EUROPE EAST AND WEST
It is a familiar technique. Hitler carried it to perfection. Russia has not done that yet, but there is no doubt that Russia is now forcing the pace. Three considerations are probably responsible for this acceleration. First there is the approaching signature of an Austrian treaty, which will involve the withdrawal of Russian troops from Hungary and Rumania and so remove some of the visible threat to Yugoslavia's borders ; secondly there is increasing relief to her hard-pressed economy which Yugoslavia is receiving from the West ; and lastly there is the situation in Greece. Russia, moreover, needs to counter the Communist set-back in Germany. It is true that the Austrian treaty can be delayed again as it has been so often in the past ; true also that Tito is unlikely to get more than a fraction of the $25o,000,000 he has asked for from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development ; but every advantage he gains from the West must be countered by another turn of the screw from the East, for so long as he lives he stands for ideas that are too popular, and therefore too dangerous, behind the Iron Curtain. At the moment Moscow's best outside hope is that Tito will be tempted to burn his own fingers by becoming involved in the Marxist vacuum which is Albania today. There arc those in Greece also who find the inexcusable conduct of this small satellite almost too provocative to be ignored ; but for either country to intervene in Albania would be to play into Russia's hands, and no doubt both Britain and America have warned against the folly of such an escapade.
