The Evening Star MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1940. RUSSIA’S RECORD.

Evening Star, Issue 23498, 12 February 1940, Page 6

The Evening Star MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1940. RUSSIA’S RECORD.

Her war, against little Finland is demonstrating the weaknesses of Russia more effectively than hecatombs of “ purges ” or libraries of the revelations of visitors and refugee Russians couldl ever have done. The visitors did not see more than they were allowed to sec. When their reports were unfavourable they made no impression on the minds of those in every country who believed that, with the dawn of Sovietism, a new light had arisen of hope for the world. Condemnation, to their minds, could only be the result of hopeless bias and determination not to see the light; adverse reports given by Russians themselves were especially suspect. As regards the war with Finland!, nothing could have been worse than Russia’s conduct in beginning it; but- her ill-success, during more than two months, in waging it against so disproportionate a foe has been even more of a surprise to most. A few days ago it was reported that expert observers on the Finnish front considered that the heavy Soviet losses of aeroplanes were due to the fact that the planes were of an obsolete type, the pilots not sufficiently trained, and the material used inferior. It was also pointed out that the Soviet had no planes of a modern type under construction. When Colonel Lindbergh, one of the greatest authorities on aeroplanes, was supposed, rightly or wrongly, to have said something like that a few months ago, his report was denounced as incredible, the worst kind of outrage. So with reports that the Russians had bombed civilian quarters of towns, which have been proved now, beyond! all question, by photographs of the damage effected. When a correspondent of even such a scrupulous journal as the ‘ Christian Science Monitor ’ told his story of ill-supplied soldiers, in the present fighting, being urged forward by machine guns in their rear, many must have found it hard to believe, but the report of Sir Walter Citrine, leader of the British Labour delegation to Russia, of what he also saw with his own eyes confirms previous statements.

Speaking of the Russians, after his return to London, ho described their morale as extraordinarily bad. “ They don’t like the war and don’t know what it is about.” Conversations with Russian prisoners, ho reported, “ revealed that in many cases machine guns were used to urge the men into battle, and Commissars told them that the families of men who surrendered would he shot ” —the Nazi device of bringing pressure to bear on individuals by threats against those near and dear to them who were not responsible for their actions, but were within the Nazi power. Sir Walter added that doubts he had had as to the number of Russian losses had been dispelled by the number of prisoners he had seen and the quantity of captured material ho had in-

spooled, and ho observed: “I think Russia has supplied tho Finns with more arms than any other country.” In an earlier statement, reported from Helsinki, tho British Labour leader remarked on tho difference between the damage done by Russian bombers to workers’ quarters and to military objectives, “ the former suffering most as the result of indiscriminate bombing from a great height, intended to demoralise the civilian population.” What is Russia’s object in this assault? The Communist would say that it is to extend, as also in Poland, and wherever ch t’.'.o opportunity may occur, the ghrious principles of Sovietism, or tho world revolution. But, in a world of war, those might have been extended without any military participation on Russia’s part, and no attempt had been made, up to a recent time, to set up soviets in Poland. If an ideological conquest, leading to the sotting up of Communist rule by tho people of the countries concerned, wore the aim, that would not be Stalinism, but Trotskyism, which alone has retained, during recent years, the world revolution as its object. It will bo more natural to see, in these latest adventures of Moscow, the old imperialism which was thought to have been ended with the advent of the Bolshevists to power, though, under their regime, it has merely been less noticed, operating mainly in remote places, than it was before. As to Russian supplies for Germany, Professor Bruce C. Hopper, of Harvard University, working on the basis of official German and .Russian statistics, has recently estimated that Russian aid can only become important after German engineers have had a minimum of two years to reorganise the Soviet industrial and transport systems—so little has Soviet rule done for industry in its country. -