Pavel Yudin

Diplomatic career

When Cominform was founded, in October 1947, Yudin was appointed editor of the Cominform journal, For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy!, based in Belgrade, which was then the capital of Yugoslavia. There he played a major role in the split between the USSR and Yugoslavia, which culminated in the Yugoslav communist party's expulsion from Cominform, and a failed attempt by Moscow to destroy the Tito regime. In March 1948, Yudin suppressed an article written for the journal by the Yugoslav communists Vladimir Dedijer and Radovan Zogović, which had expressed solidarity with liberation movements in Asia. In that instance, he was almost certainly following orders, because he was allowed almost no initiative while running this magazine, every issue of which had to be sent to Moscow for approval before it could be published. But according to the future Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, he used his position to sow trouble between Tito and Stalin, by sending Stalin a report alleging that the Yugoslavs had made insulting remarks about the military and technical advisers sent to them from the Soviet Union. The report was circulated to members of the Soviet Politburo Soon afterwards, the Soviet Union withdrew its advisers. On 27 March 1948, the Soviet leadership sent a letter Tito setting out various complaints, including an allegation that Yudin was under surveillance in Belgrade. Tito later alleged: "Yudin's work in Belgrade was not restricted to the paper. He took an active part in preparing the final reckoning with Yugoslavia. He tried hard to poison relations between Yugoslavia and her neighbours, especially Bulgaria and Albania."

In 1950, when Stalin was concerned that China might be the next communist country to refuse to recognise him as leader of the communist bloc, Yudin was dispatched to Beijing, to assist in arranging publication of the works of Mao Zedong. According to Khrushchev, this was at Mao's request, because "Mao wanted an educated man to help him put his works into proper shape and catch any mistakes in Marxist philosophy before Mao's works were published."

He was back in Moscow in October 1952, for the 19th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, at which he was made a member of the Central Committee and a candidate member of the Praesidium of the Central Committee. After the Congress, he was sent to Berlin as political advisor to the Soviet Control Commission in East Germany. In 1953, he was promoted to the post of Deputy High Commissioner of the USSR in East Germany.

Yudin was Soviet Ambassador to China from 3 December 1953 to 15 October 1959. He was re-elected to the Central Committee at the 20th Party Congress in 1956 (the one during which Khrushchev delivered the Secret Speech exposing Stalin's crimes.) Having delivered a speech to the Central Committee plenum afterwards, Yudin reputedly exclaimed, purely out of habit "Long live Comrade Stalin!" - which produced an embarrassed silence, followed by an apology from the speaker. He was recalled from China after the split between the USSR and China, which followed Khrushchev's meeting with President Eisenhower in Camp David. On his return, he blamed Khrushchev, rather than Mao, for the split, to which Khrushchev retorted: "I might remark with some justification that we were sure to have discord with any country where Yudin was sent as ambassador. Yudin was sent to Yugoslavia and we had a falling out with Tito. Yudin went to China, and we had a falling out with Mao. This is no coincidence."

In 1960–68, Yudin worked at the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1966, he appeared as an "expert witness" for the prosecution at the trial of the writers, Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel.