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    "label": "Central Intelligence Agency Report 7-48, Review of the World Situation",
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    "title": "Central Intelligence Agency Report 7-48, Review of the World Situation",
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{
    "seq": 6,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "ocrText": "ODCRE I\nmunistic his domestic policy. The greater the pressure exerted on him by the Kremlin,\nthe more rapid this transition will be.\n3.\nINTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST DISCIPLINE.\nThe Kremlin is quite capable of exploiting the sentiment of nationalism for its\nown purposes, as currently in Southeast Asia (para. 16). In both theory and practice,\nhowever, it cannot permit either individualism or nationalism to impair the absolute\nobedience of local Party leaders to its own dictates. A conflict between such rigid\ndiscipline and local judgment is implicit in the character of international Communism.\nApart from any latent patriotism, it may appear in a national leader's presumption\nof better understanding of the national temperament or of the local situation. This\ndisciplinary problem is currently rendered the more acute by the fact Communists now\nman the governments of half a dozen supposedly sovereign national states.\nWithin the Soviet Union the conflicting requirements of particular nationalisms\nand monolithic Soviet unity are reconciled by loose federation in the governmental\nstructure and tight control through the parallel party organization. A similar device\nwould serve to reconcile the nominal independence of Poland, for example, with the\nabsolute domination of the Kremlin, so that Poland's \"independence\" would be\nno\ngreater than that of the Ukraine, but the effectiveness of the system would depend\nupon absolute party discipline.\nThe Tito affair has exposed the Cominform as no mere information bureau, but,\nas supposed, the successor of the Comintern as the device for Kremlin control of\nforeign Communist parties and the governments of \"independent\" states where Com-\nmunists are in power. Also made starkly plain is the Kremlin's subordination of every\nnational interest and consideration to its own absolute power. This revelation should\npreclude the further political association of any patriot with international Com-\nmunism and so reduce the Communist parties of Europe to those militants who have\nirrevocably transferred their entire allegiance to the Kremlin.\nThis tendency had been apparent in the French Communist Party since the estab-\nlishment of the Cominform, but the process is as yet by no means completed. The\nItalian Communists avoided the forfeiture of national character and as recently as\nApril could command 8,000,000 votes, but in June they too adopted the strict Comin-\nform line, no doubt prepared to accept the logical consequences.\nIn Eastern Europe considerable latent nationalism persists even among Com-\nmunists, especially in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Ironically, the vehemence of the\nAlbanian and Bulgarian denunciations of Tito is attributable as much to individual-\nistic and nationalistic fear of Tito's ambition and Yugoslav imperialism as to Com-\nmunist discipline.\nTito's example could prove infectious in the non-Russian Communist world and\ncause a schism comparable only to that between Trotsky and Stalin. In any event,\nthe apprehensions of the Cominform will probably produce a widespread and disruptive\nparty purge. This process will probably complete the elimination of Communism as a\nDECLASSIFIED\nE. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and S(D) or (E\nSECRET\nC.I.A. 3.28.73\n3\nOSD letter, April 1974\nEs MLT- HC NARS Date: 24-15-77"
}