Slap in the Face

As Andrei Vishinsky flew to Paris in his green DC-3, the Russians got two sharp indications of how the tide had begun to turn against them in Europe.

In Greece, where the Red guerrillas were farther than ever from victory, Russia had taken a step toward liquidating a losing commitment: in talks with the Americans at Lake Success, Russia's Andrei Gromyko had tried to negotiate a cease-fire and general settlement for Greece. The West coolly declared that the proper place for further negotiations was U.N., that the Greek civil war could be "settled" only after the Communists stopped supplying the Greek rebels.

In Germany, where the Russians had staged an election for a People's Congress in the Soviet zone (TIME, May 23), they received a stinging slap in the face. Communist Party workers got out the vote, all right, but the vote was heavily antiCommunist. The Communist press had predicted an overwhelming victory, obviously expecting the customary Red majority of 90-plus percent. The Russians resorted to their usual poll shenanigans; e.g., they counted as "yes" votes all write-in ballots with remarks like "No more concentration camps!" and "Liberty!" Nevertheless, after mulling the returns over for two days, the Russians finally brought themselves to announce that more than 30% of the voters had said "no" to the Communist People's Congress.

The election served clear notice that the Communists could not within the foreseeable future hope to win power anywhere in Germany, except by force. It also indicated that the Soviet propaganda line--that Moscow stands for peace and the West stands for war--had reached the point of sharply diminishing returns. Europe now saw that, after the West had raised its ramparts against Communist expansion, the threat of war had receded.

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