Moscow and the Crisis The Government has given repeated assurances
that it is maintaining the closest contact with the Soviet Union ; but the consultations have by no means dissipated Moscow's suspicions of this country's intentions. The result is that Moscow appears determined to adopt a detached and almost academic attitude to the crisis in Europe. The Russian Press describes the invasion of Albania as yet another proof of M. Litvinov's thesis that peace is indivisible ; if aggression is blocked in Poland by the Anglo-Polish alliance, it will break out elsewhere unless there is genuine collective resist- ance to aggression as such. It is difficult to quarrel with such an argument, and easy to understand Moscow's present hope that, if the crisis culminates in war, it will not be, as was once feared, a war against the Soviet Union, but a war between the " capitalist " Powers in which she may not be involved, unless by a victorious intervention against the ex- hausted combatants. But Russia can no more hope to stand aloof from a general war than Great Britain can, and, like Great Britain, her strongest interest is to avert war altogether; it will be deplorable if such a community of interests fails to express itself in community of action.
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