Friendship With Russia
F we print to-day another long article about Russia, it is not to provoke the friends of Russia or question the sincerity of those who believe that Russia has a democratic Government, Our purpose is to emphasise what happens when 150 million people are deliberately isolated by their rulers from free contact with their neighbours, It may not seem very remarkable a hundred years hence that Russia in 1946 firmly rejected friendship with Britain and America, mistrusted them, and about once a week openly attacked them. A very few years have passed since friendship actually was impossible, on both sides, and it is not as if a new generation had grown up and assumed power in the meantime. Nothing like that has happened, and it would be unreal to expect that the old conflicts, animosities, and suspicions could vanish and ledve no trace. But if it is not unndtural that there should be friction, it is extremely painful, and also extremely dangerous, that Russia should not even wish to be friendly with her two
most powerful allies. It may be possible to maintain relations with a neighbour that are neither friendly nor hostile; the New York Times correspondent insists, after ten months in Moscow, that nothing else is possible with Russia; but it is not an easy line to keep, and there is.nothing to indicate that it will become easier within the next few years. The quite astonishing reaction of the Moscow press to the American correspondent’s report indicates, on the contrary, that the only present way to please the Russians is to praise them, that it is offensive to criticise them, and unfriendly even to look at them with both eyes. The democratic answer to that is something which would sound more offensive still, and it will not be made. It is more profitable to look for the hole in the wall that the New Yorker wants to find — a breach through which ordinary people on one side can communicate with ordinary people on the other side without Government control.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 378, 20 September 1946, Page 5
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344Friendship With Russia New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 378, 20 September 1946, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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