NEW BOOKS

Evening Star, Issue 25958, 25 November 1946, Page 10

NEW BOOKS

RUSSIAN GLORY The only alternative America has to “ seeking to win Russia’s confidence by recognising her regional organisation of security as she recognises ours, and on this basis bringing her into the family of nations, is likewise the only alternative Russia has to co-operating in an international structure with us. That alternative is the pursuit of a policy of imposing our will by forco; it is the policy of preparing for a Third World War, the war of the continents. It is the renunciation of the Teheran promise to ‘ banish the scourge and terror of war for many generations.’ It is the alternative to which all the internal needs of Russia are opposed.” That is how Mr Edgar H. Snow, an American newspaper correspondent, saw the position when he wrote ‘ Glory and Bondage.’ Mr Snow’s book was written a year or two ago, but it has only now been published by Angus and Robertson Ltd., Sydney. To some extent his views on India—the bondage of the title—and Russia—the glory—may have been changed by later developments, although the substance of the quotation above must remain materially the same. Mr Snow’s book provides an interesting background to international affairs, and the reader should find it profitable to consider the author’s statements in conjunction with more recent events in India, China, and Russia, the three countries with which he deals. The greater part of his work concerns Russia, where he went late in 1942, when the force of the German onslaught against Stalingrad was being expended, which brought “ not only fear of ultimate defeat but the bottomless despair of loss of faith. Germany’s religion of total war had broken into a thousand fragments before German eyes.” The author reveals enthusiasm for the Russians and their war effort—it was a time when enthusiasms could be easily formed—and for the tremendous potentialities of the country. But his enthusiasm is not of the variety that transcends all reason, and his picture is a well-balanced one. He insists more than once that the Russians—the Russians of the “ new social consciousness ” which gave them “ something to fight for. to die for or to live for a*the case may be, but to fight for ” —do not want war again. “ I believe the last thing on earth the average Russian wants—and here I would include Communists —is a war witli the United States.” There is, of course, a gap between the time the book was written and the present state of affairs, and it is in that gap that the co-operation and friendliness—Mr Snow, found the people interested in the United States, and widely pro-American—faded, to be replaced by suspicion, obstructiveness, and lack of co-operation. It is not easy to decide where the change came in, but the book was written before the world heard of the atomic bomb.