USSR to the Adriatic: Tito-Stalin split.

Marc

Donor
A Viennese friend of mine once idly wondered, when we were talking about the very bad old days, if the Russians had ever seriously regretted letting Austria go away (as in giving up their zone of control), particularly after Tito and Stalin had their (at the time) famous divorce.

The conversation floated by into my mind as I was contemplating doing a tour of Croatia next year, the premise going something like this:

Stalin, in his late stage syphilis (no, but we can dream can't we?), decides to kill two birds with one hammer and sickle. Orders the military discipline of Yugoslavia; moving through eastern Austria, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.
Ah, but you say, they will resist as strongly as they did against the Germans and Italians.
But, I answer, the Russians will get a lot more collaborators - we are all Marxist-Leninist comrades - and the real seduction: the hell with Marshal Tito's fairy tales about united we stand, we will give you, Serbs, Croats, Bosnian, all full independent status within the Warsaw Pact.

The West, for cogent reasons, will of course, do little, a la 1956 and 1968. And the Russian navy gets a shot at building a serious Med force...
 
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raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
A Viennese friend of mine once idly wondered, when we were talking about the very bad old days, if the Russians had ever seriously regretted letting Austria go away (as in giving up their zone of control), particularly after Tito and Stalin had their (at the time) famous divorce.

The conversation floated by into my mind as I was contemplating doing a tour of Croatia next year, the premise going something like this:

Stalin, in his late stage syphilis (no, but we can dream can't we?), decides to kill two birds with one hammer and sickle. Orders the military discipline of Yugoslavia; moving through eastern Austria, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.
Ah, but you say, they will resist as strongly as they did against the Germans and Italians.
But, I answer, the Russians will get a lot more collaborators - we are all Marxist-Leninist comrades - and the real seduction: the hell with Marshal Tito's fairy tales about united we stand, we will give you, Serbs, Croats, Bosnian, all full independent status within the Warsaw Pact.

The West, for cogent reasons, will of course, do little, a la 1956 and 1968. And the Russian navy gets a shot at building a serious Med force...

You think the Yugoslavs won't do the partisan thing and the west would not gun-run to them if they did?

Did you have a particular year between 1948 and and 1953 in mind for this. The "Warsaw Pact" also did not formally exist in his lifetime, although the COMINFORM and COMECON existed.
 
Stalin had prepositioning for a three echelon strategic offensive against Yugoslavia, but Korea preempted it (essay in Lomax, Bill edited collection on Hungary 1956).

So not likely.

Yours,
Sam R.
 
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raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Stalin had prepositioning for a three echelon strategic offensive against Yugoslavia, but Korea preempted it (essay in Lomax, Bill edited collection on Hungary 1956).

So not likely.

Yours,
Sam R.


Thanks for the reference. If Korea preempted it then it is not likely with the Korean War starting, but actually what you quoted is the most affirmation I have ever seen that Stalin ordering this was a genuine possibility!

It is probably a simple matter to delay the start of the Korean War and allow this to happen.

How would the war go and will Stalin puppetize Yugoslavia as a single unit, or several?
 

Marc

Donor
You think the Yugoslavs won't do the partisan thing and the west would not gun-run to them if they did?

Did you have a particular year between 1948 and and 1953 in mind for this. The "Warsaw Pact" also did not formally exist in his lifetime, although the COMINFORM and COMECON existed.

Ah yes, Warsaw Pact was more of a convenient short hand for Soviet forces and their associated "allies' - and when you live in the shadow of a very large tree, you can forget it wasn't there forever.
I think I alluded to the likelihood that Yugoslavia could be quite divided - the Partisans had fought for their great ideology much more than any Yugoslavian identity, and would now be asked to fight against fellow communists? And for the Serbs, against the Russians? Their long time historical allies? Cognitive dissonance would be running rampant..
As for gun-running post occupation, I doubt it simply because the history of the West in the 1950's was to stay hands off what they considered "internal" affairs in the East. (And technically difficult regardless, in any quantity).

Timing? How about 1949, before the West can get a clue and mobilize any meaningful aid, and before Tito successfully embarks on a series of purges to remove any opposition to his break with Stalin and Mother Russia (referencing back to my second paragraph).
 
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raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
I believe a divided Austria would require a Soviet leadership less receptive to Khrushchev's OTL "detente" program.

I remember reading a Russian foreign policy magazine (an english edition) from the 1990s where they unfavorably compared Khruschev with Molotov, who they believe would have held on to the occupied zone of Austria, and Port Arthur, for longer.
 
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