One Thing Certain

In the Times of London appeared a long letter cabled from Russia, signed by the Red Army's Vladas Karvelis, commander of a Lithuanian division, and Johanes Lukas, Chief of Staff of the Estonian Rifle Corps. Their message: "By joining the Soviet Union and at the same time remaining independent masters of their countries the [Baltic] peoples acquired the broadest opportunities for national, cultural and economic development."

This bit of propaganda, making use of an institution as British as mutton pie, followed Foreign Minister Molotov's announcement of wider autonomy for member states of the U.S.S.R. (TIME, Feb. 14). It also drove home the point that the Russians are determined to regain and keep the briefly free (1918-40) Baltic countries.

Allied Raw Spot. Neither the U.S. nor Britain ever recognized the Russian annexation of the Baltic States in June 1940; each still permits the operation of the old Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian diplomatic agencies in London, Washington and New York.

Like most of the 20,000 Balts who managed to escape abroad before Soviet occupation, the Baltic diplomats in exile are bitterly anti-Russian, as bitterly anti-German. Whether the 1,100,000 Estonians, 1,900,000 Latvians, 2,800,000 Lithuanians who stayed in the homeland now prefer Russian or German rule is unknown. Only one thing seems certain: they will soon have Russian rule, autonomously or otherwise.

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