Introduction
The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties (Cominform) accused the Yugoslav political establishment of a series of malpractices in its resolution dated June 28, 1948 – in essence, of deviating from Marxism and Leninism. This turn of events, the final act in growing tensions between Yugoslavia and the USSR, arose from the ambitions of Yugoslav political leadership, led by Tito, who saw Yugoslavia as a regional leader at least partially independent of the USSR. Stalin would not allow this (Perović Reference Perović2007). One of the aims of the Cominform resolution was to encourage Yugoslav communists to either force their leadership to admit its mistakes or to remove it. This was emphasised in the resolution as “the task before vigorous” Yugoslav communists (Dedijer Reference Dedijer1979, 306).
Yugoslavia rejected the accusations, with far-reaching consequences on a global scale. The Tito-Stalin split, as the conflict between Yugoslavia and Cominform is often called, marked a turning point in Yugoslavia’s development. Yugoslav relations with the Eastern Bloc were severed, and Yugoslavia opened to the West, developing a policy of non-alignment in the following decades. Socialist self-management was inaugurated in the years following the split as a unique Yugoslav form of socialism. In Yugoslavia, the split led to a fierce confrontation with anyone suspected of criticising the Yugoslav political leadership. From 1949 to 1956, more than 16,000 people were interned in camps and prisons on this charge, 399 of whom died. More than 55,000 people were suspected of being supporters of the resolution, while more than 308,000 people were expelled from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) from 1948 to 1955. During and after the conflict, roughly 5,000 people left Yugoslavia and settled in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe (Previšić Reference Previšić2012, 172-173).
Numerous aspects of the split have been thoroughly scrutinised. Particular interest has been shown in analysing the reasons that led to the split, as well as to the consequences of the split in terms of Yugoslavia’s international position. The focus is on Yugoslav high politics, with less interest in the view from the ground up or from the periphery. Within this context, only two research papers have devoted attention to the subject from the perspective of the diaspora, one focusing on the Yugoslav diaspora in the United States and Canada, and the other analysing the emigrant community in Australia (Kraljic Reference Kraljic, Jakovina and Previšić2020; Jakovina Reference Jakovina, Jakovina and Previšić2020).Footnote 1 Both studies show that the majority of diaspora leaders and organisations supported the Cominform resolution and took a strong anti-Yugoslav stand. While these studies are noteworthy, both are based on a rather narrow base of sources. Kraljic primarily uses the émigré press in his analysis of the situation among the North American Yugoslav diaspora, while Jakovina relies mostly on materials from 1949 collected by Božidar Novak, a Croatian journalist, during his time as manager of a Hajduk football club tour across Australia. The more comprehensive analysis of numerous sources from archives in Australia, New Zealand, Croatia, and Serbia will provide deeper insight into reflections of the split amongst emigrants. A broader contextualisation of events based on primary sources will provide a better understanding of criticisms of the Yugoslav political establishment among exiles. In the case of Australia and New Zealand, the analysis will contribute to the understanding of the important role played in the process by the host countries’ communist parties – the Communist Party of Australia and the Communist Party of New Zealand. The research will also allow deeper insight into the Yugoslav authorities’ reaction to critics from the diaspora.
The goal of the article is to study the Tito-Stalin split as an international crisis of enormous significance through the politics of diaspora, to better understand its nature and impact. The analysis will show that most Yugoslav émigré communists accepted the ideological reasoning of the accusations against Yugoslavia, denying Yugoslavia the right of national sovereignty and equality in its relations with the USSR and in developing socialism. The stance was sanctioned by the Australian and New Zealand communist parties, of which the majority of diaspora leaders were members. As immigrants and foreigners in Australian and New Zealand society, Yugoslav communists sought equality in everyday life. Hoping to achieve it through local politics, they followed the instructions of the host countries’ communist parties. In this perspective, it was understood that global leadership of the USSR represented a basic prerequisite for the spread of socialism worldwide; Yugoslavia’s regional ambitions were of secondary importance in this context.
On the other hand, as will be shown below, Yugoslavia’s diaspora policy proved very inclusive and tactical under the circumstances, even towards the most prominent critics among emigrants. Yugoslavia’s political leadership aimed to gain “soft power” (Nye Reference Nye2004) over the diaspora by emphasising its cultural identity and connection to their country of origin, but not insisting on dogmatic and ideological loyalty. Yugoslavia abandoned the practice of intensive long-distance nation-building or the initiative to organise the mass return of emigrants to their homeland, as in the immediate post-war years. This change was conditioned by the context of the Cold War; the intent was to gain leverage in Yugoslavia’s confrontation with the USSR by improving relations with the West, where large emigrant communities had formed (Hrstić and Mihaljević Reference Hrstić and Mihaljević2023). The Yugoslav diaspora policy was adapted in line with this overarching foreign policy goal, to avoid political isolation and economic blockade, while simultaneously acknowledging the limits of ideological control in emigrant communities under the circumstances. This change encompassed the development of a broad spectrum of aspects of public diplomacy, directed not at the official representatives of Western states, but at Western societies in general, as well as at certain groups and individuals. In this context, emigrants were seen as a group with a certain potential. In the end, this kind of use of public diplomacy and soft power proved to have a positive influence on Yugoslavia’s international position during the Cold War and served as an effective way to engage against the USSR (Heing Reference Heing2020). Nevertheless, it was not Yugoslavia’s preferred policy on other occasions. Its conciliatory attitude towards Cominformists among emigrants differed diametrically from its simultaneous brutal confrontation with dissidents within the territory of Yugoslavia and with anti-Yugoslav political emigrants from the 1960s on. Thus, the case of Yugoslavia in the Cold War confirms the importance of soft power in diplomacy, but also proves that hard power and soft power are closely related and often interact (Nye Reference Nye2004).
