THE SOVIET PLAN.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 221, 26 January 1928, Page 4

THE SOVIET PLAN.

WRITING on the Soviet plan of disarmament introduced at the recent Preparatory Commission at Geneva, the London Spectator comments : “We wrote of the Russian scheme for complete and immediate disarmament as fatuous nonsense. We wish we could modify this harsh description, but unfortunately /we cannot, for nonsensical the scheme certainly was. Think what it meant. It meant that the immediate suppression of all factories which produce arms, all military training, all Ministers of War, and all navies, would unarm the decent nations in the world and leave armed all those rogues and malefactors who are only waiting for an occasion to prey upon their neighbours. The scheme would be tantamount to doing away with the police. That is not our idea of peace, as we cannot believe in a policy of letting hell run loose and calling it by a pleasing name. The Soviet proposal went even further than we have yet said. It was proposed that every factory capable of being converted to military purposes should be abolished. In other words, half the factories in the world which minister to the well-being of mankind by producing chemicals and drugs and dyes, and many forms of clothing, would be levelled to the ground as being capable of conversion. You might as well abolish mankind altogether —particularly as men are more easily adapted to military purposes than anything else on earth. Everybody would have to be disarmed within four years. ... In order to present this piece of stupendous nonsense, M. Litvinoff defied all the rules of procedure in the Commission. He punctuated his speech with violent abuse of the League. The purpose of the scheme is plain enough. The Soviet says in effect, ‘ Militarism is only Capitalism under another name. The Bolshevists are the only pacifists in the world. By this scheme we put you and all your ways to open shame.’ What M. Litvinoff has never foreseen is that impertinent folly brings more shame to its author than on anyone else. In order to ‘ rag ’ the rest of the world he suggests that the keepers of civilisation should destroy every means of defence and discipline, and that only the brigands and bandits should remain with the means to enforce their wills. The Commission will proceed undeterred by this demented demonstration to consider security, which is the first step towards disarmament.”