territory of Yugoslavia, and participates in the relocation of the Party Central Committee to France. In Paris, Tito ensures the transfer of volunteers to Spain, being, apparently, at the disposal of the European residency of the OGPU, perhaps several times he leaves for the theater of operations. This is happening against the background of the growing confrontation between Tito and Gorkich, the steady degradation of the party leadership torn from the country, and factional conflicts within the CPY. All these events deserve a separate detailed study. In this regard, 1935-1936. appear as a completely finished time period, deserving to become an object of independent study.

The degree of scientific development of the problem

While working on the dissertation, the author relied on the existing historiographical base, which is the work of Yugoslav and domestic scientists. The research base is quite limited, which is not explained by the complex nature of the problem chosen as the research topic, and the historical specifics of its study. The number of works dedicated to I. Broz Tito cannot be accurately calculated. The Yugoslav researcher P. Simic, for example, speaks of 950 books, and this is by no means the largest number mentioned. But the amount of biographical and research literature is significantly reduced when it comes to works written on a serious scientific level.

There are several periods in the study of the biography of I. Broz Tito: lifetime studies - 1953-1980; the first revision attempts - 1981-1985; a decrease in research interest, initially caused by the crisis of the political system and the decline in the economy, which was then aggravated by the collapse of the SFRY and subsequent armed conflicts - 1986-2001; a new wave of researchers' interest, due both to political changes in the Balkans and the emergence of new documentary materials that were not previously available to scientists - from 2002 to the present.

The study of the "Moscow" period of Tito's biography is associated primarily with the names of the Yugoslav authors V. Dedier and P. Damyanovich. The first biography of Josip Broz is considered to be the book by V. Dedier "Materials for the biography of Comrade Tito", released in 1953. When writing it, there were practically no closed topics for Dedier, all the reference and special services of Yugoslavia worked for him, and any archival funds were available to him. W. Dedier had opportunities that any other biographer could only dream of. The result was a work whose importance can hardly be overestimated and which was actively cited by other biographers. In 1980, V. Dedier published a revised and expanded version of the book, entitled "New Materials for the Biography of Josip Broz Tito" . A year later, the second volume of "New Materials" was published, which caused a huge public outcry. This edition consisted entirely of materials collected by V. Dedier and his voluntary assistants in the thirty years that have passed since the publication of his first work. The book contained, in particular, a number of unique materials related to Tito's stay in the USSR. V. Dedier laid down the ideological parameters for the coverage of Tito's life path, practically introduced into scientific circulation the main factual and documentary array, which later researchers could hardly supplement - both due to the closeness of a number of funds, and due to the breadth of the problems presented in the work. It was after the fundamental works of Dedier that it became possible to speak of "titoistics" as a special direction in the history of modern Yugoslavia, which focuses on the personality and life of Josip Broz Tito, considered in the context of the era and environment, based on the study of documents and historical circumstances. With all the merits of the publications of this scientist, one cannot fail to note some weaknesses of the monograph. First of all, this is the undoubted internal censorship of the researcher and publisher, political correctness within the framework of the dominant ideology.

From the end of the 80s. 20th century interest in the personality of Josip Broz Tito waned, and the death of V. Dedier in the early 90s. made it impossible to continue his project. The weakening of interest in studying the history of the CPY and the personality of its leader in the last decade of the last century is associated with general political processes in the country - the transition to a multi-party system, the collapse of the federation, interethnic clashes and foreign interference in events in the Balkans.

In the works of the prominent scientist P. Damyanovich, politics and science were just as closely intertwined. Professor Damjanovich is the chief and executive editor of the Collected Works of Tito, the author of several monographs about him. P. Damjanovich brilliantly managed to combine the praise of the "great leader of the peoples of Yugoslavia" with scrupulous scientific research, the strongest side of which was working with the texts of I. Broz Tito, an excellent knowledge of the literature and periodicals of this period. From the editor-in-chief of the Collected Works, Tito needed precisely such qualities, so the appearance of P. Damyanovich in this responsible post is quite natural. Damjanovich, in contrast to V. Dedier, whose priorities were in the field of scientific representation of materials, created a generally recognized and publicly available version of the biography of the Yugoslav leader. The death of I. Broz Tito in 1980 put an end to the period in titoistics, designated in the dissertation as "intravital". During the years of I. Broz Tito's leadership in Yugoslavia, ideological vectors repeatedly changed, the economic structure and the system of power as a whole underwent certain changes, the attitude towards the USSR and the Soviet leadership changed, and the interpretation of the events of the Moscow period in the biography of I. Broz Tito also changed. However, the source base, which was the basis of all publications, one way or another connected with the stay of I. Broz Tito in the USSR, remained practically unchanged from 1953 to 1980 and was based on the developments of V. Dedier and P. Damyanovich. The documentary base for research of this period was, first of all, the works of I. Broz Tito and his associates in the CPY, general materials on the history of the workers' and socialist movement in the Kingdom of the CXC, and then the FPRY and the SFRY, party documents and resolutions, materials on the role of the CPY during the Second World War, etc. There were very few specific documentary materials and evidence relating to the Moscow period of Tito's biography. I had to rely on the retelling or statements of V. Dedier and P. Damyanovich.

