The Press FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1947. Rome and Moscow

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25305, 3 October 1947, Page 6

The Press FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1947. Rome and Moscow

When the Archbishop of York, as reported yesterday, says that Europe is dangerously near being divided into Communist and non-Commun-ist camps, between which war would be inevitable, he says what is undeniable; but he does not stand with those who—conspicuous figures like Sumner . Welles and Herbert Hoover among them—have concluded that no reconciliation, no working agreement, between Russia and the West is possible. Since few Englishmen have studied Russia more earnestly and with eyes wider open than Dr. Garbett, .his opinion that ah understanding can be reached, great as the difficulties are, is not superficially optimistic. It is a little curious, however, that Dr. Garbett should have gone on to describe the Vatican’s policy of “ treating Russia as the chief enemy “ of civilisation ” as one of the factors tending to confirm the division. This in effect attributes to the Vatican an opinion directly contrary to his own, whereas there is at least suggestive evidence that the Vatican’s opinion and Dr. Garbett’s are identical. This Evidence was presented in June in a series of three editorial articles in the “ Osservatore “ Romano ”, nominally an independent journal, actually one which is always, and quite safety, understood to reflect the political views of the Vatican. Count dalla Torre, the editor, set himself to argue that the East-West ideological conflict, which appears to have reached the point when each side believes that its way of life and the faith it lives by -are menaced while the other preserves its own, is essentially unreal. Each side has already shown that it can, and will, subordinate its ideology to the needs of the State: Russia, by fighting, “not for principles, which “ she had in common ” neither with the democracies nor with the Axis, “but to assure better borders, to “ liberate the fatherland, and to “ guarantee for herself a Europe no “longer at the mercy of aggres“sors”; the United States and Britain, for example, by accepting totalitarian regimentation for the sake of an essential victory. He argued that if ideology can be subordinated to practical need in war, it can be in peace; that peoples certainly prefer peace to any ideology, and rulers regularly make ideology yield to other interests and values; and that, if the notion of an ideological war is therefore dismissed as futile and unreal, the practical issues become clearer, simpler, and more tractable. Count dalla Torre suggested, then, that in this view it is “not objective” to interpret Russian policy as wholly aggressive; that believing in a Russian “ psychology of aggression ” is not less “ absurd ” than believing in Anglo-Saxon imperialism and expansionism; and that the history of revolutionary France, whose policy was mistakenly held at the time to be purely aggressive, affords a warning parallel. Although his last article sharply criticised Russian efforts to export Communism, Count dalla Torre was hardly less sharp in criticising what was inadequate and therefore dangerous in the Truman Doctrine, as it was still ideologically aimed. The principles round which these articles were elaborated were quite simple: the worst danger is war, the war can and must be avoided, nothing prevents the accommodation between the opposed systems that is necessary to avoid it, And the authority quoted for this reading of the facts was that of his Holiness the Pope: “ For those “ who see things in the light of the “Divine Order there is no doubt “that even in the gravest clashes “of human and national interests “there is always room for a peaceful accommodation”. These in which Count dalla Torre declared bluntly that Communism was “ here to stay ” and that the Church and anti-Commun-ism must learn to live beside it, directed attention to other passages in the Pope’s “Name Day” speech, from which the quotation was taken —emphasising the supreme importance of making a durable peace and of the November conference of Foreign Ministers in accomplishing it. They turned attention, also, to certain broadcasts—foreign-language exclusively—from Moscow, in which the commentator, Hoffman, insisted

on the Lenin-Staljn doctrine, that the Soviet Union and capitalist countries could co-operate: “There “is nothing the fascist aggressors “ fear so much as political and mili- “ tary co-operation between the “ Western Powers and the U.S.S.R. ”. Finally, the articles were followed by persistent reports of a concordat between the Communist Government of Poland and the Vatican, one of whose two Polish Cardinals, Sapieha, is on friendly terms with the Government—not so the other, Cardinal Hlond. This summary of the evidence is offered without any attempt to evaluate it: more than one valuation is possible. But it is evidence that ought to be considered .together with the relevant part of Dr. Garbett’s speech.