Briefing for a Man from Mars

An unsuspecting radio listener (say, on Mars) who happened to tune in on the Earth last week would have been struck by a peculiar hissing sound. It was a form of static caused by the word "peace" being fervently repeated by millions from Minsk to Minneapolis. Contrary to what the listener might conclude, the phenomenon did not mean that peace was any nearer, or that anyone could relax. In fact, the more people sat back in the belief that peace on earth was just around the corner, the nearer the world would be to war.

This paradox, and the propaganda piffle which surrounded it, was bound to baffle almost anyone in or out of this world. Even such worldlings as the U.S. Embassy staff in Paris were confused--Ambassador Jefferson Caffery last week found it necessary to summon them all to a special briefing session. How could you explain the situation to a plain American, or a Frenchman--or to a man from Mars? The situation was really sublimely simple.

"We Put on Brilliant Parades . . ." Any briefing on the state of the world in the spring of '48 must start with the way the vast battle between Communism and democracy is going. There could be no doubt that Communism had suffered setbacks. It had been stopped in Western Europe when it failed to wreck France's economy and lost the Italian elections. It had been slowed down, at least, in Greece, where the Red guerrillas had not scored a major success all winter. It had been, forced to watch while the Marshall Plan became reality.

News reached the U.S. last week of a speech which may well be a clue to Communism's mood. German Communist Boss Wiihelm Pieck recently told 200 "Socia11st Unity" Party workers: "We are losing one position after another to the reactionaries. We put on brilliant parades, but the election results are the opposite. We have examples of opportunist backsliding and degeneracy in our party. [Many Communists] can cite Lenin, Marx and Engels, but they cannot cope with practical politics ... A belief has awakened in the masses that ... we are on the downward path."

The speech, though it was easy to overestimate its importance, nevertheless gave away the real reason for Russia's peace offensive. None of the defeats Communism had suffered were decisive and all could be nullified in a matter of weeks by Western bungling; but they were enough to impel Communism 1) to seek a breathing space for reorganization and political refueling; 2) to try lulling the Western powers into a false sense of security.

The tactic was old; international Communism had gone through three distinct phases of softening its militancy./- As early as last January, there were signs that the Red propaganda line would revert to "peace." Girding their loins for the Italian elections and the Marshall Plan battle. Communists meeting in Milan formed a "peace front" (TIME, Jan. 19), which in Palmiro Togliatti's words would "characterize Communist activity throughout the present historical phase" and would play on "the profound anguish which grips all classes at the very thought of . . . war."

Last week, Joseph Stalin himself entered the "present historical phase" with aplomb. In a letter to Peace-in-our Timer Henry Wallace (TIME, May 24), he administered the familiar bromide: "Despite the difference in the economic systems and ideologies, the co-existence of these systems and a peaceful settlement of differences between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. are not only possible but also doubtless necessary in the interests of general peace."

Of Power & Peace. How could you explain to a Martian (or to an American or a Frenchman) that Stalin's statement was no more a gesture for peace than Adolf Hitler's promises, repeated after each new conquest, that henceforth he would behave? Of some 20 major agreements concluded between Soviet Russia and the U.S., Moscow has broken nearly all (except the military wartime agreements), from the settlement establishing diplomatic relations (wherein Moscow promised to stop supporting U.S. Communism) down to the Potsdam pact (wherein Moscow promised to treat Germany as an economic unit).

Last week, a onetime French cabinet minister summed up the situation for a TIME correspondent: "There will be a time to negotiate with Stalin and that will come when Stalin has to negotiate. Believe me, then he will not talk out of the corner of his mouth to Henry Wallace. Just now, at the most, he is getting near to that point. When will he be compelled to negotiate? I can give you the answer--when the balance of world force is sufficiently in the favor of the West, in other words, when we have Western Union--anyway Western military union--fully backed by the U.S."

To European statesmen gloomy over the prospects of Western Union came news last week which in the long run would weigh heavily in the balance of power and peace. While the U.S. Congress still debated the issue, a majority of Americans had come to believe that their country should form an entangling alliance with Western Union. The Gallup poll reported that 65% were now in favor of U.S. military guarantees to Western Europe. Those were sentiments and opinions. But the Russians could understand them, or a Frenchman, or even a man from Mars.

/- The period of the New Economic Policy (1921-28) characterized by limited revival of small-scale free enterprise in Russia; the period of the Popular Front (1935-39); the period of wartime collaboration (1941-45).

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