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Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1941. A SOVIET-NAZI ALLIANCE?

ALTHOUGH in its only recent military adventure —the attack on Finland —Soviet Russia gave no impressive demonstration of military efficiency and fighting power, reports published in Britain that Russia and Germany are believed to be beginning negotiations for a full military alliance open up, at their face value, no agreeable prospect. What these reports are worth is quite uncertain. On the oilier hand it is certain that a SovietNazi military alliance, if it were concluded, would be a temporary and precarious adjustment and would not avert the clash that is bound sooner or later to occur between the two countries unless the Nazi dictatorship is overthrown and its power for evil destroyed.

Even if she played no active part in the war, Russia, in linking up with Germany as a lull military ally of course would create new and serious problems for Brilain and her associates. It ha.S been stated, for instance, that the Nazis are seeking assistance, in the use of Russian shipping on tin* Black Sea and in other ways, in organising military transport to Iraq and Iran. Obviously if Russia combined with Germany in putting pressure on Turkey and other States, the position in the Middle East might become very critical indeed. There are unpleasant possibilities also in the Far East—for example in the use of bases on the Siberian coast by Nazi commerce raiders. Another point that has to be - considered is the effect of such developments on Japanese policy.

It is undoubtedly open to Russia to create new and farreaching difficulties ami dangers for Britain and her allies by making common cause with Germany and no consideration for the democracies will restrain Stalin and his colleagues from taking that course. The best reason for believing that the Soviet will not enter into a military alliance with Germany is that, in the extent to which the alliance achieved its objects against the democracies. Russia would find herself the helpless victim of Nazi ambilion and exploitation. As between making or refusing to make a genuine-alliance with Germany, there is no doubt a third possibility for the Soviet-—that of entering into a make-believe alliance. Something <>f this kind may commend itself to the crafty and tortuous-minded Soviet loaders as, in the words of one of yesterday’s cablegrams, “a means of staving off the threat to Soviet interests which is envisaged in a German conquest of Europe.’’ Obviously, however, in whatever degree Soviet assistance helped the Nazis Io confirm and consolidate the conquest of Europe, the threat to Soviet interests would be intensified.

The readiness of the Soviet leaders to enter into any kind of negotiations with the Nazi dictatorship, assuming that they are doing so, finds its most convincing explanation in the fact that they are very much afraid of-Germany as a military power. Of the fear thus entertained, conclusive evidence appears in the timid and halting opposition the Soviet has offered Io the progress through South-Eastern Europe in which Germany has now gained a foothold on the Black Sea and has established herself on the immediate approaches to Istanbul and the Turkish Straits. There is hero a threat to Russian interests which the Soviet undoubtedly would have been as glad as any Russian Government of the past Io defeat or avert had it fell able Io do so.

Apart from the bitter discomfiture Russia has suffered in the Balkans and the menace Io her interests in areas further cast, she is threatened in other ways by the extension of Nazi conquest. Germany is reasonably well placed, as Mr Churchill pointed out not Jong ago, to attempt “to secure the granary of the Ukraine am! the oilfields of the Caucasus.” The possibility has to be considered that despair of winning the Battle ol the Atlantic ami invading Britain may provide Hiller with a motive, fully adequate in his own estimation, for turning to conquest and plunder in the Ukraine and other parts of Russia. On this subject, an American authority, Mr Calvin B. Hoover, wrote recently::—

Such an invasion would not present a difficult military task for the German Army. The organisation of industry that must supply the Soviet armies, the training and morale of the Red Army itself, and finally the sentiments of the Russian population toward the Soviet regime are not such as to presage a Soviet resistance much more successful than that of Poland or France. But after such a victory the Nazis Would v6ry likely be in a weaker military position than before on account of the expenditure of munitions involved. Only in case it proved possible to come to terms with the British which would leave them in possession of their Russian conquests would such a venture prove profitable. Consequently, only desperation or the prospect of a long continued stalemate seems likely to produce such an eventuality. Mr Hoover thinks I hat Russia, at present, is best protected against a German invasion by her poverty. “An invading army,” he observes, “would find precious lillle in Russia now that would he ol' much value for military or any other use.” This, however, seems doiddful. Invading the Ukraine, with its annual grain crop of Ki million tons, apart from its important mining and industrial production, the Germans no doubt would be within reach at once of a great deal of very acceptable plunder. Even as a purely temporary arrangement, a Soviet-Xazi alliance would imply in the first |)lace that the Nazis are willing to abandon for the time being all thougdit of invading and plundering Russia and in lhe second place that Stalin and his colleagues believe thal by giving substantial aid to Germany, in the Middle East or elsewhere, Russia will make li('rsolf more secure against German altaek.i Belli implications pul siieh a strain on belief as'lo east considerable doubt on lhe reports thal negotiations “for a eoniplete military alliance’’ have been begun. Nothing is heller established, in any case, limn that Russia is classified by tin 1 Nazis as a prospective victim.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAITA19410523.2.19

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 May 1941, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,008

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1941. A SOVIET-NAZI ALLIANCE? Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 May 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1941. A SOVIET-NAZI ALLIANCE? Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 May 1941, Page 4

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