'Pas de Deux' in the Balkans

...Under the most recent Soviet-Yugoslav trade agreement (approved last July 20), the Russians are pledged to deliver by 1966 two thermo-electric stations, a coking plant, several foundries and cablewire plants, and equipment for coal and iron mines...

...For Tito, Khrushchev's arrival could not have been better timed...

...Despite the Skoplje disaster, Britain is going ahead with a $30 million loan for a steelworks there, the U.S...

...for the Yugoslavs import nearly twice as much from the U.S...

...Thus, when Khrushchev announced that Yugoslavia would "participate in the socialist division of labor," Tito soon replied that Yugoslavia's role in the "internanational division of labor" meant continued trade not only with the East, but with Asia, Africa, Latin America "and with the other countries as well...

...The second trouble-spot is West Germany, which recently doomed negotiations for a new trade pact by refusing seriously to discuss compensation for Nazi war crimes...

...Yugoslav sources said they did not know, although a morning had been left open on Khrushchev's schedule...

...Tito, while fending off these attempts, tried to commit the Russians to domestic reform, all-out struggle against China, support of neutralism and (by no means least) aid without strings to Yugoslavia...

...In effect, Khrushchev was being urged to adopt for the Soviet bloc the policies of "non-aligned" Yugoslavia...

...The first is Congressional cancellation of mostfavored nation treatment for Yugoslav trade, involving abrogation of a treaty made with the King of Serbia 80 years ago...

...Yet, the "breaks" may just as well fall the other way...

...There is similar ferment among the technical intelligentsia, aware that the Soviet economy is lagging and that several of its Comecon allies are in serious straits...

...but this appears to be on a strictly business basis, with the Yugoslavs supplying ships, steel pipe, tractors, chemical and other products in return...

...But, as East European journalists were quick to note, the atmosphere was not quite as warm as it had been a fortnight earlier...

...THE CHOREOGRAPHY of the pas de deux which ensued from this disparity of needs and interests was quite simple: Khrushchev attempted to bind the Yugoslavs to him by verbal concessions and by statements which might compromise them in the West...

...He wanted Khrushchev to burn all bridges to the Chinese by backing the AsianAfrican plan for expansion of the Security Council and other UN agencies...

...The opening yes, but set the tone for the seventh meeting between the two men, and Khrushchev's third visit to Yugoslavia—a 15-day tour during which there was never any doubt as to who was courting whom...

...Although the Administration has not yet applied this act, has tried to get it repealed, and must in any case (under the old treaty) give Belgrade a year's notice, the "MFN clause" is a real threat to the Yugoslav economy...

...To begin, he delayed the visit several months while he entertained others (Lopez Mateos, Kekkonen, Rusk, U Thant, Nasser, Tubman), wangled a pair of new loans from the World Bank, and lined up his present swing through Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia and Chile...

...He would like to sell what he can in the Eastern bloc...

...There was a bear-hug for the photographers, flowers from the children of the Russian colony, a blue-coated honor guard and all the rest...

...depression, crisis in Italy, the rise of some new Castro, the death of Mao...

...Yes," replied Marshal Tito, "but the winters are colder in Moscow...

...Even before the visit's end, it was clear that he could not...

...Perhaps it was Khrushchev's unexpected unwillingness to attack China, Albania or the dead Stalin by name...

...But the unkindest cut of all will be difficult to locate in the official record...

...He seemed for the most part tired, self-conscious, depressed...

...Yet perhaps it was more than that: the realization on both sides that, with all the "good will" in the world and all the canons of Marxism-Leninism to draw on, the experience of 1948-53 was decisive and cannot soon be forgotten...

...Considering these political, economic and ideological constrictions, it is not difficult to understand why Khrushchev, in the most spontaneous utterance of his Yugoslav tour, appealed almost plaintively for "time" and "patience...

...The first factory Khrushchev visited was a tractor plant working under licenses from Massey-Ferguson and Leland...

...leak" in Washington that the Marshal would also be spending some time at Hyannisport...

...Tito, of course, is not merely a Yugoslav leader but also a Communist and world statesman...

...Later in the day, Tito casually revealed at a press conference that yes, he (unlike Khrushchev) probably would be stopping in at New York for the General Assembly...

...he looked 10 years older than the jaunty Marshal...

...Sabrejets, flew him down to Skoplje in a Douglas DC-6, drove him around the country in an endless column of Cadillacs, Chevrolets and Mercedes (with a few large Fiats and a Rolls for good measure...

...the shipyard filling Soviet orders had just launched a freighter for Livanos...

...That experience, so soon after the Partisan War, set the Yugoslav leaders free—to mold their society in practical fashion and to play an easy-going, free-wheeling role in the world...

...He had Khrushchev's plane met at the border by U.S...

...The farmers have just brought in a record wheat harvest...

...Bonn's attitude was that the Yugoslavs, having recognized East Germany in 1957, should apply to Pankow...

...As if this were not enough, the West Germans, in contrast to the Italians and the French, are opposing the favorable entry of Yugoslav goods to the Common Market...

...On the other hand, it was being made amply clear that, if Khrushchev were not accommodating, Tito had elsewhere to turn...

...It is a freedom which has brought not only Tito but Yugoslavia great rewards...

...Yugoslav industry has rebounded from its 1961-62 recession, with production rising at an annual rate of 15 per cent...

...and it is a freedom which the Soviet leaders, presiding over the Stalinist heritage, have yet to attain...

...On Khrushchev's arrival in Belgrade, Soviet spokesmen unofficially spread the word that their Premier would "certainly" address a special session of the Yugoslav National Assembly, in return for Tito's speech to the Supreme Soviet last year...

