RUSSIA'S WEAK SPOT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 106, 4 July 1941, Page 10

RUSSIA'S WEAK SPOT

Hitler’s Objective In The North

Written for "The Listener’ by THE REV.

W. S.

ROLLINGS

EPORTS to hand indicate a German drive along the Southern Baltic coast from East Prussia, and one through Finland from Norway. In the latter, according to Berlin, the Finns are marching with the Nazis. The. objective of both drives is said to be Leningrad. The Arctic Life-Line But if Leningrad is a vital industrial centre of the U.S.S.R., it has arteries that can easily be severed. By a series of canals known as the Maryinsky System it is connected with the Volga, and with the whole of Russia. Along these waterways comes the food to supply Leningrad’s millions. And down these waterways the city’s industrial products are distributed throughout the Union. Leningrad is linked with the Port of Murmansk on the Arctic Coast by a railway; and along a stretch of 137 miles a canal runs parallel. This railway, with the canal, is called " Russia’s Arctic Life-line.’ North of Leningrad are Europe’s two largest lakes, Ladoga and Onega. Lake Ladoga is connected with Leningrad by the River Neva while the River Svir connects Ladoga with Onega. For a century various projects

were submitted to the Tsar to give direct waterway connection between Leningrad and the White Sea. Then in 1931 Stalin ordered the construction of a canal as a vital part of his first Five Year Plan. The work was entrusted to the Ogpu -the Soviet police force. And to police supervision and organisation stands the credit of one of the greatest industrial achievements of the present century. An army of workers estimated at over 100,000 was drafted for the job from the Soviet’s gaols and prison camps. They were comfortably housed, well-fed, and novel industrial accessories in the way of sports, music, cinemas, and so on, were introduced; also’ a system of rewards for meritorious service. Many of the workers belonged not to the criminal class but to the intelligentsia. Immense Economic Value The canal has 19 locks, 51 lock gates; and necessitated the building of 49 dykes to raise the level of the canal in low-lying parts. It involved the excavation of 2,500 tons of granite and scores of millions of tons of earthworks. Its economic value is immense. It is open for traffic during the five and a half ice-free months each year. Vessels of 3,000 tons can now pass from the .Baltic to the Arctic Ocean.

Vital Raw Materials The ships and barges which ply to and fro in this canal bring to Leningrad immense supplies of timber from the Karelian forests and timber products, resin, turpentine, paper, etc. But more vital supplies come along this waterway. In the Kola Peninsula immense deposits of phosphate rock and aluminium clay have been discovered. Plants have been erected to treat these at Kandalaksha, a railway centre and port on the White Sea. Russian agriculture formerly was dependent for fertilisers on outside sources. The Soviet can now supply its own needs and produce a surplus of superphosphates for export, The Northern Sea Route The railway and canal are also vital to the functioning of the great Soviet enterprise known as the Northern Sea Route. Siberia has been regarded as a desert of snow and ice, But in Russia it has a major place in the national mind, The Soviet’s fight against Nature to make her Arctic regions economically productive shows creditable achievement. It embraces navigation, aviation, agriculture, and industrialisation. A chain of 57 wireless stations has been established along the Siberian coast. A fleet of ice-breakers with attached seaplane units is in constant commission. The north-east passage giving access to the Pacific is now open for three months each northern summer. The immense forest wealth of Siberia, the greatest now existing in the world, is being exploited. Polar farms are being cultivated. | The great rivers are being navigated for hundreds of miles inland. New industrial cities are rising. Air-lines ply all the year round, using the mouths of rivers for bases, the ‘planes being equipped

with floats in summer and with skis in winter. Fabulous sums have been spent on this scientific development. But the mineral wealth in gold, nickel, copper, antimony, tin and coal which are being mined (so the Administration claims) makes such development a paying proposition. This railway and canal lie within 50 miles of the Finnish frontier and so the Arctic life-line is vulnerable to attack from air and land. Germany may well covet the supplies vital for war needs and industries which pass down this lifeline. In addition its control would be of immense strategic value, for Mur-_ mansk, the terminal port, though within the Arctic circle, is ice-free through the influence of the Gulf Stream, while the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia are ice-bound. Murmansk is destined to become the northern naval base of the U.S.S.R., giving Russia free access to the world’s oceans. Its control by Germany would strangle Leningrad and provide a new base for the submarine battle against Britain.