THE SOVIET AND DISARMAMENT.

Evening Star, Issue 19799, 24 February 1928, Page 6

THE SOVIET AND DISARMAMENT.

When tho Disarmament Committee of tho League of Nations met in December last to consider the constitution of a new committee intended to co-operate with it, taking the special field of arbitration and security for its scope, the Russian delegate* M. LitvinofF, exploded a peace bomb of his own. On behalf of the Soviet Government he made the proposal that the nations that wanted disarmament should just disarm. Tho Soviet would make one in a general agreement to destroy all armies, navies, and aircraft, and all organisation connected with them within four years, military material to bo all destroyed within the first year. Tho proposal was nob taken seriously. No one believed that tho world could bo disarmed so fast as that, or that the Soviet had any object beyond propaganda. Tho meeting had been called for a special purpose, to which M. Litvinoff’s proposal was not pertinent, and that made an excuse for shelving it till the next meeting of the Disarmament Committee, to be hold in March. Tho new Committee on Arbitration and Security is now meeting. Tho Soviet is not represented at its conference except by an observer, but it has seized the time as opportune for publication of the text of tho magnificent scheme which in round terms it put forward two months ago. It was then a proposal advanced in general terms. It is now tho elaborate draft of a suggested treaty. But its new detail is not likely to recommend it. The Soviet is very thorough. Not only would it abolish all armaments, half of all land, sea, and air effectives to be disbanded in the first year. It would abolish even tho writing of military histories. lictures, photographs, and films of past wars must bo relegated to oblivion, and no one would be allowed to write about war, even theoretically. A quicker way to the end might be to abolish men. Apart from that solution, if the Soviet could have seen its way to disband even a few regiments on its own account, or do anything before this great gesture to discourage a military spirit in its own country, some confidence might be felt in the sincerity of its proposals. But its whole rule has been founded, to an exceptional degree, on force. In the circumstances, most people will share the scepticism of tho American critic of the original proposals who declared: “We do not wish to do the Soviet delegates an injustice, but, after watching the Soviet leaders pcrlorm for ten years, wo have learned to look at the tonsils of every gift horse in their stables.” The world will not be disarmed in four years.