THE NORTHERN ADVOCATE Registered or transmission through the Post as a newspaper. TUESDAY MARCH 16, 1948. Does Russia Mean War?

Northern Advocate, 16 March 1948, Page 2

THE NORTHERN ADVOCATE Registered or transmission through the Post as a newspaper. TUESDAY MARCH 16, 1948. Does Russia Mean War?

The opening at Paris yesterday of the conference of 16 nations to consider the Marshall Plan and a state-

ment by the Soviet Consul-General in New York, form interesting features of today’s news.

The Marshall Plan has been designed to restore the nations of Western Europe to some degree of comfort and security in order that they may not be driven, by want and a feeling of frustration, into the confusion which constitutes fertile soil for the propagation of Communism.

The Soviet has professedly regarded the plan as a step towards preparing Western Europe to make war on Russia, and it has accordingly claimed justification for entertaining suspicion of the democratic nations and nreparing to anticipate any military aggression by those nations.

The democratic nations have consistently repudiated the Soviet contention, but developments in Eastern Europe have been of so alarming a character that the aliar.ee of Western democratic nations for ihe purposes of self-defence has become imperative not only to withstand possible Russian aggression but speedily to restore economic stability in Europe. The statement of the Soviet Consul-General in New York therefore becomes the more significant, for, after urging that relations between America and Russia could, and must, be improved, he stigmatised as a crazy idea the war talk which is taking place in the United States. “It is impossible,” said M. Lomakin, who added, “People don’t want war. We Russians don’t believe in war. We want peace.”

This may be believed, so far as it goes, for if Russia could achieve her purposes by infiltration tactics she would naturally be averse to plunging herself and the nations into war: but the late Hitler’s record in this respect inevitably' projects itself upon the screen. However that may be, the ConsulGeneral’s declaration gives interest to an article in the Round Table for December, which, asking the question, “Does Russia want war?” sets out the psychological background of Soviet policy. The writer says the belief that world war is inevitable and Soviet Russia will be one of its targets is surely the key to the; foreign policy of the U.S.S.R.

It leads at once to these conclusions: confound your potential enemies when you can; strengthen yoar own position and friends and y’icld no inch, of ground on your defensive glacis; make certain that the instru-

ments of world cooperation cannot be used by your potential enemies against you.

All this, it is said, is entirely consistent with not wanting ihe war that is accepted as bound to come sooner or later.

It is held by the Round Table to be very' unlikely that Soviet Russia wants now. or will want in the near future, to precipitate war, and that therefore “the first conclusion for us is to keep Russia in that frame of mind by sustaining our own strength, both as individual countries and—still more—-in combination; division among the Western Powers is the one thing which more than anv other is likely to move the Soviet group to conclude that since war is inevitable it had better be now.” Unity among the Western nations, it. is reiterated, is the road to world peace, a fact which makes understandable the great movement affecting the Marshall Plan for the Western Powers. This consideration moves the Round Table to say that one more conclusion is- vital for the Western Powers, which should never give way to acknowledgment of the inevitability of world war. “Its possibility we know too well, its likelihood we fear, but once we admit it to be inevitable there is nothing between us and the Soviet doctrine save the choice of sides, nor anything save the casus belli between us and war more ghastly than wc imagine.

“We can change the minds of the Soviet leaders only by the gradual impact spf our own faith in the possibility of an enduring peace, in which Russia and ourselves, contrary as our political and economic structures may bo, have our own contributory roles to play. “It must, clearly, be part of our faith that war is not the necessary, nor the best, way of meeting Communism. We must find the means to do that wthin our own peaceful democratic armoury. In the long run, this may prove the most crucial part of the task, for 'unless it is accomplished we shall ourselves be confirming the central thesis of Soviet policy, ihat world war with Russia as its target is inevitable, and acknowledging to history that in their intransigence the masters of cho Kremlin arc wise in their generation.”

The purpose behind the 16-nation conference in Paris.- the words of the Soviet Consul-General at New York, and the views expressed in the article to which we have referred, truly provide material for earnest, thought at a critical stage in the world’s history.