After the death of I. Broz Tito, a new period began in Tito studies, which lasted until the mid-80s. 20th century This period in the dissertation is characterized as "revisionist". During the years of forced silence, many Yugoslav scientists and publicists accumulated assumptions, hypotheses and specific facts that simply could not be published during the life of I. Broz Tito. The most significant works of this period belong to the Slovenian scientist M. Britovshek, the Croatian researcher I. Ochak, the Serbian scientists B. Gligorievich, U. Vueshevich, M. Jovanovich. Of the journalistic publications, it is worth noting the book of the journalist V. Tsenchich "The Mystery of Kopinich", in which for the first time an attempt was made to rethink many facts of Tito's biography in the light of the evidence of his colleague and, possibly, rival, I. Kopinich. In these works, specific facts of Yugoslav history received new coverage, the role of individuals was overestimated, the historical context of Tito's activities in the 20-30s of the 20th century was considered from new worldview positions, new archival materials on the activities of the OGPU and the NKVD were introduced into scientific circulation. both in the USSR and in the Balkans, about the circumstances of the repressions against the Serbian communists in the 30s.

In the 90s. XX century, after the collapse of Yugoslavia and the final collapse of the communist ideology, the works of such authors as M. Jokic and N. Stoyanovich - astrologers, conspiracy theorists, champions of "alternative history" come to the fore, the mention of which is caused only by the fact that they used a wide popularity. Even today serious specialists are forced to deal with the refutation of their "speculations".

The academic science of Yugoslavia at that time was going through a deep crisis and was not in a position to oppose anything to these authors. Against the background of the general, very low level of biographical publications about Tito in the 90s, the works of the journalist P. Simic stand out, among which the most significant are "Tito's agent of the Comintern" (1990) and "The Saint and the Mist" (2001). ). Not being a professional historian, P. Simich, however, had the opportunity to work in many archives, including in Russia, but the conclusions he proposes are often very controversial, due to the lack of historical preparation and an uncritical approach to sources. The weak side of this author are. and ideological bias against I. Broz Tito.

In the Soviet Union and Russia, a special biographical study of Tito has never been published. The fact that in Soviet times historians practically did not study Tito's life path is connected both with the specific features of his biography and with the state of relations between the two countries. Interest in Tito's personality after the end of World War II was enormous, but no works dedicated to him personally were published in the USSR before the Soviet-Yugoslav conflict in 1948. After 1948, they began to talk and write about I. Broz Tito, perhaps even more, but the tone of publications was due to a political factor. Common epithets in the press of those years: “Tito is the chain dog of capitalism”, “defector and traitor”, “executioner of the Yugoslav peoples”, “Tito showed an animal grin”, etc. This attitude towards the Yugoslav leader continued to remain dominant until the very end 50s, despite the death of I. Stalin in March 1953 and the restoration of contacts with Yugoslavia along the party and state lines (N.S. Khrushchev’s visit to Belgrade in 1955). An illustrative example of anti-Tite and anti-Yugoslav rhetoric is the 1958 collection Against Modern Revisionism. Although works on the history of Yugoslavia were allowed and in demand by society, researchers still had to resort to all sorts of tricks in order not to mention I. Broz Tito positively even where it was very difficult not to mention him. This tactic is clearly seen, for example, in the popular science work of V.G. Karasev "Historical ties between the peoples of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia", published in 1957. In it, the period of the 1930s is given minimal attention and the narration does not go beyond the standard textbook texts.

After repeated "ebb and flow", a certain stabilization in relations between Moscow and Belgrade occurred in 1962. "Instances" approved and hastily published a two-volume "History of Yugoslavia" edited by V.G. Karaseva, S.A. Nikitina, Yu.V. Bromley, I.S. Dostyan. However, the presentation of events in this fundamental work was brought only up to 1945, all conflicts of the 40-50s. were prudently left out of brackets. Also, the work did not mention the work of Josip Broz Tito in the Comintern in 1935-1936. However, the turning point in Soviet titoistics was prevented by the events associated with the "Prague Spring" of 1968. For several years, all publications related to the Yugoslav theme were suspended.

The years of stagnation in our country became the years of the heyday of Soviet-Yugoslav relations, both in the economy, and in culture and science. The title of the book by Yu.S. Girenko, published in 1975 - "The Soviet Union - Yugoslavia: traditional friendship, all-round cooperation" . Dozens of works are published on the recent history of Yugoslavia, Soviet-Yugoslav relations, and the history of the communist movement in Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, among the huge number of works and publications, there are still no studies on the topic of interest to us.

The death of I. Broz Tito in 1980 became a turning point not only in Yugoslav, but also in Soviet historiography. Almost one after another, the works of M.M. Sumarokova, D.A. Sevyan and Yu.S. Girenko, chronologically related to the topic of our study. But, unfortunately, for none of these authors, the Moscow period of I. Broz Tito did not become a priority topic, but was considered only as one of many special cases of the stay of the Yugoslav communists in the Soviet Union. During the years of Soviet perestroika, the personality of Josip Broz Tito was of interest to domestic scientists and journalists primarily in the context of the "de-Stalinization" of the USSR: a lot was said and written about Tito, but the authors were primarily interested in the conflict between Tito and Stalin in 1948 and its consequences. At the peak of this interest, the work of Yu.S. Girenko "Stalin - Tito", the most detailed and detailed study of Josip Broz ever published in Russian. The author managed not only to systematize the data on the causes and consequences of the break between Tito and Stalin, but first of all to look at the Yugoslav leader through the prism of Russian-Yugoslav relations. Although the work uses a large amount of materials from domestic and Yugoslav archives, the chapters devoted to the period of interest to us are written mainly on the basis of publications by Yugoslav authors.

1990s in domestic titoistics are not marked by new serious studies. This is due to the fact that during this period the unhurried declassification of archival materials is just beginning, a new source base is being formed. Very few works have been published on the Balkan direction of the Comintern's activities and the activities of I. Broz Tito. One of the few exceptions is the work of A.A. Ulunyan, however, the sphere of his interests is the ideology of CI and the implementation of CI programs in the Balkans, and, above all, in Bulgaria and Greece.

