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Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev Part 03
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Abroad
The Shadowy Shape of Things to Come ۱۷
By ANNE O'HARE MECORMICK:
News that the the Governments of Bel-gium, the Netherlands and Luxem bourg have decided to form a customs union is as significant in its smaller way as Moscow's beld invitation to the neighboring states to become autono mous members of the Soviet Union. It signifies that Hurope is in the first stages of revival and reformation. Russia's action in the east is bound to stimulate counter-action in the west: first, because it dispels the illusion that the pre-war and pre-Hitler pattern will be restared; second, because it atira the European nations to a sense that they must think up ways and means of aaving and strengthening themselves.
"Patriotism is not enough," as Edith Cavell aaw in that long, clear moment on the edge of death-a patriot's death, Resistance, even military victory, is not enough. Beyond the defeat of the Nazi plot to cunquer unquer Europe and organize it under German dictatorship lies the grest test of the capacity and intelli-gence of Europe to conquer and or ganize itself.
Can the continantal nations start and run again under their own steam? Can they adapt themselves the new con ditions of existence which the consum ing fires of war have so starkly re-vealed? One of these conditions in the emergence of the Soviet Union from twenty-five years of jaolationisas and its clearly arly announced determination to play a decisive part in European af-fairs. Another is the proof that the process of fragmentation into self-de-termining units must in some fashion be reversed. There may be even smaller units, with the federalization of tries like Czechoslovakia and Yuge-slavin, but in a different framework. The Soviet Government vetoed plans for an eastern European, a Danublan or a Balkan Federation, but when Stalin was ready to crash the gates of non-Russian Europe he blanketed and supplanted these lesser schemes with a project for a Soviet federation.
Another condition is the limitation of the power, and even of the primary interest, of Britain and the United States to intervent in all the problems of Europe. This is not to imply that their Influange, when the war is won, will not be very great. American in-
fluence will be strong because it will be difrefer toward the guafun with our hopes are fixed: the creation of a peace Insurance system which will make the world safe from war. The people of this country will not settle for less.
But it is beginning to be apparent to the Western Powers, as in the event it will be apparent to Russia, that even the cooperation of the three grent vio-tors will not not be enough to pacify Eu-rope. This cooperation is, of course, the indispensable condition of peace. There will be ne order in any Buropean coun ity unless Rumia, Great Britain and the United States work together. Junt the fear that they will not is se disturb ing and dangerous that it is of impera-tive importance, as Mr. Sumner Welles has pointed out, that some agreement be reached on the question of Poland before it hardens into a real line of division.
The cooperation of the nations of Europe is also necessary. This applies first of all to France. This afternoon the President will make a brief address to the nation in presenting a destroyer-escort to the French Navy. At his press conference yesterday he seemed to discount expectations that he would take this occasion to recognize the French National Committee by saying that he knew of no revision in Ameri-can policy toward France. But "re-vision" is not necessary to carry that policy forward to the point of formally accepting the Committee as the author-ity which will represent and act for France when the liberating armies en-counter the country. Mr. Roosevelt Inti-mated that this was in contemplation, as indeed it must be unless France is treated like occupied territory and ad-
ministered by AMG. The more generously and unreserv-edly this gesture is made the better. The President has proved himself the
stanch friend of France in her darkest hour, and in this he has been the sy bol of the sentiments of the United States. Now France begins to live again, begins to take thought for the future, and in any preview of that fu-ture it is obvious that we need France and France needs us. There are indi-cations that General de Gaulle recog-nizes this more clearly than he did. It is increasingly apparent to this Govern ment. Even in prostrate Italy it has been found neither easy nor wise to im-pose foreign rule. The eagerness of the Allied military authorities to turn over the administration of most of the occu-pied provinces to the Badoglio Govern-ment does not commit us to further support of that regime, but it is an ac-knowledgment that people do not learn independence endence from dependence.
There are strict limita, in short, tol our power to help and to achieve our own solution to every problem. Thid la the sober truth the great Powers and afto the anisli are discovering. The pro-posed customa union of Belgium and Holland is one sign of the intention of the lesser nations to combine and help themselves. Before the war the Dutch and Belgian Governments were active In an effort to create a common front among the states of northern Europe by means of the Oslo Conference. But the timid effort was blocked by the
Great Powera, It did not go far enough,
not nearly as far as the two Govern
ments are prepared to go now. It may
be that from this beginning the Oalo
group will be re-formed as a real ous-
toms union. Meantime it is a warning
and a promise that Europe will not be
organit Sy power alone.
This is a clipping from page 12 of the New York Thae for Feb. 12, 1944 Cled at the Seat of Goversaent.