Soldiers of the Soviet

Northern Advocate, 14 January 1939, Page 8

Soldiers of the Soviet

AjyEONG the most harrowing cabled items of the past week is the news from Moscow that a “nest of spies and wreckers” have been discovered aniong the staffs of military academies in the capital of the Soviet. The lecturers, it is reported, arc accused of giving students false instructions in the art of war, which, if put into practice would bring disaster to the Soviet arms. Theoretically, of course, the art of war can be reduced to very simple terms. You kill your enemy, and endeavour by all possible means to avoid being killed by him. It requires no professional instructor, however, to implant these lessons in the embryo soldier. The mere instinct of self-preservation teaches him adequately enough; and it is unlikely that even a “nest,” or a whole rookery of double-dealing military professors could induce Ivan and Boris to stand up with any conviction to be shot at, when they might keep their skins intact by hiding below the parapet. Possibly the duplicity of the professors takes more subtle forms. Could it be possible that they have taught the sons of the hammer and sickle to shoot with their eyes shut, assuring them that they have only to pull the trigger and the modern rifle will do the rest? Have the bombing instructors concealed from* their pupils that priceless secret, the time to be taken between the pulling out of the pin and the throwing of the bomb? Or have they merely told the future soldiers of Russia that for strategic success it is always advisable to allow the enemy to occupy the higher positions? The story suggests all sorts of intriguing possibilities. Yet on a dispassionate examination it all seems somewhat improbable. It is hard to believe that even the most simple-minded cadet could be systematically taught that black, in a military sense, is white. Besides, the history of Russia’s effort in the Great War and in the war with Japan a few years earlier, suggests that she can lose battles without the assistance of treacherous tutors. The Moujik has so far exhibited little capacity for soldiering, Tannenberg, in spite of overwhelming superiority in numbers, was lost through sheer blundering stupidity, !The Russian steam-roller turned out to be just an old droshky after all.