RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 107, 30 January 1939, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On current

Events

(By

Kickshaws).

Ml over the world, it is revealed, the rag trade is languishing. Can it be that men wear their clothes too long, and women too short? # * ♦ The sun, it is said, will last another 1000 million years. At the rate we have been using the sun this summer it might last for ever. ♦ * * It has been claimed that the motorcar is ruining the younger generation, but nothing is said about what the younger generation is doing to the motor-car. t ♦ ♦ The recent German estimate of the military might of various Powers carefully avoids any mention of the German totals. There are other things about the German rearmament that are also rarely mentioned. Up to the year 1936 or thereabouts Germany was borrowing money from America, England and elsewhere with which she paid off reparation debts. A total of about £2,000,000,000 was borrowed in this manner. Half of it was used for rearmament purposes, or to liberate other funds for that purpose. One hears about the generosity of the old-time Maori who shared his ammunition with the attacking foe. It would seem that Britain and America have been smitten with similar acts of generosity. One can build quite a fair-sized aeroplane force with £1,000,000,000. It -was just this stick that was used to threaten the world at the.time of the crisis of Czechoslovakia. Maybe our troubles today were largely of our own making, a few decades ago. Yet there is still an undercurrent of talk about lending money to dictator countries. * * *

Estimates of military strength usually give imposing arrays of figures, but there are other things that affect the outcome of hostilities. Russia tops the list in military might. She has always done so. The Russian steam-roller proved to bo a cumbersome affair during the Great War because it required so much steam. Front-line strength is very little use if there is no organization to make up the losses. These may amount to 25 per cent., or even more, in a season. The Germans estimate that Russia has an army of 11,000,600. It is probable that, given the necessary organization, Russia could produce an army of 18,000,000. Her total population, after all, is 180,000,000. The task of organizing supplies for such a huge force Is considerable. Moreover, it is doubtful if the Russian transport system could move an army of half that strength any distance without breaking down. Germany has an estimated military strength of just under 3,000,000. In contrast, Germany has good roads, an organized system of lorry control, a network of railways, and every possible facility for organized movement.

There is another aspect of Russia’s military might which has escaped attention, except by military experts. The unceasing purges have not helped to build up an efficient military or naval staff. From May, 1937, to June, 1935, 384 marshals, corps commanders, and generals of the Russian Army were removed from their posts and shot. The five marshals of the Red Army have been reduced by these means to two. Three out of six army group commanders have been eradicated, 10 of the 13 army commanders, 57 of the S 3 corps commanders, 110 out of 195 divisional commanders, and 202 out of 400 brigade commanders. The commander-in-chief of the navy has been shot, and the admirals commanding all the Soviet fleets have been imprisoned, if not shot. The chief of the air force, the head of the tank corps, the commandants of the staff colleges have also gone the same way. This does not include a long list of lesser officers who have been shot or executed. This sort of thing is not calculated to produce an effective fighting force.

Considerations of military might are more closely associated with raw materials than is usually realized. Indeed, those who have studied the matter of financing a war insist that the expense of creating and paying for huge armies is nothing compared with the task of keeping the army clothed and supplied with an adequate flow' of war material. The costs, in fact, are in the proportion of 1 to 10, or even greater. Every shell fired represents a day’s pay for a general, or a week’s pay for a soldier. Money alone cannot ensure a steady flow of war materials. Germany discovered this fact in the Great War, when the world markets were gradually closed to her. It is a factor that would cause concern to dictator countries and to Japan in the event of another war. A huge reserve of military materials, armaments, ammunition and the thousands of other things is the only alternative. By striking hard and successfully it might be possible to ensure victory before the spectre of closed markets started to make success impossible. Time, on the other hand, is fighting for countries such as Britain and France.

“I noticed recently that in reply to a writer’s request you state that there is no difference between a Fascist and a Communistic State,” says ‘‘H.' ‘‘Though this view is commonly expressed it is, I think, a mistaken one. To give a detailed explanation of the differences would be a major task, out I think that the following from a recent article by R. H. S. Grossman epitomizes the situation. "To say, however, that the Nazi economy in some ways resembles that of Russia does not mean that Hitler has gone Communist;. Whatever the resemblances, there is an eternal gulf fixed between a totalitarian economy inspired by the ideal of social equality (Russia) and one whose only motive is imperial power (Germany). The Russian worker had to pull in his belt for a time while he built the foundations of a new equalitarian prosperity; but the German people have been'regimented and starved by a new ruling caste in whose conception of tlie good life power economics and. social inequality are essentials. It is possible'that the rulers of Russia might forget their ideals, but there is no chance whatsoever of the Nazis suffering a conversion to Socialism. Only their ? liquidation would accomplish that in Germany. The true difference between German and Russian economy is not that between monopoly capitalism and planning, but between an economy planned to raise Hie standard of living of a self-contained community and an economy planned by a bankrupt exporting State for the pur. pose of imperialist expansion. The Russian objective is simple, and modilied only by the requirements of. defence; tlie German plan of Autarkic constantly modified as new areas of exploitation are added to tlie Reica; its only constant is the determination to maximize the power of the State. [Tlie reader in question asked for an answer in simple. understandable language. What the systems do is irrelevant, it is what they are that is relevant.]