TITO’S LINE IS SPLITTING COMMUNISTS

Grey River Argus, 7 September 1948, Page 5

TITO’S LINE IS SPLITTING COMMUNISTS

In Several “Bloc” Countries LONDON, Sept. 4 Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says: “M. Dimitrov (Premier or Bulgaria) has submitted a dratt Bill for the prolongation tor a further year rrom October 27, or the vulgarian National Assembly, because ’tne elections will distract the people's, attention from tne five-year economic pian.’ M. Dimitrov said this prolongation of the Assembly would not contravene the Constitution.” Reuter's correspondent at Instanbul states: "Newspapers in Sofia say that the Bulgarian communist Party lias split into two factions under the Prime Minister (M. Dimitrov) and the Foreign Minister (M. Kolarov) over Bulgaria’s attitude to Yugoslavia. The newspapers said that M. Kolarov intended to support Marshal Tito’s stand and was exerting pressure on M. Dimitrov to “liberate” Bulgaria from Cominform influence. Political observers in Instanbul said they thought M. Kolarov’s unepecteu Hostility to M. Dimitrov might lead ~u "unpredictable but momentous events.” Poland’s leading Communist, M. Vladislav Gomulka, resigned the party secretaryship after a clash over the Cominform’s action against Marshal Tito. Efforts are being made to patch up the dispute and to get M. Gomulka to resume his post. The Yugoslav News Agencv. Tanjug, reports that Yugoslavia has withdrawn from an anti-Fascist exhibition just opened in Berlin because the organisers, the Russian-sponsored German Socialist Unity Party, refused to hang a war-time portrait or Marshal Tito, and gave “too little space to Yugoslavia's fight for freedom.” The Albanian radio at Tirana said: The Albanian Communist Party has broadcast an appeal to the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia to overthrow “Tito’s clique.” The appeal was made in reply to the Macedonian Communist Party, which the radio described as “nationalist, Trotsykite, bourgeois, treacherous, anti-Soviet, anti-socialist, anti-Labour, and anti-Albanian.” The statement alleged that Yugoslav “imperialists” were to have ■ attempted to turn Albania into “Yugoslavia’s seventh Federal Republic.”

U.S. RECALLS SOFIA CONSUL

SOFIA, Sept. 5 An official announcement says that the United States Vice-Consul, Mr Donald Ewing, has been recalled after security police caught * him receiving written espionage information from two Bulgarians in July. . U.S.A. Protest At Bulgarian Expulsion Of Vice-Consul (Rec. 9.0) WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 Tne btate .Department, commenting on the expulsion from Bulgaria of Mr Donald F. Ewing, the American Vice-Consul, because ne was allegedly involved in a spy case said that the affair was “a transparently fabricated manoeuvre.” Newspaper reports from Sofia say that Bulgaria charges Mr Ewing witn "getting important written espionage ibioriiiation" from two Bulgarians, who were agents for the American intelligence. The State Department said that a protest had been made to the Bulgarian Government.

Macedonian Protest Against Bulgarian Moves

BELGRADE, Sept. 5 The Yugoslav Communist newspaper, Sorba, published a letter stated to have been signed by 12 persons representing the central committee Oi the Macedonian Curtural Educational Society in the Pirlhe area, southwestern Bulgaria, accusing the Bulgarian authorities of “carrying out a pro-Bulgarian policy” against them. A correspondent said this was the first time a minority in any coniiniorm country had openly criticised its own government and looked to Yugoslavia for sympathy. - . The letter protested against the Bulgarian militia’s alleged search of the Educational Society’s headquarters and called for a return to the policy of giving Macedonia political autonomy within the framew.ork ot Bulgaria. „ t , The letter revealed that the Bled agreement between Marshal Tito and the Bulgarian Premier (M. Dimitrov) porvided for Bulgarian Macedonia joining the Yugoslav Macedonian republic within the framework of a future Federation of South Slavs.

Exiled Czech Leaders Plan For Leadership LONDON, September 4. The secretaries of the four Czechoslovakian non-Communist parties met in London for the first time since the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February to plan a definite political leadership for Czechs in exile. , . „. x . . The arrival in Britain from the United States last evening of the secretary of the Slovak Democratic Party (Dr. Fedor Hodza) and his meeting with the secretaries of the three other parties, Dr. Vladimir Krajina (Czech Socialist Party), Dr. Adolph Klimek (Catholic People’s Party), and Mr. Blazej Vilim (Social Demorcatic Party), made the meeting of the “free four” possible. The Czech colony in Britain is growing steadily and already includes more than a score of former members of the Czech Parliament. Dr. Krajina has been sentenced to 25 years' penal servitude by the State Court in Prague on charges of collaborating with the Germans during the occupation, reports the Associated Press correspondent in Prague. Mr. Krajina, who was tried in his absence, escaped from Czechoslovakia and helped to form the Czechoslovak refugees’ organisation in London after the Communist coup.