X or Y?

It looked as if liberated Europe had been liberated chiefly for hunger and disorder. From Greece to Holland there was social and political crises. Western Europe's economic structure, looted by the Nazis, shattered by bombing, gutted by the resistance and war, had all but collapsed. Mines were idle for lack of wood for props. Electricity was strictly rationed because of the lack of coal to generate power. Most factories lacked raw materials to process. Few railroads were running except those hauling military supplies and troops. Food was scarce and poorly distributed. Liberated Europe foresaw a winter of hunger. This was the economic crisis.

It inflamed the social and political crisis. As a result of the Nazi invasion and occupation, traditional government, law, justice and political parties had broken down or were discredited. As a result of the resistance, Europe's hungry, despondent people were armed. Almost everywhere the Communist parties fought to keep them armed, for, active or quiescent, so long as they were armed, these groups represented a revolutionary state within a state. Almost everywhere insistence on disarming them caused Government crises, as Belgium's Premier Pierlot, France's General de Gaulle, and Greek Premier Papandreou well knew.

Scarcely anywhere did Britain and the U.S., hampered by the vast job of waging war, and alarmed by the threats of social violence, offer a political leadership intelligent or tough enough to counteract the Communists or sufficient economic aid to quiet the popular unrest.

To most Europeans democracy, U.S. style, was a new experience. Many, perhaps most of them, emerging from fascist domination, had been eager for it. But they were in a mood to judge it strictly by its deeds. Because its deeds were falling far short of their hopes, they were in a mood to judge it harshly. Unless the U.S. and Britain acted quickly to retrieve the ground they had lost, they might win the war but lose Europe. For Europeans were faced with a historic choice--between the fumbling X of democracy, as represented by the western Allies, and the untried Y of Communism backed by the thunderous prestige of the Red Army and the swift, sure strokes of Soviet foreign policy. Their choice might extend the area of human freedom to the center of Europe or it might roll democracy back to the Western Hemisphere. For Europe, and for the world, this was a winter of decision, a winter of crisis--and the crisis was already at hand.

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