Balkan Confederation?

I read in a book about the Cold War that at some point in the mid-20th century there was a plan to create a large Communist federation in the Balkans which was quashed by the Soviet Union -- the USSR felt insecure about the existence of another powerful Communist state in its vicinity not controlled by it. Does anyone know about this plan (does it have anything to do with the Balkan Communist Federation of parties?) and whether it could have come to fruition without ASBs?

Before anyone asks, I don't mean Yugoslavia. :p It would have included Bulgaria and some other nations, apparently.

The book is "The Secret History of the Cold War" by E. S. Fischer (see here -- it's in Hungarian).
 
Tito's hope was to unite Yugoslavia with Bulgaria and Albania. I'm not sure about Greece. The plan had been around since the interwar period.
 
I started writing a timeline about this very possibility a few months ago (the link is in my signature), but haven't taken it very far yet. In my opinion it's very possible, if only Tito hadn't been quite so egotistical or Stalin not quite so paranoid.
 
Ayup. It's legit. When I first started reading about it it seemed almost absurd. One doesn't typically think of one-party dictatorial states as the sort to relinquish sovereignty.

In point of fact the idea was for a large pan-Balkan federation of equals, under Tito's leadership. The Yugoslavs were all for it, and - amazingly - so were the Bulgarians and Romanians when the man gave speeches on the subject in their respective capitals. Albania at this point would have agreed to pretty much anything. Even Stalin, it seems, was supportive of the creation of such a bloc and was actively pushing for it.

The conflict that ruined the effort (and cast Yugoslavia forever from the Soviet Sphere) arose because of Greece. The Greek communists were seeking to seize power just as they had throughout the Balkans. Tito sought to encourage them - taking it for granted that Greece would be a member of his Federation. Stalin, however, had assigned the country to a British sphere of influence, and offhandedly ordered Tito to back down. When Tito continued, he activated Iosef's "they're all out to get me" reflex.

Yugoslavia was cast out of the fold, the satellite states forced to conduct purges-for-the-sake-of-purging, and all hope of a federation was lost.

A Balkan Federation depends on either holding Tito back somehow, or having Greece already be Communist. The former is tricky. The latter has the disadvantage of requiring a very different sequence of events in the peninsula, but is largely fool-proof. A bipolar European Communism would be a fascinating thing to see.... The whole Cold War would be unrecognizable.
 
Sure, no problem.

The Greek crisis is the main issue at hand, and a second minor point would be the Trieste dispute: Tito was making bombastic revanchist claims on Italian-controlled Trieste, while Stalin favored a policy of conciliation with Italy (so as not to embarrass the Italian Communist Party).
 
A Balkan Federation depends on either holding Tito back somehow, or having Greece already be Communist. The former is tricky. The latter has the disadvantage of requiring a very different sequence of events in the peninsula, but is largely fool-proof. A bipolar European Communism would be a fascinating thing to see.... The whole Cold War would be unrecognizable.


What would be bipolar about this European Communism?


Oh and isn't there always another way? What about having Stalin order the Greek communist leaders to attend a (ahem) "meeting" in Moscow early on? Failure to comply may not be good for your health and that sort of thing.

Brendan said:
Sure, no problem.

The Greek crisis is the main issue at hand, and a second minor point would be the Trieste dispute: Tito was making bombastic revanchist claims on Italian-controlled Trieste, while Stalin favored a policy of conciliation with Italy (so as not to embarrass the Italian Communist Party).

If the Greek crisis is avoided, Trieste might remain a minor point as Tito goes about consolidating the Balkan Federation....after the federation though, he would probably make it a key issue, but by then I expect that the territory would have been divided as it was in OTL.
 
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