Best Bargain

Which Capitalist European Power would be the first to swallow its hatred of Communism and make a military ally of Soviet Russia? The Russians frankly needed and wanted a European friend to protect their back in case they ever fight Japan in the East. Germany and Poland, however, were too close to the Bolshevik Menace to see the opportunity. Three weeks ago France hesitantly took the plunge, signed a Treaty of Mutual Assistance with Russia (TIME, May 13). Last week Pierre Laval, Foreign Minister of France, arrived in Moscow to see what kind of a bargain he had. It was probably the best bargain the realistic little butcher's son had ever made in his life.

He knew it was all right as soon as Russia's Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinoff took him in to meet Joseph Stalin, in whose face Laval saw much the same calm, woodchuck cunning he sees in his own mirror. The two got along famously, two born listeners who knew what they were doing. Stalin was so pleased with Laval that he prolonged the conversation through luncheon, the first time he had ever broken bread with a Capitalist Foreign Minister. It was also the longest visit he had ever had with a foreign official.*

The Russians showed Laval Moscow and he found himself impressed with the fact that Moscow is a brisk, clean, modern metropolis, not a shambles in a swamp. They showed him, the first foreigner ever to see it, the great military air camp at Monino, the planes that might some day conceivably be called on to help France stand off Germany. Gaily the Russians did mass parachute jumping, their favorite way of showing off, spelled out in plane formations the letters "R. F." for Republique Franchise. "I have an unforgettable impression . . ." said M. Laval.

What he wanted to remember was the modern might of Soviet Russia. Allied to that, France last week had a rejuvenated power in Eastern Europe. It has re-secured its hold on the Little Entente, which has lately been looking toward Germany and Russia with sidelong interest. First of these to fall in line was Czechoslovakia, which last week signed with Russia practically a duplicate of the Franco-Russian Treaty of Mutual Assistance, with the proviso that neither is bound to assist the other if France does not. Furthermore, France has checkmated Germany for the present. And it has dislocated Britain's lofty balance-of-power role in the League of Nations. Last week M. Laval set out to articulate his future program for Eastern Europe.

In a nobly-worded communique, he and Stalin invited Eastern Europe to a multilateral pact of nonaggression, consultation and nonassistance to an aggressor.

"Open to all," refrained Laval, Stalin and Litvinoff over & over, "open to all," for the benefit of Adolf Hitler who had said last month that he would gladly put Germany into precisely that sort of arrangement. Other presumptive invitees: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. The new instrument dropped the mutual assistance clause of the abandoned Eastern Locarno Pact. It was in effect a "do-nothing" trap for aggressors, within the framework of the League of Nations. It left the way open for member nations to pair off in treaties of mutual assistance. It ignored such complications as the facts that both Germany and Poland have unsettled quarrels with Lithuania and that Poland does not want Czechoslovakia in an Eastern European league. But so potent was the Franco-Russian combination that last week there was a fair chance that most of the invitees will be obliged to accept.

First French benefit from the new alliance came last week when Stalin strongly indicated to French Communists that for them now to sabotage the French military machine is equally a blow against Communist Russia.

Second came after Laval left Moscow, arrived at Warsaw to represent France at the funeral services for the late great Marshal Pilsudski, who had been rated Germany's best friend in Poland (see p. 23). There transpired the amazing scene of Germany's pompous Air Minister Hermann Wilhelm Goering trotting after Laval. He would, he hinted, like to talk. Woodchuckish M. Laval pretended not to understand. General Goering then politely requested a conversation, which M. Laval granted at the Air Minister's hotel, for three hours. Loquacious Goering had nothing new to say, and M. Laval declined to promise to visit Hitler in Berlin, but, commented the Frenchman later, "Personal contacts always bring good results."

*Stalin also broke precedent by making his first sound film and radio talks. Before the latter he interrupted an enthusiastic studio audience: ''What are you applauding about? You don't know yet what I am going to say.''

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