The Times. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1939. The Twin Dictators

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 306, 28 December 1939, Page 6

The Times. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1939. The Twin Dictators

It is becoming increasingly evident that the Russian campaign against Finland has not been progres ing according to schedule. The latest despatch from Mr. G. E. R. Gedye, the well-informed Moscow correspondent of the New York Times, substantially confirms the reports from Finnish sources that there have been serious setbacks to the plan of campaign of Stalin’s Red Armies, and even if the Finns are eventually overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers, their gallant resistance will have administered a paralysing blow to the military prestige of the biggest army in the world to-day. Thus the gallant little democracy of the north, even though it is vanquished for the time being, may, by pricking the Bolshevist bubble, serve the cause of freedom just as effectually as if it were to emerge triumphantly from the unequal struggle with its ruthless enemy.

The exchange of birthday telegrams between Stalin and Hitler appears to have come at a particularly unpropitious moment. Neither dictator can feel very happy about his choice of an ally. The failure of the Finnish campaign to give Stalin his most coveted birthday present—victory over a foe whose strength and fortitude he has so disastrously under-rated—-must not only be a bitter disappointment to the Soviet leader and a severe blow to his country’s prestige, but it must have caused no little disquiet in Berlin. The revelation of Russia’s military ineffectiveness will hearten all those small nations whose territories are coveted by the aggressor States, while Germany herself must now realise that her eastern ally cannot be relied upon for vital assistance in either the military or economic spheres.

On the other hand, Germany’s record to date cannot have inspired much enthusiasm at the Kremlin. Stalemated on land, her huge armies have lost valuable time while the Allies have been perfecting their war machine. On the sea Nazi prestige lias suffered a tragic eclipse, while in the air the honours have been with France and Britain, and the great Empire air scheme which is developing in Canada must have produced a feeling akin to despair in the ranks of Nazism.

The two dictators may well be friends and exchange birthday greetings. But they are lonely friends—alone in a hostile world. Certainly they stand for the same things. AVe have known Hitler and his methods for some time. Stalin has long been the sphinx of Europe, but he is emerging more clearly from the secrecy with which he has surrounded his aims and ambitions, and the likeness to his dictator ally is becoming almost twin-like.

M. Boris Souvarine, an ex-Communist, who was a member of the executive of the Third International, has written a biography of him prompting this from a reviewer; “The frank opportunism of Stalin’s attitude has been stamped on Soviet foreign policy. Was he ever a sincere believer in world revolution? Did he ever really believe that the regime which he was establishing in Russia was * Socialism in a single country ’ ?

“Had lie his tongue in his cheek when lie allowed Soviet Russia to join the League of Nations and M. Litvinov to talk about the indivisibility of peace? What lay behind that cryptic smile as he was photographed side by side with Herr von Ribbcntrop after the signature of the German-Soviet Pact?” M. Souvarine does not know, though he foresaw as a possibility the treaty with Nazism and sees no efficiency in Russia except in purges. A new purge would seem overdue.

As to the Finns, a writer in the Spectator who was with them when the war began describes how they met its menace—dourly and silently, almost, it seemed, without any need for directions. The soldiers went to their places. “Every Finnish family seemed to know instinctively what to do and how to do it, without unnecessary questions A Finnish sailor from the Aaland Islands expressed his country’s attitude when he said: *We only want to be free.’ ” No country, among the new States of Europe—or the old ones—had used freedom better than Finland. Nor has any served freedom more nobly.