—Stalin called: I received the Yugoslav delegation yesterday.416 The Yugoslavs informed me that they had proposed to the Bulgarians that Bulgaria join Yugoslavia on the same basis as the Serbs and Croats. But the Bulgarians had not agreed to this and had insisted on combining Yugoslavia and Bulgaria as equal partners in a Bulgarian-Yugoslav confederated state. I said that the Bulgarians were right, the Yugoslavs wrong. Yugoslavia and Bulgaria ought to be combined into a coequal state on a parity basis, something along the lines of the former Austria-Hungary. Otherwise, bringing Bulgaria into Yugoslavia would mean the absorption of Bulgaria. Moreover, the Yugoslavs still lack a government empowered to conclude a treaty with Bulgaria. They wanted Bulgaria to send a diplomatic representative to Belgrade. The Bulgarian government, however, is in no position to send a diplomatic representative; all it can do is have its political representative attached to the national committee. It would be better to begin with a mutual-assistance pact, and then take it from there. . .
—The Yugoslavs are inexperienced; the Bulgarians are evidently more experienced.
—I advised not starting this fighting in Greece. The ELAS people should not have resigned from the Papandreou government.417 They’ve
Taken on more than they can handle. They were evidently counting on the Red Army’s coming down to the Aegean. We cannot do that. We cannot send our troops into Greece, either. The Greeks have acted foolishly.
—The Yugoslavs want to take Greek Macedonia. They want Albania, too, and even parts of Hungary and Austria. This is unreasonable. I do not like the way they are acting. Hebrang418 is apparently a sensible man and grasped what I was telling him, but the rest of them in Belgrade are going too far.
—As for Kolarov leaving for Bulgaria, I’m afraid that his arrival there could alienate the Agrarians and others. They will write up his biography, kick up a fuss, use his presence to insinuate the sovietiza-tion of Bulgaria, and so on. Meanwhile the present government must be preserved and if possible even expanded. . .
World History
