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From Labor Action, Vol. 13 No. 51, 19 December 1949, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The pattern of Stalinist confession-trial was set forth once more, this time in Bulgaria. Following close on the heels of the Rajk trial in Hungary and the Sarajevo trial in Yugoslavia has come the trial of Traicho Kostov.
This time the script did not come off as was expected. The star performer, Kostov, former No. 2 man in the satellite state, refused to play the part and pleaded not guilty – after having made the usual confession which was the green light for the trial. He admitted guilt for “ideological errors” but denied being a police agent.
These trials are a reflection of the growing difficulties that are plaguing the Stalinist parties of the Cominform bloc. The Russian campaign for the integration of these satellites into the Russian economy is meeting with growing resistance from elements among the indigenous Stalinist bureaucrats. The drive against Titoism is meeting with only lukewarm response following the short-run failure of Russia to crush the Yugoslav defection.
Not only has the drive for anti-Titoism been meeting with a tepid response but Titoism (that is, national-Stalinism) is on the rise. Sympathy for the Tito brand of Stalinism is manifesting itself among all Stalinist parties, the latest being the French CP, where a denunciation was issued this past week against “Titoist deviationists.”
The difficulties faced by the Bulgarian CP have been manifesting themselves since early summer. The peasant resistance to the bureaucratic establishment of farm cooperatives has resulted in a decrease in the total acreage under cultivation. Bulgaria, which in pre-war times was a grain-exporting area, now has to import grains. Following the June plenum of the Bulgarian CP, there was a decision to cease setting up cooperatives and to return much of this land back to private cultivation.
The Yugoslavs, who have had the outstanding experience with Russian pressure on this score, have issued a long blast at the Kostov trial. Vladimir Dedijer, director of information, said on December 6 that “the aim of the trial in Sofia, is to place Bulgaria in an even more unequal position in relation to the Soviet Union, subordinate the Bulgarian government completely to the NKVD, suppress the voice of those Bulgarian Communists and patriots who are fighting for relations of equality between Bulgaria and the Soviet Union, and find justification for the difficult economic situation prevailing in Bulgaria.”
This Titoist also went on to condemn “the methods used in the Sofia trial [which] show the complete lack of imagination of the organizers of the trial. It is nothing but a replica of the Budapest trial.” However, for a first effort the Titoists them-did not do too badly in the trial of the White Guardists, reported last week. It is in anticipation that we look forward to the “imagination” which is to be demonstrated when Tito may bring his star performers, Zujovic and Hebrang, to court.
The overwhelming majority of the Bulgarian defendants held positions in the economy, trade, construction, bank and industry. The major emphasis of the charges was a reflection of the internal difficulties of the Stalinist regime. This, in turn, was amalgamated with the charges of being “imperialist agents” and “police informers.”
In the refusal of Kostov to confess at the trial, it is to be noted that he did confess to what are almost plausible charges: hostility toward Russia, certain errors in respect to peasant policy and allowing hostile elements to infiltrate the CP. However, he refused to budge on the “imperialist agent ’ accusation. This, however, was a decisive point. The Russian overseers had to show that anyone who makes these mistakes, or pursues a hostile policy toward Russia, MUST be an imperialist agent from at least 1932.
Open antagonism has been demonstrated between Tito and Kostov. Tito has openly denounced Kostov as a police agent of long standing about whom Tito tried to warn the Russians. Kostov, on the other hand, found little to admire in the Titoists. He found Rankovitch (Tito’s GPU head) to be “a. man of limited capabilities.”
Kostov’s area of agreement with Tito may have been on the necessity of a Balkan federation. But in this concept each may have found a different meaning. Tito conceived of the Balkan federation as an area for his private imperialist plans in which Yugoslavia would be the dominant nation.
Thus one of the charges that Kostov wanted to annex Bulgaria to Yugoslavia was partially admitted by Kostov. He stated that, the difference between the Yugoslavs and the Bulgars at the 1946 meeting in Belgrade was that Tito wanted to annex Pirin (Bulgarian) Macedonia, while the Bulgars wants to exchange the Pirin region for territory ceded to Yugoslavia after World War I. It also adds more detail to the policy pursued by Tito in the Balkans.
The other defendants, who did confess, indicated the “lack of imagination” about which the Titoists commented. They became anti-Russian agents, they said, because Kostov produced documents “proving” that they were police agents in the past.
The trial also produced some interesting evidence as to what is considered anti-Russian espionage. Angel Timov, former director of the state tobacco monopoly, said that on Rostov’s orders he visited Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Rumania and had sold Bulgarian tobacco. These sales, he said, exhausted stocks and caused non-fulfillment of the Bulgarian-Russian agreement. It is now to be assumed that the Bulgars were looking for something they could use in exchange for their tobacco.
These trials cannot solve any of the economic difficulties that face the East European satellites of the Russian empire but are a manifestation of the underlying crisis of Stalinism. Further trials can be expected in Czechoslovakia and Poland as the process of Russification is pushed in those areas.
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