RUSSIAN POLICY

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 December 1945, Page 5

RUSSIAN POLICY

CONFLICT OF VIEWS DECISIONS POSTPONED LONDON, December 4. . Mr Stalin’s decision to continue his holiday at Sochi, Georgia,' for another month has caused some speculation. It is learnt that a number of decisions on-Soviet home and foreign policy have been postponed until the New Year. It is also remarked that Soviet policy is in a state of transition and that there is a conflict of views on foreign relations. Isolationism or expansionism is the dominant issue. A special correspondent of the “Observer” suggests that Mr Stalin is studying the international situation very closely and allowing Mr Molotov (Foreign Commissar) to play his hand freely. If Mr Molotov fails, or his moves increase the tension, then Mr Stalin may be free to initiate a new political course. The correspondent continues: “The direction of Soviet diplomacy is gradually being changed from offensive to defensive, but the present phase is one of transition. Therefore, neither is markedly offensive nor markedly defensive. A softening of Soviet policy throughout Eastern Europe is undeniable, including absence of interference in Hungarian and Austrian politics during the election campaigns, the release of some Polish leaders sentenced to long terms, and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Czechoslovakia. Even in Persia a rather limited objective was fixed when Moscow denied any separatist aspirations in the Azerbaijan rising. In the Far East Russian tactics have been even more cautious. There is no doubt that Russian diplomacy is overshadowed by what it sincerely believes to be the threat of the atomic bomb.” The writer expresses the opinion that Mr Stalin is brooding over the extent to which the threat is real or unreal, and over the question of how deeply his diplomacy should retreat before British and American pressure. “Russian home policy is no less complex or difficult,” says the correspondent. “The Soviet Union will elect new Soviets in February, and shortly afterwards Mr Stalin can be expected to sum up the economic political developments of the last few years and present an outline of the first post-war five-year plan. An important question will, it is emphasised, be the development of heavy industry or consumer goods, the demand for both of which is equally pressing. Since the present tension between Russia and the Western Powers suggests that Russia wfll not receive much economic assistance, the new five-year plan will have to be based on this assumption. There is a good deal of evidence of a tug-of-war behind the scenes m Russia oyer this problem of allocation as between capital and consumer goods.” TWO POLICIES The “Glasgow Herald’s” diplomatic correspondent, commenting on Mr Stalin’s continued holiday, expresses the opinion that there are two policies in Russia at the moment, neither of which is perfectly formulated, but both greatly influenced by the atomic bomb controversy. The correspondent says: Both are inspired by fear, but seek its removal by different means. The first policy, which is largely military, desires to secure commanding positions and the use of outlying Slavs as Russia’s first line of defence. Hence a policy of domination by alliance, as in the case of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia, neglect of Austria and Hungary, and the maintenance of Russian occupation on the Odel. In these ‘Russian’ regions . no more interference would be tolerated than would interference in defiance of the Monroe Doctrine. “The second policy is of those who see no line of defence against the atom-rocket combination and potential air strength, with which Russia for long will be unable to compete. They are hardly less ‘isolationist than the former, but they see in tne United Nations organisation a temporary means of security and a guarantee against war. They are not internationalists, but they see in a present adhesion to internationalism a sort of insurance. In this play ot offensive and defensive conceptions lies an explanation of the inconsistencies of Russian policy. It is not treacherous. It is simply undefined, and therefore confusedly carried on by hand-to-mouth procedure in which, far too often, the man on the spot has to act, not on definite orders, but on his personal predilection. Bru there, so far, is no agreement on the best method of obtaining it. “In these circumstances the Western Powers must be prepared to put up with a good deal of annoyance, caused partly deliberately and partly by sheer inexperience. Above all they must try to avoid giving a handle to the intransigents and isolationists. Their policy must be to remain firmly on the ground of thenown democratic principles, but to recognise that Russia still rejects the full implication thereof.” EASING OF CENSORSHIP. Reuter’s correspondent in Moscow reports sending the first uncensored dispatch from Russia for six years He says: “I am convinced, for the time being, anyway, that the Soviet Government will allow correspondents to write what they think, provided the rules of fairness and objectivity are observed. A gradual easing of censorship during the last month has reduced censorship to a formality, but correspondents are still confined to Moscow. The Soviet Union is expected by foreign observers to give concrete evidence in the near future of its desire for increased international co-operation. “There is a feeling that Soviet suspicions will decrease and that the Soviet Union will show an increasing willingness to respond to invitations from other great Powers for international co-operation in many spheres--political, economic, scientific, and cultural. Across the conference tables, however, Soviet representatives will continue to bargain hard. The country’s Press and radio will storm against persons and moves which the Soviet Government suspects of being aimed at Russian interests.” ■

LASKI’S OPINIONS. NEW YORK, December 4. ; Dr. Laski (Chairman of the British Labour Party), in a speech here, said: No nation is fit to be trusted with the development of atomic energy. There is also no private interest, working for profit to ' which

its future could be safely confided. I accept the need for a United nations’ Organisation on the condition that there should be no secrecy, and no invasion of the internationalism and public integrity which are the glory of science and learning. Bet the new institution for intellectual advance be given a chance forthwith to show that Plato was right when he said that the Minister of Education must be more important than the Minister of War. We, in Britain, have no more right to be content with slumps than you in the United States have the right to evade the fact that you acquiesced for eighty years in the degrading of twelve' million negroes by force, fraud, and feai. I am not proud of the British record m the evil years of appeasement. I have a deep sense of guilt when I see a tragic spectacle in Spain. I do not think that the ordinary citizen of Great Britain thought that the war was being fought for the return, under any pretext, of the Indonesian peoples to the sovereignty of Holland; or to organise conditions upon which an evil social system shall be imposed, in the name of law and order, upon the peoples of South-eastern Europe, who, for the first time since the break-up of the Roman Empire, see a faint dawn of hope. Let me add that I accept, as an acid test of the bona tides of the Labour Government of Great Britain, that it shall not merely declare its desire to see a free, self-governing India, but that it shall organise the conditions that are necessary to the fulfilment of its desire without disspiritin gthat desire by delaying and postponing an outcome that is so clearly inevitable. SOVEREIGNTY MUST GO. If we want freedom, we must have peace. Sovereignty must go also. The interests which sovereignty protects must be recognised as outmoded in character, and as dangerous in operation. It is clear for any honest observer that a society dominated by business men could not be trusted to create a mental climate in which the development of atomic energy would be confined within a framework o£ peace. It is the businessmen who have split our society in two—a political society and an economic society. They have made the policeman the sanction of the first, and the threat of starvation that of the second. There is only one country .in the world to-day where this division has been transcended. There is only one country, also, where science and technology can be developed without sacrificing the education of man and without fearing a breakdown of social well-bding, or of community consciousness. It is significant that only in the new world of Russia has the business man ceased .to count. It. js also significant that one of the major preoccupations of great vested interests is now to keep the secret — which is no secret—from the knowledge of Russia. You know the result—a halt of confidence and the rise of an ugly suspicion about the imminent chances of a third World War,