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For two years Joseph Stalin had refrained from any public pronunciamento. Last week, in a Pravda interview, the mighty oracle of Communism gave his thoughts on some selected issues of the day.

P: On a recent statement by Britain's Prime Minister Clement Attlee that British rearmament sprang from Russia's failure to demobilize: "A slander ... A lie . . . The Soviet Union ... is expanding its civilian industry ... It cannot simultaneously . . . multiply its armed forces . . . Attlee is not in favor of peace."

P: On Korea: "If Britain and the U.S. reject finally the [Chinese Communist] proposals ... the war in Korea can only end in a defeat of the [U.N.]."

P: On the U.N.: "Shameful... The tool ... of the American aggressors .. . dooming itself to disintegration."

P: On World War III: "At the present time it cannot be considered inevitable . . . [It] may become inevitable if the warmongers succeed in entangling the masses of the people in lies . . ."

What, in non-Communist terms, was Stalin trying to say? Among other things, Stalin was obviously trying 1) to discourage British rearmament, 2) to encourage his bleeding Chinese junior partner, 3) to deepen "third force" confusion everywhere, and 4) to further the worldwide Communist "peace" propaganda. Was Stalin also preparing for a Soviet withdrawal from the U.N.?

Britain's Attlee and the U.S.'s Harry Truman might have answered their Kremlin adversary through interviews, too. It just so happened that London had a more direct reply handy. The Foreign Office had prepared another note in the long exchange with Moscow over a Big Four conference. It was quickly sharpened up and made public. No diplomatic tea talk but a blunt, fact-facing brief, it said:

Moscow was guilty of "distorted and misleading arguments . . . unfounded allegations. [Russian] forces remained far superior ... to those of all the Western powers put together." The postwar record of Soviet behavior was cited: "Denial of human rights" in the Balkans, support for rebellion in Greece, promotion of the Cominform and Red fifth columns, blockade of Berlin, obstruction in the U.N. "Communist imperialism ... is ready to use force to obtain its ends by conquest . . . Slowly and unwillingly His Majesty's Government were forced to the conclusion . . . that it was the aim of the Soviet Union to undermine the independence of the free nations . . ."

Despite such Soviet villainy, His Majesty's Government (like France and the U.S.) were still ready to talk in a Big Four conference. But there was no hemming & hawing in the meantime. The British voice sounded clear as a bugle note.

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