Red Plan: Phase I

Sooner or later, the day the West had so anxiously hoped (and worked) for would come. The Kremlin would be watching for it too, and would indeed be the first to recognize it for what it was. On that day, the balance, which since World War II had been steadily tipping Russia's way, with the addition of such weights as China and Czechoslovakia (together with the Iron Curtains around them), might start tilting back the other way. What would Russia do then?

During the past year, the leftward tilt of the balance has halted, in a change so subtle that people of the Western world might overlook it. But the signs are there: three former enemies of Russia--Japan, West Germany (including the vital Ruhr) and Italy--are now in the Western camp; a NATO army is forming; the gigantic U.S. industrial potential, to which Stalin paid respectful tribute in World War II, is beginning to Stir.

Last week there were strong indications that Russia, reading these signs, had reached a point of decision; and the place it had picked for action was Germany.

The Word. As usual, the Kremlin's course was clouded by a diversionary sprinkling of dove feathers. A fortnight ago Vladimir Semenov, Russian "political adviser" to the Soviet high commissioner in Berlin, returned from two weeks in Moscow. Next day he called a meeting of top Communists in East Berlin and gave them the word straight from headquarters: Russia's dominant aim now, more important even than Korea, is to prevent at all costs West Germany's rearmament and integration into the West defenses.

To accomplish this, he explained, the Kremlin has a two-phase plan: 1) to reunite East and West Germany before the year's end, on the single condition that it be an unarmed neutral; and 2) by underground political and economic sabotage prepare a "revolutionary situation" in Germany so that Communists ultimately could take over the whole, united area.

Phase No. 1 would seem like a Western victory. Communists, with sweet reasonableness, would accept West German conditions for truly free, nationwide elections, throw open the Soviet zone for three months, allow all parties to campaign without restraint. For leaders of East Germany's Russian-backed Socialist Unity Party (SED), this was virtually an order to play Russian roulette with their political careers. Semenov himself candidly admitted that in a Germany-wide free election, the SED and the West German Communists (KPD) would probably win only 40 seats out of 500. SED men now sitting pretty in the Soviet zone government would lose their fat jobs. To them, Communist scripture was quoted: Lenin, it was pointed out, had advocated the tactic of "one step back" to permit further advance. Further advance in this case would come in the second (sabotage) phase, when the Reds hoped to win back all their losses, and more.

The Deed. Then, as Soviet officials beamed approvingly, SED men trooped into an extraordinary session of East Germany's mock parliament, the Volkskammer, and did their duty like little men. They voted to appeal to the West German Bundestag for an East-West conference to discuss elections. East German Premier Otto Grotewohl gave a rare press conference and elucidated: there were no strings to the offer. Added General Vasily I. Chuikov, chairman of the Soviet Control Commission: "The Soviet government, now as before, stands for re-creation of the unity of Germany . . . speedy conclusion of a peace treaty [and] withdrawal of occupation troops."

He could not have caressed three more sensitive German desires. The proposal aroused a familiar West German yearning: before West Germany irrevocably casts her lot with the Western world and accepts the heavy burden of rearming and endless foreign occupation, why not have another try at unity? Furthermore, the proposal was sweetened with the omission of features that West Germans objected to in previous "unity" plans advanced by the East, e,g., insistence that Soviet East Germany, which is smaller and poorer, have equal representation with the fatter Western half.

The Response. Both Allied High Commission officials and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's government handled the explosive proposal gingerly, and gave signs of wishing they could bury it. West Berlin's Mayor Ernst Reuter gave an immediate answer to the Communists--show faith, he said, by starting with all-Berlin elections according to a law both the Russians and the Allies approved in 1946. But Bonn did not answer so swiftly. No one doubted Adenauer's own firm commitment to the West, but he also recognized the considerable appeal of the Russian offer.

Last week, Adenauer went before a restless, excited Bundestag and stated his government's 14 conditions for participating in an all-German election. They were hardboiled, as the East German Reds had known they would be. Although there was preliminary growling at Adenauer from the East German press, at week's end Communists in the Soviet zone were being allowed to discuss discreetly the possibility of a new overture to Bonn, accepting many of Bonn's conditions. The Volkskammer scheduled another extraordinary session. Phase No.1 was under way.

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