[dfwgator]

I think some of that was indeed Kabuki Theater between Tito and the USSR, although of course, with Stalin, eventually he wanted everybody dead.

[Verginius Rufus]

In 1944 the Red Army helped liberate Belgrade from the Germans. During the short time they were there the Russians killed or raped a lot of the locals. Djilas, one of Tito's closest advisers, complained about that to the Russians, which made Stalin very angry. I think that was one of his grudges against Tito, that he had not done anything to punish Djilas. (Djilas became famous later as a dissident--wrote The New Class about the realities of Communist rule.)

Tito was eager to industrialize Yugoslavia, following the Soviet model, but Stalin saw it primarily as a source of raw materials for Soviet industry. Tito knew how ruthless Stalin was so when he was "invited" to visit the Soviet Union during the early stages of the breach he refused to go.

Nikita Khrushchev talked about how Stalin thought he could easily get rid of Tito in his famous speech to the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956.