(5 of 5)
> On the punishment of Nazis, Foreign Commissar Molotov's Declaration for War Crime Trials, Oct. 14, 1942 (urging the immediate trial of Rudolf Hess) : "The Soviet Government . . . expects that all interested States will mutually assist each other in searching for extradition, prosecution and stern punishment of the Hitlerites and their accomplices guilty of the organization, encouragement, or perpetration of crimes on occupied territory." A decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet setting up a committee to list Axis crimes against Russia (Nov. 1942) specifically asks for trial of German Army commanders.
> On the clashing ideologies of the Soviet-Anglo-American coalition (from Stalin's address on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, Nov. 6, 1942): "It would be ridiculous to deny the differences in ideologies and social systems of these countries. [This does not] preclude the possibility of joint action on the part of the members of this coalition against the common enemy. . . ."
Bitter Taste. These declarations are specific—perhaps more specific than the published postwar aims of the U.S. and Britain. But they leave many a forward-looking question unanswered. They omit any reference to Japan, with which Russia has a non-aggression pact. Some of the phraseology of these declarations is ambiguous and, to the Allied way of thinking, at least open to debate: e.g., the inclusion of Bessarabia and the Baltic States ("our brothers") in "Soviet lands"; government, self-chosen or not, which is "opportune and necessary."
On their part, the Russians might well have some uncertainties about the intentions and desires of Britain and the U.S. toward Europe. Their main clue is the Atlantic Charter, which is not notable for its reinforced-concrete qualities. To this Russia has subscribed. If the record of Allied politics in North Africa has caused certain British and U.S. citizens qualms, it had certainly not been reassuring to the Reds. They cannot be any more certain of the Allied game in Yugoslavia than the Allies can of theirs. The Russians, who consider that they have a right to the Baltic States and Bessarabia, do not like to hear Americans question that right. When Columnist Constantine Brown did just that last week, Pravda answered angrily: "Why should he not make a generous present of California or Alaska to the United States? Do there not exist curious people who are ready to present to the Soviet Union parts of the latter's own territory?"
Mutual uncertainty might develop into one of the great tragedies of World War II: that, having won a victory over an enemy who was certainly common, the victors might not be able to negotiate a common future. The thing which made this tragedy a real danger was the tendency of people at large and even some statesmen to speak in vague, fearful cliches without attempt to find out even what the Russians want.
The Russians are conscious of this danger. It was a danger which U.S. citizens, as wartime partners in a United Nations not yet efficiently united, would have to face and think about, not in vague and fearful clichés nor in sentimental idealistics, but as citizens of the postwar world.