ABSTRACT
The split of 1948 had forced destalinisation upon them, but for the next three or four years Tito, acting through his security chief, Aleksandar Rankovic, felt it necessary to maintain police controls against the cominformists. The Cominform gave him good reason to do so. The Soviet Union’s anti-Yugoslav propa-ganda continued remorselessly and Yugoslavia was intimidated in numerous ways; Soviet planes, for example, flew fifty or more flights per day across Yugoslav territory from bases in Albania to Bulgaria and other pro-Moscow countries. In August 1949 severe pressure was put on the Yugoslavs to return a number of White Russian refugees who had subsequently been recruited by the NKVD. When the Yugoslavs refused, troops were concentrated on the Romanian-Yugoslav border. Only then did Tito begin to relax his attitudes towards the west, accepting US aid in September 1949.
