Churchill And War: Soviet’s Violent Abuse

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 October 1947, Page 7

Churchill And War: Soviet’s Violent Abuse

(Reed. Noon) LONDON, October 14. While he could not exclude the danger of war, he did not think the violent abuse which the Soviet Government and their Communist adherents all over the world lavished on all existing forms of civilisation was necessarily a sign of danger, said Mr Churchill in a recorded speech at a New York dinner for the Al Smith Memorial Hospital.

“There is no doubt whatever that the Government and the overwhelming mass of the British people at home and throughout the Commonwealth, if any great issue should arise affecting human freedom, would act with the United States in the same solidarity and fraternal intimacy which had so lately given us victory against the combined dictatorships of Germany, Italy and Japan,’’ Mr Churchill said.

During the 18 months since he spoke at Fulton, the Soviet had poured ’out an unceasing stream of abuse upon the Western World. They accompanied this virulent propaganda by every action which could prevent the world from settling down into a durable peace or the United Nations organisation from playing its part as a ! great world instrument to prevent war. Indeed the conferences at Lake Success —perhaps prematurely named —became a forum in which the greatest States hurled reproaches and insults at each other. “I have been puzzled to know why the Soviet Government has taken this violently aggressive line. I cannot believe it is a prelude to war. These 14 men in the Kremlin who rule with despotic power are very capable and ' well-informed. If their minds were i set on war, I believe they would not, lull the easy-going democracies into a false sense of security. It is more likely the Soviet abuse is for internal purposes.

The Men In The Kremlin

“It may well be the men in the Kremlin think it pays them to represent to the otherwise blind-folded masses of the brave, good-hearted Russian people that the Soviet Government stands between them and a repetition of the horror of invasion,

but the United States and the Western democracies of Europe would fail to profit by hard experience if they did not take every measure of prudent defensive preparation which was open to them.”

He continued: “We should not be hasty in abandoning hope 'in the United Nations and should not be unduly depressed if the Soviet-Com-munist forces should decide to part company with the world organisation.

When Great Wars Come

“Great wars come when each side thinks it has a good chance of victory. No such conditions of equality would be established if the Soviet Government and its Communist devotees were to make a separate organisation of their own. Indeed, two great systems might even begin to be polite to each other and speak again in the measured language of diplomacy.” Mr Churchill said Americans should not heed the insulting things that Communists, crypto-Communists and fellow travellers in Britain said about the United States, as they did not represent in the slightest degree the feelings of the British nation or the British Government. There was no country in Europe which had made a firmer or more solid front against Soviet and Communist encroachments than Britain.