The Evening Star MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1939. UNCERTAINTIES.

Evening Star, Issue 23374, 18 September 1939, Page 8

The Evening Star MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1939. UNCERTAINTIES.

To-day’s war news is a perplexing blend of good and ill. More strongly than ever, the French’ forces are making their presence felt on the western front, and in the face of developments there students of military strategy would be justified in predicting that when tho British troops now being massed alongside their old allies arc sent into action the combined pressure will be at least sufficient to cause a diversion of German troops from Poland in order to stem the advancing tide,. Unfortunately there has been a diversion of another kind—a most unwelcome one. Not content with having signed a non-aggression pact with -Nazi Germany, thereby giving Hitler every encouragement to attack Poland, Soviet Russia now apparently chooses to give a gallant people, whose only crime is defending their own country, a vicious stab in tho back. Reports of Soviet troop movements across the frontier are still too vague to permit the formation of downright opinions as to the incentive, but it seems patent enough that M. Molotov’s avowed desire to “ protect our brothers ” is a flimsy pretext involving a slavish reproduction of Nazi technique.

It is hardly possible that tho people of Russia are yet aware of what is going on any more than the German people realise tho extent and effect of Hitlerism. Both countries, many points of whose political regimes are similar, appear more than ever to be caught in the iron grip of dictatorship. Whither will it all lead? At the moment the outlook for Poland is black., Tho policy of Stalin and Molotov suggests that they are keen to have a share in the expected spoils, while Hitler and his gangster henchmen seem to be content in the meantime to accept Soviet help if only they gain their immediate objectives in Poland, which principally centre round Danzig and the Corridor, la this way they would retain their prestige in the eyes of those people whom they have roused to heights of aggressive intent. Then the time would soon be ripe for further mischief, probably a drive south-east if the western front activity did not occupy the whole of their attention.

First of all, however, it is likely that once Poland was conquered an approach with a view to peace negotiations would bo made to Great Britain and France, the threat from the Russian “ bear ” being held cut as an additional inducement. That is where Hitler would make his second big miscalculation of the war. His first one camo when ho thought he could raid Poland with impunity after signing the non-aggression pact with Russia. Britain and France, stirred to the highest pitch after years of striving to keep a true peace, have sworn to smash Hitlerism. And smash Hitlerism they will. The uncertainties of the whole position, including the attitude of other nations such as Turkey, Italy, and Japan, forbid prognostication as to the ways, although the means, in the form of vast resources and wide eventual support in the cause of right, aro certain to be available. Peace would not follow the conquest of Poland. The struggle may be the longer for Russia’s wanton support of aggression, but the genuine peace front will ultimately triumph. '

The extent of the Soviet’s hideous volte face can be judged from reproduction of a leading article which appeared in the official newspaper, ‘ Pravda,’ at the end of July condemning “ unjust ” campaigns against “ nouaggressivo democratic States.” Said ‘Pravda’: ‘‘The Soviet nation hates imperialist war. The Soviet people do not need any foreign land. But they regard with deep sympathy just wars waged by peoples, and they faithfully carry out their obligations to defend them . . . The Soviet people

tranquilly watch the criminal activities of the Fascist warmongers. This tranquillity has nothing in common with the cowardice of bourgeois ‘ isolationists,’ who try to hide in the hushes from the danger of war. The Soviet people know that the onslaught of the Fascist aggressors can be stopped by an effective front of the peace-lov-ing States, and are ready to take part

in the organisation of a genuine peace front.” So much for what the Soviet people are supposed to know. What they do not know would probably fill more space than ‘ Pravda ’ could afford to give the subject. The last remaining shreds of faith in Russia must disappear with the news of the invasion of Poland from the cast. Perhaps in the long run the cause of the western democracies will be all the stronger for the awakening of the world to Soviet duplicity.