Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY. JANUARY 9, 1940 STALIN’S RUSSIA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 9 January 1940, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY. JANUARY 9, 1940 STALIN’S RUSSIA

IN view of the general uncertainty regarding Russia’s intentions a striking summing up of Stalin’s new policy, given in “The Fortnightly’’ by Sir William Oudendyk, the famous Dutch diplomat, *■ is of special interest. At the time ijj of the Russian Revolution Sir I" William was the Netherlands Am[o bassador in Moscow, and it is ■" stated it was through his inter- ! a vention that many lives were !■ saved. His eventful life is reC corded in his recent book “Ways Jj and By-ways in Diplomacy.’’ “Djugashvili and Bronstein fell £ out over the true meaning of jj dead Ulianov’s utterances. It lead !■ to a great feud which definitely C divided the leaders of the Com- { munist Party in Soviet Russia. y Stalin won and Trotsky lost; Lenin { was no more.” After this opening J Sir William, in this striking !■ article of which the append- !■ ed is a summary, says that j £ Stalin proclaimed as his policy, that, above all, Soviet Russia had to be made into a

militarily and industrially powerIf ul country and that socialism had first to be firmly established in one single country alone. He rejected Trotsky’s ways of spreading Bolshevism over the world, but he himself did not renounce ; that ideal. In 1932 he said: Be not impatient and do not chafe at delays; universal war has now become inevitable and is not far distant.’’ Stalin developed the State to its greatest power and efficacy an enormous industry and an I enormous army and air force. But E the pace was hot, much of what | was created was shoddy and very I bad, and scapegoats had to be 1 found. The strange trials where i every accused confessed his guilt | according to the prosecutor’s | wishes are still in everybody’s i memory. Further, Stalin “liquidi ated” every one of the ‘Old 1 Guard Bolsheviks’’ as well as I military leaders whom he believed gj or suspected to be an opponent | or a potential rival. Stalin’s “Parliament” was found to be nothing more than a Hall of Praise and Assent like the Reichstag in Berlin. A queer sequence, says the writer, was that most of the members of the preparatory commission soon were numbered amongst those who were buried with a bullet in the back of their heads. Then the writer traces Stalin’s campaign for “peace and collaboration.” Litvinov played his part in Geneva with consummate skill when he urged universal and complete disarmament. The Communist parties in various countries were ordered by Moscow no longer to obstruct the military preparations of their respective governments by voting against the budget. Finally, they were forbidden to form a parliamentary group apart, but to seek alliance with socialist and radical parties, whom they were to persuade to accept their collaboration along constitutional lines. This was called the creation of a United or Popular Front. It was, he says, an ingenious device, ’ thought out by Dimitrov, the talented Secretary-General of the Comintern for unobtrusively undermining the enemy bastions i which had so obstinately withstood the Bolshevik frontal attacks. The real objective of the | Communist parties abroad was in i the meantime never lost sight of, k and Stalin himself was very inf structive on this point when he J said at the Congress of March, | 1939: “The principles of the | sisteY-parties must consist in | facilitating the outbreak of a | general war. . . . Revolutionary I action on a large scale will only be [ possible if we succeed in exploitJ ing the antagonism between | capitalistic States to precipitate l them into an armed conflict.’’ A little example of what was I implied was furnished in France after the September crisis of 1 938, J when the spectre of war stood ‘ grinning on the threshold. A sigh ' of relief was heaved all over j Europe when that evil spirit was exorcised by Mr Chamberlain ( and M. Daladier. vlot so, however, I in Soviet Russia, where dis- . appointment over the safeguard- ( ing of peace was openly voiced. { During this period of Soviet ‘ Russia’s respectability and of her ! labours for peace there has not been a corner of the world where fighting has been going on where the Bolsheviks from Warsaw have 1 not had a hand in it in China, under * Moscow’s guidance, the j youth of China never ceased clam- ! j ouring for war with Japan. It! j must be gratifying for Moscow to! watch Japan exhausting her j national resources in a war waged < not against Soviet Russia. ,