The Knout

Somewhere in the Caucasus Mountains, said a report current in Europe, a secret conference recently took place. In the chair was Generalissimo Joseph Stalin. Present were Marshal Klimenti Voroshilov, Red Army occupation chief in Hungary, and a group of Soviet Ambassadors and Balkan experts. The object of the meeting was to reshape Soviet policy for the Balkans and eastern Europe. Reported decisions: i) the Red Army will be withdrawn by the end of next year and civilian control will be substituted; 2) Rumania, Hungary and Bulgaria must be bound to the Soviet economy by stringent economic agreements; 3) nervous opposition parties must be soothed by checking open Communist infiltration.

This report was in keeping with the pattern of economic agreements already woven around Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Finland. If true in detail, it perhaps explained why the Russians could afford to permit the rise of vigorous political opposition throughout the Soviet sphere (TIME, Nov. 12). But, in itself, no economic scheme could guarantee that the opposition would stay within Russian bounds. The opposition parties had risen under the knouts of fear and want; they might continue to thrive, especially with encouragement.

Last week the two Western powers wielded economic knouts of their own. Washington reminded the new Hungarian Government and its non-Communist Premier Zoltan Tildy of a 1926 trade agreement still legally in force, granting the

U.S. trade terms as good as those offered any other power (i.e., Russia). Both the U.S. and Britain suddenly promised to recognize the pro-Communist Albanian Government of Premier Colonel General Enver Hoxha--provided the Dec. 2 elections were free. The U.S. added its own condition: its most-favored-nation agreement of 1922 with Albania must remain valid.

Simultaneously Moscow announced its own recognition of the Hoxha Government. Since war's end, Russia has made no economic treaty with Albania.

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