Yugoslav diaspora in Australia and New Zealand before 1948
According to an estimate by post-World War II Yugoslav authorities, around 1.5 million emigrants left Yugoslavia between the late 19th century and 1941. Most of them settled in the United States and South America, followed by Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Western Europe. The majority of them supported the formation of socialist Yugoslavia in the aftermath of the war (Hrstić and Mihaljević Reference Hrstić and Mihaljević2023). Yugoslavs in Australia almost unanimously advocated the formation of socialist Yugoslavia; in the immediate post-war years, they helped collect financial and humanitarian aid for their war-torn homeland (Spomen knjiga Reference knjiga1947). In 1947, there were 5,870 people of Yugoslav birth in Australia (Šutalo Reference Šutalo2004, 3-4). The absolute majority of immigrants were members of local Yugoslav clubs, which were a part of the Yugoslav Immigrants Association of Australia; this organization was led by left-leaning émigrés and communists, comprising around 30 émigré clubs throughout Australia (Drapac Reference Drapac2017). In 1936, the Association began publishing Napredak, the only Yugoslav paper in Australia and New Zealand. Napredak was banned in 1940 as a communist newspaper, but the ban was lifted in 1941; in the following years, it developed into the main source of news from Yugoslav communities from all over Oceania, as well as a propaganda vehicle among émigrés (Drapac Reference Drapac2017).
A similar course of events took place in New Zealand. According to the 1945 Census, 3,090 Yugoslav-born persons lived there (Stats NZ 2024). Until 1944, the community was deeply ideologically divided in terms of their relationship to the socio-political situation in the homeland. The pro-royalist group was much more influential there than in Australia. This group consisted mainly of pre-World War I emigrants, who were more numerous than in Australia. New immigrants who left Yugoslavia during the interwar period were much more critical of the socio-political system in the Kingdom. In terms of political stance, most of them were left-leaning and communists. The most intense conflict between these two groups evolved in Auckland, where the majority of immigrants from Yugoslavia had settled in New Zealand in the interwar period. The pro-royalist faction gathered around the Yugoslav club, while left-leaning emigrants congregated in the Croatian Cultural and Benevolent Society. As of 1942, the society supported the Yugoslav partisans, while the Yugoslav Club continued to campaign for the royal government until 1944, when the Club’s leaders switched their allegiance to the partisans, although without embracing communism. As of this point, the two clubs began to cooperate. The Croatian Cultural and Benevolent Society changed its name to the Yugoslav Society Marshall Tito in 1946 (Trlin Reference Trlin1979, 172-178; Jelicich Reference Jelicich2008, 171-182).
Under suspicion of spreading communist propaganda, the activities of the Yugoslav immigrant organisations aroused great interest among the host countries’ authorities. As a result, numerous sources have been preserved for research on the reverberations of the Tito-Stalin split among the emigrants. The Australian authorities paid particular attention to Napredak. No full issues of the newspaper from the period under study have survived in their complete form, but all issues from January to December 1948 have survived in the form of summaries in English. The material is held at the National Archives of Australia, as well as numerous assessments of the Yugoslav immigrant community by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization. Another 30 issues of Napredak from 1951 to 1957 are held at the National and University Library in Zagreb, Croatia. This material provides important insight into the situation, but this insight would be limited without the perspective of the country of origin, such as that in Petar Todorić’s 1949 report on the situation among emigrants in Australia and New Zealand. In addition to Todorić’s report, there are other materials on this topic at the Archive of Yugoslavia in Belgrade, compiled mainly on the subject of repatriation for the needs of the Ministry of Labour.
The severing of relations with the Eastern Bloc led to the development of the idea of using the well-established diaspora as a bridge to the West (Hrstić and Mihaljević Reference Hrstić and Mihaljević2023). This was followed by intensive correspondence between diplomatic representatives in Sydney, who were responsible for Australia and New Zealand, and Belgrade. This material is held at the Diplomatic Archive of Yugoslavia, which functions within the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This material is complemented with correspondence between the Croatian Matica iseljenika (Foundation for Emigrants) and emigrants, held at the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb. The greater attention to the diaspora in Yugoslavia after the split led to the establishment of Foundations for emigrants in all Yugoslav republics from 1951. These were semi-governmental institutions whose goal was to establish closer ties with prewar emigrants in the West.Footnote 2 As soon as Matica was founded in Zagreb in 1951, its representatives immediately began contacting emigrants. This correspondence completes the set of major archival sources used in this article to understand the impact of the Cominform resolution and subsequent events within the Yugoslav diaspora in Australia and New Zealand.
