Professor Halecki's article, “Imperialism in Slavic and East European History,” published in a recent issue of this journal was written as the first contribution to a projected scholarly discussion, among students in the field, of the relationship between Soviet expansion and the Russian past. It is my purpose to follow the distinguished historian of Poland in considering certain aspects of this significant question. In particular, I should like to do two things: sketch very briefly some important developments in the history of Russia and Eastern Europe and then comment not only on the possible implications of those developments but also on the larger issue of the background and motivation of the Soviet foreign policy of today. The first part of my article will be a companion piece to Professor Halecki's analytical outline of the history of the same area; the second will refer to some basic problems involved in our attempts to understand tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union, or, for that matter, any other society or nation. Throughout I should like to emphasize, to use Professor Halecki's felicitous expression, the need to adhere as strictly as possible to “the methods of historical science.”

Can Communism and democracy coexist? Only future historians can answer this question with any pretense of success. Contemporaries will often confuse the prerequisites for a sane, rational future with the ugly facts of the present. Yet a present answer to this question is important as a guide to further political action.

Several alternatives have been suggested by those who have been concerned with the possibility of the coexistence of democracy and Communism. Many theorists have been motivated by the hope of seeing either one or the other system destroyed in order to assure to a chaotic world peace based upon at least a minimum of uniformity. There have been some who, on the contrary, have discovered positive values in a bipolarized world, hoping, no doubt, that the world as a whole would benefit from ideological competition. There have been others, and their number is constantly declining, who feared the inherent dangers of bipolarization and who had hoped that coexistence would take the form of reconciliation.

Premier Klement Gottwald and the late Jan Masaryk, as Foreign Minister, headed a Czechoslovak delegation to Moscow during the summer of 1946 to consider various matters, including the negotiation of an aviation agreement. It was my lot at the time to be Minister-Counselor of the Czechoslovak Embassy in Moscow. In that capacity I participated in the events leading up to the signature of the treaty. The account of what occurred may add to the growing lore on the subject of negotiating with the Soviet Government.

Talks had been initiated with Soviet representatives considerably before the delegation left Prague. The negotiations followed the pattern which is now commonplace in the preparation of aviation agreements. A text was prepared which followed the general plan of the standard type established by the International Civil Aviation Organization. In accordance with this pattern each state customarily extends to the other contracting party the right to fly over its territory and to land.

The centenary of the birth of the distinguished Spanish writer Emilia Pardo-Bazán is being celebrated in Spain and abroad with abundant references to her remarkable creative work as a writer of novels and short stories. Little attention has been paid to her work as a critic and scholar, and nothing has been said of her important role as the great pioneer of Russian studies in Spanish-speaking countries. Her influence in this regard was not confined to these countries, since her major study of Russia was translated into English by Fanny Hale Gardiner and published three years after the Spanish edition under the title Russia, Its People and Its Literature. This translation was important in arousing American interest in Russian studies.