EVENING POST WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1939. SOVIET ALLOTS BLAME

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 106, 1 November 1939, Page 10

EVENING POST WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1939. SOVIET ALLOTS BLAME

The outstanding fact about the Soviet . Government's manifesto (issued through M. Molotov) is that its expressed purpose and its real purpose are diametrically opposed. M. Molotov professes a desire to stop the war; but he knows that Uie chief effect of this speech which, as M. Stalin's Foreign Minister, he has delivered to the Supreme Soviet Council, will be to incite the Nazis to continue to the bitter end. He also knows that nothing would be more inconvenient for the New Order which M. Stalin is imposing in the Baltic and on East Europe (a New Order quite as arbitrary as that which Japan,' to M. Stalin's annoyance, seeks to impose in Asia) than an early ending to the war and the release of the German, armies from the West for service in the East. Having regard to their real relations with Herr Hitler, the interest of M. Stalin and M. Molotov in a continuance of the war is not a postulate. It is an axiom. And, being the one thing certain, it is the one thing, above all others, that has to be denied. Nevertheless, disbelief in the Soviet Government's anxiety to stop the war does not necessarily involve disbelief in M. Molotov's statement that Russia intends to remain neutral. If the question be asked "what course of events would best suit Communist interests and the Stalin New Order in the Baltic and ih East Europe?" the answer would have to be that a prolonged war of attrition, preferably a wider war in which all non-Com-munist States would exhaust themselves by warlike operations in which the Soviet. Government would take no part except a salesman's part, would be best suited to Soviet Communist interests, especially in the new annexations and protectorates phases of the Stalin-Molotov policy. Now, this definition of Soviet Communist interests is compatible with Soviet neutrality in the present war. But it is not compatible with a short war. At the same time, the Allies need not be dissatisfied with M. Molotov's speech in its neutrality aspect, whatever value they may place on his hope for an early peace, conjoined with his declaration that not the Hitler Government, and not the Stalin Government* but ihe British and the French Governments are prolonging the war! Herr Hitler and Dr. Goebbels have demonstrated, in theory and in practice, that the obviousness of a lie is no bar to giving that lie currency— and is, in fact, an advantage. M. Molottrvy adopting the HitlerGpebbels technique, applies it afresh. Because the Soviet Government entered the war unofficially to secure some spoils, and because retention of those spoils requires that the partner in the spoils-taking (Germany) be kept busy for a while, and because these and other factors create a Soviet interest in prolonging tlie Avar, the better course then (under the mendacity technique) is not to try to excuse one's self but to accuse the other side. ,On no other ground is the charge against Britain and France, of prolonging the war, explainable. If, as "Mem Kampf* points out, the success of a lie is in proportion to its magnitude and audacity, M. Molotov is taking the only course open to one whose pockets bulge with illegally gotten gains, and to whom a war of attrition, calculated to exhaust non-Com-munist States and to undermine .the financial-economic system, must appear as making the world safe for Communism. In reality, non-intervention in-the war is more a Soviet Communist interest than an American interest, but M. Molotov does not pose the question in the American way because he has other fish to fry ih Germany and elsewhere. While Herr Hitler has his back turned to the East, Soviet Russia may yet engage in a new war with Finland, if Finland continues to refuse to compromise her independence hy accepting "a pact on tlie lines of the other Baltic pacts"; but, if that were to happen^ Soviet Russia would not be prolonging the war nor creating a new war. Instead, President Roosevelt is charged by M. Molotov with prolonging the war by his friendly inquiry concerning Finland's independence, and by trying to repeal the United States arms embargo. All this Molotov reasoning is on strict Goebbels lines, and is in the spirit of "Mem Kampf." While the Molotov speech reaffirms neutrality and offers Herr Hitler no concrete military assistance, it is full of mendacious denunciation of the Allies, and full of emphasis of Soviet-Nazi friendship, represented as a new phase which will "affect the entire international situation." In fact, the Soviet is implementing a New Order in the Baltic and is threatening a New Order for the

whole world. Far from being oil on troubled waters, the Molotov outline of Soviet policy is benzine poured on tlie Nazi lire. It is none the less dangerous because of its obvious hypocrisy.