Officials may come and go with alarming frequency in most Government offices of the U. S. S. R., but not in the Soviet Foreign Commissariat. Amid all the shifts, purges and disappearances of Soviet officials, the Foreign Commissariat's topmost personnel has remained so constant that in 21 years since the proletarian revolution Soviet Russia has had only two Foreign Commissars: Georgy Vasilievich Chicherin, from 1918 to 1930 and Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff, his successor.
Last week Comrade Litvinoff's term abruptly ended, and with his displacement came Europe's sensation of the week. Moscow's radio laconically announced shortly before midnight one night that Comrade Litvinoff had been relieved of his job at "his own request." The Commissar, it was explained later, was ill, had been suffering from heart disease. His job would henceforth be taken by Viacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, President of the Council of People's Commissars, a member of the all-powerful Political Bureau of the Communist Party, right-hand man to Dictator Joseph Stalin for some 15 years.
Those who knew that Commissar Litvinoff actually does take rest cures at Continental watering places for heart trouble might have accepted the Soviet "request" theory at its face value had it been made at any other time. But only 36 hours later Foreign Minister Josef Beck of Poland was to make an important reply to Adolf Hitler before the Polish Parliament (see p. 21). The British and French press were beginning to talk about "appeasing" the Germans again (see p. 21), at a time when the "Peace Front" was considering involved negotiations with the Soviet Union with a view to stopping Hitler.
Commissar Litvinoff has never been much of a power inside the Soviet Union. He was not even a member of the Political Bureau and had been a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee for only five years. He probably did not even formulate Soviet Foreign policy; he was a brilliant diplomatic technician. But in the world's eyes he was identified with that era of Soviet policy when the U. S. S. R. backed up strongly every move to curb the aggressors, pushed forward the principles of collective security, allied itself with democracies, put its face squarely against dictatorships. Was that era to end? Last week all Europe guessed. Some of the guesses:
> Most ominous—and least likely—explanation of the change: Comrade Stalin had decided to ally himself with Führer Hitler. Obviously Comrade Litvinoff, born of Jewish parents in a Polish town (then Russian), could not be expected to complete such an alliance with rabidly Aryan Nazis.
>More likely: the Soviet Union was going to follow an isolationist policy (almost as bad for the British and French). By turning isolationist it would let Herr Hitler know that as long as he keeps away from Russia's vast stretches he need not fear the Red Army. Russia might even supply the Nazis with needed raw materials for conquests.
> Comrade Stalin still hankered after an alliance with Great Britain and France and by dismissing his experienced, alliance-seeking Foreign Commissar was simply trying to scare the British and French into signing up.