The beginning of the new millennium looks more promising. In particular, the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences published a monograph by A.S. Anikeeva "How Tito left Stalin". A.S. Anikeev seriously analyzes the consequences of the conflict between Tito and Stalin.

Thus, the study of the historiography of the issue shows that the topic of dissertation research until today has not been the subject of a special study either in Yugoslavia, or in the Soviet Union and Russia.

Source base of the study

The sources for writing the dissertation research were materials of a different nature: archival documents in Russian, Serbo-Croatian and German from the funds of a number of Russian and foreign archives, published collections of documents and materials on the history of the CPY, the CPSU (b), the international communist movement; collections of works by I. Broz Tito and other figures of the international and Yugoslav workers' and communist movement; published memoirs and epistolary materials; periodical press of the USSR and Yugoslavia in the 30s. 20th century

When writing the work, the main source base was the materials of the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) and the Archive of Serbia and Montenegro (ASCh). In RGASPI, the author reviewed the funds of the Balkan Lender Secretariat (BLS) of the IK KI and the Yugoslav Party Representation under the IK, in particular, work plans, minutes of meetings, correspondence with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Also, the funds of the BLS leaders V. Pik and G. Valetsky, the personal files of the Yugoslav communists M. Gorkich, V. Chopic, I. Grzhetich, E. Kardel, K. Horvatin, R. Colakovich, F. Filipovich and Josip Broz himself were studied. Unfortunately, most of the materials from these personal files have not yet been declassified. The author also studied a large corpus of documents related to the 7th Congress of the Comintern, primarily organizational materials (lists of those who received passes of various levels of secrecy, minutes of meetings of mandate commissions, etc.).

In the ASCh, the author studied the funds of the Central Committee of the CPY, in particular, the minutes of the meetings of the Politburo, the correspondence of the Central Committee with the representative office in Moscow and the grassroots cells of the party in Yugoslavia. Also in Belgrade are the minutes of the meetings of the Yugoslav delegation at the VII Congress of the Comintern. The work uses the personal funds of the Yugoslav communists who were in the USSR in 1935-1936. - B. Maslarich, K. Mrazovich, V. Begovic, I. Marich, M. Radovanovich. The memoirs of these leaders of the international labor movement are a unique source that gives an idea of ​​the daily life and work of foreign communists in the Soviet Union, contacts of various Soviet institutions with political emigrants, etc.

Among the published documents, the Complete Works (PSS) of Josip Broz Tito is of the greatest importance for our study. The author studied, first of all, the third volume of the PSS, covering the period from March 1935 to November 1937. Also in the work were used collections of documents on the history of the Comintern, primarily "The Comintern and the Idea of ​​the World Revolution" and "The Politburo and the Comintern (1919-1943)". The materials of the collections introduce the work of military courses at the IK KI, with measures against the penetration of spies and saboteurs into the USSR through the apparatus of the Comintern, and others. most of the information about the true nature of the activities of the Personnel Department of the Comintern.

When writing the dissertation, memoirs were used: the memoirs of M. Buber-Neumann "The World Revolution and the Stalinist Regime", A. Kuusinen "The Lord casts down his angels", as well as the book by V.I. Pyatnitsky "Osip Pyatnitsky and the Comintern on the Scales of History".

The source base available to the dissertation allows us to significantly expand the documentary basis of our understanding of the era of the 1930s, the practice of the management structures of the Comintern and, in particular, the Balkan Secretariat, allows us to clarify the degree of personal participation of I. Broz Tito in the work of the Comintern and the Yugoslav party structures, create a reliable representation of Tito's stay in 1935-1936. in Moscow and other regions of the USSR. However, there are a number of questions that it is not possible to cover in the range of sources available today. For complete clarity, access to the funds of the Russian special services (FSB, GRU) and the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation is necessary. However, on the whole, the documents and materials we have attracted constitute a sufficient source base that allows us to solve the research tasks set.

MAIN CONTENT OF THE WORK

The structure of the dissertation is determined by the goal and objectives. The work consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion and a list of references.

The introduction substantiates the statement of the problem, the relevance of the topic, the chronological framework of the work, describes the methodology of the work, and also presents an overview of the state of scientific development of the topic, the source base of the study, scientific novelty and practical significance of the topic.

The first chapter, "Main milestones in the party biography of Josip Broz Tito," gives a brief outline of his biography and examines the situation in the CPY by the mid-30s. 20th century The first paragraph analyzes the profile of the delegate of the VII Congress of the CI of the future leader of Yugoslavia. This makes it possible to bring the biographical sketch closer to the context of I. Broz Tito's activities in the Comintern, to focus on the most fundamental moments in his biography - national and social origin, party and work experience, stay in Russia in 1915-1920, to trace how the career of a party member developed. functionary, including legal prosecution for socialist propaganda, imprisonment. The author compares the early period of the biography of Josip Broz with the fate of other Yugoslav communists, reveals common features and peculiarities.

In the second paragraph, the author shows the influence of socio-political processes in the Balkans in the 20-30s. 20th century on the life and party career of I. Broz Tito. If later I. Broz Tito himself largely determined the face of his contemporary era, then in the period we are studying, he was one of the hundreds of political dissidents persecuted by the regime, defined in Soviet literature as a "monarcho-fascist dictatorship." This chapter is predominantly informative, being a kind of factual outline on which the actual research part of the work is based.

The second chapter "Participation of Josip Broz Tito in the work of the apparatus of the Comintern in 1935" is devoted to his activities after his arrival in Moscow in January 1935, his functions, activity, and employment.

The first paragraph "Referent of the Balkan Lendersecretariat (January - June 1935)" examines the first six months of I. Broz Tito's activity in the Comintern, when, according to official tito studies, he began to work as a political referent for Yugoslavia. However, the archival materials discovered by the author of the dissertation show that Josip Broz went to Moscow without being appointed to the position, that at that time there was no clarity not only with the identity of the referent from the CPY, but even with the list of possible applicants for this position.

