September 6/7 of 1951

Tito: dead. Tension in the upper echelons of Yugoslav government, the news not yet leaking to the presses or beyond the Central Committee. An extraordinary session of the Central committee was called in Belgrade. As Edvard Kardelj took to the podium to address the Party’s Central Committee, one late-comer entered. It was a junior member, representing Sreten Žujović-Crni. When the Politburo warned him that the meeting was closed to all but the Central Committee, he produced a letter explaining that he was speaking on behalf of Comrade Žujović, who was indisposed. The junior functionary then read from a letter which accused Tito’s closest allies, Kardelj, Djilas, Ranković, etc. of organizing a plot against Tito’s government. Silence fell on the chamber, followed shortly thereafter by curt laughter from Ranković. He showed to the Party a telegram, received from Tito in Moscow before he died. In the letter, Tito gave instructions to “render harmless those who would seek to destroy the unity of our party” and explicitly listed the names of Sreten Žujović, Andrija Hebrang, and Dragotin Gustinčić. Indeed, Ranković was prepared, at that plenum, to present charges against the trio.

The motion passed nearly universally in the Central Committee, with only a handful of known allies of Žujović who had sided with him over issues such as the national question or Hebrang’s dismissal from the Central Committee in 1946 voting against the measure. After it passed, it was greeted with applause, and further plans to announce to the public what came of it. Ranković revealed that he had begun to implement Tito’s instructions as soon as he heard them. UDBA agents entered the chamber and quickly arrested Žujović’s Central Committee allies. Radoljub “Roćko” Čokalović, Dušan Brkić, and Stanko Opačić Ćanica left the chamber in handcuffs amid jeers of “chauvinist!” and “traitor!” The Central Committee, headed by Tito’s inner circle, then got to writing the announcement…

Meanwhile, the army was in a state of disarray. Open hostility grew between the Minister of Defense, Arso Jovanović, who tacitly endorsed the allegations that the leading comrades had conspired against Tito and the Chief of the General Staff Koča Popović and head of Military Intelligence Mile Milatović. Popović, one of the most popular figures in Yugoslavia, a Spanish Civil War Veteran and Partisan leader, accused Jovanović of subversion and aligning himself with Žujović and Stalin. Jovanović fired back, quietly, and claimed that Popović would see the ruin of Yugoslavia. While these two argued, something darker was occurring behind the scenes. UDBA’s military branch was conducting a thorough investigation into a list of names presented to them by Ranković and the Central Committee.

Meanwhile, several regional newspapers began to run stories accusing Kardelj of orchestrating Tito’s death. Others accused Ranković. That being said, the largest party organs - Borba, Oslobedjenje, etc. ran the Government’s official story:

In a bombshell accusation, the KPJ asserted that Comrade Josip Broz Tito had been murdered by The Soviet Union and the MGB. The broadside went on to announce that UDBA has taken moves against “anti-Marxist” and “chauvinistic” elements. Reading further, one could reveal that Andrija Hebrang had been arrested on suspicion of being an MGB asset and investigations for his ties to the Ustaše during the war. Radoljub Čokalović, Dušan Brkić, and Stanko Opačić were denounced with the epithet of “Great-Serb Chauvinists” and of belonging to a “Bukharinite anti-Marxist nationalist organization” which was supported by the MGB. The article went further and denounced Josef Stalin as a “Trotskyist wrecker” and an “anti-Internationalist.” They asserted that the “bureaucratic-imperial clique in control of the Soviet Union sought to dominate ‘lesser’ states and subjugate their revolutions under the USSR.”

Arrests began to come in waves, first within the police and UDBA itself, and within a day across the country. Andrija Hebrang was captured outside of his home in Zagreb. Rade Zigić while he was taking a run. Sreten Žujović evaded capture but fled the urban center of Belgrade southbound. Colonel General Vlado Dapčević was arrested in the army’s agitprop section, having been caught with materials alleging that Djilas was illegitimate. Franc Leskošek resisted arrest and attempted to flee before he killed himself by shooting himself seven times in the chest. On the first day over 500 were arrested.

The Presidium announced the election of Tito’s successor – Edvard Kardelj was elected President, Milovan Djilas Prime Minister. These two, along with Minister of the Interior Aleksandar Ranković, formed a fiercely strong bloc within the Yugoslav powerbase, and kept many of the same alliances that Tito had forged over the preceding decade. It was announced that Koča Popović would be promoted to the rank of General of the Army, outranking Arso Jovanović and allowing him to be appointed-

reports coming in

Soviet troops have entered Vojvodina and Slavonia.