Politically understood, therefore, the Greek mutiny of April,
1944, and the subsequent Greek Civil War, were armed skirmishes
between the Soviet Union, representing international communism,
and the British Empire. In the Second World War, however, which
had still at that time more than a year to run, Britain and the Soviet
Union were allies against a common enemy. We have been record-
ing, we thus see, another war.

In the late summer of 1945, Japan fell. The Red Army, though
somewhat tardy in arrival, took quick control over Manchuria and
parts of North China. During the time that followed, the com-
munist armies of what had been called the Yenan Government,
sheltered, equipped and in part officered by the Red Army, at-
tempted to establish independent sovereignty in Manchuria, north-
ern and some of central China. These armies met in battle with the
armies of the Chungking Government, trained and equipped with
the help of the United States Army, and transported toward the
scene of action by ships of the United States Navy. But in the Second
World War, the United States and the Soviet Union were allies.

In the Spring of 1946, a little late by the diplomatic clock, the
Red Army withdrew from northern Iran. As is the custom of occu-
pying armies, it left behind among the population a reminder of its
stay. The young offspring was, however, more formidable than
usual: a new little red army, trained, equipped and led by the aid
of its political father, with a new autonomous state and a new po-
litical party for its playthings. This new little army faced south and
southwest and southeast, toward India, toward the Persian Gulf,
toward the great oil fields of the United States and the British
Empire, flanking the land bridge to Africa.

We are inured to the fact that a great war stirs so deeply the social
cauldron that the fumes and bubbling cannot be expected to subside
at the mere official declaration of the end of hostilities. Subsidiary
wars, mass strikes, civil wars, colonial revolts are the accompani-
ment of the last stages of great wars, and the usual aftermath. This
was true of the First World War, in the period from 1917 to ap-
proximately 1924, and it is true now of the postlude to the Second
World War. The civil wars and strikes and revolts are a phase of
the war. More accurately, both they and the war are phases of a

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