Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1943. COMRADESHIP WITH RUSSIA.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 February 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1943. COMRADESHIP WITH RUSSIA.

QNLY one opinion is possible in regard to the merit and magnitude of the achievement of the Red Army, which tomorrow is to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its establishment. In the setting of world war and of what has been endured and accomplished by other nations, including our own, it has been and is being demonstrated most conclusively that equally in heroic fortitude and in the striking power made manifest in the shattering of the German winter line, the Red Army stands second to none. Sustained by a nation which has refused to bend or break under frightful calamities and horrors of invasion, the Red Army is making a magnificent contribution to the victory of the United Nations over Axis gangsterdom.

The universal tribute that is due to the fighting forces and people of the Soviet Union has been and will be paid less in words than in deeds. In spite of the unending demands made in other ways on their resources, Britain and the United States have given ungrudgingly an immense amount of direct aid to Russia, not least in the conveyance of war material to her Arctic ports in face of perils and difficulties which probably are without precedent in the history of war. In loyal comradeship between Russia and the Western Allies the way has been opened to powerful concerted attacks on the common enemy in Europe this year and it is upon that comradeship, with Russia playing still a supremely important part, that our hopes of victory rest. To this the New Zealand Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) added in an address last evening—an address in which he paid high tribute to the Red Army and the Russian people and to the service they are rendering to the cause of free humanity—that friendship between the people of the British Commonwealth and the United States and those of the Soviet Union was one of the things “that will enable us to build-a peace settlement worthy of the brave men of all nations who are fighting for it.” Although this opinion is in accordance with that expressed by leading spokesmen of all the Allied nations, it may not even now be accepted everywhere unreservedly.

In spite of the loyal constancy with which Russia is fighting, shoulder to shoulder with her Allies, against Hitlerism and all that it implies, the feai’ persists in some minds that after the war she may be a disturbing and unsettling factor in world affairs. It may be as well to remember that this is precisely the fear upon which the Axis gangsters are seeking to trade in propagandist attempts to open the way to an inconclusive peace. With the ground crumbling under their feet, these ex-1 posed and discredited criminals, who have never had any other aim than the enslavement and degradation of humanity, invite the world to believe that Germany is fighting to save the world from Bolshevism.

The position reached today is that Russia is not only .a. loyal and honoured member of the grand alliance of the United Nations, but has declared her adherence to the Atlantic Charter and has entered into a twenty-year treaty with Britain in which the parties declare their desire

to unite with other like-minded States in adopting proposals for common action to preserve peace and resist aggression in the postwar period.

Under the treaty, too, the Soviet Uijion and Britain mutually pledge themselves to act “in accordance with the two‘principles of not seeking territorial aggrandisement for themselves and of non-interference in the internal affairs of other States.” In estimating the value of these undertakings it should not be forgotten that in what Sir Stafford Cripps has called the difficult and dubious days between the two world wars, Soviet Russia made persistent efforts to bring about the establishment of a positive system of collective security.