The study shows that the conclusion contained in the literature about the appointment of I. Broz to the position of assistant to the BLS at the suggestion of the Central Committee of the CPY is not confirmed by archival materials. The author also makes adjustments to the generally accepted dating of Tito's stay and activities in Moscow during the period under review. It is possible to speak about the beginning of full-fledged labor activity of Josip Broz as a referent of the Balkan Lender Secretariat only from June 1935. However, as the revealed documents show, in July and August he was busy not so much with issues within the competence of the referent (organization of the work of the BLS), but problems connected with the preparation of the 7th Congress of the Comintern. In general, during the first six months of his stay in the USSR, Josip Broz Tito was on the periphery of party life, in the shadow of other Yugoslav leaders.

The general context of the documents of this period is quite consistent with the author's thesis about Tito's close connection with the Comintern secret services, primarily with the Personnel Department, which, after the resignation of I. Pyatnitsky, was in charge of most of the issues related to illegal work, special operations, party building (previously supervised, respectively, by the Department of International Communications, the Department of Party Building and other departments). Based on documentary evidence, the author shows that I. Broz Tito came to the attention of Soviet intelligence back in the twenties, and his "development" continued after his arrival in the Soviet Union. It is characteristic that I. Broz Tito's direct and explicit connection with the OGPU is not documented. But Josip Broz, of course, was connected with the Soviet special services: he gives references to his party comrades, and not only employees of the Personnel Department, but also established employees of intelligence structures; he was introduced into the Yugoslav delegation at the 7th Congress of the Comintern against the will of the party leadership - such a decision could not but be sanctioned by the Soviet services that "patronized" political emigrants. But in most of the cases identified by the author, we are talking about the Personnel Department of the IK KI, and not about organizations of a national nature (OGPU, Intelligence Department of the Red Army). Confirmation in the work of the true nature of the activities of the Personnel Department of the Comintern can be considered extremely important. Although the true functions of this structure have been revealed in a number of publications of recent years, of which the monograph "Organizational Structure of the Comintern" is the most significant, as well as in works of a memoir nature, however, Yugoslav scholars dealing with the stay of the Yugoslav communists in the Soviet Union continue to consider this most important department of the Comintern. as a purely production-bureaucratic instance.

The second paragraph is devoted to the work of the Yugoslav delegation at the VII Congress of the Comintern (July-September 1935) and the participation of I. Broz Tito in it. These events, at first glance, are quite well worked out in the literature. A more detailed study, however, revealed the presence of blind spots, which researchers, for the most part, ignore.

The studied materials (the cases of the mandate commissions related to the composition of the Yugoslav delegation, the minutes of the meetings of the Yugoslav delegation and the memoirs of some participants in the VII Congress (I. Marich and M. Radovanovic), dedicated to the Congress itself, etc.) refute the conclusion of the majority of Yugoslav historians about the special leading role of I Broz Tito has been in the CPY since the mid-30s, about his rapid career growth, about the high appreciation of his abilities by the leadership of the Comintern. Statements by Yugoslav historians of the active participation of I. Broz Tito in the preparations for the Congress and his stormy activities as secretary of the delegation, as well as the conclusion that by the summer of 1935 he had become the second person in the party after M. Gorkich in terms of authority and authority, also not supported by documents.

The analysis of the sources carried out in the dissertation shows that Josip Broz was not initially going to be included in the Yugoslav delegation, party comrades did this after the start of the Congress. Moreover, M. Gorkić and V. Čopić, in principle, did not consider it necessary to have I. Broz Tito at the 7th Congress, even as a guest, preferring to him R. Čolaković, one of the rank-and-file employees of the BLS. However, I. Broz Tito, judging by a number of archival documents and eyewitness accounts, had patrons in the Personnel Department, who ensured his presence at the Congress and membership in the delegation. Obviously, this initiative had to be coordinated with the INO OGPU, which supervised all foreign participants in the Congress.

The delegation of I. Broz Tito's candidacy to the Presidium of the EC CI as a full member is also a big question. Most likely, his nomination was the result of the policy of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, aimed at discrediting the leadership of the CPY and preceding the start of purges in the ranks of the Comintern. The revealed documents show that the "tops" of the Comintern, controlled by the representative of the CPSU (b) D.Z. Manuilsky, already at that time headed for the elimination of the entire middle link of the CPY as "factionalists" and "sectarians". The trust of D. Manuilsky and G. Dimitrov was enjoyed only by the leader of the party M. Gorkich and young party members - yesterday's Komsomol members. The thesis of Yugoslav biographers I. Broz Tito that after the end of the congress he headed the Yugoslav delegation for a study tour of the USSR is also not confirmed.

By all indications, in July - September 1935, Josip Broz was an ordinary Comintern official of Yugoslav origin. If something makes the position of Josip Broz special, then it is his ever stronger ties with the "underwater part of the Comintern iceberg", in the words of V.I. Pyatnitsky, in other words, with the units responsible for personnel policy, illegal operations, communication with the OGPU and the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army. The third chapter of this work is devoted to the unofficial, hitherto unknown part of the biography of I. Broz Tito.

In the third chapter, entitled "In the Moscow" underground "", the author is looking for an answer to the question - could I. Broz Tito have been trained in any special educational institutions of the Comintern, in particular, in military-political courses, also known as "Partisan academy"? The author comes to the conclusion that this is possible: on the one hand, we have at our disposal documents confirming the presence of Yugoslav students in the Partisan Academy, although the personal files of cadets are still classified. On the other hand, in October 1935, the name of I. Broz Tito practically disappears from the Comintern office work, he returns to active work only after 9 months. Namely, this is how long the short course of "partisans" lasted at the military-political courses. The workers of the Comintern, who were engaged in the selection of students for the military-political school, were interested in precisely such people as Josip Broz: relatively young, but with life experience, including military; not involved in all sorts of internal party factional activities; unnoticed in the "deviations" of both the left and the right; having the ability to languages; able to handle equipment and weapons; unburdened by family. And, which is not mentioned in any document, but is implied by the very nature of the forthcoming activity - having an adventurous streak. I. Broz Tito perfectly matches these parameters. The only thing that does not fit into this scheme is his wife and son. However, it was in the autumn of 1935 that he divorced his wife, and his son Zharko was at that time in an orphanage for the children of Comintern employees in the city of Ivanovo.

The whole life of I. Broz Tito shows that he aspired to a special status and a special job. Josip Broz tried to stand out from the crowd, as far as possible - to lead and make decisions independently. In 1914, this position in life led him to the Austro-Hungarian military intelligence. Based on the personal qualities and inclinations of I. Broz, we believe that in 1935-1936. he should have been interested in the opportunity to improve his "military-political", i.e., sabotage skills. A weighty argument in favor of our assumption is the military activity of I. Broz Tito during the Second World War. In modern Yugoslav literature, it is customary to belittle the merits of I. Broz Tito as a military leader, which seems to us not entirely justified. The course of hostilities in 1941-1945. shows that, although I. Broz Tito really lacked the breadth of strategic thinking, reconnaissance and sabotage activities, as well as agitation and propaganda among the Tito partisans were at the highest level. This, in the end, predetermined the victory of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia not only over the invaders, but also over the monarchist partisans ("Chetniks") of D. Mikhailovich. Moreover, there is a clear similarity between the Comintern recommendations on the conduct of guerrilla warfare, sent, for example, to Poland and China in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and the resolutions of the Anti-Fascist Council of the Peoples of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) chaired by I. Broz Tito. I. Broz Tito himself in his autobiographical materials, of course, does not directly say that he was trained in any military courses, but he writes, for example, that in 1935-1936. was supposed to "study the works of Frunze and Clausewitz." We also find confirmation of our hypothesis in memoirs, for example, in the above-mentioned book by V.I. Pyatnitsky, as well as in the memoirs of other Yugoslav communists found by us in the ASCH: V. Begovic and K. Mrazovich.

The concluding paragraph, "The Question of the New Leadership of the SKJ and the Departure from the USSR (August-October 1936)" examines the circumstances surrounding Josip Broz Tito's departure from the Soviet Union. The author proves that the thesis of official tito studies (V. Dedier, P. Damyanovich, etc.) about the "special powers for the leadership of the party in the country" received by I. Broz Tito finds absolutely no documentary evidence. Rather, we can talk about a separate, one-time, albeit very important task that could pass from person to person and was not Tito's personal prerogative. This does not mean "leading the party", but only "creating conditions" for moving to the country of operational leadership (Operativleitung). The new governing body of the CPY was formed in such a way that even party secretary M. Gorkich could not lead alone. None of the four members of the operational leadership, located in the country, had any advantages over the others. In general, the whole idea of ​​collegial leadership of the party, which was a complex system of checks and balances, was artificially imposed on the CPY by the leadership of the Comintern and was unrealizable in practice. In particular, the leadership of the party, in a composition sufficient to make decisions of a general nature, was not in the country for a single day due to the fierce persecution of the communists. Be that as it may, I. Broz Tito was not engaged in either “creating conditions” or “material support for the operational leadership” upon arrival in the country.

Refuting the thesis about the high party position of I. Broz Tito, the author puts forward his own hypothesis about a special mission he received from the leadership of the Personnel Department of the IK KI and related to the activities of the Soviet special services. This is confirmed by the fact that after leaving the USSR, J. Broz Tito communicates most closely with S. Lilich, who is responsible for the technical support of illegal activities and a representative of Soviet intelligence structures in the ranks of the CPY. Returning to his homeland, J. Broz Tito activates old connections among the Croatian national intelligentsia (M. Krlezh, S. Galogazha) and tries to introduce alternative schemes for influencing the regional party leadership and trade union leaders. I. Broz Tito does not coordinate these actions with M. Gorkich, which several times puts him on the brink of failure. The author believes that these actions of I. Broz Tito were aimed at restoring the Soviet residency that had suffered as a result of failures and mass arrests. I. Broz was supervised by Tito S. Lilic.

Also among the priority actions of I. Broz Tito, in no way connected with the relocation of the leadership to the country, was the selection of young communists to study in the Soviet Union. M. Gorkich specifically noted in 1937 that he could not make this decision without I. Broz Tito. It was I. Broz Tito who was entrusted with writing testimonials for party comrades who were in the country, and both of these assignments were within the sphere of interest of the Personnel Department of the CI. The author comes to the conclusion that it was in the work of the Personnel Department (or rather, the secret services of the USSR and the Comintern) that the true goal of sending I. Broz Tito to Yugoslavia was.

In the Conclusion, the results are summarized and the following conclusions are formulated:

1. Josip Broz was not sent to the USSR as an assistant to the Balkan Lendersecretariat, there was no clarity with the candidacy for this position in the BLS leadership either at the time Tito was sent to Moscow, or after his arrival. In total, Tito was the referent of the BLS for a month and a half. Moreover, he was appointed to this work at a time when the liquidation of the secretariats was being prepared, and, consequently, the position of an assistant inevitably lost its former practical significance.

