Greece and the Tito-Stalin Split

This chapter attempts a reassessment of the impact of the Tito-Stalin split on Greece, based on archival material of the Greek Foreign Ministry and the Greek Army. The authors reject the thesis that the Tito-Stalin split decided the outcome of the Greek civil war, as the communist defeat was well underway by the summer of 1948. However, the impact of the Tito-Stalin split on regional balances was more dramatic and permanent. Since the interwar years the nightmare scenario for Greek policymakers was that of a Yugoslav-Bulgarian alliance, which could seek expansion through the strategically thin northern Greek border towards the Aegean ports of Thessaloniki, Kavala, and Alexandroupolis. This seemed to materialize in 1944–48, when both Sofia and Belgrade appeared united through their attachment to communism under the guidance of the Soviet Union. The Tito-Stalin split destroyed the prospects of a Bulgarian-Yugoslav axis in the south of the Balkans. It deprived the most powerful Balkan state (Yugoslavia) of Soviet support in a possible effort to claim Greek territory and played a crucial role in restoring balance in Balkan politics. From Athens’ point of view, Yugoslav neutrality was a formative event and the best guarantee for balance in the postwar Balkans.