COMMUNIST ARMIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 105, 6 May 1939, Page 8

COMMUNIST ARMIES.

! Mr. Hugh McHaigh asks why Communist armies do not march, or fight, to vietorv if, as is alleged, they are the best fighters. This correspondent instances Spain and Poland. Is Mr. McHaifrh ignorant of the fact that in the case of Spain the so-called democratic nations declared neutrality—the said neutrality consisting of withholding arms and war materials while knowing that the "Communist" army (although the late Government forces there were not Communist, despite Mr. McHaigh'e inference) was tip against a rebel force which was kept fully equipped, reinforced, provisioned and officered by the German and Italian Governments. I apologise for taking space to explain this well-known fact. I thouclit even the most biased knew that notorious fact! A Chinese Communist army is not under that handicap—yet—and so fights better, being better e<|uipj>ed. etc. When Mr. MvHnigh was altout it, why did he not instance tlie defeat of the combined British. French an<l .\nieii<-an fo:;~es by the Communist armies following the Great War when the Allies attacked l'ussia? I am not a Communist and consider Communism one of the major evils of the world, but my antagonism does not ldind me to the fact that, in the instancc quoted, the '•Communist" army had every obstacle placed in its way by the democratic (?) Governments of Britain. France and America. Finally, it took all these handicaps, plus the aid of Italian and German soldiers, armaments, aeroplanes, etc.—not to mention the assistant of tlie heathen Moors—to finally destroy ths democratic army of Spain. * E.WJ.