Talking Turkey

Russia's Premier and Foreign Commissar Viacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov took a train for Berlin this week. It was the first time that schoolmasterish Comrade Molotov had ever left his own country, and only the most pressing business could have induced him to go to Berlin. The business was pressing. For weeks Adolf Hitler has wanted to know how Russia would react to a concerted Axis drive to the East. For weeks Joseph Stalin has stalled.

The chief obstacle standing in the way of the Drang nach Osten is Turkey. With help from Russia the Turks could make trouble for the German Army, and with help from Russia the Turks would not be averse to doing so. Stalin's tough problem has been whether to encourage Turkey to resist the Axis, at the price of concessions from Turkey that would make it a virtual Russian protectorate, or whether to sell Turkey out, at the price of territory in the Near East and (if Turkey should resist anyway) a share of Turkish territory.

What Stalin ultimately wants is not so much territory for its own sake as defensible frontiers against Germany and a weakening of German armed strength to the point where Russia would be a match for it. Whatever he decides is more likely to promote these ends is the course he will inevitably take. Already his stalling tactics have held Germany up while rains made Balkan roads more difficult of passage. Greek resistance to Italy has also played into Stalin's hands. So, last week, did an earthquake in Rumania which, besides killing a lot of Rumanians, buckled railroad tracks, toppled bridges, tumbled buildings across city streets and fired refineries in the Ploesti oil district (see p. 36).

If Hitler makes demands on Friend Stalin, there is little that Stalin can do but make the best bargain he can. Britain could give him no help against Germany. Yet it is Britain which has enabled Stalin to pursue his none too cooperative tactics so far--not by diplomatic pressure or concessions, but by keeping her fleet intact.In one of his occasionally brilliant analyses of the war, U. S. Pundit Walter Lippmann last week outlined his view of the relationship between British seapower and Comrade Molotov's visit:

"Now as from the beginning of this war, now as in the first World War, now as in the Napoleonic wars, the outcome depends upon the control of the Atlantic Ocean. In the end the victory will go to the powers which can use the ocean to supply themselves and can cut off their enemies from the non-European world. For Europe cannot be conquered in Europe. Europe cannot be organized as a self-contained empire. Europe cannot live within Europe. Europe cannot be at peace within itself unless it is at peace with the outer world. . . .

"This is the reason why Hitler's victories on the land of Europe did not finish the war. This is the reason why even the invasion of Britain or the destruction of Britain from the air would only be the means to an end, the means to the control of the Atlantic Ocean. This is the reason why the renewal of his war against British shipping is much the most serious of all his efforts to win the war. . . .

"It is evident that Russian policy has been dictated solely by fear of the German Army. ... It is equally evident that it was the pressure of the blockade on Germany which explains the German advance through Hungary and Rumania and the whole effort to set the stage for a campaign against Suez, the Dardanelles and the oil fields of the Middle East.

"We do not know whether Russia will participate in this campaign as an accomplice of the Axis, or stand aside, or even eventually support the Greeks, the Turks and the British. But we can be reasonably sure that Russia will go with Germany only if Stalin thinks it is too soon to be safe to oppose Germany, and that he will go against Germany if he thinks this is not too dangerous an operation. But what he must know, what everybody knows, is that while Russia will go with Germany, if the blockade continues Germany must finally attack Russia and get at the supplies of the Ukraine and the Black Sea region. Thus the effect of the blockade is to engender an irrepressible conflict between Germany and Russia. This conflict will eventually be precipitated by Germany if Germany is strong in arms but desperately pressed, or by Russia herself if Germany's military power begins to show signs of deteriorating."

Comrade Molotov's train chugged on toward Germany, where he would rather not be going. Day before he was to reach Danzig the R. A. F. paid its first visit there, to let Comrade Molotov see that British bombs make holes just as deep as German ones. Hitler sent an escort to the frontier as the German press glowed with accounts of the new world to be charted by the totalitarian powers now that the "disintegration of the British Empire is visible." It looked very much as if, for the present at least, the Axis had paid Russia's price.

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