...One need not be as canny as Khrushchev to recognize this as a worthy program for the satisfaction of Yugoslav interests and needs, but not necessarily suitable for the immediate aggrandizement of the Soviet regime in its present situation...

...and hours later came the (Yugoslav...

...Khrushchev's reply was as colorful as it was absolutely unprintable...

...Anatole Shub, former New Leader managing editor, is a Fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs studying in Eastern Europe...

...Despite the more than usual lipservice to Leninist and diplomatic jargon ("active coexistence," "socialist internationalism," "accord on essential problems," etc...

...At 69, Khrushchev is Tito's junior by two years...

...the difficulty is that Yugoslav consumers, accustomed to Western quality standards, are not much interested in imports from Russia, Yugoslav bankers are not at all interested in "socialist" currencies, and the Yugoslav Army is positively averse to receiving Soviet military aid...

...And with good reason: With little room for maneuver, he is now engaged simultaneously on three fronts...

...The only real question was whether Khrushchev could meet them...

...As a Communist, he wanted Khrushchev not merely to sanction "various paths to socialism," but to press Yugoslav-type reforms in the Soviet Union itself...

...When Tito finally bade Khrushchev farewell, the props were the same as on the day he had greeted him...

...There are, to be sure, two clouds on the horizon...

...Tito looked demurely aside, as well he might...

...In the "struggle for peace,' the test-ban treaty has left Khrushchev in a blind alley...

...In Russia, Khrushchev gained united Party backing against China at a price—by dropping the campaign against Soviet intellectuals, and probably by other compromises as well...

...Now, there are few, if any, remaining issues on which he can appear accommodating without making very serious concessions...

...the last was an automated chemical plant also under American and British supervision...

...To achieve the test ban, Khrushchev in fact accepted long-standing Western terms, as he had with the Austrian settlement in 1955 and in the Cuban crisis last fall...

...Western tourists will, by year's end, contribute some $60 million in hard currency...

...it was readily apparent that Khrushchev came in sore need of allies and Tito was in a strong enough position to state his terms...

...His gait and movements were slow, the flashes of ebullient energy rare...

...Khrushchev was the wooer, Tito the wooed, in a political pas de deux witnessed, across the length and breadth of Yugoslavia, by thousands of Western tourists as well as local workers, peasants, militants and plainclothes men...

...IF Khrushchev arrived in deep trouble, Tito was in fine fettle —and made sure his guest knew it...

...While Khrushchev expressed a qualified interest in Yugoslav workers' councils and the Soviet press did not pick up his remarks, Tito openly declared that the Yugoslav system was not a peculiar response to local conditions, and could not be restricted to one country, but represented the "basic ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin...

...He is in the position now of an athlete holding on for a "break," an error by the other side which will enable him to resume the offensive: a U.S...

...Perhaps it was his failure to announce an imposing grant for shattered Skoplje, or to restore the $175-million 1956 credit for an aluminum plant at Titograd (the only major "Russian renege" project which the West has not meanwhile financed...

...has contributed $50 million toward rebuilding the city, and the International Monetary Fund is considering a short-term moratorium, at least, on Yugoslav repayments of earlier debts...

...Certainly this is true of the supreme issue, Germany...

...Khrushchev is committed, like it or not, to a prolonged, expensive, ideologically tortuous struggle with the Chinese for the allegiance of Communist militants over five continents...

...Future historians, poring over the massive documentation of the 15-day visit, will doubtless be able to cite dozens of such subtle digs and ploys...

...Thus, despite Yugoslavia's associate membership in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, observer status in Comecon and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and clear willingness to collaborate with the Common Market, the political climate in Washington and Bonn compels Belgrade to open up new markets...

...What the Yugoslavs would have liked is what Khrushchev promised in 1956 and 1958 but never delivered: massive credits for the construction of whole factories, power plants and industrial combines...

...When Khrushchev began stressing his "identity of views on all essential questions" with "Comrade Tito," the Yugoslav press published an interview with the President of Chile in which Don Jorge Alessandri, too, expressed confidence that his views would prove identical with Tito's on all "essential" questions...

...he too had seen both countries, and he had yet to show Khrushchev Slovenia, where the level of life approaches that across the Austrian frontier...

...In recent weeks, the Moscow Film Festival has awarded its grand prize to Fellini's 8V2, while Ilya Ehrenburg has championed Kafka and openly declared that there is no such thing as a "decadent" artist...

...on every Yugoslav street, of course, Khrushchev could see the "Zastava 600,' locally-produced version of the Fiat seicento...

...as from any other country, and they must sell to buy...

...The Russians have till now blocked this plan by making it conditional on Peking's entry into the UN...

...The highpoint of Khrushchev's visit, indubitably, came when a British journalist asked him to compare Yugoslav and Russian living standards...

...To wage this struggle, he must somehow compose a host of divergent needs within the movement (Castro and Togliatti, Ulbricht and Kadar, Comecon planners and do-it-yourself Rumanians...

...He wanted the Russians, at the coming world trade conference, to support the demands of the underdeveloped countries for more aid and better trade terms from the industrialized West—and industrialized Russia...

...and the cautious "centrism" required for such a feat runs counter to the "revisionist" pressures emanating from Russia itself and arising from the struggle with the West...

...A week later, with Khrushchev camped on Brioni, Belgrade blandly announced that the Assembly would convene September 9—six days after the Soviet Premier's departure...

...This need partly explains Tito's visit to Russia last year, as well as his coming Latin American tour...

...While Khrushchev was at Brioni, who should drop by but Cesare Merzagora, President of the Italian Senate—to remind the Soviet Premier that Italy, in fact if not in Bolshevik theory, has been Yugoslavia's closest friend in recent years...

...Remembering past experience, the Yugoslavs will believe Soviet deliveries when they see them...