The Cominform resolution and the rise of criticism of Yugoslavia by Yugoslavs abroad
The Tito-Stalin split led to a sharp division within the Yugoslav diaspora. Initially, the split caused confusion among the emigrant population, followed by increasingly vocal criticism of Yugoslavia by prominent communist diaspora leaders, as it was becoming more and more evident that the Yugoslav leadership was standing firm. While only a minority of emigrants spoke out against the condemnation of Yugoslavia in the first months after the resolution, most of them gradually distanced themselves from communist-dominated associations and organisations. A similar course of events took place among the Yugoslav diaspora in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, while there is evidence that the same process took place among South American Yugoslav emigrants as well.
The staff of the Yugoslav consulate general in Sydney in charge of Australia and New Zealand, who had been posted from among the ranks of prominent exiles, stood up for Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav consul in Sydney at the time was Ivan Kosović, who was the secretary of the central executive committee of the Yugoslav Immigrants Association of Australia and the editor of Napredak until June 1945, when he was appointed to the diplomatic service. His close collaborators were Luka Marković and Frane Baničević, members of the Association’s central executive committee, and Andrija Silić, also a prominent interwar émigré. In early 1948, Marković was supposed to take over the role of the secretary of the Association’s central executive committee, but in agreement with the rest of the committee, he took a post at the consulate. On the other hand, the greatest critic of Yugoslavia after the publication of the Cominform resolution was Ivan Viskić, who took over the post of secretary of the central executive committee after Marković’s resignation. Prior to this, Viskić had been editor of Napredak after succeeding Kosović in 1945. Viskić was strongly supported in his criticism of Yugoslavia by Marin Kovačević, who replaced Viskić as editor of Napredak in early 1948 (Marković Reference Marković1973).
Given the fact that all those involved in the conflict had worked closely together until the split, Jakovina (Reference Jakovina, Jakovina and Previšić2020, 153-154) concludes that the main reasons Viskić, Kovačević, and others criticised Yugoslavia were personal, such as jealousy of former colleagues who occupied positions in the Yugoslav consulate.Footnote 3 This thesis is plausible to some degree, although impossible to prove. Thus, a more comprehensive understanding of the situation is necessary, especially when one considers that an anti-Yugoslav attitude prevailed in other Yugoslav overseas diasporas, where there was no similar situation regarding the assumption of diplomatic posts. Nonetheless, in USA and Canada, some Yugoslav diplomats even resigned as a sign of resistance to the Yugoslav political leadership (Kraljic Reference Kraljic, Jakovina and Previšić2020). To understand support for Cominform from Yugoslav emigrants, it is necessary to stress the influence of the host countries’ communist parties.
In Australia, according to the estimation of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation there were about 100 Yugoslav communists who were members of the Communist Party of Australia at the time, and they held key positions within the community. The leaders of the Yugoslav Immigrants Association, including the heads of all emigrant clubs and organisations, were members of the Party.Footnote 4 The situation was similar in the United States and Canada (Kraljic Reference Kraljic, Jakovina and Previšić2020). In New Zealand, the influence of the Communist Party on the Yugoslav community was less pronounced, although the Yugoslav Society Marshall Tito in Auckland, the largest Yugoslav society in the country, as well as the Yugoslav Alliance as an umbrella organization, were under the control of communists. The situation in New Zealand was similar to that in Uruguay. Like in Auckland, an influential organised group in Montevideo did not accept the harsh communist condemnation of Yugoslavia. According to the available sources, there is evidence that, like in the Yugoslav club from Auckland, the group in Montevideo mainly consisted of pre-World War I emigrants and were less left-wing or communist-oriented (Antonich Reference Antonich2021). Nonetheless, when the Tito-Stalin split took place, most Yugoslav communists abroad supported Cominform in line with their ideological principles and local communist parties, which championed Stalin unconditionally. They believed that the success of communism on a global scale was possible only under the leadership of the USSR. Personal reasons for taking the stance, as stressed earlier, were primarily present in the broader sense of the term. From Yugoslav communist exiles’ perspective, better integration into host societies would be facilitated with the success of the respective communist parties – that is to say, with the global success of communism. Yugoslavia’s ambitions and claims were less important to this goal, as will be seen in archival sources below.
