The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echa.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 288, 5 December 1929, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echa.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1929. THE SOVIET ON PEACE AND WAR

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong tliat needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Britain, the United States, and now also France have appealed to China and Russia to desist from hostilities, on the ground that, as signatories to the Kellogg Pact, they, along with some fifty other nations, have pledged themselves virtually to abandon war. The principle laid down by the Pact, that the settlement of international disputes "shall never be sought except by pacific means," is definite and conclusive, and those who, with China and Russia, signed this agreement are thoroughly justified in drawing attention to the fact and urging the belligerents to honour the promises that they have made.

To this perfectly legitimate and courteous reminder the Soviet Government has made a highly characteristic reply. The charge that America has intervened in the RussoChinese negotiations so as to bring undue pressure to bear upon the Soviet is at once disposed of by the fact that the Powers have addressed their remonstrance to China as well as to Russia. The lofty rebuke administered to America for interfering with a State with which it has "no official relations" becomes entirely pointless when we remember that Russia, by signing the Kellogg Pact, has deliberately associated herself with the United States for the alleged purpose of promoting the world's peace. Finally, the assertion that "the Soviet has pursued a policy of peace from the first day of its existence" is such a shameless contradiction of facts known to the whole world that one can explain it only on the assumption that the Dictators Of the Proletariat prefer to regard all "capitalistic" statesmen and peoples as a collection of congenital imbeciles.

But perhaps after all it is as well to know the truth. It has been often pointed out that, to a State and a Government based upon the acceptance of the doctrine of a Class War to be carried to its logical conclusion, peace as the rest of the world understands it can have no meaning, and all Bolshevik promises to keep the peace are subject to this vitally important reservation. Nor are the Bolsheviks content to conduct their own affairs in accordance with the eat-and-dog principles laid down by Marx. They demand the right to spread their revolutionary propaganda abroad throughout the world, and while the Soviet Government is officially engaged in preaching disarmament or signing peace pacts, the Third International —which Mr. Mac Donald ' and Mr. Henderson "cannot dissociate from the Government of Russia"— is openly rejoicing over the anarchy and bloodshed that it has occasioned in China, anr] is publicly appealing to the masses to inaugurate the r_eign of blood and flame in India and Egypt and Britain as well. In view of all these things, what is the value o£ Russia's signature to the Kellogg Pact, and what is the advantage to be gained by pretending that it is possible to bind the Soviet State by any pledge or promise to maintain or promote world peace ?