In June 1956 a series of nine questions were submitted to the Italian communist leader Palmiro Togliatti concerning communism since the ‘secret speech’. He replied that the world communist movement had been changed irrevocably. Even for countries already under communist rule, ‘the Soviet model cannot and must not any longer be obligatory’. Progress to socialism would be achieved ‘by following paths which are often different’. But one general problem, shared by the whole movement, had arisen from the criticisms of Stalin. Every party must work out its own method of protection ‘against the evils of stagnation and bureaucratisation’.

A test case was Yugoslavia. Khrushchev took this as his prime example of Stalin's ‘shameful role’ in international relations. There had been no substance to the 1948 dispute, which should have been resolved ‘through Party discussions among comrades’. Instead, Stalin magnified the issues to a monstrous extent. Showing Khrushchev a letter from Tito, Stalin remarked: ‘I will shake my little finger – there will be no more Tito. He will fall.’ Yet this did not occur: ‘No matter how much or how little Stalin shook, not only his little finger but everything else that he could shake, Tito did not fall.’

Stalin's successors had already tried to mend fences. The Belgrade Declaration (2 June 1955) restored Yugoslavia to the fold. Thereafter Yugoslav communists drew more far-reaching conclusions.