The main source of information for emigrants in Australia about the split was Napredak. Initially, the news was received with disbelief. The Association’s leadership tried to play down the significance of the conflict and presented it as an ordinary “family affair”.Footnote 5 However, the rhetoric soon changed, and criticism of Yugoslavia gradually increased. This was a reaction to a motion carried at a July 3 meeting of the executive of the Australian Communist Party, demanding the Yugoslav Community in Australia declare itself one way or the other.Footnote 6 Three days later, on July 6 the Political Committee of the Australian Communist Party carried a declaration on Yugoslavia unconditionally supporting Cominform and condemning the leaders of Yugoslavia (Communist Review Reference Review1948, 234; Jordan Reference Jordan2011, 208-209). In the very next issue of Napredak on July 10, a declaration of the Central Executive of the Yugoslav Immigrants Association was published. The statement summarised the accusations against Yugoslavia and the response to them, emphasising the belief that the differences would be “ironed out”. The declaration stressed the faith that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia would remain loyal:
to the principles of Marxism-Leninism and will continue to lead our nations to a happier future and to socialism, spreading love towards all freedom-loving nations and most of all towards the nations of the great and brotherly Soviets.Footnote 7
The Association thus indirectly took the stance that the Yugoslav leadership should accept criticism, as this was the only way to continue cooperation with the USSR. This is confirmed by the condemnation of the interpretation of the conflict, according to which the USSR wanted to completely subjugate Yugoslavia. Accordingly, the glorification of the USSR continues in the last part of the Declaration:
Our nations did not forget in the darkest days of their history that their independence, their existence, their freedom and all their future lies in friendship and intimate co-operation with the Soviets.Footnote 8
The Association thus denied one of Yugoslavia’s main arguments, as its defence was largely based on its own liberation in World War II. Although, it must be noted that criticism of the Yugoslav leadership was not yet open in this first post-resolution period. The gradual intensification of rhetoric towards Yugoslavia was due to the uncertainty of the situation and the limited information about the course of the conflict. Moreover, the leaders of the Yugoslav community in Australia had glorified the Yugoslav political leadership completely uncritically for years; an overnight turnaround may have raised doubts among a large part of the community. Furthermore, expectations for the Fifth Congress of the CPY, which was to take place in Belgrade on July 21, were high. By the July 17 issue of Napredak, the interpretation of the split had already evolved from a “family affair” to a “serious conflict”, with the possibility that the Yugoslav political leadership had made mistakes clearly expressed for the first time. It was expected that, if this was the case, the leaders would be replaced at the Congress, before which cooperation with the USSR and other people’s democracies was seen as the most urgent task.Footnote 9 In the same manner, in the July 24 issue of Napredak, Ivan Viskić, the secretary of the Yugoslav Immigrants Association of Australia, greeted all Congress participants with a warning as to the historic responsibility they had in resolving the conflict and restoring “fraternal relations between the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and other communist parties”.Footnote 10
The Fifth Congress of the CPY lasted until July 28. The support that the Yugoslav communists gave to the party leadership was received with dissatisfaction by the leaders of the Association.Footnote 11 According to a study by John Kraljic (Reference Kraljic, Jakovina and Previšić2020), who analyzed Jedinstvo, the most important newspaper for Yugoslav emigrants in North America, practically the same developments took place simultaneously among Yugoslav communists in the United States and Canada. Stronger criticism from Australia followed on August 24, 1948, when the central executive committee of the Yugoslav Immigrants Association adopted a declaration stating its strong disagreement with the leadership of the CPY. The declaration called on the Yugoslav establishment to admit its mistakes and misdeeds. To legitimise its decisions, the leaders of the Yugoslav Immigrants Association of Australia asked all branches of the Association to thoroughly assess the situation through organised discussions.Footnote 12 Of the 30 clubs across Australia, 15 supported the declaration almost immediately; four were against it, while the rest did not take a stance.Footnote 13 This was followed by a field campaign and a visit to all branches by representatives of the Association, as well as a campaign through Napredak, which brought the conflict within the Association to light.
The group of emigrants gathered around the Yugoslav consulate in Sydney adopted a defensive and rather passive stance. They advocated the policy of waiting for a solution to the conflict between the communist parties of Yugoslavia and the USSR, and published a few letters in Napredak taking a similar stance, stressing that the Association was not a political organisation and should not interfere in the conflict, but should leave the people of Yugoslavia to decide on its political leadership.Footnote 14 However, these letters were followed by a sharp reaction from the Cominformists. The leadership of the Association claimed that they had the right – even the duty – to express its point of view, as they had done before. Thus, with each new issue of Napredak, the rhetoric against the political leadership of Yugoslavia became more and more harsh. The authorities in Yugoslavia were beginning to be blamed for the introduction of dictatorship, the expulsion, imprisonment, and murder of dissidents, the policy of rapprochement with the United States, and the introduction of capitalism. Napredak reported propagandistically on resistance, sabotage, and uprisings against the authorities in Yugoslavia.Footnote 15 Among the emigrants, the impression was created that a new revolution was brewing; however, this was far from the truth. By the end of the year, critics of Yugoslavia had taken control of nearly all those organisations that had been either reticent or openly supported Yugoslavia. Only the Yugoslav club in Manjimup did not support the official position of the Association in the end.Footnote 16
The final act in gaining legitimacy in pursuing an anti-CPY policy and dealing with dissidents within the Association took place at the Yugoslav Immigrants Association’s general conference, held in Sydney in December 1948. This was the first general conference that had been organised since 1945. Support for the leaders of the Association was unquestionable. According to the Yugoslav consulate in Sydney, 25 of the 30 delegates at the conference were members of the Communist Party of Australia.Footnote 17 Moreover, non-members of the Association were allowed to participate. The translator hired by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization to write summaries of articles in Napredak commented on this provision as the intent to allow the presence of Australian communists at the conference and to further enhance the Party’s influence on the Association.Footnote 18