2. Tito's active participation in the preparation and holding of the 7th Congress of the Comintern turns out to be a myth of official Tito studies. I. Broz Tito did not participate in the preparation of the Congress, he also was not supposed to be part of the Yugoslav delegation. He was introduced to the number of delegates after the fact, after the start of the Congress, and although officially I. Broz Tito was listed as the secretary of the delegation, in practice secretarial functions were performed by other people. I. Broz Tito did not receive any significant assignments from the leadership of the Yugoslav delegation, so there can be no talk of his "active participation" in the 7th Congress.

3. The thesis of official biographers is also not confirmed, according to which in August 1936 J. Broz Tito was elected the organizational secretary of the CPY, that is, he became the second person in the party after M. Gorkich. This is impossible, if only because the post of "organizational secretary" in the CPY did not exist at that time in principle. I. Broz Tito became only one of the four members of the Politburo, which was a great personal achievement and a good platform for subsequent party growth, but he certainly was not the second person in the party. It is generally accepted that I. Broz Tito returned to Yugoslavia as the head of the so-called Zembil, or the Organizational Bureau of the CPY, which was supposed to be not in exile, unlike the Central Committee apparatus, but directly in the country. This thesis also does not find documentary confirmation.

4. The work of I. Broz Tito in the Comintern and the powers that were given to him upon leaving the USSR are connected not so much with the official political course of the CI, but with the activity of the Comintern secret services, whose activities by 1935 were controlled by the Personnel Department. The origins of the subsequent career take-off of I. Broz Tito lie in illegal activities along the CI line. Perhaps it was the connections (I. Karaivanov) acquired by I. Broz Tito in the Personnel Department during his work in the CI in the Moscow period that helped him, the only one from the Yugoslav party leadership, to avoid repression in 1937-1938.

5. Josip Broz could have been trained in one of the Comintern special schools, most likely in the so-called Partisan Academy (military-political courses). The author did not find direct indications of this in the course of the research work, however, it is rather difficult to refute this hypothesis, since the fact that the Yugoslav communists were studying at this educational institution is confirmed by archival sources, and the foundations of the training course of the Military-Political School are quite consistent with the actions of those led by I. Broz Tito of the Yugoslav partisans during the Second World War.

6. It was the years spent by I. Broz Tito in the USSR (1935-1936) that shaped his political personality and predetermined his party career and military successes, although the rise of I. Broz Tito was not swift and instantaneous, as some Yugoslav researchers see it , and his entry into the party elite was fraught with significant difficulties. Be that as it may, the starting point in the ascent of I. Broz Tito to the leadership of the party, and then the state, should be considered the Moscow period of his biography, when he became a member of the narrow leadership of the CPY and got the opportunity to influence the personnel and operational-tactical policy of the party, as well as the influence on the nature of the interaction of the Yugoslav party structures with the state and party bodies of the Soviet Union.

Scientific novelty of the research

Based on the materials of the Russian and Serbian archives, some of which are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, the dissertation is the first attempt at a detailed reconstruction of events from the life of I. Broz Tito in the Soviet Union in 1935-1936. in their chronological order. Considerable attention is paid to such problems as the specifics of the functioning of the administrative apparatus of the Comintern, the intra-Comintern hierarchy, communications between the CI and the Soviet special services (the Foreign Department of the OGPU, the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army), the features of the functioning of the illegal part of the CI, in particular, the military-political courses, also known as "Partisan academy". Although these problems are being developed within the framework of recent studies on the history of the Comintern, many of their aspects are still poorly understood. The posing of these problems in the context of a study devoted to the activities of I. Broz Tito and the history of the CPY is today an absolute research innovation.

The practical significance of the study.

The materials and conclusions of the study can be used in research and teaching activities, both directly on the topic of the work, and on a whole range of related topics: Soviet-Yugoslav relations, the history of the CPY, the history of the Comintern, the activities of the Soviet special services, etc.

Approbation of work:

The main content of the work and the conclusions obtained by the author are reflected in the author's publications on the research topic, reports and messages at various Russian and international scientific forums - at scientific readings dedicated to the 80th anniversary of V.G. Karasev (Moscow, 2002), where the author made a presentation "New trends in the study of the life and work of Josip Broz Tito"; at the international scientific conference "Stalin-Tito" (Belgrade, 2006) - presentation with the report "New data on the work of I. Broz Tito in the Comintern (1935-1936)"; at the international round table "Russia and Serbia in new historical conditions" - a speech with the message "The Comintern in the Balkans, the Yugoslav Communists in the Comintern" (Belgrade, 2007). The author also participated, as a chief consultant and co-author of the script, in the preparation of the television film "The Mystery of Josip Broz Tito" (Television Company "Top Secret", dir. E. Ilyasova, 2003), and as a consultant in the preparation of the television film "Yugoslavia : the period of decay "(All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, dir. A. Mamontov, 2000).

The works of the applicant on the topic of the dissertation:

I. Publications in publications according to the list of VAK:
1. Bondarev N.V. The last interview of Milovan Djilas // Historical archive. M., 2003. No. 6. S. 3-12.

II. Publications in other publications.
2. Bondarev N.V. New trends in the study of the life and work of Josip Broz Tito // Yugoslav history in modern and contemporary times: Materials of scientific readings dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the birth of Professor V.G. Karasev. M.: Publishing House of the Moscow City Association of Archives, 2002. S. 234-240.
3. Bondarev N.V. New data on the work of I. Broz Tito in the Comintern // Historical archive. M., 2006. (accepted for publication).
4. Bondarev N.V. Josip Broz Tito in the service of the Comintern 1935-1936 // Motherland. M., 2007 (accepted for publication).

