NEWS OF THE WEEK
MSTALIN'S sets of replies to correspondents are of impor- t, tance only if the policy they indicate shows some sign of taking practical shape. It cannot be said that much has happened yet to justify the hopes raised by the answers given to Mr. Alexander Werth in September. Now the Generalissimo has rather surpris- ingly (on whose initiative we again do not know, but the thing came significantly hard on the heels of Mr. Churchill's allegation about the number of Soviet divisions on a war footing in Occupied Europe) given no fewer than 31 replies to a questionnaire submitted by the President of the United Press of America. Of Mr. Churchill's zoo divisions M. Stalin admits only 6o, and says these will soon be reduced to 4o ; on that an open mind must clearly be preserved. On the atomic power he declares, satisfactorily but surprisingly, for " a strong international control" ; M. Molotov has consistently rejected, and apparently still rejects, this as incompatible with national sovereignty. But more important in many ways are M. Stalin's declarations regarding Germany. He affirms the necessity of estab- lishing not only economic but political unity in Germany ; it is the Russians who have so far refused resolutely to carry out the pro- vision of the Potsdam Agreement which provides that Germany shall be treated as a single economic unit. He thinks that a higher level of production should be permitted to Germany than was agreed at Potsdam, and that the people should be allowed to reconstruct their industry and trade and become self-supporting. Though some of these statements were simply in the form of affirmative answers to leading questions they are obviously encouraging, particularly in view of the reports, so far unconfirmed, of discussions between Russians and Americans in Berlin on the possible unification of all the four zones of Germany. But everything, of course, depends on the posi- tion M. Stalin at present holds in the scheme of things in Russia. On that there is ground for some perplexity.