In line with ideological criticism of the Yugoslav leadership on the basis of internationalism, the Statute of the Association was amended at the conference. The statement that the Association had an obligation to support Yugoslavia was replaced by “to assist the countries of the People’s Democracy” and no longer mentioned Yugoslavia.Footnote 19 This confirmed the intention of the Australian Communists, who saw the work of the Communists among Yugoslav immigrants primarily in the context of Australian society, and not Yugoslavia. As Ivan Viskić, the secretary of the Association stated in his speech at the conference: “We must mobilise our emigrants to be progressive… In the past, we have stood out too much as a national group, and that must be changed…“Footnote 20
By accepting the ideological basis of the criticism against Yugoslavia, the exiles favoured the vague concept of socialist internationalism over the idea of national equality. In this interpretation, internationalism meant a unique socialist movement on a global scale under the leadership of the USSR that would guarantee equal rights for workers worldwide. This included cooperation between communist parties and coordination of work, whereby no large-scale solo efforts by any actor besides the USSR were tolerated. In the same manner, on the one-year anniversary of the split, Communist Review, the official organ of the Communist Party of Australia, published an article in which it concluded that the Cominform resolution was a revolutionary document after which “the struggle against nationalism in all parties” intensified throughout the world (Communist Review Reference Review1949). Accordingly, members of the Association and émigré clubs were expelled, including prominent individuals connected to the consulate who did not support the harsh criticism of Yugoslavia, as well as from the ranks of the Communist Party of Australia.Footnote 21
Following the line of the Communist Party of Australia, the Association decided on March 8, 1949 to organise events to discuss the situation in Yugoslavia and explain the role of emigrants in the struggle against the Yugoslav government, as well as to send letters of protest to Yugoslavia. The USSR’s global peace policy was explained at these political meetings, and signatures for peace were collected for propaganda purposes.Footnote 22 As the Yugoslav Consulate in Sydney stated, this type of political meetings represented an adoption of the working methods of the Communist Party of Australia.Footnote 23 Accordingly, Yugoslav diplomats regularly began to refer to the Association as a tool of the Communist Party of Australia, and practically a branch of the Party.Footnote 24 This was confirmed in the following years; in 1950, the Communist Party of Australia instructed the Association to organize 30 émigrés to participate in a May Day parade in Sydney and to carry anti-Yugoslav slogans, banners about the fascist terror of Tito’s clique, etc. In 1951, representatives of the Association participated in the Australian Peace Councils in Sydney and Melbourne, where they took the opportunity to attack the Yugoslav government as warmongers.Footnote 25 In the same manner, throughout the period under research, Napredak frequently used the expression “Tito’s clique”, a group they characterized in the harshest of terms as traitors, murderers, thieves, bandits, warmongers, fascists, British and American servants, etc, while simultaneously glorifying Stalin and the USSR on the other hand.
A much less intense process, although similar in course, was taking place in New Zealand. The evolution of the anti-CPY positions in New Zealand was similar to the Australian experience, with the difference that the New Zealand opposition to Yugoslavia was one step behind, taking the course of events in Australia as an example and following it. The leadership of the Yugoslav Alliance, an umbrella organisation, consisted mainly of members of the Communist Party of New Zealand; those who did not belong to the Party were removed by the end of 1948. The same fate befell those members of the Communist Party of New Zealand who were committed to defending Yugoslavia. For example, in October 1948, Tony Marinovich was expelled from the Party under accusations of opportunism, Trotskyism, and persistently “excusing Tito and his clique”, as well as of treachery “against the world and Yugoslav Communist movement”. Similar to the accusations in Australia, it was argued that the Yugoslav political establishment had betrayed communism and become bourgeois-nationalist.Footnote 26
The main difference as compared to Australia was that the influence of the Communist party of New Zealand was lower within the Yugoslav immigrant group, as there were fewer Party members within New Zealand’s Yugoslav diaspora. According to estimates by the Yugoslav consulate in Sydney, there were only around 20 members of the Communist Party of New Zealand among the Yugoslavs in Auckland at the time, another 10 in Wellington, and 25 across the rest of the country. Furthermore, the assimilationist approach of the New Zealand Communist Party was even more pronounced than in Australia. New Zealand Party officials were dissatisfied with Yugoslav Party members who invested their time in conflicts within the Yugoslav immigrant community, because in doing so they were losing support within the immigrant population, which had negative repercussions on the New Zealand Communist Party. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of New Zealand thus called upon its Yugoslav members to focus on the situation in New Zealand.Footnote 27
Under these circumstances, criticism of Yugoslavia was less frequently expressed among Yugoslavs in New Zealand than in Australia. The Whangarei Yugoslav club disagreed with the policy of the Yugoslav Alliance when it began to criticise Yugoslavia, and thus withdrew from the organization. The most intense dispute evolved in Auckland; communists at the head of the Yugoslav Society Marshall Tito supported Cominform and sided against Tito, the man after whom they had named their Society. They thus renamed it the Yugoslav Benevolent Society (Jelicich Reference Jelicich2008, 175-177). On the other hand, members of the Yugoslav club were not communists and did not want to be linked to communism. Due to this stance, the leadership of the club did not take an active position towards Yugoslavia, but rather took an apolitical stance.Footnote 28 However, even this type of reaction was welcomed in Yugoslavia. Under these circumstances, Yugoslavia’s policy towards the diaspora thus became one of avoiding politics in the narrow sense of the word or direct interference in the development of the diaspora, as will be shown below. The aim was to develop “soft power” primarily by developing a sense of belonging to the country of origin (Hrstić and Mihaljević Reference Hrstić and Mihaljević2023).
