SINGLE TASK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 July 1941, Page 5

SINGLE TASK

RUSSIA AND WESTERN DEMOCRACIES NEED OF CONCERTED ACTION. BROADCAST BY LITVINOFF. LONDON, July 9. “Hitler planned to knock out the western countries and then fall on Russia, but Hitler has had no training as a Channel swimmer and consequently he evolved the plan of a blitzkrieg against Russia,” said M. Litvinov, former Soviet Foreign Minister, in a broadcast from Moscow in English. “Hitler believed that with a de facto truce in the west he would be capable of dealing with us, after which he would fall with all his strength on Britain and finish her off. He simultaneously aimed to prevent concurrent action from the west and from the east by driving between them an ideological wedge. It is already clear that he is out in his reckoning regarding both the lightning quality of his blow against Russia and the miraculous power of his ideological wedge. “Mr Churchill, with characteristic statesmanlike acumen, declared that a German victory over Russia would be fraught with disaster for Britain. We equally recognise the menace which a Hitler victory in the west wtjuld constitute for Russia. “Britain and her Dominions, with the active help of the United States, have borne the brunt of this struggle, and now we bear the brunt of it. Russia will fight to the end. That is the single, all-embracing task confronting us. “The Red Army is performing veritable miracles in bearing the shock of the whole of Hitler’s war machine and compelling him to transfer ever more forces from the. west to the east. The ler should not have a moment’s respite after their year of incessant bombardment. But it is all-important that Hitler should not have o moment's respite and that he should be disappointed in his hope for a de facto truce in the west.

“Each blow that is struck now will be effective tenfold and will entail infinitely less expenditure and sacrifice than if it is delivered when only one of his adversaries is weaker. The annihilation if Hitlerism means annihilation of the greatest obstacle in history to the development of civilisation. “The Russian peoples may still have much suffering, privation, ordeals and temporary setbacks, but there is no doubt that, conscious of their responsibility to history and humanity. thej r will strain every nerve to fulfil their mission.

“The Russian peoples have responded as one man to M. Stalin’s appeal, and tens of millions have risen to defend their native land, firmly determined to carry on the struggle with other free-dom-loving peoples till the Fascist barbarity has been erased from the earth.”