Victorian Premier Claims Russians Have Started New War

Grey River Argus, 24 November 1948, Page 7

Victorian Premier Claims Russians Have Started New War

MELBOURNE, Nov. 23

Russia had already begun a third world war, said Mr T. T. Hollway, Premier of Victoria, who has just returned from a three months’ tour of England, Europe, and the United States. He added that he was convinced that the community no longer had to deal with the Australian Communists, but had to fight Russian fifth columnists.

When Russia blockaded the Western nations in Berlin, she had openly declared war on the rest of the world.

“Every strike since then in any part of the world has been part of the Russian imperialist campaign to blot out Western democracy,” he said. He asserted that the Russian fifth columnists the world over wanted to impose tyranny worse than that of the Czars.

“Britain and her workers, so much nearer the menace of Russia, are not prepared to suffer lightly either the disloyal or disruptive actions of local Communist sympathisers, who are either in the pay of Stalin or ignorant of the danger threatening Western civilisation,” he said. “The Russians are using the political doctrine of Communism as a military weapon. There is no variation in technique. It is the same throughout the world as in Victoria. “Russia is deliberately sabotaging Marshal aid by staging shipping and general transport hold-ups and is trying to bring about a state of in-