Conciliatory approach toward criticism from the diaspora
The Yugoslav policy towards the diaspora formed after the Cominform resolution was based on inclusiveness and positive propaganda, even towards the most prominent pro-Cominform emigrants. In the case of Australia and New Zealand, the development and implementation of the strategy to counteract anti-CPY emigrants in the first post-Resolution months was left to the representatives of the Yugoslav Consulate General in Sydney, which was also responsible for New Zealand. Consulate representatives were given a free hand to adapt to the situation, as they had the best insight into relations within the community, especially given the distance to Yugoslavia. Since the consulate staff at the time had been members of this diaspora for decades, they had understanding for all those who joined in criticism of Yugoslavia or were confused by the developments. Consulate representatives thus hoped to win over the majority by taking a defensive and more passive stance, and taking over the emigrant organisations from within. To this end, the consulate printed the speeches of Yugoslav leaders and important articles from the press and sent them to hundreds of addresses. Representatives from the consulate also assisted emigrants in obtaining other materials, from records, books, and music instruments to maps. On their tours of the settlements they had propaganda material with them, of which films about the development of Yugoslavia had the greatest influence.Footnote 29 However, this form of agitation was not very successful. The consulate was in Sydney, while the Yugoslav communities were spread all over Australia. In Western Australia, where nearly half of the emigrants lived, there was no consulate and the distance to Sydney was great. There was also no consulate in New Zealand. Therefore, they could not compete with prominent, influential Cominformists who criticised Tito and Yugoslavia on a daily basis.Footnote 30
In 1949, the Consulate received stronger support from Yugoslavia. In March 1949, the publication of Vijesti iz Nove Jugoslavije (News from the New Yugoslavia) began, which was edited at the Consulate; in the summer of 1949, a three-month tour of Australia by Hajduk football club from Split was organised. Hajduk played 21 matches against Australian teams and expatriate teams. During the tour, the players and the accompanying delegation spent their free time conversing with emigrants. At a number of events held in their honour, the members of the delegation publicly defended Yugoslavia against criticism (Grgić forthcoming). The fundamental purpose and goal of organising the tour thus proved to be for political and propaganda reasons. As the leadership of the Hajduk delegation emphasised after their return to Yugoslavia:
The counter-revolutionary, criminal resolution of Cominform put before our athletes a new task – that of serving the homeland and spreading the truth about our socialist country. Hajduk […] accepted this task, which it carried out especially successfully in distant Australia, breaking a group of traitors who tried to divert our valuable emigrants from the right path of truth and loyalty to the Party and comrade Tito.
(Grgić forthcoming)Despite the measures taken by the Consulate and the pro-Yugoslav propaganda, the emigrant clubs remained under the control of the Cominformists. This is why Vjekoslav Cvrlje, who was appointed Consul General in 1950, began to advocate a more decisive confrontation with the Cominformists and more intensive work among the emigrants. He initiated the formation of the Committees of Friends of the New Yugoslavia as non-political associations.Footnote 31 Clubs were founded in Perth in 1950 and in Broken Hill in 1953. The club in Perth began publishing the monthly Vjesnik (Herald) in 1953, which made News from the New Yugoslavia published by the Consulate unnecessary.Footnote 32 Concurrently, a number of Friends of New Yugoslavia clubs were founded in the United States (Kraljic Reference Kraljic, Jakovina and Previšić2020), indicating that this was an endeavour coordinated by Yugoslavia. In Australia, in addition to the Friends of the New Yugoslavia clubs, good cooperation between the consulate and an emigrant organisation was also achieved in the Sydney area with Jadran bowling club in Cabramatta.Footnote 33 However, Cvrlje had to give up on some of his ideas after receiving instructions from Belgrade not to take too “narrow” a view of political work with emigrants. The aim was to encourage pro-Yugoslav emigrants to act on their own and to reduce the visibility of the consulate to the greatest extent possible. Belgrade emphasised that work with emigrants must be as diverse and flexible as possible. The goal was to develop love for the home country, i.e. to gain “soft power” over the emigrants. An inclusive approach was taken towards all emigrants, including those who had supported the Cominform resolution at some point. As stated in the instruction from Belgrade to the Consulate in Sydney: “an incomplete understanding of the situation in Yugoslavia should not be a reason for anyone’s exclusion from the organisations.”Footnote 34 The same practices were implemented at the same time in the United States and Canada (Kraljic Reference Kraljic, Jakovina and Previšić2020).
