M. Molotoff's Ambiguities
The speech of M. Molotoff, the Russian Prime Minister and Commissar for Foreign Affairs, delivered before the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union last week, was sus- ceptible of, and has received, a variety of interpretations. The references to Finland matter little now, but it was significant that the speaker should have included Italy among the " imperialist " countries which he arraigned for sending aid to Finland, that he declared that the Bessarabia question was still unsettled, but that Russia would not seek its settle- ment by war, and that he categorically affirmed his country's resolve to maintain its position of neutrality and refrain from participation in the war between the Great Powers. Paris did not particularly like the tone of the speech. Berlin on the whole liked it less, for there was not a word to justify the expectations encouraged at the time of the Brenner meeting of joint Russo-German-Italian action in regard to the Balkans. Russia has clearly no desire to be involved in war with the Allies, nor do the Allies—as Mr. Churchill has said in his broadcast address on Saturday and M. Blum in an article elsewhere in this issue—intend war with Russia. But war with Russia is among the possibilities none the less. Oppor- tunism alone will determine Moscow's policy, and though the Brenner expectations have not yet been fulfilled it does not follow that they never will be. Russia, moreover, may be more useful to Germany as neutral than as belligerent.
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