THE RUSSIAN STEAM-ROLLER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 19, 29 October 1943, Page 4

THE RUSSIAN STEAM-ROLLER

HABITUALLY in the early years of World War No. 1 the legions of Imperial Russia, were described because of their density and habit of attacking 'en masse;' as the 'Russian Steamroller.' In the initial stages of the great struggle it appeared that the armies of the 'Little Father' fully warranted the title, for by sheer force of numbers they swept into East Prussia and were halted only in the dismal battle of the Pripet Marshes when leaderless, and weaponless the sons of the vast green kingdom were slaughtered by the tens of thousands. To-day after withstanding the greatest invasion of modern times, the new armies of Russia founded upon independence and a new-found outlook of hope and freedom, have once again earned the appellation. What can we think of them now, when imbued with their new national spirit, they sweep before them the toughest veterans of a war machine which has hitherto known nothing else but the laurels of victory. No longer are they leaderless bereft of weapons and ammunition, or fed only by plundering the land through which they traversed. To-day they are defiant, bold, and inspired—then supplies organised and functioning to a degree, and their weapons poured out in ever-increasing flow by the faith and confidence of the millions that compose their citizen armies of production. From the shores of the Gulf of Finland to the Kurch Ismus in the Crimea millions of soldiers of the Soviet are waging the battle of freedom on a scale which makes our own campaign in Italy look like a mere skirmish. Action on the whole two thousand mile front is epitomised by the; deadly struggle now going on in the bend ot the Dnieper River where the Germans are retreating at a pace hitherto unparalleled. Hundreds of villages and centres are recaptured daily, and still the great armies of Stalin move stolidly on like a vast avenging jaggernaut. How tar and how long they will continue to advance in the face ot orowing Nazi apprehension and dismay is a question unanswerable at present, but the stream-roller of modern Soviet Russia apparently takes a power of stopping.