PERMANENT WORLD-PEACE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25179, 17 April 1945, Page 3

PERMANENT WORLD-PEACE

RUSSIA, POLAND By J. L. Before our eyes history is being made by forced marches. No former epoch for two thousand years has rivalled their significance for mankind. Yalta was an inseparable prelude to San Francisco. In the Crimea the stark choice lay between saving compromise and deferred disaster after victory. Without that decision the Triumvirs could not have laid any kind of foundation for a better order of civilised peace. No possible alternative has been suggested by any critic among the Allies. This is more than the climax of nearly six years' conflict in Europe. It is one of those crises that are called death-birth. A former age of human affairs expires in flame and another springs from its ashes. We are dealing with the breaking of nations arid the making of nations. What is the first moral for the Western democracies? In face of an unparalleled complex of questions, they must strive to see these things in just relation and proportion. They must remember that the whole is greater than the part. They must shun the constant temptation to' shoot at ducks with elephant-guns and at elephants with duck-guns. They must beware of emotional politicians, however sincere, whose impulses are stampeded on the wrong issues. The P,olish Case I That way madness lies. That method would thwart the whole constructive endeavour of world-statesmanship. It would be a fatal disservice to the causes it means to advocate. As we shall see it would sacrifice the living and creative spirit of the present and the future to dead forms of the past. Take the realities of the Polish case. It is still the subject of more discussion—and of more dissension among a convinced and passionate minority both in Britain and America —than all other issues together in the whole Yalta programme for world-peace. lo get to the bottom of the trnth in this business is utterly vital to all our thinking on the solidarity or discord of the greater Allies. And that is the central, dominating and all-fateful question which will sway for weal or ill the destinies not only of Europe but of "the great globe itself." If the practical conditions are accepted, there is the hope, promise and assurance of a new and transformed Poland, stronger and sounder than before. But in that or any other favourable sense the question never can be solved without thorough concert and fundamental alliance between the Poles and their mighty neighbour. These two are so placed toward and beside each other that they must either become fast friends at last or remain inveterate antagonists. On this subject there is a split Esychology in many Western minds on oth sides of the Atlantic. On one hand, they know and recognise that nothing but the lasting solidarity of the Soviet with the Western democracies can be relied on to prevent a third World War. It might come within ten years of false peace instead of the former delusive interval of twenty. Russia's Rise It would be the direst catastrophe of all. It would be an unimaginable throwback of civilisation. It would extinguish all our present visions of world security and social security. On the other hand, the same people who desire on their own terms the world's safeguard of permanent Soviet cohesion with the Western Powers are filled with a vague but haunting dread of the position that Russia has attained on the planet during the present convulsion. To them the size and potentialities of the Soviet cast a shadow on the moon. Disraeli said that "we make ourselves miserable in the anticipation of evils that never happen." Tnere is a proverb that trees do not grow into the sky. In spite of these good maxims, there are foreboding types of political human nature everywhere. They cannot do without a bogey. No sooner are they quit of one than they imagine another. In this limited sense there is a Russian bogey in the West. It is nothing new. It was familiar to many former generations. If we examine it in a historic and realistic light we filial! find it full of ironies, surprises and the confusion of prophets. There is no more extraordinary theme of its kind in all annals.

For the general world the wonder and tha disquiet began in Peter the Great's time. Already his dominion stretched from the Baltic to the Pacific. What might it not become both in Europe and in Asia? Ally Against German Peril

Just before the French revolutionary wars the conquests of Catherine the Great up to the Black Sea excited in Britain a famous Parliamentary contest between Pitt and Fox.

Already alarmists cried that the shadow of Russia was projecting itself toward India. After Napoleon's fall the ascendancy of the Tsar Alexander was the dread of Europe. From that day up to a time well within living recollection the Russian bogey became once more the .nxiety of our foreign policy. More than once its disturbing effect kindled into an incendiary influence both on Parliament and public opinion. What happened? In the First World War Russia, under the old regime, was our Ally against the German peril. Under every disadvantage of misgovernment and disorganisation the Russian people for. three years, until their conditions became unsuppportable, made prodigious efforts at an appalling cost. Without that, the total victory of Britain, France and America in 1918 could not have been won. Largely we were saved by our former bogey, The Second World War has seen a still more amazing paradox of the same kind. Remember how the Tsardom fell and how the Bolshevik revolution seized the State. After terrific years of

upheaval, Lenin's genius of design was fulfilled by Stalin's genius of action. And then, by comparison with the old Tsardom, the new Russia, both revolutionised and consolidated, seemed a bogey of more lurid colour and twice the size. Hitler's Blind Perfidy

