Yugoslavia. The rift between Tito and Stalin’s Soviet Union erupts. Yugoslavia is expelled from the Cominform. This is an excommunication issued by Stalin against Tito. The Cominform is also signed by the Italian communists Togliatti and Secchia. The Cominform was founded in 1947 and replaced the Comitern, which had been dissolved in 1943. It brought together the communist parties of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, France, and Italy. The following year, 1949, the economic agreement between the United States and Yugoslavia was signed, with Tito promising to maintain its independence from the Soviet bloc. Stalin massed troops in Hungary with a view to possibly invading Yugoslavia under his command. With Yugoslavia, the Soviets would have a wide outlet to the Mediterranean Sea, a long-standing asset. Then in 1950 the Korean War broke out, and Washington intervened militarily. The Red Army’s invasion of Yugoslavia did not happen.
