ABSTRACT
J. V. Stalin's strategy to establish Soviet hegemony over the multinational communist system that emerged after World War II was strikingly similar to that he employed to establish Bolshevik control over the multinational Russian Empire after the Revolution. By excommunicating Tito, Stalin had intended to prove that it was impossible for a communist regime to survive without Soviet patronage. National communism, which reemerged under the personal tutelage of powerful political leaders, has become an institutionalized phenomenon. Yugoslavia was the focal point of the conflicting perceptions and interests, but they were rooted in national conditions that existed independent of Titoism. The publication of the Soviet-Yugoslav recognition of national communism, the workers of Poznan, Poland, began a spontaneous demonstration against their Stalinist leadership. N. Khrushchev had opened a Pandora's box of national sentiment that Soviet leaders would never again be able to close.
