| view to the opening of a second front. However, agreement on aid to the NLAY became beneficial mostly beneficiary to the Soviets since the Red Army could give this aid faster than the British or Americans. As a result, decisive Soviet influence in Yugoslavia at the last stage of the war was expressed by way of material support for the Yugoslav communists.
Soviet support given to Tito’s combatants had four features: 1) war equipment and material; 2) medical aid; 3) financial support and 4) support for education of officers of the National Liberal Movement of Yugoslavia (the NLMY).
These Soviet provisions had a material and an ideological basis. During the war the NLMY did not have any factories for production of war material at its own disposition. Therefore that the CPY and the Supreme Headquarters of the NLMY applied for material support from the Allies. However, the NLMY could expect this support only from the Soviet government, because the USA and the UK favoured the četniks of General Mihailović until the summer of 1944. The ideological reason stay in the hopes of the Central Committee of the CPY that Moscow is the natural (political and ideological) ally of the Yugoslav communists.
Nevertheless, the first consignments and medical materials were received from the Anglo-American side as part of their anti-Nazi program in June 1943. The Soviet Union delivered its first material support to Tito’s NLMY in March 194431. It came after the visit of a Soviet military mission to the Supreme Headquarters of the NLMY on February 23, 1944 as the Soviet answer to Tito’s requests32. The Soviet government was forced to react to possible Anglo-American power in Balkans immediately, in order to prepare the soil for its own sphere of inluence in Yugoslavia, Central and Southeastern Europe afther the war.
A great success of Tito came when the Soviet State Committee of Defence decided on September 7th, 1944 that weapons and equipment for twelve infantry and two air-divisions would be transferred to the NLMY. This military aid was contemplated during the conversation between Tito and Stalin in Moscow from September 21st to 28th, 194433. In order to fulfil this decision, the Soviet government organised a military base in Romania (Craiova). The Soviets continue to deliver war material to Yugoslav partisans from Bari and started to do it in autumn 1944 as well from Sofia (with trucks) and Craiova (with aircraft and trains). Some military help came also from the Headquarters of the third Ukrainian front. During October 1944, from all these Soviet military bases, 295.000 tons of war material were transferred to the NLMY. I claim that this huge Soviet military support, sent to the Yugoslav partisans in October 1944 played a crucial role in the battle for Belgrade (October 18th–20th). After “the Belgrade Operation” and the taking of the Yugoslav capital, and establishment of their own military and political control Tito’s partisans finally won a victory over Mihailović’s četniks. As a result, the Yugoslav civil war was resolved in the Tito’s favour with great Soviet military support. After “the Belgrade Operation” the Soviet government started to send to Tito food shipments ordered by Stalin on November 20th, 1944. The first Soviet food aid, comprising of 50,000 tons of grain, was delivered to Yugoslavia at the begging of December 194434.
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31 P. Milošević. Iščekivanje sovjetske pomoći na Durmitoru 1942 // Istorijski zapisi. Titograd, 1970. S. 1.
32 Arhiv Centralnog Komiteta Komunističke Partije Jugoslavije. KPJ – Kominterna. Beograd, 1944. S. 12.
33 N. Antić, S. Joksimović, M. Gutić. Narodnooslobodilačka vojska Jugoslavije. Beograd, 1982. S. 487.
34 Новые документы Великой отечественной войны // Kоммунист. Москва, 1979. С. 80. | 
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