CALL MOSCOW'S BLUFF
THE BERLIN riots are over. Their repercussions are only just beginning. Any analysis of these must.start from two facts. The first is that the combustion in East Berlin was no flash in the pan but part of a much wider explosion. There were, apparently, riots in industrial centres in East Germany ten days before the 17th of June. The second is that West Germany has been profoundly moved by what Dr. Adenauer has called the " passionate outcry " from beyond its eastern frontier. The funeral pyres which burnt in front, of the Schoneberg Rathaus in West Berlin were more than a passing tribute to the dead of East Berlin. These facts alone make it clear that the riots have made a real difference to the world situation and must provoke a sympa- thetic change in the policies . of the Western powers. What seems to have happened in East Germany is that the Russians, by commanding Herr Grotewohl -to change course, have exposed his Government as not only an unpopular tyrant but an impotent puppet. Once the oppressed sensed impotence, they rose. The Russian motives in commanding a change Were probably dual—domestic, to set the economy working again, and international. That is, they may have been pre- Paring the ground for an international approach in which they would make a more seductive, perhaps even a reasonable, offer on the future of Germany as . a whole in order to stop the rearmament of West Germany. The riots do not so far appear to have changed these intentions. Apart from the brief use of martial law and some instances of summary justice, M.
he has gone on spreading sweetness and light. But h_e has now been warned, and the West should take courage from the fact, that in any free elections East Germans will not vote Communist.
It is in West Germany, perhaps, that the impact has been m. ost obvious. For the riots have 'reminded the Government in Bonn that West Germans will always prefer to be united' with East Germans rather than divided under the patronage 0 i America. " Help to restore unity and freedom to the whole German people," Dr. Adenauer telegraphed to Sir Winston Churchill, President Eisenhower and M. Mayer. And that, unless they are prepared to let M. Malenkov turn the riots to his own advantage and unless they are to jeopardise Dr. Adenauer's re-election in September, is what they must do. Sir Winston's reply to Dr. Adenauer rightly emphasised the only terms On which it can be done. The Wpst cannot give up the aim of rearming West Germany on any terms short of free elections throughout the whole of Germany, and the forthation of an independent, representative all-German govern- ment. But before they can go any further with the rearma- ment issue they must re-establish, to everyone's satisfaction, 'whether a genuinely free and united Germany is now a prac- tical possibility. Immediately after Bermuda, they should summon the Russians to a Four Power conference on Germany. (An article from West Germany on a later page discusses the prospect in more detail.) A free and united Germany will always represent a risk; but the risk may be no larger than that implicit in the present division of Europe, and may have been reduced by East Germany's manifest hostility to Soviet Russia.
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