FOLLOWING NAZIS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20111, 4 December 1939, Page 7

FOLLOWING NAZIS

TYPICAL TACTICS STALIN TAKES CUE “AGGRESSION" CHARGE SUDDEN INVASION TRUMPED-UP PRETEXT (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Hritish Official Wireless.) Reed. 9 a.m. RUGBY, Dec. 2. The Times says: “'For the second time in three months -a people seeking to maintain their own life and liberty in the midst of huge over-bearing neighbours, have been fantastically accused of aggressive designs. For the second time negotiation lias been terminated by the stronger party on a trumped-up pretext and replaced by sudden invasion in irresistible force.” 'A typical comparison which most editorial writers draw between M. Stalin’s policy and that of Herr Hitler, is the observation by The Times that “the dictators’ armies are endeavouring to trample out the life of an unoffending republic. Bombs, the characteristic weapon of the aggressor when the defence has no comparable air strength to reply, have fallen on open cities and the almost unprotected civil papulation and the tragic procession of . refugees straggling along the roads that lead into the country from their blazing homes.” The Times recalls the declaration by the Soviet Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, M. Molotov, that he wishes the Finnish people to determine their own form of Government. Already 48 hours old, it has served its purpose and may now be forgotten by its author. Of the puppet Administration set up at Terjoki, The Times says that the professed aim—dressed, of course, in the perfunctory disguise of a 'liberation’ of the Finnish people —is to reduce Finland to the status of Outer Mongolia, which is nominally a free partner of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics but is, in fact, universally recognised as the subordinate buttress of Soviet imperialism in Asia.