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Appointed its Foreign Minister (in July 1940, while he was visiting the U.S.), Jan Masaryk impressed the democratic world with a concise European program: a disarmed, decentralized German confederation; Central Europe reorganized around a Czech-Polish confederation; similar regional federations in the Balkans, in western Europe, in Scandinavia; all these regional federations ultimately to form a Federation of Europe; inclusion of Russia in a cooperative European settlement.
From 1939 through late 1942, the London Governments in Exile made some neat progress in such constructive arrangements. But by 1943 Hitler had lost his war in the East, Soviet Russia had started her triumphant comeback. And regional federations were growled down by rising Russia.
Though culturally and economically facing West, Czechoslovakia felt herself finally drawn into the military and political power fields of Russia. Last December, the Soviet-Czechoslovak alliance was formally signed. To the Czechs it meant Russian guarantee of Czechoslovakia's pre-Munich borders. To Moscow it meant Czechoslovak compliance with Russia's policy in Europe.
To Where? Winston Churchill's speech last February suggested, more bluntly than any Czech statement had, that Eastern and Central Europe might be conceded as legitimate spheres of Russian leadership. Faced with such a British attitude, and the complete lack of an American attitude, the Czechoslovak Government in Exile, unanimously backing the Soviet-Czech pact, was last week readying itself to enter Czechoslovakia in the footsteps of the Red Army and two affiliated Czechoslovak brigades. The Czechoslovak Communists, with headquarters in Moscow and a branch office in London, seemed to have a good chance of entering the Government.
A middle-class nation if there ever was one, the Czechs never were given to grandiose social scheming, to the strain of collectivism. There is an individualistic peasant and a shrewd entrepreneur in every Czech; and, if anyone does, Jan Masaryk personifies this Czech flair for individualism and good living.
In Prague, people say every other Wednesday they have to "keep an appointment with Honza" [Jan]: that is the day the Foreign Minister broadcasts to his countrymen. In these broadcasts Jan Masaryk, who never belonged to any political party and, if he has his way, never will, speaks of delivery and of the thereafter. Economically, he thinks, "thereafter" will mean a lot of Governmental planning. "I am not opposed to individual enterprise, but things are going to be different—not only in Czechoslovakia but all over Europe."
But besides his individualism, there is also in every Czech a frightened, resentful victim of Teutonic aggression—and not just since Hitler. The Czech might struggle along without social security, but he insists on national security. He'll take it wherever it may come from.
It may come from Russia. Last December, in New York, Jan Masaryk said: "We intend to live our own life in our own way and we know that Russia will respect our way of living." And added: "Russia is fighting with us . . . to destroy once for all time the German Drang nach Osten and we know that without Russia in Europe there is no stopping it."