But again—what happened? Russia was drawn into the vortex by Hitler's own blind perfidy and Himalayan folly. Whom the gods wished to destroy thev made mad. The magnitude and vicissitudes of that supremo grapple will leave their ineffaceable impression on the memory of man. The denouement is working out before our eyes. Soviet armies on their sido of the struggle wield a human and mechanical strength nearly thrice that of the doomed enemy. They have torn away East Prussia and Silesia. They have broken through Pomerania to the Baltic. Their wide-winged operations will envelop Berlin by a strategy already as sure as death. They will sweep onward until at no very distant day they join hands in the' heart of the Reich with the Western Allies marching from the Rhine. Without Stalin's Five-Year Plans for the industrialisation of the Soviet — without the immensity both of the population and natural resources he commanded —without the vast organisation he created and the elemental uprising he inspired—what then? There would have been no D Day. The invasion and liberation of Western Europe by the Atlantic Powers would not nave been possible. Total victory for the Allies never could have been attained.

The Russian bogey in what fearful Folk had thought to he its most mon-

FOUNDATIONS LAID AT YALTA

AND THE WEST GARVIN strous shape turned out to be a main factor in the destruction of Hitlerism, and the world's deliverance. But it does not end there. The feud between Russians and Poles hns its roots in centuries. You may read about its bitterness in Gogol's grim novel "Taras Bujba." The truth about the Yalta Agreement is that for the first time in history there is a chance for a great and enduring settlement between these two Slav races. After their former resurrection, the Polos were exalted and misled by a threefold miracle of good fortune. The stars scorned to conspire in their favour. All the three empires who had held them partitioned fell into ruin or chaos. Hohonzollerns. Habsburgs, Romanovs disappeared. Left Out ot Last Peace Almost unlimited opportunity seemed to be opened by liberation to the rearisen race. Against the advice and warnings of their wisest friends in the West, and uotablv against the weighed counsels of British statesmanship, they Arent beyond the Curzon Line. On historic grounds they annexed territories where they could not claim a racial majority nor anything like it. But for Russia's temporary weakness in her own agony of death-birth, this could not have been done. And if the giant recovered it never could he maintained. Russia was left out of the last peace. Inevitably she asserts full claims within the next peace. That wheel has come full circle. The Soviet armies and people have contributed to total victory more blood and suffering than all the other United Nations put together. Not only that. How does it bear on Poland? Hitler, in his oavu words, meant that Poland should he struck down never to rise again. Tts whole native soil Avas to be* incorporated Avitli the Reieli as an area for German settlement. By an infernal system of subtle degradation as well as brutal suppression Nazi Kiiltur worked to stamp out Polish nationality, body and soul. Nothing on earth but the power and sacrifice of Russia could havo rescued them from that fate. Friendship and Reconciliation Their salvation today lies in looking forward and not back. It lies in cutting their irrevocable losses and embracing their inestimable gains. What are they offered ? Most of East Prussia, made Polish ground once more by a transfer of populations; Danzig and the old Corridor on the same terms; an open sea coast on the Baltic such as they have never possessed; the mineral and industrial wealth of Silesia. On the sole condition of friendship and reconciliation with Russia once for all, they can obtain front the Greater Allies absolute political guarantees for their independence in every sense, and the exceptional financial and economic aid that the solid organisation of their neAV basis will require. It is impossible to restore the Polish State on its former basis. The practical alternative is between a neAV Poland and no Poland. The true and strong destiny of its people lies in facing with high and resolute hearts this great adventure of reconstruction.

Their qualities are equal to it. They are a most valiant and gifted race; in this conflict they have shone on every front and in every element; they inspire countless friends not only with sympathy but affection. The lasting; solidarity of Soviet Russia with the Western Powers is the sole foundation of every sane hope, whether for world security or social security Had the Triumvirs at Yalta failed to reach a decision on Poland they would have decreed the eventual alternative of a third World War. '^ e universal feeling of that ultimate certainty would have laid an axe to the roots' of all the Dumbarton Oaks.