Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1943. MOSCOW AND CO-OPERATION.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 October 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1943. MOSCOW AND CO-OPERATION.

TN what is described as the first official Russian comment on the forthcoming Three-Power conference, tiie Moscow “Pravda” has roughly ridiculed the idea that “the problem of Russian frontiers and the status of the Baltic States” will be discussed, and has affirmed that: — The problem of primary importance is sxyift unification of the common efforts to lessen the duration of the war. With this contention in itself, there can be nothing else than the most complete sympathy. The fighting forces of the Soviet Union are engaged in a shattering assault on what has every appearance of being the last strong defensive line left to the Nazi hordes in advance of the frontiers from which they launched their treacherous and criminal assault on Russia in 1941. The Western Allies, although they have a war with Japan as well as one with Germany on their hands, have also struck and are striking with magni lieent effect on land and sea and in the air and incidentally are giving an immense amount of both direct and indirect assistance to Russia. While it is on the Eastern front that Germany has thus far and most obviously tasted defeat on the greatest scale, the victorious blows struck by the Western Allies in the Mediterranean campaigns obviously are opening the way to much greater developments in that region. At the same time, the great AngloAmerican air offensive, in conjunction with events in the Mediterranean, in Russia, and in the war at sea, is more than beginning to set the stage for the attack on Germany by land forces based on Britain which Russia has been so long and so impatiently demanding. A stage has been reached at which it has evidently become incumbent on the Allies that they should consider how, by a maximum co-ordination of effort they may, as the “Pravda” has said, “lessen duration of the ■war.” It may be agreed out of hand that the primary problem facing the Allies is that of bringing Nazi Germany as speedily as possible' to unconditional surrender. A primary problem is not of necessity a sole problem, however. It is held widely in the English-speaking countries, and it may be hoped (in spite of what Mr J. L, Garvin has called the rough and rasping tone of the Soviet Press) also in Russia that if the coming Moscow conference, and the meeting between the heads of the three leading Allied nations which is to follow, are to serve their full purpose, they must open the way to understanding and co-operation in winning not only the war, but the peace. The “Pravda”, has spoken with approval of examples of developing co-operation between the Allied countries, and it is manifestly upon a great extension of this co-operation that hopes of a nobler international order in the years after the Avar must largely rest. If co-operation is to develop unhindered, there must be a clear and full understanding on a number''of questions now more or less open. In a sense it is perfectly true, for example, as the “Pravda” contends, that the frontiers of Russia) cannot bei a subject for discussion any more than the frontiers of the United States. Whatever may be thought of the status of the. Baltic States, however, the status of Poland, and the determination of Poland’s post-war frontiers, are more than Russian, or Russian and Polish questions. Another matter that needs clarification is the attitude of the Soviet Government towards the Chinese Communists, to whom Russia has given considerable support and who are a thorn in the side of the national movement headed by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. A clear understanding is needed, also, on the terms of peace to be imposed on defeated Axis countries and on the measures by which peace, when it has been established, is to be safeguarded. It must be hoped that at the coming Moscow conference, of Foreign Ministers and at the later meeting of the leaders of the Allied nations there will be an open and frank discussion of what is most essential in. these questions, .as well as of the organisation in maximum power of concerted action against the common enemy. Apart from what the “Pravda” has called their primary purpose, these conferences must do a great deal either to facilitate or to impede an approach to the establishment in world affairs of a reign of law, in which the rights of all nations will be respected and upheld.