International: WHAT DOES RUSSIA WANT?

Russian policy looked like a crazy quilt of contradiction; but it was not. Danes rejoiced as the Red Army began to leave Bornholm Island last week. (Some of the Russian soldiers carried grandfather clocks on their backs.) Russia was suspected of stirring up another hornets’ nest for Iran by inciting the Kurds to revolt, but promised to leave Iran within six weeks “if nothing unforeseen happens.” The Supreme Soviet ordered six more classes of the Red Army to be demobilized by September.

The next day Moscow Pundit Vassily Voronin warned that Russia was “surrounded by capitalist countries and reactionary forces, and their desire to redivide the world may again produce armed conflict. . . .” China announced happily that Russia had sent a note promising to evacuate Manchuria by May 1. Canada revealed that members of the Soviet spy ring not only got money from Moscow but even got instructions not to take cabs all the way to their secret meeting places.

The Mixture as Before. Russia’s characteristic mixture of crudeness and cooperation puzzled other nations only because it was not what they would like to believe about Russia.

Russia wants power. Russia wants prestige. Russia wants security. Russia regards the peace as an opportunity better than any the Czars ever had, better than the Bolsheviks are likely to have even in a decade or two.

Last week Washington heard reports that U.S. officials in Germany had found, in a transcript of the Molotov-Ribbentrop talks that preceded the 1941 German attack, a blueprint of Moscow’s plans. Molotov wanted the Baltic states, all of Poland she then occupied, slices of Finland, eastern Rumania, complete control of the Dardanelles, a free hand in Iran and Iraq, and enough of Arabia to dominate the Persian Gulf. Ribbentrop thought Russia asked too much.

Even if the transcript had the usual Nazi twists, its territorial terms were plausible. By the ideological nature of the disease, Communism feels safe only when it is the doctor. In search of such safety, Russia has annexed 273,947 square miles since 1939—an area bigger than Texas. She has placed behind the quarantine of “friendly” (i.e., dociie) Governments the nations on her borders, and now has the two chief exceptions, Iran and Turkey, under deep-sea pressure. Even Iran’s oil means less to her than the reassurance a puppet regime in Teheran would give.

In some other countries (e.g., France, Italy) Russia is for the moment content to infect a minority big and influential enough to prevent policies she considers highly undesirable, though not big enough to get control. Still a third group of countries (e.g., India, Spain) is exposed to Communist contagion, largely because their present regimes have not solved pressing political and social problems.

The Aims. Russia views capitalist—and socialist—nations with suspicions colored by the Communist Party’s own conspiratorial background. Russia, therefore, maintains the biggest army in the world (at least 6,000,000 men). She would like to keep her own sphere of influence isolated from the rest of the world, and has already broken most of eastern Europe’s economic and cultural ties with the West. But she is anxious for closer contacts with countries that might help her split up any other power combinations, and is now courting individualist Arabs and fascist Argentines. Russia makes it her business to know the world’s weak spots.

The Methods. Russia’s economic power is expanding into the vacuums left by the shattered industries and trading spheres of Germany and Japan. Her social system, while it challenges centuries of Western progress, has an undoubted appeal for millions. Her political techniques are self-confident ruthless and capable of infinite variety, from military terror to humanitarian tracts. Directly and indirectly, she uses any number of organizations, in any number of ways, to run her errands.

She joins international bodies only when it suits her interests. She has, for instance, boycotted world aviation agreements because she does not want foreign planes flying over her territory. She is not a member of Bretton Woods or the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization, but actively participates in the World Federation of Trade Unions.

Communists in other countries work through old Comintern leaders like Togliatti in Italy, or through new instruments, some of whom reject the Communist philosophy but play the Communist game. Moscow’s Orthodox Patriarch Alexei is just as useful as if he carried a party card. In the Balkans, Pan-Slav boosters are busy as beavers. In U.S. “cultural groups” from Harlem to Hollywood, the Communists are bringing in sheaves of stooges.

“Majestic Equality.” But despite her fears and ambitions, Russia does not want war. Though eager to grab, she is highly sensitive to firm and unified opposition. Russia is still weaker than the U.S. alone and much weaker than the West as a whole. If the rest of the world lives up to the UNO Charter, Russian desires are not likely to overstep the bounds.

Last week Stalin praised UNO for the very thing Russia had opposed in UNO dealings to date: its emphasis on “equality of states and not on the principle of the domination of one state over others.” UNO’s future greatness, said Stalin, depended on equality. Smaller nations could answer with the irony of Fellow Traveler Anatole France: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” But they would also have another text to brandish if Russia failed to practice what Stalin preached.