Letter to I. Broz-Tito et al., March 27, 1948

Source: Tom 18

To Comrade Tito and the other members of the CC of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

Your reply letters of March 18 and 20 have been received. We consider your reply untruthful and therefore completely unsatisfactory.

[On the recall of military advisers:] Subsequently, Yugoslav military leaders, including Kocha Popovic, saw fit to declare the need to reduce the number of Soviet military advisers by 60 percent, giving various reasons: some said that Soviet military advisers were too expensive for Yugoslavia; others claimed that the Yugoslav Army did not need to study the experience of the Soviet Army; still others asserted that the rules of the Soviet Army were a template and had no value for the Yugoslav Army; finally, some very transparently hinted that the Soviet military advisers were receiving their salaries for nothing, since they were of no use.

[On anti-Soviet statements:] It is known to us that among leading comrades in Yugoslavia there circulate various anti-Soviet statements, such as that the VKP(b) is degenerating, that "great-power chauvinism prevails in the USSR," that "the USSR seeks to economically subjugate Yugoslavia," that "the Cominform is a tool of the VKP(b) for subjugating other parties," and the like.

It will not be superfluous to recall that Trotsky, too, when he set out to wage war against the VKP(b), also began by accusing the VKP(b) of degeneration, of national narrow-mindedness, of great-power chauvinism. He, of course, disguised all this with leftist phrases about world revolution. Yet as is well known, Trotsky was a degenerate, and later, after being exposed, he openly moved into the camp of sworn enemies of the VKP(b) and the Soviet Union.

We consider that the political career of Trotsky is sufficiently instructive.

By authority of the CC of the VKP(b)

V. Molotov

I. Stalin

March 27, 1948, Moscow