ENVIOUS EYES ON THE UKRAINE

Evening Star, Issue 22576, 18 February 1937, Page 14

ENVIOUS EYES ON THE UKRAINE

WORLD’S HIGHEST TERRITORY “ If I had the Ukraine, with its tremendous wealth, Germany would swim in plenty,” said Herr Hitler in his speech, at the Nuremburg rally last September. A month after Hitler, in the presence of 100,000 Nazis, delivered an amazing speech against Russia, including the above-quoted sentence, the German-Japanese Pact was signed (writes E.J.H., in the Melbourne ‘Age’). But even before this the politically-educated world had heard a great deal of Hitler’s designs on Russia. In his famous book, ‘ Mein Kampf,’ he said: “ When we are talking of the need for more German room in Europe w r e can in the first place think only of Russia. and the border States dependent upon her.” Hitler, according to several competent political observers, places his designs under the banner of a world antiSocialist crusade; but the basic policy is by no means new. Before the Great War Germany and Austria were busy .supporting a movement to detach the Ukraine from Russia, when the only Socialists Russia could boast of were in gaol. The policy of the old Imperial German Government is apparently being put into operation by Hitler with remarkable fidelity. There is the same desire to detach France from her alliance with. Russia;, to drive a wedge between Britain and France; to obtain a foothold in Morocco, thus menacing Britain’s trade routes to Australia and India; to establish submarine bases off the Spanish coast, and to ferment rebellion in Spain with the object of obtaining certain minerals found there which are necessary to German munition factories. PEN PICTURE OF UKRAINE. The Ukraine is the nearest and richest Russian province. In area it is as large as Germany, and it contains a population of over 30,000,000, which is half that of Germany, equal to that of Poland, and nearly one-sixth of that of all Russia. The famous Donetz Basin produces 75 per cent, of Russia’s entire coal. * Last year the Donbas mine alone produced 73,000,000 tons of coal, and the Ukrainian metallurgical industry turned out over 11,000,000 tons of pig iron and 7,000,000 tons of steel, which was in excess of tho entire iron and stool production of Germany. The Dnicperpetrovsk plant alone smelted twice as much pig iron as ti e entire metallurgical industry in Poland. These figures are pertinent, as Germany’s most frantic efforts are being devoted to obtaining iron ore in any part of the world possible. The Ukraine is first in the production of electricity, and at Dnieperstroi an aluminium plant produces more aluminium than the whole of France, while nearby are enormous manganese works, both these metals being essential for the manufacture of aeroplanes. The Ukraine is the greatest and.most fertile plain in the world. It is the principal.granary of Russia; and when one considers that last year’s Russian harvest yielded the gigantic total of 5.320,000,000 bushels of grain (very little of which is exported), or about 17 times as much as Australia's harvest, some idea may he gained of the lure which the Ukraine hag for Ger-

many, especially as it is only a small part of Russia. Last year’s harvest in the Ukraine amounted to 850,000,000 bushels of wheat from 50,000,000 acres, or 17 bushels to the acre, compared with only eight bushels to the-acre in the time of the Tsar. In the combined wealth of its mineral and agricultural sources the Ukraine is far richer than Germany. Its less important products include * huge quantities of cotton, grapes, tobacco, maize, salt, sugar, timber, fruit, and cattle. Its. capital, Kiev, contains enormous factories which manufacture almost anything one could think of in secondary industry, from typewriters and tractors to aeroplanes and locomotives.

And beyond the Ukraine is the Caucasus, which, next to the United States, is the greatest oil-producing region ,of the world; and beyond that again the various gold-producing centres of Russia, which last year brought forth £70,009,000 of this yellow metal—still important to all nations, but never more so than in time of war.

Many attempts have been made to subjugate the Ukraine in the past. Before the revolution a handful of Polish land owners possessed huge stretches of the best Ukrainian land, while the Tsar, in an endeavour to Russianise the Ukrainians, denied them autonomy and the right to speak their own language, which is different to Russian. 'During the war their towns and villages were burned and plundered by the Germans, and after the latter were driven out, the Ukraine became a battlefield of the civil war. General Denikin, with his anti-Recl army, occupied the country in February, 1919, with the help of I*reach, troops. The old land owners were restored. In April a Socialist Republic was proclaimed. The French forces intervened, but most of the French troops mutinied and refused to fight the peasants, and in December the Red army occupied Kiev. In 1920, however, Poland invaded the Ukraine, and occupied Kiev. The Polish army was aided hy General Wrangel, who had succeeded General Denikin. The Red army, however, under Voroshilov (now commander of the entire Russian army) defeated the Poles and drove them back to the very gates of Warsaw; Wrangel was driven out of the Crimea, and at last the Ukraine was free of all foreign intervention. Under Socialist regime during the last 16 years, the Ukraine Republic has enjoyed a large measure of autonomy, and has developed its own culture. In 1928 1,796,000 children attended school; the number is now 4,223,000, and in the last four years 2,000. schools have been built in the collective farms. Over 8,000 agricultural laboratories have been established, and 1,250 maternity hospitals were organised in the collective farms of the Ukraine in 1935. There are more students in the Ukraine enjoying higher education than there are in the whole of Germany. Last year 25,000 medical students passed out of the universities in the Ukraine, while over 50,000 passed out of the agricultural colleges, and 98,000 applications were received for training as air pilots. Although the Ukraine is to-day one of the most prosperous and contented of the Republics of the Union, this happy state of affairs has only been achieved as the result of considerable modification and Liberalisation of the Soviet doctrine. Many peasants are allowed to possess small holdings of their own, and if the Central Government made a slight strategic retreat from its doctrine, it was a retreat which brought victory. In the event of war the Ukrainians are more formidable tlian they were when they drove out Roles, Germans, and others at the end of the last war, and at, a time when they were weak. It should also be remembered that Germany and Russia have no common frontier. In the south Rumania, in the centre Poland, and in

the north the border States of Lithuania, Latvia, and Esthonia stand in the way. All of them at present are more favourable to Russia than Germany, as they realise that Russia, with hep 9,000,000 square miles of territory, desires no mbrej but Germany, by _organising the Fascist Internationale, is making frantic efforts to effect changes _o| Government in those countries' which would be more favourable to German aims.