In 1958, Geo Bogza himself was exposed to official criticism in the official Communist Party paper, "Scînteia", which claimed that he and other writers had been exposed to "bourgeois tendencies" and "cosmopolitanism", no longer caring about "the desires of the Romanian people". This subject drew attention in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a country which, under Josip Broz Tito, had engaged on an independent path and was criticizing the Eastern Bloc countries for their commitment to Stalinism ("see Titoism"). In an article he contributed to "Borba", Yugoslav writer Marko Ristić, who spoke of the Romanian as "my friend [...], the nostalgic, gifted and loyal Geo Bogza", took the "Scînteia" campaign as proof that the Gheorghiu-Dej regime was still reminiscent of Joseph Stalin's. Ristić, who feared the purpose and effect such attacks had on Romanian culture, noted that Bogza had "in vain, done his utmost, by trying to adapt himself to the circumstances, not to betray himself, even in the period when Stalin alone [...] was solving esthetic problems, appraising artistic works and giving the tone in his well-known method."