Mt.Benger Mail Be Just and fear Not. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 3, 1941 RUSSIA’S ATTITUDE

Mt Benger Mail, 3 September 1941, Page 2

Mt.Benger Mail Be Just and fear Not. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 3, 1941 RUSSIA’S ATTITUDE

Russia, that land of blood and tears and misery and privation, is now exhibited to the whole world as a people who unlike the French, whose love of prosperity and wealth, led them to declare Paris an "open”'town, arc willing to destroy their whole heritage rather than yield to the invader. A people who act in this way mav be driven from theii homes, their workshops and their cities, but they can never be finally vanquished. In a Moscow communique on -Monday evening the destruction of the Dniepci Dam was continued. This great dam, one of the engineering marvels of the world took four year., to build and cost £100,000,000. This symbolizes with particulai emphasis the spirit of the Hus sian people , which is thwarting the power of tbe invader. Compared with the huge sums now heing poured by Britain into war produetion the sum of £100,000,000 may not seem remarkably high. But the great weath or Russia is still largely potential. During the construction work on the great Dnieper Dam the Russian people went through a period of high pressure organisation which brought suffering to millions of workers. It has been truthfully said that the Dnieper Dam was constructed

"of concrete blood, tears ana sweat.” In its first stages in 1929 the country was weakened by the internal conflicts which weakened and preceded Stalin’s rise to supreme power. This als 0 included the period which marked the liquidation of the K-ulakas, the great famine of the Urakine and the tremendous efforts to implement the great Five \ ear Plan. The great biographist, Eugene Lyons, writing of Stali n said, “the great hvdro electric stations went up slowly and inefficiently at a terrifying cost to human life. All amid purges, epidemics, demonstration trials, larger prisons, larger prison camps and longer nunger oucjyas in front of shops.” Tffis’ ->ot be a glowing picture of Russia’s industrial triumph. Whatever wi may think of the political policy and methods of Soviet leaders, it must be admitted that the new State could show /impressive achievements. The great Dnieper Dam was a signpost pointing to industrial progress. It was also the point of control in the reticulation of new factories and workshops which were springing up like mushrooms in the Donetry Basin. If blood and tears were built into the concrete, so also were built the hopes and ideals of those who looked beyond suffering and serfdom to a future of equality in which they believed. And now in the defence of their country this great work has been shattered by dynamite. The Russians have, however, let loose a tide of anger greater than the waters of the Dnieper Dam and some day these waters will sweep through all the barriers of Hitler’s barbaric tyranny and then despite all her privations and distress of past days a new and brighter day shall dawn for Russia.