MOLOTOV’S ACCUSATIONS

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 September 1946, Page 7

MOLOTOV’S ACCUSATIONS

AMERICANS EXPECTED TO REPLY THE EAST-WEST IMPASSE LONDON, Sept. 16. “The Americans are expected to reply to Mr. Molotov”s unfortunate statement before the Italian Political and Territorial Commission,” says the diplomatic correspondent of the Manchester Guardian in a dispatch from Paris. “Mr. Molotov’s statement. reflected the impasse which relations between the Eastern and Western Powers have reached. He was not only seeking the best way to secure Jugoslav domination over Trieste but also developing the standard Russian argument that the Anglo-Saxon Powers are endeavouring to impose their will on the Soviet. “He launched the accusation on May 27, since when it has been the constant theme of Soviet propaganda. British and American imperialism have both been made to appear equally nefarious, and sharing the identical aim of preparing war against Russia. His statement on September 14 doubtlessly deepened the pull between east and west. “The view is being expressed in Paris that Mr. Molotov is employing the technique to which the world became accustomed before 1939, and hopes to force l the Anglo-Saxon Powers into a revival of appeasement. The main problems are: first, how long a lease has the grand alliance and the conception of peace so often expressed in war time and after the war, and, second, what chance has the Peace Conference of achieving even limited objectives of the East and West division persists, and, if the division is acknowledged, can the conference proceed.”

RUSSIANS OPPOSED TO POLISH FRONTIER REVISION PARIS, September 16. Mr Molotov, in a statement to the Paris correspondent of the Polish Official News Agency, repudiated the declaration at Stuttgart by the United States Secretary of State (Mr James Byrnes) that Poland’s western frontier was subject to revision. Mr Molotov said that the Potsdam conference had determined Poland’s frontiers, which now only awaited formal confirmation at’a future international conference for drafting the peace treaty with Germany. The importance which the Potsdam conference attached to its decision concerning frontiers was evident from the fact that the conference went on to decide upon the transfer of the German population from the territory assigned to Poland. The Potsdam decisions had not remained on paper, but had been actively realised. The Polish Government was now administering the whole territory east of the Swine-munde-Oder-Neisse line for the second successive year, and more than 2,000,000 Germans had been transferred to German territory from Poland, of whom more than half went to the British zone.

“It is obvious from these facts that the British, American, and Russian Governments attached great importance to the decision concerning frontiers, and in no case did they imply that the decision should be submitted to future revision,” said Mr Molotov. “Of course, it is correct to say that the final settlement of Poland’s frontiers waited on the peace conference, but that is merely a formal aspect of the problem. It is unthinkable that the evacuation of Germans and the settlement of Poles should be regarded as a temporary expedient, to say nothing of the cruelty which a reversal of the process would inflict both on the Poles and Germans. “The Russian Government takes the view that the Potsdam Conference’s historic decisions concerning Poland’s western frontiers cannot be reversed, because the facts prove that it is impossible to do so now,’ he said. , , Mr Molotov added that the Potsdam decisions on frontiers were made over the signatures of Mr Truman, Mr Attlee, and Mr Stalin, which were highly respected by the nations, because everyone believed in the strength end moral authority ol these decisions. Certain expressions in Mr Byrnes’s speech .might pro doubts as to the stability of the attitude taken by some American circles to the matter, but it- was obvious that problems of such a nature could not be the object of passing political calculations.