RUSSIA’S FAR EASTERN FRONTIER

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 292, 8 September 1942, Page 4

RUSSIA’S FAR EASTERN FRONTIER

Recent reports have indicated growing suspicions of a premeditated attack by Japan on Russia in the Far East, these suspicions apparently have been hardened by the announcement of .ministerial changes in the Japanese Cabinet resulting in the assumption by the Prime Minister, General Tojo, of the control of foreign, policy, a development which is reported to have engaged the attention of the Pacific War Council, which has. been studying its implications. The fact that a pact of non-aggression between Japan and Russia still exists means nothing.. Past experience of Axis duplicity has shown that this unholy alliance for. territorial brigandage regards treaties simply as temporary expedients to serve ulterior motives, to be repudiated when the time is ripe. Estimates of Russia’s resources and preparedness for war in the Far East at the present moment are pure guesswork. ' Whatever may have been publicly known about these at the. commencement of the war must obviously be invalidated by the certainty, that the whole situation has since been radically changed to provide for present eventualities. This applies both to the strength of the armed, forces and to the development of material sources in Asiatic Russia. In a publication last July on the subject— Soviet Asia (compiled by.R. A. Davies and A. J. Steiger, Canadian and American journalists who have travelled extensively in this region) —the authors wisely refrain from attempting to estimate the military position, beyond expressing the belief that half the Russian air force has. been held in Siberia, and that the Far Eastern Army has not been “appreciably drained” for the war in the west. The authors state that the Transiberian railway has been doubletracked right through to Vladivostok, but they add that it is vulnerable to attack, with the possibility of three important supply centres being isolated. Further north, however, two new arterial lines were being rapidly pushed forward to completion. The whole area of Soviet Asia, they report, is enormously rich in material resources for war which are being exploited and developed with great energy and speed. These statements are accompanied by a mass of impressive statistics. In short, the position in their view is that Russia could prosecute and support a war in the Far East from her Siberian resources without undue strain upon her war effort in the west. This conclusion obviously rests upon the assumption that the Russian situation in Eastern Europe will not deteriorate to the point that Siberian resources may have to be heavily drawn upon.