1. Simic P. Tito agent Kominterne. Beograd: ABC-product, 1990. S. 5.

2. Dedier W. Josip Bros Tito. Attach your biography. Beograd: Nolit, 1953.

3. Dedijer V. Novi prilozi za biografiju Josipa Broza Tita. Knj. 1. Zagreb: Mladost, 1980.

4. Dedijer V. Novi prilozi za biografiju Josipa Broza Tita. Knj. 2. Rijeka: Liburnija, 1981.

5. Damjanovic P. Tito na celu Partije. Beograd: Kultura, 1968; Damjanovic P. Tito pred temama history. Beograd: Insitut za savremenu istoriju, 1972.

6. Ocak I. Gorkic: zivot, rad i pogibija (prilog biografiji). Zagreb: Mladost, 1988; Gligorijevic B. Kominterna: Jugoslovensko i srpsko pitanje. Beograd: ISI, 1992; Jovanovic M. Bolsevicka agentura na Balkanu. 1923. Beograd: Filizofski fakultet beogradskog universiteta, 1995.

7. Censic V. Enigma Kopinic. Zagreb: Mladost, 1983.

8. Against modern revisionism. Moscow: Pravda, 1958.

9. Karasev V.G. Historical ties between the peoples of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Moscow: Progress, 1957.

10. History of Yugoslavia. Moscow: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. T. 1-2. 1963.

11. Girenko Yu.S. Soviet Union - Yugoslavia: traditional friendship, all-round cooperation. Moscow: Nauka, 1975.

12. Sumarokova M.M. Democratic forces of Yugoslavia in the struggle against the reaction and the threat of war (1929-1939). Moscow: Nauka, 1980; Sevyan D.A. From the history of the Union of Communists of Yugoslavia (1919-1945). Moscow: Thought, 1982; Girenko Yu.S. Soviet-Yugoslav relations. Moscow: International relations, 1983.

13. Girenko Yu.S. Stalin - Tito. Moscow: Publishing house of political literature, 1991.

14. Ulunyan Ar.A. The Comintern and Geopolitics: The Balkan Frontier (1919-1938). Moscow: Institute of World History, 1997.

15. Anikeev A.S. How Tito left Stalin: Yugoslavia, the USSR and the USA in the initial period of the Cold War (1945-1957). Moscow: Institute of Slavic Studies RAS, 2002.

16. Comintern and the idea of ​​world revolution. Moscow: Nauka, 1998.

17. Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) - VKP (b) and the Comintern (1919-1943). Moscow: Rosspen, 2004.

18. Adibekov G.M., Shakhnazarov E.N., Shirinya K.K. Organizational structure of the Comintern. Moscow: Rosspan, 1997.

19. Buber-Neumann M. World revolution and the Stalinist regime. Notes of an eyewitness on the activities of the Comintern in the 1920-1930s. Moscow: AIRO-XX, 1995. 322 p. Kuusinen A. The Lord casts down his angels. Memoirs 1919-1965. Petrozavodsk: Karelia, 1991. 240 p. Pyatnitsky V.I. Osip Pyatnitsky and the Comintern on the Scales of History. Minsk: Harvest, 2004.

20. Broz Tito J. Sabrana djela. T. 3. Beograd: Komunist Zagreb: Naprijed, 1983. S. 268.

The country lives in anticipation of early parliamentary elections scheduled for March 16
Recall that today the government in the country is a cabinet formed by the two largest political parties in Serbia - the Progressives (SNS) and the Socialists (SPS), as well as a dozen dwarf parties and movements, mostly satellites of the Progressives. The Prime Minister of the country is the leader of the Socialists Ivica Dacic, the First Deputy Prime Minister is the leader of the Progressives Alexander Vucic. The country's president, Tomislav Nikolic, is also a former progressive, in fact, he is the founder of this party, but shortly before officially taking office, Nikolic defiantly left the SNA in order, in his words, "to be above the political struggle."

The Dacic-Vučić cabinet proved to be quite capable, despite its political heterogeneity. At the talks in Brussels, for the first time since 2008, the Serbian Prime Minister came close to formally recognizing Kosovo's independence, which the West certainly considers Dacic a plus. There are active consultations on Serbia's accession to the EU and NATO. On the other hand, the Serbian authorities maintain close contacts with Moscow, in particular, construction of the first section of the South Stream gas pipeline was solemnly launched in Serbia last year. A serious campaign against corruption is underway in the country, one of the largest oligarchs (who is also a criminal authority) has been put behind bars. In general, everyone seems to be satisfied with Serbia in its current form. Western "friends" note the readiness of the Serbs to surrender Kosovo and join international organizations. In turn, Russia has the strongest position in the local energy market (Gazprom owns the Oil Industry Serbia-NIS company) and a predominant share of shares in the Serbian section of South Stream (51% of shares from Russia versus 49% from Serbia).

Of course, the local liberal community does not like such an active Russian presence in Serbia, and patriotic Serbs cannot but resent the prospect of losing Kosovo.

However, in a situation where all electronic media in the country are actually controlled by the state, protest moods have no outlets.

So why then snap elections, Russian journalists writing about the Balkans wonder. The problem is that the coalition government of progressives and socialists has practically exhausted its resource. This is especially clearly seen in the example of the talks on Kosovo, which were led in Brussels by Prime Minister Dacic. During the year that active negotiations continued, Dacic managed to make more concessions to the Kosovo Albanians than the former head of Serbia, Boris Tadic, during his entire presidency. It would not be an exaggeration to say that today the Serbian regions of Kosovo, including the north of the region, homogeneously Serbian (the so-called Ibar Kolasin) have lost any connection with Belgrade at all. And the Kosovo Serbs have less and less rights and freedoms every day.

