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> From Turkey, Russia wants at least joint control of the Dardanelles, gateway to the Black Sea and historic objective for which Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire fought eight wars.
This was the sort of threat that Adolf Hitler could not brush aside. If Slavic Bulgaria gets the entire Dobruja (which she has not yet demanded), she will have a common frontier with Russia in Bessarabia. Russian hegemony over Bulgaria (probably the next step) would leave Russia free to advance in two directions: 1) southward toward the Dardanelles and through Thrace to the Aegean, which Italy wants; 2) westward through Yugoslavia, another Slav State, toward Albania and the Adriatic. Attainment of only the first of these objectives would halt the Axis push to the East. Attainment of both would make the Balkan Peninsula a Russian province.
So seriously did Adolf Hitler take what Russia was doing that his long-promised invasion of England marked time while he summoned Italy's Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano to Berlin to confer on the Balkan situation. Rumania plumped into the Axis lap and begged Germany to save her. It was all Germany and Italy together could do to keep Hungary from marching into Transylvania. Suspicion grew that Russia was deliberately trying to provoke trouble in the Balkans.
Against all the evidence of fact, the Moscow press insisted that Russia's moves were directed against Great Britain and not against Germany. This, however, was good policy. If Germany knocks Britain out quickly, Russia can still protest friendship for Germany, while holding a stronger defense line against German attack. If Britain can hold on and use her sea power to advantage, then Russia might tip the balance against the Axis and win far-reaching concessions for so doing. For the present, by threatening to open a southeastern front, Stalin had Hitler on a spot—on such a spot that he might trade temporary peace in the Balkans for German acquiescence in a Dardanelles grab.
One Policy, Two Methods. By last week most U. S. citizens were thoroughly baffled by the apparent inconsistencies of Russian foreign policy. Last September the U. S. S. R. ditched the Allies and signed a non-aggression pact with Germany. She split Poland with Germany, reduced the Baltic States to impotence, went to war with Finland—and by that act completely alienated the sympathies of all countries but Germany. Yet by last week Russia was Great Britain's brightest hope as an ally.
Even more baffling, in the light of Russia's acts, is Premier Molotov's definition of Russia's policy: "The task of our foreign policy is to insure peace between nations and the security of our country." If Molotov had said "eventual peace", a defense could be made for his definition.
Most U. S. citizens see Russian policy in relation to Anglo-French policy, which toward Russia has been inconsistent, irresolute, insincere. Actually only the methods of Russian policy have shifted, with the shifting winds of policy toward the U. S. S. R. In her objective Russia has been so consistent that she makes the democracies, and even the Fascist powers, look like wishful wobblers.