Volcanic Crust

Asia and its proud promontory, Europe, have always been one land mass. Now, with the emergence of Russia as No. 1 power in both regions, they were a single political continent. Last week this new political continent, like a vast volcanic crust, heaved and hissed, threw up craters of political lava from the smoldering core below, burned with friction at its edges, especially those edges where for ages Europe has grated against Asia--the Aegean area and the Turkish Straits.

Russia was believed to have an eye on both last week--by direct demand on Turkey for special rights in the Straits, and indirectly, through Yugoslav pressure on Greece, for control of Macedonia. Turkey's eastern frontier was also inflamed (see below), while Moscow's Pravda underlined the withdrawal from Iran of U.S. troops (which had been supplying Russia with Lend-Lease) by a blast against the Iranian Government. Farther east, the overheated Russo-Chinese relations promised to cool as, after a fortnight of negotiations in Moscow, China's Premier T. V. Soong flew east to Chungking, Generalissimo Joseph Stalin flew west to the Big Three conference in the ruins of Berlin (see INTERNATIONAL). But at week's end, the Chinese Communists seemed about to declare their independence of Chungking.

Europe too was pitted with craters of political flux--in south Italy (where the Communist riots--TIME, July 16--were spreading); in Spain (where Francisco Franco was reported ready to dissolve the fascist Falange); in France (where General Charles de Gaulle was increasingly at loggerheads with the increasingly powerful leftist organizations).

How soon and how much these (and other) craters erupted might be determined in part by an off-shore fact--a possible leftward swing in Britain's election.

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