At the same time, the formal recognition of Kosovo's independence by Serbia will require a revision of the country's constitution, in which the province of Kosovo and Metohija is called an integral part of the Republic of Serbia. Prime Minister Dacic is not ready to take this step, which means the final and irreversible loss of Kosovo, realizing that in this way he will ruin his political career forever. The same can be said about the President and Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia - given the current alignment of forces in the Serbian government and parliament, they clearly do not want to cross this last line. Actually, that is why the socialist Dacic was appointed responsible for the negotiations in Brussels. The situation will change if the progressives get the opportunity to form a cabinet on their own, without sharing portfolios with other major political parties. On the one hand, there will be no one else to shift the responsibility to, they will have to recognize the independence of Kosovo, on the other hand, within the framework of a one-party system, it is certainly easier to minimize political losses from a “final” solution to the Kosovo issue.

We are now witnessing two parallel and closely intertwined processes - the progressive cleansing of the political landscape in Serbia and the growing pressure of Albanians in Kosovo on Serbian communities. Preparations for the establishment of SNA hegemony in Serbia are developing at an accelerated pace. A split was initiated in the two most influential political parties - the Socialists (SPS) and the Democrats (DS). The former ruling party, the DS, effectively split into two democratic parties, one headed by former President Tadic and the other by former Belgrade Mayor Dragan Djilas. There is also turmoil in the ranks of the socialists, the authority of the prime minister and party leader Dacic is challenged by his deputies and members of the political council, and the head of the prime minister’s apparatus, also a prominent member of the Union of Right Forces, is currently under investigation for alleged links with the drug mafia.

The patriotic spectrum in the upcoming elections will be represented by: the DSS party of former Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, the Radical Party (SRS), whose leader is formally Vojislav Seselj, who is under investigation in The Hague, and the youth Orthodox movement Doors.

Popular support for Kostunica's party is now thinner than ever, although the DSS will certainly overcome the 5% threshold and enter parliament, it is unlikely to play any serious role there. Seselj's radicals, in an attempt to expand their electoral base, entered into an agreement on joint actions with the youth association Obraz, staffed to a large extent by football hooligans and fascist characters. Needless to say, in practice this dubious alliance will not add points to either the radicals or the Obraz; rather, on the contrary, it will scare off the old supporters of Seselj. The Doors movement, which seems to us the only consistently patriotic force in modern Serbia, will most likely not be allowed to enter parliament. In the last elections, they did exactly that - they took away one and a half percent of the votes and attributed them to the party of ethnic Hungarians (“Doors” filed a lawsuit against the Serbian Electoral Commission on this issue, the proceedings are still ongoing). Thus, the Progressive Party confidently receives forty or more percent of the votes; in order to fully control the Assembly of Serbia, they only have to win over ten percent of the parliamentary "swamp" to their side. There is no doubt that they will succeed, which means that the ruling cabinet will be formed by the party of Alexander Vučić.

At the same time, the Albanian authorities in Kosovo are consistently clearing the region of any signs of nationally oriented Serbian political activity. At the beginning of the year, Serbian politician Oliver Ivanovic was arrested in Kosovska Mitrovica under a far-fetched pretext. Ivanovich was considered a liberal politician, inclined to negotiate with the Albanians rather than pedal conflict situations. Ivanovic says that the only way for Kosovo Serbs to avoid becoming a bargaining chip in the games between Belgrade and Pristina is to maintain an equal distance from the Serbian and Albanian authorities. We state that even such an extremely cautious position, far from the textbook “Great Serbian chauvinism”, did not save Ivanovich from repressions by the Albanians. Ivanovich has been in a pre-trial detention center for the third month already and will definitely stay there at least until the March elections.

Thus, there is a situation when there will simply be no one to stand up for Kosovo. In Serbia, patriotic politicians are marginalized and/or eliminated from the political arena; in Serbian regions of Kosovo, they are arrested, terrorized, and often simply destroyed.

Official recognition of Kosovo's independence by Belgrade will be possible literally the next day after the March elections... However, it is most likely that the act of surrendering the "cradle of Serbia" will take place at the end of summer 2014, during the traditional holiday season.

A separate issue, not related to Kosovo as such, is what the monopoly on power of the Progressive Party is fraught with for Russia. The fact that big changes are coming in Russian-Serbian relations, the Serbian authorities, in general, do not hide. For example, the head of the Serbian delegation at the talks with the EU, Tanja Mishcevic, said the other day that economic relations with Russia would soon "be modified." What does this mean in practice? A highly credible source close to the management of Serbiagas, who, for obvious reasons, wished to remain anonymous, told us that after March 16, a review of all agreements on cooperation in the field of energy between Serbia and Russia is coming. "Gazpromneft" is planned to be taxed and, in the future, to take away the "Oil Industry of Serbia" from Gazprom. Serbiyagaz will be removed from work on the South Stream in March, and by the summer the gas pipeline project itself will be smoothly frozen. The most anti-Russian minister in the current government, the notorious Zorana Mikhailovich, who almost disrupted the talks between Putin and Nikolic in the fall of 2012, according to our source, will be promoted to first deputy prime minister. Such a scenario does not look fantastic at all if we recall, for example, the fate of the Podgoritsky metallurgical plant in neighboring Montenegro, which was first sold to the Russian company Basic Element, and then went bankrupt and taken from it. It should be noted that a prominent expert in this field gives an equally negative assessment of the future Russian-Serbian economic cooperation in the event of a victory for the progressives. Sergei Pravosudov, editor-in-chief of the Gazprom magazine, director of the National Energy Institute.

Russia in no way considers it possible for itself to interfere in the internal affairs of Serbia. We have only one recommendation for the leadership of the Progressive Party - listen carefully to the aspirations of your own people. According to opinion polls, more than 70% of Serbs are against the recognition of Kosovo's independence, 80% believe that economic ties with Russia should be strengthened, less than half of the Serbian population supports the country's accession to the EU. Are Messrs. Nikolic and Vučić so eager to become an "anti-people" government?