CONFIDENT RUSSIA

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 77, 13 March 1934, Page 4

CONFIDENT RUSSIA

MILITARY PREPAREDNESS Superiority in the Air FAR EAST TENSION One of the tense frontiers of the world at the present moment is that of the Soviet Far East, says the Moscow correspondent of the “Observer.” A picked, well-equipped force, the socalled Far Eastern Army, under the command of General Blucher, who attained considerable military fame during the Russian civil war, and subsequently served under another name as military adviser to the Chinese Nationalists, is stationed in this part of Soviet territory; and speeches which are delivered by the highest Soviet officials and then filter down to the masses through the well-oiled party propaganda machine, emphasise over and over again Stalin’s phrase that the Soviet Union does not covet a foot of anyouelse’s territory, but will not yield an inch of its own. Japan's expansion in Manchuria aud Inner Mongolia, the openly expressed belief of some militarist spokesmen that Japan’s Asiatic Empire could be conveniently rounded out by the addition of Eastern Siberia, Kamchatka, and Northern Sakhalin, the arrests of Soviet citizens employed on the Chinese Eastern railroad —all this has aroused the vigilant apprehension of the Soviet Government, and has led to intensive military and diplomatic preparations to ward off attack. A LONG PREPARATION. It is freely admitted in Moscow that a Japanese foray into Eastern Siberia in 1931 could have met little military resistance. Since 1931 there have been two years of strained military and industrial preparedness; and to-day, while there is no thought of aggressive war in Moscow, there is more confidence in the successful issue of an armed conflict than one would have found even a year ago. Armies still march very largely on their stomachs, and the good harvest of 1933, following the disastrously poor crops of 1931 and 1932, has placed the country’s food reserves in a far sounder position. American recognition and the opening up of regular channels of diplomatic communication between Moscow and Washington is also appraised as a distinctly optimistic factor in connection with the Far Eastern situation. No matter how large and well equipped may be tho standing army in the Far East, reinforcements are indispensable in a modern large-scale war; and it is just •in this matter of bringing up reinforcements that Japan has the most obvious geographical advantage. Japanese mastery of the sea is complete; there is no Soviet battle fleet in Far Eastern waters. But the World War witnessed the emergence of a new weapon which is likely to prove still more significant in future wars. This is aviation. And here Soviet spokesmen are confident of their country’s superiority. THE AIR THREAT. The Soviet aviation industry has made great strides during recent years, and it is in fleets of bombing ’planes, with their implied threat of laying waste Japan’s crowded cities that the Soviet Government sees a potent means of warding off attack on its Far Eastern provinces. Cavalry is another arm which might play some role in the Siberian and Manchurian plains; and here again the Soviet Union believes in its superiority. Finally there are certain more general factors which, it is believed here, would operate in Russia’s favour in the . event of a clash. There are the big new steel, chemical, machinebuilding plants of the Five Year Plan, all capable of use as munitions worksThere is tho vast Siberian taiga, or swampy woodlands, most inhospitable to an invading army and a natural hiding-place for guerrilla detachments. There is the possibility, in the event of war, of stirring up internal difficulties in Manchuria and Korea. The reported release of the six Soviet railroad officials whose arrest last autumn by the Manchukuo authorities precipitated a more acute phase of Soviet-Japanese relations may pave the way to a resumption of negotiations for the sale of the Chinese Eastern Railroad. It remains to be seen, however, whether means will be found to bridge over the wide difference between the Soviet demand for 200,000,000 gold rubles and the Manchukuo offer of 50,000,000 paper yen. And the complete restoration of a tranquil atmosphere along this Far Eastern frontier will require not 6nly a settlement of the railroad question, but some broader basis of understanding between the two countries, possibly in the form of a non-aggression pact and a local limitation of armaments agreement.