Over time, however, the clubs under the Cominformists’ control became less and less active, as fewer and fewer emigrants were willing to participate in organisations associated with communism. Growing anti-communist sentiment in Australian society caused the passivisation and cessation of activity of almost all Yugoslav clubs and organisations in Australia by the mid-1950s.Footnote 35 As the Australian Security Intelligence Organization report on the Yugoslav community in New South Wales noted in 1952:
They are intensely hard-working and acquisitive and have a distinct feeling for individual ownership. They behave, in fact, just like Balkan peasants transplanted to Australia, but not assimilated into it… They read Napredak because it is in the Yugoslav language and gives them news of their community, and they lack the time, inclination, or interest for matters outside their immediate circles and business to read much else. It has consequently been easy for a comparatively few active intelligent Communist members of the community to gain hold of committees of clubs and use them for Communist Party purposes as far as possible. This does not mean that the leaders represent the community when they follow the Party line.Footnote 36
The same was evident in the decline of Napredak, due to the decrease in the number of subscribers and financial aid from the community. By the early 1950s, Napredak began to reduce its number of pages. According to the Yugoslav consulate in Sydney, Napredak was printed on just four pages by 1952, with a third of the text being translations of texts from Croatian into English; it was no longer published weekly, but every two weeks.Footnote 37 In the following years, the publication of newspapers became increasingly irregular. In 1956, the Consulate reported to Belgrade that the Communist Party of Australia had been financing Napredak for a long time already. According to the same report, the Association took out a loan of £2,000 to print the newspaper, while the Communist Party of Australia demanded future prepayment of new issues and the repayment of the debt.Footnote 38 However, all attempts to save the newspaper were apparently unsuccessful, as only a few issues were printed until the newspaper was discontinued in 1958, when the two conflicting parties within the Yugoslav community had already formally united (Alagich and Kosovic Reference Alagich, Kosovic and Jupp2001, 239).
Attenuation of rhetoric and reconciliation
The beginning of the end of the dispute was marked by rapprochement between the USSR and Yugoslavia in 1955. Discussion took place in all branches of the Association, and in each case a resolution was passed calling for unity among Yugoslav emigrants. As of October of this same year, the Yugoslav Consul General began to be invited to social events held at clubs controlled by Cominformists. On November 29, 1955, a number of emigrant communities, Cominformists and anti-Cominformists alike, celebrated Yugoslav National Day together, with the exception of Broken Hill and West Australia.Footnote 39 In Sydney, prominent members of the Yugoslav Immigrants Association participated in an event organised by the consulate; they sent a joint congratulatory telegram to Tito. However, this did not mean that the Cominformists had completely abandoned their earlier positions. The improvement in relations between Yugoslavia and the USSR was interpreted primarily as a concession by Yugoslavia and its return to the Eastern Bloc. As Marin Kovačević, the editor of Napredak, stated, critics of Yugoslavia and the leadership of the Yugoslav Immigrant Association were primarily members of the Communist Party of Australia, and their Party mission was to work in Yugoslav emigrant organizations.Footnote 40 In April 1956, Kovačević concluded that they had been guided in their criticism of Yugoslavia exclusively by the interests of the Yugoslav people, and that they condemned only the Yugoslav leadership, which they still considered guilty of the conflicts in the workers’ movement. Thus, they still expected Yugoslavia to finally admit its mistakes.Footnote 41
The key moment of reconciliation among Yugoslavs abroad was the condemnation of Stalin at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of USSR in February 1956. Communists around the world were caught by surprise. The communist parties of Australia and New Zealand, as well as the leaders of the Yugoslav Immigrants Association of Australia, decided to adhere to Stalin’s line until they received the official Congress materials, as they could not believe the news. In the months that followed, conflicts arose during which roughly 2,000 people left the Communist Party of Australia – around 25% of its membership at the time (Barcan Reference Barcan1960; Jordan Reference Jordan2011, 155). The central executive committee of the Yugoslav Immigrants Association brought a resolution on June 4, 1956, signalling a complete change in attitude toward Yugoslavia.Footnote 42 As early as July 1956, the Yugoslav Immigrants Association contacted the Croatian Matica in Zagreb, stating that further work on the current basis was harmful, and that they had decided to remove politics from their work and to extend a brotherly hand to their compatriots in the old country. They offered Matica their cooperation, and asked for books and other propaganda material about Yugoslavia.Footnote 43 Matica accepted the offer and promised to do everything necessary to develop cultural cooperation.Footnote 44
The process of conciliation between the opposing parties began within Yugoslav communities across Australia. The anti-Cominformist club in Manjimup rejoined the Yugoslav Immigrants Association in September 1956.Footnote 45 In Perth, the Club of Friends of the New Yugoslavia ceased its activities and was officially dissolved in 1957. By this time, a merger with the old Cominform Club Oreški had already been agreed; in 1958, the joint Yugoslav cultural and educational club Jadran was founded (Srhoy Reference Srhoy1998, 205).Footnote 46 Anti-cominformists succeeded in taking over Sloga Club in Osborne Park in Perth in 1958.Footnote 47 This same year, the Club of Friends of the New Yugoslavia in Broken Hill was disbanded, and its members rejoined Yugoslav Club Napredak.Footnote 48
The unification of the Yugoslav diaspora in Australia was only an apparent success. The Yugoslav Immigrants Association lost the reputation it once had, so it was officially dissolved in 1960 (Alagich and Kosovic Reference Alagich, Kosovic and Jupp2001, 239). Despite the unification within the clubs, societies, and organisations, personal conflicts continued to arise. Ex-anti-Cominformists continued to regularly slander ex-Cominformists.Footnote 49 The situation was further complicated by the emerging Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian, and Slovenian national diasporas. These consisted of tens of thousands of post-war immigrants who were predominantly anti-Yugoslav. The new immigrants were very vocal in their activities and did not hesitate to attack pro-Yugoslav oriented organisations. Therefore, very quickly after the end of the Cominform dispute, anti-Yugoslavs in Australia became a central concern of the Yugoslav authorities. The evolving clash was much more intense than was the case of the dispute with the Cominformists, which slowly disappeared.
