STALIN'S AIMS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 32, 8 February 1943, Page 3

STALIN'S AIMS

FAR EAST REPUBLICS U.S. Writer Predicts Action Against Japan Rec. 10 a.m. NEW YORK, Feb. 7. Walter Duranty, of the North American Newspaper Alliance, who is considered an outstanding authority on Russia, says that if Germany cracks before the British and Americans have penetrated deeply into Europe, the Russian leader, M. Stalin, may be unable to resist the temptation to rush armies to Berlin. "But what he really wants," Mr. Duranty says, "is not concerned with Europe, where he is only interested in holding the Baltic States and getting access to Istanbul and also the Persian Gulf. His interest is focused on the Far East, where he desires to establish independent Soviet republics in Manchuria, Korea, and even North-western China. "Whether the Chinese leader, Chiang Kai-shek, likes it or not, Stalin's outstanding post-war aim is to control the West Pacific—in other words, the Chinese coast. He is not opposed to the British recovering Singapore and Hongkong as long as the Russians hold Port Arthur. "This does not mean that Stalin is unwilling to co-operate with the Allies, but there is one thing we must understand —Stalin does not love Japan. Therefore I predict that as soon as German pressure against Russia is reduced and as soon as the Allies are able and ready to put at least 1000 first-line planes, with pilots and ground crews, at Vladivostock, the Russians will co-operate in our deathstroke against Japan."

Admiral H. R. Stark, commander of United States Naval Forces in Europe, has returned to London after conferences in Washington with President Roosevelt and officials of the United States Navy Department, states a British Official Wireless message.