– V. Nemchinov –
The trials of the Yugoslav spies held in Albania, Hungary, Bulgaria and other peoples democracies have revealed to the entire world that the fascist Tito clique is an agency of the imperialists which is being utilized by them for preparing a new war against the USSR and the people’s democracies. The Titoites subserviently carry out the order of their masters, the warmongers, to turn Yugoslavia into a military-strategic bridgehead in the Balkans.
This was recently admitted by the chief spy, Tito, in the interview he gave to a correspondent of the Times. According to the Telepress Agency, Tito frankly admitted that he and his gang would be on the side of the imperialists in the war which the latter are preparing against the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies.
The Titoites are doing everything possible to carry out this criminal plan. This is convincingly shown by the budget of Titoite Yugoslavia which assigns 34 per cent of all expenditures in 1950 for military purposes. When the fact is taken into consideration that forced labour and the labour of army units are extensively used for military construction, it becomes clear that the actual expenditures for military purposes are considerably higher. The government has a special fund, comprising 9.1 per cent of the entire budget, for espionage and the organization of diversions and sabotage in the camp of peace and democracy.
Preparation of a military strategic bridgehead on the territory of Yugoslavia is in full blast now. Automobile highways of military significance and military airdromes are under construction, naval ports are being extended and naval bases built. Big airdromes have been set up in the Belgrade area near the village of Baitanica. Thousands of working people are compelled by force to work for the third consecutive year on building the Trieste-Zagreb-Belgrade-Skoplje strategic highway. On orders of the imperialists several dozen airdromes for heavy bombers have been built along this highway. Of late a large number of landing fields for jet aircraft are being set up at a rapid pace. The reconstruction and fortification of the naval port of Split, which is to serve as a base for battleships, has been started. Fortifications are feverishly being raised on the borders of Yugoslavia with the countries of people’s democracy.
The Tito-Rankovic clique is exerting all efforts to set up a mass army and to turn it into submissive cannon fodder for war against the socialist countries.
Today the Yugoslav Army has more men than the People’s Liberation Army had at the end of the Second World War. Tito’s army now numbers 700,000 men. It should also be taken into account that there are 300,000 men in the Titoite militia and a similar number in Rankovic’s political police. This means that Titoite Yugoslavia has about 1,300,000 men under arms. Four-fifths of the entire contingent which could be called up under general mobilization is already conscripted.
This is an enormous army for Yugoslavia. The Belgrade fascists intend to use it not for the noble purpose of defending the interests of the working people, but for the interests of the war provokers. With this object in view the Titoites have struck a blow first of all at the officer’s corps, seeking to remove from the army all higher and senior officers undesirable to them, that is, the most active, conscious and revolutionary section which emerged from the ranks of the people during the guerrilla war and which firmly adheres to democratic views.
The terror in the army, as well as throughout the country, has attained monstrous proportions. Officers and soldiers are forbidden to speak about the Soviet Union as the great and sincere friend of the Yugoslav people, about the Soviet Army which liberated the peoples and saved civilization from the Hitlerite plague. The terror extends to all servicemen. Last year the Titoite butchers killed Colonel General Arso Jovanovic, chief of the General Staff, hero of the national liberation struggle and loyal son of the Yugoslav people. Languishing in the dungeons of Rankovic are Lieutenant General Brankov Plianacs, Major General Petricevic, and many other true fighters for the freedom and independence of Yugoslavia. The Titoites killed, imprisoned or demobilized and deprived of rank about 10,000 officers, that is, more than one-third of all the officers of the Yugoslav Army. Besides this, more than 2,000 non-commissioned officers are kept in prisons.
Neither vicious terror nor brutal violence, however, can crush the struggle of the patriotic officers against the Tito clique. Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Konte, who was tortured for a long time in prison, declared in court: “You can kill me, but you cannot annihilate all of us.”
Ruthlessly dealing with genuine patriots of the Yugoslav people, the Tito-Rankovic clique flung open the doors of the officers corps and the army to the enemies of the people — fascist and bourgeois nationalist elements — reactionary officers of the old royal army, Chetniks and Ustasi. Senior and higher officers are promoted from their midst; crimes against the people are their common bond with the Titoite clique.
While trying to disarm the army ideologically, the Titoites hasten to equip it with foreign arms and to create with the help of their imperialist masters a force capable of performing the foulest deeds. Large quantities of arms were transferred from Salzburg, Austria, to Yugoslavia in February, according to a report of For a Socialist Yugoslavia, a newspaper of Yugoslav political emigres. Each of the many trains had 60 cars loaded with tanks, and guns. Among the armaments was also German materiel, as for example units for the launching of German jet shells — “V-2.” With these trains there also travelled German officers of the former Hitlerite army in the capacity of instructors.
The Belgrade fascists have, in fact, included Yugoslavia in the aggressive North Atlantic Pact. But they have for gotten the fate of the Hitlerite satellites who dreamed, together with the “fuhrer,” of world domination… They have also forgotten that the last word belongs to the people. And the Yugoslav people, like all peoples of the world, will not let themselves be deluded by enemy propaganda which seeks to lull their vigilance. They are joining their voice to the voice of all peoples who are demanding that the instigators of a new war be curbed.
The Yugoslav people are intensifying their struggle against the fascist regime. They are setting up their own armed forces, anti-Titoite guerrilla detachments. The struggle of the people against the anti-national Tito-Rankovic clique is growing with each passing day.
(USSR Information Bulletin, June 9, 1950, pp. 352-53)
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