FRIDAY, June 4, 1948. The Grey River Argus SOVIET STAND AGAINST PEACE

Grey River Argus, 4 June 1948, Page 4

FRIDAY, June 4, 1948. The Grey River Argus SOVIET STAND AGAINST PEACE

'J’Hhe difficult or rather impossible task of putting' upon Soviet polisy any appearance of justice or conciliation is doubtless the reason why its defenders abroad do not attempt a defence, by rely entirely on abusing the Western Powers whom the Soviet is every day obstructing’ and thwarting. Especially is the United States making very great sacrifices in goods, services, and money to tug Europe, Asia and the world generally out of the slough of despond. Every needy country which is free to accept it welcomes American help. But the Soviet —despite having, with the countries now its satellites, received the bigger part of the U.N.R.R.A. aid—has kept the "great divide," impenetrable, in defiance of humane consideration. It has excused its antipathy by pretending that the food, freedom, and faith America dedicates to every suffering people are merely mercenary. By the very theory which the Communists advance to explain all American action —that it is purely acquisitive capitalism—the .endeavour to resurrect a stricken world must be regarded only as American inconsistency. On the other hand the Soviet’s own claim to have a gospel if uplift is falsified by its defiance of that ideal in every practical instance of Russian policy. Where the Red Army’s influence has not been used to suvert neighbouring peoples, the white-anting method has been used. Of the former method, illustrations have been Poland and the Baltic States, and of the latter the illustration are Hungary, Roumania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, while other prospective instances are Greece, Turkey, Austria and Finland. There is scarcely an instance where the Kremlin has allowed eoncilation to proceed. It is said that the Western Powers arc self-interested when they unite to preserve so pinch of Europe and Asia from the Communists, and it must be conceded that self-preservation has to be acknowledged as one of their motives in view of the fact that they have grown more united in the determination to preserve at least most of Germany, Italy, Austria, Greece and Turkey from the fate of those countries of Eastern Europe which .Communists call ‘‘‘new’’ democracies.

One big question which Soviet non-co-operation raises everywhere is what may be the ulti'.iate object of the Kremlin. It is often said this is simply world revolution, but that is not an accurate generalisation. That it is not is one reason indeed .why the elements on which the Soviet relies in foreign lands have so little to say in elucidation, much less laudation, of the aforesaid non-co-operation. The truth which begins to appear for everybody who is not prejudiced is that externally the Russian policy remains to-day much the same as was the Czarist policy. It is that of extending Russian power and possession. The 1917 revolution saw a large area sacrificed by the Bolsheviks for the time being, but nearly all of this has in the last nine years been regained, or the equivalent in area. Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, and other Asiatic areas are examples, for there the Soviet is 'ready to impose its sway. Turkey remain) in imminent danger, and if Greece is less threatened than a few months ago, the reason is

that Western aid had withstood the. incursions of guerrillas from Soviet satellites. Stalin and Hitler reckoned, twenty months before they fell out, that the whole area south of the Caucasus as far as the Indian Ocean should be one of Russian exploitation, and if Persia, as well as Greece and Turkey are meantime helped by the Western Powers, it is because the Kremlin retains the ambition to advance as far as the Indian Ocean. When Molotov and Hitler first disagreed, the reason was that the former wanted to advance into the Balkan area, towards the Dardanelles which at that stage did not suit the Nazis. But the defeat of the latter has seen the realisation of Molotov’s aim. for practically the whole Slav race not to mention Hungarian Magyars and

Roumanian Latins is now within the "curtain". Marshal Sokolvsky has just told Germans in th? Soviet zone they •need not fear annexation, put insisted that Germany must become a unit politically before it can be so economically. The meaning'of this may be that the unity desiderated is of as fully Communistic a. type as that imposed under the oneparty technique in all of I lie other subject areas. Hence, with most Western Germans as anxious as the majority in (‘very other free European country to keep out Communism, the Kussians may continue, hedging as assiduously as M. Molotov has been doing on every question the solution of which is essential to a real peace. Nobody can say with any accuracy what goes on behind the curtain, but it may be a good guess that the most urgent plan is one of armament.