Inevitable Break

The long-simmering pot of Polish-Russian relations this week finally boiled over and spilled its lava-hot contents into the laps of Britain and the U.S. In Mos cow, Soviet Foreign Commissar Viacheslav M. Molotov handed Polish Ambassador Tadeuz Romer a note: ". . . the Soviet Government has decided to sever relations with the Polish Government." Thus Polish-Russian amity ended with the first break between two members of the United Nations.

The break was not astonishing. The Russian note declared that the Polish Government had collaborated in German claims that the Russians had murdered 10,000 Polish officers (TIME, April 26). Behind this incident lay an accumulation of differences which sooner or later was bound to revive the ancient enmity of Russia and Poland and break their tenuous alliance. Only in the sense that Goebbels' trumpetings had hastened the inevitable could the rupture be called a victory for Nazi propaganda.

The Polish problem was now an immediate problem for the U.S. and Britain. At the crux of the difficulty were territories (now in German hands) which the Russians had occupied after the Germans invaded Poland in 1939. Great Britain was formally committed, the U.S. was at least morally committed, to see Poland's prewar territory restored. But Soviet Russia was not prepared to give back the disputed Polish lands. Perhaps the Poles were again to learn an old and wretched lesson: that in the larger interests between great powers, the smaller nations usually have to take the rap.

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