Aleksandar V. MILETIĆ
Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, Beograd
Yugoslav Communists and Belgian Socialists 1950–1956
Abstract:
This paper covers a somewhat forgotten theme in the Yugoslav foreign policy during the Cold War – the relation between Yugoslav Communists and Belgian Socialists in the early 1950s. The research for this topic was carried out mainly on the basis of unpublished archived resources of Yugoslav provenance, as well as adequate academic, historiographical, and other related publications.
Key words: Yugoslav Communists, Belgian Socialists, Cold War, Yugoslavia, Belgium
Summary
Regardless of the relative geostrategic distance between the two countries, Yugoslav-Belgian relations were friendly in the first half of the 1950s. At that time, a particularly friendly relationship was nurtured with the leading socialist political factor in Belgium, the Belgian Socialist Party (PSB). Cooperation with the Belgian Socialists was initiated in the early 1950s, and the beginning of official cooperation was the visit of a high delegation of the PSB to Yugoslavia (1952), when the ascending line in mutual relations began. Belgian socialists, especially their prominent individuals, supported Yugoslav policy and often openly advocated the causes of Yugoslav communists before Western European socialists. This support was especially present in influential international forums and organizations such as the Socialist International. In a series of official or unofficial meetings, visits, contacts or individual political ties, a solid foundation was built for friendly relations between the two parties, as well as the two countries, which was one of the important bridges for Yugoslavia’s political “breakthrough” in the West. On the other hand, the discrepancies in attitudes came to the fore first in attitudes about parliamentarism and democracy, and then on some foreign policy issues, primarily in views on USSR policy (the common threat of aggression from the East up to 1953, and then the question of stabilizing relations with Moscow after Stalin’s death), in attitudes about problems in Europe, issues of collective security, etc.