Sharpened Sickle

The great hall of the Kremlin palace was packed and hot. Klieg lights stared at the tense and various faces of 1,360 delegates to the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., ready for the final session of the 10th Congress. Russia's great filed in, and the applause began. It was still beating hard against the marble statue of Lenin above the platform, when Marshal Stalin stepped on stage to stand almost shyly through a three-minute ovation, then slip into a back-row chair.

The Change. Everybody knew that Foreign Minister Viacheslav Molotov was no orator. Everybody knew that Molotov's speech would be momentous. Every delegate knew how he would vote when asked to approve whatever was proposed. In a 43-minute monotone, Molotov proposed:

P: Changing the People's Commissariat of Defense from an All-Union to a Union-Republic Commissariat and adding separate commissariats for each Republic.

P: Changing the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs the same way.

That meant allowing each of the 16 member Republics of the Soviet Union to build and maintain separate units of the Red Army--militia style. It did not mean abolishing the Red Army or its central wartime command. Nor did it mean decentralization of the Communist Party. So long as the highly centralized Party remains the only legal political association in the Republics, there is not the slightest danger of any "autonomous" unit going maverick. Furthermore, there are many other Union commissariats, still centered in Moscow. In matters which concern the whole U.S.S.R. and affect its world relations, the Kremlin retains final control.

Most important for the outer world, the change meant allowing each of the 16 Republics to open and maintain separate diplomatic relations with foreign countries--sovereign-nation style. It did not mean that such multiple relations would necessarily be established with all countries. Despite the editorial alarms abroad, it did not mean that Stalin expects to fool the world into giving him 16 votes at all future international gatherings. Well does he know that the number of votes at an international conference table makes little difference; it is the power behind the votes that counts.

The Light. Molotov's most significant words came at the end. This change, he said, will be a new moral and political blow to Fascism and its suppression of free national development. Military defeat of Fascism is not enough, he added, political defeat must likewise be complete. To the regimented Europe of Hitler's New Order, the Russians were offering autonomy, equality, and the right, to maintain armed force. In the chaos of collapse, such a formula might be a persuasive invitation to much of Europe--to countries on or near Russia's western borders, and perhaps even to countries remote from Russia's present borders. And it might, in the later future, be an invitation to Asia as well.

First up are the Baltic Republics. Moscow had need of an enticement for the large number of apprehensive citizens now awaiting the Red Army in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The Kremlin also had one eye on the battered Poles. No sooner had Molotov obtained the customary, unanimous approval for the proposed change than Ukrainian Delegate Prechukha rose with a ready-made prediction: "A new, democratic Poland will arise after liberation from the Fascist yoke and all conditions for friendly cooperation of the Ukrainian and Polish peoples will be created . . . the emigre Polish Government [in London] not infrequently displays its imperialist, pro-Fascist tendencies in its politics. It is obvious that such tendencies preclude even the possibility of agreement."

If this was the voice of the Soviet Union speaking, the Russians had said their final word on: 1) the Polish Government in Exile; 2) Britain's recently reiterated support of that Government.

The Sickle. Beyond the effects upon Poland, the Baltics and, less immediately, the Balkans, lay a possibility which may be remote--or may be intensely real. A defeated Germany, or at least a part of a broken-up Germany, might choose autonomous union in the East in preference to ostracism in the West. No one could say for certain that the canny men of Moscow had this possibility in mind, or even that they would welcome it. But their recent diplomacy has displayed the boldness, the cockiness of a winner's game. All men could see that Molotov had given Russia's sickle a new cutting edge.

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