Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, SEPT. 24, 1940. SOVIET TECHNIQUE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 254, 24 September 1940, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, SEPT. 24, 1940. SOVIET TECHNIQUE.

There is a marked familiarity about tlie manner in which the several totalitarian States deal with their victims: With unfailing regularity the trail of spoliation spreads across the landscape of each small country conquered and the imprint of famine and poverty is indelibly cast upon a once prosperous nation. Germany and Russia both practise the grimly fascinating technique of extracting the last ounce of substance from these little States under the guise of incorporating them in' the Nazi or Soviet system, as the case may be. But it is a story too familiar to deceive, and Behind the bland cynicism lies a record of systematic robbery. In her negotiations with Britain, Russia is insisting on the recognition of the Baltic States —• Latvia, Estlionia, and Lithuania —as part of the Soviet Union before negotiating a comprehensive trade pact, the question revolving around the release of gold impounded in London belonging to these formerly sovereign States, also certain Latvian and Esthonian ships held in British ports. It is a situation that serves to focus attention upon the sorry plight of these three countries. In the case of Estlionia the ink was scarcely dry on the document promising independence before Russian soldiers and Fifth Column agents began to trickle in—specially trained agents of the Baltic section of “schools of agitation and subversive propaganda.” At a given signal they mixed with the crowds, forcing with tanks and similar weapons what Russia was pleased to term a “joyous and voluntary” surrender. At the point of the pistol key positions were captured, public-spirited leaders were arrested, criminals were liberated, general terrorisation began, and the Government and Presidency were liquidated. It is true that subsequently the announcement was made of unanimous results in an election, but the truth emerged but slowly that only Communists were permitted to vote. “Backed by Soviet guns and rifles, this new mock Parliament surrendered Esthonia’s independence,” remarks a commentator in words'that might equally well be applied to France in respect to Germany.

Heartless as this method of infiltration undoubtedly is, the economic aspect displays even greater finesse. Whether in Poland, the Baltic countries, or Bessarabia, the technique is always the same. Tlie Russians are accustomed to regard everything in the occupied territory as their property, and a process of systematic looting begins with the arrival of the first troops in foreign cities. Well provided with paper roubles which the inhabitants are compelled to accept, these troops open the way for “artists, writers, and journalists” who ravage the shopkeepers, tendering great

quantities of paper roubles. During last winter the. “Black Bourse” rate in Moscow dropped, to the record low level for recent years of 40 roubles to the dollar, compared with the official rate of five to the dollar, but in Lwow (Poland) people were offering 300 to the dollar. Once the stocks in the shops have been exhausted the contents of private houses of the dispossessed are gradually “bought up” and shipped to Moscow, leaving the formerly prosperous inhabitants bereft of all their worldly possessions. Wherever the hammer and sickle strike the story is always the same—the heartless robbery of a defenceless people, the reduction of neat cities to the general level of Soviet dinginess, and the grim, cynical suppression of a noble spirit to serve the ends of the totalitarian State. All these countries stand as a warning of a yet uncurbed horror.