Editorial: Potsdam pointers
America and Britain may be hoping to achieve great things at Potsdam, but it is very doubtful if any noteworthy benefit will accrue to them out of this conference between Stalin, Truman and Churchill. The basic political aims of the Anglo-Americans on the one side, and the Russians on the other, are so diametrically opposed that there can be no agreement which can satisfy both parties. On the contrary there is every reason to feel that they will leave Potsdam more suspicious of each other than ever before.
For example, the Anglo-Americans would do anything to shift some of the burdens of the Pacific war on to the shoulders of Soviet Russia, but Stalin is no fool. It suits him admirably to pursue his fundamental peace policy of rehabilitating war-torn Europe according to Soviet ideas, facilitated by the circumstance that America and Britain, Russia’s opponents, are steeped in a bloodier war than that against Germany, and continue to be bled white by Nippon’s indomitable fighting forces.
Problems affecting Soviet interests in the Dardanelles and Mediterranean cannot be solved to the advantage of the Soviet Union by a weak Russia; Stalin will continue to hold the whip-hand over the Anglo-Americans on these and other points at issue so long as the Anglo-Americans remain embroiled in the Pacific. So it can be seen that Russia has nothing to gain, but much to lose, by interfering in the Far East war against Nippon. Chungking also is significantly courting Moscow at the expense of Washington. The Anglo-Americans are being licked by Russia, politically and economically in post-war Europe, just as assuredly as they are being licked militarily in the Pacific by Nippon.