The Bay of Plenty Times WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 10 1948 THE TREND OF WORLD EVENTS—AS SEEN FROM MOSCOW

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 14823, 10 November 1948, Page 2

The Bay of Plenty Times WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 10 1948 THE TREND OF WORLD EVENTS—AS SEEN FROM MOSCOW

“With oui* backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, we will fight on to the end,” This famous message, which heartened Haig’s weary troops in France in the grim days of early 1918 and helped finally to turn the tide of battle, might well be translated into Chinese and issued as an order of the day by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek.

With nuig'mficient courage, the Chinese President has opposed each of the enemies of his country in turn. Having Held out for. years against the might of Japan and having contributed substantially to her defeat, Chiang Kai-Shek is not the kind of man to give in now, noth withstanding the growing menace from the north, lie has shown Ids strength of character by refuting any suggestion that lie should negotiate with the Communists for peace, and has expressed his fixed determination to fight on —for .eight years if necessary —until final victory is achieved. The attitude of the Chinese intellectuals, as expressed in the appeal issued by a hundred professors in Nankin, recalls the Munich spirit—if it does not suggest something a shade more sinister. In the face of aggression they would stop the war by negotiating a peaceful settlement and form a multi-party Coalition Government. It is not difficult to guess which party would predominate. “The trend of world events,” they claim, “no longer permits the possibility of perpetrating a /me-parly Government with the use of force.” This trend, it would seem, is one seen through a telescope mounted on the roof of the Kremlin.

In Toronto much the same line is being taken by the Red Dean of Canterbury. “Not all the might of the United States would be able to conquer the partisan fighters of the Eastern European Republics in the event of tear with the Soviet Hnion,” Dr Hewlitt Johnson claims and raises the bogey of a hundred million Soviet soldiers ready to annihilate the 'West. The coincidence of two such similar assertions coming from the extremes of East and West is striking.

With (he rejection of Communism in Britain and the gradual awakening of the United States and the Commonwealth countries to its menace, its defeat earlier in (Tie year in Italy and its more recent failure to capture the French Upper Mouse, it would seem that the Com inform, which directs and co-ordinates its activities throughout the world, has been compelled to change its tactics. Sowing in receptive minds, such as those of the Chinese professors and the Dean of Canterbury, the idea of the futility, of opposition to. Communism both in the East and in the West is part of Communist world strategy. There is no surer way to defeat your enemy than to cause him to lose faith in the ultimate success of his cause.