CONFIDENT HITLER WILL BE BEATEN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 177, 29 July 1941, Page 6

CONFIDENT HITLER WILL BE BEATEN

IVAN MAISKY. the Soviet Ambassador in London, is supremely confident of victory, writes A. J. Cummings in the "News Chronicle," London. It is, of course, common form to predict victory while the battle is on. But I have a great respect for Maisky\s private and honest opinion. This man is a realist, trained in a hard and bitter school. He has neve:- allowed himself to be deceived by rosy illusions. He has a clear, calculating, balanced mind; and for long years it has been his business to probe to the heart of an infinite variety of difficult world problems. His view, therefore, about the stupendous drama soon to unfold itself in Eastern Europe is something more than a pious official hope. It is based on profound experience and on intimate knowledge of the I resources of his own country. He can give chapter and verse for his belief that Russia's land and air power, added to Britain's sea and air power is destined to destroy the menace of Hitlerism. In the somewhat sceptical atmosphere of the past few days it has been refreshing to listen to his plain and vigorous words. The Soviet Embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens has suddenlybecome a place of high importance, besieged by callers high and low. rung up almost continuously by day and by night; the centre of ceaseless diplomatic activity. The Ambassodor remains master of the situation. In all the years I have been acquainted with him I have never seen him flustered or robbed of his self-control. Mind as Sharp as a Needle His mind is as sharp as a needle and it seems never to be at rest. He knows everybody in the diplomatic world and everybody knows him. For nearly nine years, through good and evil times, he has represented his country here with bland firmness, and with consummate skill. The only occasion, so far as I can recall, on which he quarrelled openlv with our own Foreign Office was at the time of the arrest of the MetroVickers engineers in Moscow, in March, 1933, when, Sir Robert Vansittart, acting on the instructions of Sir John Simon, called him to the Foreign Office and used some extremely undiplomatic language about the arrests.

M. Maisky is not the man to take an affront lying down; and one has reason to believe he then gave as good as he got. Usually, however, in spite of the fierce disagreements between Moscow and London, and the sharp suspicions the one entertained of the , other, M. Maisky"s personal relations with the Foreign Office and with members of successive British Cabinets have been friendly as well as correct.

The high spot of his diplomatic career in London was touched in 2?i? rcf l: 1939 ' when Mr - Neville Chamberlain, then beginning to be worried about Hitler, attended a reception at the Soviet Embassy. It was the first time a British Prime Minister had been the guest of a Soviet Ambassador. I was present at this function; and I am not likelv to forget Mr. Chamberlain's shy embarrassment, which abated slight ly after he had swallowed a little of his host's champagne, or the elaborate cordiality of the Ambassador

What manner of man is Maisky, whose arduous mission "to bring about a good understanding between the Soviets and Britain has ai last been realised under the spur of a peril common to both? He is .short, dark, keen-eyed, aflable, modest, with no airs and graces, utterly devoid of pretentiousness. Notwithstanding the hardships of his early revolutionary life he has a fit and sturdy look and is capable of prolonged mental efforj without fatigue. Incidentally, he has an excellent command of idiomatic English, though he speaks it with a noticeable Russian accent. In Prison and Kxilo Seventeen years or his life have been spent in prison or political exile. He was born at Omsk, in Siberia; and so was his charming wife, though it was in Moscow manv years later that he first met her lie once told me that his father, an army doctor, had social democratic idea's and that he shared them as a boy attending a local secondary school where he took an active part in the distribution of revolutionary pamphlets. After being turned out of St Petersburg University he escaped to Germany in 1908 and graduated at Munich, his special course of study being economies. . In _ 1912, at the age of ZS. he came to England as a political refugee The immigration authorities at Whitehaven stopped him on the ground that no third class foreign traveler could enter the country with less than £5. Young Maisky could produce only £3 19/G Fortunately he was able to present a note from Chicherin establishing his bona fides as a political refugee and he was allowed to pass. For five years he worßed in Fleet btreet as a freelance journalist and earnt then to speak English rather less well than he spoke German. IJuring the same period he came to know Ramsay Mac Donald well There is a humorous glint in his eve when he mentions this early association with the man who was to become Britain's first Labour Prime Minister. But he will tell no tales

In 1917, the year of the Bolshevik Revolution, he returned to Russia and filled many administrative posts ~ In 1922 he became Press officer to the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and that was his stepping stone to a counsellorship at the London Embassy. Afterwards. Ambassador to Japan and then to Finland appointments which serve to explain his very considerable knowledge of Japanese and Finnish affairs

Worked Against Fascism In London he worked unremittingly on behalf of a common European front against Fascism, and like his friend Litvinoff, lie was convinced that another European war was the certain and sole alternative Ills acid passage-at-arms with Count Grandi, the Italian Ambasador. in the Non-intervention Committee which met periodically during the Spanish Civil War, provided the one element of comedy in this deplorable Spanish affair.

The deposition of Litvinoff came I think, as something of a shock to rum. With gi'eat loyalty and skill he supported his Government's precipitous departure from the principle of collective security, as well as the attack on Finland.' On these issues, however. I did not find him at all convincing.

All that is past. Maisky is now our immediate link with a Russia fighting with us in the war' for freedom.

He is far too shrewd a critic not to have discovered faults in our British character, chief among which 1 dare say he would consider our slow-mindedness, our inability to adjust ourselves rapidly to a changed situation. Yet he recognises the administrative flexibility which has enabled us to run our variegated Empire: and. like most intelligent foreigners, he :;dmircs iho courage, toughness and obstinacy of the British people at war. He knows that his country can trust us to stay the course.