Russia and the West Are Poles Apart

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26596, 20 October 1947, Page 8

Russia and the West Are Poles Apart

Tragedy of Mutual Distrust

For the Daily Times by C. N

In the uneasy post-war world of to-day one problem transcends all others—the problem of the relations between Russia and the West. Unless this problem is resolved, and resolved in such a way as to make it possible for the two halves of the world to live together in peace and amity, it is highly probable that, but for some miraculous intervention, the human race will cease to exist, or will exist only in isolated pockets, for some reason untouched by the results of atomic bombing. Our relations with Russia are a matter of life and death for the individual and for the human race as a whole.

What are the obstacles to understanding?

When Peter the Great opened his window on Europe, his intention was to westernise Russia, to bring her into the society of European nations of the day, not a particularly happy society, but still conforming more or less to a uniform pattern. Such an enterprise is not carried through in a day, in a year, in a century. He did not get very far with it, though he put down strong opposition with a ruthless hand; himself only very patchily western. But the window remained, and the ruling and upper classes in Russia became progressively open to the influence of western ideas. Until, a century after Peter’s attempts, the Emperor Alexander, during the negotiations at the close of the Napoleonic wars, showed an enlightened idealism which, unfortunately, as a consequence of the inevitable intrigues accompanying the meeting of statesmen and of his own unstable temperament, bore little fruit. After his death Russia retired into political isolation, but western influences continued to affect at least a small section of the community, and the revolutionary wave which passed over Europe in the first half of the nineteenth century continued to cause ripples in Russia well on into the next century. Revolution Then came the revolution of 1917. It was the world’s misfortune that it occurred in a country so politically backward except for a small minority that revolution inevitably brought about a dictatorship. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether a Socialist revolution could have survived against outside pressure in any other country. The second misfortune was the assassin’s bullet which ultimately eliminated Lenin. For Lenin belonged to a class which had for many generations received its progressive ideas from the west, and he had spent a large part of his adult life beyond Russia’s borders. And though he forgathered mainly with other exiles, he could not possibly avoid a considerable amount of influence by, and understanding of, the ideas and habits of thought around him. With his passing went the hope of understanding of the west. Stalin rose. Eastern-bred from early youth in the Russian underground movement, a hotbed of suspicion and mistrust, it was to be expected that he would take only the mechanistic side of western civilisation, its industrialism. Marxism he easternised and gave back to the world in its new form. Gradually the men who, with Lenin, had been subjected to the influences of the west fell away and were gone from sight, and there remained only those, like Stalin, uncontaminated. Now there is no one to interpret the west to the Kremlin.

sufficient in food production, thus eliminating the need for commercial relations. But for the present this would not be a possibility for many nations, and so, in the meantime, they have got to find some means of living together in peace or perish. This earth of ours must present a sorry spectacle to any extra-terrestrial observer who takes the trouble to look at us. America; in expectation of a slump, preparing to destroy goods and restrict production, while the countries that are so woefully in need of her products cannot buy them because she has all the credits; the two remaining Great Powers preparing to destroy one another and the. rest of the world as well. All for the lack of a little clear common sense. Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.

Differing Values

The values on which the Soviet policy, internal and external, is based differ from those professedly underlying Western civilisation. The Soviet regime does not subscribe to the respect for the rights of the individual to which, up till now, we claim to pay service. To Soviet nhilosophy “ Man,” to quote Arthur Koestler in “ Darkness at Noon,” “is the product of a million divided by a million,” with consequent complete ruthlessness towards the individual or any multiple of the individual. With this ruthlessness goes, at times, an unexpected thinness of skin. The Germans, in accusing the Russians of the murder of the 8000 Polish officers in the Kathyn Forest, committed a tactical blunder of the greatest magnitude, for which they have paid heavily and will continue to pay. It is not merely coincidental that from that time dates the change in the Soviet official policy from Stalin’s discrimination between the Hitlerite State and the German people to the wholesale denunciations of the whole race to be found in the

lages of Ilya Ehrenburg and the pub-

iications of Voks. Relations were broken off with the Polish Govern-ment-in-exile over the same question. The complete disregard for consistency in the presentation of facts is another facet of Soviet policy which is alien to our conception. In Edgar Snow's “ Pattern of Soviet Power,” written early in 1945 and describing his latest impressions of Russia, the Red Army had still blown up the Dniepostroi Dam and rendered the mines in the Donetz Basin unworkable. In an article in an American monthly last year, Peter Martin, describing his recent visit to Russia, says that there was never any scorchea earth policy on the part of the Russians. It was a figment of our imagination. The Germans blew up the Dniepostroi Dam and rendered the mines in the Donetz Basin unworkable.

Secret Agreements

To admit, however, that there are obstacles to understanding on the Russian side gives the nations of the West no right to wrap themselves in a mantle of self-righteousness. Many of the Russian actions of which we now complain are based on the secret agreements made at Moscow. Teheran, or Yalta, which only gradually see the light, and some of which will probably never see it. They were in opposition to our professed standard of values, not to that of the Soviet. We seem to be losing any clear concept of what that standard is. Respect for the rights of the individual and for human life formed part of it. Now we accept what, less than a decade ago, we would have looked upon with

horror. The preparation of pneumonic plague germs with which the population of future enemy countries are to be sprayed is openly spoken of. Headlines are made of the suggestion that Russia, that is to say, the Russian people, should be obliterated with atom bombs before she can learn to make them. The game of power politics looks about the same, viewed from either side. Russian films of public executions by the method of slow strangulation have been shown in English picture theatres. Is showing them much worse than taking them? American Distrust Neither Britain nor America is in a position to throw stones. No reasonable person could deny that the policy of the United States at least gives Russia every cause for distrust; the subsidising of expenditure on military preparations in Turkey and Greece, plainly aimed at the Soviet, is a case in point. There is every reason for Britain to act as mediator between Ihe United States and the Soviet, between the provocative policy of the one and the suspiciously obstructive policy of the other. For Britain a war with Russia means utter destruction, whereas America and Russia, particularly Russia, have more chances of survival. It is most unfortunate that Britain’s bad financial position ties her to America and prevents barter agreements with Russia which would be of immense mutual benefit, and would help greatly in dissipating the fog of suspicion and fear which interferes with all projects for co-operation. According to Aldous Huxley, nations as at present constituted are quite unfit to have commercial dealings with one another. He urges the use of all the latest scientific methods of soil improvement in order that each nation may be self-