The Communist Party of Yugoslavia held its 6th Congress in Zagreb on 2–7 November 1952. It was attended by 2,022 delegates representing 779,382 party members. The 6th Congress sought to discuss new policies, first of all in reaction to the Yugoslav–Soviet split and Yugoslav rapprochement with the United States. The congress is considered the peak of liberalisation of Yugoslav political life in the 1950s. The Congress also renamed the party the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.
New policies were adopted, while old policies were replaced. The congress was particularly critical of bureaucracy, which was denounced as a remnant of Stalinism. In this respect, Josip Broz Tito, the General Secretary of the party's Central Committee, called for gradual "withering away of the state". The local party organisations were instructed to reorganise territorially by electoral districts. They were given greater decision-making autonomy, but their role was changed from being a virtual administrative arm of the government to a part in which they would be used to persuade and educate instead of direct. A decision was made to separate the party from the central government, and party secretaries would no longer have corresponding functions in the central government. The Congress also declared Marxism incompatible with the performance or attendance of religious events.
Workers' self-management was formally approved by the 6th Congress. This policy change regarding the country's decentralisation led to a wider discussion about the nature of Yugoslav federalism in its immediate aftermath. In response, constitutional amendments were enacted in 1953 to implement the approved changes in the political system. However, some of the 6th Congress' adopted resolutions were reversed when relations with the Soviet Union were normalised. The resolutions and strategies adopted by the congress also led to a conflict between efforts aimed at further decentralisation and empowering Yugoslav constituent republics on the one hand and work to increase Yugoslav unity on the other. The principal authors of the documents adopted by the congress were Edvard Kardelj and Milovan Đilas. The latter thought that the liberalisation policies should be reinforced and extended. This brought him into conflict with Tito, removing Đilas from leading positions in the state and party.
Background
The Communist Party of Yugoslavia (Komunistička partija Jugoslavije, KPJ) was a political party established in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1919. By the end of the next year, it was banned and forced to function covertly and abroad. Following the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers in 1941, it organised and led Partisan resistance, The resistance grew increasingly successful and received recognition from the Allies. Following the 1944 power-sharing agreement concluded with the Yugoslav government-in-exile, the KPJ led the formation of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia in March 1945. Later that year, the KPJ won the 1945 Yugoslavian parliamentary election boycotted by the opposition. By 1947, the KPJ moved to suppress any political opposition.
In 1948, the Yugoslav–Soviet split occurred. The fifth congress of the KPJ, in reaction to the split, reaffirmed its support for Josip Broz Tito's leadership, and he was reelected at the 1st Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the 5th Congress. Nonetheless, the fifth congress reaffirmed its opposition to the capitalism of the Western Bloc. In the immediate aftermath of the fifth congress of the KPJ, Yugoslav relations with the West deteriorated, particularly burdened by the dispute over the Free Territory of Trieste. As a result, it is said that the KPJ adopted a very rigid position towards the Soviet Union and its leader Joseph Stalin. Hilde Katrine Haug has described the Yugoslav position as more Stalinist than the one held by Stalin.
Yugoslavia was compelled to ask the United States for economic assistance in the summer of 1948 due to the closure of foreign trade with the countries of the Eastern Bloc. The United States Government cautiously approved the request, wishing to score a Cold War victory over the Soviet Union. By 1949–50, the scope of American aid increased to encompass loans and large grants. By 1951, faced with the prospect of a Soviet invasion, Yugoslavia joined the Mutual Defense Assistance Program and began receiving US military aid as well.