The situation in New Zealand was somewhat different from Australia, as there was a much larger and more influential number of noncommunists among the older generation of emigrants. They cultivated the identity of their country of origin, respecting the current socio-political situation. Furthermore, despite their apolitical stance, the special position of Yugoslavia that developed after the conflict with Stalin favoured the development of improved relations with Yugoslavia as a communist country.Footnote 50 On the other hand, the number of communists within the New Zealand Yugoslav community was lower, and their influence on the community as a whole was less pronounced than in Australia. The number of post-World War II immigrants was much lower as well. Thus, no significant anti-Yugoslav diaspora formed in New Zealand. Under these circumstances, the two main Yugoslav societies in New Zealand – the Yugoslav Club and the Yugoslav Benevolent Society in Auckland – began discussing a merger in the 1960s, but it took two decades before the process was completed and the two societies were officially reunited into the Yugoslav Society in 1982.Footnote 51
Conclusion
The Cominform resolution represents a turning point in the history of Yugoslavia. In the context of the Cold War, the conflict between Yugoslavia and the Eastern Bloc also had far-reaching consequences on a global level. It was the first major split in the international communist movement after World War II. The West welcomed it, but most leaders of the Yugoslav diaspora communities in the West supported Stalin and condemned Tito. As the analysis shows, this attitude of prominent Yugoslavs in Australia and New Zealand was largely the result of the influence of communist parties in the host countries on immigrant communists. Communist parties around the world, including those in Australia and New Zealand, supported the criticism of Yugoslavia, which was based on the ideological condemnation of the Yugoslav political leadership for deviating from the basic principles of Marxism. Most Yugoslav communists abroad dogmatically tied the development of communism in the countries in which they lived, as well as on a global level, to the USSR. Only a small number of Yugoslav émigré communists stood in defence of Yugoslavia’s position in the conflict and supported the Yugoslav way of building socialism. In Australia and New Zealand, these supporters were gathered around the Yugoslav consulate.
On the other hand, the majority of Yugoslav emigrants were not communists. Their primary goal was to integrate into their host societies, which were strongly anti-communist during this phase of the Cold War in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The result was a gradual decline in the organized activities of emigrant clubs and organisations led by communists. Thus, for the absolute majority of Yugoslav emigrants, Cominformists and non-activists the influence of their immediate environment proved to be a key factor in forming their attitude towards the situation in their country of origin. This aligns with the research approach emphasising the influence of host societies on immigrant communities (Brubaker Reference Brubaker2005; Tölölyan Reference Tölölyan2007; Cohen Reference Cohen2008). In its turn towards the West this was recognised by Yugoslavia as well.
The development of the Yugoslav diaspora from the late 1940s was viewed in Yugoslavia primarily in the context of host societies, which did not accept the fundamental postulates upon which socialist Yugoslavia was based. Respecting this, Yugoslavia treated Cominformist criticism from the diaspora diametrically differently than it did criticism from within the country itself. Emigrants were offered a hand of reconciliation on the sole condition that they cease their anti-state activities. Research on this topic therefore offers important insight into the adaptability of the Yugoslav political system and the importance it placed on the diaspora, which was perceived as an important transnational political actor. Furthermore, this research complements existing studies on the Cold War great powers, focusing on their development of “soft power” through public diplomacy. Yugoslavia used public diplomacy and soft power over emigrants in order to improve its relations with the West, all in a relative lack of hard power in its conflict with the USSR. Although, it must be noted that Yugoslavia’s diaspora policy in the period under research differed completely not only from the simultaneous brutal confrontation with dissidents on the territory of Yugoslavia, but also from its merciless actions against anti-Yugoslav political emigrants in the following decades. This confirms that research on Cold War diplomacy must approach it as a dynamic process, within which soft and hard power strategies must be studied together, as intertwined but separate answers to particular foreign affairs goals in a specific period and under specific circumstances.
Acknowledgments
I sincerely thank Dr Vesna Drapac and Brendan Moran for their generous time and expertise in reviewing earlier drafts of this paper. Their suggestions were instrumental in shaping the final version.
Financial support
This research has been conducted as part of the CROCEANIA research project (UIP-2020-02-1283) (full title: Exploring emotions in the (re)construction of diaspora identity: Croatians in Australia and New Zealand (1945–1991)), funded by the Croatian Science Foundation.
Disclosure
None.
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